Just looking at the pictures

Billy "BMX" Casazza gave up his normal spot sucking Marro's wheel to show off for the tifosi.

You can read it too if you want. But in the interest of throwing together an easy post, I'm going with links to pictures. From the little cross race in Londonderry, we have this Team BOB-centric spread courtesy of Ron Slaga. There are some others here on the velodrome site, along with the results. These feature me (with the green front tire, in case you can't tell), as well as zencycle, who for some reason is not listed in the results. The Cronoman, Armand, Mike the Bike and Billy C (showing off his BMX skills above) are also prominently featured. Best race of the day, and perhaps the most exciting five-rider race ever was the A womens event. Sue MacAttack (Gearworks, but honorary BOB) led almost wire-to-wire, but due to some fuzzy offical's math the 45 minute race ran closer to an hour. Emma from Mt Holyoke put on a race long charge from about thirty seconds back in third, running Sue down in the infield during the last quarter of a lap. She then put on a huge surge and won, much to the dismay of the BOB faithful. We heckled Sue mercilessly during the race, because honestly we thought she had it in the bag. Ooops.

So you can see in the results that your hero did not do so well either. I took a "free week" last week, not touching my bike from Providence until I got to the track Saturday. I did run a few times, but mostly it was a week of work, wine, and umm, stuff other than bike riding. After managing two pre-ride laps of the unusual but actually pretty cool course, I lined up with the other dozen starters in the mixed 35+ - 45+ field. Oh yeah, it wasn't raining either. It was, as they say "perfect cross weather." The Londonderry course starts with a lap of the velodrome before entering a tight uphill bottleneck, so the holeshot is critical. And I just could not seem to clip in. Even Armand was ahead of me, and I had to do the awkward traffic jam dismount and clusterphuck run through the bottleneck before settling into the singletrack in last. Armand let me by, and then I killed myself to reel in another guy before crashing myself out in the bottleneck spot on the next lap.

Eventually I settled down and passed a few more riders, and learned to clip out and do the flat-track foot out thing in the tire section. But it was too late, and I limped in about five minutes down on race winner and fellow Easton native Brian McGinnis (JRA Cycles). The Cronoman brought more shame to our hallowed squadra with his second place finish. Billy was ahead of me too. My back was aching from the pounding on the rough infield section, so I skipped out on the 3/4 race and went for a road ride with the Cronoman instead. Any excuse to do the Tour of Londonderry. No Feltslave sightings, but we did get harrassed by a few asshats who objected to having to cross the yellow line on a deserted road to get around us.

Sunday it was cold and rainy. Rather than head to nearby Wrentham for some "epic" conditions pasture-cross, I laced up my racing flats at Florian Hall in the Dot for the Firefighter's Local 718 10k. My teammate Les is an FF from Chelmsford, and is a good runner who is quite adept with the post-race pint glass, so this would be fun. With the Sunday race calendar having big marathons and half marathons in both Lowell and Newport, as well a big money three-miler in Newton for the speed merchants, Dorchester would not have a stacked field. The group was over 500 runners, at least half of whom are firefighters out to have a good time and/or compete for the $500 FF team prize. FDNY sent up a team of ringers, and at the gun civilian Tony DeLogne ran off and hid, with two of the FDNY guys next. Another one or two civilians and then me. The race runs right down Morrisey Boulevard, which is totally flat, but of course subject to flooding. This is also a high-traffic area, but we had two lanes coned off, heavy law enforcement presence at the intersections, and a fire truck with one of those horns that makes drivers jump out their sunroofs for a pace vehicle, so no problems.

First mile was in 6:07, too fast for me. Ooops again. It was raining and there was some wind off the bay, but not too bad. I backed it down a notch and mile two was 6:24. The course then turned into the UMass campus, where it was a bit windier. Third mile also 6:24. I was overheating a bit in my famous orange shirt, as I'd expected to be a lot wetter than I was. I'm glad I wore my racing shoes though, because there is nothing to them so when I ran through a puddle it only took about three steps after before all the water had squished out. There was more wind on the way back around the school, but still not fierce. I had one civilian about five seconds ahead of me, and a few guys behind me. One of them kept letting out giant belches, and he was also casually heckling runners still heading the other direction on the two way part of the course. Being close to my limit, I figured this guy was sure to blow me off with his final kick, as if he could joke around and talk like that he must have something left. Back on the boulevard I tried to pick it up. Mile four was 6:15. And then a HUGE tailwind picked up, much more than what was in our faces on the way out. On the slippery steel deck drawbridge, I tip-toed a bit just to make sure I did not fall, but otherwise it was like running downhill; the wind was that strong.

Mile five passed in 6:07, and nobody had come by me. The guy in front of me turned it on at that point though, really opening up the gap. I was suffering but hanging on. Having a cross race in my legs from the day prior probably did not help. Normally that will knock my average HR the next day down by 10 bpm, but I was at 163, pretty much the bottom of my normal red zone these days. Mile six was also 6:07, and we turned onto Hilltop for the final push. The Belcher had not been heard from for a while, as apparently the pace of the last two miles was too much for him. But 100 yards from the line, a young kid from FDNY came flying out of nowhere. I'd already maxed out and honestly felt good about my speed, but this guy was motoring and beat me in for fifth. I crossed in 38:49, which was good for a civilian age group medal.

Not counting Walpole last month, which was really just a training run, this was my first 10k since Canton last year, where I ran over a minute faster on a much tougher course. Soon after that I started having the foot issue. This year my foot is still getting a bit sore on top, but more on the lateral than the medial part. Makes me apprehensive but I'm still running. This week the Canton 10k is coming up on Sunday, so I've got some decisions to make. It does not seem like I'm running as well as I'd like, but Canton is pretty much an annual ritual for me so I'd like to see how I can do. It is hilly, and the downhills on pavement are what irritate my foot. And there is a Verge cross weekend in Maine this weekend too, so I need to decide if I want to spend the dough to race up there on Saturday, and again try to suck it up for a 10k the next day. Not the best way to excel, but what the hell, it's all just for fun. Thanks for reading.