Nationals

I'm going to Tarantino this for you. (Mom, that means that I am going to share the ENDING before the beginning)

We are standing in the tunnel to get on the plane in Chicago, to fly home to Seattle. There was a small light in the chaos that is plane boarding, and that light was the conversation that I was able to overhear between a father and his roughly 4 year old son.

    Father, explaining why his son shouldn't be running around and bumping into people in the line:  
    "Buddy, people have their personal bubble, you need to respect that."

    Son: "Well can I STARE at people??"

    Father: "No! That counts as personal boundaries too little man! People don't like being stared at"

    Son: "But I realllllllly like to stare at people"

    Father: "Well you better get some really dark sunglasses".

Also of importance, the dad was wearing dark sunglasses.


Anyways, that leads in well for the last couple pictures I took in our hotel-

I'llll creeeep creeeep creeep. I'lllll creep - Lil Jon

Following me

But continuing with the Tarantino-ing before getting to the actual races, spending time at this hotel in Georgia somewhat changed us. Not only did all my things smell like cigarettes when I returned home, but our actions and lifestyles started to morph while we were there.

Example A-

just 4 dudes and we're having a good time having a good time, having a good time

Example B-

Then we locked Steve in a pika pak. I'm not to sure what this has to do with staying in the hotel but it had to be related to that somehow.

There's a Steve in that bag

U23 Crit: The crit was pinting HOT. Downtown Augusta is allright, but sunny. And humid. Our race was 60K, 50 laps on the rectangular course. People started staging 40 minutes before our race, so Steve and I hung out and "chilled" (LOL) in the shade while all those suckers got really warm in the sun. Then we chopped everyone and lined up second row. The plan was to not do anything for 40-50 minutes. But I just couldn't help myself and was in the first breakaway. Oops. Then I sat 20th wheel for 1 hour. Drank two whole bottles and still had 40 minutes left in the race. Threw up 4 separate times as I got thirstier and thirstier. Pulled a Kennett and bit my cheeks. And then everything turned off with 3 laps to go and I came off the front group of ~40, pretty disappointed but 100 percent busted up. It took 20 minutes of sitting on a cooler in the shade to be able to unbuckle my shoes.

On Friday Night, Lang and I did laundry while wearing tanktop undershirts. We fit in at the hotel. However, we didn't participate in the pickup truck party that was happening in the parking lot, or the army party that was happening on the third floor balcony.

 Here are some pictures of myself and Lang doing laundry. Lang is the one on the ....

 
U23 Road Race: Early on little groups of 2 and 3 kept getting up the road. I had my mind set on climbing fast up the finish hill the last lap and making a sprint against ~20 guys. I didn't want to go in a move of 2 and spend an hour pinning it, only to get caught and end up attacking myself off the back. I was ready to go in a bigger break, but for some reason I didn't even consider the idea that all those little groups could become 1-2 BIG groups!

All of a sudden I was in a group of around 50 with still 60 miles to race in the 100 degree temperature. Because we raced at 1 pm (WTF). We were considered the peleton, but there were 30+ people up the road. Which meant that no one in my group was really racing anymore. At one point, we were 12 minutes down, and I thought I was on a coffee shop ride. The plus side of this is that it was like I was on a long bike ride with my BFF4Lyfe Benny. It got to the point where the "peleton" had no lead or follow car, and we were instructed to obey traffic laws. Then people started to pull, and we started to bring people back, one cracked, heat-broken soul at a time. After another hour or so we caught the 2nd big group on the road, which both Steve and Jordan were in. They had been in various forms of breakaways ALL DAY and I had been riding easy. Suckaaaas. We had no idea how many guys were up the road, the officials had no idea, and we heard everything from we were racing for 11th to that there were still 40 guys up the road.

Turns out there was 20 guys up the road. Then after one guy got away from our group, Steve got away with 3 other guys in the last couple of K's, and some other guys got away with 1 k to go, Benny and I picked up the pieces in the finish climb/sprint. So I was 32nd in the Road Race.

Why does this happen everywhere I go?

Elite Road Race: It was advertised as 217 starters, but if I believed that I would also believe that Steve was 5'6". So yeah, there was maybe 180 starters. Probably because the heat was pretty extreme on Sunday at noon when we started (WTF!).

I had a job in this race, and that was to help out Lang and Dan-Land as much as I possibly could. So that meant I was to try and get in the early breakaway, and if I couldn't do that, I was on bottle duty until I couldn't retrieve one more Hammer Nutrition bottle. I was in the first 2 moves, then got really tired. I then tried to keep Lang from getting thirsty.

Dan killing it in the break

Dan-Land made the breakaway and crushed it alllllll day in the heat. Dan Harm was riding like a thug, and was always in the top 15 guys in the group. I know this because it was a loooooooooooonnnnnnnnggggggggg way up through the pack everytime that I had bottles for him. Steve and I then got more bottles. Then I started to get dropped, ALOT. I would get dropped, and then think to myself that if I caught up, I could at least get bottles for the guys one more time. So I did that a total of 4 times. I also had to do a wheel change in there, and after a power bottle that almost broke my arm when I ran into the mirror, I was able to catch back up. I got dropped for good on lap 4 of 7, and then got a milkshake.

Me and Steve riding at the back to you know, get bottles

So a disappointing weekend results wise, but it was good racing and I learned things in every event. And in bike racing school, if you're not learning, you might as well not show up.

“As humans we’ve gotten so far from what we were supposed to do that we’re always searching for something that makes us real again, that gives us that feeling of doing what we’re meant to do. For me, bike racing is that.”

-Svein Tuft

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