The tennis team is awesome

Tonight was no normal Friday evening (lingering on the internet), no no no, on this night Dan and I decided to do something other than get yogurt, ride bikes or go to volleyball games. This night, we decided to attend the Annual University of Oregon Tennis Fan Day. We anticipated a few fans to show up, meet with the players, eat some pizza and leave... but we quickly found out for this to not be the case.

As we showed entered the indoor courts in our casual clothes, every player from both teams (mens and women's) were there and ready to to take on the fans. I quickly realized that this night was intended to be much more hands on than we thought it would be, as dozens of people from ages 3 to 70 were there with their racquets and ready to show the UO team what they could do. My first thought was:  How awesome is that? What other collegiate sports here offer to socialize with their fans by playing their own sport with them? No one on either basketball team would even do a 3 on 3 game with fans, and  the volleyball team certainly couldn't invite their fans out to join them in a pick up game. Football? No. Golf? Cross Country? Baseball? Acrobatics and Tumbling? There's really no other sport here that there's even a possibility to get the people this involved.

As Dan and I are hung around on the benches watching others play, I made the decision that I needed to get involved in this tennis orgy. I sprinted back to Dan's place to pick up some more athletic type clothing so that I could hit with the players, borrowed a racquet from the rec center, and I was as ready as I'd ever be to play. I found a good court with a few guys on the team, but more importantly my favorite girl on the team was there as well. As immediately as I walk on the court Aaron Clissold grabbed a hold of me and told me I was his partner. Alright, sounds fun, let's play. After a few rounds of me really not doing much at all and rotating with a few random partners, I finally get a few balls hit to me... and man did I fuck them up. Not just once. No. Almost every time I just couldn't get it back. I was very hesitant with my swing, and couldn't get any top spin down on the ball at all. I can honestly, hole heartedly, without a single doubt in my mind that the tennis I played tonight was the worst tennis I have ever played. Ever. I really don't think I could understate how poorly I played. And of course it was in front of the people who were best at it in this university.

Alas, the night was for fans and for fun. There was a raffle with some really great prizes, including free private tennis lessons with the COACH. As luck would have it, my raffle ticket was called and I got to go up front to see what I won. Turns out it was a T-shirt that was a tad too big...

Knees locked to achieve maximum awkward effect

As Dan and I left the tennis center, I couldn't help but think of how awesome our team here is, and I'm fairly sad that I'm only now figuring it out. I will undoubtedly be going to every home game this year that I can to show my support, and I strongly encourage anyone who's here to do the same.

I'm going to be inside you, Eugene Marathon

I am able to say this with 95% confidence that I will be participating in the Eugene Marathon this year. 

Now, this may come as a surprise to all of my friends and followers alike. To many, I'm known as the small guy who races bicycles, although just just between you and me... I'm not very good at that. However, I love riding bikes. I love being able to go 90 miles of scenic wine country in Oregon without phone service or a care in the world. I love the adrenaline rush of going over 50mph. I love racing when I'm in shape. And I particularly love the incredibly small but fast community of friends and racers in Eugene that I have built over the past 4 years. I love all of these things about bikes... which begs the question; why on earth am I switching to train for a marathon? 

Like I said before, I'm not a very good cyclist. I'm a middle of the road category 3 racer (5 being slowest, 1 being fastest), so I'm mediocre. The key to being fast is to be committed to training, and cycling takes a lot of time to be good. In my 3rd year of racing, I made the biggest jump in speed by riding over 8500 miles... this year I'm on track to ride about 3500 if I'm lucky. Full time work past sunset eliminates the possibility of getting good miles outside during weekdays in the winter/spring, and I certainly can't leave during the middle of the day to go for 40 miles. Time is easily the biggest reason I am temporarily transitioning away from riding. Cycling takes 20 minutes to get ready to go outside in Oregon weather, and a minimum of 2 hours outdoors to feel like the time you spent getting ready to actually ride was worth it. Running however takes no more than 5 minutes (less than 1 minute if it's sunny) and a great run can be done in 35 minutes. Also, for some reason, my lab condones running like it's the end all be all exercise. I can leave anytime during the day to go on a run, come back and stretch, take a shower, then get back to work. Almost all of us do it, even though it's a major time killer. The crew would look at it differently if I left to kit up for a ride, even though if I stopped running 3 days a week and switched my training to riding, the amount of time I spent exercising would be the same. 

As I make this temporary transition to a different sport, I can't help but notice all of the negative consequences of doing so. First and foremost: running hurts like a motherfucker.  Aerobically, I have the same fitness as the cycling me, but my knees and muscles absolutely hate running. It took me 4 months to build up my base to run 6 miles. I also can't run more than 3 days a week without my calves and knees withering away. Hopefully as I train more this changes, but I don't think it will anytime soon. Also, remember how I said I was 95% confident I would be running the marathon? The 5% doubt comes from potential injury. Runners are exposed to all types of risks that cyclists aren't. Running can cause stress fractures, shin splints, a wide array of tendon/ligament damage... you name it. And like I said, my knees are already bitches. I'm fairly certain that my knees have weak/damaged menisci, which causes an insatiably sharp pain in them from time to time. The more I run, the more frequent I feel it. Right now, it's maybe once a day. The pain is transient, but man does it suck, and hopefully it doesn't develop in to anything else.

Running and impact both suck, but they're not the worst thing about the sport. The absolute worst part about running is the lack of places I can go. I spent 2 hours running 15 miles on Sunday, and I was able to see the glorious bike paths of Eugene I've ridden on for the past 5 years. There is no scenic wine country running, and no escaping the town unless I drive out of it. I feel like I'm confined to Eugene when I run, whereas when I ride the entire state of Oregon is my oyster.

Another little down side of this training is that Dan Mahoney is going to be faster than me on a bicycle this year. In fact, he's already faster than me now. Sure, I can win up punchy hill climbs that last one minute, but overall Dan's going to be the better rider. Of course, I don't wish Dan to be slower than he is... that would be a terrible and selfish thing of me to wish. I wish Dan is the fastest he possibly can be in life... but I also wish that I am ever just so slightly faster than him always... is that too much to ask? It's not really a rivalry thing, clearly either of us would be ecstatic if we won a CAT 3 race, but we are both competitive in nature, and there's something satisfying about beating up each other on the bike.

Overall, I feel like there are more negatives to running than positives, and I really don't enjoy it as much as cycling. I think after this marathon I'll commit the rest of year to riding, but as of right now, I am 95% sure this will happen. 

How can I reach these kids?

A few months ago I decided to have lunch with who is quite possibly both my favorite and most influential instructor that I've ever had in my academic career: Mr. Teschner (who I will refer to as Ken from now on).

Ken teaches both Advanced Freshman English courses as well as Theory of Knowledge (a course designed to make you think about how things work), and he takes his passion of teaching to a level that no other teachers or professors I've been with in the past have matched. He has always taken the responsibility to make sure each individual student uses their minds to the best they can and really helps (or helped me) get on the right academic track. His personality is eerily similar to that of Benjamin Linus' when Benjamin was a high school teacher in the alternate universe. 

Alas, I digress. During lunch this past summer, Ken asked me if I'd like to lend my scientific input in to his Theory of Knowledge class; an advanced elective filled with Juniors and Seniors in high school. I unhesitantly agreed, telling him that I was sure I could teach kids about how science works in real life. I know our research pretty well... how hard could it be to teach how it works?

A month or two had passed, and I began to prod at when would be a good date to come up. Ken told me October... and come late October, he said Early November... which eventually turned to mid November (11/13/12). Because of budget cuts and extra days being taken out of the schedule, the class had fallen way behind. Once we settled on a date and it was a week out, I realized I had no idea what he wanted in this lecture or how long I was supposed to talk for. His latest email said that they weren't quite on science yet, but rather that I should discuss fallacies of reasoning and logic, fallacies of inductive reasoning and what we do to eliminate such fallacies.  

Well shit. I'm no Yuji when it comes to reasoning and logic. Heck, I'm not even Dan (this may be the first time I publicly concede the point that he is more logical).

However, what I lack in logic I make up for in my bull shitting skills. I would classify myself as an expert bull shitter, most likely in the top 95th percentile in the world, and this lecture wouldn't prove to be difficult to put together. Neither the students nor Ken knew anything about science, and even if I were to be telling something untrue, they likely wouldn't catch it.

The night before the presentation, I threw together a couple of words, placed some big, bold pictures in it and talked about our research. Since the point of the lecture was to inform students about logical reasoning, I made the whole story of the presentation to be "How do you know what is knowledge" i.e. how can we interpret results and science to be information.

As I gave the lecture, a few kids were little shits in the back corner, but overall there was a sense of bewilderment and curiosity. There were a lot of questions from a lot of kids (although most questions came from Ken, who in all seriousness had no idea about how science works), and I think that everyone learned a lot... or at least I hope they did. I was a little disappointed when no one in the classknew what a scientific variable was, but other than that they were engaged and were pretty on their games with all the questions I asked. Overall, it was fun returning to my Alma Mater to teach and pay it forward. I could never see myself teaching high schoolers for a living, but just for a day it was a pretty fun thing to do.

I'm on a billboard!

warning, fairly liberal use of personal opinions

Let me make one thing clear: I hate religion. I hate having conversations about it. I hate how confident billions of people in the world are about how their  God is 100% the correct one, and that everyone else is wrong. I hate that if you make a joke about it, people get offended. I hate how people use religion as a justification for their own actions. I hate how one of the candidates for the Presidency of the most powerful country in world believes that he will get his own planet after he dies (that's not a joke). But above all, I hate how religions deny factual evidence of anything in (relatively) recent discoveries just because it clashes with their beliefs.

Religion, more than anything, is a topic that annoys me to no end, and I've lived the recent years of my life avoiding talking about it whenever possible. Well, I should say I did avoid talking about it, until I found myself in a rather unique scenario after having a conversation with my dad on the phone about a month ago. The conversation went as follows

"Man, do I have a crazy story for you" My Dad tells me just seconds after I got out of bed
"What's up pops?" I replied
"So there's this conference next month with Richard Dawkins, and this group I'm a member of (the FFRF) is trying to promote their national conference."
"That's great pops..."
"No no, it gets better. So they need models for their billboards to promote their conference, and since I'm a member, I got a request. I didn't really want to do it, so I forwarded it to your brother (Brent). He replied, and they told him to come up for a photo shoot for this Weekend!"
"What the shit?"
"Yeah."
"Well, what do they think about having a pair of brothers on that billboard"
"I don't know" replied my dad "But you should ask them"

And ask them I did. Well, my brother actually asked, but I was told to come up to Portland to join in on the shoot.

We went to the shoot up in NW Portland at some guys apartment. Upon seeing the door that labeled "FFRF," indicating that we were in the right place, I kind of wanted to leave.

It's a trap

I told my brother that this looked like a prime location for a double homicide. Nonetheless, we still entered (although I went in a few feet behind him). Steve Etling was the photographer,  He was very professional, with thousands of thousands of dollars in camera equipment and a studio in his garage.

We spent maybe 2 minutes with goofy pictures and poses, a few minutes of smiling pictures, then signed a waiver and that was that.

It's been nearly a month since the photo shoot occurred, and we were told that we'd made it on a billboard. Finally, it was put up yesterday (10.10.12) at the corner of Mcglaughin and Blue Bird, in the SE Portland area.

And now we wait. Although I'm not quite sure what I'm waiting for. I don't think I'll get any criticisms or scorn from my friends or peers... I would be very surprised if I did... but I will continue to wait.

If I may quote a personal favorite of mine: "I got a poster!!!"

Road Tripping down to Stanford

Let me prepose a hypothetical situation for you:

You are given $330 for doing nothing

You must split that money with Dan Mahoney

What would you do?

As bizzarre as this may sound, this is exactly the situation that has developed over the past year. Dan and I made a YouTube video in 2011 (biking downhill at 60mph), which has accrued $330 and ~250,000 views. We've agreed to split the money, to which we decided to allocate it to something we both thoroughly enjoy. No, we didn't decide to spend it on prostitutes. Or bicycles. Or not even prostitutes on bicycles. Rather we decided to take the money to Stanford University to enjoy all that is our favorite collegiate sport: Volleyball. The #2 ranked Ducks were to play the #7 ranked Cardinal on Friday (10/5/12), and we wanted to be at this game. The plan was simple; use our hard earned YouTube dough to cover gas to Stanford, a 550 mile (9 hour) drive, while staying with Dan's college friend, Mr. Nick Haber for the weekend.  

We left Thursday at 4 pm after Dan decided that teaching his 200 level econ class was more important than leaving Eugene at a respectable time (note that he could have got a substitute to fill in for him, but just decided that he probably shouldn't without any real justification as to why). The drive was mundane, long, dark and rather sketchy at some construction sites, but we arrived safely on Stanford's campus at 1:15 am Friday morning.

Nick's Grad school dorm provided a cozy home stay for the weekend

Friday became a day of relaxation and exploration. While Nick had to get some work done, Dan and I were left to wander around campus; something I thought we have been training for for the past year or so. I would consider Dan and I expert wanderers, but I have never seen anything like Stanford's Campus in my life. The distance that campus covered was unfathomable (it's actually very fathomable at ~13 sq miles), but it felt enormous compared to the UO's 0.46 sq miles. Buildings were new, students were ethnically diverse, and everyone was on bicycles. It really is quite amazing, and Dan and I only covered a fraction of it in our wandering escapade. 

Although wandering, coffee, and lunch were exciting, they were merely a way to kill the time until the volleyball game Friday night. Erich, (a triathlon friend of mine from Eugene who currently resides in Santa Clara), Nick, Dan, Amy (another friend of Dan's) and I went to the game with with the hopes of a good game. Sure, a win would be awesome, but with news of the team being sick, we just were hoping they would play well.

Of course, I couldn't travel 550 miles without having a sign for my favorite player. I held the sign with as much pride as the guys down in the Castro District have in San Francisco, and it got a big smile out of the players during pre-game.  

Unfortunately, the Ducks lost the game in a 5 set thriller, but still an overall fun game and awesome to see us play away from home.

Although the Ducks had lost, our weekend adventure certainly did not end there. After all, this was my first time in San Francisco area, and I wanted the full experience; Saturday was sure to provide me with plenty of it.

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most recognizable monuments in the world, and I needed a picture in front of it. Although we couldn't find parking directly near the bridge, we went to Baker Beach to see all sorts of great sights. Our primary interest was taking pictures of the bridge, but so many other things that had been erected a long time ago were in also in the area; copious amounts of old men on the beach decided that clothes were optional rather than mandatory. Now, I'm all for optional clothing, but two 50+ year old men giving each other the "gentleman's handshake" on the beach was certainly something I didn't need to see. However, I did ask for the SF experience, and old guys tanning with their dicks hanging out sure was fitting the SF stereotype. In one particular man's case (a Chinese Tourist taking pictures of the bridge), the guy lost his shoes to the tide of the water, when he immediately decided to de-robe and dive in after them.

The man splashed himself with the cold ocean water for approximately 5 minutes, psyching himself up before taking the dive in the water to retrieve his shoes. Meanwhile, a local naked old guy decided to help out our Chinese friend by swiftly getting in the water to retrieve the shoes. Both naked men rejoiced, and the Chinese man couldn't have been more thankful. It truly was a sight to see, and they both posed for a photo for the Chinese man's friend. I can only imagine how shrivled they must have been, and I bet the Chinese man will try to explain to all of his friends about how cold the water was.

The two men posing together

But no, San Francisco had a lot more to offer than naked men and the Golden Gate Bridge. Nick, Dan and I continued to The Mission, a kind of crazy hectic side of town with great food and quite a bit of hipsters. This part of town was most similar to SE Portland, only much more dense. We overate on an amazing Mexican lunch, and continued on to explore more.

Mexican food came with a complimentary family Mariachi Band

Our next stop was Doleres Park; a seemingly endless supply of hipsters came around from every direction. Dan was visibly disturbed, as these people were the exact opposite the type of people that Dan can tolerate. Watching Dan in Doleres park was like watching a dog try to cower away from fireworks on the 4th of July, but really he had no where to run.

The view from the park. You can see a few local natives to the right of the photo.

Sensing that Dan was uncomfortable, I knew exactly where to go to lighten his spirits: the gayest part of town (The Castro).

We walked up and down a few blocks, and man was it gay. If there's anything in the city of SF that I wish for others to replicate, it's their openness and appreciation of the gay community. It was awesome to see every type of minority not give a care in the world about what others thought of their sexuality. And man oh man, were these people gay. Not only were they gay, they were actively trying to fit the stereotype of what a flamboyantly gay male should look like. There were ripped guys, there were shiny guys, there were suave guys, there were guys in matching suits, and hell, there were even more old naked guys. I wanted the full SF experience, and by the time I left the Castro, I feel like I got it. 

After some great dessert, we left the city on high spirits. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge, had amazing food, blended in with the hipsters, and saw the most flamboyantly fabulous gay men I have ever seen in my life. Overall, Saturday was a great day.

With our adventurous weekend over, Sunday was used primarily to drive us back to town. Below are a few random photos from the trip.

Myself, 5'6" and Nick, 6'5" standing back to back. I'm not quite sure why he kept his shirt off for this

In front of the Stanford Campus. 

Pre-Stanford Game

I'm sad to say that this photo was actually my idea

So much food this weekend

Post VB game dinner, with free ice cream for dessert

It's Volleyball Season

Let me make one thing clear: there are no bigger volleyball fans at the University of Oregon than I am. There's Really Old Guy, who is far creepier than I am, but not a bigger fan. And of course there is Dan Mahoney, who claims that he loves the team more without citing any factual evidence as to why, but I'm assuming that he believes this because he is louder at games while I am more reserved, and that he doesn't have family obligations obstructing him from watching any games... they just prevent him from attending parties with the coolest girls on the team (see last paragraph here). Alas, I digress from the original point. I do love this sport, enough to make signs declaring my emphatic enthusiasm for the team.

As a quick recap of this past year, the original sign I made had the intention of stating that Liz, #6, was my favorite player. The team appreciated the effort, and I appreciated the team's appreciation, and a mutual relationship had begun; I show my loyalty to the team and get the reward of knowing they love their fans. The very next game against UW, I made another sign for Liz, this time a little less blunt with a little more humor than the previous sign. The sign had a picture of Antoine Dodson, telling UW to "Hide yo kids, Hide yo wives, 'cause #6 is in the game." Although I never really talked to Liz... nor have I ever actually talked to Liz... I'm fairly certain that they still liked it.  We upset the then #7 team in the nation, and the signs kept rolling on in after that. After a few games, the team began to look in my direction as I was unveiling the next sign. Others included "Freshman of the Week? More like Freshman of the Century" (For Liz), and "#10 deserves a sign" For Savannah after we upset the National Champions.

However, last year is a thing of the past, and 2012 certainly has a different feel to it. I've had nearly 9 months to think of ideas on how to make signs this year better, and they have been thought out, drafted, discarded, rewritten and meticulously planned for the exact moment I reveal them. Lauren Gross (LG), a former player on the team and who Dan and I might* consider to be the coolest person at this University, has been more than influential; she provides key insights to the team's dynamic and lets us know who would appreciate what idea the most. I still don't quite understand why she thinks Dan and I are cool enough to talk to, but I won't argue.

To start this season off with a bang, I was inspired by the character Dug from the movie Up! In which he tells the protagonist of the film (Carl) "I have just met you and I love you." Even if you haven't seen the film, the quote is still funny and relevant to the 6 new players on the team.

The sign process begins with a yellow poster and a quick outline in pen, followed by a bold once-over in sharpie. Each sign takes approximately 40 minutes, and costs about $2.75 in the materials to make.

Outlining

Sharpie-ing

It got some good laughs, and I had the opportunity to talk to all the new players on the team. Of course, I didn't actually seize this opportunity, I more just approached them afterwords, got their autographs, and timidly walked away without really saying a word. I am not a confident man when it comes to girls on the volleyball team, so I figured staying quiet and not having them think I was creepy was probably the best idea. I have plenty more opportunities to screw things up in the future, why blow it on the first game? Regardless, the 2012 sign campaign had officially begun.

Only one player not on the sign signed the sign. I didn't have the heart to stop her.

To note, the first sign of the season narrowly beat out Dan's proposed idea of how we should start it.  I have only used one of Dan's ideas to date, as they are usually pretty terrible. This one, however, may have been the best idea he has ever had:

This needs no explanation, but man is it funny. Of course, we would never actually make this sign. The players would be legitimately distracted from the game, the underlying message is rather derogatory (albeit funny), and I don't think that everyone would get it. That being said, it is undoubtedly Dan's best idea to never be used.

For the 2nd game, I decided to tone back the humor a bit with much more blunt and straightforward sign. Dan and I had the honor of sitting with LG for the latter part of the game, during which we presented our newest ideas and checked in on how the team was really doing. For the 2nd sign, My idea was straightforward; state that Lauren Plum (LP) is the best at what she does. LP has been not only one of the best players in the country, but also one of the nicest and friendliest people on the team (to me at least). However, I was a little pessimistic about the sign and I was timid to hold it up during the game. Not that the message is bad, but the writing and letters are merged which makes it a bit difficult to read, the subjectivity of the statement lingers in the back of my mind (although she will most likely be an All American this year, which she more then deserves, it's hard to say that she is THE best) and the sign is just not very funny... humor is what I usually use as a crux for all of my other sign ideas. However, she (LP) did like it, which is what really matters. I approached her after the game for a photo op. Because of the serious nature of the sign, I asked Lauren "Can we be super serious in this photo?"
"Super serious?" She replied.
"Yes, super serious. No smiling."
"Alright, let's do it."

To make one thing clear, while Dan was fumbling around with his camera, I had the full intention of being super serious. It only dawned on me within the last second before the photo was taken to actually smile... because, well, it would be really funny.

Turns out is was really funny

The most amazing thing about this photo is that Lauren was actually attentive enough to catch my smile in her periphery, even though I was standing nearly perpendicular to her line of sight. She demanded that we take an actual happy picture.

Next is a sign for Liz, #6. I can't abandon her as my favorite and go-to sign player. It's not going to be very funny, but this is entirely planned. After 2 blunt and mediocre signs (including this one with LP), I plan to make what will easily be the best sign I have ever made for any sporting event ever**. It is entirely deserving of it's own explanation and blog post, and I look forward to that more than anything this volleyball season.

*(read "might" as "definitely")

**jpjpjp

Eugene Celebrating

First off, I apologize to my 2... no... 3 loyal readers, as I haven't posted in quite some time. My life has been consistently mundane as of late. That is, until this weekend, where I was able to combine multiple exciting events into 4 jam packed days; each worthy of it's own blog post. So without further ado, I give you the full (uncensored) recap of the most exciting weekend of my life (in the past 4 weeks).

The Eugene Celebration Road Race is the last big race of the year, and I've been looking to complete in it for quite some time. Because this race is so late in the year, I've always been burnt out by the time it comes around. Last year (2011), I begrudgingly participated in it, only to get dropped in the road race and to stop to pick black berries during the time trial; completely overtrained and apathetic. This year, however, was a little different. Because of what is now known as the Bolivia Incident, I was unable to train seriously for almost 2 months, which allowed me to not be burnt out come August and actually look forward to racing. For those of you that don't know, the Eugene Celebration consists of a 5k uphill time trial (go up a hill as fast as you can), a 57 mile Road Race, a 15 mile flat time trial, and a 45 minute criterium race. The person with the lowest time overall wins the entire race.

The Mcbeth Hill Climb: Being a smaller guy, I should be able to get up a hill pretty quickly, right? Well, no. Wrong. For some reason (the reason being that I'm slow) I was able to put in a sub par 13:00 hill climb, placing me 23rd out of 38 riders (the winner was around 11:20 to get up that same hill). This was nothing spectacular, and there is no excuse at why I'm as slow as I was. Alas, I digress. My legs turned out to give a much better showing the next 2 days of racing.

Finishing the uphill climb in a world of pain

Briggs Hill Road Race: I've ridden this course more times than I can count, and this definitely gave me a slight edge over the other riders. My goal was to be like a Milford Man, and boy would I have made Lucille Bluth proud. The course consisted of two climbs, with the main being Briggs hill; a 5 minute climb riddled with cutbacks and steep grades. I knew were the potholes were, I knew when to surge, when to hide and when to drop back. But most importantly, I knew to be patient. No one knew of my existence until the 2nd lap (each lap being ~18.5 miles, 3 laps total), when the field started to fracture up Briggs into groups of 3s and 4s. Feeling rather opportunistic, I decide to go a bit harder and crescent over the hill in the lead 5 riders, with the #1 and #2 GC riders being the two of the very few guys in front of me. We were off the front for about a mile and a half, but everything quickly came back together on the descent, and I faded to the back with a newfound confidence in my climbing legs. During lap 3, a group of 5 snuck off to join up with a solo rider (making the total 6). This didn't concern me too much, as the #1 and 2 GC guys were still in my group and I just decided to sit in and be patient until the final climb, I knew I could keep up with them over it. Once there, the group started to thin out immediately, and the pace ramped. I looked up ahead and witnessed the 1 and 2 guy sneak off the front at the base of the climb, but (sadly) I was wedged in between 2 riders and had no way to jump around. Everyone around me was fading, as rider after rider kept falling off the pace at the front, and there was no semblance of a field. I, however, was having a blast and feeling the best I ever had in a race; I was able to crest 3rd wheel over. I could undoubtedly been in the front, but there with the descent, I figured it was best to let others work. On the way down, about 6 of us started to work well together to catch the (now) lead 8 riders. Unfortunately though, our group got a little too big for our own good (possibly 12) by the end; not everyone was taking pulls through, and we ended up about 6 seconds away from catching the lead 8. I placed 16th on the day... I still suck at sprinting.

Post race, I stayed well hydrated and drove the lead car for the masters field. Well, I actually stayed a little too hydrated; by lap 2/3 I started to feel a quite strong urge to urinate, and by lap 3 I was on the verge of unleashing the wrath of my bladder in to my car. You know when you have to pee, and it's like a surgey kind of pain and you're fighting your bladder to control it? I'd consider that a 9/10 (with 10/10 pissing yourself). I was around a 9.7. Man, did I really have to go, but the race would be over in 35 minutes, and I kept telling myself I could definitely make it. Well, I did eventually make it, and when I found my way to the port-a-potty I decided to time how long of a stream I could hold. It turns out, I peed for 46 seconds CONSISTENTLY! 46 seconds without letting the stream break! And this was a strong stream, too. This was truly my finest moment of the day. I just had to let you know how accomplished I felt after.

I would also like to take just a quick paragraph  of my post to tell you about how Dan Mahoney forgot his cycling shoes for the 2nd time in as many years as we've gone to this race. I know it doesn't sound very funny when hearing this news, but I really just want to point out how stupid he should feel for forgetting his shoes, and that I will (most likely) never let him live this down.

Coburg 15mile TT: The Time Trial has been the bane of my existence ever since I started riding bicycles. I've never been powerful, consistent, or fast. Three things that are crucial to being good. This time, however, I wanted to make sure there was no excuse as to why I was slow. I put Alex Wentz's TT wheels on Tiffany, and committed 100% to doing the best I could.

Tiffany's lookin good

The details of the Time Trial are rather boring, I had to swerve over the double yellow line to avoid some geese, I got blown around a little bit, but overall I did fairly well. I averaged just over 25.00 mph and PR'd by over 1m30s. I placed 17th in the 3s (again, nothing spectacular), but being a mediocre time trialist is actually MUCH better than what I've been in the past. I'd actually say I'm the proudest of this result more than any other this weekend.

The Criterium: Holy shitballs was that sketchy. The race wasn't terribly fast, but it had lots of surges and consistently had near-crashes. I've been spoiled by racing with the 1/2s with how fluid and fast they are, but this race truly made me uncomfortable. We cornered 4 wide at points, people would hit their brakes pretty hard, and surge back. I almost lapped wheels twice (both because I was forced outside by the rider inside of me taking a shit line). I was never comfortable in this race unless I was on the front. I attacked maybe 3 times, but each time the GC leader hopped on my wheel. I'm not sure why... I was around 16th overall, but maybe he sensed the sketchyness as well.
The race ended with my rolling in as far back as possible without losing any time (somewhere around 25th?), and overall very pleased with my mediocre results.

The best part of this weekend though, was not the race; it was what I got to come home to after the race. I was asked to house sit in a beautiful home with two drop dead gorgeous dogs. One Golden Retriever (who I call pup), and another Labradoodle (named Gus). The house is amazing, but taking care of dogs is the best thing I could ask for. Here is a picture of them.

Pup

Another of Pup

Gus, who vaguely looks like a mop in this shot

It's been a really good weekend.