I did it!

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For those of you who have been with me since the beginning, I have
some fun news to share. After several years of hard work, I finally
got to cross the finish line with my arms in the air! On Sunday, I won
Boulder’s famed Spring classic - The Koppenberg circuit race.

The course consisted of 5 laps on a 5.5 mile loop, including 2 miles
of dirt and a very short but very steep 17% climb. The race was
postponed a week because of snow, rain and too much mud. Sunday’s
weather was mild with some wicked wind.

At the gun, we charged into the wind on the dirt. A rider attacked
the first time up the climb and dangled off the front for a lap. I
lead into the second climb with the same old voice resounding in my
head the whole time - get off the front, you do this every time and
wind up working way too hard. I was a single rider and there were
teams present, so I should have just sat back. But, I felt too good.
Up the climb the second time, I found myself near the front, so
charged ahead steadily to catch the rider off the front. When I
reached her, I rested, pulled again and finally looked back to assess
the field. Damage! There were only 4 of us left. Yes! “Drafting
off of Chellie when she made that bridge was like being towed by a
motorbike,” was one of the comments that made its way back to me a day
later.

We worked steadily, hammering away the rest of the race. 2 women from
the same team -Vitamin Cottage, a Tokyo Joe’s rider, and myself. It
was comfortable work. When we were on the 5th lap, the first thought
popped into my head - I could win this thing! I got excited for 2
seconds and then reigned the thoughts in. I needed to make it up the
climb for the last time, first. The climb was a bear and I came out
of it in 3rd with a VC rider and Tokyo Joes’s rider 50 feet ahead of
me. That voice started talking to me again. This time it was
screaming - Bridge! This doesn’t hurt! Don’t lose the race here,
Turbo! Push!! Head down and GGGGOoOOOoo! I was mesmerized by the
dirt and ruts of the road as I pushed with eyes down until the world
started getting fuzzy around me. I knew they were going all out - why
would they want me around at the end!? I made it and looked back to
see if the other VC rider had been on my wheel. No - down to just 3.
Yes!

I was 3rd wheel coming into the 1/4 mile uphill finish. I was patient
- it was a long way to the finish line to try to sprint early. One
after the other, the 2 riders tried to make a go of it and tired. I
picked my moment and went. It was a long way and the legs were
rubber, but I ticked out the meters and made it happen. I looked back
2 times for fear that someone had grabbed my wheel to have another go,
but the others had no response. Crazy.

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Later, I asked Tim what the announcer, Dave Towle, said after I
crossed the line. (Dave has a huge heart and has been involved in the
national circuit for a long time.) “Clearly Chellie Terry has been
making deposits at the Pain Bank this winter!” His one-liners are
comical and very well known.

I am excited. I am ready to partake in the suffering this year. The
season is here. As Dave would say - it’s on like Donkey Kong!

Thanks for all of the support and good wishes.

Chellie

Employee of the Month March

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Hawks tireless intensity level kept the shop in good spirits through the month of March. Thanks for coming in after school and putting in some hard work, Hawk. Don’t forget to keep the grades as high as the intensity level!

2008 Pole, Powder, Paddle

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It seemed only fitting that this year’s PPP was held in a driving snowstorm. As the snow study plots crested 600″, Jannine and I drove to Teton Village in near silence. Coming from Victor, the first thing we saw was the “Chain Law” sign flashing on Teton Pass. “Don’t worry, it won’t be this snowy on the Jackson side”, I assured her as her eyes grew wider with every road shoulder she saw covered in ice and snow. Jannine was slated to hammer out the bike leg for the women’s Fitzy Team while I was sitting pretty getting mentally prepared for the Alpine ski leg for the Men’s Fitzy team. Sure, the Alpine ski was certain to be a more pleasant experience than the bike leg, but I had my own anxiety to deal with. All week I had been talking smack with Rob at the Brew Pub about how I was going to smoke him on our ski leg as a precursor to the overall pummeling the Fitzy team was going to deliver to the Brewers team. The only problem was I haven’t ski raced since high school and I rarely ski groomers at all. In fact I had to borrow some alpine skis the night before so I had something that was even possible to win on. My first turns on them would be racing side by side with 6 other skiers bombing down Amphitheater. Rob on the other hand skied fast on groomers all the time, and had raced the PPP ski leg for years. Of course that didn’t keep me from talking a big game! Although our bet only consisted of lunch and beers, I was determined to not lose.

By the time we got to the Village the road conditions did not improve. Snow had drifted over most of the road shoulder and icy slush was on top of the travel lanes. Jannine was, well, a bit panicky! “maybe I should go get a mountain bike from the shop, or cross tires for my road bike. Should I not do it? Will they cancel?” Of course my response was, “you’ll be fine, don’t worry.” Anyway, there was no time left for a gear change. We were heading to the race.

OK, let’s skip over the next hour and get to the good stuff. There I was, lined up with my business class competitors, skis 20′ in front of us, ready for the count down to begin (Lemans start - run and jump into your skis). 3 - 2 - 1 GO! I’m never considered a strong runner and I was borrowing skis I’d never skied before, so I was completely shocked when I pulled away from the stating line in the lead! Like a mad man I skated as fast as I could before falling into my tuck. At first I was psyched, but I quickly realized my lack of course inspection made it a little tough to be leading the charge. Not to mention the 6 other skiers that I knew were breathing down my neck right behind me. One guy slipped around me half way down and I was thankful to have someone to follow through through the lower gates. Besides, my race was with Rob and I was winning! Turn after turn we got closer to the bottom while I barely held on through the icy turns at full speed. We dropped into the last steep pitch and all I had to do was hold back the burning in my thighs for a little bit longer and “- BAM -” something slammed into me from behind and I was off my skis in a flat spin towards the next gate. I demolished the gate and came to a stop just up hill of my attacker. “You all right” we asked each other. Amazingly we were both fine after our 40 mph collision! Then I heard that question once again… from Rob as he skied by slowly… on his way to the finish line… and to victory! I limped into the finish line and handed off to Hawk for the cross country ski leg.

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Meanwhile Jannine was pacing nervously waiting for her bike leg to begin. Reports from further up the course were worse than we saw on our drive in. Apparently a good deal of ice had covered the course as you neared the river leg. I had to scramble to the car and start driving to the river to help with the transition there so my nervousness escalated as I saw the conditions first hand. “She’ll be fine” I thought, “she’s a solid bike handler”. As I waited by the river for her to arrive I started to get reports from other riders coming in. “man, it’s so icy every pedal stroke my back wheel slipped out” and “Oh someone is going down for sure!”. Then she appeared, breathing heavy, and searching for Trisha to hand off the bib too… she was all business, safe and sound, and smoking fast!

In classic J9 fashion she shrugged off the conditions and said, “I felt great and the roads were no big deal at all!” She ended up 15th out of 131 riders both male and female! Unfortunately she missed fastest female bike time by 1.8 seconds! Kris Lunning did capture the fastest bike leg for the Men’s Fitzy team!

The Fitzy Men’s team captured second place after losing the lead to a somewhat questionable racing skull on the boat leg even though Hawk had an amazing skate ski and Tim dug deep for a brutal river leg. The Fitzy women held on for a sixth place finish after great performances by Kirsten on the downhill ski, Rebecca on the xc ski, Jannine on the bike, and Trisha on the boat.

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We had lots of other Team mates out there representing the orange in fine fashion - Thanks!

Thanks again to the JH Ski Club for hosting another awesome PPP. It’s truly the best community event of the year! Click here for full results.

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