Ok, so little interlude
in Toona boringness.

So I got this little
email from Rich Harper, who apparently enjoys perusing the Triathlon forums…that’s
another story. I’m just playin.

Anyways, so someone
posts this picture to the forum and asks the ‘forum’ what they think about it.
Well, I’ll be damned if it wasn’t me, riding all by my lonesome, dropped at
Stage 5 at the Tour of Ohio – Granville. Pretty much the entire population of
Planet Earth was dropped there, but that’s a different story, point is, this
dude made money off of a picture of moi…dropped. That’s awesome. I’m good
for something when I’m dropped.

That’s a bad memory.
Granville was, for lack of a better term, hard. I think I was 18th that day.
It ended up good. I got caught by a group on the last lap and got a chance to
drop some mad science on this poor fool in the sprint. I was barely able to
come around him. Yeah…

Yeah, that’s mildly
amusing. The comments on the forum are even funnier.

Oh yeah, so hi
again. Haven’t written in awhile… I got all caught in the Tour with PEZ, and
when I finished with that work, I pretty much said nu-nu to the website. So
there.

I did Nationals
way back a few weeks ago. That was fun. It was hard. I didn’t finish, but then
again no one did, except for the people that did finish.

Maybe I’ll talk
about Nationals some other day. Suffice to say, it was tough.

Then I came home.
I drove the entire night through to get back to Atlanta. I left around 6ish
pm from PA and got to Atlanta at 5 in the a.m. That was fun. I spent the final
two hours dousing myself with water staving off the Sandman and certain death.

Then, I got back
to bike practice. That was good fun. Rode really hard, sweated a whole helluva
lot, since it was 95-100 degrees pretty much everyday.

Then, I kind of
got sick I think. This was last week. I was pretty wrecked after just a little
bit of practice…just a solid little block, but my body pretty much cracked.
Or maybe it was allergies. I don’t know.

Then, it was time
to come to the grand ol Tour de Toona. That took a long time. I blew out a tire
around the GA/SC border. My first ever flat in my life in a car. Pretty solid.
That whole fiasco took ages to fix, but whatever, it was fairly painless, and
the monetary fine wasn’t terrible either.

We (Malachi and
I) ended up getting a hotel in Maryland, cuz it would have been ridiculous to
keep keepin on.

We got to Altoona
this morning.

I rode the TT this
evening, and it was fun. Seriously, the course was super fun, probably the most
fun I’ve had suffering, ever. I probably had a little too much fun, because
I was 136th. There were tons of turns in about 4k, lemme think…definitely
over 10, maybe something like 15? It was wild.

You should check
out the results, they’re ridiculous (they’re probably on CyclingNews I guess).
Winning time was 5:09 or something. 180ish riders crammed themselves into a
time gap of about 40 seconds. Seriously. Impressive. Anyways, I didn’t wreck,
some people did, and that’s good not to wreck.

I feel ok…not
great by any means, but I don’t think I’m sick. I feel like I’m kind of on the
border between wellness and plunging right back into un-wellness, so here’s
to hoping for wellness.

I guess I’ll take
a break from acting like I’m busy on the computer and really goof off for a
few minutes.

Where was I the
last time I wrote…Stage 2 of the Tour of Ohio. Ah yes, that was good fun.
Stage 3 was even better, some 90k jaunt around Somerset, Ohio with more hills
than I care to recollect. Hekman pulled off 3rd on the stage, but our team kind
of floundered behind, but at the end of the day, Mark rocked a solid result
and jumped up in GC.

Stage 4 was a TT,
21k I think it was. I didn’t plan on going really hard at first, but after about
10 minutes decided to go really hard, and did. That was fun. Everybody still
beat me though. A whole bunch of people caught me…A Toyota rider caught me,
then Jacob, then Billy Innes. I love getting caught in time trials.

I dropped five
spots on GC to 25th I think after the TT, not that that matters at all, but
just for conversation’s sake.

I rode like crap
on Saturday at Granville and jumped up seven spots to 18th.

That’s funny.

Granville was crazy
hard, but reasonable in the end. We did 30 laps of a tough little 800 meter
crit course and then the loop opened up to five big laps which were ridiculously
hard and hurt like hell. The first couple of minutes of the big lap were disgustingly
hard, but then I got dropped, and I rode around for the next 20 or so minutes
all by myself, somewhere around 15th on the road. The race went KABOOM in the
first minute of the big lap, as Jacob decided to do the super steep climb in
his big ring. I later rode up that climb in my 39×27 each and every time. He
ended the day for a whole bunch of people right there. It was funny, but not
really, because I got gapped off hardcore and made it back onto the lead group
just in time to hit another hard hill and get popped right back off.

That was fantastic.

I rode three of
the five laps all by myself and then on the final lap was caught by a group
of six. I was bummed about that and figured I’d get last, but then someone attacked,
I followed him, and then punked him in the sprint, and all was happy on the
day. Sprinting is fun. I’m absolutely horrible at it, but winning a sprint,
even if it’s just against one other person is one of the happiest things I can
imagine on a bike. I guess that makes sense though, because I’m that bad at
sprinting.

Anyways, so I was
somewhere between 15-18th on the stage I figure. Mark eventually finished 7th
on the day I think and 7th overall. That’s smokin.

I hope I can do
something like that in a year or two.

The team rode well
at Granville, we had six guys in the top 20 I think.

After that, I had
a milkshake and was happy. Milkshakes make me happy…and probably fat.

Jacob, Shawn, and
I spent another day at Shawn’s grandparents and did an easy ride on Sunday and
had some grilled sausages for lunch. That was a highlight of my week as well.
Then it was back to Macedonia and back to work. I’ve been working steady ever
since then.

I’ve got it all
worked out. Wake up around 9, walk downstairs, watch the Tour stage, and work
from about 9-2. I think I got in almost 8 hours of real work on Monday. I wasn’t
even watching tv whilst working.

Does it count as
work if the tv is on? I think so, I don’t really watch it except for the final
2k.

I bought a steak
yesterday. I love steak. I grilled it up all nice, I didn’t even overcook it.
I got it to my preferred medium-rare and got down on that little piece of meat.
I can’t believe how much steak costs. That really bums me out. I’d love to eat
more steak.

Nationals is in
two days. That should be pretty easy.

I didn’t do the
TT today, but Andy, Mark, Rich, Todd, and Shawn did. I think that was everyone.
Andy was 9th, Rich 11th, Mark 21st?, Todd 25th?, and I haven’t heard from Shawn
yet.

I’m glad I didn’t
do the TT, it would have just depressed the hell out of me.

I’m going to leave
for the RR Saturday morning. Seven Springs, PA is only two hours from here,
and the race starts at noonish, so I’ll leave here around 8 and have plenty
of time. I like it.

After that, I’m
headed southward, back to Georgia. It’ll be nice to go home for a little while,
but I saw some weather with numbers that read 9 and 8. 98 degrees. Good freaking
lord. I think it was in the high 70’s here yesterday. I’m going to melt.