This weekend was a blast. After fighting this cough and not winning for three weeks I still decided to head to Mt. Morris with Scott and our friend, Bushey to the Wors Cup. The 5+ hour ride down was pretty uneventful, except for the butt and back sweat from the lack of automotive AC. We already knew they were not allowing preriding the course Friday night, but headed to the race venue anyway to pick up packets and go for a pavement spin. This was both Scott and my first ride on our 2008 Trek Fuels - our forks came in the day before we left on Friday and spent the rest of the day getting our bikes set up. One phone call to Shaw (see new look in photo above!) and two trips to The Ski Hut later, our bikes were together and ready for the weekend.

Saturday's XC race was the hottest day we have experienced all year. Probably wouldn't be that big of a deal if we were southern folk, but us Duluthian have not seen 80 degrees yet this year - and 70s seldomly. Rain and 50 is more of what we have gotten to experience, along with an inability to get on trail consistently up to this point due to all the rain. Scott loved how his Fuel felt and handled on singletrack. "It is the best Fuel ever", says Scott. Scott finished 19th - not as well as he would have liked, but he finished in the heat and did not DNF. A positive sign that he is getting healthy. If he can continue to improve things should get better and better as the season rolls along. He has been really good staying away from diary and corn (two things he is really allergic to) along with getting rid of our cats. All I know is he no longer snores! We both sleep better and his ribs no longer bother him (I usually poke him in the ribs to stop the snoring; it actually works quite well). Our friend, Mike Bushey, didn't DNF so he was happy. But the heat really took its toll on him the last two laps. I was the water girl for the race. Pregnancy has a way of taking the fight out of me. As you can see from one of the photos above, my abdomen is swelling. "Thick" is how I like to put it. I thought it was huge until I saw a picture. It feels huge, and my rear end even bigger. No wonder why it doesn't feel that good to ride uphills.

Sunday's races - the Super D and the Short Track - Scott was 11th in the Super D and 18th in the Short Track. He suffered the entire time in the Short Track. There was a nice, slow, grassy uphill that really tried the legs and lungs. Again Scott was happy to finish this race as it was tough and hot! I hope to see him get back to his old form self when he would get top 5 in WORS races. As long as he can stay on the right track he should come around. The Super D start was 10 racers at a time with a running start to get the bikes and the battle to see who would get to the singletrack first. Scott got a bit tangled, as did other riders, but finished second in his heat and then 11th overall. Not too bad! I got to ride the entire morning, on trail mostly and had the best time riding my new bike. Up to this point I had been riding my hardtail Paragon (don't get me wrong I love this bike, but it is meant to be a winter bike only), and the Fuel is so much nicer on singletrack. I was very comfortable riding and my brain got tired from thinking before my belly got sick of the bumps. Again it was a beautiful 80+ degree day and just easy to spend the entire day outside enjoying the racing, weather, riding, and seeing friends. It was really good to reconnect and see fellow riders again. Everyone did a great job and made a good event.