Women's CX Project Partnership

In May 2015, I was planning a long drive out to Arizona for the Chino Grinder gravel event and needed something to listen to. I knew the Cyclocross Network existed, but I never had the time to listen to episodes from the previous season. In attempt to fill the cyclocross void of Spring, I binged-listened to Cyclocross Today for hours driving across the desert and laughed at the ramblings of Scott Dedenbach, Mr. David Palan, and Bill Schieken.

Needless to say, I befriended these nerds at the beginning of the season and finally met Scott in person at Providence. A week later Scott introduced us to Corey Green in Waterloo and once David Sheek got in a room with those two, the rest was history. Cyclocross lives in its own weird corner of the Internet and as a west coast-based racer, I’m so very grateful for the connections I’ve made over the past couple years through social media. The racing won’t last forever, but these relationships will, and I can’t wait to get started on this next adventure!

FORESHADOWING...

 See the official news release here: Women's CX Project takes huge step with mentoring program.

It's been such a treat to get to know the Women's CX Project this past year and witness the time and energy that Corey and Scott invest for the ladies on the team. Their passion for development and their love of the sport is infectious and I can’t think of a better group of people to stand by. The beauty of this partnership is I will still have the flexibility of planning my own program with David and the SDG Factory Team. Last season I wrote a lot about the struggles he and I faced traveling to races and working on everything out of a rental car and paying too much money in baggage fees. Yes, the Women's CX Project is going to solve a lot of those problems for us. But the biggest benefit is being part of a sister team where I can also give back to the riders. There are so many things I wish I had known in my first year as an elite and I learned a lot of lessons through many struggles. I'm looking forward to being there for this team, being a resource, sharing my experiences, and mentoring as best I can. The icing on the cake to all of this is that Courtenay McFadden has way more experience under her belt and I can't wait to chase her around and learn a lot from her as well. We're on the same west-coast-extension-sister-team of WCXP now : )

TXCX Photo by Bo Bickerstaff

Everything else about the upcoming year is still in the air, but the Women's CX Project is the home away from home. And also I'm certainly racing at the CrossVegas and Jinglecross World Cups. I'm still in the process of nailing down sponsors, and the final dollar amount will drive most of our remaining schedule and travel decisions. If you want a copy of our sponsorship proposal for the SDG Factory Team, please shoot me an email at amanda.nauman@gmail.com and we will get that to you! 

Thanks for reading and I hope this is some nice news to get everyone in the spirit of #crossiscoming summer season : )

2014 #Cincy3CX

2014 Cincy3 CX

Travel Recap:
          Wed FlyFrontier LAX-CVG
          Thurs Ride around Ohio
          Fri #Cincy3CX Day 1 Harbin
          Sat #Cincy3CX Day 2 Kings
          Sun #Cincy3CX Day 3 Devou
          Mon FlyFrontier CVG-LAX

Hotel & Food:
          Super 8
          Kroger
          Remke Market
          Field & Stream

Friday C2:

          MUD!

          We woke up on Friday morning to a damp Ohio scene outside our lovely Super8. This meant one thing for sure: Harbin Park would be muddy. Sure enough, we arrived at the race to see everyone in rain gear, umbrellas on the sidelines, and rain boots galore. The routine for the day of a muddy race is something I need to plan and think about more. It’s difficult to juggle appropriate clothing with pre-riding laps, finding space in the van to change a few times, staying as warm as possible,
          Luckily David spotted Cody Phillips a couple hours before his race and he graciously agreed to help him out in the pits. That was a blessing because I wouldn’t have to stand there and help David switch bikes in the race directly before mine any longer. Thank you, Cody!
          I had a decent third row start on a slightly uphill cement starting shoot. I didn’t end up where I wanted to be after the first few turns, but throughout the first lap I watched a handful or girls slip-n-slide in front of me while I narrowly escaped running people over and snaked my way around the mishaps. I eventually rode my way to 11th place behind Duke and was so stoked about being there in muddy conditions that I have zero experience with. Highlight of the day was when Compton rode by me and I was able to ride with her for a bit before she completely gapped me out by riding the logs at the top of the hill. Second to last lap I dropped my chain TWICE and lost 6 places from the full minute of fumbling with my chain. Mud/shit happens during racing and that’s that, but I was extremely happy with playing in the mud and racing my Daily bike with the best of the best!

Saturday C1:

          NIGHT RACE!
          The curse of dry eyes: Part 1. I had been sick the week prior to Spookycross and it was one of those sicknesses that never gets extreme, but lingers for too long because I never let myself fully recover due to riding/racing. After the Fri race I woke up on Saturday and could tell my eyes felt drier than usual but didn’t think anything of it. During the preride when the sun was still shining, the course was really fun and the “Camel” mounds were a real kicker. We lined up just as the sun disappeared and I quickly realized that starting on the inside of the first righthand turn was a bad idea. Immediately I was in the back third of the field and trying hard to make up for it.
          I remember thinking to myself to just keep blinking during the first lap when they started to get dry. I’ve had a few instances in the past on hard interval days where I’m so focused on pedaling that I literally forget to blink and start to dry out my contacts. But never have I ever just blinked one of them out before! I’m quite blind, -5.25 in both eyes, so I immediately went half blind in a dark and not-so-well lit course. I couldn’t believe it was happening and I was so angry. Corners that I shouldn’t have been braking through I was losing seconds on because I had to baby myself around them hoping I wasn’t going to hit an unseen bump/ditch/rut and hurt myself. All I could do was go hard on the power sections and keep losing time on the technical stuff; therefore I was going nowhere but backwards. I did my best given the conditions and I was extremely proud of riding the steep climbs on the Camel every single lap. It was the cheers of the spectators up there that kept me going. I mean you can’t possibly let them down while they’re screaming their lungs out for you to get to the top!

Sunday CC:

          Pan-Am Champs!

          The curse of dry eyes strikes again. This time it wasn’t dark so it wasn’t quite as bad as the night before.. but the technicality of the course definitely required two eyeballs and I suffered tremendously when it happened. On the first lap I came close to blinking out the right one and thought I was in the clear. On the second lap I blinked it out. I rode by the pit and yelled to David that I lost a contact and immediately was riding timid and braking like crazy. On the second to last lap I probably grabbed too much brake on the Pan Am Plunge and slid out on to my left quad and scratched myself up pretty good.  Luckily no one was directly behind me or else I would’ve been run over. After that I just got through the next two steep sections and decided to just pull out at the pits. My motivation plummeted, my leg and finger were bleeding, and I was in disbelief that I lost a contact AGAIN.
          I guess there are firsts for everything and this weekend I learned that after being sick, my eyes are more prone to dryness in 40-50 degree temps, and I’m really good at blinking them out when I’m racing. I’ll remedy this at Jinglecross with some eye drops. Hopefully that will help!

Takeaways:

         I’m not too shabby at racing in the mud
         Practice hopping smaller logs
         Hotel showers don’t have the best drains for mud/grass
         The ORV racing scene is quite stellar
         Buy dry-eye relief eye drops
         Consider lasic surgery

Around the ORV:

Sidenote:
We were excited to see our favorite Krema Peanut Butter in both the Kroger and Remke Market. Kroger is one of the original market homes for Krema.
If you have any suggested markets or grocery stores where you'd like to see Krema Peanut Butter, please let me know and I'll get you a product suggestion form to send their way!

Panda, swimmer, triathlete, project manager, dark-horse, cyclo-crosser...

I have been extremely busy as of late.
Cyclocross season takes a serious amount of time on top of a full-time job... and I'm still trying to get caught up on life, the 100+ emails in my inbox, and getting in some long slow miles on the bike. I could really use a few more hours in a day.

I always tell you I'm super busy, but yet I always find a way to make a few posts at the beginning or end of a major season. I promise to TRY and keep the posts more frequent...

But for now, please see the most recent Felt Bicycles Blog post... it's about yours truly and written by a legend in the road biking industry, Neil Browne.
http://www.feltbicycles.com/blog/?p=3934

Thanks to Louie Traub for this super-hero shot of me at CX Nats!!!

I have been called many things in my life, but these are a few names I am most recently proud of: panda, swimmer, triathlete, project manager, dark-horse, cyclo-crosser...

Yes, I still owe a more thorough report on Cyclocross season.
Yes, I still owe a comment on my MTB schedule.

Here are the plans right now:

• March: Pro XCT Round 2 Bonelli, Pro XCT Round 3 Fontana, Keyesville 
• April: Sea Otter (XC &/or CX, same day, dumb), Whiskey 50
• June: US Cup West races in Big Bear
• July: USAC Marathon MTB Nats (bc Sun Valley sounds way more awesome than Pennsylvania again) and the Crusher in the Tusharrrrr
• .... after that, it's time for 'cross!

For now, cheers to an awesome CX season and plans for an equally awesome 2014 MTB season! More in the works!

Toughmudder Tri-State 2011

Toughmudder Tri-State 2011

This was quite an adventure!

One year ago, my compadre and good friend, David Quirk, completed his first ever Toughmudder and in my opinion it was quite a life-changing experience for him. He came back from the event a more motivated individual who had discovered a new-found passion for completing challenges and new fun activities of the sort.

Obviously this sort of enthusiasm got me excited and I wanted to get in on the action. .

David invited me to the first annual NYC Toughmudder Training Run back in early May of this year located in Central Park.  I was a bit apprehensive at first, but I caught on to the nice idea of doing a 6 mile run in one of the most unique places to go for a jog in this country. David’s friend, Nick Fania, also came along as he was actually the guy who got David to sign up on his team for their first Toughmudder. I had no idea what to expect from that facebook invitation, but I was in for one hell of a ride when we got there. It wasn’t just an hour-long run with a bunch of people in orange headbands like I thought it was going to be! Instead, we got yelled to do pushups, dips, crunches, run through streams, jump over rocks, and climb treacherous rocky cliffs that I didn’t even know existed in Central Park. It was quite the adventure and eventually lead me to want to sign up for my first real TM because I was so stoked on the experience.

A few months after that, it actually took some persuading on David’s part to eventually get me to sign up for the race… mostly because of the entry fee, but ultimately I caved and dished out the money for the Tri-state Toughmudder on November 12, 2011.

I had been doing a ton of triathlon training at the tail end of summer all the way to my last race on October 1^st. After that I had taken a few weeks off for some much needed R&R, and then eased back into some solid running training with a few swims sprinkled in here and there. I figured I would be in pretty good shape by November 12^th to run 12 miles and tackle obstacle courses.

Luckily, that conjecture was correct and on the morning of November 12, I was so ready to go!

Click here for the official Toughmudder website.

The team was named Team Fania Mudding Co. as a play on NickFania’s dad’s family business name. Pretty awesome if you ask me! Especially because David probably wouldn’t be doing this without Nick, and in turn I probably wouldn’t be either haha.

Sarah had also been convinced to sign up for this adventure with me, and the other team mates included David’s brother, Patrick, and two of Nick’s friends, (another) Amanda and Kyle.

David drove us to IHOP that morning for a full and hearty breakfast. Nick’s family was there as well and his father so graciously paid for the food, which was so kind but so unnecessary.

After that, we made our way to the Englishtown Raceway Park and became witnesses to a massive congregation of what looked liked a bunch of crazies about to turn into mindless zombies… and that may be a somewhat true statement if  you saw what everyone looked like post-race haha

Come to think of it, if anyone wanted to capitalize on the opportunity for a bunch of starving, freezing, delusional, mud-covered extras to play zombies, they just need to show up to the Finish Line of a Toughmudder!

But in all seriousness, the race challenge was a blast!!!!!

Behold the pledge recited before every race wave:

As a Tough Mudder I pledge that…

I understand that Tough Mudder is not a race but a challenge.

I put teamwork and camaraderie before my course time.

I do not whine – kids whine.

I help my fellow Mudders complete the course.

I overcome all fears.

Yelling this word for word with a crowd of strangers about to tackle the same course as you was so thrilling and, coupled with a bunch of super macho HOORAH’s, the perfect kick-off to get pumped for the grueling challenge that lay ahead!

Below are a series of photos that can somewhat describe what we went through.

By far the most fun moment was jumping off this platform into the freezing waters below, then swimming to shore!  This pretty much captures the essence of that moment for me and Sarah hahaha.

The most challenging obstacle that made me gain a ton of respect for what TM stands for was the Mount Everest Challenge. It was the half-pipe obstacle where you had to run up and grab either the ledge or an arm of a total stranger and get hoisted up by a combination of your own will power and the strength of total strangers that are helping out. Paying it forward in its most beautiful form! I loved that.

Here is a link to the TM official photos of the event.

I’ll just make a quick comment about how damn COLD it was after the race. Sure the free post-race beer was satisfying to say the least, but I think I was too cold to enjoy any of it and all it did was make us have to pee so very badly while stuck in traffic leaving the raceway park haha. So frustrating. But yeah, just ask David and Sarah how much physical pain I was from the coldness. It was brutal. I don’t do well in such discomforts (goes along with my theory of bad blood circulation and crappy metabolism). I made the decision right then and there that if I was going to do another TM, it would be in a warmer climate, that’s for sure.

All-in-all, it was a total kick-ass event. I can see how people get hooked on it and want to sign up for all the ones in the area. There is an innate instinct within human beings to run around, get dirty, and feel like you’re fighting for your life. TM totally capitalizes on this basic human need and charges quite a hefty sum for all those people driven by their intrinsic impulses.

HOORAH!

Irvine Lake Mud Run

"We're doing a mud run?!"

July 17^th, 2011

4^th in Age Group

16^th Female

Final Time of 40:08 for a 5k+ Run w/ Obstacles!!!

There really isn’t much to say about this race, but it was MUDDY!

We totally signed up for this race on a whim the day before! Mama Nauman found an article about the race in the OCRegister and asked Garrison and Dad about. Apparently my Dad said that if I was interested, he was interested. So mom told me to be interested and that was it! Next thing I knew… Garrison, Dad, and I were all signed up and even Gavin (Garrison’s BFF) was tagging along for the ridiculous race!

It was really fun. I was using it more as a training run than anything. Told myself to keep the heart rate high for 40 minutes and have fun : )

I surprised myself with a top 7% finish out of all the women there haha but I was just running to beat Garrison and Gavin so I guess that placed me pretty well.

Here are some nasty pictures from the race: