MORE CROSS TALK

More cross talk. At Sunnyside we call it Cross Monday. Jim, Damian, Mike and I go over what happened the day before. This is after we have talked it over on Sunday at the race and in the car on the way home. Afterwards   I get to go over it with Kathy at home (though she pretty much makes me keep it short. Then I have to go over it one more time on my Blog. I like to get my money's worth after 40 minutes of racing. 

That is the first thing. We have only raced 40 minutes the last two races. I would like that extra lap. I know it seems strange to want to suffer more, but I have good endurance and just a little longer would help me some. Maybe I could have made up those 10 or so seconds to third. Probably not though. I seem to be 5th this year. I was 4th once and 7th and 8th. 5th is not bad, in fact it is satisfying. We have a lot of 50+ this year who are strong, tenacious, and skilled. Yesterday it seemed about half of them wore Guinness green. Dave Luoma was ahead. I caught him, (great I said to myself, Dave is flying this year and being ahead of him rocks.) Of course he passes me right back. I pass again (see what I mean about going over it). Then here comes Dan. I battled him last week. His chain comes off.  Relax no, third and forth are 8 seconds ahead. I attack. Then Steve goes by. I go by Steve, Steve goes by me. What is happening. Green, green green. Steve clips his spike on the barricade. Of I go. Now or never. I stay ahead, but I feel bad. Steve Lacey has had some tough luck this year. Last year his heart would accelerate above normal, so he went in and had some surgery to fix that. Then some kid on a bmx bike ran into him while he was commuting to work. He is just getting in shape now. I like to finish ahead but not from someone having a silly fall. 

That is the thing you see. We race and we are ruthless, but we are all friends. After the race Steve Yenne came up (he won our race) to me and said "There is my good friend, how did your race go?" That is how we are all. We want to do well, we want all of us to do well. This year Brad has decided the startline mayhem was getting too much. Who really want to stand on the start line for 1/2 hour. He now does call ups for every category. I get to start in the front row. I am proud of that. I look back and see over 40 riders (over 50) every race, and I get to be in the front row. That is cool.

You may have noticed the photos don't have much to do with this blog. But they do. The one is of the drum corps. Brad gets out the drum corps for the important races, nationals, GP races, and Single Speed Cross Worlds. When they drum, the Adrenalin goes up,  I was ready to start another race when they showed up. 

The other photo is Mike. Mike had a pretty good race. Not his best but he did score a few points. You can see he is on his bike going over the monolith (this is what I call the concrete thing in the middle of the course). He was hopping the monolith. I don't think more than 10 in the category A race could do that. We had two on our team doing it. Mike Schindler (photo) and Mike Martin. Mike would gain 20 feet each time. I would say Jason Stager (who also hopped up) was able to finish second because he could do that. 

The last photo is Damian. Lets just say I like seeing our jersey in the A field. We had two yesterday (Ben and Damian). We have had up to 4 this year. We are a small team who loves cross. Having "A"s on the team is a big bonus.

There it is going over the race once again. 

Don