Leaving work early to ride in circles...

Today, I busted bum to be done in lab in time to leave by 4:45, drive 45 minutes in traffic, throw on somewhat clean spandex, and ride my bike in 4.58 miles worth of circles. I don't mean I rode a 4.57 mile lap at Patapsco and then crashed. Nope, I mean most of the circles were not much bigger than the circumference of my Baltimore rowhouse backyard.

That's right - you guessed it - cyclocross season is coming! Tonight was the first 'cross specific training I've done so far this year - a pick-up practice that I often go to during the season down at Rockburn. Considering last year I didn't even have a cross bike yet let alone know what a step-through dismount is, I'd say I'm way ahead of the game. But, my technical cross skills are rusty. I mean miserable can't do a dismount without wobbling, can't get clipped in without looking at my pedals rusty. Hopefully I'll get this whole jump_off_a_moving_bike-carry_it-get_back_on settled before my September 26th cross opener. For now, my fitness is way above my skills and I crashed in the grass once just to prove it.

The things I'll do for riding a bike in circles in the dirt. Only at the races, the circles are a little more convoluted and slightly larger.

Collecting pint glasses...

I love it when races give prizes that are useful - i.e. pint glasses instead of medals. Medals just do nothing for me - perhaps when I was 12 I would have felt differently. But our pint glass collection is getting a bit overgrown. Nevermind that we already had plenty before bike racing came into my life - we gave pint glasses as favors at our wedding 5 years ago and had more than a few extras. Despite my best attempts to break a few, we still haven't taken them all out of the box!

Yesterday was the Cranky Monkey Fountainhead race. I raced Sport class again, seeing as I'm not about to downgrade! But it was hot and the laps have a lot of rooty climbing on them. By hot, I mean 70% humid and above 90 by 10am race start. Shea took second after crashing in his race right at the end, and I knew a lot of people came in with dirt on them, so planned to get a good start and ride my own race from there.

Again, they started us with the clydesdales. This really worked pretty well for me - the start was about a mile and a half on the road. I stayed with the front group in the draft, so energy output was pretty manageable and attacked a few hundred yards before the singletrack, hitting the dirt 3rd wheel. Of course, many of them passed me in the next few miles, but I was thrilled - this is the first time in a long time I didn't have a single guy crash in front of me during the first half of my first lap!

I started a bit too hard - my excitement level was up and I was riding too fast for the first 20 minutes or so before I finally settled down and got to relaxing. I knew I was leading, I suspected that I knew who the chaser was and about where she was, so there was no letting off. That meant I rode everything technical except 2 super steep hills and nearly crashed at least 6 times - but managed not to lay my bike down on any of them.

The Fountainhead loop has a lot of roots, some significantly steep climbs, a few sustained climbs, and is generally medium-technical - nothing that you have to pay too much attention to, but lots of sections where a little extra power means it doesn't matter when the line wasn't perfect. My favorite part though is the spectators spot - 'Shock a billy' hill - a steep but short downhill with a few drops, some rubber waterbars that look intimidating, and lots of people watching for crashes. For this, I was way off the back of the bike with the saddle pretty much in my belly. Both laps I cleared it just fine only to find myself in the wrong gear at the bottom and have an awkward clip-out/waddle moment.

While I never saw another woman, a few times I passed men who then paced me for a while. John (whose name I know only because he talked to himself when he had trouble with one particular hill) claimed he was happy to be following me - he liked the lines I chose and pace I was riding. I enjoyed the company.

I finished first again! Another pint glass for the collection. My chaser was about a minute off - she rode a great race too. Now if we could just get some more ladies to ride for the competition... Only 4 sport female finishers yesterday.

Fight like Susan...

I read a number of cyclists' blogs - in part for the race and ride reports from around the country, stories of success and bonks. But one of my favorites has been the Fat Cyclist, where Elden Nelson chronicles rides with his buddies in some of my old stomping grounds in Utah. By the time I'd found his blog, however, his wife Susan was deeply entrenched in a battle against metastatic breast cancer. Fatty blogged about her on a regular basis, more lately as they dealt with pain management and Susan's waning strength and lucidity. I think many cyclists can identify with a theme of dealing with anger and frustration by turning the cranks. Instead of being sad about Susan, though, he has motivated many to ride for LiveStrong and raise a ton of money for Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong foundation, much of which goes to care of cancer patients and, to some extent, for cancer research (a topic near and dear to my own heart).

If you're new to the FatCyclist blog, this is a good place to start. With tissues in hand. We now know how the battle ends, but Elden and Susan's challenge to "Fight Like Susan" is one I hope I can take seriously when adversity comes along.

Random collections

Random collection of friends. Really, that's what I want in life. People I've found along the way, those who found and adopted me, buds that I've shared a variety of life experiences with. Yesterday, we partied at my mom's for the (apparently annual) pool party at the farm (also known as - our summer house in the country). What was cool was that despite there being many people out of town/on vacation/otherwise engaged, people showed up and I think they even had fun. I did.

Work friends and a BFF from high school, ski instructor drinking buds and bike racing ex-teammates (apparently all the teammates were on vacation or had fussy children!). I shared a bottle of wine with the children's ski school supervisor (who hired me 13 or so years ago to teach), dipped my toes in the cool pool water with my pregnant British colleague from lab, and played with my high school friends' two year old twin boys. We set up a mountain biking trials course on the lawn to work on bridge riding skills with the ski race coaches from Liberty (who are moving to Utah soon) and picked crabs. As the night rolled on, Dirty Girl got into the vodka-soaked watermelon and pretty much everyone left wound up in the hot tub. Fireside chats in or around the hot tub capped the evening...

Eventually everyone except Dirty Girl sobered up and trundled homeward. She crashed in the other guest room and woke up this morning having enjoyed the late night fireworks/thunderstorm and hungry for French Toast and Canadian Bacon ala Mom.

What fun. Thanks everyone for bringing your random collections of life experiences to the table.

Word of the night: jalapeno. Ask Shea about it when you see him.