It’s Monday afternoon and I find myself sitting in room 221 of the Days Inn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This morning Hoppy and I switched from our lovely smoking room to a much more sinus pleasing non-smoking room. Let me tell you, the Days Inn here is a real beauty! Such a beauty, that CSC checked out after the first night and it looks like Jelly Belly followed today. Who’ll be next……Health Net? Barlowrold? We’ll see…… Out here in the sticks of Pennsylania, it’s Amish country. I saw a few bugggies being pulled by horses on my training ride today. It’s a far cry from the lifted SUV’s clogging Phoenix’s roads. I was reading a book yesterday and I learned that the Amish have gray buggies while Mennonites have black one’s. You learn something new everyday.
Lancaster went alright for me. It was my first NRC race back in about a month so I figured it would be a bit of a shock to the system. I felt strong but lacked the top end speed needed to be competitive in that level of field. There was a long fast crosswind stretch after the feed zone climb and every lap I was muttering obscenities as I closed the gap I kept openning up. I ended up coming off with a few laps to go in the mass exodus of riders created by the eye crossing efforts of CSC. Eureka! They whittled the field right down to the 40 or so guys that took it to the finish. But, on the bright side, it was just the effort I needed to sharpen back up for the rest of the racing trip. I’m excited for Thursday’s race and of course Sunday in Philly. Much respect to Jackson Stewart for snatching up the win. Quite impressive.
I overheard two things of interest in the race………
One….. was Lars Michaelson (CSC) telling his team mate, “I’m scared”……….. The first few laps of the race were very very sketchy. There was a big crash about 2k into it that took out Trent. Luckily, he got back on and ended up 12th.
Two….. was when Marc and I were cruising around after the race. There were hundreds of kids all over the course yelling for us to throw our watter bottles to them……There was one young girl, maybe 8 years old, standing next to her little brother who was wearing a “Vote For Pedro” shirt. When we passed the little girl she wanted a bottle and unfortunately, we didn’t have one to throw to her. She then said, “bikes just don’t pedal themselves, you know”……………I was speechless, she did have a valid point.
My post yesterday, of the crash video from the CSC Invitational, has got a ton of page hits…..go figure. That’s all for now.
Cheers.
