UNR Race Weekend

Ah. It's always nice to get to sleep in my own bed before a race. And to not drive. I'm dreading the drive down to Kern (Bakersfield . . . sweet) in a couple of weeks, so every opportunity to not drive is welcome. So, my school team, UNR, hosted WCCC championships. Lots of folks drove up from LA and San Diego - way too long to drive for a bike race. But hopefully they had fun. Here's a few highlights.

My friend's yellow van hooked up to the porta-potties. So classic. Interestingly enough (no, actually not interesting at all) during this race season I've heard more names for porta-potties than ever before. (See, I told you it wasn't interesting.) But they're still porta-potties as far as I'm concerned. Also notice our awesome volunteers, many of them who raced, and some super awesome significant others who came out to lend a hand.

This isn't really a highlight, more of a low light. People seemed to have a hard time staying upright in the 120 degree turn at the bottom of our course. Ooops.

Cody raced the D's, and I was very proud of him. Ironically, the men's D's were the only field where no one crashed on the sketchy corner. I think that tell us something. It says, "Hey, you folks may be fast, but you don't have the sense to not attack in the corner that already took out 10 people. Get a clue." Sorry, that was unnecessarily hostile. But my weekend was kinda full of unnecessary hostility, so I feel that it's in keeping.

Speaking of which, there was a whole lot of negative racing going on this weekend. This is me sprinting it out in the crit alone after I almost got taken out in the gnar corner in the 2nd to last lap. That was after I towed the "chase" group around for, oh, 18 of the 27 laps we did. A few girls got off the front after the first crash. They were super duper strong. Anyway, every other girl who was in my group had a teammate in the break, so they all just sat up and let them go. Once I realized this I figured it was better to go down fighting, so I went to the front and hammered as hard as I could for the rest of the race, until the aforementioned crash left me alone in the wind. Bummer. Sure, I didn't really think we could catch the lead group, but if I hadn't been working so hard I'm pretty sure we woulda been lapped, so it was totally worth it.

Haha, more hostility - during the road race on the previous day I told the group I was with to "Chill the f*** out and start being nice to eachother." A couple of girls were being all bossy and mean and kept sniping at everyone else and I just couldn't take it anymore. Oddly enough, my totally out of line comment seemed to do the trick, and everyone started being nice. Either that or they just decided I was a horrible person and then didn't want to talk to me at all? Whatever. I'm usually pretty nonconfrontational, too, so that was pretty out of character.

The lesson from this weekend? Okay, every weekend? And the occasional week day? I love racing my bike. But I guess I already knew that so it's a stupid lesson anyway. Back to the real world . . .

No Otter Slaughter for me.

Okay, I get it. The whole "Sea Slaughter," "Slaughter the Otter" thing is getting a little old. So I'll let it drop. Until next year.

Anywho, I skipped it, because if I had the $200 dollars necessary for the race entry fees I'd probably pay my rent instead. Cause, you know, it's good to pay rent every once in a while. Just sayin'.
So I headed down to Berkeley (okay, Crockett) and raced the Cal collegiate road race yesterday. There was a time, not too long ago, when I kicked ass in collegiate cycling. Now . . . not so much. That race has a really really steep climb and it was hella windy. I did not have a good day. I had some gnarly muscular pain through the right side of my body that I attribute to my crash on monday (since I landed on my right side . . .). So, I'll write it off as good training. Whatever. The UNR team is hosting conference championships next weekend, so I hope I have a better race then, cause it sucks to get your ass handed to you on your own course.

Speaking of my crash, I get my stitches out of my head tomorrow! Yay! I think they're what's making me the most uncomfortable, since there's a bunch of my hair sutured up. I ignored my doctor's prescription and didn't take any antibiotics. Mostly because the majority of my microbiology class has focused on emerging drug resistence in bacteria, largely due to inappropriate use of antibiotics. So. There. But thanks to the good old hearty immune system, and excellent scalp hygeine on my part =), I'm infection free. I'd take the stitches out myself if I could see them.

Okay, this whole post is getting way too long, but I'm not done yet. I have determined to do a triathlon in August. A short one. But I went to the pool to swim today. The first time I've attempted to swim for a purpose other than not-drowning since I was on swim team when I was 10. I pretty much sucked at swim team, too, so today was pretty amusing. I think I swallowed a bit of pool water - erg, ick. And, now I have to stop making jokes about tri people. Damnit! That takes out some of my best material!

From sweating and sunburns to . . . this . . .

So, yeah, it's snowing. But I guess this week is all about rest and recovery, and I can't even put my helmet on over my hamburgered head, so no harm in sitting inside on the rollers, right? Grr . . . but why does this happen right when the flowers all start to bloom?

Madera and Stitch-Head

So . . . Madera! After a very long hot drive down to Madera, I got lost trying to pick up Marian So Cal at the train station. But I found her eventually, so, you know, that's good.
For once in my life I'd say that the crit was the highlight of my racing weekend. Not the highlight of my weekend in general, but just the racing part. I actually won a prime. Woo hoo! Anyway, I think I pretty much destroyed myself for the TT, cause things kinda fell apart during the last half of that. But I think I ended up sixth after day one.
We got go to have a lovely dinner with the Bellas, and a lovely glass of wine with yummy dinner. That was very nice. After which I pretty much passed out while watching a Harry Potter movie on TV.
The road race was really hard. Atleast for the first three laps. The last lap wasn't too hard cause I was riding by myself and just kinda chillin'. I got dropped on the rollers heading into the last lap and was happy just to finish. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't, right? So I'm happy with the weekend, even though I didn't have a good result. I was stoked to see the ladies in the 35+ and cat 4s out there attacking and putting the hurt on. That was awesome.

Sooo . . . this morning I fell off my bike and kinda slid on my head. I'm totally okay, but I got a bunch of stitches in my scalp. It's gross, but I'd like to share, nonetheless. The worst part was getting my tetanus shot, but I guess it's good to get one of those every once in awhile. :)

Uh oh.

I think my dog has a drinking problem.

I caught him drinking before noon. Beer for breakfast?

My new training regimin!

Race on the weekend (or at least do a race-effort ride) and ride my mountain bike with my dog (and sometimes my boy) during the week. I like it. Er . . . yeah, I should probably go do intervals or something, maybe, someday.

Yay! Riley gets to cool off! In a nasty, scummy puddle no less.

If you squint really really hard you can see the little desert flowers coming up. I think the purple ones are petunias.

He knows we won't get too far ahead. He learned today that when we are coming up behind him on a descent and well yell his name that he should pull off the trail and quick! It's kinda like passing people during a mountain bike race, only Riley is a little more gracious then most boys I pass. :)

Say what you will, I do love the desert in springtime.