End of the Road

Season. At least around here, this weekend is pretty much it. There is one wierd litte race down in Newport on Columbus Day, but other than that I think this is it. Cross already started last week, and from checking the results, it looks like we'll be seeing overflow crowds in the Master's races again this year. Pretty interesting demographic for this sport. I'm still undecided on racing at Bob Beal this weekend, but I still have 36 hours to think about it. Looking around my dwelling, it's pretty obvious I'm never here on the weekends. The place is out of control. If I skip the race and stay home, what are the odds I'll do something about it?

It's been almost a week since I updated. Sorry. You may think that I do this while at work, and since I've been on vacation, I just let it go, but that's not the case. Generally I write these posts first thing in the morning while waking up with coffee. Last week on vacation I slept in and tried to make the most of each day, and spent as little time as possible in front of a screen. After posting on Thursday, I rode an awesome loop that KL told me about on the backside of Newfound Lake. The road has a three-mile stairstep climb of almost a thousand feet, newly paved, smooth as can be. This lead to one of the most killer serpentine descents I've ever ridden. No traffic, just lots of moose crossing signs, as the road wound along a river, but the turns weren't so sharp as to require much braking. Very cool. That ended up being almost a three hour ride. Later that night we headed to Loudon to do the race on the road course at the New Hampshire International Speedway. I hadn't been up there in a few years, and the race is always fun. They had a decent crowd, but some of the better riders were awol and I ended up spending most of the race off the front either alone or with two other guys, pretty much sweeping up all the sprints. This brought my day up to almost five hours total, with some good quality, which was cool because on Friday I agained stayed off the bike and went golfing. Saturday I was back at home, enjoying truly spectacular weather with a two hour ride. Sunday KL and I raced the BOB crit up in Haverhill, but I had so many teammates in the race that we were practically in each other's way and I never got a chance to do more than just surf the front to slow things down while others were away in ultimately unsuccessful breaks. We later headed to the world's coolest wedding before ending the weekend at home.

This week I'm back at work, settling in to my group's new location in our Lowder Brook building. There is also talk of us moving to the Canton building, which would be really cool, as the gym and caf are way better there, not to mention it's at the foot of Blue Hill, and would offer both MTB and road riding right out the door. And it's closer to home as well. I have my fingers crossed, but it appears that I'm the only one in my group who is enthused about this possibility. Yesterday I finally got outside for a short run in the morning. Only fourteen minutes, but I just want to ease back into it. This is still ten days earlier than last year, and since I also kept it up later into the spring, I'm hoping to make rapid progress without sore legs. With any luck I'll have running fitness for a few races in the packed October calendar.

The past six or seven weeks saw me pile up quite a bit of time on the bike, so now, with solar glare already a safety issue during the tiny amount of daylight that is left when I get out of work, this will be a taper week for sure. The time has come to transition to morning workouts, but it usually takes me a bit to get used to the idea. The rest is needed, and with the Massachusetts Democratic primary next Tuesday, I need a little time to research the candidates. We have a three way race for the Gubenatorial candidate, which is odd, because this is a job that nobody seems to really want. The charismatic Deval Patrick seems like the obvious choice, but I can't help but think he's really got his eye on the Senate when Uncle Ted retires, or John "Big Hair" Kerry moves on to something else. We also have Chris Gabrielli, but so far he looks to me like soccer mom candidate who is trying to appeal to the sprawl-clones in the suburbs. Then we have Tom Reilly, who really looks like a patronage job dinosaur, and has found numerous ways to alienate me during his tenure as Attorney General. Not long ago he cut me off in the O'Neill tunnel while speeding through in his black SUV, so he's toast. Up in New Hampshire, their AG, Kelly Ayotte, is not only a cpf of The Cronoman, but she raced road, MTB, and even 'cross back in the day! Her politics leave a lot to be desired though. None of our clowns has anything about bikes on their websites, and so far Massbike doesn't have any endorsement.

Allright, enough of that. And to think I won't post a link to Murat because he is too political. Well, at least I'm local. Looks nice out there, off to Lowder Brook. Stay safe and visible, and have fun! Thanks for reading.