Rollers

I got some rollers tonight, they are effin' sweet, I even rode for the first half hour ever and didn't fall off! Good times to be had on the good ole rollers.

Work has been pretty crazy lately. I've been working on a pretty big project the sorta finished up last Friday and before that it was 10 - 11 hour days. I did get all of my work done though.

I also recently finished building the fully rigid single speed. An Orbea Lanza frame with a Niner carbon fork. I took it for a good ride last weekend and it work surprisingly well. I was anticipating a couple of adjustments that would need to be made but overall it's an awesome ride.

For Thanksgiving Lauren's parents came down. Lauren and I entertained them and had Thanksgiving at my mansion. I was debating just making a traditional turkey but then I came to my senses and decided a Turducken was in order. Let me just say the Turducken was absolutely delicious!!


Then we went to the fine arts museum so I thought I was at least attempt to look the part:

Lauren just finished her first semester of Vet school today!! Congrats!!

Huntsville

or should I say Hurtsville. Last weekend was the race up at Huntsville State Park. The course is pretty non-technical and fast and there really is nowhere to recover at all. I felt a little sore going into the race after I participated in a charity softball tournament on Friday.

Softball Tournament, our team was decent but we did end up losing all three games we played. In the first game I hit a double and a home run. In the second game I had a single. In the last game I moved to play second base and participated in the only double play our team had all day. It was a lot of fun to participate in and I'll likely do it next year, as long as it's not before the Huntsville race.

I went up to pre-ride on Saturday and met up with Lauren there. We hung out for a bit after the ride and then headed back to College Station for the night and to watch the Texas/Nebraska and Wisconsin/Ohio State games. Both the Horns and the Badgers won so that was definitely a great college football weekend. Still perplexing though how Ohio State is ranked higher than the Badgers.

The race started at nine on Sunday so that meant an early morning for Lauren and me. My legs definitely felt a little sore Sunday morning so I warmed up quite thoroughly. The race started fast and just kept going fast. I was definitely struggling to hold speed. I ended up fifth which isn't too bad but I should have been more rested for the race. Then I got to hang out with Lauren for a while.

Now it's recover time before the 24 hours of Rocky Hill this weekend.

I had a great time

last weekend going up to visit Lauren after a good ride on Saturday morning. The ride was definitely good, I hadn't been to sure about how the power training was working but I set five new personal bests and still felt pretty good after the ride. Then I headed up to College Station to hit up Spoons, er I mean Lauren! Lauren was studying up for some tests she has this week. Then we headed out to her professor's house for some bitchin' fajitas and sweet tea. This was only after the Longhorns sucked it up against UCLA.

Sunday I travelled down to Rocky Hill to ride with Dave and Joshua. Joshua helped to get me started mountain biking and training and Dave is a crazy randonneur. Definitely some good and fast riding. The riding was good prep for the upcoming 24-hour race out there on the 23rd and 24th of October, I love that race. On the way home I found out that the Kolache place no serves some great bacon cheeseburgers. Apparently I dropped an onion in my car though because it smelled richly of cheeseburger Monday morning.

I'm not sure I approve of the earlier and earlier nights, makes for some interesting riding. Fun night mountain biking though.

Since then

then being Camp Eagle, I have been pretty busy. Work has been busy as I have been given more responsibility, I suppose that's a good thing. Outside of work has been pretty busy too. Two weekends ago I went up to Lauren's and hung out with her. I did some Paydirt, volunteer trail work for the Spring TMBRA series, and then went riding. I thought it would be good to ride the trail since there is a duathlon up there in a couple weeks that I am tentatively committed to. The ride was good until I got to the back part of the loop where I discovered my cleat was loose and I couldn't get my multi-tool into the screws. I kept riding and once I got into the wooded area I noticed a disgusting high density of spider webs spanning the trail. Not only were there webs but there were bunches of spiders too, including crab-looking spiders and orb spiders. Orb spiders eat finches, see below:



Just the sight of the spiders brought me back to an encounter I had another big spider, banana spider, during a past climbing trip, see below:

I was quite disturbed by the spiders everywhere to the point I crashed because I didn't want to go through the huge web engulfing the entire trail with a big spider in the middle. It was at that point that I got onto the open trail and avoided the uncleared single track for the rest of the day. Then I rode back into college station and got some yogurt with Lauren and went to the bike shop to fix my shoe. On Sunday Lauren and I went out to ride the horses and then got some frozen yogurt and I headed up to Austin to ride with a friend. We rode Walnut under nearly perfect trail conditions, good times. I miss Austin. I was in Austin for a recruiting event at UT Austin, had a good time, saw some friends, and recruited many. Then back to work.

Fast forward one weekend to last weekend, Lauren came down from CS. We didn't really do anything which was kinda nice and relaxing.

This past week

has been pretty boring I suppose. I went back to my normal job after three weeks of training. I also put on some training miles. I worked on my mountain bike and got everything honed in again. Good times.

Lauren came down last weekend and we hung out for a while and then our new friend from Canada (Josh) came over and we all went and got some new cowboy boots. Awesome!! Then we all put on said boots and went to my other friend's birthday party/housewarming party. It was Teresa's B-day and her birthday is actually today so . . . HAPPY BIRTHDAY T!!!!

First race of the Fall TMBRA series is this weekend at Camp Eagle. I hope all the training pays off.

I'm pretty sure...

I've never heard it thunder for as long as I am hearing right now. I'm pretty sure it's been going at it for about 50 minutes straight. Guess I'll go for that run a bit later tonight.

I finished up with training on Friday after three long weeks of 8 hour lectures. The class was pretty good, we learned how to drill wells and evaluate formations. I learned a lot and my team won the final well-planning exercise. We got a "sweet" clock for winning, now I can tell what time it is. I wish it were time to go running but the continuous thunder is up to 53 minutes.

Lauren and I had a pretty good weekend. I went up to CS to see her on Saturday and we went to one of her classmates' house for a Slip N' Slide party. Lot's of fun but the Slip N' Slide was a little rough. We also saw a huge spider which was apparently an orb spider. It was huge, we threw some grasshoppers into it's web too, pretty sweet.

Sunday we got up and went riding at Lake Bryan for a couple of hours, good times, it was dang hot though. After eating some lunch and taking a good nap Lauren and I went and got some frozen yogurt. It was delicious. We were going to ride the horses but when we went to get yogurt the thermometer on the truck said 121 degrees, it only went down to 107 on the way to the yogurt shop so we scrapped riding the horses for going out and just brushing them.

Lauren started Veterinary school today, sweet.

Finally

We set a date for the wedding. We are going to get married on June 11th, 2011. The wedding is going to be at Saint Croix Vineyards near Stillwater, MN. The reception is going to be at the Water Street Inn in Stillwater.

Last weekend we went to White Linen Night in the Heights. It was also Lauren's Birthday on Saturday so that was part of the celebration. It was a great night with ample hangin' with friends and drinks.

Here is a picture of L and I:

Here is a guy with a sweet bike with some huge wheels, puts the 29er to shame.

Here are a couple of pictures from Lauren's sister's wedding:

On another note, the TMBRA fall racing series starts in a little less than a month. SWEET!

What I've been up to lately

Since I've been back in Texas I've been very busy. First and foremost I moved out of the two-bedroom house Lauren and I were living into a smaller two-bedroom garage apartment. I like the new place quite a bit, it's much more my size since it's just going to be me there but there is still plenty of room for Lauren and Seu. I have my own little yard that is all fenced in and a spot to park inside the fence. I will post pictures sooner or later. The inside of the house is pretty sweet too. There are two bedrooms, a decent sized bathroom, a decent sized kitchen attached to the living area, and a utility room with washer and dryer.

I've also been trying to get back into cycling shape. After almost a month of little to no riding my conditioning was noticeably down. I am coming around though, I went for a 75 mile ride this morning. I've also been learning to train with a PowerTap. It's pretty cool so far, it feels like I've been getting more out of the rides.

Last weekend Lauren and I travelled to Seattle (or near Seattle) for Lauren's sister's wedding. We weren't sure what to expect as the weather in Seattle can be questionable at any time and neither of us had been to a Jewish wedding with a large contingent of Russian people. It was a great experience. The weather was great, everybody we met was really cool, and the ceremony was awesome. It was great to see a different style of wedding and to see the associated traditions. On Saturday, the day before the wedding, we took a large group hike of family and friends from Cougar Falls to Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park. The hike was great. We gained 2,700 vertical feet in approximately 3 - 3.5 miles. Then we headed back to Houston on Monday to go back to work and school.

Work has been super busy getting all caught up on what I missed while I was out and getting ready to go to a training class for the next three weeks.

Juan Pelota

The Juan Pelota ranch was pretty sweet. The race and the weather were not so much. Lauren, Seu, and I arrive at around noon on Saturday to catch the start of the Pro race. It was effin' hot. We met up with Kathy and headed to the super-sweet, shaded viewing area to watch the pro race. It was a good spot for sure, especially after landscaping a bit so my chair was level and after the sun moved behind that tree branch. The pros were definitely pretty fast. We had a couple Texans do pretty well in the race too so that was sweet. We didn't sit around for the finish because it was like a sauna but a little drier but still like a sauna. We headed back to town to stay at the same sweet hotel we stayed at the weekend before and hung out for a while until dinner. We hit up Texas Land and Cattle for dinner and it was delicious. Post dinner Lauren and I were headed back to the hotel when she decided she wanted some ice cream. We stopped at the Exxon down the road from the hotel. After buying some ice cream, water, and a couple of lottery tickets we walked out only to see some dude getting guns pulled on him by the cops. I quickly realized the guns were also pointed in our general direction so I quickly grabbed Lauren and scooted off to the side. At first I thought the dude was getting busted for driving a convertible Volkswagon Beetle, who does that? Turns out the dude was doin' a little drug dealing. It was pretty sweet to see the cops bust him and pull out a pretty good sized bag of white powder, not totally sure what it was, that's probably a good thing. Then we went back to the hotel and you . . . know . . . scratched lottery tickets. I bought five dollars worth of tickets, two-two dollar tickets and one-one dollar ticket. We scratched the two dollar tickets first, I didn't win anything on mine, Lauren won five dollars on hers so she let me scratch the one dollar ticket and I won thirty dollars. Not bad for a five dollar investment.

Popo's:

The race was on Sunday which is normal and I got out and ready early. I warmed up pretty good and was feeling pretty good when I headed to the start. I hadn't ever ridden the course so I wasn't sure how it would go. The race started pretty fast and with the heat I knew I wouldn't last too long if I tried to keep it up. I was doing pretty good, about mid pack and recovering from the start and starting to feel pretty good. Then I went over a little descent and my front tire hit the one rock that was sticking up and I briefly popped the bead on my tire and I went down pretty hard. After getting up and giving my bike and then myself a once over I noticed my tire wasn't totally flat. I decided to try riding very gently. It didn't work, I soon flatted and I was left to walk it in. It was a nice hot hike to the start/finish area but I did get to cheer on all the other racers along the way, they looked pretty overheated. It was the first time I had a mechanical and couldn't finish so I wasn't terribly upset and after seeing how most people felt after the race I suppose this was the race to crash/flat out of. I still managed a fifth place in the series.

In other news, I started a new position at work this week. I will be working closely with geologists both supporting them and helping them with their work. It should be pretty interesting, I will be learning a lot and meeting some pretty cool people. I will have more details after I've been there a little while.

Solavaca Part Deux

So we sat around on Saturday waiting for the race course to open up and finally about 2:30, as I recall, the course was finally opened to preriding. The course was sweet, I went out with Lauren and Jen and then we met up with Claire. We were taking a pretty easy pace and about 8 miles later we were back. Packed up our crap and then headed in to town to shower before dinner. Mmmm Italian with some BYOW (Bring Your Own Wine).

The race was Sunday morning and we were the first group off behind the Pros starting at 8:30. I wasn't sure how it would go since I hadn't raced in about a month and a half but I was feeling pretty strong. The first lap was rough, I think I went out a little hard and didn't get into a rhythm for a while. The second lap was feeling pretty good and I started feeling better and about 6 miles into the second lap I saw someone in my race. "Sweet, I can catch him," I thought. So I rode the third lap with what I thought was better technique but I couldn't catch the guy in front of me. I finished fourth, out of four. It was a tough race, I need to race more often.

Couple o' pics:

Solavaca Part One

The second to the last race I did was two weekends ago in Glen Rose, TX. It was a pretty good drive so we headed up Friday after work. Besides the water smelling like sulfur and the pancake batter being bad on Saturday the hotel was great. Saturday I got up early and cleaned up the bike a little before going out to preride, a nice relaxing morning was good.

We got out to the race course and found out that it had rained and the course wouldn't be open until 1 0'clock. Bummer, so we did what all cool people do, we went garage saling. We headed to a couple that were back towards town a ways and Lauren got a pair of shoes, the only sweet score of the day. On the way back to the ranch (race course) we took a little detour down a little back road only to find out there was water crossing the road in pretty serious fashion.

The first water crossing was pretty wide but also pretty shallow and after a short examination of the local geology we forded the river. We did not caulk the wagon and float it across and we lost no oxen. A ways up the road there was a little more serious water crossing. Serious to the point the road was closed. After wandering around a bit and deciding it was about time to go I walked over a little bank only to see a 3.5 foot copperhead swimming in the water. It caught me by surprise and Lauren too, even after I was like, "Lauren check out this bitchin' snake!!".

Pictures:

Water Crossing #1


Water Crossing #2


Copperhead, Lauren would not pose with the snake so I had no scale. It was about 3.5 feet long.

Piece #2

I was very unmotivated to ride today but I did. The weather is nice so the ride was good once I actually got out there. I was kind of just meandering around through the route I normally do and I did a couple of laps at Memorial. I was surprised because several cars actually gave me the right of way which is nice because typically they wait awkwardly and then I go and they go at the same time and they almost run me over. Some lady on a bike also told me I looked "profesh" so she let me by, I think she mistook me for someone fast. Other than the ride it's a pretty lazy day. Lauren is watching some stupid show about models or something on Lifetime, lame.

Yesterday was a good mountain bike ride and I discovered some crazy trails at Memorial, borderline unrideable but I tried anyways. Maybe it would be a good paydirt effort to get them into shape. While I was out riding Lauren chopped 9 inches of her hair off and she's gonna donate it to Locks of Love.

I'm not sure what else I was going to write, I while ago Lauren and I saw this snail crossing the sidewalk so I took a picture:

and we took a picture of the inside of Seu's mouth: and we volunteered at an animal rescue (Friends for life)and we ended up feeding ferrets, odd little animals:

Warda '10

Last weekend was the Warda race and it was the first race for me as a Cat 1 racer. The weather was great and the trails were in great condition. It was nice to not have to get up super early on Sunday morning to make a 9 o'clock race time, 11 is much better. As normal the start of the race was a long open section until the single track, this was only true for Cat 2's, Cat 3's, and the Single Speeders. Thanks to all those Cat 2's that were still on the course that got us a shorter start. The raced started fast, kinda like I expected it would so I was set on not blowing up right away. I made it to the single track and I think I was in last place but I passed a couple of people but that was pretty much all I passed. The race was long and fast and I wasn't really sure what to expect. On the third lap out of four I felt a slight twinge of a cramp in my calf so I pounded some water and took it easy for a bit. The legs felt fine the rest of the lap. The fourth lap consisted primarily of staving off the cramps until the finish. I did succeed but the legs were pretty sore afterwards. No thanks to the neutral water feed that didn't really exist, could have used that. Oh well, I got 7th and I'm happy with that for a first Cat 1 race.


This weekend I also bought another Orbea Lanza from a friend of ours, I'm going to turn it into a single speed eventually. The conversion to a single speed might have to wait though until I pick up my Gary Fisher Cronus that I am apparently getting even though I was pretty much convinced the UT team wasn't going to order for me. Sweet!

Some Race Pics:

Other things that occurred:

Lauren got into Vet school at Texas A&M!! Yay for vet school! Boo for A&M!! She is excited and will likely start in late June taking an Anatomy class before the real thing begins.

Seu got to meet a cow, Longhorn none the less:

New Year, new blog

Last week was New Years and Lauren and I ended up hanging out with our friends Teresa and Cecilia and watching fireworks from the roof of their apartment building. It was pretty sweet, the whole horizon was exploding with little firework shows and every once in a while there was a great big one. Other than that I rode for about four and a half hours on New Years day, 2 hours on the road followed by 2.5 hours on the mountain bike. It had been way too long off of the mountain bike but it felt great to get back on. I think I also nearly killed Westley, a 16 year old I think I've helped get into mountain bike racing.

Here is a picture of the snow creation we fashioned:

Notice the crowd of little worshiper snow people. The theme god-figure was the giver of noses, notice the happy little snowman on the steps coming down with a nose and the little worshiper at the "feet" of the god-figure. The god-figure also has a "nose" in his hands but you can't really see it.

On Saturday, Jan. 2nd Lauren and I went to the first Saturday of the month activities and walked into this old junk pile between two buildings where a guy was selling things. I saw this sweet little sign and was gonna buy it but the guy wanted 5 bucks, a little too much.

Christmas and all that

Lauren and I went back to Wisconsin and Minnesota last week for the Christmas festivities. It was an eventful trip starting with the flight home. I, and Lauren, thought we were flying out of George Bush Intergalactic Airport (IAH) and it turns out we were supposed to fly out of Hobby (HOU). Stupid that those airports can't pick symbols that might actually distinguish which one is which since that are both International Airports. Thankfully, the lady that helped us wasn't already bogged down by the craziness that Christmas brings to airports and she helped us get to Chicago from which we took a bus ride home.

Further excitement came from Christmas at my Mom's house with my sister and her two kids.

The day after that, Sunday I think, Lauren and I met up with my friend Chris and we went skiing. Lauren and I are both pretty good skiers and apparently Chris had never skied before. We showed him the ropes, and how to fall. It was good times and we had Chris skiing some Blacks before we were done. Chris actually found out that skiing without falling is much more fun than falling continuously.

Monday we left for the cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) although we pretty much hung out only in St. Paul.

Tuesday we toured some potential wedding venues but we have not picked one.

Wednesday we had a joint engagement party with Lauren's sister and her fiance. It was quite a bit of fun, got to meet lots of people and then drive home in lots of snow.

Thursday brought us loads of nice packy snow with which Lauren, Buddy (Lauren's brother), Sasha (Lauren's sister's fiance) and I built a remarkable scene. Something sort of like this but not really. I will soon post pictures of our masterpiece.
We also had a big family Christmas at Lauren's on Thursday night, everyone was awed by the snow sculpture.
On a side note: Lauren's Dad hooked us up with iPhones for Christmas!

Friday we had Christmas with Lauren's family in the morning and then drove back to my house for Christmas at my Dad's. Getting pretty exhausted of Christmas by now but I persevered.

Saturday we had the big Barber family Christmas and it was great to see all of the family. I also saw my Grandfather who is quite ill, I sure hope he starts getting better.

Sunday we were supposed to fly out of Madison early (6:30 a.m.) but the plane was held due to maintenance issues. Oh well, we had iPhones to play on. Finally we got home about 3:30 - 4 and I raked the back yard. Random, yes, but our back yard sure looks good. Then we watched Idiocracy, dumbest movie ever made!

Sure

it's been a while since I've written and quite a bit has happened since then. The biggest news is that we got a sweet foosball table. It's definitely sturdy and I've been puttin' a whoopin' on Lauren ever since. Here is a picture so now, Mom, you can't say, "You never post pictures when you say you are going to!" anymore. Here are the pictures of the furniture we got:

Sweet foosball table!

Sort of a kitchen table

Big bookshelf

Little bookshelf and bike and desk. Need to organize a little maybe...


Other good news revolves around work, Seu, and Snow.



At work I've been in training for the past two weeks learning how to do geology, turns out it's pretty dang fun! Geophysics isn't so scary anymore and I found out people actually use Sequence Stratigraphy. Nice.


Seu, forcefully or not, was removed the breeding pool of dogs as of last Tuesday, he is still barking at a slightly higher pitch.


In case you didn't hear, Houston got snow last Friday. Exciting, right? We did actually get out of work early but not because the snow was piling up but because the already terrible drivers in Houston don't actually know what snow is so they drive around like the sky is falling, it could be also be caused when people see squirrels doing this. Chaos!


We did document this unusual occasion:


Notice Seu's look of displeasure, it's not from the snow or the cold.

Thanksgiving and things

I went home for Thanksgiving last week and to go deer hunting. The weather was pretty warm which sucked because I like cold weather and all the warmth led to lots of fog on opening day of deer season. On the second day I went where my Dad had been sitting and I ended up missing a doe. The rest of the deer hunting season was pretty blah, didn't see a lot of deer and didn't have too much motivation to sit out too long. Other than deer hunting I went to see my Mom, Lauren came up, and we had some good Thanksgiving food. Lots of food.

Series Wrap-up and all

Last weekend was the last of the TMBRA races at Rocky Hill. The race was one 21 mile loop that everyone had to do. Since I had the series locked up I decided not to race but Lauren still did.

I got out to pre-ride the course on Saturday and it was pretty good. Lots of trail I hadn't ridden before and it was fun.

Since I wasn't racing on Sunday I decided to volunteer and go out and hand out water bottles for the racers about 13 miles into the race. Lot's of people that were glad to see us. Some injured people and some fast looking people. Lauren came through toward the end of the time we were out there and I was glad I was out there for her. I wasn't sure she'd finish but she's tough like that.

About the time we got back to the finish line and since it was a TMBRA race it had to start raining. Then I encouraged Lauren to the finish and then went down for awards. After some heckling about not racing from the guys in my class I took the podium:

Lauren ended up fourth in her class, CONGRATS!!
It came at some cost though:
After the race quote from Lauren, "I need to learn to fall on my right side!"

Now a little off time before training for Spring racing. I'll be going back to Wisconsin for some exciting deer hunting next weekend and all of next week. Probably have to shop for Christmas sometime soon and plan a wedding. Please give tips for the wedding part!!

Lauren and I hope Kyle is doing well!! Speedy recovery!!

Halloween and things

So I forgot to mention that my Dad came up and met Lauren and I at the race in Ruston last weekend which was really great. I think he felt a little out of his element with a bunch of mountain bikers but it was great to see him and I think he got to relax a little. Here's a picture of my Dad and I:



I was clearly celebrating Halloween a little early, good times.

Lauren and I partook in the annual festivities that include knives and punkins, yes punkins. This year, actually, I think I carved a rather large, whitish gourd but I'm still not too sure about the species of my jack-o'-lantern.

While carving, the masterpiece of Stanley Kubrik played in the background featuring Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, and Danny Torrance.

This is Lauren's happy cyclops thing
This is my whitish gourd thing, turned out well I thought. The outer shell was ridiculously hard leading me to use a hammer in addition to my knife to carve it. I actually ended up breaking the knife, sorry Lauren.


For Halloween evening we did the traditional Trick-or-Treat handing out of candy to all the little monsters and Michael Jacksons running around. We almost ran out of candy before we had to go to Lauren's co-worker's house for a little get-together. We had some pretty sweet costumes, I'll put up some pics once they become available to me. Halloween was pretty fun and I thoroughly enjoyed the "extra" hour of sleep last night.


Today Lauren and I ventured out to IKEA to get a shelf, a table, and a couple of chairs. Pretty sweet, I'll get some pics soon.

Ruston, Louisiana that is

Last weekend was the fourth race of the Fall TMBRA series in Ruston, LA. It was a long drive (five and a half hours) but Lauren and Westley (a high school kid) picked me up at work so we could head up from there. It was a good trip but long.

This race was a little different from most races as there was a short track and time trial on Saturday and the typical cross country race on Sunday. I haven't ever done a time trial on either the road or the mountain (No special bikes or cool pictures of BA mountain bike time trials) bike so I didn't really know what to expect.

SIDE NOTE: I've also never tried a tandem time trial, I'm gonna have to ask Lauren if she's into that kind of thing.

The short track race was the first race on Saturday but I didn't do it because it didn't count for the Cat 2 GC and it costed more money. The time trial was pretty much what I expected it to be, a painfest. I downed a GU and some drink right before I started which may not have been a good idea. Oh well. The race was pretty good. The first guy I caught was nice and got off the trail for me right before a slippery corner which I slid out in losing a couple second for sure. The second guy I caught was not so nice and he didn't let me by even though I was considerably faster than he. He did proceed to stall out on a switchback leading up to the finish making me stop and costing me a few more seconds. In the end I got second a mere six seconds out of first.
Here's some TT pics:

Racing, intensely

The cross country race was on Sunday and I was really looking for a win. I started out pretty fast trying to stay at the front and was feeling pretty sore from the TT and probably a little sore still from the 24 hour race but feeling alright. We stayed with the whole field for a while and then three of us (James, Josh, and I) started pulling away. I went back in forth from second to first to third and when I pulled back into second James took off. Neither Josh or I could respond and James built a decent lead. Josh and I took turns pulling until Josh tore off his derailleur. This happened at a good time for me since I looked back and saw a couple guys from our class closing in. I picked up the pace a little and held everyone off for second.
Here's a XC photo:

I ended up second overall in the GC to James but it was enough to solidify a win for the series. Yay!! I am not going to race the last race now but Lauren is so I'll get some updates.

Lauren did tear it up at Ruston, too:

She looks awfully perky though for racing. Game face Lauren!!

The awesome pictures are from KarmaBiker!