Monday, February 08, 2010

i don't want the pop tart

"did you race this weekend?"

"yes"

"cherry pie?"

"no"

"??!!"

so, how exactly did i do a race this weekend? well, you see, it was my first team ride. [which team you ask? bell lap racing. me and some masters men. that's how i like it. (p.s. please be our fan on facebook)] now, how exactly does team ride=race?

well, it does.

for me.

the last three weeks i have been prepping for my race. i do my intervals and all i have been thinking when it gets hard is "petersoooooooooooooon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then i go faster. last week i did the cal aggie "race" for the mere reason that i needed to get some speed work in before the real race this past saturday.

on monday, i start my peaking for the big day. and, mostly importantly, i let the shit talking begin on the team email list. not many engage in my shit-talking, except tom fahey: telling me that for every city limit sign i lose, i have to do pushups.

then people start bailing on the ride.... pelaez cannot come because he is 'moving.' while i would love to crush pelaez-- cause all he does is eat my food-- that will have to wait for another day. the real person i wanted to crush on saturday was brian peterson. "petersooooooooooon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

the morning of the ride, i receive a text message on my phone that peterson cannot come because he is 'getting sick.'

scared of getting sick? scared of the rain? or scared of beth newell! it's the later, clearly.

i send him a text message telling him that he is scared, and he told me tom fahey would beat me in all the sprints. of course peterson would instruct his crony to uphold his honor. peterson is a pretty shitty shit talker.

so we meet at philz coffee in palo alto and i am ready for the tour de peninsula ride. bebe and burns show up and we talk about how weak peterson is. and we decide we want to start a list of reasons brian peterson sucks. i decided i was going to collect these on my blog and publish on every subsequent post for awhile-- so please leave your reasons in the comment section, or email me, or send them to me on facebook. but here is my reason #1:

REASON #1 BRIAN PETERSON SUCKS: THOSE STUPID GEEK WEEZER GLASSES-- DARK FRAMED GLASSES WERE SO 2001, BITCH.

when tom shows up we stop shit talking peterson, obviously. and then the ride started and it was ON.

well, it was ON for me.

i don't know if it was ON for anyone else. but i thrashed my bike. city limit sprints aren't very fun when you don't know when they are coming. but it didn't matter so much. the last one, tom even gave me a rundown of the sprint before it was going to happen because i was such weak sauce. - and then we were going down the road putting out approximately 2500 watts in the sprint windup, and then i couldn't do it any more and fell off fahey's wheel well before the line. and there you have it. newell: 0. fahey: 5.

and goddamnit, it is so on now. now i am going to be thinking "faheeeeeey!!!!!!!!" while doing my intervals" that is way better than peterson. because tom is a better shittalker. and he doesn't have ugly glasses, just a lumberjack beard.

and that is how it supposed to be right? trying to tear apart your own teammates?

i must say, i think tom fahey is a very worthy opponent, for more reasons than him being a good shit talker. you know why? he has excellent coordination of his bike. blue bar tape, blue tires, blue hoods. now, i'm not so into blue-- but i'm into making your bike have a little pazaz. something far too few people do-- with their boring black frames, black bartape, black hoods, and black tires. i mean, damn. what gives? even if you have a fugly frame like mine, you can at least make your bike look cool with some awesome bar tape, hudz hoods, and sweet sidewalls. and fahey is all about that. so i have mad respect for that. that and he told me i should do pushups for losing.

anyway, fun teamride. but i don't want that damn pop tart, okay?

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

ding dongs and donnettes

one must prepare for the first race of the season correctly. this could perhaps include a night trip to 7/11.

now, i am still kinda mad at 7/11 for never writing back to my most excellent letter about the slurpy incident. but we were walking home and wanted to get dessert, and the option was 7/11 or whole foods, and 7/11 seemed like the more logical choice.

there is a wide selection of sweet treats at 7/11. this includes, but is not limited to: candy bars, slurpies, and a wide variety of hostess and generic cake-like snacks.

let me review hostess snacks.
  • fruit pies: those cherry or apple pie gooie things...to ones that look a bit more questionable filled with chocolate pudding. the cherry one is quite yummy and good on long rides. although it has been known to get wiped all over my face, which can be both endearing or gross, depending on how you look at me.
  • the chocolate cake filled with cream variety. these include hohos, ding dongs, cupcakes, suzy q's. all the same, just with different packaging. chocolate cake, cream, dipped in chocolate. now, let me just say, i always preferred the little debbie cakes, to the hostess. the little debbie swiss roll is far, far superior to hostess ho hos. unfortuantely, little debbie does not sell singles (like hostess does) in gas stations and 7/11s. it is a shame, really, because little debbie would certainly have a corner on the market, because they are far superior in quality.
  • twinkies and snowballs. not a huge fan of these, but they should be included, as they are classics.
  • donnettes. in my opinion, donnettes are really the hostess product worth buying. this goes for both the ones dipped in chocolate and the ones covered in powder sugar.

now, how did i get on the dissertation of hostess snacks?

oh yes, what i did the day before my first race of the year.

stopped at 7/11 for a late night treat, and i picked up the hostess cupcakes, and my boyfriend got the donnettes. actually, he didn't get the donnettes, he picked up the generic 7/11 version of donnettes, of the glazed variety, and they were nasty. soggy and nasty. and speaking of nasty, my hostess cupcake was not good either. hostess really needs to work on their chocolate cake/cream snacks, and should take a lesson from little debbie, in my humble opinion. i did a quick google, and found this awesome blog, that confirms my core belief over and over, that in fact little debbie is better than hostess. (this blog is pretty interesting, because does comparative taste testing of pre-packaged snacks). why, little debbie, i ask again, don't you wrap and sell individual packages?

anyway, the short of it was the late night dessert run was pretty much a big disappointment.

so fast forward to cal aggie criterium. let's see, i'll give the couple of sentence obligatory race report. [start] the race started. i missed my foot clipping in. an attack went off in the first lap or two and two girls got away. i decided to try and bridge across. except then i hung out all alone for over a lap and thought i was going to die. then two girls blew past and i almost got myself dropped, but by the grace of god i latched on we then had a group of five for the rest of the race. i kept thinking: why are criteriums so long? then it was the last lap and i was lame in the last turn, fa la la la la. [end obligatory race report]


so after the race we stop at the gas station and michael says: "can i have $2" and in he goes, and out he comes with some donnettes (of the good variety) and some ding dongs.

hostess ding dongs look myseriously like hostess cupcakes. please observe:

hostess cupcake


hostess ding dong

to me, the only difference appears to the white swirly pattern on the top. hmmmmm.

anyway, are hostess ding dongs just as gross as the cupcakes? i don't know. i decided not to partake, despite post-race hunger. the night before was such a disappointment, i couldn't handle it again. i did, though, eat some of the donnettes, even though i know he intended to eat all the donnettes and for me to eat the ding dongs. we did not discuss this, i just knew his intent, and decided independently to eat some of his donnettes.

so what is the result of the hostess splurge two days in a row?

let me tell you. it involves stopping at the "produce market" in dixon on the way home-- where the excellent deals are advertised on the billboards.... and then somehow spending FIFTY EIGHT DOLLARS on produce...and those stupid wasabi peas i just had to have. unfortunately my prize from the crit was a "one free drink of choice" coupon at peet's, so i can't even deduct prize winning from the shopping spree to make me feel better (i.e. effectively saying i only spent $48 or $38 on groceries).

lesson learned, don't just eat 3 donnettes after a race and then go grocery shopping.