2014-2015 Update

It's been about a year and a half since I last posted a blog entry, so I thought it was time to get back at it with an update on how the 2014-2015 season is going so far.

2014

Worlds

To end the 2014 season, I competed at the World Championships in Rosario, Argentina. I raced the 200m time trial where I placed 12th in the heat, and then went on to improve my time and placement to end up in 7th place, a personal best finish at worlds.

NSC

After worlds, I flew home for 4 days then got right back on a plane to head out to Seattle for NSC trials. This year (season 6) will be the first year that the NSC will feature a women's league, which I proudly qualified for with seven other great ladies that I can't wait to race with this season!

2015

Cycling

Back in January, I competed in my first big track cycling race up at the new Pan Am Velodrome in Milton, Ontario, Canada and got some great racing experience against an international field.

Since then it's been a long hard winter of training. I do most of my training with my cycling team (Sprinters Edge) at our gym here in PA. We've had a rough winter yet again as far as winter weather goes, so doing any training outside has been next to impossible since November. I'm getting very excited to be able to get back outside on the track!

Hagerstown/Roanoke

After NSC trials in November, I took a little bit of time off my skates. I eased back into racing again in January at the Old School Invitational in Hagerstown, Maryland, where I brought home a few medals. In the second week of February, I raced my second competition of the year at the Blue Ridge Challenge in Roanoke, Virginia. I didn't skate as well as I had hoped to there, but overall it was a fun weekend of racing. Plus we got our new uniforms for Simmons Racing and I must say we're looking great in the blue!

Las Vegas

Just four days after Roanoke ended, I got on a plane and flew out to Las Vegas for the outdoor portion of the Las Vegas Inline World Cup. The race was set up just like the road portion of worlds/outdoor nationals with a 200m time trial, 500m, 10k points, and 20k elimination. This was my first outdoor race in Senior World Class Women, and of course, it was a tough international field. Most of the girls racing are either world champions or at least have a medal at worlds, neither of which I have yet accomplished, so it was a little intimidating going into it.
The 200m was the first race of the weekend, and I got on the line and skated the best that I could to the finish, not really expecting much. As I crossed the line, I heard Ross Creveling (announcer) yell that I had a time of 18.85, which was a new personal best by .3 of a second. I was the second person to go, so I wasn't really sure what times to expect from the rest of the skaters. I was bumped to second place by Ingrid Factos pretty quickly and hung on to that for a while until my USA teammate Erin Jackson skated a time .056 faster than mine. I ended up in 3rd place in my first international race as a senior, and I could not have been happier with the outcome of that race.
I also finished top 8 in the 500, 16th in the elimination, and got a point in the points race after going on a flyer.

Now it's back to training to prepare for the rest of this year's races. I will be heading out to Seattle in the middle of March for the Battle in Seattle. I've never been to this race, so I'm very excited for it.