Positive Energy

I've made a pretty conscious effort this year to make a move towards a more positive mental energy state... Yeah, all the numbers/smart guys out there will scoff at this - but hey, that's cool, I can respect that perspective.

Often times, though (I'm human, right?), it becomes difficult to ignore all the "forum" threads that get forwarded to me by friends of the BTR cause.

Recently, I was pointed over to a bunch of questionable threads on a popular triathlon forum. I glanced at them a bit, and quickly recognized the MO of some familiar internet forum-ites. My recommendation to the owner of that popular triathlon site would be to whip out the "BAN" feature of his forum software package - it might be painful at first, but in the long term, it will save him and his readers a lot of mental fun tickets.

I administer a forum on BTR:

http://forum.biketechreview.com

and in the three years or so of running that section of the BTR site, I've only had to ban one individual:

http://forum.biketechreview.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=278&p=2953&hilit=height%2Fforearm#p2953

Lots of talk of "ethics" of science/scientists and whatnot over there on that triathlon site...

So, what's y'alls opinions on the ethics of when a person signs an non-disclosure agreement regarding wind tunnel testing and then goes and blabs about what was covered in that non-disclosure agreement all over the internets???

OK, I cracked on the whole negative thing... Please forgive me, I'm human, after all...

Anyway, on to more positive things...

I did the double at Dana Point this past weekend! That race is really cool - pretty funny to hear Floyd co-announcing the race. I about crapped when I was on the start line for the M35+ race and Floyd's co-announcer made some comment about running afoul of the rules (nothing associated with the currrent state of Floyd's legal affairs...) Floyd didn't skip a beat and kept ringin' the bell about In n out burgers and adult beverages.

35+ race was a mixed bag for me. I was a bit sketched out, this being my first mass start race since being taken out at Barrio Logan in the 3's race. Really nervous prior to the race and the night before. The whole crashing thing sucks, but, there's something about bike racing that brings me back - I think it's the hope that the strongest guy in the field won't win on the day!

;-)

LOL!

Felt good and was never in difficulty in the 35+ race - course was less technical than last year, and didn't seem quite as fast. There was a huge crash in the back half of the field in the last third of the race (I didn't hear it, and didn't even realize what was going on until one lap later when there was chaos with folks standing in the road telling us to stop...). I had to swerve to miss the big pool of blood in the road surrounding the person sprawled out - I hope things looked worse than they actually were, but I'm afraid that that wasn't the case. My thoughts go out to all involved in that incident. Really makes me think hard about the whole deal - lots of folks around me talked about sitting things out after having seen what went down, and I imagine some did. Really bad scene from my perspective.

They actually stopped the race twice - once to get the folks off the course to the inside, and then again to let the ambulance/stretcher exit to the outside of the course.

There was a break up the road at the time of the crash - I was eyeballin the gap with the SRM and had it at 15 -ish seconds for the first stoppage, then had it at <10 seconds at the second stoppage. Problem was, that after the second restart, the officials gave the break a good 20 seconds head start and then only gave the field 4 or 5 laps to finish the race. Needless to say, the break stayed clear.

I overcame some fears and gave it a go in the finale, though, my lack of mixin' it up on the crit scene in the past month left me a bit short in the end. Wound up top 25.

Took an hour break soakin' up the sun, then gave it another go in the 30+ race. I tailgunned that sucker for a good 40 minutes. Damn, that race felt faster than the 35+ deal! Lots of action in this race and it was strung out for the majority. Pretty amazing to see Karl Bordine ride away from that field in the last couple laps - unbelievable. Everyone knew what he was going to do, and then, when he did it, no one could do anything about it.

Again, I nicked a top 25 in this race - just didn't have the top end for the last few laps. These races seemed really fast for me! Never "comfortable" in the 30+ race, that's for sure...

Got a nice shout out from who I think was "Marco" on my "regain feeling in my legs after going as hard as I could in the last 500m" lap. Marco, was that you???

This coming weekend I'll try to get back on the positive track and improve the crit finish skillz at the CBR state crit champs here in Chula Vista.

See you out there - peace,

-kraig