Settling in Ecuador

Hola!

I am online and settled in.  We are  staying with friends we met last year, a local Specialized sponsored rider and his wife.  We’ve got a sweet view of Quito out our window, and it’s a very comfortable place with bikes and gear all over the place. Reminds me of our house at home actually. The Panaderia (fresh bread bakery) is about a 2 minute walk away and the bike shop, Cikla is about 1 minute away.  The Parque Metropolitano is about a 2 minute ride away and has tons of kilometers of single track riding, with a bunch of jumps, logs and skill areas to practice on.  It’s right on the edge of the city, but nestled in a dense Eucalyptus forest.  It’s hard to believe we’re one the edge of a giant city.  We slept late yesterday, it’s amazing how trashed a 14 hour travel day can make me feel.  The ride yesterday felt really fun, but a bit hard to shake the cobwebs out of my legs, I felt better towards the end than at the beginning. Which is probably due to that travel thing again, sitting for 14 hours doesn’t keep the blood flowing.

We had a personal escort from Daniel, the race director, owner of Cikla bike shop and the Ecuador distributor for Specialized. He’s a busy guy, but sort of like the mayor of all cycling related activities in this country.  He is a ripping rider and it was awesome to ride with him on his home trails. Today is an acclimatization day.  The town of Quito is at about 2800 meters. For those of you Americans out there, I’m working in kilometers and meters over here!  The race takes place between about 3200 and 4200 meters.  Last year, the altitude was a killer and Greg got really sick from it.  This year, we have a little better plan to get up high this week before the race.  You can take bikes up on the Teleferiqo tram just near Quito to the top of Pichincha Volcano at 4100 meters.  From there you can get off the tram and ascend even higher to 4600 meters.  The best part is that you can ride your bike on single track all the way down the mountain and back to the bottom.  We plan to hit the Teleferiqo at least two times this week if possible to get up into the thin air.  If that doesn’t work, at least we’ll have enjoyed ourselves on the huge descent!

Wednesday, I am running a women’s only ride in the early morning at the Parque Metropolitano with Amanda, a strong local female racer.  There have not been many women’s clinics here, so I am motivated to ride with some of the locals and work on some riding techniques.  Here’s the flyer and info about the clinic (in Spanish!)  The shop has already been getting a few complaints from some male riders wondering why they cannot come to the riding clinic!

 

 

 

Here is a link, for those who can read spanish on Cikla Net. And yes I am chasing llamas in that photo!

Cheers

Reba

Ecuador Baby!

Morning,

Grabbing some internet here at the hotel in Quito after what seemed like a weeklong flight. I highly recommend not flying with bikes, but sometimes duty calls. Greg and I took both the S-Works 29er and my S-Works Era down to the race, but we are also doing some riding clinics at various Specialized dealers. Cuenca is one of the main riding destinations in Ecuador and that is where we will be doing both riding clinics. Then it is off to the Vuelta al Cotopaxi, the largest MTB race in Ecuador. It is a two day stage race, with each day averaging 70km. The hardest part is dealing with the altitude since the course is between 10,000 and 14,000 feet. Needless to say, your power output is a little lower here. At least when I get home I will feel like a champion at 6,000 feet!

I am excited to see some old friends from last year, Daniel from Cikla Bike Shop gave us the best riding tour ever, and we met one of the closest knit cycling communities I have ever seen. I will keep you posted throughout my trip along with some pictures, Ecuador has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

Cheers

Reba

Packing for Ecuador, or cleaning and repacking I should say!

Showing Boise Some Love

Hello Everyone,

Monday means time to catch up, and it’s a little hard to stay inside on the computer when it is beautiful outside. The new gondola here in Sun Valley is spinning, meaning people are in garages waxing skis and already telling tall tales! Last weekend as most of you know, there was an encore showing of Race Across the Sky in Boise. I wanted to share some photos from last weeks fun.

I threw the party at G Fit Studio where my mechanic Jason holds court along with exercise physiologist, Corey Hart.  Fearing no one would show up for the party, I did a media blitz in Boise with an appearance on the Channel 7 evening news.  I also did a radio spot with the most listened to morning show in Boise, 94.9 The River.  That was topped off with a great story in the Idaho Statesman newspaper. I also cruised around to local bike shops and coffee shops and putting up flyers and chatting with local cyclists. The response has been great from these little, more personal shop visits and the fans are loving it!

The plan worked and over 100 people jammed into G Fit Studio to eat, drink and get prepped for the Race Across the Sky movie showing.  We spent a couple hours mingling over food, Red Bull, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Prosecco.  I hosted a free raffle with three tables full of great products from SRAM, KT Tape, Suunto, Light and Motion, Hammer Nutrition, Hydrapak, Skins compression tights, Smartwool, Smith Optics and Buff.  Free food, free drink and free gear!  Everyone seemed very happy!

After the party, the crowd moved over to the movie theater.  This was the 2nd showing of Race Across the Sky in Boise.  The first showing sold out and this one was no different.  I was glad that I had purchased 10 tickets online for myself and a few others.  It was actually oversold and a few of us ended up sitting on the floor to watch the film.  The Boise cycling community is super active and it was great to here them cheer when I came onto the screen.  It was a great night and the film gets me fired up for the 2010 bike racing season! Thanks to everyone who helped with the Boise movie event, especially Jason Bauer at G Fit, Shea Andersen and Outside Media. You are all awesome! – Reba

 

 

Boot Camp and Pump Tracks

Morning!

Boot camp is going well.  Last week was multiple days of long threshold intervals.  The last one of those was yesterday and consisted of 8 minute hill repeats, five times on Trail Creek Road.   It was brutal but better than the intervals a couple days before. I already feel like my form is coming back a little and my body is being reminded of what it is supposed to do.  I did enjoy the casual schedule for the last month, but now it does feel good to get back into some work and feel my legs and lungs responding appropriately.  This week will consist of intervals again every other day, but way shorter and way harder.  After this week, it tapers down until Cotopaxi.  This has been a super compressed training peak, but I’m sure I still have residual fitness from the whole year of racing.  I also trust my coach, Matthew.  He has never steered me wrong and he’s way smarter than I am.  The weather has cooperated really well for the training schedule too.  It has been cold, but clear.  It’s the time of year where each day, I look outside and hope that I won’t have to do a workout in the rain or snow.  So far, so good!  I’ve also been able to rally a few training partners to join me on some of the workouts, so it keeps me honest.  Yesterday, the Ipod was the motivating training partner.  A friend of mine plays in a disco band called Sparkle Motion.  He made me a disco playlist and I must say, I was ripping up those hill repeats to Shake Your Booty, Disco Inferno, It’s Raining Men, etc.  You KNOW you remember those lyrics!

This week is also full of planning for the encore showing of Race Across the Sky, the Leadville 100 film.  This time around, I’m heading to Boise to introduce the film and host a pre-party before the show. Click here:  http://georgescycles.com/ for info on the Boise showing and pre party at G  Fit Studio.

If you don’t live in Idaho, but still want to see the film, click here: http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Sports/RaceAcrossTheSkyENC.aspx Put in your zip code to see if the movie is playing near you.  It’s one night only, so don’t miss it.

Pictures here are Greg and I playing on the new pump track a block from our house.  It’s so much fun and now makes me realize, I need another bike!!!  A friend of ours won this Specialized P3 in a raffle and he’s been kind enough to “store” it at our house.  We’re just making sure it gets a good workout.  The track is awesome.  I just usually have to wait for all the kids to go home for dinner before I drop in, so I don’t embarrass myself.

Cheers

Reba

 

 

 

 

Race Across the Sky Encore!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Hilary Hutcheson, PR Director

hilary@outsidemedia.com

Leadville 100 Champ to Make Special Guest Appearance

At Encore Showing of “Race Across the Sky”

 
Rebecca Rusch will be featured at the Boise screening of the highly-anticipated documentary 
 

Boise, ID – November 5, 2009 Rebecca Rusch, three-time reining 24-Hour Solo Mountain Biking World Champion, will attend an encore presentation in Boise of Race Across The Sky, the new documentary about one of the most intense endurance mountain bike races of all time, the Leadville Trail 100.  The Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race covers 100 miles of challenging terrain, climbing 9,000 feet in elevation and dipping into the valleys in Leadville, Colorado.  Rebecca won this year’s Leadville event, sharing the podium with Lance Armstrong.

The film will show nationwide on Thursday November 12^th.  Rebecca will be on hand for the screening in her home state of Idaho at the Edwards Boise Stadium 22 & IMAX, 7701 W. Overland Road. Showtime is 9pm, and Rebecca will be at the door to greet attendees of the show, sign posters and hand out free gear from her sponsors, including Specialized, Red Bull and KT Tape.  She’ll also mingle with riders and fans at a special pre-party for the documentary beginning at 7pm at George’s Cycle & Fitness G Fit Studio,1414 W. Grove Street in Boise.

This one-night encore screening of Race Across the Sky will be shown concurrently across the county.  The documentary, depicting the 2009 Leadville Trail 100 bike race, features candid conversations with elite and amateur riders, including Rebecca, as they compete in one of the most high-profile mountain biking races in the sport.  Rebecca was in New York City last month for the film’s premiere.  The first screening was intended to be a “one time only” showing, but this special encore presentation of Race Across the Sky was added after fans packed theaters and demanded another shot at seeing this incredible film.

“I’m so excited to be a part of this documentary,” Rusch said. “The race itself was amazing. But to be able to share the experience through this film is going to be awesome for racing enthusiasts. The premiere showings sold out so quickly, I’m glad they’ve added a second screening for all the people who couldn’t make it or missed out on tickets the first time around.”

Rebecca is available for interviews.  Contact hilary@outsidemedia.com if you’d like to meet her.  Tickets for Race Across The Sky are available at individual theaters or online.  Check the Fathom website for locations and ticket information.

Adventure racing calls for a deep well of skills: paddling, rock climbing, biking, navigating, skiing, and more. Since turning pro in 2001, Rebecca Rusch has proven to the world she has what it takes to execute any of the above even after going beyond her limits in far flung places like Kyrgyzstan and Tibet. After winning adventure races became routine, she added 24 Hour Solo Mountain Bike racing to her résumé and proceeded to dominate the sport, and is currently three-time World Champion. Rusch blogs daily about her adventures and training and her thoughts can be found here at http://rebeccarusch.wordpress.com/.

www.rebeccarusch.com.

Fires, Ecuador Bootcamp, and Leadville Encore

Morning,

This week has been hectic.  The three-week boot camp that my coach Matthew concocted is under way in hopes of pulling one last mini peak out of my body for the last race of the year.  I head to Ecuador in a couple of weeks for an awesome 2 day stage race around Cotopaxi volcano.  Since Moab, I’ve had a bit of downtime, but the party’s over right now.  The next two weeks are hard workouts every other day.  Monday started with two 20 minute lactate threshold intervals.  Today will be four 8 minute hard efforts.  The intervals get shorter and more intense as the race approaches.  I’m enjoying the structure, but the fall mountain weather is making it tricky to get out and motivate. Some days, the weather is majestic with a little frost in the morning to keep the trails firm and temperatures warming into the 60’s.  These days, I am on cloud 9 and loving the fall leaves, the sun, the dusting of snow on the peaks.  Other days, it’s bitter cold, gray, icy with temperatures in the low 40’s.  These days, my teeth chatter and my hands are numb and the workouts creep by much more slowly.  The neoprene booties, wool socks, knickers, hats, jackets are all right at the front door and ready.  Rain is in the forecast in the next couple of days, so it could make these already hard workouts even more character building.

I did miss my planned long workout over the weekend, but for very good reason.  All of the Wood River Valley fire and medical resources were stretched thin when a call for a multiple car accident with numerous patients was paged out.   Ambulances, air ambulances, fire engines with extrication equipment and emergency medical personnel were all called to action.  Less than an hour later, a page went out for a house fire in the rural district.  This meant more engines, more people and more resources.  Our department is a combination of full time and on call staff.  At any given time, we could be paged out and most emergencies cannot be handled by the full time staff alone. It’s up to the on call staff, like me, to drop everything and go help.   I ended up on standby for the motor vehicle accident because at least one ambulance had to remain within city limits in case of a third emergency.  After the first motor vehicle accident was cleared, my crew was released to go out and assist with the house fire.  The fire was extinguished by the time I arrived, but there were still hours of work doing overhaul and clean up.  Much of the roof had to be removed to be sure the fire was not still smoldering within parts of the building.  There were also hours of cleaning hoses, equipment and getting the engines back in order for the next call.  Although I missed a cycling workout, it was still a huge physical and emotional effort.

On a happier note and related to my other job, Race Across the Sky, the Leadville 100 movie will be showing for an encore in about 50 different theaters around the US on Thursday November 12.  The first showing was so well received that they’re showing it again!  For those of you who missed it the first time, check out

http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Sports/RaceAcrossTheSky.aspx

for tickets, show locations and to watch the trailer. I am not shown in the trailer, but I promise you’ll see me in the film.  It’s a great movie and a very dramatic portrayal of endurance mountain bike racing.  If this film does not motivate you to ride, I don’t know what will!

Cheers

Reba

Media Success in NYC

Hello,

I wanted to write a short blog and thank everyone who helped make my trip to New York City such a success. I would never have thought that such a short trip could have afforded me such exposure in mainstream media. The crew at Outside Media set up a wonderful trip and made appointments all over for me. Now that I am in planning mode personally for next season, I don’t know how they do it full time, it’s amazing.

During my trip I met with Laura from Travel & Leisure, and she wrote a blog about me and my favorite places to ride. Well lo and behold, it was picked up by the New York Times! You can check it out and share it with your friends, it’s a great feeling to be recognized by a media outlet that usually focuses on baseball and football. Already I have been receiving some queries from Women’s Health looking for bike tips, and  Shape Magazine also confirmed an article for March. The trip is paying off.

Thanks again to everyone who made this trip possible, and thanks to all my fans on all my social media sites. That is a new avenue I started this year, and the interaction is really fun for me. I look forward to more to come, and now I have to pack for South America!

Cheers

Reba

Runs Like a Girl

While in NYC, I had a great interview with Mina Samuels the author. I borrowed this posting from her blog for you to see. It is a great way to look at life and challenges. Thanks Mina!

Another day of loving working on this book…

Today I interviewed Rebecca Rusch, a world champion adventure racer, world champion mountain biker, superb endurance athlete, and, most important, incredibly warm person. Rebecca does not come by her athleticism naturally. In fact, no one else in her family is the least athletic and quite a few of them weigh in a little (maybe a lot) higher on the scale than is healthy. As a teen, she worried about getting fat; as many of us did (okay, still do sometimes), though perhaps she saw more potent evidence of the possibility in her own family’s less-than-lean example. In high school a friend suggested they join the cross country running team. “You’ll never get fat, and you’ll get a free sweat suit.” Well, both those things sounded like a good idea to Rebecca, so she joined. (An aside–I joined the rowing team at McGill in my first year for the jacket. The sad coda was that I couldn’t afford the jacket when it came time to buy one. I didn’t try out for the team the next year. They didn’t miss my mediocre talent.) For Rebecca, the cross country team worked out better than rowing did for me. She never looked back.

Zooming past lots of great stories that I’ll get to in the book, for now let’s just say that Rebecca proves herself to be a champion in a series of sports (is that a serial champion?–sort of like a serial monogamist?). First she devoured rock climbing, still her first love, owning a rock gym and guiding. Then she was on the US Women’s white water rafting team. Then she got into adventure racing. And four years ago she picked up mountain biking. She is, in short, gifted, not only in sports, but in being open to opportunity, and in her willingness to start again, to re-invent herself, to re-identify herself. That’s a rare trait. We like to hang onto our identities. We become attached to who we are. “I’m a (fill in the blank).” “I’m the kind of person who (fill in the blank).”

When we are attached to our identity, we begin to measure ourselves in the same way. Every challenge is one we’ve seen before in some form or another. We have expectations of ourselves. Do you always do 5k’s or marathons? Do you always do century rides? Or moguls? Have you always gotten jobs as a lawyer in a law firm? Are all the men you date tall? There’s nothing wrong with same-ness, but sometimes it’s good to change things up. As Rebecca says, “It’s healthy to take away the measuring stick.” That’s how mountain biking felt to her when she started. People who knew her were surprised. She was a terrible biker. She used to pitch her bike into the bushes she was so frustrated by that section in adventure races. It still surprises her when she wins a race.

Yet, how great is it when we do something that surprises us; when we find ourselves asking, “how did that happen?” It’s joyful to be a beginner, to start again, to not be the expert, to not be really good at…whatever it is.

Joy-full. Take away the measuring stick every once in a while.

One Hell of a Weekend

Monday’s are great for catching up. Generally early to bed on Sunday night, up early with coffee, and then start crossing off the list of tasks for the day. So it is time for the weekend recap, and it was one of the better weekends I have had in awhile.

Saturday was fire department and backcountry rescue team training with the Blackhawk helicopter crew from Boise.  Their pilots and crew came to train us on helicopter landing operations and usage of their hoist line. They work with us as a resource for backcountry rescue and can potentially assist in dropping rescuers to a difficult scene or even pulling someone out of an inaccessible place with their lift line.   It was a rare and unique opportunity and fascinating to see this huge machine.  As a bonus, we all got short rides in the  Blackhawk and I can tell you, it’s nothing like the tin can helicopters I’ve been in.  It was an amazing piece of equipment! I loaded all the pictures from the weekend onto my Flickr Account for everyone to see as well.

 

Sunday on the other hand was a different day completely. Nothing better to shake NYC out of my system than a hard core suffer fest 2 blocks from my house.  Crosstober Fest and the Idaho Cross State Championships were in Ketchum on Sunday.  Complete with cowbells, giant beer mugs, a little mud, ice and sand and some anaerobic breathing.  It was a rude awakening because I’ve done essentially nothing physical to speak of since 24 hours of Moab two weeks ago.  Completely unprepared I began to dig out my Specialized Tricross the morning of the race, only to find it needed lots of love and i could not have it ready in time for the race.  So I took my 29er hardtail over to the course a couple of blocks away to see if I could race that.  Turns out, I flatted that bike just minutes before the start and a friend from Boise who was not racing did some quick pedal changing and gave me her bike to race.  I had essentially 30 seconds to get used to her bike as I rolled over to the start.  It turned out the bike worked great and was a decent fit.  Not my usual machine, but I got used to it fairly quickly.  I was a little conservative on the technical parts because it was not my bike and I was also really tired from a week of walking on pavement in Manhattan. Unfortunately (or fortunately) there was not a great women’s turnout for the race.   I ended up racing with one of my usual training partners, Susan Robinson.

I guess her training with me has paid off because she was on my tail and I couldn’t shake her for 3/4 of the race.  I was finally able to open a bigger gap and could focus on clean lines and staying upright.  I race cyclocross for my bike handling skills, for fitness training and to support local events.  This one was a blast and a really good start to the 3 week mini boot camp that my coach has designed for me in preparation for the Vuelta al Cotopaxi in Ecuador.

Cheers

Reba

Mountain Bike Magazine

I headed out to Emmaus, PA the other day while on my massive media your, to visit the Rodale Publishing offices of Bicycling and Mountain Bike magazines. They also have a lunch ride that heads out everyday, similar to the Specialized lunch ride. Except here in Pennsylvania, it isn’t at race pace, people talk and it’s social. I loved it. One of the best parts about riding is seeing new scenery and locales, and riding in Pennsylvania at this time of year was gorgeous. Check out the little write up they have in their website already. Thanks to everyone at Bicycling and Mountain Bike, as well as Outside Media for organizing everything!

Mountain Bike Story