Thursday, August 26, 2010

Sucking the Blunt: Blunt Park CX Race, 22. August 2010

Sunday's outing at Blunt Park in Springfield marked my first real 'cross race of the season (sure, the EFTA Big Ring Rumpus was awesome, but it took place in early June, was over an hour long, and didn't include any dismounts, so it doesn't quite count as a 'cross race). More importantly, it was my first 'cross race in the new crossresults.com team kit.

Back in June I made a decision to join up with some fellow geeks at crossresults.com for the fall season, and I haven't regretted it (yet... ask me in December). It's really fun to be teammates with folks who share my deep-seated passion for INTERNET! and terrible puns. Case in point: over the week leading up to the race, e-mails were flying back and forth on the team mailing list, as we all tried to come up with as many seventh grade-style "blunt" jokes as possible.

Anyway, I was pretty excited about rocking our new Squadra kit, because (a) it looks awesome and (b) it involves a pair of bib shorts that actually grip my "oh my God you're tiny, are you SURE you're a bike racer?" legs. SPEAKING OF AWESOME: my friend Aumiller, who also was at Blunt, gifted me the most awesome pair of tall socks ever. They say "I'M WITH AWESOME." Aums quipped that perhaps I shouldn't wear the socks that day... because, say, what if I *wasn't* awesome? False advertising would, like, totally suck.



Apparently Aums is a clairvoyant, because I really wasn't with Awesome during most of the race. I lined up in front, but didn't react quickly enough at the start, and got bogged down behind almost all of LadiesFirst. Caught up to Giulia of Central Wheel, passed her in the first barrier, and battled her for a while on the first lap, but crashed myself out as she got away. D'oh! Then I was chasing another woman who kept remarking to her friend on the sidelines, "Auggggh, she's sticking to me like PEANUT BUTTER!" Ever the ambassador of the fledgling crossresults.com brand, I coolly replied, "Damn right I am!" and then promptly lost my hold on her in, like, the next lap.

I did manage to keep the racer who was chasing me behind me, and finished in the top half and on the lead lap, which is much better than I did at Blunt last year (remember that chick in green who was shouldering her bike for 3/4 of a mile after getting a mechanical in a crash? Oh right, that was me), but still isn't slaying by any stretch of the imagination. But hey, IT'S AUGUST. Colin always says that it's OK to suck on Saturday as long as you don't suck on Sunday. I say it's OK to suck in August as long as you don't suck in September. We'll see how that works out.

1 comment:

  1. maybe these would have been better for 'blunt park'

    http://www.sockdreams.com/products/socks/knee-highs/weed-knee-highs

    see you tomorrow at quad!

    ReplyDelete