Wow, what a feeling, it has been such a long time!!!! Finally, I finished an elite race and in sixth place!! So stoked. It was a brutal course, rumored to be the steepest climb in the JCF race series. Elite had to do 4 laps at 5.5km per lap, I was hoping for only three but no luck. I have been training hard despite drinking a few beers at Sarah's sayonara party two nights previous, so I set my goal to finish the four laps without being timed out!! To my surprise, I did just that!! Yeaaaaaah, great sense of accomplishment, pretty proud of myself. Enough about me. Kouji, Mark and Ya-Chan all rode at the same time. Since expert men and elite woman start at a 5 minute difference. Koji did his best for not having trained very much recently, and Mark came in Second!!! Congratulations MARK!!! Ya-Chan was still suffering from a cold so she couldn't do her best, wishing her a speedy recovery!! Look out Japan's elite XC riders, here I come again!!!!!! See more pictures here!!

Sarah and I at her Sayonara Party!!!! We had a great crowd come out and see her off!! Sarah I will miss you..... where will I be without our 2 hour daily skype sessions, weekly dance nights and recently our riding days????? Have a great time back home and thank god you'll be back next winter!!! Love ya girl!!

The send off team, Genki, will miss you too!! Happy travels bro and happy studies back in Toronto!!

Here I am on the train in Tokyo. Had to go in to have a meeting with my sponsors. Just wanted to let you get a peek of what I see when I am on the train. It is a cell phone fantasy world now, what would people do without their phones???? The next generation, mmmm, not so sure it is a good thing.

Had a great morning at the Oakley 2008 Spring and Summer Apparel & Accessory Show. Got to try on next year's wardrobe, I am such a lucky girl!!! Check out some of Oakley's great Apparel, I totally recommend it!! www.oakley.com

I enjoy my Tokyo visits because my great friend and teammate always shows me a great time and puts me up at her great pad as well!! Thanks Kyoko!!! We went out to one of her long time friends izakaya and sampled some delicious dishes!!! MMM, can't wait for my next visit. We had great food, great drink and great conversation!!!

Kyoko's poison, Japanese shochu, strong stuff, couldn't even smell it, all the more power to you girl!!!

Here I am with my students from my Nabeline Class. We are enjoying a welcome party for some new members at my favourite Izakaya, Suise!! Always a great time.....what can I say, I have a great life!!

Mmmm, decided to splurge and go for a chocolate banana Sunday after riding that huge climb yesterday!!! What better motivation to do it all over again???

Here we are before the pain began. Still in the flats on our way to a ride that Kouji and I had never done before. We heard it has a brutal climb but a super fun downhill. Randall and Albert had ridden it two weeks ago.

Here is me, just after the first climb on the pavement, little did I know what lie ahead. After this point we headed up the hill, and I mean up! Geez more like straight up. Unfortunately, (actually I think luckily) Kouji's derailer broke about 2/3's into the climb and he had to head back down. Us remaining, then continued on.......me almost falling over, or passing out one or the other.....finally made it to the top after intermittently, pushing, riding, stopping to catch my breath, in that order several times! Ok, all you climbers, boy do I have a challenge for you!! The downhill however, made up for the grueling uphill. Super sweet flowy, corners and fast switch-backs all the way down,,, wheeeeee, it was too bad Kouji couldn't have been there to enjoy it with us!

Pretty cool huh? Ha, fooled ya, it is only an airbrushed body paint tattoo! It lasts for about a week. I liked the design and have never had a real tattoo so I thought what the heck?? I was at my friends BBQ and this guy was doing these tattoos, so I decided to go for it. Now, he will come to our fall MTB Jamboree and set up a body paint tattoo booth! How good is that? The event is Sept. 16-17th, come on by for your very own tattoo!

Today, Charles and I headed up to one of our favorite hiking trails since we both had the day off. It was a bit of an adventure as we had some bad luck and some good luck today. Let's go with the bad first......when I pulled into the parking lot, all of a sudden my antifreeze started to splat and spurt all over the place, oh oh, it all overflowed and I was baffled???? What the hell? There was no indication what-so-ever on my dash board in regards to overheating, no radiator sign, so what then? We decided to let the car cool down, because it was a super humid day, go on our hike and deal with it when we got back. ( I have a membership to a road service here in Japan so I wasn't super worried) Our hike started out good but unfortunately, both Charles and I had worn bicycle socks in our hiking boots, because of the humidity we were both thinking cooler...., wrong move, we both got blisters within 20 mins, we hung with it for a while, but eventually they got really bad, and we both decided to end the hike early. It actually worked out better because we had more time to deal with the van situation awaiting us below at the trailhead. To make a long story short, it ended up being that I just didn't have enough water in the radiator in the first place, seems, the radiator cap is a bit worn, so the water has been evaporating more rapidly that usual. LUCKY!!! Only had to pay $45 to get the coolant replaced!! So our hike ended a bit early, got some nasty blisters, the Van acted up, but all in all we had a great day, could have been much worse!!!! Always think positive is my new motto!!! Is it working?? Later, K.

Here we go!!! A green pepper, eggplant and basil all from my garden.....mmmm what shall I make with them??? Got it....

Check it out, my organice pasta sauce, mmmmm, it was really good, wish I had more space so I could grow even more veggies!! Hopefully next year.

Can you see this pack of riders??? These riders are Japan's top XC & Road Elite..... and I am at the end of the pack!!!!!! This picture was taken at about 8:20 am, we started at 7 am, ok I must be dreaming right???? NO, I was really there and really rode with these guys!!! I asked Kouji where he wanted to ride the night before and he suggested we ride with the Azumino Group Road Ride because our friend Raita Suzuki had told him about it. Kouji doesn't get many chances to ride with Raizou, so I hesitated, but finally agreed to join the ride. When we arrived to meet everyone at 7:15 am, I was dumfounded as I looked around at the group, all of Japan's elite riders had gathered by chance for this ride. ARRRRRGGGGG, I thought I am gonna die today!!!! So we started our ride to Hotaka, about 40 mins to meet the other Azumino Riders, there was about 10 of us at this time. When we arrived at Hotaka another 15 riders or so joined us, including my training partner Ya-Chan, and Adam, who had just recently won the Utsukushigahara Hill Climb about a week ago. Ya-Chan and I looked at each other and wondered how we were gonna survive this ride????? We lasted until the first climb, Ya-Chan's heart rate was over 180, I knew mine was about the same, and had been for the last 30 mins. We decided to leave the group as the real climbing had yet to begin. Thank god we did. All of those pro's and all of their testosterone brought on a huge training ride competition. Ya-Chan, Kouji(who was still getting over a cold) and I decided to ride to Aokiko and then head back home. Our ride was about 100kms today and we were totally satisfied with the rest of our ride away from the pack!!! We considered it a feat in itself to have lasted as long as we did. Afterwards, we heard that today's pace was much faster than the normal pace because of days special attendees, wow, what a day!!!!

After arriving at Aokiko Ski Hill, we checked out the new baby goats that have recently joined the Aokiko goat family. They were soooo cute!!


My view on the road ride back home from Aokiko!!!

Oh Canada, Happy Belated Birthday!!!!! How I miss thee!!! Hope everyone back home had a great day! Didn't celebrate it here unfortunately, forgot about it really, oh my where is my patriotism??? Some things you just forget about here in Japan, will have to go back to hanging a Canadian Calendar up in the house, so anyone wanting to buy me an XMAS present back home, you know what to buy now....

Friday night, was really tired but headed out to Hakuba for a 902 special summer party, it was going off there, great dj's was hard to leave early but I did. Ya-Chan and I had planned on training on the San Osaka course again for the upcoming race. Glad I went home early because we did train hard!!! On saturday night, Kouji arrived back from taking his 5 day wilderness first aid course. He really learned a lot and now understands what I went through when I took it in Canada a while back. Sunday, we all went riding, it was another tough training day, then we soaked in a nice onsen (hotspring) afterwards followed by a not so hot meal, won't go back to that place, small servings and just plain not great....won't mention the name of the place....but Santa plays a role in the name. Anyway, back to the grind this week..... more later,,,, K.