176: noodle brain.

Thursday night, I had hoped Friday would bring a peaceful evening. The weekend had me looking at my first double cross weekend of the year, with Saturday's hillbilly hustle, and Sunday's Ed Sander's Memorial. But alas, we found some kind of cyst on Riley's shoulder, so Friday night was bust ass out of work and get Riley into the car and off to the Vet. An hour and a half later, and my wallet a Franklin lighter, we were on our way home, appears to just be a fatty cyst but we sent it out for further analysis, and will know more at the end of the week.

Saturday I met up with Fitzy and we headed over to the Hill Billy Hustle. Super fun race, Tight technical sections and then some just fast wide open sections. Smaller race, #2 in the new jersey series. Had a good ride. Patrick and I got clear early, but kinda fumbled around each other, we tried hard to work together but didn't pull it off. In the end we let Gabrielle catch us then drop us as he took the win. Good to Him. Fitzy had a nice ride too finishing 15th...

Sunday was the Ed Sanders race. Didn't feel great, didn't sleep well. To be honest I was a little nervous because Mayhew was going to be here. I mean last time he showed up to a race I did, it was pretty ugly, I was really embarrassed. Mayhew does a lot of hard work for me, gives me a lot of attention, I want to put my best foot forward, you know?

Mayhew's training couch must be working pretty well, he took 4th today...

The coalition met at the Iron Skillet at 6:30am, and we were off. Rotten Rob, rode with monkey and I.

Any way the long and the short of my race was this: I got into a break with Nystrom, my friend and teammate, and Jan, my friend who I train with all the time. The three of us rode well together and we did the dance for most of the race. My legs came around and I felt really good going into two to go. I had to change bikes starting the last lap, had a real clean change (thanks Lisa, Lisa and Diane), but Nystrom and Jan had a small gap, and 4th place rider Ron from PVC, bridged up to me during the change. Basically, I wasn't gonna pull him up to my teammate, and my training partner- my friends, and so I sat back and watched Nystrom and Jan duke it out. Jan made a strong attack, Nystrom covered and made a big move of his own and ended up taking the win. I was super stoked for Nystrom. Hell, I was super stoked for Jan who had a hell of good ride too. I finished third, and we finished with a big ole group hug.

Jan and I hit the deck pretty hard on the first lap, as some douche bag made a section that was ridable during the pre-ride, unrideable for our race, and we came into it hot and ready to attack.

Jan and I were promptly thrown over our bars and on to our asses. Luckily my wrist isn't too swollen this morning. Nothing that a little splinting and some advil can't help/ Can't wait to see that video on U-tube. Best of all, as Jan and I are on the ground, i hear him yell, "you assholes!" Totally classic. Seriously, that wasn't the smartest thing I ever saw on a cross course. A little dangerous. Still a great race, hats off to NCVC, Rob and Erik... Maybe we'll throw rattlesnakes on the C men at Granogue. I mean that will make great video. Wonder if Tom will let that fly...

I won't tell too many other stories from today, I'm sure they'll turn up soon enough, other then to say, the DCCoD rode very well, C3 had another strong day too. Monkey is riding the best cross of her life, and just looked rock solid today. I am super proud of her. She's been working so hard. I'll let her tell her story about her dalliance with Soupie. I gotta say, 2 weeks into my season, and not really knowing what to expect I'm very pleased with how I am riding. I have more work to do before the MAC starts, but I have to admit, I wouldn't have dreamed my season would have started as strongly as it has, especially after a pretty big meltdown this summer. But you know what, I'm cool with that, the last two weeks have been pretty killer. Some thing a guy works up to for years, and that's pretty cool.

Thanks for your support.

respect.

faticus.