Mud Racin is Rubbin.,,

Left here a bit late on Saturday morning at 6:15 with a quick stop for Ice and hit the Race Course a bit before 6:50 AM.

Nearly got stuck pulling in, but managed to escape the muck. Found an okay parking spot away from the existing crowd and started scoping for a good camping spot! Picked one up near the trees/rocky hill in the center but it was the cows favorite spot to poo apparently. Found a mostly patty free area to put my tent then used a tarp up front to give me a safe entrance.

Barely used the damn tent. Changed/lived in the car mostly. Next year I need to bring some spare gloves, and more headbands especially if I'm doing laps. More/easy food to eat early when finishing laps. Maybe post lap kits, having longer down times would help so with getting food in easier.

1st lap was a bitch with how muddy it was. Traffic was pretty well split up 2 miles in. Pushed a bit to hard on the lap. 2nd lap the course was pretty wet still the new section was really rough and stayed/got worse the whole race. Rode a better pace I think. 3rd lap was really rough cramps and stiff on the way out. If I had not been starving I should have doubled that lap, then gotten a final 5th. Oh well. 4 was good really except being tired and nearly falling near the end of the pine forest. Ugh.

Adjusting for GPS lost time I think I had around a 7.4 to 7.8 mph average. I'm pretty happy ATC.

Ate 2 sausage links after, then later 2 slices of peporoni pizza, then crashed early. Woke up a few times with cars leaving and a few loud neighbors. I was wiped out. Going out to the porto-let blew it was miserable getting out the sleeping bag. Terrible.

Woke up and gathered gear, helped pack the XXL area then packed up my camp site.

Back at home doing laundry, ate a bunch of pancakes and eggs. Relaxing.

Curses

Yesterday I must have been cursed with slightly bad luck. It was almost a comedy of errors, but in the end I made it thru.

In order of appearance
A) - Missing shims/cones for Rear D - TBL hooked me up with a pair stripped of an old cantilever brake set.
B) - Had 2 people on the 2nd shift call out, 1 guy from my shift stepped up and another on 3rd came in early. Didn't have to miss the WF ride.
C) - Left bladder and brews at work only realized while at TBL. Made it back and to WF by 6:20. LUCKY! Bad traffic on 28 and other spots due to construction on 28 at willard/etc.
D) - Mechanicals Mechanicals Mechanicals on the ride. 1 Major, 2 minor. Still did 10 miles. The others probably got 11 while I fixed a new to the area riders chainline.
E) - Removed to protect the uh...well innocent.
F) - Ooops locked out the wyf last night with the security bolt...my bad.

To end this run of cursed luck I've taken the step of signing up for Curse of Dark Hollow. Relative tight budget has dictated that I pinch my pennies and keep my sanity and I opted to only sign up for the 10 miler after talk to Liz after WF last night. If it doesn't crush me or I feel I need more punishment I can go bigger for Teaberry. I'm strangely excited at the prospect of going somewhere new. To race. Thats apparently hard. Odd. And wow...the weather looks not bad for then. Keeping appropriate digits crossed.

Anyone heading up there thinking of camping Saturday to Sunday???

I'm debating hitting Raystown Lake on Monday if anyone is free.

WoW Results Revisited.

So today they posted the raw unadjusted times for the first 3 WatW's. With no week 1 for me, this is how I broke down.

Week 2 Start Time Total Lap 1 Lap 2
24 - Beg Male rlowe 853 18:08:00 0:43:19 0:20:19 0:23:00
Week 3
27 - Beg Male rlowe 853 18:08:00 0:43:41 0:21:37 0:22:04

Positives -
2nd Lap Time was much better all around and I only lost 30 seconds off pace, not 3 minutes.
Negatives -
1st Lap Time was a full minute slower.
Goals -
Be More Agressive about passing, no hanging out for longer than a single tight section, ask and pass!!!!
Don't get stuck in the back at the start without picking better line up the gravel hill so as to avoid stopping.
Get a time of Say 41 Minutes.

WoW Results - Week 3

Raced Week 3 of Wednesdays at Wakefield today, and I simply didn't feel like I gave it my all once again, I spent too long on my first lap hanging off a guy's rear wheel when I should have asked to pass early on and driven myself forward. My stomach was a bit out of it, I think do to a mix of the race jitters and a bit iffy lunch of leftovers.

I'll post more later when I can get the data out of my GPS and see how it really went, my time on my cyclecomp and GPS showed a total time of around 44:30'ish. So we'll see later on how I actually did. A LOT fewer riders by my estimation in beginner.

Paul of the Rosaryvillians must have crushed me this week, I never saw him after the pile up at the start near the top of the hill! Ugh. But big props to him. Hope Eric did well also. While racing I think both JoeP and Ricky on single speeds passed me this week.

To Race or Not To Race

Competition scares me. Or rather I'm hesitant to compete, and that sucks even in my opinion. Damn stupid childhood. I can only question myself in this and try and understand why I dislike it.

I guess I can see parts of it back in High School, especially during team stuff in Phys. Ed. I can clearly remember how frustrating I was in thinks like volleyball and soccer, with how I performed inconsistently, or when my teams would slack off. Funnily I remember not being upset for things like running competitions, or physical work.
In recent years, excluding perhaps Kendo/Iajutsu I've found myself avoiding competitive activities.

So where am I going with this you ask, today after work I headed out intending to ride. As I was driving away I had a random thought that it could possibly be the first Wednesday at Wakefield, but I dismissed it and headed on. Low and behold. I pull in and it's bike city, I head out to the far softball lot and gear up, a quick trip to the race area and I determine that I don't have any cash, so no racing today, which might have been better if I had! Less of a chance to wimp out!

So instead I rode about 16.7 miles of accotink. Nice hills and a few descents that are a bit fun. All the while pondering what would it be like to race, if I could fully set aside expectations and just go out with a desire to win, to ride my butt off and try and do as well as possible without getting frustrated at my placement. I still don't know if I can, I do know I WANT to and thats half the battle.

Afterwards I did go back to the race area to hang out. I got to see the kids awards ceremony and I saw a few folks I know but they were mostly talking with other people, the experts were riding when I was there but they were running fast and I only saw a few groups pass through.

I'm not even going to look at the results for this week regardless. And as of right now I am PLANNING on racing next Wednesday, but we'll see.

In beer news, the beer appears to be fermenting nicely, with a nice foamy head and the airlock was bubbling, pretty well.

Racing Around the trees.

Originally I was planning on racing next week at the Wakefield Dualathalon, but right now the running part is making me a bit skeptical of it. However I might decide to jump back towards it. However other events are on the horizon that are sorely tempting.

The main race I'm contemplating is the 12 Hours of Lodi Farm down in Fredericksburg Va in the beginning of May. I do want to get out and try a pre-ride in April sometime before I reg to see how hard the course is, I've had a few people say it is kinda tough but I'm not super stressing over the difficulty. I'd like to find 2 other fellows to race for a three man team, though a 2 man would be alright I guess.

I might try for Greenbriar Challenge if I don't end up trying for Lodi.

Greenbriar would be very challenging also but would only end up being 2 laps, however it has some heavy duty climbing that is quite hard, the big red one is veyr rocky and challenging and there so many people out there I heard that passing and stuff become a heckofa challenge. Who knows I might go out there and try and ride it again course wise vs the ride I did in january and see if I suffer as bad this time.

Oh yah Scary Movie 4 is crack...:) The bit with charlie sheen in the beginning is hillarious!