The picture on Lauren Hall’s refrigerator is only a few years old, but feels like it was taken a lifetime ago.

It shows Hall at her first bike race, an amateur event in Louisiana, and often causes her to chuckle.

“I look at my clothing and my equipment, and I’m just like, ‘I can’t believe I wore that,” Hall said.

These days, Hall’s gear is top-notch and her services are highly sought after. The 32-year-old Vicksburg native has several professional victories and a national indoor championship on her resumé now.

Hall recently signed a contract to race for the Kelly Benefit Strategies-OptumHealth women’s team in 2012.

“It’s amazing,” Hall said. “I’ve made a lot of friends and traveled to some amazing places. I’m living the dream.”

Hall’s rise in the cycling world has been so fast, it almost seems like a dream. She didn’t start racing until 2008, but showed an obvious knack for the sport. She dominated at regional amateur events and within a year had a sponsorship from Pearl-based Pro Bike USA.

Hall eventually moved to Colorado to train at altitude and hooked up with the Colavita/Forno D’Asolo team. Hall, who often serves as a pacesetter for faster riders, helped Colavita finish first in the 2011 National Racing Calendar standings.

Along the way, Hall has twice won the Gateway Cup criterium race in St. Louis — a four-day event in which riders are timed as they turn laps around a course on city streets — and stages in smaller events.

“All these small steps are making me a better cyclist,” Hall said. “I feel like in three years, I’ve become this successful, so I’m excited to see what’s around the corner.”

Right now, a bright future is around the corner.

The Colavita team folded after the 2011 season, but parts of it were merged into the Kelly-OptumHealth team. One of those parts was Hall, who was hired by the new owners.

Hall’s new team will give her a chance to ride in bigger events overseas and gain more exposure.

“It’s a UCI (International Cycling Union) team, so I can have the opportunity to go to some races in Europe,” Hall said. “They told us about the merger last week, so it was a little stressful. It was a huge sigh of relief when we did the paperwork.”

Hall could also have a future as an Olympian, based on her recent success with a side project.

Last, she entered the USA Cycling Elite Track Nationals, an indoor event in Los Angeles. The “shot in the dark,” as Hall put it, ended with her winning the national championship in the Madison event and finishing second in the omnium.

The Madison is a two-person race in which riders grab hands and slingshot each other along various parts of the course. The omnium is a six-race event, similar to a decathlon, in which riders compete in a variety of disciplines over the course of two days.

“I’ve done cyclocross and road racing, so why not track racing?” Hall said.

Hall’s success in the velodrome could eventually lead her career in that direction, and to the Olympics. It’s too late in the process to make a serious run at the 2012 games. Track racing is much more technically demanding than the road racing Hall is used to, and would require an entirely different training regimen. She said she has given some thought to an attempt to qualify for 2016, however.

“I think it’s a definite possibility. Winning a national championship in my first year and still being inexperienced on the track, that’s good,” Hall said. “The Olympics is definitely a goal. Not the 2012 Olympics. That’s pretty close and it’d be a pretty intense year. It’s a three-year process, so even though I won the national championship this year there’s still a lot of work to do.”

Going through the Olympic qualification process would also take a big commitment on Hall’s part. She said the benefits, though, are worth the extra work.

“I’ll still go to the track, because it helps me just as much on the road as the track,” Hall said. “I think teams will see the potential of marketing a national champion or somebody with the potential of going to the Olympics. The Olympics is not a fork in the road. It’s a road to better things.”