Blow the Whistle

I keep trying to write a race report for last weekends' race at Laguna Seca, but just have been oh so tired in the head.

Lot's of family issues lately have got me down, and when Miz C. ate some dirt trail running at the ridge last Thursday, the trip almost got canned, a recurring theme all weekend, with me spending 3-4 hours a day on the phone debating whether to pack my shit up and go or stay and race, much vacillating went on, Miz C's leg felt better and then worse, but the little nurse helped out big time.

Vicodin is not a good drug for my wife, that's all I'll say about that.

When is the love of sport turn into a selfish thing, or more clearly, too much of a selfish thing?
This was the burning question for me during the downtime between laps.
My mom, my wife, my kid, all pulling me away from 2 wheel mayhem

Achieving balance is one of several reasons I stay away from Ironmans these days, the 25 hour weeks were sucking me in and bumming the family out too much, I really dig a hard 8-10 hours a week getting up for cross and whatnot and find some semblance of balance in there..... sometimes.

We put together the same team as last year, a good group of middle-aged dads out for a fun escape from yardwork and other suburban bliss.
Can-Am was nice, we were on the corner, so we saw everybody coming through, but didn't have to ride up any obscene hills after a lap.
The kits turned out nice, I believe WM sponsors a team of Cat 2's in Arizona and we got some of their extras, but we looked nice and matching, at least before the dust and blood took over.

Recapping the whole time would be boring, but a few highlights-

Rodney was snakebit fro the get go, I'd like to see a blog posting, but poor dude almost exhausted the entire tube population of Monterey County and still had to run his bike. And that was his FIRST lap.

Jimbo busted his shoulder hard in one of the new sections, a tricky descent on a old trail that grew a rut that looked like the Grand Canyon by the middle of the night, kind of a dusty piece of crap with lots of washboardy holes. Dude still rode 11 miles with a fractured shoulder and kept me from having to go again,- just a stud.

Kareem is getting way fitter than last year. And talking me into a 8 hour pain fest- just savage, dude.

The Seal was a rock as always. Need two laps? Got it. Need some food? Got that too.
Always bring a Seal with ya.

I had a good race, the fitness is coming on. I actually dropped some climber types on the "grind", a longish mostly middle ring kind of affair. A longer course this year and no idea how to keep track of my watch restrain me from throwing out numbers, but for the most part, I was doing well judging by how many people passed me/ I passed.

MY LIGHT SUCKS- I saw corporate team guys out there with HID set ups, looking like a combine coming up behind me on the singletrack.The stuff is everywhere now, how to justify a 600.00 light for once a year, hmmmmm.
The difference between a old halogen and the new stuff is ridiculous, it's soooo easy to outdrive the lights with the old school stuff. I finally just eased up and flowed by feel, it was only when racing the course that the big boomers were really needed.

3 LAPS IN A ROW SUCK TOO- 1st one, cool, just ride tempo.

Second one, light is failing, go to commuter backup and led backpack lamp, still hit the climbs hard.

3rd one (unexpected due to teammates' spectacular urp-fest)- the hammies were doing the shamalamadingdong on the climbs, sucking gatorade and Gu, feeling my own urp-fest coming on soon, good thing I stole his light, or I would bitch about that too :-)

THE FOG IS WEIRD.
It looks cold but is often warm.
You can really freak yourself out riding in it when no one is around.
I was halfway up Hurl Hill before I realized I was ON Hurl Hill.
Lights are kind of useless in it, especially when rummy at 2 am.

The off season weights are paying off, by Tuesday I was recovered enough to to hit some intervals up, my goal out of the weights was not to get majorly stronger, but to bounce back faster and survive my job for 15 more years. By the end of the Valley swing, I couldn't pick up a sack of concrete without hurting myself. I could feel the power coming out of the core muscles on the bigger climbs all weekend, strange how working rotational muscles can help with a vertical axis movement, good stuff.
Now to find some leg speed......
And 2200 bucks donated, with the match from Waste Management we are looking at almost 5k donated to fund ALS research, yeah!

Barely any pics, sad to say with 3 bloggers and a semi-pro aficionado, all we could come up with was a 2 MP snapshot or two.