October Team Camp
To say the track season had been going bad was an understatement. Got the flu at nationals and the only thing I had to take home from PanAm Championships was a lot of splinters. The Olympics are coming up close, and there are only a few races left before the Games -- 3 World Cups and 1 World Championship. It doesn't take an idiot to realize I needed to make a team selection and have a good race, if I still had a shot on making the squad. After PanAms, I spent September/October making trips to LA to train on the indoor track, and spent a lot of time at home on my WattBike trying to get ready. When you don't have teammates to train team pursuit with, the WattBike is the next best thing!
It was only three of us going for the selection for the World Cups - Kim Geist, Lauren Stephens, and myself. Sarah Hammer, Jen Valente, Ruth Winder, and Kelly Caitlin all had automatic selections.
LA Camp was only a week long; it was part selection camp (for Kim, Lauren, and me) and pre-World Cup training camp for Ruth, Sarah, Jen, and Kelly. The first two days were spent doing some team pursuit efforts and motor work. We did one day of individual efforts. This came as a shock, as I didn't think I would doing a 3k IP ever again, but I was actually happy, as I had a huge PR and rode a 3:40. This was the goal I was looking to achieve at nationals (where I was sick), so it felt really good to hit that time.
At the end of the week, we had two days of testing where we were doing flying team pursuit efforts with the three of us. All in all, I rode well... but, in the end, I didn't make the Cali World Cup team. Lauren earned the spot with some fantastic riding. I went home very sad, thinking my shot was done. But about a week later, I got an email inviting me to race New Zealand World Cup. This of course came as a shocker to me - but, I had one more shot. I've spent the last couple of weeks on my WattBike and as we speak I'm in LA training at the indoor track trying to be best prepared for New Zealand as possible.