“We never see climbs like this back home,” Geoff Proctor said to me at the training last night. “They are so dramatic here. Borderline safe. We can’t use hills like this because 90% of the race entrants could not even complete a lap of the course.”Sounds like fun to me. Rachel Lloyd's got one of the better course descriptions in her race report from Zolder:
The race course started on the track into a headwind up a false flat for about 250 meters, the made a sweeping left onto the dirt and immediately bent to a right hand U-turn, crossed the track, turned left passing the pits for the first time made a few more turns then headed up and down a sandy dune a few times before diving into the woods. Then the course went down a quick rooty descent and bent a few times before climbing quickly up a grassy hill past a small chapel to again quickly descend down the hill and out of the woods. Crossing the other side of the track and heading back by the pits to do a series of steep up and downs along the hillside on the west side of the track. There was one very descent and one very steep run up, then the course traversed the hillside turned 180° to the right in a loose sandy turn, went over an overpass and back onto the track. I could tell the the race would be fast and the laps short.Doesn't it sound awesome?!
No sense pining for unobtanium courses. I was wondering where Page's name was in the list there at Zolder. This explains why I couldn't find it. Damn, his luck has not been good this year.
It has been an interesting week or so with my sister and her boyfriend here. She got made at me for "treating her like a kid" at one point. Hey I can't help it. She's 11 years younger than me but still is more difficult than my 8 year old daughter to deal with for everyone. She's great most of the time but I guess we all have out moments. While it is always sad to have family depart, we'll see her again soon (she's playing with the RI Philharmonic on the 24th - not soloing though). A sad part of the weather is how challenging it has made it for my brother who lives out here to get to the house as has been the tradition. He's never missed a Christmas eve or Christmas day here at the house. Until this year. And our daughters had a big production of the nutcracker they wanted to put on using their dolls. All the time at his house during the concerts was spent by these two planning each scene, discussing and debating which doll plays what part and what props they have that they can use, what props they need. Writing it all down. Two little artistic directors. But the production was supposed to happen on Christmas day, weather delay...
I've managed to pick up a nice back of lung cookies and sinus junk. I spent a bit of the morning coughing up yellow stuff and then I'm fine all day. I don't feel sick so that's I guess a good sign. A long walk in the rain up the road yesterday felt good. Not a run but a well spirited walk got the blood flowing and the cold air in the lungs and nose felt awesome. With a couple days of rain playing outside in the snow just isn't much fun. I'm going to try and put together a little slide show of the images I've captured in the snow here on our travels. Although some of the worst driving conditions were not captured because it was at night. The drive from the U-district up to MLT was tough but nothing compared to the drive down from Mt Vernon to MLT Sunday night. That was tough, very sketchy and even a few times somewhat nerve wracking.
The saving grace to this week has been the fact that I've been able to create dinner. It centers me and fires up a nice routine/habit in the brain. The smells and thought process, the mechanical motions of chopping mixing stirring, selecting amounts of flavors and timing of their addition. The construction of the meal, really has become my artistic release in a way. My creative outlet. Sounds funny maybe but that is what I do and I think I've genuinely created some pretty amazing meals even by my standards. The Enchiladas for Christmas dinner were really pretty spectacular, and I'm pretty bored with my Mexican cooking despite how good it tastes. These were very good. Flavors were pretty damn bang on incredible. I've been making batches of salsa, and a giant batch isn't lasting much more than a day and a half.
Last night was a pasta. Tomato base with ground lamb and red peppers added early for flavor. It was really pretty damn good. Tasted quite amazing, even to those who don't normally like lamb. It sadly was American lamb instead of the NZ kind. Good in that it didn't travel half way around the globe, but bad in that American lamb is always older than anywhere else in the world when they are butchered. (kind of a harsh word to some people I guess. I tend to think of it pretty void of emotions, just a process). But then growing up raising and eating them certainly affects my perception and judgment. I served the sauce over some Campanella with a side or Romanesque Cauliflower, Broccoli, Zucchini, and Collards. The veggies were melded together over medium heat in a pan. They were added just after 3 cloves of garlic had started to turn golden brown and nutty in some extra virgin olive oil. After a few minutes with the lid on to bring the cauliflower and broccoli to temperature I added a bit of balsamic vinegar, wine, dried basil and let it soften a bit further. About 3 minutes before serving I added the zuch and the collards (chopped into ~2cm squares) and then 1 minute or so before plating in a nice ceramic serving bowl I added a splash of Shoyu sauce. They were really quite fantastic and a great compliment to the tomato and lamb sauce on the pasta. It actually paired nicely with a 2°Below from the New Belgium Brewery.
Okay.
time to play with pictures or the girls or something vacationish.
heddwch
G
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