legs? LEGS? ........where did you go?

Race Report: Gluek Road Race, August 26, 2006


So yeah, there was a race this weekend. Personally, I pretty much checked out of training after the State Road Race—my training log for July shows that I got on my bike exactly eight times in the entire month—but what the hey, I like road races, so I went.

The thing with not training, though, is it makes you suck, which was readily apparent when we hit “the hill” on the back side of the 12-mile course. Smart positioning could have saved me on this one, but smart positioning is not something I do well, and all the contenders were in front of me. So instead of "doing the drift" like a smart little bike racer, all the backwards drifting I did just opened up a gap. By the time I crested the hill, a group of seven had gotten away.

GW Julee and I worked our asses off trying to catch back on, and for the next half lap the gap at least didn’t get any bigger, but it didn’t get any smaller either. After a while we let them go. By that time, though, we could see that Idaho June had been dropped from the lead pack, so we had a rabbit. We chased her for half a lap…but behind us, a group of three was chasing us, and they caught us. And then we were five.


The five of us (which included my teammate Jess) sat up for a while after that and had a leisurely second trip up the hill, then went back to work chasing June. We caught her halfway through the third and final lap. She was cooked from riding solo in the wind for almost two laps, so she was only with us for fifteen or twenty minutes before dropping off again. The same group of five was still together as we approached the finish.

We could see Penelope riding solo in the distance, but with only two miles to go we had no chance of catching her. I don’t think I had the energy left to chase anyway, even if it had been reasonable—stupidly, Gabriella and I had ridden a WHOLE LAP for warmup, which was excessive for a road race and put my mileage for the day over 50. Fifty miles was perfectly reasonable earlier this spring, but I haven’t done anything over 35 in months. Damn that “not training makes you suck” thing. What a load of crap.

The finish line was a mere hundred yards after the final corner. I may have mentioned my feelings about corners before, no? Well, if you’re just joining us, I corner like an eighteen-wheeler. (Caution: this vehicle makes wide right turns.) I went way too wide on the corner, panicked about the centerline, overcorrected, and lost valuable seconds. By the time I got my shit together and started sprinting, my teammate Jess had a huge gap on me. I very nearly made it up—see the uber-dramatic photo, below—but she got me by a good 8-12 inches. Which was cool, she’s improved a ton this year, she deserved it. Even if she did call me a mean name when she saw how close I was.


So I got 8th. Out of 19. My rockstar teammate Cam took the win AGAIN, cementing her ownership of the cat 4 ROY for this year, and Alix and Maria got 4th and 5th. With Jess in 7th, we still snagged five of the top ten. And it is a pretty darn good thing that so many people are upgrading for next year, because the women’s 1/2/3 race in the afternoon had a grand total of five participants. Don’t worry, guys, we’ll save you!

And now I’ve shaken off the slump and am all rah-rah-let’s-race again, but it’s almost cross season and I don’t have a cross bike so I have to wait until April. The good news is, that gives me almost eight months to get the legs back. (Eight months?! Holy shit. Why did I do that math? Now I’m just sad.) On second thought, maybe I’ll just load up on pumpkin pie. That’s right, folks, Pie Season II is coming very very soon……

taking the "estate sale" concept just a little too far

Weird things happen to me sometimes. Today's weird thing: through no fault of my own, I ended up on eBay looking at human skulls. Yes, you can buy human skulls on eBay. Also entire skeletons if you want to spend a bit more. If any of you are interested, the prime skull store on eBay can be found here.

The guy claims that all his skulls "came from medical school" and are presently located in California. Sounds great, but being the intrepid detective that I am, I read all his feedback and apparently the skulls are shipped with a return address that is mysteriously located in China, and are often crusted with grass and dirt. Plus his store is called "Tibetan Secrets." Medical school in California, my ass. Gotta love eBay.

Anyway, I guess it's not my business if some dude wants to dig up some cemeteries and sell the bones on eBay. Gross and wrong, but not my business. From where I sit, the real entertainment is in the guy's 76 pages of feedback. If any of you are not familiar with eBay, it goes like this: you win your auction, you pay your money, the item arrives, and you and the seller leave each other little comments like GREAT TRANSACTION SUPER DUPER EBAYER!!!!!!! A++++++++++++++++. These comments are then part of your eBay record and everyone can see whether it is safe to do business with you based on other people's experiences. And you get this stuff no matter what it is you're selling.

Some highlights:

The perfect stocking stuffer!

It's always a beautiful day when the skulls arrive!

Two heads ARE better than one!

thanks, this will make a great centerpiece on my dinning room table

this "item" is freaking great!

nice skull, scares everyone at my tattoo shop

Just what the Dr. ordered

Me like skull much. Very enjoyed happy guy.

Outstanding. One for each member of the family.

Very nice item! Keep this guy away from your family plot.

Shipping takes awhile, but hey, its a freakin' human skull!!! Its great, Thanx!

And buried (heh heh, I said "buried") deep amidst the positive comments is one really pissed-off dude:

WHAT A RIP OFF BEEN WAITING OVER A MONTH GUESS HE CANT FIND ANOTHER GRAVE TO ROB

......yeah. Too bad I didn't find this until after my birthday.

testing

here, bloggy bloggy bloggy.... where did you go?

it's pickle-licious!

So here I am, at work, and lunch break is awfully far in the distance still, but I'm hungry. And as I mentioned earlier in certain pie-related posts, I'm trying to drop those few pounds that crept up on me when I wasn't paying attention (because I was too busy eating pie). So in my quest for tasty yet low-calorie snacks, I picked up a jar of Gedney Kosher Dill Baby Pickles. Now, I discovered that these are no ordinary pickles, for two reasons:

1. You pick up the jar and look at the bottom, and what do you see but about half a pound of garlic chunks. These are some intense pickles, folks. If you get the regular "dill babies" they do not have all this garlic. I'm not sure what is so kosher about garlic, especially since my co-worker (Paralegal L) has a jar of the non-kosher kind and it still has the little kosher symbol on the label, but there you have it. Watch out. I just ate nine pickles and those poor people in the BodyPump class I'm going to tonight won't know what hit them.

2. Gedney has a website. Paralegal L and I were vaguely curious about why garlic is extra-kosher, so we both checked it out. We never found out what makes garlic so kosher, but we did find a truly excellent animated game called Pickle in the Middle. You operate a little pixelated hand and throw a ball back and forth with a little pixelated dude that looks like Carrot Top, while an exuberant pixelated pickle wearing red Converse hi-tops runs around in the middle and tries to get it. That's right, folks, you too can be playing keep-away with an animated pickle. You can find it here. Just go. You'll be glad you did.

cubicle on wheels

Why would anyone buy this? And why would they buy it in gray? I bet the interior is upholstered in beige and comes with free thumbtacks.