Happy Halloween...one week late!
Last year's Halloween was a real trick: on chemo and peeing red. This year it was a real treat because I got to be Rainbow Brite and celebrate with all of my track racing friends.
For those of you who don't remember, Rainbow Brite was an 80's cartoon character. She rode a white horse, Starlite, and rescued the world of darkness with color. That is all I remember about her and it was a lot of fun being Rainbow Brite for a night.

One Heck of a Hilly Ride
Saturday was the IU Alumni Association's first annual "One Heck of a Hilly Ride." It was scheduled on the same weekend as the Hilly Hundred in Bloomington and we certainly lucked out with the weather. As I type, it is snowing outside...fourth snow of the year and it's not even November yet!

Those of you who know me well know I do not like climbing. Well, this was my kind of "hilly" ride...the course profile showed a gain of 900 feet over 20 miles...perfect for my inner trackie. We rode from Denver to Morrison, had lunch, and then rode home. I met six new Hoosiers (five Little 500 vets...one happens to be the Little 500 announcer these days) and enjoyed great riding weather.

Perhaps the greatest pic of the day: Bikers with Bikers...or better yet: Hoosiers with "A**holes." (Not joking, that is the name of their biking club!) They were super nice and some of them actually ride pedal bikes as well.

Annual Trek to MI
Last Friday I boarded yet another plane but this time headed east to Detroit. My first stop was Beth's doctor's appointment where I got to see the ultrasound of my future niece/nephew...yup, she's knocked up! :) It was really cool because the baby was really active and jerking around in there. Appearently, the baby had just grown past the size of a kamquat and was the size of a lime last week. I affectionately refer to the baby as "Baby Kate" and she is due to arrive mid April.

After the doctor's appointment, I headed over to a Whirlyballin' bachelorette party...it was finally time for Mary to get hitched. Whirly Ball was awesome and I became the designated player, playing all four 15 minute periods. Three of my four teams won and I got a few goals despite my terrible hand-eye coordination. For those of you who don't know the game, picture bumper cars, lacross, and basketball all in one. It's crazy fun!

The night continued with wedding festivities including a bachelorette dinner after Whirly Ball, hanging out with Bethie Saturday morning, and then the rehearsal Saturday afternoon...it was anything but relaxing with so much going on but definitely a lot of fun!

Wedding morning with the beautiful bride! We had our hair done and took pictures are Mary's childhood home in Gross Point. It was a beautiful but frigid day...my toes were the color of my dress by the end of the ceremony!

The newlyweds: Josh and Mary VanHaitsma! The wedding was right on the edge of Lake St. Claire complete with fall colors and blue skies.

The reception was at the Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle...and this may be the only time I have ever appreciated the Detroit skyline. It was an incredible sunset. So incredible that I was willing to face the frigid weather for a few shots of the skyline. Detroit has never looked so pretty; although, as Jeff Johnson suggested, it could have been Detroit burning down and not the sunset I was seeing! :)

Elite Nationals
A year ago I did not think I would be able to race at Elite Nationals; however, after having a good season and heading into September still feeling strong, I packed my bags and headed to LA for Elites. I knew it was going to be fast and the track was short but I really had no clue what 250m meant. The picture does not do justice for a 45 degree banked turn. If you stand at the top and look down, it looks pretty much vertical...you have to go at least 17 mph to stay upright.

It was fun to be out there with the Colorado team. These are only the bikes of Colorado racers. I think we had 16 or 17 racers out there last week but the competition came from everywhere. Each of the women's fields was so full they had to run two heats before racing for the title. That's awesome!

And who can go to CA without riding along the beach?! Most of us stayed at the same hotel and went for morning spins by the ocean. I loved racing on the track but the morning spins were equally awesome.

Friday was my day off so you can guess where I ended up...my excuse was to work on my tan lines for Mary's wedding but really I would have been there reason or not. I had two days between races so a few hours on the beach were not going to hurt my next race.

And I got to spend my day off with Ben, my friend from college. He has really gotten into track racing and is talking about building a velodrome...maybe in Btown at the quarry where Breaking Away was filmed! :)

My favorite picture of the whole week: Hermosa Beach Pier just after sunset. The best part about this picture is I literally took it on the fly as I was trying to beat a family before the kids started climbing on the statue and was avoiding a couple sitting right by it.

So, the whole reason I went to LA: To race my bike! My first race was the Scratch race (normal race with set distance and the person who wins the sprint at the end wins the race). It was my first mass start race on the 250m and I was nervous. I did not ride a smart race because I was so concerned about the sketchy girls around me and sat up after a big crash with two laps to go. I look forward to doing more mass start races in LA between now and next October so I can race the track with more confidence and race rather than worry about self preservation. The team pursuit was later that evening and I felt really good but one of my teammates was having an off night. As a result, we went really slow which was a bummer. There is nothing a racer can do when her legs are not there in a pursuit. As you can see in this photo, I was ready to go well before my teammates...I had not done a start on the track yet and was very focused as I wanted to get going fast so I didn't slide off the track in turn 1.

Sunday was the day I was looking forward to: The Madison! It was the first running of a women's Madison at Elites but was a "demonstration" rather than national championship race. My teammate that I had been practicing the past month with "quit" bike racing after a bad race Saturday night so I ended up racing with a girl out of WA. We spent 10 minutes on the track practicing exchanges Sunday morning and then lined up to race together later in the day. It actually worked out really well as she is strong and fearless. The race was fast from the start and the first exchange was a bit hairy as nearly every team (10 total) went up for their first exchange. Guess I should tell you what an exchange is! Basically, the Madison is a modified Little 500 as we only have one racer per team in the race at any given time. In this photo, I am coming in from the race and literally throwing (by handsling) my teammate into the race at full speed. Dad was there and took a few side shots which I will post after he downloads them but you can see I only have one hand on the handlebars while the other is holding my teammate's hand. I grab her hand, shoot past her, and transfer all my speed into her as I sling her into the race. Then I sit up and ride up track on relief until she comes around to me and throws me back into the race. It is perhaps the most painful race you can do as you go as hard as you can every time you are on the track and have minimal recovery while on relief. This race was 100 laps/25km which happened to be my longest race of the year. Despite being crazy and barbaric, the Madison is definitely my favorite race and I look forward to racing it as often as possible with the guys next year! :)

One Year CancerVersary

As hard as it is to believe, today is my one year cancerversary. Exactly one year ago today I got the call telling me I had "a form of cancer known as Hodgkin's Lymphoma." The past 365 days have been some of the hardest days of my life and included a series of unfortunate events: cancer diagnosis, my "permanent" crown fell out, mountain lion living in my backyard, ran into a bear on a ride, happened to get flats on both my car and bike on the same day...the day before my comprehensive exam...and it was near impossible to change Matty's flat b/c my special lock to take the lugnuts off was missing, got rear-ended by a car while stopped at a stoplight on my bike, Matty's battery died...I am sure there are some other things I am forgetting but you get the picture. However, in spite of the unfortunate events, the past year has included some incredible events as well: incredible new friends within the cancer community, Mandy coming home from Ecuador the week I was diagnosed, winning two national titles and setting a national record, First Descents (aka: The Best Week of My Life), not being seriously injured when I was hit by a car, not being eat by the mountain or bear, turning 30, finishing my doctoral coursework, and starting my private practice...the highs were high and the lows were low this year but anybody who knows me well knows I do not settle for mediocre. It was been an extraordinary year in both directions and life just keeps getting better! :)

Challenged in New Ways at Para Camp
I spent the past week working at a paralympic "Learn to Race" camp. I have ridden with some of the paralympic athletes over the past few years but never coached any of them. Needless to say, the past week was quite a challenge as I had to adapt my coaching style for all types of athletes, abilities, and types of bikes. As you can see in this picture, I am rely on vision for teaching. Well, many of my athletes were blind and riding tandems with sighted riders. I literally had to get hands on to teach them throughout the week.

We also had a big group of handcyclists. I had never seen a handcycle before camp started and was amazed and perplexed by those machines. We even got them out on the track for a few laps.

We also had single leg amputees and brain injuries. The week was filled with incredible athletes who had a lot of determination and courage. I was continually impressed by their abilities.

And, fortunately, camp ended this weekend as yesterday (the last day of summer) came complete with our first snowfall...and we expecting up to an inch of snow tonight. There is a winter storm warning in the mountains tonight as well...seriously, on the first day of fall!?!?

My First Month as a National Champion
I can hardly believe it has been a month since my last post. Life has been crazy busy ever since I slipped on the second jersey. The weekend after nats I turned 30 (yay!) so that entire week was one of celebration...celebrating my wins and celebrating my fourth decade of life. I may be the first excited woman to turn 30 but if you had my 29 you would be stoked too!

And I got to celebrate with all of my favorite Colorado Springs people...and Col and Edith, the newest edition to the Wilner family! :)

Edith was actually born while I was in Vail at First Descents. I went to see her the day I got back into town so she is less than a week old in this picture. She is so stinking cute!!!

Somewhere in the mix of the past month I went to Lakeside Amusement Park with the Rront Range cycling woman. I love those rickety rides and this year was no exception. In fact, Renee and I were so into our go-kart racing we got kicked off on our first lap. Renee opened the inside lane up to tempt me, I went for the hole, she hooked me, I t-boned her, and we were kicked off. That's okay because we just went back to the Wild Chipmunk, my favorite!

I also made a trip to Indiana for Donnie and Sera's wedding and was blessed to spend two days with Becky, one of my best friend's from college. We spent a day on the lake in northern Indiana and I loved every minute of it.

Then I met up with all of my brothers for Donnie's wedding. It was so fun to spend the day with them as it is not very often that we all get together anymore because of distance.

First pic of the four of us in a few years...this one is for my parents...funny how well we get along now considering how much we all used to fight! :)

And since Steve was the best man, I got lucky enough to spend a ton of time with sister-in-law Jen. She's a good add to the Gracheck clan! :)

And the wedding turned out to be a bit of a highschool reunion. Here are a few of us but there were a lot more to add from the 1997 and 1996 Dexter classes.

Masters Nats Action Shots
Final lap in the Points Race.

On the pain train in my 2km Pursuit.

Life Just Keeps Getting Better

After the big high Friday night, I woke up Sunday with another national race on my mind. This time the team pursuit in 90F+ weather. My team had never actually ridden a pursuit together before we lined up on the start line that morning but we each had good knowledge of pursuiting and exchanges...and it worked! We won the race and set a national record. It was the most painful, yet fun, four minutes of my life! :) So that makes two national championships and national record 11 months after being diagnosed with cancer...so good to have my life back and so fun to win a national championship with my good friend Renee!!! :)