Though they look awfully tiny here, this is a shot of all the women who attended. It was an amazing group from all over the country.
Of course, given that we were at the US Olympic Training Center, the facilities were pretty impressive, so these are a few shots of some of the sights.
There was an amazing slate of speakers -- more detail about them is included in the VeloNews.com article. I tried to get pics of all of them, but, wow, I'm a terrible photographer! Most of the speaker photos turned out horribly. This one of Jim Miller, though, is ok. He is the USA Cycling Director of Endurance Programs, and he coaches the women's national team. He talked to us about the history of the women's program, what it's like to coach women as opposed to men, and the establishment of the women's team's house over in Lucca, Italy that was opened last year. Very, very interesting.
The last presentation on Saturday was a panel of elite cyclists that included Alison Dunlap, retired pro mountain biker and former world champion, Sarah Uhl, retired pro road racer who raced with Cheerwine last year and is a great advocate for collegiate cycling, and Lindsey Bishop, an up-and-coming mountain bike racer -- keep your eyes peeled for her!
These are a few of the participants at the conference. In the foreground is Kathy Zawadzki, one of the speakers who spoke on the unique training needs of moms. Behind her are mother and daughter Lori and Cristin Walker from Houston. Cristin and her brother are both national champs in track events, and began riding track when their dad got tired of watching them at home while mom Lori went to the track to ride -- so Lori started taking them, and now has two national champs for kids! How cool is that?!! Behind and on the far right is Jane O'Driscoll. She is from Montana and is the women's coordinator of their state cycling association along with being a full-time physical therapist. And, darned fun to talk with over drinks!
This is how most of the participants looked the majority of the time.
USA Cycling organized a great dinner for us at a brewery downtown on Saturday night. This is Michelle, (who I carpooled with) and Susan, one of her roommates, just after giving their drink tickets to me....
Also at my table were Lynda Ransdell, a prof from Boise who co-organized the conference, Rebecca Rusch, an adventure racer who is the current 24 hour world champion, and Beth Leasure, a women's coach and team director.
A few of the participants posed for a pic in the lobby of the Athlete Center before we went to dinner on Saturday night.
And before we left on Sunday, I had to take a moment to take a podium shot with Beth and Susan. I mean, come on...how many times am I going to get the opportunity to stand on the top spot under the Olympic rings?!!!
Hope you get a chance to check out the VeloNews.com articles, as the conference was truly amazing. I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with a lot of the women who were there and to seeing where the conference goes next. Great stuff.
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