Courtenay Brown: Superweek was...

The Superweek women's series ended yesterday and I just got home to a nice 80 degree evening here in Oakland. I feel like I need a sweatshirt and wool socks after many consecutive 100-ish degree days in the midwest.

I took some photos but not enough. We (Devon and I and our friend Colin who was Devon's teammate last year) stayed with the LaBudde's, who cook really well and give good driving directions and have a nice house near The Lake, which I think is Lake Michigan? Isn't that what's next to Milwaukee? Mike and Fran LaBudde, who I forgot to take a picture of, have a 10 year old daughter Katherine who I forgot to take a picture of, and a beagle named Sparky who I forgot to take a picture of even though he was very photogenically still and un-moving in the heat, and also two cool cats Tipper and Tiger who I took about 36 pictures of.

Here is Tipper who I tried unsucessfully to sneak into my carry-on this morning:

Here is Tiger who is a Maine Coon cat. I want one:

Interestingly, here is the world's best dog Mikey in the same pose, also on a kitchen rug:

And here I am with the neighborhood pig, Rudy, on laundry day (hence the non-team outfit):

Anyway, on to the racing. The women's series had 7 races, 4 of which were NRC races. We had 5 riders, but not all of us did all of the races. Rather than go into all the gory details (which will be kinda repetitive - "it was hot", "we raced in Illinois and it was hot", "the race was 60K and it was hot") here are some highlights:

-results-wise, we got 3rd and 10th in the overall standings (Taitt and me), 4th in the sprint point standings (me), 9 top-ten finishes (some of which were mine)

-my number was 13, and I was 13th in the race on July 13th... weird.

-Kelly Benjamin from Cheerwine won the overall. She is Fast. She is also Nice, which is nice.

-after nasty hotspots on the soles of my feet for Saturday's race in Waukesha, I gave my shoes to Tiger so he could add some ventilation: