USAF Marathon on a Whim

I’ve had this feeling all week since returning from Australia that I need to hammer on my training to shake out the traveling cooties.  You know, that nasty feeling you get when you’re away from home and on airplanes for a long period of time.  If you don’t travel much, then trust me, these are real, bona fide nasty little feelings that saturate your body despite your best efforts to stretch, hydrate, eat well, and sleep… or your worst!

So yesterday when some of my bike racing teammates were emailing back and forth (no none of us really work at work) about which day to go for a long ride this weekend it popped in my mind that I could late register for the Air Force Marathon today, pig out, run it tomorrow, pig out, ride with the guys Sunday, and pig out again.  What a great idea!  So I went down to the expo and bought my $100 t-shirt and race number.  Secretly I still have dreams of running the Great Floridian Ironman distance race in five weeks, so I figured if I can’t do this now, I really need to reconsider my opinion of my current fitness level and how it compares to the long dance in triathlon.

So the plan is currently in motion.  I actually woke up early and went down to race this morning.  I felt like I had a bad attitude.  I was talking to some people at the start who were all pumped up about running a marathon and they asked me what my time goal was.  I told them I didn’t really care because this was just a long training day with aide stations.  I also told them that I don’t like running and just signed up last night.  I wish I had a camera to show you their faces. 

So of I went thinking “oh God, this is dumb and I’m in for a crappy morning”  I found myself hanging out with the 3:20 pace group and feeling pretty good without much effort.  Then the inevitable happened and I had to leave them for the company of the port potty at mile 11.  I’m slow in that transition and they were long gone by the time I put the newspaper down. 

From then on I was on my own with my tunes left to think about how dumb this is and how I haven’t run more than sixor seven miles at once since May or June.  And guess what, it felt like it.  My tender little no-running-shoe-wearing feet started to hurt and I had to hit the med tent twice for blister aide/prevention.  So my confidence of effortlessly setting a PR with the 3:20 group that I gained at about mile 8 was very short lived and soon I was back to “just chill out, don’t hurt yourself, and get it done”.  Which I did.  I cruised it on in for a time of 3:36:21.  Two minutes slower than last year in Fresno, but with two more stops.  I was pretty happy with that and feel pretty good except for a couple of little blisters.  I’ll be even happier to get back on my bike since I got my running in for the week!

Pedal Fast!

Jason

The Grand Finale in Aussie Land

Parade of Nations (click for more sweet pics from down under!)

The race always starts well before the gun goes off. This race started with a decision to reply “yes” to USA triathlon after my top ten finish at Nationals, a day before the deadline to accept a spot on Team USA for the Sprint World Championship Triathlon. Putting my life on hold to go to the other side of the world for two weeks with a month’s notice was not good for my professional life, my home life, my finances, and many other mundane trinkets that I slave away to appease. Instead it was another testament that the hobby I adopted in an attempt to better myself merely traded my priorities and my vices. It was fuel for the fire that burns inside and illuminates the things in life that give me thrills and ignite my passion. So just as I trade golf with the boss for laps in the pool and date night with the nice Midwest girl that enjoys books for towing my sweaty mates up to the breakaway, I pushed ‘send’ and began to practice how I’d dance like an Aboriginal warrior around that fire… bones in my nipples and all!

mingling with the locals

So there I was! Standing behind the white line of tape stretched across the beach with fifty-five other world champion wannabees. It’s interesting to reflect what goes through one’s mind in a moment like that. Ever since pressing ‘send’ I had told myself that this was about the experience. It was about living life to the fullest and making my crazy dreams reality. It was about traveling around the world and sharing an apartment with a bunch of strangers. It was about sleeping under my bike bag on the beach if that didn’t work out. It was about not having a single plan once I got off the plane… just a bike, a wetsuit, running shoes and flip flops. It was about the adventure I told myself… because I’m not that fast.

But it’s funny how that mentality has a way of disappearing on the starting line. I’m a racer. That’s why I do this. Even though I had convinced myself that racing was the vehicle that got me where I wanted to go… when I looked down the line at the fastest thirty year old men in world… I wanted to beat their asses! And all that cool stuff I had been thinking about wasn’t there. What was there? “I’m fast,” I told myself. “I feel lean. I feel powerful. I want a piece of this thing!”

“Males age 30 to 34 to the line… Are you ready…. GO!” And we’re off, three strides and we’re in the water…. Shallow water. Knee deep water for several meters. I made about five dolphin dives (pulling my feet to my hands in the sand the springing out of the water forward into a streamline) until the water was deep enough to swim and then joined the white water pack thrashing toward the first buoy. Now, normally in triathlon this pack stretches out and soon enough you find yourself either stroking at your own pace or drafting back and forth with a few other racers of similar ability. Well… in the world championships everyone is good and in a short race, there’s no time to string out. You’re either in the pack or off the back and I was fighting and kicking and bumping and getting elbows in my face the whole way…. Up current to boot!

I got out of the water smack dab in the middle of the pack which is exactly what I expected. I was fine with that since, as Col Dean Vitale told me, my bike is a weapon. I’m in the best cycling shape of my life right now, in fact, my running and swimming has suffered from all my time on the bike lately. So I felt confident I’d get ahead of the pack. What I didn’t know until they passed me going the other way on the out and back, two loop course was that there was a break away in the swim of guys that exited about 1:30 ahead of the pack. That coupled with my inability to get my right foot out of my wetsuit without using my hands put me about two minutes behind.

Now this was supposed to be a non-drafting race. BUT… people were drafting like crazy and that didn’t benefit me at all. I soon dropped everyone around me from the swim and found myself soloing to catch the lead group of riders who had coagulated with some younger racers from the 25-29 age group (that started three minutes before us) to form a peloton of about a dozen speedsters. Everyone I caught was slower than me so I just pedaled right by (OK I did take a couple three second slipstream rests) But the leaders were booking it and despite my best effort and a great personal bike split, I couldn’t close the gap… not even close. So I skidded up to the dismount line about 2:30 back and somewhere in the top 15-20.

This is where I wish I could say my sweet running skills put me in a position to reel in the leaders. But in reality this is where my race got ugly… as is usually the case. It started as I unclipped my helmet with one hand and racked my bike with the other. Apparently ITU officials care much more about running with your helmet unbuckled off the bike then they do about drafting on bike because the ref made me un-rack my bike, put my helmet back on and buckled, re-rack my bike then sent me on my way. I estimate this took about twenty seconds, which had I been in contention for a podium could have made all the difference. But I wasn’t at this point so I just cussed him out in my head, slipped my shoes and race belt on and headed out of T2.

Have I mentioned yet that I suck at running? Because I do! However I’ve been putting in the effort on the track this year, dropped a few pounds and I’ve gotten faster. I had good confidence coming off the Nationals race in July with a PR 5k (19:10 or 6:10 min/mile pace off the bike with a ½ mile beach run and gnarly hill). On top of that I ran the Aquathlon earlier in the week and cruised around 5:45 pace without going all out. Now I know that this is not nearly World Champ fast, but it’s good for me. And I told myself that as I crossed over the pedestrian bridge lined with people and cameras heading out of the transition. In fact, I felt great… until about mile one. Then I felt like I was going to vomit. I recovered and pushed again. Same result. Now I’ve had my share of GI distress during runs… and this wasn’t one of them. I just simply didn’t have the wind to feed my legs the oxygen they needed. Maybe it was week’s worth of sleepless, jet-lagged nights. Maybe not enough tapering, maybe both and more… who knows. All I know for sure is that I couldn’t run as fast as I wanted to and when the leaders from the 35-39 group (who started three minutes behind me) passed me like I was going backwards at the halfway point, I realized how bad my run was going. At that point I really didn’t want to hear the “come on US! Go get ‘em USA!” cheers because I didn’t feel like I was representing the country very well. That was my darkest moment of the race. But luckily exercise is better than Prozac and as I started to get my wind back I thought, “You know, I’m running down the coast in Australia at the World Championships… F@ck it! Let’s go!” From then on I was able to pick up the pace and as I rounded the corner into the long finisher’s chute the Team USA coach handed me a little American flag on a stick and I sprinted with it down the line feeling like hero. It was great for about twelve nanoseconds until I started dry heaving after crossing the line. One of the other races asked if I was OK and I repeated the words of wisdom from one of my roommates, “If you ain’t puking you ain’t trying” That might be one of the only times an Australian thought Americans are wild that I know of.

slow or fast the local kids thought we were cool

All in all my run still sucked at 20:25 (6:34 pace) but it was far from the difference between a top ten or not. Most of us (when we don’t win) look back at what went wrong. It’s hard not to wonder how you would’ve stacked up if everything went right. I’m no different. If I ran what I have run recently and removed my transition screw ups and penalty, I probably would have gone about two minutes faster. Still nowhere close to the podium. That didn’t surprise me and in the end it wasn’t all about that anyway. It was about the experience and what an awesome one it was! Budapest can be about the podium! Cheers!

Pedal Fast!

Jason

The Big Trip Part 3: The Aquathlon

click to see more wet n wild pics!

Today (Wednesday) was the big Aquathlon (Ah-Kwath-Lon) World Championship. Woo Hoo! So this is a dumb invention where you run, then swim, then run again. I’ve come to the conclusion that if the sport doesn’t involve a bike, then I shouldn’t do it! Basically USA Triathlon encouraged us to sign up for it as a training tool in the prep for the tri this weekend. However, some people acutally took this seriously as I met some racers that did some sort of qualifing event to get here for the Aquathlon only. Lame! I on other hand wasn’t even sure what this thing was until yesterday. Everyone else is doing it, so why not? It was a good excuse to get some good training in. The race was a 2.5k/1k/2.5k. I am either having too much fun or not adjusted to the time change yet, or both, because I only mananged to sleep 3 hours last night and I was feeling it big time today. Regardless, I went about 90-95% and kept a 6 min/mile pace and felt pretty good. The swim was ridiculous as there were about 3M bouys and no one seemed to know where to go. I looked up at one point and the field was about 100m across. I think I was on both sides of that several times. I was all over the place and because our names are on our suits I was able to confirm my navigational ineptitude after I passed the same guy three times during the swim. Mental note, don’t suck and pay attention to where you’re going! My swim split was about 3-4 min slower then it should have been.

 

The Big Trip – Part 2: Getting settled in on the Gold Coast

city lights from my balcony

Dude! This is a long flight! Going to and fro Iraq a few years ago was longer, so I thought it wouldn’t really seem long to me… wrong. My lack of planning for this trip first surfaced boarding the long flight out of LA when my ticket beeped because I didn’t get a Visa from the Austalian government. The Quantas website didn’t tell me to when i bought a ticket… so there I stood; in front of all the other passengers as they boarded, next to the duty free monger with a shopping cart full of booze, while the ticket clerks called Aussie land to get me squared away. As I assessed all the odd looks I received by the procession of visa possesing passengers all I could think about was how I decided to save a few bucks and gain a bit of adventure by splitting an apartment with a girl I met in the parking lot for two seconds after the national race and two other folks that she had met at the same race, but I hadn’t. I had already sent the one that booked the place some money and all I had was an address in Surfer’s Paradise and the thought that I can sleep on the beach in my bike bag if worst comes to worst. “This trip could be bad,” popped into my mind.

Luckily the Quantas folks got a hold of the right people or decided it didn’t matter and two seconds before the door closed I hoped on, the last guy on the plane. I did my walk of shame back to row 70 to claim the only open seat remaining… dead in the middle of the middle aisle… and was greated by a cute girl cussing that her luck of an open seat next to her had run out. Hmmm… I laid on my best charm to try and smooth the situation out as this was going to be a long flight… and it must have worked because a few hours into the flight I had her rubbing my shoulders before I fell asleep. What luck! “This is going to be a good trip,” now replaced my thoughts.

I landed in Sydney a day and a half later only to find that my bike hadn’t made the trip and my $30 worth of homemade trail mix was going to be enjoyed by customs mates instead of my friends and I. It’s all good, the bike will make it and I won’t starve. At worst case I now had an offer to chill out at the local university for a week with magic fingers which is not as good as my original plan, but not that bad either. I marched on to Brisbane meeting more racers along the way as we all seemed pretty easy to pick out by our bike t-shirts, visors and carry on wheel bags and I came to the realization that friends are never more then a “Hi, how’s it going?” away when you travel around the world to race a triathlon with a few thousand other freeks. I told myself that again as I showed up to the empty meeting location my new roomates had talked about and confirmed that my cell phone really doesn’t work here.

No worries! As they say down under. A few racers offered to give me a lift, but before they split I tried my luck at an international pay phone hoping my roomate with the rental car had a better luck on her phone… and she did! What luck. “Three kilometers away,” she said and before I new it all four of us were in the sweet diesel SUV driving down the Gold Coast on the left side of the road.

My luck continued as my three roomates have turned out to be an eclectic mix of cool people including a 50+ year old man that won the first triathlon in San Diego in 1975, an age group national champ Jodie Foster look alike from Cali and a crazy cheese head that I think is really Sarah Conner who is running around practicing ripping her wet suit off with a stop watch cussing as I’m writing this. We’ve been having a blast training every day in the Aussie riviera, despite the bull sharks in the bay, eating the truck load of groceries we bought the first day, and drinking wine in the hot tub with Canadians. Today is the Aquathlon (run, swim, run) that we are doing as a tune up, and I made a giant brekky for all. Wish me luck. I gotta run and get rid of these free Quantas Airline socks that I’ve had on for three days… my roomies say they stink.

Pedal Fast

JP

The Big Trip – Part 1: Five days in Cali with NJP

click pic to see more of the boy

Like all good races… the big trip to Aussie land for Worlds had a prolouge. In this case it was five days in California with my two and half year old son Noah for some much needed relaxation and father/son bonding. Normally I don’t like to have multple days off of training before a race, but I bought my plane tickets before I qualified for this race. No biggie. My guy started preschool the week before and was in session one of the days I was there, allowing for a long bike ride up into the foothills above Clovis. I must say that being a roadie, I felt like a real tool climbing two thousand feet on a TT bike with a disc wheel and got some strange looks by other cyclists coming down the hill. Oh well, I was glad to get my legs stretched out after the six hour mountain bike race a few days prior, even if it was 103F outside!

The rest of the week was more condusive to sleeping in and napping as that sort of thing hasn’t happened for me in months. Parenting a toddler uses tons of energy and I found myself wanting to zonk more then run whenever I had a free moment… ie he was asleep. The rest of the time, we were harvesting pumpkins and cucumbers out of my Dad’s garden, digging in the dirt, playing in the sprinklers, visiting my buddies and going to the zoo. It was quite the fun filled week and we had a great time! Despite all that I slipped in two much needed runs and felt great at the end of the trip.

Six Hour Mountain Bike Race for Relief

click pic to see more photos of this race

Friends of Team Emily Walling, Terra Kier and Eric McKenna joined me at John Bryan State Park in Yellow Springs today for an annual six hour mountain bike Race for Relief.  Em and I won the male/female team posting the third fastest time of the day behind two male/male teams of pro/
semi-pro riders.  Eric and Terra took second.  Other road teams I recognized  representing there were 7Hills, Cyclosport, Bio Wheels and
Team Dayton (in addition to the girls with us).  I’m off to Australia
tomorrow to race a tri, see you guys in two and a half weeks.
Pedal Fast!
Jason

Marion Classic & Zipp West Clay Classic: A Power Weekend in Indy!

click pic to see more photos of this race

This was an AWESOME weekend!  I love road trips, and this one had almost all the elements of a great one!  Good people, bike racing, wierd things happening, beer, victory!  Sa-weet!  I had high expectations for this weekend since it was my fist time racing after turning the ripe age of 30 on the Monday before hand.  Also, I put white bar tape and white saddle on my Felt, along with some new Ksyrium SLs, so in essence, I pimped my ride.  Emily said I needed two wins, one for each wheel.  It was damn close.  Here is the race report from Shayne Dillenger:

Stan, Jason and I, loaded up the Team Abundance war wagon and headed
off for a weekend of racing in the Hoosier state.  First up was the
Marion Classic, which is a NRC event.  We arrive about 90 min. before
Jason’s cat 4/5 race, only to notice that someone turned off summer.
What the heck, it’s only 60 degrees and breezy.  Jason at least
brought a light jacket, Stan and I were stuck in shorts and t-shirts.
The course is kind of stupid, with 10 turns and 2 bridges in 0.8 of a
mile.  Very technical, pavement was OK for a downtown venue.  In the
4/5 race, Jason was pretty much playing with these guys.  He put in
some false attacks just to make them chase, then when they would catch
up, huffing and puffing, he would give them a smile and hit it again.
He got bit with some bad luck though, rear blowout inside of 5 laps to
go.  No free lap.  So that ended his race.  He was bitter.
Next up, the 3/4 race.  We line up 50 strong and it’s on the wood from
the whistle.  Jason and I had good starts and we’re chilling in the
top 5.  Mr. squirrel gets off the front so I yell to let him cook some
as he’s clipping a pedal about every 3rd corner.  Everyone thinks
that’s a good idea.  He starts to get a pretty big gap, so I take a
couple pulls to help bring him in some.  I don’t want Jason on the
front, as we need to get him upgrade points.  Well Jason finds himself
on the point and he’s pulling hard, so I figured I’d try and roll him
off.  It worked for about half a lap and we was up the road pretty
far.  But they figured out that game and swarmed me.  Now I’m back
about 15th.  This course was tough to move up on and with my legs
being cooked I was struggling with the slinky effect.  I started
moving backwards, Stan however has some great crit fitness right now
and he was moving forward.  We passed in the middle of the pack.  I
got to watch some dude push him right into a 12″ curb.  Stan scraped
his pedal right down the face of the curb, but kept it upright and
preceded towards the front.  I at least stayed in front of the big
pile up in turn 10 that happened a couple laps later.  Turn 10 was
high speed, coming off the bridge onto the final stretch.  I was off
camber and you couldn’t pedal through it.  Many pedaled anyway, many
left skin in turn 10.  I ended up 26th but Stan made it up towards the
front for 5th and Jason hung in there for a nice 8th place.  A pair of
top 10′s and some cash for Team Abundance.  Big props for Jason’s
showing considering it was his 2nd race of the day, with only 5 min.
of rest in between.  This kid is going places.

I throw in the towel for the day, but Stan jumps in the masters race.
Martin from RGF goes off the front from the gun.  The chase is on big
time and Stan gets stuck on the wrong side of 8 chasers.  Later they
throw a field prime for a t-shirt.  Stan’s thinking “It’s cold out, I
could use that shirt.”  So, Stan goes for it with Robby Ventura on the
mic:  ”And here comes Stan Huffman, riding out of Ohio for Team
Abundance, taking the prime with a big smile on his face.  Great
sprint Stan.”  Stan ended up like 11th for his 2nd trip to pay table
of the day.

Just before the start of the masters race, we’re standing there and
Jason said he could probably go again.  So Stan says, “Go get in a
race.”  The only race left besides the P1, is the 2/3.  So Stan sends
me over to find Steve from Benga Sports.  Steve is the promoter and
treats Stan and I pretty good.  He appreciates the fact that Stan and
I travel for his events.  I introduce Jason and tell him he’s close to
a cat 3 upgrade and would like to do the 2/3 race.  $10 and he’s in.
So Jason, runs back to the car, eats anything he get his hands on.  He
lines up with a huge field of 2/3′s.  Stan and I find a corner bar to
get some food, we set outside to watch Jason.  Stan’s wearing his new
prime shirt, plus all the rest of the clothes he brought.  It felt
more like late Oct. than mid Aug.  Jason is sitting pretty for the
first half of the race.  Just hanging around 10th.  We can’t believe
he looks this good in his 3rd race of the day.  They’re flying.  Every
race on this course has been strung out, single file and blazing
fast.  This one was no different except it was faster.  After about 40
min., Jason’s mouth started opening further and further.  He lost a
few positions, then had to chase gaps after 2 separate crashes.  He
ended up finishing out of the cash, but dam, great effort on the day.

Next race up was the Women’s P/1/2 National Race Calendar event.  Big,
big deal.  They lined up about 20m shy of the line and Robby Ventura
starts the call ups.  Dam, the call ups took forever.  It was nat’l
champ this, Olympian that.  Three different current stars-n-strips
jerseys.  And there in the middle of it all, representing Team
Abundance was our very own girl wonder, Stef.  While she may have
struggled a little in this one and ended up out, she really did a
great job, racing with some of the best pro women in the U.S.  Many
went OTB before she did and only about 25% of the field even
finished.  Great job Stef.  I’ll also mention that friend of the team,
Emily Walling threw her hat in this race.  She was nervous coming off
a crash with a mild head injury at Elk Grove.  Em did very well and
finished with the main pack.  She ended up 23rd and got a check.  Pat
her on the back next time you see her.

Brad came up from Indy with a stocked cooler for the Mens P/1 NRC
race.  Pretty cool to watch.  Turn 10 was a crash fest in the first 2
laps as it was raining.  The rain stopped and so did the crashes, at
least until the last lap.  There some big teams in this one.  Ouch!,
Kelly Benefits, Livestrong U23, Colovita and Kenda to name a few.
Rock Racing even sent out Bahati.  This was on a whole level higher
than what were used to seeing.  All the big teams in the area were
there, RGF, Texas Roadhouse and Inferno.  However, these guys that
dominate the regional races were getting blown out the back in this
one.  If you’ve never been to a NRC race, get to one.  After the race,
we all went to Brads place were he once again hosted us for the
night.  Thanks Brad!

Day two: Zipp West Clay Classic in Carmel, IN

Great Venue, it’s one of those new, all in one, communities.  Think
Norton Commons, but higher end, no homes under half a mil and some
high end retail.  Smooth pavement, .9 of a mile with about 6-7
corners.  You could pedal flat out through all the corners but 1.
Stan and I line up for the masters 40+ race.  Turns out that it’s also
the state championship race for the masters.  Big field, loaded with
horsepower.  Started 62 riders.  The Zipp factory team had big
numbers, so did Nuvo.  I cherry picked a spot on the line, off we go
and I have a good start.  I’m setting about 8th.  What can I say about
the pace, how about this: HOLY HELL.  The first 3 laps I did nothing
but go backwards!  All the cat 1′s were moving to the front.  Zipp
started firing their guys off one after the other and there were no
shortage of chasers.  I held in there for 30 min., then found my self
on the front of a field split.  After the race, Jason and Stan wanted
know what caused the split, they couldn’t figure it out.  The split
was caused on the long straight, because I was going as fast as I
could (about 32 mph) and the field was going faster.   Anyway, they
slowed up some and I bridged back on.  Then they nailed it again and I
bridged back off to the trailing group.  We had around 20 racers in
the back group.  About 5-6 of us kept rotating through, keeping the
pace up some.  We got about half a lap down and they gave us 1 to go
when the front group had 3 to go.  It was a longish sprint, 500-600
meters.  I came out of the last corner 4th wheel and hit it, bringing
in all the glory points for winning the group sprint for 30th.  I made
it back to the line to watch Stan going bar to bar with all the cat
1′s & 2′s in a thrilling 40+ mph sprint.  He nailed down 10th for his
third trip to the pay table of the weekend.  Well done Stan.  This was
a tough one.

My legs were smoked, but I wanted to do the cat 3/4 race too, just in
case I could help Jason.  Stan could hardly even walk after his
effort, so he was done for the day.  They tell the cat 3/4′s to do a
lap and line up.  I made a stupid rookie mistake of following
directions and I as I came around there 50 riders already lined up.
Luckily, our rookie (Jason) was smarter than that and had a nice spot
on the line.  Whistle and we’re off.  These idiots are hammering.  I
play, move up some and get shuffled back for 20 min. and I’m popped.
Burnt toast.  I pull off to watch Jason.  He’s doing well, just
hanging in the top 10.  Stan had told him he could move up on the
outside through this horseshoe area.  When ever he’d get shuffled
back, he would go to the outside through the horseshoe and move right
back up to about 5th.  He got into several breaks, help chased down a
few others.  Took a free ride when he could.  In the end, it was all
together for the last 2-3 laps.  Jason comes out of the last corner in
good position and sprints for the big Team Abundance win by 6 bike
lengths.  Way to go Jason!  Looked like a man amongst boys in the
sprint.

Right away, they line up 70+ cat 4/5′s.  Jason cuts the course a comes
flying backwards up to the line as the official is giving
instructions.  Jason yells for help removing his number.  He had the
forethought to have his 4/5 number pinned under his 3/4.  So they hold
everything up, all the while, the MC is going on and on about how
Jason Peterson of Team Abundance just won the 3/4 race and now he’s
going to do the 4/5.  The officials take care of his number, I run out
and top off his water bottle with mine as Stan is yelling at him that
this would be his last cat 4 race.  The field was looking around at
each other like they wanted to take up a collection to get Jason to
just go home!  Off they go, so I went to get a sandwich and enjoy the
race.  About 3 laps in they throw a $50 prime.  That’s unheard of for
cat 4/5′s and Jason is all over it.  They take off and he wins the
cash with a 10 bike gap.  The MC is going nuts.  Every lap he’s saying
something like, “Here they come, Jason Peterson of Team Abundance is
sitting in a perfect spot.  He won our cat 3 race earlier, lets see
how he does in this one”.  He also let everyone know that, “Jason
Peterson of Team Abundance will be traveling down to Australia next
mouth to represent Team USA in a Tri event”.  It was great exposer for
the team in a high end setting.  One time the field comes around and
Jason is setting 4th, he looks over at Stan and I and you can tell
he’s suffering.  I hold up my sandwich and yell, “BACON
CHEESEBURGER!”  He started laughing.  I thought he might pull off for
a bite.  After that he ran out of water and was asking for a hand up.
Well your not allowed to do that, so we told him he had to tough it
out.  Last lap, he came out of the last corner with a small gap and
the sprint was on.  After a couple pedal strokes he cramped up and got
swarmed.  He pedaled through the cramp as best as he could for 9th and
some more $$$.  He had a great weekend, doing 5 crits in 24 hours,
getting 3 top 10′s and a win.  He should submit for his cat 3 upgrade
this week.  Between his winnings and $50 prime, he has a little ching-
a-ling for his trip down under.  Great job Jason!

Stef came back out for the women’s open race.  She rides a super smart
race.  Never does anything that she doesn’t need to.  Problem with
these open races is that some of the girls don’t have much
experience.  Some girl in her first race dive bombs Stef on the last
lap and about kills her.  Now, you have to realize that Stef has been
on the pavement more than her fare share lately.  But, being the
seasoned veteran that Stef is, she thought that she should offer this
young lady some racing advice.  So Stef tells her, “DON’T YOU EVER $
%^&*  !#$$^%% DO THAT  @#$#$# TO ME AGAIN @#$%^%”.  I’m sure this
young lady will ride much safer after hearing these words of wisdom.
After that, Stef gets up on her pedals and sprints for a nice Team
Abundance podium spot of 2nd.  Great job Stef.

All in all it was a great weekend of racing for the team.  I wish I
could have done better.  It’s been a long season for me, 8 road races,
10 time trials and 21 crits.  Still have 1 or 2 crits and a few TT’s
left, but I’m winding down for sure.  I’m off the bike this whole week
to try and recover some, then I’m going to start doing some higher
mileage base rides.  Looking forward hitting the road with the team
this fall

Later
Shayne