SLO race weekend: a novella

I was excited for the SLO race weekend. I had it all built up in my mind: the joyful homecoming, the extravagant reuinions, my imminent large-margin victories in all classes of every race, the colorful celebrations that would follow, and the general frolicking and merry-making that would take place throughout SLO, North County, the 5 cities, along the coast, in the hills, amongst the seven sisters, hither and tither, up and down, and all throughout the unincorporated wonderfulness of the central coast. I saw myself basking in sunshine, skipping in the sand, twirling through daffodils, and laughing in a light breeze with my long (much longer than it really is) red hair flirting out behind me and my white (much whiter than they actually are) teeth dazzling in smile all while standing atop the tallest post of a (adoring crowd-infested) podium ceremony.

Clearly, nearly none of this actually happened. But it was pretty fun anyway.

It all started with a drive down to the Land of Beaches and Bitches. I ignored my sneaking suspicions that I was not entirely healthy, chugging down liquids in various (non-alcoholic) forms in an effort to appease my tickling throat and increasingly hot (sizzle) breath. The drive was awful at best, with plenty of unexpected traffic to be found in that lonely, eucalyptus-clad section of 101 between Gilroy and Salinas. From what I gathered, the whole hour-long ordeal was caused mainly by that certain breed of human beings who suffers from the idiodic desire to drive slowly and gawk at roadside accidents. Being a person of (humbly, modestly) a significantly higher intelligence than these gawkers, I have a hard time sympathisizing with what must sadly be a mild form of mental retardation. I put these people alongside other things that I don't understand, including but not limited to:

- staying in the far left hand lane on highway 24 when only one tunnel is open through the Caldecott
- being sad that Michael Jackson is dead
- boys

In any case, I spent a good long while staring at this:



I sat there sweating, scantily clad in a super cute green halter top dress that I'd bought in a desperate attempt to replace items in my wardrobe that are leftover from high school. Finally, busting through the remains of the stop-and-go, I hit up my old friend cruise control for a smooth sail into the city known as San Luis Obispo.

Speaking of which, let's review this town's name, shall we?

GOOD:
"San Luis Obispo"
"SLO"
"San Luis"

BAD:
"San Loooeeee Obispo"
"S.L.O."
"The Obispo"

Once in town, I met Dave Hovde, I mean Barrett, for dinner at Thai Classic, which happens to have the best coconut soup in the entire world.

"Why are you wearing a dress??? What's the occasion?" Barrett asked, which I thought little of until arriving at the Dolce Vita host house, when my teammates surrounded me and demanded to know,

"HOW WAS YOUR DATE?!?!?!" and refused to believe it was not a date, due to the fact that I was wearing a dress and not my usual paint-splattered bermuda shorts and crusty-armpitted t-shirt. More on this attempted transition to the world of wearing cute summer dresses later.

But let's back up to this host house, shall we?

We were living in true Atascadero luxury. Our lovely hostesses Lisa and Michelle were kind enough to do pretty much everything imaginable for us, including cooking us a gigantic pancake feast. They had a beautiful home with a pool, a hot tub, a gated driveway, and a pepper grinder that automatically grinds the pepper for you when you tilt it over your food. It was amazing.

The ladies of Dolce spent Saturday morning trading gossip updates and making cruel (yet necessary) jokes mostly centered around an unfortunate male third party who was not present. We watched the tour, lounged around, ate sandwiches, and then headed off toward Camp San Luis, site of the day's afternoon road race.

It was odd, driving through San Luis and up Highway 1 knowing that I was here as a visitor, not as someone who lives 2 miles away and could ride home after the sufferfest. And sufferfest it was!!! I am fairly certain that Shaba, the race director, was probably attempting some sort of genocide by planning this event. Once registering, I noticed that the earlier start fields, which were just finishing up, seemed to be completely demolished, with riders trickling in one at a time looking crestfallen and beaten, like they'd recently been clobbered with a large mallet.

Janelle "Pretty Package" Kellmen rode by and flipped us off. Christine "Striker" Riker rode by with her head low in determination, eyes focused like a bird of prey as she solo'd in for the 3/4 win.

I lined up amid an entire squad of Jazz Apples, a slew of SoCal girls who I didn't know, some local ladies, and my amazing teammates Kate "Kate of Spades" Ligler and Mary "Virgin Mary" Magnani. I won't go into the (wretched, terrifying) details, but this race was unlike any race I have ever done before. The field shattered into small groups on lap 2 (of 9!!!), with some Apples and a tall thin La Grange rider pounding it up the hill (which, each lap, was longer than the last). I found myself in chase mode with Ryan Hostetter, and soon we were joined by Kiwi Susy Pryde, who seemed to be having some difficulty until realizing that her breaks were rubbing up something nasty.

"You'll never believe it, mates! My brake was rubbing! What a goose!" Susy laughed, and then proceeded to pull us around at what by this point felt like warp speeds. After 5 laps of having fireworks exploding in my legs, I called it a day. I wasn't the only one. When I got back to the car I noticed the lot was nearly empty. I watched the remaining groups roll through and observed with horror as each group shattered and the number of racers dwindled to handfuls in the last laps. I witnessed Jane Despas move backwards and Kristina Seley explode so extravagantly that she later confessed to having to walk up part of the last hill. It was pure carnage out there.

The Kate of Spades and Virgin Mary returned, and I offered them cokes and tried to help out by loading their bikes, but let's not be foolish, here - those girls were able to cook themselves to a tough, rubbery steak where I had just seared myself into a tender fillet of ahi tuna. Here are some before and after shots for your enjoyment:


Mary is naively excited before the torture commences


Exhasuted but just glad it's over


The Eye of The Liger is ready for the thrill of the fight


and then she found twenty dollars


"Look at me! I'm about to race my bike! Yay! Look at me!"


Ugh. Don't look at me.


Life was much improved back at the A-town ranch, with showers, baked beans, potato salad, cupcakes, a soak in the hot tub immeditely followed by a jump into a frigid pool, and a candid discussion about merkinds, codpieces, and small bananas.


Janelle models a merkin of small bananas


Sunday's criterium was smack in the middle of downtown. It was a great course, with swoopy corner and a narrow jaunt through Mission Plaza. We watched Riker and Kelly Snow safely sprint to awesomeness in the 3/4 race as many girls were not so lucky in a top-speed pile-up on the finish line.



For her win in the overall omnium, Riker was awarded a flowery pink jersey which clashes wonderfully with her yellow bike.

After an easy spin out to Avila and a most splendid lunch from High Street Deli (I drooled a little bit when I typed that), it was time for the afternoon's 1/2/3 race. I was feeling compellingly sub-par but didn't much give a damn. The players on the start line included the Jazz Apples, more La Grange, some Helen's peeps, a smattering of ladies with no teammates, and the ladies of Dolce, including:

Kate Ligler (in a white skinsuit)
Janelle Kellman (in a white skinsuit)
Christine Riker (no skinsuit)
Kim White (in a white skinsuit)
Mary Magnani (no skinsuit)
me (no skinsuit)

I'll have to run the statistical models later, but I'm nearly certain that those of us in skinsuits had, on the whole, better results than those without.

It was a fa-a-a-a-ast race. I stayed up front for the first half of the race, feeling quite as on fire as my roller derby name "Fire Crotch" might suggest, until eventually fading into the midst and trying to ignore the flurry of warm, sticky snot that was dribbling out my nose and all over my top tube.

Gross!


This photo shows not my snot


Through ye old mission


I saw my teammates, each and every one of them, making magic on the front and realized, quite a bit too late, that we'd missed what looked to be the winning move of the day. I muscled my way back up to the front to help with the chase but it was to no avail: Jazz Apple waltzed away with the victory again while we moshed around in a bunch sprint.

All in all, we worked together quite well. As Janelle was quick to point out, the pre-superweek race experience was a success because we still like each other going into 10 days of living with each other.

I hung around the SLO area for an extra couple days, crashing at my friend Karen's place in A-town and spending some time at the beach, riding around north county, being accosted by a homeless man in Santa Rosa Park who introduced himself as "Horse Shit" and said "Bubbles, you've got a beautiful smile, love you in that dress", and watching otters at Morro Bay with a cup of coffee from Top Dog, which despite its name sells no hot dogs.

in order ot beat the other party to it...

Yesterday I went mountain biking with two people, one of whom was Peter Brown.

But let's back up a bit, shall we?

Mountain biking in the east bay is not like mountain biking in San Luis Obispo, where I was spoiled to enjoy the luxuries of pedaling out of my delapidated, crusty double-wide trailor and immediately into a fresh patch of crisp, clean wilderness. Gone are the blissful days of 10-minute drives into town, nighttime quickies around a dusty Madonna, breezy sunday pedals up Shooters, and beachside toodles through what is without doubt the best place in the entire world, Montana de Oro.

No, no, knobby-tired excursions in the east bay are cruel, punnishing, unrewarding, and lackluster at best - with "really steep fireroads" crammed between highways and smog the best legal adventures we have to offer. I suppose this lack of nearby excitement combined with a homesickness for unpopulated meanderings left me weak and vulnerable.

Those who frequent this B.L.O.G. may recognize Peter Brown as that stalker-like individual often leaving slightly creepy remarks in the comments section, including, at one point, a marriage proposal (my second ever marriage proposal; the first one was oral and thus, like most oral things tend to be, better). While all of my San Luis Obispo biker friends know who Peter is, nearly none of my east bay biker friends do. This will become important later.

Cut to tuesday evening, as a teammate is riding with me through the hustle and bustle of downtown Oakland on the way to the Port Ride. While weaving through large vans, small sedans, drunk pedestrians and construction crews alike, I told her of my upcoming plans to reunite myself with my one true love (hello,TITUS) in annadel state park. Excited at the prospect of twisty singletrack, rocky climbs, and redwood trees, I blabbered on and on, waxing poetic and weaving a delicate love story about myself and a little white bike I call Fantasy (Not like my Clit Masher; oh, no).

"TRACIE, DON'T GO," interrupted my loyal teammie, clearly horrified at the entire scheme. "You can't just go off riding through some strange deserted area with some strange man! That's dangerous!"

I contemplated this, thinking about how much safer I feel surrounded by oak trees and fiesta flower than the present large automobiles and street wanderers. I considered for a moment the fact that I often prance about in rural places alone, and wondered if agreeing to do so with someone who happens to be a boy makes this activity more dangerous than it already is.

It's possible, but when, upon parting ways, I was offered to borrow some pepper spray, I declined, imagining an akward scenario in which I am riding around with a conscpicuously labeled can of pepper spray poking out of my rear jersey pocket.

I did, however, invite another friend. Just because.

I picked Sarah "K-fast" Kayfetz up at her place the following afternoon and we rocked the carpool lane for as long as it lasted, then suffered through what has unfortunately become the expected levels of stop-and-go traffic for a late afternoon commute. We discussed common interests such as boys, bikes, scrabble, and dancing, and common non-interests like monogrammed towels and overly serious people.

Finally arriving in Santa Rosa, Sarah, Peter (who was oddly wearing nearly all red - a fashion disaster that seems to follow me on mountain bike rides) and I headed out to the park. While I bounced around excitedly, thinking of happy trails and blue skies, Peter informed me that I have a reputation as being "verifiably crazy", but refused to give solid examples. While I'm sure he was blowing smoke up his own butt, I assured him that if he wanted to swap brutally honest stories about each other's reputations, I would be more than happy to unload. I was nearly disappointed when he didn't take me up on the offer, but perhaps he already knows...?

Once in the park, it was party time, with a solid 3 hours of dirt, including swoops, rocks, tall trees, lakes, a lost contact lens ("can we go back and look for it?"), and one spectacular whipe-out that left me with a bloody hip and jersey full of dust. Also included were jokes (I told my favorite pirate joke while Peter told a joke in which he immitated a mentally impaired individual and did so quite naturally, while a 4th mountain biker who was stoned out of his mind looked on in dazed confusion), hilarious under-her-breath comments from Sarah, and strikingly rude accusations from Peter to myself, including but not limited to

"I thought you were like 30 years old and 5 feet tall and 135 pounds"

and

"You need to stop eating so much"

This actually led me to deliberatly fall off the pace so that I could eat a bar in guiltless privacy. I suppose this is how eating disorders probably develop.

I assume Peter realized he was collecting Asshole Points, since he took us to dinner afterwards even after I told him that I nearly brought pepper spray and would be driving home immediately following the end of the meal. Despite my immense hunger (being 135 pounds builds up quite an appetite), I quickly became uninterested in food as Sarah and Peter engaged in an animated discussion about pubic hair and vaginas. A woman at a nearby table kept giving us dirty looks, as my two compatriots rallied on about landing strips and Brazilians, porn stars and Grow vs. Show, and I shrinked into the corner and looked vaguely out the window, thinking about people and places roughly 300 miles south.

As Sarah drove my car back to her house ("I can drive an automatic!" she yipped, inspiring true confidence in her driving abilities), we agreed that variety in cycling is a necessity to sanity, and then discussed rhombuses for a while. Once at her place, it was a one-eyed drive home (I wore an eye patch and stuffed a coathanger in my sleeve to make a hook... it was like me first day with it). Once home I crawled right into bed, all sweaty and dirt-covered and everything. I fell asleep immediately, with a soft thud as my slumbering head hit the pillow with the sort of sweet tiredness that comes only after a two-wheeled adventure in the back country. Having skipped out on some of the best trails in the park due to daylight constrictions, I suppose I'll have to go back to annadel and explore what I missed out on, assuming I can find another pepper spray replacement...



Next up: Burlingame!

"not mine, baby, I swear..."

You heard it here first: I'm moving away from San Luis for an unspecified period of time.

Last time I was up at my parent's house, my mom gave me a bunch of boxes that she had brought home from work. My mom works with old people. I packed a bunch of stuff in the boxes before looking at them all that closely.





Wow. Cool.

dork out with me

I spent yesterday evening marking my territory in an attempt to get rid of an obnoxious feral cat that's been living under my house (er, "house").

I suppose I could have done this the old fashioned way, but took the opportunity to get all Botanist Crazy and test my mad skills with all the useless native plant knowledge I have acquired over the past 2 years.

Check it, yo:

First, I collected a large bundle of Coyote Brush trimmings


I put them in a large pot and added boiling water


Then I let it all marinate for a while


Rumor has it that the result is a liquid smelling like coyote urine. I gave it a good whif and thought it smelled more like aftershave than piss, but after pouring the stuff around the property I haven't seen any small mammals lurking about.

Maybe cats don't like aftershave.

A weekend report that hardly mentions racing at all

It's taken me a while to sit down and bust out a few words on the race haps of last weekend because I can't imagine a report that would do the whole epic experience justice. I thought to myself...

How do you fit an elephant in a subway?
You take the "s" out of "sub" and the "f" out of "way".

Indeed.

It started the same way any race starts when you live in SLO: with a whole lot of driving. I pumped it up to the bay area friday evening ("drive fast; take chances"), then hitched a ride up to Folsom on saturday with Morgan B(rown hair). I like Morgan because she is easy to laugh with, and we swapped stories ranging in levels of inappropriateness, most having to do with poo and/or hot men.

The Folsom Crit course was basically a giant "D" (D stands for Dumb course) and was, as Kim White pointed out to me, the same course that Davis uses for their collegiate race. (LAME!) While the lack of corners left something to be desired, it didn't keep the race from being an interesting little bite of fun.

Crunch crunch, bitches!

It wasn't a huge field with maybe 25 women present, but everyone there seemed to be an active participant in the race. I had fun making D after D after D (Double D and beyond!), bouncing around some attack-type-maneuvers, attempting a lead out, and passing peeps in the gutter, which may have been slightly unnecessary but made me feel like a bad-ass.

After the race, I hitched a ride with Kim White to our host housing. On the way, we passed a water park and we both glared longingly through the afternoon heat at the bacteria-infested water, sausage-shaped adults with big donut rafts, and soggy splashy little tykes. I wanted to be a soggy splashy little tyke. Instead I was a dried out crust of a crit hag picking flaky salt crystals out of her ears.

Gross!

At host housing, I was introduced to a couple of babies and toddlers. I generally make a point to avoid babies, both in my personal life and my more personal life, but these little rugrats were actually quite charming, mainly due to the fact that the toddler was a redhead, and I make a point to strictly adhere to the Redheaded Code of Conduct, which is entirely made up by yours truly and proclaims that all redheads are required to play favorites with each other. "YOUR HAIR THE SAME AS MY HAIR!" she excitedly exclaimed at top volume, and then we were total BFFs.

This toddler knows her code.

For dinner, our hosts recommended a few local restaurants. After copious amounts of immature giggling, I insisted that we dine at a restaurant called "BJ's", solely for the purpose of being able to put in this race report that I like BJs.

I do like BJ's. It was tasty.

At BJ's (still giggling), we used our prize winnings from the day to buy beer and appetizers. I ate an entire meal composed mainly of onion strings and hefelweisen.

A visual aide, if you will:




Not that this is at all relevent, I'm just saying.

Some fancy-pants prom goers at a nearby table created an amusing focal point (who doesn't like BJ's before prom?), and we all critiqued the mostly-extremely-hideous dress choices while chowing down on all sorts of foods, absolutely none of which are at all appropriate for a pre-race dinner.


Janelle doesn't love BJs, but she loves sliders.


After all this mayhem it was back to our home away from home where a shared, lopsided fold-out bed was so, so welcome that night.

In the morning, while Kim White and I enjoyed coffee and english muffins, our hosts had another guest over and we all got to talking.

"I work at the water slide park," New Guest commented, and I honestly think I saw a real-live light bulb appear atop Kim White's glistening child-like face. "THE WATER PARK!" she exclaimed at top volume, "I WANT TO GO TO THE WATER PARK! YOUR HAIR THE SAME AS MY HAIR!"

New Guest very generously proceeded to pull hundreds of dollars of Fun Money, the official currency of the water park, from her purse and handed us a fatty wad of fun bucks. I think Kim White peed a little bit and we both grinned like idiots and started bouncing around the house wasting all of our beer and onion string energy.


an onion string-supported Fun Money grin


Instead of heading straight to Auburn for our next race, Kim White and I drove to Target instead. In the land of florescent lights and white tiles floors, we bought clearance rack bikinis and board shorts with half-centimeter inseams.

Target does not accept Fun Money but they do take VISA.

Finally back in the car and headed into Auburn, we decided to find some kind of pre-race meal. This turned out to be a challenging task in the delightful little town of AuburNasty, but thankfully we were pointed in the right direction by a man dancing on the street corner in a pickle costume.

"Mr. PICKLE'S SANDWICHES, TURN HERE!" said the pickle's sign.

Kim White and I decided to go for it and I found myself feeling excited that I had allowed my day to be influenced by a dancing sign-holder.

"Welcome to Mr. Pickle's!" the friendly sandwich crew called out as we stepped into the shop.

"Thanks," I replied. "We're here because I saw your dancing pickle."


Look closely.


Sandwich-bellies full and ready to go, we made our way to the race course. I hadn't realized that the Nevada City course apparently had a baby and named it the Auburn Crit, but this thing basically sucked hairy man balls. A long climb started the loop, followed by a headwindy false flat and a short twisty downhill.

Ugh. Groan.

I don't have many nice things to say about this race, so I'll gently gloss over the fact that I even raced it at all and skip to more exciting things that have absolutely nothing at all to do with riding a bicycle.

After the race, Kim White, Morgan B(rown hair), Rachel Hershey Kiss and I headed off to spend our Fun Money. We sloshed down big four-person rafts and through scary dark tunnels and twisty wet spirals. We shivered and ground the bottoms of our bare feet to a pulp running all over the sandpapery cement, and Rachel and I practiced our Baywatch Runs through shallow water. At the very end of our adventure, I went down a slide that mimicked a giant toilet bowl and got do disoriented that I thought I was falling off the edge of the slide and dying.

I played Dance Dance Revolution in the arcade and decided it is a totally lame game for people who don't know how to dance for reals.

And then in the parking lot, as we were changing back into normal non-hobo-at-the-waterslide-clothing and switching bikes and gear bags in cars, I made my debut as a model for some kind of slutty triathlon (photograph available only upon request; sorry but I'm not posting that sort of thing here. All I can say is, Watch Out Sports Illustrated!)

When I finally arrived back in the East Bay, tired and sore and mysteriously smelling of chlorine, I was exhausted. I collapsed into bed and vowed to spend the following day doing productive things like sitting around lazily in patio furniture while eating brownies and fruit salad.

Dear Hello Kitty...

Last Friday I traveled to the Kern County Stage Race for 3 days of brutal drudgery in the armpit of the Universe (Bakersfield). This is the kind of thing that I use my vacation days, sick days, pretend-to-be-sick days, and personal days for – traveling to armpits, and driving there by winding through what must have been the crusty dead skin behind the ears, back acne, furry ass crack, and taint of the Universe (Highway 58). Kate, my partner in crime for the weekend, periodically described the scenic vista to me by pseudo-randomly calling out the word “UGLY!” over the course of about 90 miles. I decided I like traveling with Kate because not only do we share similar tastes in landscape (hills over flat; green over brown; blue sky over beige sky), but hanging out with Kate is also something like taking free lessons in how to be a nice person (even offering to buy me a greasy pork taquito at a gas station for pre-stage 1 consumption).


STAGE 1: a 10-mile out-and-back-style individual time trial with a couple lumps and bumps and one small hill at the end

Ligler and I rolled up to the tt (which, no joke, starts at a dirt lot sandwiched between a dump and the railroad tracks) busting at top volume “a song so fly it will make you want to dance in your panties” (French techno). We met up with Cat 3 rockstars Mary and Morgan, and Cat 4 studmuffins Rachel and Megan.

While everyone else warmed up and readied their equipment, I worked at mounting the big floppy “FOR SALE” sign that I had handcrafted onto the side of my TT bike, which I had not laid a finger on since Madera. “What is your TT bike called?” Mary asked me. Not realizing that she was incredibly serious, I grumbled that my TT bike was named “Piece of Crap”, which was actually a lie, since what I actually call the thing is “The Clit Masher”. Intimidating, no?

We decided that for the purposes of Kern we would go with “Mine that Bird”. (Fifty to one, yo.)

In any case the time trial was about what I expected, with everyone prancing around on their huge gears all sexy-like while I focused on minimizing my losses, enjoying the hum of carbon-y goodness, and trying not to fall over as I ate a pork taquito in the turn-around section.

After the tt, it was a drive to our accommodations for the weekend - a rustic cabin called “The Golden Eagle” found up some narrow, windy, pothole-ridden, steep, crazy road with views of Lake Isabella as well as a full kitchen and laundry. “WELCOME ALL!” read a huge banner that hung from the front porch, and we quickly made ourselves at home with bags and bikes and food all spread out in The Golden Eagle.

….We were all Spread Eagle?

And my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.


STAGE 2: A circuit race of eight 7.5-mile laps with a couple little bloops and finish roller with sprint points each lap.

In the past, this race has been historically LAME, with everyone saving up their juice for the afternoon’s beast of a hillclimb. In any case the race ended up being an actual race, with more action than you might find in a college boy’s tight-fitting boxer-briefs. At one point early in the race I found myself accidentally off the front with Rebecca Rising, but when I tried to get her to work with me she ho-hummed for 4 or 5 hours waxing poetic and contemplating the fact that she was low in the GC and might save her energy so that she could move up a few spots in the hill climb. “Whatever Your Face!” I felt like telling her, but remembered that this is a phrase I use only with my mean friends who understand my odd sense of humor and have learned not to take anything that I say seriously.

Stage 2 was also the stage where “The Russian Girl” (I think her name is Maria, but I’m not entirely sure) made her presence known (more on this later) with a big solo attack, which she countered with another solo attack when caught (Laura Charameda would have been proud). Touchstone sent some girls off the front, including GC leader Olivia Dillon, while the Minties seemed happy to sit in and patiently watch the whole thing play out. Jane Despas, who I suppose never mixes business and pleasure and speaks in scary low grunts while racing, did a bit of chasing at speeds which I am guessing can only be measured in top-secret units known to NASA. It was an active, fun little adventure that in the end came down to a field sprint where Kate was nipped at the line by Cara Gillis, who is I think about 9 feet tall with the lean muscle build of a graceful antelope.


STAGE 3: a hillclimb to get your puke juices flowing

I don’t think anyone looks forward to the Havilah (mama mia hav-ee-ya) Hillclimb, even the fastest of the climbers. It’s this silly mass-start sort of thing and you all roll together up this shallow grade until you make a right onto a narrow steep climb and all hell breaks loose. From there it’s a twisty, scorchingly exposed ascent up to about 6000 feet, which everyone suffers through in the hopes of making it to the top before falling over dead as a doornail on the side of the road.

That’s about how this race played out.

It was roughly 800 degrees and after the whole thing blew apart on the climb I nestled into a pace that was uncomfortable enough to leave me legitimately concerned that I would not live past the age of 24 years, 232 days. I weaver-birded my way through miniscule pockets of shade, cast by a small shrubs, thinking all the while “Je Travallier” and drooling sand. I caught and passed The Russian Girl and shortly after rolled up to her coach/boyfriend/father(?) who stood on the side of the road next to his minivan. A while later I could hear him back there yelling at The Girl in Russian. Who knows what he was saying, but 30 seconds later he was back in the minivan zooming past me on the 1-car-wide road so the he could stop an eighth of a mile further to yell at her again. So this is how my hillclimb went, with me feeling the urge to puke something fierce growing steadily stronger while the sun baked down glaring white and I played Yo-Yo with a Yelling Russian Man’s minivan.

I was not very pleased about all this.

In the end, The Russian Girl caught and passed me in the last half mile, after which it became impossible for me to hate her Yelling Friend anymore because he immediately became my #1 Fan. “Come on-a!” he called at me in broken English from his minivan window, “You can do it! You look-a so good! You so strong! WOW!” etc etc etc

At the top, I sat in the shade and ate watermelon. I hate watermelon, but on Saturday afternoon at about 4pm I loved it.


STAGE 3b: How to clear your sinuses after a race, courtesy of The Chad

In a small bowl, mix warm water and a teaspoon of table salt. Pinch one of your nostrils (“one of your noses” as Mary says) shut and burrow your open nostril in the saline solutions. Snort deeply.


STAGE 4: 72 mile Road Race designed by Satan himself

Sunday was the hottest day, the longest day, and the mostest tired-est day. I hoped to survive in the pack for as long as possible because I was determined to finish the race and would prefer to do as little of it by myself as possible. As it turned out, the first lap was fairly mellow and I think everyone stayed on. Starting on the second lap I saw a familiar minivan up the road and soon after the entire peleton was graced with a stream of Russian instructions.

Then The Russian Girl attacked.

She was brought back, the minivan zoomed around the field and a while later there it was parked off the side of the road up ahead. More Russian instructions, and

The Russian Girl attacked.

Life suddenly became incredibly predictable.

The rest of lap 2 involved multiple attacks, nearly getting dropped, finding myself mysteriously off the front, then finding myself less-mysteriously off the back, chasing back on, almost witnessing the head-on collision of a Russian minivan and oncoming traffic, and finally getting popped halfway up the long climb at the end of the lap. Good Riddance.

I rolled along and starting on lap 3 convinced Kristina Seley, who was riding backwards on the course, to turn back around and finish the last lap with me. Thank God for this as I have no idea how I would have managed 24 miles of heat stroke, cramping, and nausea without someone who suffered the same symptoms to share it with. I was glad to have her there, and we shared food, electrolyte tablets, words of wisdom (“I think we’re almost sort of almost done” and “You can do it, don’t leave me!” and “You look-a so good! You so strong! WOW!” etc etc).

As it turns out, Olivia Dillon won the stage and the overall while her teammate Cara held on to second. Despas pulled out of the race for unknown reasons and I nabbed 11th in the GC, which is 10th place loser which puts me in the top 10 (huh?). More importantly, I can honestly say that this is the first year I have done Kern and can come away from it saying I had a genuinely good time.

On Monday morning, back to San Luis, I woke up, dragged myself to the refrigerator, and opened it to find it as hot as a Bakersfield hillclimb inside. Butter was melted, yogurt containers were poofed out at the sides, produce was fuzzy, and cheese was like petroleum jelly. Of all days to find that your refrigerator has died, this had to be up there with the worst.

Later that day, I bought everything in sight at the grocery store. On the way home, I stopped by Barrett’s house to drop off his trainer and ultra-sexy carbon wheels that I had borrowed. “My allergies are bugging me,” he mentioned, “I’m just all congested.”

I got VERY excited by this and started bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet (energy courtesy of the 5-or-so gallons of horchata that I drank for lunch earlier that day).

“Whatever Your Face,” I said. “Do you have a small bowl and some salt?”

while not in los gatos

Yesterday I did the University Road Race of mountain bike races.

Hill repeats? Say it ain't so!

My decision to can Cat's Hill (which I imagined was probably named after some baby-eating cougar) followed a week full of demon children, rain, and oatmeal for dinner (end of the month pre-paycheck gourmet). I figured: mountain bike races are always fun. Even when your hair is bleeding, your eyeballs are about to explode, and your arteries are coursing stinging nettle juice, and you just fell into a forest of poison oak, it's still in some stupid way ridiculously fun.

(Fun does not equal a baby-eating cougar.)

So it was off to the CCCX race in Toro Park. I hadn't raced the Toro course before and was expecting it to be similar to the rolling single-tracky style of its Fort Ord counterpart.

Wrong!

"Hey," said my one and only female competitor-in-the-singular, "Have you done this course before? It's basically like this really long fireroad climb and then this quick little single track decent and then you do it over and over and over again!"

Hmph.

The race promoter, who was very nice and very excited to see more than one pro/expert woman show up at his race, started us with the pro/expert men. This was cool, because it gave me the opportunity to get all road-horny on these men and bust some drafting moves at the start and then beat up on a couple of the 60+ crew. I like spanking senior citizens.

It was a tough race for sure. With weather that made me feel like I'd been magically transported to Superweek, I was sweating all sorts of Little Miss Piggy and prancing around with my jersey halfway unzipped and getting sunscreen juice all stingy in my eyes. I was riding with my head all crooked to the side and dust making my legs look like I had a really bad tan and probably foaming at the mouth like some kind of rabid squirrel.

It was awesome.

With each lap, I felt myself getting slower and more pathetic on the climb, but balanced it out by becoming increasingly wreckless and savage on the downhill. I found a few pictures from the race, including the following:



- stinging nettle blood
- exploding eyeballs
- too many oatmeal dinners

At the end of it all, I was amused to learn that my one and only female competitor-in-the-singular's name is Shelly. So that's cool, it was just like Cat's Hill.

Afterwards, I headed over to my favorite Salinas burrito joint to find it CLOSED for remodelling. This left me aimlessly wandering the aisles of the neighboring Nob Hill Foods market.

"Tomales for sale! Pork of Chicken!" called out two little girls who looked like they were dressed for an upcoming quincenera. "Pork tomales, you know you want some!!!"

As tempting as they were, this was no Wente Road Race day and post-race tomales were NOT in order. I witheld for the greater good of my large inte....

well, you know.