Cal Poly--> Slow motion for me

This weekend was my first collegiate A's race in 10 years. 99 was the last time I got after it with kids who throw caution to the wind and race like their school colors depended on it. Surviving many crashes, I came away unscathed and got in some great training. Like a true college-budgeted racer, I stayed in a $60/night motel 6 with 3 other dudes. Never doing that again. I told Jordan that I sleep naked and he just slept in his clothes. Those guys were also weirded out by my compression stalkings. Little did they know that these tighty whiteys do more for snap the next day than any hokey pokey jumping in frozen lakes or eating 10 bananas.



This is a pic of me in the hurt locker after about 20 laps. This climb was a wall at about 120 feet then another 60 feet. Then it was straight down around a 100 hay bale corner. 100 HAY BALES! I have never, in all my years of racing, seen so many bales. And as you can imagine, the 19 year old racers did not disappoint. There were at least 10 crashes there.

Seated suffering.





I like this pic. It gives glimpse of a couple things. FIrst, I'm huge. 200 lbs is too heavy. Second, pactimo is the worst clothing ever. Our bibs dont even match our tops. Pitiful. Third, it shows how spread out the climbing was. It was seriously hard. Not for me. But really good training. I'm about to download my wattage. I'll post that next. THis hill was about as long as reston but WAY steeper. NOt fun.


Pain cave plank owner. At least I look good. I have this thing with rough kits though. SR, bless all y'all, had the worst uniforms 2 years running. This top and bottom is a close third.


All of these photos are credited to jarrettstreebin.blogspot.com


Ok, so now the race recount. In saturday's 60 mile men's A race, we just chilled the 1st 5 miles. Which was nice. THen the moto didnt know where it was going so they took us down a wrong road. Head on to the men's B! yikes! We somehow managed to not crash. It was the worst course I have ever raced on. A 5 mile circuit, about every 300 feet, there was an 18 inch cut in the road which was just filled with dirt or gravel. NOt awesome. I couldnt believe it. We were cornering at 30 mph in the gravel! Stupid. As you can imagine, there were plenty of wrecks. The omnium leader had his rear D tore off from some dude crashing into him. Thats not good for the leader.

Two breaks made it away and I missed both of them. 1st was 4 dudes, 2nd was 3 dudes. SO the field was left to sprint for 8th. My teammate, 19 year old cat 1 harrison, went to the front and yanked like a madman setting me up perfectly for the final corner. I made it there with ease and 3 bike lengths. Then I look up to see a dude doing jumping jacks in the middle of the course. I thought to myself--weird. THen I saw the jacknifed rv and car behind jumpin jacker. Seriously not a good thing for sprinting to the line. I sat up so that I could live. Protesting only got me my 8th place--and the next 10 dudes all got 8th too. Sprinted for nothing.

I knew the next day's crit would be not my cup of tea as it was a serious amount of climbing followed by the 100 hay bale descent. Of course I was caught behind a crash (7th and 8th place decided it was cooler to slam into each other, then the curb, rather than letting one go in front of the other through the corner). Free lap then I just hung out at 5 seconds for a half hour. I was pulled with about 15 mins to go and ended up 12th (I think).

Long drive home with jarrett and talked a little about training and life. NOw I am not doing my HW or studying because the weekend should be for good times. Next weekend is a race in santa barbara but I have finals the week after. We'll see