With its emphasis on multiple sports, triathletes have a great cross-training regimen.

I love cycling as a way of getting around, and I love road biking and am enjoying mountain biking, but the thing is, cycling requires a bike. Sometimes, you just can’t go cycling, such as when you are traveling or when the weather is horrid. What’s a girl to do to keep fit for that upcoming century ride or race? The answer is “cross-training.” As Dr. Massimo (Max) Testa notes, “Cross training is becoming more and more popular. In sports medicine, it’s a way to keep you in shape when you have an injury.”

Yoga is an excellent way to build core strength.

Dr. Testa, a physician and exercise physiologist who served as cycling team doctor during the Tour de France, knows the sport of cycling inside and out. I went to him to ask about the best cross-training sports for cyclists. He has two categories of cross-training sports for cyclists: one group of activities gives a similar endurance and aerobic workout to cycling so one doesn’t lose fitness, and the other group of cross-training activities gives balance to the body to make it strong in ways that cycling does not.

Cycling is an aerobic, endurance sport so all activities that trigger the cardio/pulmonary system are good. The following activities are all great to keep your heart and lungs in shape when you aren’t cycling and some will give a more intense workout than others:

• Running
• Cross-Country Skiing
• Swimming
• Inline Skating
• Hiking

Running on trails or uneven surfaces is a great way to work on both balance and abdominal strength.

 Cycling works the legs as well as the heart and lungs. But it has its limitations, for example cycling is not the best sport to work on your core. It is also not an impact sport, so you need an activity to increase bone density, which can be a concern especially for women who, more than men, are prone to developing osteoporosis. Cyclists also need to add an activity that keeps their body and muscles flexible. The following are great activities or sports to integrate with cycling:

• Running, especially trail running, will train your mid-section. It is also good for keeping bone density as it is an impact sport.
• Pilates & Yoga: are excellent because both work your mid-section and back.  They can make your abdomen stronger and improve your respiratory pattern which is very important on a bike. On a bike, you are limited in the way you can expand your chest as you are bent forward, so strengthening your respiratory pattern and improving the way your diaphragm is moving can improve your performance on the bike. Yoga helps your body to become more flexible and gives your muscles and joints are greater range of motion. Look for yoga classes/DVDs with exercises especially aimed at cyclists.
• Swimming: works the whole body—all the muscles. (But it is not an impact sport.)
• Cross-Country Skiing also works much of the body.
• Inline Skating works much of the body. (Very little impact benefits.)

Swimming is an activity that works the whole body. Get the aerobic benefits with endurance and sprint workouts.

Another Fun Contest!

Check out these great visors/cap from Headsweats! They are perfect for a summer-time cross-training workout! Headsweats gave us three for a giveaway and we will randomly choose 3 of those who make a comment on this page during the month of July and give them one as a prize! (Note: please put down a legit e-mail so I can contact you if you win!)

A few years ago, Kirstin Luff was enjoying a day of mountain biking with her friends, when quite suddenly her right side went numb and her speech became slurred. It was just a temporary condition that disappeared as quickly as it came on, but she went to a neurologist who was not able to diagnose it. It happened again while she was road biking. It took a few years more before Kirstin was finally diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 39. Kirstin said it isn’t uncommon for people to go for years undiagnosed and yet it is critical to start treatment as soon as possible in order to help them function after an attack, prevent new attacks, and prevent disability.

These days Kirstin is still an avid cyclist and continues to enjoy both mountain biking and long road rides. Her MS treatment consists of a once-a-month infusion of a disease modifying drug, and she is looking forward to the release of an oral pill that could be available in six months. In the meantime, she is still an avid cyclist and continues to enjoy both mountain biking and long road rides. That’s important because for people who suffer from MS, exercise not only helps with cardiac health, stamina and mood, but it helps manage many MS symptoms as well.

Kirstin braved wind and rain a couple weeks ago to ride in the Tour de Cure, a ride that raises funds to fight diabetes. But this weekend, Kirstin and her team are taking part in a ride with a cause very close to her heart:  the 24^th Annual Bike MS Ride: Harmon’s Best Dam Ride on June 26-27 in Logan, Utah. Bike MS is the largest organized cycling event in America with 100 rides in 48 states. Over 100,000 cyclists take part and have raised over $82 million to fight MS. It is making a difference. The last 15 years have seen huge advancements: the first six disease modifying drugs have been discovered to help people with multiple sclerosis.

This is part of Team Kirstin from last year's ride. The 24th Annual Bike MS (aka Harmons Best Dam Bike Ride) will have about 3000 riders. The 2010 fundraising goal is to raise $1.6 million for the fight against MS.

A Few Facts About MS

• Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system which interrupts the flow of information within the brain and between the brain and the body. Symptoms can range from numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis.
• Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50.
• More than twice as many women are diagnosed with MS than men.
• MS affects more than 400,000 people in the US

• “If I can ride, anyone can! I’m coming up on my third year and I’m so excited. I love to soar down those hills and feel powerful and strong. I think when you have the horrible walking-with-bricks feeling of MS-related fatigue you learn to cherish those fabulous I-Can-Conquer-The-World moments.” (Marianne Hales Harding, St. George, UT.)
• “When my wife, Donna, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis it changed our lives. We finally understood why she occasionally had trouble walking or sleeping, why she sometimes lost her vision, and why she was always so tired. It also turned our entire family into activists. As my daughters have said, “We ride for those who can’t, in the hopes that someday they can.” (David Bernstein, Park City, UT. “Team Fredcast“)

“It’s so different from all the other sports I’ve tried. You can go longer and faster. I just love biking!”

It was one of those serendipitous moments the day that Kathy and her 12-year old daughter Nicole spotted a postcard advertising a  women’s ride at their local bike shop. The ride was the Venus De Miles Women’s Ride in Longmont, Co. It intrigued them both and they thought they’d love to ride it together as mother and daughter. The problem was, Nicole didn’t have a bike and Kathy wondered if a 35 mile-loop would be a bit too much for her even if she did find one.

Kathy had used her bike to get around and to ride recreationally when she was in college and in grad school. She even enjoyed mountain biking, but after she had children, she used her bike only for short trips into town. She had recently bought a second-hand road bike and was just getting back into cycling. Nicole had been gamely trying several different sports trying to find one she liked, she was just as willing to try out cycling. A neighbor loaned Nicole a bicycle and as Nicole remembered, “We trained hard.”

On the day of the Venus de Miles ride, Kathy was still a bit worried about Nicole as they began the ride, but they soon found themselves in a nurturing group of older women who rode alongside them the entire way. Nicole enjoyed chatting with them and the other riders encouraged her as she rode. Kathy remembers that moment during the Venus de Miles ride when Nicole turned to her with a triumphant expression on her face. “Mom,” she said, “I think I’ve finally found my sport!”

Nicole is loving life on the bike. (Photo courtesy of Maureen Sullivan of Sullivan Studios)

Two weeks after that, Nicole and Kathy rode 50 miles in the Buffalo Bicycle Classic. Nicole’s love of cycling didn’t diminish. She wanted to buy the bike she had been borrowing and was able to work out a way to earn it with her babysitting earnings. Nicole and her mother joined the local women’s cycling group, the Venus de Miles Bicycle Club in Boulder and during the Colorado winter, she went spinning with the club and at her local rec. center. She hopes to sign up with the Black Sheep junior cycling team and pursue the sport. Nicole has even started to think in the long term and when the time comes to choose college, she will be looking to see which offer scholarships for a cycling team.

Nicole and Kathy have found a sport they can enjoy together. (Photo by Maureen Sullivan/Sullivan Studios)

The mother-daughter time spent together on their bicycles has been another great perk. Kathy couldn’t be more pleased with how their experience during the Venus de Miles ride has affected her daughter: “It’s amazing the way things fell into place for her; the support has been great. She was excited and people saw that. It’s great to have that kind of support and get young women involved.”

You can see our list of women’s only rides in the US  or we have a list of women’s only triathlons.

Jenny Fletcher (see previous article about her here) made her a career change from model to pro-triathlete and had her first major races since turning pro in the last few weeks.  She competed in her first ITU (International Triathlon Union ) race in Mazatlan in late March, and last Sunday she mounted the podium when she came in 2^nd in the Classic division of the Nautica South Beach Triathlon. We were excited to hear from her as to how it went.

Jenny finishes the swim leg of the 2010 Mazatlan ITU Triathlon Pan American Cup

Jenny:  ”I am so thrilled with how this race went… from my focus, to how it felt, and for this new level of drive I’ve never had before. The power I felt in all three events and the fitness level was a new high for me. My bike average was 23mph, and my run average was a 6:06min/mile…. and I felt that I had just touched the beginning of a new era…. to be able to cross that finish line with a smile not really concerned with the overall result… but just knowing I am at a place I have never been before had me so-ooo excited. I stood on that podium in second place smiling knowing I’ve trained hard and raced hard to achieve this!!!”

Jenny, a Canadian, will also be on the cover of the May 2010 edition of UK-based Triathlete’s World magazine. Her next  races will be St. Anthony’s Triathlon in Florida on April 22^nd, and then her favorite race, Escape From Alcatraz on May 2^nd in California! This weekend (April 18th) she will be participating in a 6K walk/run in LA with thousands of others to help raise awareness of the world’s water crisis. It’s called the Dow Live Earth Run for Water, you can see the website here.

Sandy Earl is going to take part in a race that is called the World’s Toughest Bike Race. It is 50% longer than the Tour de France and racers are expected to do it in 12 days or less, and they are not allowed to draft. This 3000 mile race is called the Race Across America (RAAM) and competitors come from around the world to compete in it. Teams and even tandems compete in the race, but the stars of this intense competition are the solo racers.

Austrian Wolfgang Fasching has won RAAM as a solo racer three times and he has also climbed Mt. Everest. In his opinion, climbing Everest is more dangerous, but the RAAM is harder. In 2010 RAAM, 32 competitors from around the world will race solo and of those, only 5 are women. Sandy is in rare company and she will be doing it on a recumbent bike—the first woman to ever do so! Only one man has done the RAAM on a recumbent bike before: John Schlitter did it in 11 days, 2 hours, 50 min. Sandy hopes to break that record. “When I do the math, I feel like I should come in at 11 days even,” she says.

Sandy hasn’t been on her recumbent bike for long. She has been riding her upright bicycle for years, ever since she first decided that the cycling leg was her favorite part of a triathlon. Sandy found she had a talent for the Ultra-cycling (distances of 150+ miles) and often came in one of the top women finishers, if not the top woman of many Ultra-Cycling races. She first qualified for RAAM in 2002 and was disappointed when she had to pull out after 1000 miles. She qualified again for RAAM in the Race Across Oregon which she did with the upright bike for half and the recumbent bike for half. She has had her recumbent bike for about a year now and finds its main advantage is comfort. The recumbent has a carbon fiber hard-shell seat with lumbar support and it offers an aerodynamic advantage on flat or windy areas. The steep hills are challenging for recumbent cyclists, because as Sandy notes, “you can’t stand up.”

The All-Important Crew

To finish the race within the 12 day time limit (for solo women, the time cut-off is 12 days, 21 hours,) racers can’t afford to sleep more than 4 hours a day, and since Sandy is aiming to finish in 11 days, she plans on only sleeping only 3 hours a night. Sandy needs to have a smart, efficient crew to help keep her riding the other 21 hours a day. The six-person crew, which includes her 22-year old daughter, will make sure Sandy is drinking enough and eating enough. During the race, Sandy will need to consume about 8000 calories a day to keep her going. That includes solid foods like bagels, bananas and sandwiches as well as a fair number of gels.

Her crew will monitor her temperature, telling her to put on a jacket or pair of tights when needed, such as for a mountain descent. Her crew will navigate and will drive behind her at night, bathing her in the car’s headlights, so she isn’t blinded by the lights of an oncoming car. They may even play music for her to keep her focused. Some racers can get so tired that reality shifts and some hallucinate. Her crew will have to pay attention to her condition and keep her safe.

The Training

There is only so much you can do to train your body for the necessary endurance. Sandy often does back to back 200-mile days and uses other endurance races such as the Davis 24 hour Challenge as training races (She still holds the women’s 24-Hour solo course record there.) Living in Oregon, Sandy has to be creative when it comes to heat training. Following a 2-hour all-out stationary bike workout at the gym, she sits in a sauna for 30 min. She’s well-aware of the drop-out rate in the first two days where intense mountain climbs will be followed by riding through searing desert heat. The RAAM will start for the solo women on June 8 in Oceanside, CA and wind its way across the continent to Annapolis, MD. Physically, it is a tough race, but as Sandy has learned through her years as an ultra-cyclist: “It’s a hugely mental race.”

With the years of ultra-cycling experience, and the training she has had, I’m sure Sandy will do well in the RAAM. Sandy, we wish you a successful race and look forward to following you in the race and we hope you finish well!

To keep up with Sandy, you can check out her website here!

How To Take That First Step Into Racing….

By Leigh Singleton

No doubt, the road racing scene can be intimidating. Everyone’s got a posse. Crazy expensive bikes and the men with incredibly smooth, shaven legs. The scene gets even funkier at Time Trials where it seems like a bunch of aliens are roaming around with weird shaped heads and body suits stretched all the way over their shoes.

But all you really need is some confidence and attitude. We’ll give you the confidence. On May 23, 2010, in Morrison, CO. we will provide a hands-on skills clinic with the best talent in the business.  After a morning seminar on race nutrition and then a fully catered lunch, we will get on our bikes and break into small groups based upon ability.

Each group will rotate instructors throughout the day so you can learn from different people. Learn how to take a tight turn at speed with Olympic Gold Medalist Tyler Hamilton. Or practice the formation of a tight pace line with Alison Powers, National Time Trial Champion. What about braking on a steep descent around a switchback without giving up too much speed? Practice that riding along side Kerstin Weule, Xterra Triathlon World Champion.

Getting some practice in dealing with the bumps riders may give each other in a race.

Riding in a criterion is an exhilarating rush- no doubt. But, it requires strong bike handling skills to keep the rubber side down. And for the endurance junkies, nothing beats the road race. But, you’d better be ready to defend an attack or initiate one if you want to stay in the pack or better yet, lead it. These are not skills you learned on your tricycle. We hope to see you on May 23 so we can practice critical racing drills so you don’t see things for the first time on a race course.  

Registration available by going to the website here.                                                                                                            

See Ya’ on the road……

Leigh Singleton is with Get Some Women’s Racing, LLC and is on the board of the American Cycling Association. GET SOME’s 2010 Inaugural Cycling Skills Clinic brought in association with the American Cycling Assoc.

You had a great season last year; what were some of the highlights?

“Definitely my third win at the 24 hour Solo World Championships, three in a row, which was the focus of the season. Then three weeks later, totally unexpected, the icing on the cake, was winning the Leadville Trail 100 just as an afterthought.  It was a very exciting season.”

Was Leadville a fun race for you?

“Leadville was a blast because I’d already achieved my main goal for the year which was the 24-Hour Solo World’s. I went, and I had always known about this race and went in without  having a lot of expectations because it was just 3 weeks after World’s and I wasn’t sure I had really recovered yet and I didn’t know what I had. It was definitely a big surprise and a very big highlight to share the podium and have the same trophy as Lance Armstrong and to do a race with so many cyclists. The energy was really amazing!”

How would you compare Leadville to other endurance events?

“Leadville is a really different event because it’s a weird combination of a road race and a mountain bike race. Because there are fire roads and there is such a large crowd of people, there is some pack jockeying and drafting and trying to get into position especially at the beginning. Then there are these killer, massive climbs, and then you’re just mountain biking on your own. It’s also at 10,000 feet elevation which adds an interesting factor, so you have to pace for that.”

Rebecca is wearing the much-coveted belt buckle from the Leadville 100, that racers receive for finishing in less than 12 hours.

Which is the bike you prefer to ride?

“I raced with two different bikes last year. I raced the Specialized Era in the 24 hour World Championships. It is the women’s version of the men’s Epic. It is a fantastic bike with full suspension and with the Mini-Brain technology on the suspension. It is the best of both worlds between the hard tail and a soft-tail. The difference between the Era and the Epic is that with the Era, the forks are tuned to a women’s weight. The forks on a men’s bike in your size might be tuned to the men’s average weight of 180 lbs, so no matter how you tweak that, it won’t be right for a woman. Then there is the geometry and the fact that women’s bikes are lighter because they can use a little bit less carbon and so the Era is lighter than the Epic.

“For the Leadville Trail 100, I chose a different bike. I rode Specialized’s 29er Hard-tail (S-Works Stumpjumper Hardtail 29er).  It was a really good bike for that race because it was a combination of a road and mountain bike race. The bigger tires and hard-tail were really the way to go.

“It’s like you can’t have just one pair of shoes, you can’t have just one bike. I’m finding there are definitely different tools for different courses.”

Do you have another bike that you ride for fun?

“I have a Globe that I take to grocery store with panniers on it. Of course, I also train on a road bike & a cyclo-cross bike. I switch it around but I do most of my training on the Era or the 29er.”

Do you do another sport during the winter?

“I live in Ketchum, Idaho and obviously, you can’t ride your bike outside in the winter because it’s buried under snow. So I do a lot of Nordic skiing. It’s been good for my fitness and good for my mental peace of mind.  Getting off the bike for a break is actually really nice. Then spring comes and I’m ready to get back on the bike. I think it’s also a good balance. With biking you’re leaning over the handlebars the whole time and it takes a conscious effort to not get into a hunched-over position. Adding stretching, swimming and yoga are super important for the longevity of an athlete. “

How did you get into mountain biking in the first place?

“It was a fluke. I had been adventure racing for a lot of years. I used to hate mountain biking; it was my least favorite sport of the whole adventure racing thing—I was awful at it. Adventure racing was drying up a bit, our team lost a sponsor and I had one sponsor left for another year and that was Red Bull. They said, ‘Do something else for the year.’ So I went to 24 Hours of Moab with a bunch of girlfriends. I just went for fun and we ended up winning the women’s division and I had the fastest lap times of everyone there–of the women. I was thinking: ‘Maybe I should do this.’ It was a career change that fell in my lap.

“I was not a very technical rider. I had the endurance from adventure racing, so I thought the 24 hour race might be okay for me, physically, but I didn’t know how to ride a bike very well. I lost a lot of time because technically, I wasn’t very good. I would jump off and run down (steep declines) and then get back on to catch people on the uphills, and then they’d pass me on the downhills. So I’ve worked on that over the last few years. I’ve been riding and racing mountain bikes for –just going on five years and it’s been cool. It’s been a steep learning curve.  I’ve gotten better as a cyclist, and it’s kind of reinvented my career.”

You give a lot of hope to people!

“It’s never too late!”

Do you have advice for young riders who are thinking of getting into mountain bike racing?

“What’s important is a support group: people to go riding with, whether it’s a club from your shop, or group from school, or just some girlfriends. For me, I’m a lot more inspired when I’m going riding with one of my buddies and I learn from them and vice-versa.

“As far as getting into racing, the hardest part is just lining up at the start line. It’s scary and it’s intimidating. It’s still intimidating for me. But once the gun goes off, no one cares how you finish but you. I just tell people: ‘Line up. Race is not a four-letter word.’ It’s actually a really good experience to push yourself because I will always work harder in a race than I will while doing hill intervals up Mill Creek Canyon. There’s something about the energy of other people that’s really a positive experience and it’ll make you try harder and work harder than you would if you were on your own.”

If you’d like to keep up with Rebecca, you can check out her blog here. Check out the inspirational film about the 2009 Leadville 100, titled  Race Across the Sky. Rebecca has been taking the Race Across The Sky film on tour in the ski/recreation towns of the Rocky Mtn. West (Jackson, WY. is next) and she has been helping raise money for the building of local mountain trails in all those towns. There is a raffle with many great items from her sponsors such as an S-Works Helmet, which she says she wears on her rides and loves–and all proceeds go to make more great trails to ride on!

For a really great adventure, you can enter a Mountain Bike Sweepstakes and win a fabulous time in SunValley, Idaho with a half-day mountain bike ride with Rebecca Rusch and lots of great swag from her sponsors. Enter Here! Drawing will be on June 27, 2010

During the years Teresa Robbins had lived in California’s Bay Area she had the opportunity to ride in the Cinderella Classic. She loved the feeling of sisterhood and camaraderie in that all-female cycling event. After she and her husband moved to Longmont, Colorado, they fell in love with the area, but she felt it was “kind of intimidating to break into cycling as a woman.” Teresa didn’t feel the need to be a competitive racer, all she wanted was a community of cycling women who could have fun on their rides, would stop for a latte sometimes and were the type to laugh and joke as they rode up hills. She thought what Colorado needed was a women’s only cycling event to bring that feeling of cycling sisterhood to the area. She didn’t see herself as an event planner but two opportunities stepped right in her path. The first was a very worthy charity in need of a fundraising event: the Greenhouse Scholars. The second was found in a Bicycling Magazine article about Hope on Wheels, a women’s only cycling event in Tennessee started by Vida Greer and her daughter, Katherine Carroll.

After reading the article, Teresa picked up the phone and called Vida Greer, who gave her lots of advice on starting a women’s charity ride. The Greenhouse Scholars enthusiastically stepped in to run the event as a fundraiser and the Venus de Miles ride was born. The first year was launched by their grassroots organization and army of volunteers; and they were pleased with the number of women who came that year: 661. By 2009, the numbers had more than doubled and enthusiasm spread through the community of Prospect New Town, where the event started and finished, as well as nearby Longmont. Businesses stepped forward with help in promoting the event, giving donations and in volunteering. Male cyclists showed their sense of humor even as they volunteered by offering sag support, while dressed in drag. (Look for the guys in the fishnet stockings at the ride this year, not only will they be fixing flats, but they will be handing out gourmet chocolates as well!)

As Teresa had hoped, the Venus de Miles ride has had its impact on women in the community. Beth Burcham, who is into yoga and dancing, is typical of many women. She hadn’t been on a bike since she was 20,and she rode a commuter bike with road tires during the ride, and says, “the Venus de Miles definitely got me into cycling again!” This year she plans on signing up for 65 miles because “last year’s distance just wasn’t enough!”

 A handful of 12-year old girls did the 50-mile route last year, surrounded by many wonderful women they could look up to as mentors. Melissa Newell, the owner of Terrior, a restaurant in Longmont, rode in the Venus de Miles both years with her mother, who had flown into town for just that reason. Like Melissa and her mother, there were many family generation groups who enjoyed riding together. As Teresa had hoped, a change came to the community that lasted for much longer than the ride itself: women wanted to keep up cycling and they wanted to do it together.  As a result, two Venus de Miles bike clubs were formed, one in Longmont and one in Denver where women were easily able find a fun group to ride with or even spin with.

The students from the Greenhouse Scholars program enjoy volunteering during the Venus de Miles ride

Last year, Venus de Miles raised over $100,000 after expenses for Greenhouse Scholars, a non-profit organization that meets a need that is usually unmet in many communities. For students who come from underprivileged backgrounds, the odds are stacked against them for getting into college and paying for it. The odds against them graduating are equally bad: only 11% of such students will graduate from college. Enter Greenhouse Scholars who are there to help such students not slip through the cracks. Not only do they provide scholarships, but they provide mentors during their college years, give them networking and professional career coaching, offer summer seminars and help them make the most of internships. Many of the current group of Greenhouse Scholars is in colleges throughout Colorado, but a few have been enrolled in Harvard and Dartmouth. If you ride in the Venus de Miles, most of your money goes to the Greenhouse Scholars. You’ll see many of the students volunteering along the ride, especially at the first rest stop.

The Venus de Miles ride has a great sense of fun--and style!

After Competitor Magazine named the Venus de Miles as the “Best Cycling Event” in Colorado, Teresa Robbins could have rested on her laurels, but no, this year promises to be bigger and better! The evening before the 2010 Venus de Miles, riders will sit down to enjoy a gourmet “farmhouse dinner” and listen to music by Elephant Revival. Have kids? During the ride, children ages 5-10 can get in a fun workout of their own, mountain biking and kayaking at an adventure camp put on by Avid4Adventure. The ride itself promises to be scenic and entertaining. You’ll be greeted at the start by the Denver Roller Girls and see an all-women break-dancing team in action along the course. During the ride or afterwards you’ll enjoy a gourmet lunch and can sip mojitos, wine or handcrafted beer. Take it easy after your ride relaxing at the spa-like Rejuvenation Center with massages, mini-facials, pedicures, manicures, even waxing and acupuncture! Amazingly, you can have this much fun and yet, over 80% of your registration money will go to the Greenhouse Scholars. I don’t wonder anymore that the ride was named in tribute to a goddess of love and cycling miles.

You can sign up for the August 29, 2010 Venus de Miles by going to their website here.

By Tara R. McKee

Jenny Fletcher spent her teenage years straddling two different worlds: for a part of the year, she was a jet-setting model traveling around the world and during her summers she trained and competed with the Canadian team in junior (later, senior) World Modern Pentathlon competitions. Jenny had always been an athlete since her very early childhood in Red Deer, Alberta. She took on more sports than the average suburban child: dance, swimming, basketball, volleyball, track and field, riding horses and fencing. At age 15 she found the sport of modern pentathlon, an Olympic sports contest which includes five events running, swimming, pistol shooting and riding horse and epee fencing. She and her brother were very good at it, and would spend a few weeks each summer at a training camp in New Mexico. That same year, she was “discovered” by Mode Models, an international agency who soon had her flying off to Japan for her first shoot, clutching her fencing bag

Jenny had a great look, she was a tall brunette with a slim but athletic build and she was prominently featured in magazines in Europe and North America. On her trips to Europe, she continued to carry her air pistol and riding and fencing equipment and got in workouts when she could. At age 21, she met and married Arlynd Fletcher and “hung up the competiveness for awhile because so much was going on.” Yet it would have been against her nature to completely give up athletic pursuits, so she ran and became a “gym junkie” during their years in New York City. Her busy country childhood had only one drawback, she didn’t grow up with a bike. Her husband bought road bikes after their marriage and they started cycling. A friend of theirs encouraged them to sign up for a triathlon. It was her first and she cruised through it and did well and told herself; “I like this sport!”

Jenny continued to do both triathlons and modeling over the years and reached the elite amateur status a few years ago. She moved to California, got a new coach and prepared to make the giant leap from elite amateur to pro status. Turning pro meant that for the first time in Jenny’s life, she had to make a tough choice between her modeling career and her athletic one. Choosing the athletic career signaled a new turning point in her life: “I’ve modeled since I was 15, but this was always my dream and passion. I’m stepping out of that little comfort zone and trying. That for me is just a huge thing to just get out there and put yourself out into the unknown, but if you don’t do that you’ll always be wondering.”

Jenny made the October 2009 Runner's World cover

I talked to her while she was in Noosa, Australia, where she had gone to train with other pro triathletes including a husband and wife team, Greg and Laura Bennett (a.k.a. Team Bennett). The tough workouts included swim workouts 6 days a week (“more meters than I’m used to”), as well as an early morning run or ride (or both) before the Australian sun was at its full strength. Her afternoons were spent on strength and flexibility training at the gym. She admits the workouts have her “struggling a bit” but notes how the schedule “forces you to take care of yourself” on what she is eating, how much sleep she is getting and whether she is getting in the proper recovery. She is working hard because as she states: “My goal isn’t just to be a pro, I care how I do, I want to be successful at it and see how I do.”

Jenny enjoys training in California (Jan. '09)

Jenny’s dream is to be able to someday compete in the Olympics, but she is well aware of how much she needs to accomplish to get there. 2010 is her “building year” and she will schedule in some races just for fun among the heavy world-cup-point building races. Ideally, she’d need five years as a pro to get to the point where she could be one of two or three triathletes representing Canada in the Olympics. “If I don’t make it to Olympics, it’s not a huge deal, but I’m trying. But I wouldn’t want to wonder what if…”

Jenny’s hero has been Gabrielle Reece, an Olympic volleyball legend who also had a modeling career. Jenny watched how Gabby had an amazing impact on other people’s lives and how she had a unique opportunity to speak to others and touch their hearts. For Jenny, behind the glamorous life as a model and a promising athletic career is a down-to-earth-girl with one true passion: “When it comes down to it, I would love to inspire women and young girls, that is more inspiring than winning races for me—watching other people’s lives change because you gave them something that helped them to dream.”

I think Jenny’s got it right!

What’s Next? Jenny will continue to focus on Olympic distance triathlons: “I love the fast, short and done-by-2 hours-race.” Her Pro debut will be at the 2010 Mazatlan ITU Triathlon Pan American Cup on March 20^th. In an ITU race, that drafting on the bike is legal. She says, “If you are not out of the water in the first or second wave, you will be ‘swimming uphill’ on the bike.”

Jenny’s thoughts on the modeling world: She has seen the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions change over the years from the curvy models, to the really skinny models, and sometimes having a few athletes during Olympic years. But she has wondered, “Where are the athletes in the modeling world?” She’d like to see more athlete/models that give a more suitable reality that there are healthy, fit people out there living a good life and not just the Hollywood actress/models.

You can see Jenny’s website here.

By Tara R. McKee

How It All Began

As Lydia romped and played on the beach, her parents Gary and Kit watched over her and contemplated her future. It was 2001, the year Lance Armstrong would win the Tour for the third time, and Gary, who was an avid cyclist, wondered where the female athletic role models were for his young daughter. What if he could create an all-women cycling team and run it like the most professional men’s cycling teams of Europe? Men had an advantage in cycling for decades with well-funded teams, and he reasoned, if a female cycling team had the same resources, might they have the same success?

Gary Erickson was the founder of Clif Bar which had a lot of success with the launch of the Luna Bar, an energy bar for active women. Not long after his family’s trip to the beach, with encouragement from Kit, he started on his new project: the launch of a pro women’s mountain biking team, to be named the LUNA Chix. The team would have managers, coordinators, mechanics and a soigneur just like the men’s teams. (A “Soigneur” takes care of the racers; feeding and clothing them, escorting them on their rides and giving massages after hard workouts or races.) The LUNA Chix started their recruiting from mountain biking’s top women. One of the women they approached that year was Marla Streb, one of the best downhill racers in the world.

Marla in 2008

From Commuter to Pro Cyclist

Marla Streb once used her bicycle to get to her job as a research scientist. She enjoyed her rides to work so much that she started taking the long way home, and taking her bike out for a spin at lunch, riding through the woods when she could. She was getting so fit from her daily bike rides that she took the suggestion of a friend and entered a mountain bike race in Big Bear, CA. To her own surprise, she did well and she had a blast. After a year, she traded in the research science job for a new life as a pro mountain biker. There was still a learning curve though: “I quickly learned how to ride….not always very well because I crashed an awful lot but within a couple years, I was winning races, some pretty big races: national championships. I won the X-Games one year and the World Cup one year and a couple single-speed world championships.”

Marla’s specialty was racing the bike straight downhill. She claims that downhill racing isn’t just an adrenalin rush.  “After a while it’s like making a cake, you just follow the recipe. You’re following the lines that you planned out. I used to draw everything on a map and I would write what gear I was in and which line I was taking, and where I was actually looking. It was so calculated that adrenalin really wasn’t an issue.”

In 2001, when Marla met representatives from LUNA Chix, she knew this was a team she really wanted to be on. In those early years, the team was recruiting mostly cross-country mountain bike racers, but Marla “strong-armed” her way on the team as a downhiller and was one of the first racers signed. She continued her winning ways on the LUNA team, enjoying a long career: “It has been an incredible ride. I consider the pinnacle of my career to be on a team as successful and professional as the LUNA Chix.”

Beyond Winning

For its first few years, the pro team specialized in mountain biking, eventually branching out to include multi-sport team members who were triathletes and XTERRA specialists and they were all good at climbing to the top of the podiums. The team now has Ironman winners and XTERRA National Championships in addition to World Cup Mountain Bike Winners. In fact, the team is the number one women’s mountain biking team in the world.

Local LUNA Chix teams like this one in Salt Lake City train together and support each other.

LUNA Chix didn’t stop there; they expanded their program across the country with branches of amateur and recreational racers including both cyclists and runners: about 270 ambassadors of the LUNA program. The word “ambassador” is one Marla uses because these women not only train together and support each other but host clinics to teach and inspire other women in their communities. Most importantly both the pro team and the local teams raise money for the Breast Cancer Fund.

Marla retired from her pro career last year and has settled nicely into a job as pro team manager working for LUNA Chix, as well as publicist for the team and for the LUNA Sports Gear clothing line which was launched in 2009. Marla is very involved with the clothing line. “It’s a natural extension of the Pro Team which inspired the clothing line as well as the 270 amateurs. It made sense to make something from scratch because it seemed like… they were using either men’s cycling clothes or men’s clothes that were changed into women’s clothes. We found that our pros demanded the custom clothing. Then we thought, why don’t we create something that everyone can buy so all women can have access to it? So we started the line from scratch; I say ‘from the ground up and the breast back down.’ It is incredible clothing. It’s for moderate to serious riders, but also any rider that wants to look good when getting on their bike…who want the most flattering fit and the best materials.”

LUNA Chix's Georgia Gould shows off one of the newest offerings from LUNA Sport

LUNA continues to evolve. Their pro team signed Amy Dombroski, a young racer who does well in several disciplines: cyclo-cross, cross-country mountain biking and road biking. They also added to their multi-sport program by signing on Jane Kibii, a young Kenyan distance runner. The LUNA Sports Gear has expanded their clothing line for spring 2010 with more cycling clothing as well as several active wear pieces for running. LUNA Chix local teams are continuing to expand into other communities across the country. Both the pro team and the amateur teams have raised substantial money for Breast Cancer Fund and are truly becoming the athletic role models for young girls across the country as Gary Erickson once envisioned.