A late start and a new beginning; The Barbara Howe diary

For the past several months, I've been trying to write a diary to update everyone on the condition of my injury. I've written several and liked none of them. Here I am almost eight months later finally writing a diary I like and I think it happened because I'm finally putting a number on again and racing.

I was quite nervous about my first race back for several reasons, the least of them being that my last race was eight months ago. It was going to be hot in Napa, there's tons of poison oak in the area and I wasn't sure how my ankle was going to take to a long hot race. I've put in several long hot mountain bikes rides in the mountains over the summer but they all somehow involved taking long mid-ride breaks and swimming in rivers.

My teammate Shannon Edson took the hole shot – trying to keep up with her put me in a world of hurt as I haven't gone that hard in a very long time. I was very impressed by the single speeder who put the hurt on me for part of the first lap. I finally caught her on a steep climb.

For the full Barbara Howe diary, click here.