postscript of most importance

too much and nothing possible to say about the tragedy of this past weekend. no life lesson or short phrase exists to digest such a situation. it is all just so very hard to process. my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of matt & kristy. god bless.

* * *

i have been very fortunate to share the past few days with friends and nice folks on my bike.

Saturday: michiko-- the most amazing teammate -- really wants to see me meet my potential in goldsprints. she does not want to be embarrassed of me losing chugging competitions proceeding sprints. thus, she volunteered to deliver me cold beer while doing a hill workout saturday....what a gem! but few things come between m-coco and sleep. as i was up early saturday going up and down the papa bear hill, i was awaiting my beer feed to arrive, so i could practice my chug and uphill sprint. but, one can only do so many hill repeats waiting for a beer-feed. so, i began to ride home, sans beer. but lo and behold-- sleeping beauty had awoken and was en route to deliver said beer! i could do no more hill repeats, so i just met my beer feed at inspiration point. and i got not only a beer to help the quad growth, but also a yummy chocolate donut! as i drank my beer and ate my donut, nearly every AARP card holder i knew happened to ride by and say hi. they were wondering why i wasn't riding with them any longer; beer & donut in hand, all i could say was: "listen, i'm training, okay?" although i didn't chug the beer, or really do any sprint efforts afterwards, m-coco did let me draft her car all the way on wildcat..... and then i ran into my ex right before the downhill, and if there has ever been motivation to become a faster descender, i think i just found it.

Sunday: m-coco was really impressed with my off-roading, i.e. biking over leaf covered pavement. (perhaps leaf covered is an exaggeration.)

Tuesday: track is back! this was a blast!!!!! so good to see people again and roll around in circles all night. some evening highlights:

• jen brought some brownies, that i neglected to eat. dumb me. how will my quads ever grow more? also, dash gave me quite the seductive hello. jen and mark are teaching him some really skeezy bar pickup moves.
  
• madison warm-up where we were practicing going up and over people coming down off the top. this was really helpful practice for pack riding and being aware of things going on. i am excited to practice this more every week!
• then we did these 3 lap scratch races, and i went really fast in those last 200m trying to beat that dude next to me and gassed my lungs out. it ruled and going fast on the track is a blast!
• our endurance efforts were these 12 laps where each lap got faster and faster. this was hard, and i tried to get behind the tallest dude to get the best draft. this was great for awhile, until a tiny gap opened between us, and i worked really hard to close it for a lap, which i did & that was my most proud moment of the night. but things got faster and faster, and with a couple laps left, i was popping pretty bad and couldn't catch up, and had to pull off, and very sorry to the poor folks behind me.
  
• then we played some games! these ruled. i got to do the slow paced match sprint drill with gio, marzio, rob evans, & justin. watching gio, marzio, and rob go at it was a blast-- swoop, swoop, swoop. then we did it with two people, and this was fun too!
• we finished the night with some team sprints. gio was holding me up the opposite direction of the starters, and i was trying to do a chicken fight-- but they made me take my laps instead.
• the ranger had us leave and turned off the lights and i had pee and frolic over all of those piles of mulch in the dark.
• then i hacked until i got to fremont.

And the important numbers for the week?

Quads: 60.25cm

And, the overpass challenge today?? 180 baby!!!! whoa.

p.s. people shouldn't post pictures of their hot legs on their blogs without measuring them. couLIZHATCHgh, couHERNANDOgh.