Naty Does Natz

Welp, I made it though another semester of PT school, and I am officially half a doctor! (I decided to go with my left half if you were wondering) On the school front we have on more semester of didactic curriculum, and then a year of internships left.  So we just started back and it's full steam ahead; gotta get that knowledge!

I was able to do one weekend of warm and sandy cross racing in Arizona towards the end of the semester, which was enough to qualify for nationals. So at the very end of christmas break I headed back to Texas with my parents and then over to Austin to race! Of course, I decided that since I already knew that training for a race was an effective preparation strategy, this year I would get the flu right before it instead to keep things interesting. But I think this was one of the most fun cross nats I've raced!

One NAU teammate also came out, so we are able to compete in the team relay on friday, each racing 2 laps. And even though we didn't have the fresh legs each lap of the other teams it was a great time and great prep for Saturday. The course was turny with punchy climbs and off camber sections followed by 2 sets of limestone stairs.

One of our hand-offs

Sunday I woke up and it was 32 degrees and raining... perfect for a cross race! The course was a slip and slide of mud; wet and sticky enough to make it interesting enough but not gunky enough to stick to your bike. I was able to rely on my technical skills and ride though sections with girls crashing and running on either side of me- with much support from spectators haha.

D1 start

Not too muddy... yet

Of course my lack of power showed anytime we hit a flat straight away, but in the end I was able to hang on for a solid result of 21, and I was really happy with how I performed! I walked away feeling good, knowing that I need to improve on my fitness but I haven't lost my confidence or happiness on the bike, and I can still ride in mud like a boss haha. Thanks to everyone who support me getting there and everyday at the races!

Still riding 

What is running?

Stairs #2

Still a Skyhawk at heart

An Unexpected Journey

With some quick planning (and shopping at REI) I spent this past weekend on a 4 day trip into the Grand Canyon with 10 of my friends. It was a great way to release all our end of the semester stress and celebrate being halfway done with the program. (omg!) 

I had visited the South rim before but never really hiked in. This was also my first time to do a true backpacking trip. We went in South Kaibab on a snowy morning, but didn't face too much fog or precipitation once we descended a ways into the canyon. I can't do the Canyon justice with words, so i'll let pictures do the talking, but it really is the Grandest of them all!

Hard to do the steepness justice

Man let me tell you I am not conditioned for a full day of only downhill hiking haha and I felt it the next 2 days so we took it pretty easy with a little day hike to get a good view of the Colorado river and played games at the Phantom Ranch. We got some weird looks as we tried to crawl up and down the few stairs to the little store haha. 

For December it was still Fall down in the Canyon and although it was pretty chilly at night, in the 50's during the day so perfect for hiking (of course we had the one campsite that never got sunlight...) 

Coming up the Bright Angel Trail was so much better on the legs then the descent, and I was happy to just break 5 hours for 11 miles of trail and 1 mile of elevation gain (it hurts now just thinking about it haha) and finally be warm again! But after food and the shower of my dreams I am ready for the next trip, and luckily enough I'll be back in one week with my family! I've got a pretty cool backyard.

I can't even

Oh Hello!

My blog is alive again! So what has been happening in the last year and a half? 1 tearful college graduation, 1 move to Flagstaff, 1.5 crazy hectic years of physical therapy school, too many lattes, lots of amazing travel around the country, 5 cycling National Championships (perhaps I’ll post those stories on here soon), and more road racing then I’d like to admit.

Proof I've been outside...

But I am healthy, racing (as much as I can!), surviving my last year of school before internships, and missing my Durango mountains everyday.

One perk of grad school is that even though I miss my Fort Lewis team more then ever, I can still race collegiately! This last weekend I participated in the Lumberjack Mountain Bike Conference Finals for the SWCCC right here in Flagstaff hosted by yours truly, NAU. The SWCCC and NAU team is run on a much much smaller scale then then the Rocky Mountains which has been an ongoing adjustment but the relaxed atmosphere is much more appreciated with my current school schedule.

XC was on Saturday and it was a chilly start lined up with 2 great friends I’ve raced with in Colorado plenty of times ironically enough, Lindsay and Tizzy! (Largest Women’s A field of the season haha) We rode two 10 mile loops starting with a dirt road climb transitioning to single track a couple miles in and tackling the volcanic rock the rest of the way up. I was feeling more then a little rough around the edges technically and this course was not helping! But my line choice improved towards the top and my pace went from relaxed to oh-yeah-I’m-in-a-race-remember. The descent was smooth with lots of switchbacks so I picked up plenty of speed and just enjoyed the aspen leaves falling like rain while I sped down the mountainside (magical I know right? Haha). Second lap was slightly faster then the first and I was happy to finish and be racing again. BUT… here’s where things get interesting… so right at the start Lindsay and Tizzy had rode away from me (as expected… darn school, I thought sitting 8 hours in class each day made you faster!) As it turns out, less then half a mile in, due to some poor information received at the start, they both made a wrong turn and went off course, and I guess I was still fast enough to stay in front, so even though I had no idea at all that I was in the lead, I WON!!! Haha so whether you count it or not it was a surprise ending to the race, even though when I finished I adamantly argued with everyone that it was not true. So that was certainly nice :)

Sunday I also raced short track, but had no go in my legs (placed 2^nd to Lindsay the beast) and also raced on a relay team for NAU which was a lot of fun, even though again, my legs had no go (our team got 4^th, but the other NAU team got 1^st!) In the end I was able to help NAU cinch the D1 Conference Championship Title over University of Arizona by a slight margin for the 4^th year in a row!

Also, the USA Cycling recap just had to note that “Lindsay… took the D1 women's title with a margin of 560 points over teammate Nathalie Krantz.” Hahaha, hey I only did 1 race, at least I got second! 

Cyclocross National 2013

And cyclocross season is over. It went by so fast! We had a few sweet races in the local series, one super muddy and snowy up in Delores, and some unseasonably warm ones up on campus. I performed well in some, and made the national team for The Fort, which I viewed as a major step in my recovery!

One of the warm races!
Photo thanks to coach Chad Cheeny

This is how bikes are meant to look :)

I spent all winter break Nordic skiing in Gunnison/Crested Butte with the family. The skate skiing was good prep for my legs, and the below 0 temps everyday was good prep for Wisconsin!

I got back to Durango and went to my fist day of classes (last semester of undergrad!) before jetting of the Madison, WI with the rest of the team. We spent the first few days pre-riding the course, which was a long loop with lots of tricky corners, a couple steep climbs, a looong stair run-up, fast slippery descents, and a few sprint sections on the road to provide some much needed relief from the mud. The first day we rode the course was mainly ice with some thin wet mud on the surface, making balance and traction key. Everyone went down multiple times as we figured out the balance between caution and aggression to make the fastest lap. But that night it rained quite a bit, so by the time we arrived for our race the next morning the course was all deep peanut butter mud. It made everything much tackier so cornering was faster, but the straight sections were much slower and you really had to ride up on the tape to find clear lines.

Ou team had a sweet warm set up, going
oldschool with 2 wood burning stoves
Photo thanks to Dan Walker

After a not so hot start, I powered though the mud and by half a lap in found my rhythm. It felt like we were all moving so slow! My bike was so heavy that my carrying technique up the stairs and over the barriers was less then stellar. Meaning at one point by the end I was lugging it behind me ;)

A quick peek at the course conditions
Photo thanks to Dan Walker

I was pitting every half lap for a new bike (thank goodness for our awesome support staff!), and our race ended up being only 3 laps because the course was so sluggish! For laps 2 and 3 I picked up the pace, using my confidence in the mud to pass as many girls as I could. I actually ended up 15^th in our field of 40, which included many top-level racers, and I felt it was a great result for my first nationals event in 2 years! My teammates also killed it, we had 2 on the podium and were the only team who didn’t have any girls pulled!

Photo thanks to Dan Walker

The boys raced the next day in the bitter cold, but the course had frozen over making it slick, but much faster. We also got 2 riders on the podium here, and all the guys did well. Unfortunately, we barely lost the omnium title to Marian, but hey we are still second in the nation!

The warmest outfits are also the most stylish :)

Cheering on the collegiate men and elite racers!
Photo thanks to Dan Walker

D1 team podium
Photo thanks to Dan Walker

Now I’m back in Durango. Still recovering from traveling, and getting into the flow of school again. I was so happy with how I was able to perform in Madison considering the last 2 years. I went back to Texas doctors over break, and they love how I’m such an easy patient since I’m all into exercising ;) I really feel thought that my training has helped me gain control of my symptoms and greatly improved the quality of day to day life. I am also starting to wean off my first heart medication (exciting!) since we think training is making my body strong enough to control its issue on its own. Of course really training and racing at a competitive level causes some problems of it’s own for my body, but I am hoping that this year as I approach what is hopefully a successful season, I can find the balance between sickness and health, overtraining and undertraining. I have some high goals still, and I feel that the EDS won’t hold me back from achieving them; I just will have to go about them differently from most.

Off the bike life is going well too! But I can’t believe I am graduating in April! I have a lot going on, including my senior research, which I am excited about since I am studying the effect of kinesiology tape on muscle recruitment patterns in cyclists’ quadriceps. Who knows, maybe I’ll uncover the next secret to being a successful cyclist ;) I also have a couple of physical therapy school interviews coming up. I am thankful to even get interviews since it is insanely competitive (one school mentioned they received about 1,000 applications this year, and they take 30. 30!) but I really really hope I get in somewhere!

Yup so this year has had a great start, here’s to a fantastic 2013 for everyone!

Looking Up!

For those of you that I haven’t talked to lately, I am racing again!

Over the summer I surprised the doctors with my progress, (In my stress test I was able to go from 100 watts last November, to 250 watts, and 20% lung capacity to 40%!) and was able to ease myself back into a training program at the end of the summer. I definitely had a few speed bumps along the way, but by the time school started at the end of august, I was actually feeling pretty solid.

On a side note…. Durango hosted the start of the Pro Cycling Challenge in August and it was an awesome experience! The team got a lot of volunteer hours in, and we got to interact with the riders a bit, which is always fun. It’s cool to see how the sport is growing in the US. Not a bad way to start off the school year ;)

I also went to the track to play around before mountain bike races started. I haven’t been to the velodrome in a few years, and given that the closest one is in Colorado springs 6 hours away, I probably won’t go back for a while again haha. Nevertheless, it was fun, but I’ve probably got to make my quads about 3 times bigger if I ever want to be a track racer.

So on to what you really want to hear about :) The first mountain bike race of the season was our home race, which eased my nerves quite a bit. In the short track it took me a little time to get back into the flow of racing, and I started to move up at the end and even with a crash in the last lap I pulled off a top ten finish. In the cross country the next day I felt really good, and finally got back into the zone after a long year off. I finished 7^th, just 30 secs off of 6^th, and when I came across the finish line so soon everyone was celebrating. I was stoked on how well I did right off the bat, but even more amazing was how excited my friends and teammates were, who have watched me go through this and supported me so much!

All smiles :)

After the first weekend it was back into the routine of pack, drive, camp, race, drive, every weekend, and taking clothes out of my duffel only to wash them and throw them back in. I was completely exhausted after the first one but I wasn’t complaining. I really missed this crazy lifestyle that revolves around racing! (oh and homework too I guess haha) I was able to pull a top ten finish in most every race, and even had a few top fives. By the end of the season, racing every weekend was staring to catch up with my body, and I was more tachycardic than I’ve been in a while. Everything else was acting up too, so I enjoyed the last couple races, but didn’t perform well enough to make the nationals team. It was probably for the best, since I still need to work on learning how to manage my symptoms with my training. But no matter what I am so so so happy at how far I came in such a short amount of time! It was honestly more then I could have hoped for. And I hope that my body can still improve more and more until I am back to where I was, or even faster :) But even if not, I am just enjoying all the riding and racing I can do.

Conference Championships STXC

So right now I am riding as much as possible and getting ready for cyclocross! This is predicted to be a hard winter so it will be a really fun season. I don’t know why I enjoy it so much when the conditions get crazy but I do! We started to see snow on the peaks in September, and I can’t wait for it, but I will miss my mountain bike for quite a long time. And that school thing is going really well too. Working on designing my senior seminar project, which has been an interesting process. It will be fun when I get to start researching! I am also working with my doctors to see if I can start to wean off some of my (way too) many medications in the next few months. So all in all the recovery process is going well :) 

Love these two!

Keep on going

It has been quite a while since I've written anything, probably because this is my race blog, and I haven't been able to race for a long time. But we finally know why. And now that we know, we can fight it. I say we because although I have been physically fighting this battle, I have been amazing at the unwavering support of those around me who are helping me fight every step of the way. I can't thank you enough.

On to the diagnosis... last week I finally got the official diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome type III. Since most people have never heard of EDS (including me before all this started) I'll explain it as best I can. EDS is a rare genetic disorder that affects the connective tissues of the body, which acts like the glue holding our body together. So it affects the joints (hyper-mobility, joint pain, and accelerated joint damage), organs (gastrointestinal issues, organ rupture), skin (easy bruising, tearing, elasticity), and circulatory system (veins are lax reducing ability for blood flow) among other things. Different people have different symptoms and issues because of this. So this is the root cause to the issues I've had all my life (like injuries and pain) and most likely why I struggle with dysautonomia, gastroparesis, the recent heart issues, and everything else.

So when talking to the doctor about my future cycling career he was uncertain. There is little research on EDS and every patient responds so differently, and so we will have to see how exercise affects me. He was encouraging in that a lot of EDS patients go through phases of "remission" in which symptoms, especially the dysautonomia which is the biggest obstacle to riding, can subside. But if I find a trend in which intense training makes me more symptomatic then I might have to completely stop. Also, the risk of joint damage is very high, so no crashing! (haha I would definitely be okay with that) and we will have to see how riding wears down on my knees, etc.. So long story short I am going to try my best to overcome this and I am still optimistic about a pro racing future :)

Right now I am functional, making it to school everyday and very slowly building on my activity level and riding. I got my new road bike and it is BEAUTIFUL so I can't wait till when I can finally ride it outside! Collegiate road season is just around the corner and my hope is to "race" in the crits as part of my physical, but mostly mental recovery ;) Heres to hoping for a race report soon!

C'mon who can be sick when you get to live here?

Merry (Almost) Christmas!

Hey there :) I just wanted to write this to say I have finally started riding again! It's not a lot, and I have to work very hard to ride slow enough to keep my heart rate low enough but I still love it!

For anyone wondering, I've gone to Dallas 2 different times now for a week of doctors, testing, and treatment. We have made some progress on my POTS/dysautonomia in terms of improving my heart and therefore my ability to get out of bed and do stuff. I also found out i am gluten intolerant, so I am exploring a whole new world of food. Overall I am feeling quite better on medicine (florinef!) and exploring bio-feedback treatment. I was able to successfully finish out the semester at school which was great.

So right now I am just waiting to see a geneticist to confirm my doctors suspicions of a condition called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Hyper-mobility type. This is a collagen related disorder, so it can cause problems and symptoms everywhere in your body.

So thats all I suppose, hope everyone has a merry christmas and a healthy new year!!!