Fallout

My favorite part of crashing on polished Siberian Cedar is that instead of the surface abrading your skin, you just slide until the friction begins to burn you.

Last you heard from me, I had almost crashed at the LA 'drome during warmup. Man, would THAT have been embarrassing. Especially the day before racing started. Well, luckily I saved up all my crashing until 30 minutes before the pursuit, when I crashed during warmup. My foot came out of the pedal while I was accelerating up from the apron and I landed with a mighty 'thud.' There was a short period of serenity immediately after landing as I silently glided past the upturned faces of the racers on the infield, wondering what had just happened. The heat shortly interrupted the serenity, and I began to roll just as I felt the skin on my shoulder and hip begin to burn.

After collecting myself, I stopped to daub myself with antiseptic and donned a new skinsuit with fewer holes in it. My high impact adventure had cost me about 20 minutes of premium warmup time, and I had the post-crash shakes something awful. I was in a bad place mentally. There had been some rescheduling issues, equipment issues, the crash, and I also felt strangely alienated at the track, despite being surrounded by people I knew. Track cycling seems like it can be pretty clique-ish, and despite having people like Tela and Jen Triplett there, I felt out of place, which was unnerving.

So after dusting my shoulders off, I got my bike ready and started listening to Calvin Harris.



I don't know how much there is to say about the race itself. It feels like the pursuit just washes over me, although this time it felt a little corrupted by the bad vibes and the blown legs from racing the scratch earlier in the day. All that crap was "cut losses," and my dad was at the race, so there was nothing to do but lace up and give 'er. I wound up posting a 4:58.5, well short of my goal.



Despite my disappointment, I set a personal best by about 5 seconds, and went under 5 minutes for the first time. Additionally, it was good to go and see that even the best guys in the country are human. They all put their shorts on one leg at a time, and they all make sputtering noises during the last 1k of the pursuit. Watching Dan Harm is always impressive, and it made me want to get a lot better at this event.

So after the pursuit was the points race. I didn't qualify in the morning heat, and that was it for 2010.

After the race, I was overcome by a powerful anger, which I released outside of the velodrome. As I stood outside, breathing heavily, I looked at myself. I was covered in spit and sweat. The veins on my legs and arms looked like braided cable. I had brought my form to a peak, which had given me enough strength to barely hang onto the race for 20 minutes. There hadn't been any triumphant effort on my part, no perfectly-timed move to snatch victory from my more experienced competitors, just a frantic clinging to wheels until the final sprint played out 100 meters in front of me. My work, the consistent focus on training that I had maintained each day for a full 12 months leading to that race, hadn't been enough. As my clenched fists grew tighter, I cursed the slow passage of time that, if filled with unwavering attention to detail and hard work, could bring to fruition the sort of performance that I wanted now. I reared back and roared at the sky, lamenting my helplessness.

Then I began to plot how best to channel that emotion.

The Gentle, Golden Promised Land

Boom! Racing update now!

Since I became one of the best Madison racers in the state, I've had a new perspective, looking down on all the little people, huddled in their masses, yearning for greatness. Well. I can tell you all: it is great, and it tastes so sweet.

The greatness continued with more track racing. First was some Friday night racing right in the midst of a hefty training block. I sucked bad in my first ever keirin, but got my sweet revenge in the 6x5 points race, taking off about 2 laps in, snatching the first points, and then grabbing them here and there with the four guys that bridged up to me. I wound up 3rd, but I was pleased. Jamie Stangeland is so fast.



The next day was the International Omnium. It consisted of a flying 200, scratch, pursuit, points, and kilo in that order. Despite awesome racing weather, the men's field wound up with a whole nine racers. Most were pretty beat from racing 12 hours earlier, and it only took a 12.2 for me to win the 200. The scratch and points races were raced pretty negatively. A move went in the scratch and I wound up on the wrong end, getting 5th. In the points race, it was clear that no one wanted to let me attack without them, so I just played sprinter, and won it, along with the kilo and pursuit, so I won the overall.

(my lil' steed ready for some HIGH OCTANE PURSUITING!!!!)

That was the last racing before Elite Track Nats this week in LA, so I just kept busy training and getting ready for the last race of the season. Benny came up from Portland to race Starcrossed last weekend and stayed with me for a few days. We managed to get out on a ride through the Snoqualmie Valley, my new favorite training grounds.

(Benny on Carnation Farm Rd)

(Heidi Biggs made us this custom huckleberry-vanilla cupcake at Cupcake Royal!!)

(A lady on the street handed me this fortune cookie with what might be the
most disappointing fortune I've ever received: a crummy commercial.)

Ben headed off to Las Vegas for Interbike, while I kept getting ready for LA. One day, it was raining a LOT during my ride. My Ridley comes with the cool design feature of not having a drain for water that finds its way into the frame, so this is how you get the water out.

Two days ago, I started the drive down, and now I'm in The Wasteland itself! Here are some photo/video highlights:

(Rainbow coalition of trucks outside of LA)

(California includes a little moral judgment with their legal reminders)

(The Baloona Creek Bike path. If it looks familiar, it's because it's where Keanu Reaves did this.)

(The cool thing to do was make Inukshuks along the creek.)

Sorry for the tiny video. I took it with my cell phone while riding on the track during a motor pacing session. The derny was scary and I kept looking back to see if it was going to run me down. Luckily it didn't, although I almost did it's work for it: apparently the fall-down speed at this track is 18mph, which is about what I was doing when I was spinning around the blue line. Oops. I got lucky though. That would have been a great way to kick of my Track Nats debut.

More later. I race the Scratch on Thursday, the Pursuit on Friday, and the Points on Saturday.