Blunders and Bloopers

This past weekend was my first double weekend and the beginning of the MAC races. Day 1 was Granogue. I knew I was in trouble the night before. We had spent the afternoon taping the course in the pouring rain walking up and down hills. Probably not the best pre-race workout. Then my dinner got me sick and I didn't get to bed until late. Great. Saturday comes and the rain is gone. Only blue sky. That's a plus. I grabbed something to eat, tried to warm up, but my legs were wood. They refused my every attempt. So I raced on dead legs, had an absolutely horrible start and last lap and didn't even contest the sprint finish. Yup, that's bad. So I ended up getting 15th. Not horrible, but not what I wanted either. To make matters worse, once I checked the results and all looked good I went off to do what I needed to do. Apparently then there was a protest and they moved me all the back to 20th! I was not 20th. There were girls that continued to race after they were done and they protested the results. It's not my fault they didn't pay attention when the officials told them to stop, or the lap cards. So yeah I wasn't happy.

Then comes Sunday. I decided I'd use my anger for good and put it into Sunday's race. I knew it'd be a tough one as it was more wide open and not my style, but I was hell bent on having a better day than Saturday. I took off well from the start, then as I got into the sand I struggled something fierce. I didn't think much of it as it's sand and there wasn't a groove yet. On the other side Marc's yelling at me to stand up and 1 more gear. I kept thinking I don't have anymore as I'm mashing away. I'm loosing places quickly as everyone goes past me. I continue on, still struggling. I come around again into the sand pit, still struggling. That's when I hear Marc yell "get out of your big ring". Yeah, found my problem. I never shifted back down. I was mashing away with no more gears cause I never looked down to see that I was still in my big ring. I quickly shifted and took off. Now in last place I had a long way to catch back up. I started picking people off one by one. Then as I come through the start/finish going into my 4th lap I get lapped by the lead C guy. I throw up my hands and ask the officials what they want me to do. They waive me on. Luckily I made the cut to have one more lap. I passed 4 more girls and had another sprint finish where this time I gave it my all and it worked out. I ended up with 19th, which isn't great. But hey, I raced a hell of a race, so I'm ok with that.

Rotten Rob sporting some flora in his helmet.

Noodles.

This is the band that played at the race Sunday. Yup, a band played all day! It was awesome.