Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Kindness of Corporate Sponsors and Those Who Support Junior Athletes

After the last few long rides and races Ellie's knee began to hurt. The harder she rode, the more it hurt. In fact, it was so bad that she would be nearly in tears by the time the adrenaline from racing wore off. We needed to fix the problem. We started out with Bruce repositioning Ellie's cleat. Then we went to practice last Thursday and were luck enough to get new and wonderful cycling shoes from Pearl Izumi, a high quality sports company. They donated a lot of brand new shoes to support junior cycling. Some kids got some, some did not. It all had to do with shoe size. We had Bruce switch out the cleats to the new shoes and that did the trick. I was thankful that something as simple as bigger shoes and a different cleat position could fix this big problem. I will be writing them a thank you note to tell them how happy we are to have the new shoes. (Ethan got mountain biking shoes) I hear that they rarely get positive feedback and would be happy to know that they did good.

Sunday was the Colorado Junior Road Racing Championship. It was a hot day and a tough course. It began at the CSU Hughes stadium, when up around Horsetooth Reservoir and back down. While it was only about 14+ miles, it was hard worn with three steep hill climbs on the course. When we drove the course there were two times when my accelerator was all the way to the floor and we were still going slow. The kids did GREAT! Ethan came in around the middlish of the pack, which was great for him. Ellie finished third place and was thrilled. She must have nearly flown up those hills.

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