HAHA!

The previous week, it seemed like there was a common theme going on where there were situations happening to me that would've elicited this response from onlookers:


As noted in my Walla Walla post, I discovered that one of my cleat screws was missing and thus tried to fix it in the morning, but had to go to Athlete's Lounge to get the correct screws and then ended up finally getting to work at 11:30.  At PIR it was a rather dull race for me since I still couldn't figure ou that close to the front is the better place to be for a sprint.


On Thursday, I did some 3 minute hillclimbs up upper hall drive.  On the 2nd climb, my left cleat was extremely loose between the shoe and the first apparatus of the cleat.  And this lady in regular clothes with commuter bike with a pannier bag on her bike climbed up the hill just 20ish seconds slower than me, which made me feel not very fast.

Then, when I went to pick up my bag that I had left behind a power box.  But it was gone.  I then biked around the area and found the wallet that was in my bag on the ground by a street kid and got that back.  Then I saw my bag on the bench and got that back.  Then I saw my U-Lock in the hands of another street kid and also my keys in his hands which I convinced him to give back.  But, I was still missing my employee badge, drivers license, phone and $40.  I called the cops which arrived about a minute too late.




At least I had a few encounters with other strangers the rest of the weekend that made up for that bad experience.  On Friday night, my frat bro, Gianpaolo came down for two nights.  On Saturday night I borrowed another longboard from Peter and we skateboarded through Ladds, across the river on Hawthorne and then down the garage until security kicked us out.  Then Sunday night to Tuesday night I hosted my first couchsurfer Charles who had a bunch of fun in town.

Right, so back to race day Saturday at Eugene.  Continuing with the random strangers, I carpooled with an OBRA listserv dude down there who then stayed for the weekend.  And on the way back I picked up a craigslist rideshare gal and drove her as far as Salem and made back most of my stolen wallet money.  But the race definitely had a tone of HAHA to it.  HAHA first off to all the riders who flatted.  I rode 25c tires and had no problems and was doing great the first 2 laps.  On lap 3 there were some breakaway attempts and such, but no dice so I stayed at the back.  Then going into the gravel I started slowly riding off the front and then kept going and before I knew it I was about a mile ahead of the field.

I tried to maintain a maintainable pace, but there was plenty of looking back over my shoulder.  I stayed out there the rest of that lap and hoped I could pull off something at the end.  The next time up the hill I was trying to conserve some energy and sort of went through some traffic of the women's field.  Once I got on the backstretch the gap was not enough for my comfort but I knew I should save something for the rollers.  I thought that if I made it through the final curve with a gap I'd have a chance.

Except Rob English seeked his revenge and caught me at 1k, then another Eugene guy gave a kamakazie sprint and then the rest of the field passed me and I ended up 21st, just one place out of Oregon Cup points.  After the finish I had to do a cool down partly cause I was at threshold for the past 45 minutes and partly cause I was pissed off at the peleton.  I rode until I didn't want to yell at anyone and then I turned back.

At least this week has been a rest week, so I've got a little break.