Ten Things from the Granogue Weekend...

Race Promotion Make Potter Tired.

1. Thanks to everyone that came out for our race weekend, runners, time trialist, and MASS racers. The folks that came out to granogue were awesome this year. There are lots of other races that have landed on our date. You could have been anywhere in the world, but you choose to be with us. We appreciate that choice and hope to make your experience the best we can.

Push Up Contest for A Set of Tires

2. Thanks to our volunteers- 2 days of racing takes a lot of people and a lot of time to pull off. Thanks to everyone who sacrificed their weekend, their time to come out and help us pull off this event. If you love something, like say bike racing, you have to give back to it. For everything we get from this game, it's worth it to give back.  Thanks to everyone who helps this weekend happen.  I will say the daily  6:00 am meetings with Tom, Buddy, Laurie and Charlie at the venue were hard, but moments that I wouldn't miss. Awesome stuff.



3. Awful coffee mugs. The printer screwed them up. Totally disappointing. Thanks to everyone who finished in the top 10 or that I could pawn them off to. Thanks for happily taking  them, so they are not stuck in my garage.

4.  DE, MD, PA, NJ Mountain Bike Time Trial State Championships- seriously an excuse for me to get to race the granogue event. thanks to everyone coming out to play with me a bit. 3 mile race, 20 minute efforts or so... Super fun...  We've grown it the last two years, and hope to grow it again next year...

The Competitors for the DE, MD,PA, NJ Mountain Bike Time Trial State Championships

5. My partner Jeffy. First I figured out how to keep the kid from dropping me: make him run a 10k before our race. Even then I think he was going easy on me.  Thanks  Jeff. Maybe it's just kind of a silly mountain bike time trail, but you know it was rad to race with him. He took lines and did things, that I never could dream of and racing with him was just awesome.  20 years from now I'll still tell the story of racing with him. We had the 2nd fastest time overall, and cut over 3 minutes off our time from last year. Conditions were outstanding this year. BTW, We are the DE, MD, NJ, PA Mountain Bike Team Time Trial State Champions, which is nice.

6. Seriously, promoting a 10k run is about 100x easier than a bike race. No scrum for the line, everyone is stoked with the prizes they get, they are in an out in 2 hours.  Awesome and Easy. Take note bike racers ;)

Kyle Miller working hard as a Running Marshall.

Charley the evil mastermind behind our 10k run

7.  It's monkey's birthday. She comes out and works her ass off for the race. She's awesome, and I really, really appreciate ll her efforts. How many of you out there would give up their birthday weekend to run around a bike race for 2 days. My wife really does kick ass.

 Monk always gives away more swag on her birthday than she gets!

8. Potter's baby sitters. Thanks to everyone who end up hanging on to Potter when Monk or I had to run to do something. Thanks a ton.




9. Fun. Hell yeah, that's why we do this right? But let me be honest the last few granogue races I have been a ball of hot tired mess. I didn't feel like I got to enjoy the trees for the forrest. I really didn't have fun- just stress.  I don't know what was different. maybe it started with a nice walk in the woods early Friday marking a section of the course with the Manchester Orchestra in my ear. Maybe it was the sunshine. Maybe it was the great people all around me. I don't know but this was by far the most fun I had promoting a race in a very long time.

10. Andrew Mein. Our race's name sake. One of the founder's of the WW mountain bike team. The first guy that brought me into the bike scene. And he taught me "to always be an ambassador for the sport". Almost twenty years later, it still resonates with me. I treasure the opportunity to spread his message this weekend.

thanks for reading

respect
fatmarc