Sorry it has taken so long for me to get some words out to you. I tore myself up this weekend, and I am a hollow shell of the person who loaded up Friday morning for a weekend of racing. I am fighting a cold and right now it is a stalemate, and I just have not felt like doing anything. I know bummer, right?


The weekend was awesome. We had a slight little problem with the Hal 5000 navigation system in Gina’s car. Hal wanted to send us into Fort Worth 5:00 traffic, and we were having such a good time to realize that Hal had not routed us through Lawton and instead chose the “traffic free” route into Fort Worth.

We finally made it to registration, unpacked at the hotel and went to Joe’s Pasta and Pizza. Not a bad place if you are starving, but I do highly recommend the house dressing. Back to the hotel for a few homebrews, number pinning, and readying for battle the next day. Morning came early with Bryan racing the first crit at 7:15am. Jason and I grabbed a ride with Gina and Brooke. The Speed limit in Mineral Wells is 30mph, at least the local constable was only in the mood to write a warning.  Yeah, if I had been driving it would have been "haul him off to jail" but, with Brooke driving it's "please slow down, thanks for your cooperation".

We had several categories racing on Saturday and it was a little bit of a logistical mess getting people to the Crit, and dropping and picking-up at the TT. It was a point to point with climbs and a tailwind, so riding back to the start would have been horrible, for lack of a better word. I watched the Cat IIIs and IVs and then raced the Crit myself. Did the TT and then came back to see the finish of the Cat Vs and then watched the Women’s Open, and Women’s IV Crit. We started our day when the alarm went off at 5, and then the last crit of the day was at 5:15 in the afternoon. This made for a long day on and off the saddle.  I was done, back to the hotel for a quick shower and off to eat.

Morning came early again, funny how that happens.  The RR was about 30miles out of town and our first category guys had to be on the start at 7:10.  My start was an hour later.  It was cloudy and windy, I was secretly praying for rain.  I don't like racing in the rain, but unlike a few people out there I will.  The wetter the colder the nastier, as it turns out it was hot and humid.  When my race was over the clouds were gone the wind was "hurricane" force and it was hot.  The ladies on the team and the Cat V's still had not started.  I felt sorry for them, we have all been training in forty and fifty degree weather.  80 degrees is murder, it took it's toll.

The road trip back home was a blur of smoke hazy roads (Texas and OK are on fire), bawdy humor, race recaps, and a close to exploding bladder.  I read some song lyrics as poetry, "blinded by the light..." check that one out... it's a little crazy.  We also ate at every stop, we tried in vane to find a Taco Bueno.  The final stop had us unpacking and then repacking our cars to head for home.  Here it is four days since I got back and my bags are still packed, my wife is a little concerned with my abilities to handle roadtrips at this point.