Feels like lunch time

And well, I guess, I might as well take lunch now.

Food is important. We've got this digital TV converter box now and PBS2 (create) channel has some extra cooking shows. Kinda like the food network but with only one really annoying chef and a bunch of really good ones instead of the other way around. sara m is one of the ones I kinda like. Sure she's wicked short and cute, but annoying at times. I don't like some of her short cuts or alternative suggestions (low fat-no fat products full of junk) but she has a saying that goes something like use fresh ingredients and it will be good. Then another channel has someone "making" some sad opera chef singing commercial frozen lasagna, two sad looking frozen brick, a bunch of frozen red chunks (sauce or tomatoes?) and they stick it in the oven. *puke* yuck. My wife reminds me though that there are people out there who don't make absolutely every meal from scratch. I know that. But that is sad. Yes food takes a lot of work to make. And in the end it is just calories. I just happen to like the process of making it as well as eating it. Lasagna is one of the more pain in the ass things to make, but. In reality it is just pasta with 10 extra minutes of prep when you are finished making the sauce and 45 minutes of waiting for the mixture to turn into bubbly goodness. (and that's just more time to drink WINE)

This weekend's second day was Canton. G-ride has been telling the world how shitty of a day he had, ready to turn over his bike and wheels to the first person to drive the 400 miles to his house in almost-Canada.

I had a blast. To spoil the punch line, I may have finished way back in 35th, but it was the first time this year that I actually felt like I was racing from start to finish. Mansfield was fun but I had a crappy early part of the race, just couldn't get my heart and mind on the same page as my legs. Canton, from start to finish, was hard, wicked hard, but I worked my ass off and then even played smart to make sure I didn't get beat by the group that I was either drifting back to or being caught by. But then I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was cold. No doubt about it. I got there and had to put the orange suit on just to stay warm enough to walk around and check the place out. I did get a chance to pre-ride in the suit (snagged the saggy seam on the crotch trying to remount more than once, but only crushing my nuts in a minor not painfully debilitating fashion). Same tough hard Canton course. And cold. And windy. Did the pre-ride with ~30 PSI in the rear. Not quite enough pressure. But I think in the race i err'd on the slightly too high side. S'Okay. Didn't matter that much.

I was waiting for the G-ride's glue job from the night before. If I had some glue laying around it would have been no problem but Skinny White Dude did and maybe G-ride felt bad about his glue job rolling on me at Mansfield, so he got it all decked up overnight. G-ride and Skinny showed up Caravan mode. And I pounced looking for the wheel. G-ride doesn't have it in his car, 4 tubulars and a frame but not a 5th. Skinny has two frames and 6 tubulars in the back of his (or the Doc's) truck but not the fixed up one. It got left. In g-ride's defense, one extra wheel in that basement is sort of like one extra tube in a bike shop. Not really something that stands out.

So a slight shot of confidence leaked out. But my pre-ride with the RR on the Vector Pro wasn't so bad and the wind meant maybe the more aero front wheel might be good. But suddenly it was crunch time. Where did the time go? Less than an hour before the race? Pin the number on. Oh. Right, I'm racing in a shortsleeve skin suit today. It was cold. 40 degrees, overcast, wicked windy. Not warm. Not in the least. I should have worn the shortsleeve on saturday and debuted the longsleeve on sunday. But nope. I wasn't that clairvoyant. I should have really just washed the long sleeve saturday night, but I was pre-occupied by among other things following someone on a tour of south providence that included the lead car asking a skinny amped up white woman in a sketchy part of town where the restaurant was.

Short sleeve it was. Most all in the 10 am race were wearing full tights and longsleeves. A good number of ear covers and warm gloves too. Same goes for the 11am race. Maybe more knee warmers than tights, no one IIRC had bare arms. Then there was me, in the Noon race. Most folks went with the long sleeve skinsuit. Some went with knee warmers. Some used leg warmers. Me? I just sat there in my short sleeve skinsuit, no embro, no cap under my helmet, making everyone else feel cold just looking at me. People standing around bundled with winter parkas were looking cold. The folks at registration were wearing lots of layers, hats, mittens and wrapped in blankets and they were cold. Here I was in some summer skinsuit. Not intentionally making a statement. But knowing that while yes, i was a bit chilly there at the start line, i did get a good warm up in, shorter than I wanted, interrupted by a Zanc siting, but I got a few efforts in and I broke a good sweat (that orange suit is actually pretty effective for some single layer fabric).

I also knew that with both Frank and Mark there and the rest of the big well trained fast dudes, going out as hard as I was capable of would be suicide. And I just sort of rolled out. Not dead last. But relaxed, comfortable. Not as slow as I could have gone but I may have figured out how hard I need to start to be able to race. And then I proceeded to race. Sitting in as much as I could. Trying to get around the people who were slower in some sections than me who had leap frogged me in spots where they were faster. At some point I latched on to Matt Hersey's wheel. A big tall freak racing for Bikeman. It was heaven sitting on his wheel. And I think he actually might have sat on my wheel once or twice too. Just ahead of us was the grouppetto GCDavid, Ctodd and a few others. In striking distance. Racing. Going hard. Drilling it out of a corner. All big ring. Big ring is where I seem to need to be. If I'm in the 38 I'm going too slow. If I need the 38 I should just get off and run. And I stayed in the big ring. Spinning it up on the pavement and path sections, and grinding out of the turns. I actually was having fun racing. Racing with my head not at the limits of my legs. And using my head I made one glaring mistake. Matt and Sven(?) took off and got a little gap on me in a section they had been. But I'd been able to get back on over the last couple laps so I rode a tad bit more conservatively than I should have in retrospect. Heck I thought I'd be back on their wheel. But nope. They gapped me and bridged up to the CTodd, GCDavid group. Shit. So I spent that whole lap just going as hard as I could. Which I guess was what everyone else was doing as my effort seemed rather fruitless. But I was trying damn it.

Try try try. So there was this bikebarn train and an IF guy who had eaten crap after the field barriers somewhere. I had a decent gap on them hitting the path section. But by the time I hit the little barriers they were almost on me. Nega-coach shouted GET IN THE 12! and I actually was able to use that to eek out a few more watts. But succeeded in only holding them off until the base of the run up. With the plane of pain up next there was no way I was going to tow two teammates and an IF guy around, and fortunately the bigger of the two bikebarn guys was leading them and I latched onto his wheel, and sat there until the barriers. Nega-coach shouted something again as we headed to that banked turn before the barriers by the pit. I knew I had a chance through the barriers, and I knew that the finish line was a long way off but it was my chance to take. I hit the barriers faster than the Bikebarn guy and had a gap already. And just from that attack after the barriers I was ready to puke, but I figured that's a good thing, because I've never hit the hurl stage of competition. And as soon as I hit the pavement I unleashed every last stored KJ in my legs. The IF guy was pretty hot on my wheel but i had a sizable gap. No way was I going to lose this "sprint for 30th" as I heard the IF guy mutter in a somewhat displeased voice aftewards. No freaking way. And I didn't. I nabbed 35th (36th I think because Ctodd DID finish but seemed to go across the line so slowly the officials must have thought he was just warming up).

It was fun. Sure, sprinting for 35th can be "lame" but it felt like racing. And it was an amazing feeling. The focus was there the whole time. I might not have been as fast as Coady or Boivin or Myette, might never be, but damn it, i was racing and I had a freaking blast.

And I wasn't cold once on the course. I ate up that cold dense oxygen rich autumn air. I sucked it down like it was suburterol(sp).

It was certainly a high point even if it doesn't help my cross results points and even if I does show I still suck. It was fun. And after all. That is what makes this sport kick ass.

Two abjectly different type courses on two different days. The fun one I had a hard time getting the racing mode fired up, the hard one wasn't a problem. Odd, but not really. Maybe in a couple years I can have a lofty goal like Myette's and shoot for Verge points. For now? I'm just really excited to race!

See everyone at Wrentham!

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