Hood River CCX 9/24/6

O
M
G
!

So, I… I just don’t know... Oh, yeah. Here’s where I should start this story: Jess and Sophie. J and S, I’m sorry for what I’m sure was depressingly shameful behavior at your wedding reception. I was mingling and drinking shampagnya (like it was water); then I realized I was feeling maybe a bit more drunk than even, yes, I wanted to be. I stopped imbibing. Nevertheless, by a magical act of ancient French chemistry, I continued to get drunker and drunker and drunker and drunker as the sparkling poison crept from my GI tract into my bloodstream. I suddenly quantum leapt into the future and found myself laying in another person's puke on a Portland sidewalk. I hadn’t even eaten dinner. I knew my race would be just absolutely stellar.

I had been looking forward to this race. The course suits me and I figured some of the local talent wouldn’t care about or wouldn’t attend this race. I wasn’t going to miss it, so I had to try to prepare myself. Much Emergen-C, Aleve, and an hour on the trainer trying to sweat out the poison... that was my recipe.

I lined up early, sprinted hard and went through the bottleneck gate 4th wheel. I was pleased with myself. Then I was especially pleased with myself when what sounded like 6th wheel ploughed into the gate and all hell broke loose behind me. As it turned out, 4th would be my worst position on the day. One of the three in front of me immediately couldn’t handle the pace. Then Slaven pulled out of his pedal bunnyhopping the barriers at the end of the first lap and biffed it pretty hard. Second place. I pulled through and rode two laps on the front. The man I now know to be “Zach Winter” (good ride, you had me beat) pulled through and successfully attacked me on what he’d surely observed to be my weakest stretch of the course (which I, of course, won’t disclose publicly). Second wheel. Then there was Tonkin. He just suddenly decided to race us and became unstoppable. He came out of nowhere, rolled up on me, said “nice riding”, then rolled by me, and then rolled away from me (for those of you who haven’t experienced it yet… that’s what racing Tonkin is like). Third place. Zach flatted, pitted and got back in right behind me. I knew I had to defend to the death and I rode the last lap faster than any prior lap… and stayed ahead of him for second.

That’s what really happened. What happened in my head was: friends running beside me spouting water bottles on me. Other friends endlessly dumbfounded to see me still that close to the front of the race shouting seemingly heartfelt “Yeah Mark!”s and “Markwelder!!!”s into my ear. Friends’ children casually greeting me as I, flirting with a race-ruining crack, labored on by. And me hamming it up major as I cruised into my second place finish, pumping my fist Kirk-Gibson-World-Series-Homer style and being irrepressibly, audaciously ecstatic having smoothly finished my best cross race ever.

Go figure.

Veloce PIR Handicap 9/12/6

Mmmmmmmmmmduhropped.

State Champs Points Race 9/9/6

Medals were on the line. A win was practically impossible, but you never know, so I was there to see what would happen and, moreover, not crash. Really, I was there to race for MC, but she cancelled last minute because of work responsibilities (I was sad). I almost didn’t race then, but I jumped in (and I was glad).

So Mikkel won the gold with more than twice as many points than me. Well, I guess some dude for somewhere else actually won the race, but that don’t matter. Maybe if he were eligible for the medal we would have bothered to battle him. Actually, I’m only about 66.6% serious: Daniel Harm, you got game, homie. But it was Mikkel on top of the podium after the race, 2nd place or not.

Actually, I’m kind of PO’d. I was racing like I was there alone, just looking out for Number One, but had I thought about it at all… (don’t you hate it when you just DON’T THINK? Maybe that never happens to you…) So, some dude from Washington came down and won our State Champs race. Makes us look bad. And besides, I wasn’t gonna win anyways. And Mikkel’s a really nice-guy class-act type. Some dudes crashed our party. As long as Mikkel was the clear Oregonian favorite, maybe we shoulda been looking at it like we were defending against an invasion. I shoulda been busting my ass doing anything I could to help him beat that insurgent… even rallying the others in my boat to the cause. We coulda sent that guy packing. Oh well.

So, for me, the guy looking out for himself, it was a respectable performance. Worked real hard and got some points and a lap. Some really strong riders finished behind me or didn’t finish. It was a long race. The best news (far better news than having found out that I just plain can’t hold Jimmy Lingwood’s wheel when he goes….props, brutha) was that I was getting relatively stronger as the race pounded and pounded on. I gots me an hour’s endurance at high intensity… can you say “cyclocross”? One track mind, I swear. What the hell are we racing track for? It’s cyclocross season. But, I digress. I got 6th place overall out of 20 riders, 4th best Oregonian. Dumortier beat me by 2 points, 55 to 53. A bronze was that close… but if his name means, as I suspect it does, “of the dead”, then he deserves it.

Okay, so what else happened today? I saw my teammate Matt race the 4’s points race. The story: He was doing fine but was looking bad on his last 10 laps, hanging 30 meters off the back, trying to keep that last nail from being hammered into his coffin (lose a lap and lose 20 points, fyi). He dug super deep and caught back up (his face was a portrait of death), and right as I started to yell at him waytogo type stuff, mofo rides through the group and goes solo for some first place points and then gets caught for I think a second place in the last sprint. Then he wandered into the infield and puked on it. Seriously folks, you wanna know what I dig? I dig somebody that can say f*k it and burn those last 30 calories, you know, those ones your body can’t afford to burn, because of having to keep living and sh!t? Serious A+ for effort.

Some Weak-Ass “Cross” Race 9/4/6

What was ‘cross’ about this, besides the bikes? Not much. No rain. No barriers. No real runnup (just some sandy incline that I, personally, lacked the skill to ride… but others had that skill… kudos). No shivering in a bush with a cup of lukewarm coffee one minute and then sprinting off the start line and into the mud the next. But am I glad I raced it? Hell yeah. My splits may have been going up, but each time I went around (6 total), I screwed up less often, until, by the end, I was pretending I could actually ride 5-inch-deep-in-dust singletrack (I can’t). I’m still learning this crap, and today was a great lesson, especially if what ‘they’ say is true: that deep dust is harder to handle than mud. Is that why I was pissed that it wasn’t mud…? No, it’s probably because mud that the guy in front of you rides through doesn’t vaporize and end up in your lungs. Hack.

Alright, I got practice in the morning, so I’m out. But, I was thinking while, wait... excuse me... Hack.

HACK!

umm… I was thinking about it while racing today… are these the most perfect ‘cross anthem lyrics or what? Put this in your pipe and race it:
"
I been patiently waiting for a track to explode on
You get stunned if you want and yo ass'll get rolled on
A fuse like my flows been hot for so long
If you thinking I'ma fuckin’ fall off you so wrong
"
you SO WRONG.