Here I am with a great look of satisfaction on the podium with Mio and Hiroka!! Mio, as usual took first place and I was hoping for a second but Hiroka beat me to it with a 3 second faster run!! It was harsh considering I had caught a cold this week, and did not feel like racing one bit. We, Ya-chan, Kouji and I, arrived Thursday afternoon after driving in typical Golden Week traffic, (huge delays on the expressway, felt like an inch worm, moving inch by inch along the road) and I decided to skip practicing since I was still feeling pretty crappy..... Friday morning, after a great camp style breakfast, I decided to suit up and give it a go. To my surprise I felt and rode really well. The forecast for race day was 90% rain, so I decided not to overdo it and only do four practice runs. On Saturday morning there was no rain and we were all relieved the weather forecast had changed and it looked like we were going to have a dry race. I was happy about that and decided to do a practice run early in the morning. OH Oh, I was so tired and all over the place on my bike I had a huge superwoman crash, with my bike landing on top of me, ouch! No serious injuries, just the normal bruising and my confidence a little shaken. I had to take the qualifier a bit slow just to get my balance back. I did just that and hoped that I could regain some more strength before the final. I had 2.5 hours to rest it up. With my ipod blasting I did a good warm up and got in the race mind set and decided to give it my best shot since I have been training so hard these past few weeks. I managed to take off 7 seconds from my qualifying time and came in third with no crashes!!! I knew I had missed three corners to be exact but I was stoked to be in one piece and make the podium!! A great day!!

Sunday was forecasted to be 100% rain, so I was pretty iffy about racing the XC since I was so tired and had just gotten my voice back. Got all suited up in the morning for the race but decided not to do it on the condition that I would probably just get my cold back in these weather conditions. I definitely made the right decision. Just supporting Ya-Chan and Kouji for their race was hard enough!! Standing around in the freezing rain and wind, geez.... here here for all the race supporters today!!!! Kouji did well and unfortunately, Ya-Chan had a flat that couldn't be repaired. They both rode hard and all in all we kicked butt this weekend!!! Turns out it rained all across the country today, so everyone had a rainy day!!! Golden Week is officially over and it is back to the grind tomorrow morning. Hope you all had a great weekend!!! K. MORE PICS HERE!