2011 Elite Nationals

Better late than never!
I have been so busy with LIFE and have fell behind on blog updating.
To highlight nationals this year it started off with a case of FOOD POISONING!!! The first day of the omnium I was so weak from being up all night getting sick and not being able to eat or hold down any food. I was obviously not performing at my best, but I finished the omnium in 9th place with a highlighted 4th place in the elimination.
Moving on, I raced the keirin. I am not a sprinter by any means but I LOVE the keirin, so I always do race it. There was 2 reps, 3 go to the final. I placed 2nd in my rep and was a little shocked, but happy. In the final, the odds were not in my favor, considering I was an enduro in a sprinters world. I was 3rd behind the motor until a lap and half to go, the girl on second wheel (Nissy Cobb) moved out of the lane to try and make a pass around the first rider, Dana Feiss and I stayed in the poll and sat on Dana's wheel coming in to the final turn I was on Dana's hip and it was a long fight down the home straight. Dana kept her lead on me and I nabbed 2nd place. I was ecstatic with my placing especially after my poor performance in the omnium.

Coming into the Final lap (Feiss leading) (photo credit: Erika Fulk)

The final sprint (photo credit: Pat Benson)

Podium L-R: Glover, Reynolds, Feiss, Erickson, Cobb

Points Race: I was mostly please in the way it ended up, in years past I have either crashed or been dropped, that did not happen this time. Not only did that not happen but I finished the last sprint getting 3rd. I ended up 11th overall which I think could have been much better if I had been better at timing to get to the front for the sprints. It is a working process, at least I know where I need to improve. 

During the Points Race, Cari Higgins leading the field. (photo credit Pat Benson)

Notice the AWESOME crowd in the stands!!! 

My final event of the 2011 Elite National Championships was the Women's Madison where I was partnered with Erin Glover. We had never done Madison together before so it was a bit of a learning curve in the beginning. We finished 3rd behind Jennifer Tripplet and Val Brostrom (2nd) and the winners Kate Wilson and Lauren Hall. It was a tight a race all the way through.

Exchange between Erin and I. Photo credit: Pat Benson

It was  pretty good Nationals especially with the cards I was dealt in the beginning.

Big Thank You!

Carrie and I want to thank Baja Fresh for supporting us and helping us get our new tandem built up!

Check them out! They are delicious Mexican Food and have locations all over!

Trinidad and Tobago

Last month I went to Trinidad and Tobago to race the Easter Grand Prix. From the US Andy Lakatosh, Giddeon Massie, and Phillip Elbaz also raced, joining us to take care of us at the races was Peter Maharaj.
There was about 12 girls entered into the international women category including 2 girls from Scotland, 4 girls from Trinidad, 2 girls from Barbados, 1 girl from Columbia and 1 girl from Guyana. I was pretty nervous going into the first race just because I had never raced with any of the girls before. The track was a flat 480 meter freeway! The first race we did was the flying 200, which is by no means my kind of race. The took the top 4 to the finals, I didn't make it. After that I was even more nervous about the racing but I got my head in the game for the next race which was a scratch race. I ended up getting 2nd, which was way better than 5th. That night I got 2nd in another race and 3rd and I won a race. The second day I did much better. I won most of the races and got one second. The only downfall is I got one DNF because 2 girls crashed right above me, and just when I was safe they caught my back wheel and I went flying into the air. :( I got back up and did the final race (the one race I got 2nd in that night)

I was ok from the crash (so I thought). I had really bad bruising on my right hip and minor road rash. I rolled my tire and cracked my helmet. The final night that I was packing up my bike I found out that I cracked my bike on the chain stay. Another bummer. On my way back to Houston it was hurting to breathe, cough, laugh, sneeze, all the signs of a broken rib, so I went to the doctors to get an X-ray just to be on the safe side. No broken rib, but major bruising and a possible minor cracked rib, but nothing to stress over.
Anyways, back to the racing. The third and final day we headed to another track that was in the south part of the island. It was another 480 meter track but this time there was no banking at all! It was flat almost like a running track. I was in a lot of pain after the crash the night before but I did  the best I could. I won one race that night, getting a 2nd and a 3rd in the other races. The third time I did not make the podium from the whole trip was in the standing 500 meter. (the first was the 200, 2nd was the crash)
Over all it was a great experience and I would go back to race any day!

PICTURES: 

waiting for the podium

UCI Introduction to Para-cycling

Italy Para Worlds 2011

Carrie and I at training. 

I am LOVING the tandem! Going to worlds with Carrie was such a great experience, I learned a lot and we made huge improvements as a tandem team. Italy was beautiful, the weather was great almost the whole time we were there, the track was beautiful and FAST. We did a few rides on the road prior to our races and got to train on the track before the racing started, which was nice to get a feel for the track before having to race on it.

Cappuccino I had every morning

Our first event at worlds was the kilo, although painful I was looking forward to it, as was Carrie. We set our goal to go 1:17, to qualify for talent pool team. The day started off as any race day would for me: lazy morning, good breakfast, some joking around early on to keep the jitters away, oh and COFFEE, lots of coffee. We rode over to the track, I grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from Brittany, one of our awesome staff members, and just relaxed while I watched other races. Then it was warm up, I got on the rollers, Carrie next to me on the trainer and Adam, one of the coaches, came to tell us our structured warm up. After warm up it was time to head over to the nervous box, just sitting and waiting for our turn on the track. After what seems to be forever we finally get our turn to shine. We get on the bike, feet clipped in, hands on the bars *beep* 12 seconds to the start, I tell myself "you have done this a million and a half times, don't mess it up this time!" *beep* 5 seconds *beep* 4 *beep* 3 *beep* 2 *boop* GO! 4 laps around! 1 minute 16 seconds! (5 second personal best) I was so pumped we met our goal. We ended up placing 13th, which I didn't even care what place we got, of course I would have loved to do better but we accomplished the time we set out to do, and made talent pool standard. I was pleased with all of it considering we have only been riding together for a month/ month and a half.

Start of the Kilo

We had a day in between our 2 races and we raced the 3k pursuit the final day of racing. I don't know what shook me up so much for this race but I was not as calm and collected as the kilo. We rode over to the track, like usual, watched some races but the whole time I was not calm I couldn't get level headed no matter how many times I told myself "it's only 12 laps!" I was crying and shaking and I finally got on the rollers for warm up and thought I would chill out after that but I was still freaking out a bit. We walked over to the back straight for the start of our 3k and sitting in the hot seat I finally pulled it together. Adam walked the bike up to the gate, Craig went to the turn to call times and then we started all over again, *beep* 12 seconds. We start the race, and come around our first lap and here our targeted time, I was so happy to hear that. The second lap we come around we are nearly a second faster then our scheduled pace, 3rd lap .7 seconds faster. I yelled at Carrie "Just roll with it!!" So we did, and ended having another personal best time, and Craig was happy because his goal for us was to break 4 minutes, which we did with a time of  3:58 

Karrisa, Me, Carrie, and Mackenzie (Pilots and Stockers) 

On top of the racing being awesome, my family was able to come to Italy and support us and luckily I was able to hang out with them for a bit and just catch up. The first day they were there we went to a little cafe/bar thing and had a great time. I was also able to go and see their beautiful apartment they got that over looked a lake. 

My parents, sister and I, all happy!

My sisters and I at the cafe

Vince (2nd in Kilo), Me, and Aaron after a training session. 

Obviously I am sad to say I had to leave beautiful Italy and head back to reality of school...

New Chapter

As my mentor and second dad, Richard Lamb has always said to me "you are turning the page" in my book of life. This means I have accomplished a goal, make improvements, or just in fact move on to a new thing in life.
Currently my new thing is tandem and I am going to Italy in a few days to be the pilot for Carrie at the Paralympic World Championships. Carrie is visually impaired, so obviously she can not ride a bike herself.. so that's where I come in!
I basically ride a bike like normal except I have a little extra weight behind, but the good thing about having another person means we get to go faster!! I call her our motor! hehe
We are a new partnership so we are still working on getting our kinks out but we have improved so much since the beginning. We have dropped like 3 seconds off our standing start lap in less than a month, we can only keep getting better from here.
We have had about 3 training camps here in Los Angeles where the whole team comes and trains for a few days at the ADT Velodrome. The training is awesome, the team is awesome, and we all have so much fun together on and off the bike.
Worlds is on March 12-13 so I will follow on how the experience was and how the racing went!
Here is the website on the event: Click Here

Carrie and I during a training session

A Series of Unfortunate Events

The past months have been a pretty rough for me. I will start at the beginning, back in early October, at the end of Elite Track Nationals. Nationals went ok for me, I got 5th in the scratch race and 7th in the Omnium. I did a pretty risky move in the Keirin and it was either going to work really well for me or I would bomb it, well it ended up not working out so well for me. Live and learn, I suppose. The points race was the final individual event for me. About half way through I got caught up in a pretty bad wreck. I slid for about 30-40 meters down the home straight of the track... I was stopped when I slammed into a metal pole with the side of my neck. OUCH! No, literally OUCH's Doctor Kay ran to my rescue! He was there by my side before I even realized what had happen, holding my neck in place, trying to figure out if I needed to go to the hospital, it was a yes. As the paramedics put a neck brace on me and carelessly flipped me over on the stretcher while grabbing my splintery, bloody side I looked over and saw a crowd of people and I was HUMILIATED! I was taken to the ambulance where my mom rode shotgun and of course I rode in the back with a cute EMT. Following was my entourage. My best friend Andy and my boyfriend Ian where in my car and Ian's mom behind them in her car. After getting to the hospital it all went down hill from there, I wont bore you with the details but it was the WORSE hospital experience ever!! On top of all that, the following day I found out I had cracked the top tube of my bike. Lucky for me, Ian's dad repairs carbon frames and was able to fix mine.
(See look my story had a happy ending.)
Here is a series of pictures that Colleen Cross captured of the crash. (I'm in Blue)

I healed pretty quickly from the crash and after about 2 1/2 weeks I started riding again. One ride  I was doing with Ian. A little more than 1/2 way through the ride I got distracted and looked behind me, while the road slightly curved to the left and I did not I quickly turned around when Ian started yelling my name just to catch a glimpse of the truck that I was about to get very personal with. Then SMACK my face met the back of a pick up truck with a shell on it. This was the worse pain I had ever experienced. I crawled to the grass and kept spitting out blood and bits of my teeth. Desperately trying to save my teeth I was handing them to Ian telling him to save them. A few men saw the crash and came out to help, conveniently one was a dentist and relieved Ian of his bloody teeth holding duty. As I assessed the "crime scene" as I call it I looked over to see my precious Specialized in two. That was the last thing I wanted to think about, another bike broken.  Ian called his mom and she came to take me to the hospital. On my way there I called Travis Smith to find out what hospital his wife, Dina worked at. She called the hospital for me to let them know I was coming. They were so great to me! I ended up walking out of there with 7 stitches in my chin and the relief that I did not have a broken jaw. The next morning I was on the plane to Houston to get teeth put back into my mouth. 

before:

After:

 My bike:

Once again Kyle Davenport came to my rescue and found me a new bike, Specialized Amira.

 Gotta love that man! 

Two other things not bike related:
My dad's dad so my Papa Jake had to got to the hospital for about a week because of some fluid in his lungs. I found this out the day I crashed the second time. He is doing much better now and is at home. 
The final unfortunate event I had to deal with was our family puppy, Eve (barely 1 year old) was hit by a car November 22nd and died immediately, which was best. This was very sad for my entire family especially because my sister, Delaney's birthday was the next day. We all love and miss her very much but she is in puppy heaven now.

On a lighter note, I want to thank everyone that has been so great to me these past few months, you made everything so much easier and I am very thankful! 

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK  YOU!! 

(like the Chinese take out bags say)