Well, it was an interesting first race of the year. At the start line, it was fun to have two other teammates – Christy Berg and Stacy Robert (of JF2). The only other contender was Ann Grande, who joked that we might try to "Saturn-ize" her. Somehow, I figured she would more likely "Knapp" the three of us. The sun was warm and the trails very dry and fast, so I decided to stick to the same old strategy, try to hang onto Ann. So it was working for, oh about the first few miles, and then the Expert men freight train blew through, literally, leaving me with a mouthful of dust and widening the once small gap Ann had. So I just focused on her bright pink flowered jersey and tried to keep going faster to keep more men from passing. Then I lost sight of her somewhere in the canyon.

At the beginning of lap 2, I saw her at the top of the "run up", looking like she was having a picnic. I think I startled her (she confirmed that after the race). She said she was "fixing" her shoes. I'm pretty sure she was affixing rockets to her feet, because she had about a 15-second gap in about 2 minutes. As I stayed focused on the pink jersey, I came upon a couple of my male teammates, Chad Berg and Brian Hutchinson. Brian yelled "Go Lora!" and I could practically see the flames coming out of the rockets that Ann had put on her shoes. Once again, I lost sight of her somewhere back in the canyon. At this time, the dryness of my chain was starting to worry me and all I could think of was that rusty old tin man in the Wizard of Oz … if I only had some oil.

Lap three became pretty lonely, and I had to keep reminding myself that I was in a race and to go faster. Finally, I rolled across the finish line, only to find that Ann had broken her rear derailleur cable and was riding a three speed for the last lap. I guess it just goes to show that even though you may be down, you're not out until you cross the finish line (or break a bone).

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