Training Break...The Zone-6 300KPH MagLev....DC Pig Fat is Slowing the Earth's Rotation!!

Ren made me do it, as usual...

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Well I’m sitting here watching the UCI track world cup and working on sponsorship stuff for Zone-6 and the thought just occurred to me that I really want to go ride my bike.  The thing is, though, that three days ago I made a commitment to myself that I would take a couple weeks off the thing because I feel really worn out.  I’m tired a lot, it takes me about an hour and a half to get my legs under me when I do longer or harder (that’s what she said) rides, and my freakin hamstrings and glutes refuse to release fully when I roll out and stretch…which is every day.  Those things tell me I need to take a break.  And I need to REALLY take a break, I mean not just from riding, but from running also, which I do a considerable amount of in the off-season.  And I just started running two weeks ago and just got over the initial soreness of said activity.  So that sucks.  Now I will have to go through that shit all over again.  But…gotta get my body recovered and healthy and ready to start training for next year.  

Some athletes do not need to take a break like this.  I know plenty of riders that keep training year round at a high level.  They may ease off the intensity or shut it down altogether, but I know a lot who just keep going as though they are getting ready to race in three weeks.  In my opinion, unless you actually ARE going to race in three or four weeks…doing a lot of intensity this time of year is pointless and a waste of energy.  But…it’s just an opinion.  But but but…I am an opinionated guy and I’ve done a lot of research on the subject and…well…I’m right.  So STOP training like you’re racing and just take it easy for a while.  Your body will most likely end up stronger and much more ready to resume actual, focused, and, most importantly, high-quality training training when it’s time to ramp up the intensity in February (why is there an R in February?) in order to be ready to race those early season March and April races which nobody gives a shit about anyway.  

Yeah, that first race in March is fun and all…and it’s great to see all your racing buds again and get the sprint legs firing, and maybe even start some shit and get a break going, but…alas…no one at Indy Crit, TOAD, Intelli, or Quad City weekend says “Hey you guys, you better watch out for (insert miscellaneous rider name) because he won Marian three months ago…  And to be clear, I am not discounting the Marian crit as not worth your time at all…I wish there were many more early season races on the regional calendar.  Were that the case, I would place a much higher priority on inserting a peak into my training calendar for that time of year.  The sad fact is that there just aren’t enough early season races to justify it.  But, again, these are only my opinions.  And they matter very little in the grand scheme of things.  AND…for the record, I am sooooooo very grateful for Dean and every single other race director who puts in the time and great effort to put on races in these fragile and uncertain times for the racing community.  I will always support them as much as possible.

Oh so Dead Sexy

So, what else?  Well…Zone-6 is definitely upgrading its stature for 2020.  We are sponsor hunting at the moment and getting our kit designs started.  We have significantly bolstered the roster for 2020 and I believe we will be protagonists in the local and regional elite races.  I am still in the business of development so we have also added a few more young up and coming cat 4 and 5 riders to the stable.  Matt Laubach will be team manager for 2020 while I remain the director and basically Bossman (as Rachel and Bri still refer to me) and chief horsewhipper.  I am super proud of all the guys for their commitment to our team vision, which is rider development, person development, and community involvement with a focus on volunteer efforts.  

The focus on volunteer efforts will definitely involve our respective geographic areas and individual and organizational needs within, but will also extend to many of the races in which we compete.  Last year, I had everyone who raced Indy Crit do a volunteer shift for Jen and it worked out very well.  For 2020 I will expand that and be proactive in contacting race directors to offer our guys in a support role.  As I mentioned, I am passionate about developing the individual person FIRST, and the bike racer second.  And giving back to the community which supports you is a key element in the development of a well-rounded individual.  

Too often we are apathetic toward those in need of a hand in life.  But we gladly accept that same offer of help when we need it most.  I firmly believe that the more often we go out of our way to offer assistance to those in need, the more we can actually change our everyday and automatic thought processes for the better.  That is, our go-to decision making can begin to default toward a more positive choice when faced with apathy vs action.  I am always amazed and reinforced at how good it feels.  

Oh year…I shall now tell you what I have learned on the News:  wild fires = bad.  Turkey and Kurds and Ukraine and military aid and quid pro quo and bombs and missile strikes…all very bad.  Impeachment and ridiculous two-party political division and CNN vs Fox--more badness. And a certain political leader of the free world (more like a tribal chief, in reality, when considering his constituency) is a poorly-programmed automatous and grotesque caricature of some greasy pig-fiend from Tammany Hall not fit for the Chuck E Cheese Band, let alone the Hall of Presidents.  A first-order cretin dunderhead who somehow lacks the moral awareness which is automatically instilled in the very genome of every human being from birth.  The thing's dreadful psychopathy is the sort usually reserved for the worst of the criminally insane.  ----I cannot recall where I heard that heinous description, but I’m sure those words are floating around somewhere in low orbit, up for grabs should anyone need a mantra to repeat whilst in deep meditation or just looking at an iPad while pooping.  I suspect the author of those words is a dangerous man, and not to be trusted around the weak-minded.  

Editor’s note: Mr. Richter subscribes to NO political party whatsoever and would most likely vote for Kermit the Frog from the Muppet Show, as a write-in, due to his humility and altruism, two words which we believe are scheduled to be deleted from Webster’s Dictionary in their next edition.

Recovery is Real...The Bottom of The Well...Kurtz Gets His Wish...Chris is Sleepy

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Recovery is good.  Going very well…much better than I ever expected.  AA is good.  Lots of great people there who Genuinely Care about everyone in that community.  And it is a real community.  I never thought much of it, before this shitstorm happened.  Or, rather, before I caused it to happen.  But my attitude toward that very gracious group of folks changed from the moment I began to listen with a completely open mind and a completely open “heart”. 

What does that word mean…?  Heart.  I never have really considered it, unless I considered it a very trite thing to mention.  But so many people use it in every day speech.  It pervades our daily lives in both the written and spoken word.  You hear it in news stories, in song lyrics, in television shows and movies (Lifetime movies, especially…hahaha).  You read it in novels, in print news, in greeting cards, and poetry.  Of course, every single athletic coach in the world uses it in every day speech.  And motivational speakers…well they are maybe the most frequent users of this powerful trope. 

The trope, itself, is a stand-in for so many things.  It could be a metaphor for positive emotions like love, or kindness, or empathy (have a heart).  It could stand for courage, or concerted effort, or strong self-motivation as it pertains to any sort of physical or emotional effort.  There are probably a hundred different ways to use the aforementioned word.  Maybe more.  For my part, I suspect “open heart” means the capacity to abandon ego and learn fearlessly.  Yeah…I think that’s the whole nut, here.  And with that being said, my heart is open now.  It is open now because it was completely empty and on its way to the cemetery; but was still beating very faintly and slowly and I, with the help of Big Guns Upstairs, snatched the thing up and shocked the hell out of it and tore out all of the fucking evil crud that had been blocking the flow of life. 

It is a terrifying, humbling thing to go to the bottom of the well and take a look around.  The bottom of the well is made of solid rock and it will kill you if it can.  It has that power because you have that power.  And when you are not in control of your own mind, and thus your own actions, there is a very good chance you will use that power.  I suspect that many people think they have reached the bottom of the well, but still have a long way to go.  If you can still float, you have not made it yet.  It you only think you have made it, you haven’t.  When you hit rock bottom, you will know it.  I knew it, instantly.  I had been on a full-speed expedition toward it for some time and I knew I was almost there for about three or four months.  The clues and markers were in plain sight and I knew it would probably kill me but I was a stubborn fucking pilgrim and I was not about to give up on my quest.  I knew that the only way I could truly change my life and my worldview was to slam into that rock bottom full-tilt boogie and see what the fucker had in store for me.  Well…it was damn ugly.  Damn ugly, indeed.  It felt like being stuck in some schizophrenic’s lucid dream about an evil carnival with only a giant Gravitron for a ride and some vacuous stumblebum jams you inside after force-feeding you half a bottle of vodka and six peyote buttons and says “Don’t come out ‘till ya shit through your eyeballs!” 

I don’t ever want to be at the bottom of the well, again, let alone ride a goddam Gravitron.  I know I’m having a bit of fun with this piece, but I want to be deadly clear; hitting Rock Bottom is not an experience I would wish on anyone.  It is the same Horror that Kurtz managed to blurt out as he lay dying, pathetically, on the steamboat in Heart of Darkness.  I have read that book many times and I’ve always thought, or suspected, that the Horror, about which he gasped, was actually the ultimate fulfillment of Kurtz’ self-loathing…an angry, violent, psychopathic descent into a self-generated insanity that could only end when he was completely emptied of anything human.  His soul died just before his body, leaving time only for those fateful last words.  Well…he got his wish, but, like I said, the Bottom of the Well will kill you if it can.  Kurtz knew he was at the bottom, but his madness was such that the Horror of the well brought him only relief instead of regret.  I was one of the fortunate ones, and my circumstances were providential.  I was categorically exhausted, mentally and physically, but I started to climb out with a little help from some really great friends, family, and God as I know Him.  And with that, I am done with this thing.

Off to bed…C

Broken Man 4

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Broken man part 4

Well I broke myself out of that place.  It was absolutely not as advertised.  I was not allowed to go outside.  No riding bikes…no running?  Not even just around the building?  Also the food was patently non-nutritious.  All processed crap full of sodium, sugar, fat, and more sodium.  My room was dirty and the beds were very uncomfortable.  So I left. 

I made a plan for the next few weeks.  I started AA tonight.  It was great!  I already met quite a few great people and actually volunteered to tell my story when it was time for that. 

I have been to meetings before but I was always full of trepidation when I got to the places in which the meetings were held.  It was because I knew that the people who really work the program are authentic…hones.  And back then I was still in the throes of working my “personas”, as I call them.  I created a persona to fit in to those meetings simply so I could get through them as easily as possible.  And it worked.  I talked the talk and walked the walk.  But I did not think the thoughts.  Because I was not authentic.  I was not open with my thoughts.  I compartmentalized all the pain inside me and walked out onto that stage as a trained actor.  I was filled with dread…real fear.  My life thus far has largely been defined and delineated by constant fear and anxiety.  And that fear was why I never took AA seriously.

But today was different.  Actually the last ten days have been completely different.  I don’t remember the last time I was this vulnerable and raw.  I know that I would normally only do that with Beth.  I have been that way with Beth…especially in the beginning.  So, anyway, I drove over there and walked straight in without any trace of fear.  I think it was God. 

I’m so tired.  I know this was not super interesting but I am trying to keep the blog up to date.  And this is the best I have at the moment.  More tomorrow.  I am feeling much better than ten days ago.  Much hope and my mind is clearing…remarkably.  I can think again. 

See ya—C

Broken Man 3

I have some Fantastic Friends. That is all today. 

Diary of a broken man--day two.

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Day two of the Journey of a Broken Man

A little better today.  Had a pretty shitty morning.  Super emotional and I really miss my wife.  No real physical symptoms today but the mental shit is pretty bad.  My head is clearing out pretty well though and the thinking is getting faster and more precise.  I don’t really know what to expect in this realm.  I suspect I’ll keep getting clearer as time goes on but I KNOW that means that the anxiety and guilt will become stronger.  I think this will get a lot worse before it gets better.  Still…haven’t had any substances for three days and that is the best I can hope for at this point.

Interesting that a few people reached out to me today.  I guess more people read my blog than I thought.  I didn’t share it on social media so I’m not sure how they found it.  But…i really don’t care either.  Those few people gave me a little more hope in the world and in people…friends.  For those pals:  Thank you.  Thank you mucho.  For a person like me, who has always tried very hard to just fit in…to be liked and respected…to just fit the fuck in!…well I guess that really just surprised me.  Surprised the hell out of me.  You see, I’ve never really trusted many people.  I can count on two hands the number of people I honest to God trust in this world.  I imagine that is a pretty shitty way to live your life.  But I always felt very vulnerable as a kid and I learned super early that the best way to not feel vulnerable is to build big, giant, mental walls that cannot be breached by conventional weapons.  I’ve put myself out there a few times in life and a lot of those times end up in disappointment for me.  

Jesus I sound like a bleeding heart wanker.  But I guess this experiment (the journal) in putting myself out there for realsies.  And since I do not even know who my authentic self is anymore, maybe this will help uncover that kid.  This is not a conventional weapon.  It is an attempt to blow up those walls to smithereens from the inside.  No one else can really do it—especially if I don’t want you to.  Hell, I don’t even know if I really like bike racing in an authentic way.  I suspect I do…but I don’t Really know.  I know I like riding my bike, though.  Of that I am quite certain.  That part goes way back to the Sunblest days.  Escaping the hell that was going on in my house with Curt and his bullshit by riding my BMX bike all over those early, unfinished neighborhoods in Fishers (back before Fishers became a soulless caricature of Carmel by ripping down every last remnant of a once charming small town and replacing it with a GODDAM IKEA and those fucking poser monstrosities they put all over the fucking town hall area).  Fuck you, Fishers, for taking my town from me.

Apologies to anyone who lives in Fishers if you find that rant offensive.  But I find Fishers offensive now and I don’t ever want to go back.  Not even though I owned a business there, either.  The whole place disgusts me.  Except Sunblest, and Cottingham (sp?) Estates, and old downtown, and anywhere else I had friends.  Which was not a lot of places because we only had about 8-10,000 people in the 1980s there.  

I guess I have some anger in me as well.  Probably a lot.  And I curse a lot.  I will probably always do that.  I find it extremely therapeutic.  Like punching and kicking, only with words.  Extremely useful!  Incidentally, that’s one of the reasons I LOVE Beth’s home town.  Largely unchanged since she was a kid there.  

But I am not doing this to be PC or even nice.  I am doing it to get all my shit out in the open.  So I will write what I feel like writing and if anyone is disgusted with me for it, well I guess that’s on them.  

So currently I am watching the World Road Race replay on the tele and holy shit what a great race.  What a finish.  And the women’s race…what a performance by our local hero, Chloe D.  Sublime ride in the TT and one helluva ride in the RR.  Devastating attacks.  In years to come, That chick is going to straight rip the souls out of her peers.  Pure Beast Mode.  Pure Killer Instinct.  Can’t teach that, folks.  A vicious killer in the style of Bernard Hinault and Genghis Khan.  Americans love that shit.

Okay I’m tired and I need some sleep.  I rode my own bike today and felt pretty good after about an hour…finally.  I’ve felt like shit on the bike for a while now.  Burned out.  Had a shitty race season.  I know that a lot of that was due to my substance abuse and lack of actual food intake.  Most days the past year I rarely ate anything before evening because the stimulant effect of the dope I was taking just made me not hungry.  It worked for a while, but it finally caught up to me, I think.  Incidentally I have been starving ass hungry from morning to night since I quit all that shit and have been eating everything in the house.  Which is not a lot due to the fact that if Beth does not do the shopping, I just eat whatever we have left until the fridge is nice and cleaned out…which is the way I like it.  Even when I was eating properly, my diet has always consisted of about ten total foods.  And most of those ten foods are pasta and cans of tuna…hahaha.  

Okay I’m done for today.  More tomorrow….  -C 

Diary of a broken man

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Two days ago I broke down.  I don’t even know how to begin this.  I have been a downright scoundrel for a long time.  I am an alcoholic, a sometime drug abuser, a manipulator and liar, and I have basically let everyone I know down so many times that I cannot even remember most of the those times.  Right now I have been sober for two days and I feel awful.  I feel very vulnerable.  I am filled with anxiety and shame.  I am terrified of losing my wife and our pups.  I made a sacred commitment to her and I have let her down.  I have outright lied to her and I have lied by omission.  She gave grace to me once before when I was drinking a lot and drove drunk with her and put her in danger.  I told her I would quit…and I did for a while but then I did it again.  I have no right to expect that grace again.  So I must be prepared for her to leave me.  I came clean to her two days ago and told her everything I have been doing.  I gave her access to my bank accounts and credit card today so she could see everything.  Funny thing is that I left a paper trail to everything.  So I am terrified.  I am anxious.  I am in a very shitty state right now.  We have agreed that I will go to inpatient treatment.  I admit that I would never have even considered that before…

I have done the following things:  I have been using cough meds (dextromethorphan) on the order of two to three bottles a day (900 mg of dxm), alcohol (a gulp full every few hours to temper the anxiety), marijuana (maybe a puff or two daily), and my own prescriptions (sometimes abused by adding extra doses).  I have been doing this for over a year.  The dxm, when dosed carefully, and especially when combined with pregabalin in my regular dose, creates a dissociative effect and a not-unpleasant “floating” feeling.  It also is effective in alleviating anxiety.  It sometimes puts me in a manic state and I find that I can be much more gregarious and talkative to people, which has helped me sell bikes and be more social in general.  

The combination i have been using worked for awhile…worked like I wanted it to.  Until it started to make me lose my mind.  Also I noticed some pretty crappy side effects.  The dxm causes me to retain water and makes my skin very blotchy.  The marijuana sometimes makes me even more anxious, which is why I used it sparingly.  And I really only started using that fairly recently.  I actually tried cutting out the dex and only using the weed.  But I could only do that if I was already in a happy mood…which is not very often anymore if I am not on the dex and pregabalin.  

Things just started to get more complicated the longer I went on with this regimen.  And I was spending a lot of money going to CVS or Walgreens all the time to buy more dex.  Add in the vodka (and sometimes beer…I really love a good, strong IPA) and my credit card went up and up.  But I found I could escape the guilt and worry if I just kept myself medicated.  So that’s what I did.  I took the easy road.  Funny thing, the easy road…you get quick gratification that way but you miss a hell of a lot of interesting things.  Important things.  Things that matter.  

I missed a hell of a lot of things that matter on the easy road.  

This first journal entry is about me telling whoever will listen (yes, “whoever”, not “whomever”).  I am in a very bad place right now.  My psyche is broken.  I am broken.  I have nothing to lose anymore because I have lost myself.  Sure, I can still lose my marriage and family and my “stuff” (truck, moto, bikes, etc.) but if I don’t even have my mind, that stuff is effectively gone.  Because if I don’t even know who I am anymore, how can I be present for my family?  I am fucked six ways from Sunday and I don’t even know how to find me.  I do not love myself right now.  In fact, I hate myself. Two days ago I wanted to die.  I came close to doing it.  I really, really thought long and hard about it.  I actually planned it all out.  It’s even written down in a little story I wrote.  I put it in this blog a few entries ago.  It has always been comforting to me that if life became to painful for me to endure, I could simply stop it.  

But I thought about Beth and the pups and I became filled with remorse for all the things I have done.  I suddenly realized that I loved them very much and the thought of causing them the sort of pain that a suicide would certainly do broke me in half and split my heart in two.  One half is the manipulative asshole that only cares about himself.  The other half, or more accurately, the tiny little piece that broke off of that shitty half, is somehow a precious little piece of someone that I have not known in a very long time.  I hope I can get to know that person.  I hope that person can become strong enough to save me…whomever I am.  So I will go to inpatient treatment and ask for help.  And I hope they will recognize that person and teach me who he is.  I hope they feed him well and help him to find a sense of self-worth.

I have already had help from Beth, Brian, and Matt.  I owe them my life right now.  Not that my life is worth much these days.  But, maybe…in time.  

I don't really care who sees this post.  I don't have that many followers, anyway.  People will find out sooner or later, anyway.  If you read this, just know that I fucking hate gossip.  So be cool about it, please.  And if you see me, please go ahead and talk to me about it.  I won't mind.  

More stuff tomorrow.  -C

El Conchristador and Leonardo Masterbeef III take to the Once Open Highway for some doomed racing action at Madeira

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Frantic Race Report

From the desks of Leonardo Masterbeef III and El Conchristador.

Part 1:

Setting: Interstate highway 74 somewhere between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, our destination for yesterday’s activities.  I warn you right now that this next paragraph was written in a fit of High Rage so please do excuse the profanity...  

 How do you overturn a fucking truck on I74?  The line of traffic was just so damned long and I had to pee so badly and Leo was absolutely no help at all because all he had to do was sit there in his air-conditioned passenger seat and look at stuff on his greasy phone.  Meanwhile I am about to have a bladder rupture and my teeth are almost ground down to dust.  74 is normally a nice, little pleasant drive with an almost downhill feel to it, complete with lovely trees and farm fields and plenty of hills as you get toward Cinci.  But not on this day, no sir, no fekkin way in hell with that idiot who, apparently, for no particular reason, decided to stray Right just that 1% too much and (in my imagination) probably started the terminal fishtail thing-half on / half off the shoulder with all the loose gravel and debris and tall grass and then, POOF, he rolled that sucker right the fuck over next to a wire fence and some trees and a bored bovine who continued to chew cud but was most likely udderly (get it?) disgusted in his or her own way.  And I was too.  In my own way, which was to loudly curse at the dolt when we finally, after an hour of brake-check slow-driving, wound up next to the bugger as the traffic line finally got its act together and found rhythm and I stuck TWO middle fingers as high as I could at him across Leo’s lap and through the passenger window.  Fucking wankmeister…

Anyway, we high-tailed it, inasmuch as my RAM has a tail, to Madeira with about 13 minutes to spare before the start of our masters race.  Leo leaped out of the truck, Dukes of Hazard-style and into his kit in about four minutes.  I had to fast-pedal down the sidewalk and over to the parking lot and register right-quick before my boiling rage exploded my heart and caused a huge, gross scene in the middle of this festive event.  

But I do love the Madeira crit.  It is probably my favorite overall crit course of all time.  It has all of the elements of a Conchristador day of pedaling fun.  Eight turns if you count the chicane as a turn (and I just decided to count it as a turn), a section of shitty pavement, off-camber high-speed 90s, a gorgeous hairpin turn, and one section where you actually need to veer into a parking lot and just barely avoid an 8-inch concrete curb on blacktop (which is NOT asphalt).  Anyway I love super technical courses with loads of turns and crap for pavement because it eliminates about 75% of the competition because they do not know how to expertly maneuver their bikes through garbage like that.  But Madeira is not garbage.  Most of the roads are actually very nice and the course is set up very well.  I love anything with a chicane.  And I especially love a hairpin turn at the end of a nice little false-flat riser where you can pass the entire field, if you want, because they all play follow-the-leader on the right and really all you need to do is blast up the left side and then brake-pedal that 180 on the inside line and then just drive hard for about five seconds and you are golden.  Easy.  I love this course.  After the 180, you sprint down the other side of the false-flat and into a very fast 90 degree right hander and smack into a little kicker-hill that you could almost coast up if you were going fast enough but what you REALLY need to do is sprint the fuck out of that corner as hard as you can (if it’s the last lap and there is a field sprint) because the first person out of that corner generally leads through the next two corners because the straight sections are only about 50 meters long.  And the last corner (corner 8) is the one who can cause you to die if you are not strong with the lean angle and stuff.  It is an acute angle, about 80 degrees or so, and you are coming off a downhill at high speed and probably cross-eyed from the exertion and the fact that it is almost always 95 degrees with high humidity at Madeira for some reason.  I used the word “who” back there because this course has personality.  Anyway, if you make it around corner 8 you have maybe 40 meters to sprint.  Wait…back to what I said about turn 6…that is the one where you will win or lose this thing.  Rail that bitch and go as hard as you can up that little kicker and just make it around 7 and that’s basically it.  If your tires are in decent shape and you dial the crazy back to about 9.5, you can juuuuuuuuuust about scrape around 8 and then about ten pedal strokes later, you will win.  At least that’s how I did it a few years ago.  But not last night…..  Last night sucked. 

LMB3 stayed in and tail-gunned his way around most of the night and rolled in about as casually as Sinatra at the Tropicana.  I basically did not see him the rest of the evening as I had decided to do the P/1/2 race because of my ignominious DNF in the masters race due to heat exhaustion due to absolutely no warmup and speedy initial five laps due to Matt Bole and TRH and company.  WHEW what a mess that race was.  I was very much dizzy because my heart rate was somewhere around twenty bpm above what I thought was my max but my legs were fine.  So I kept going and going and then my eyesight failed somewhere around lap 4.5 and I could no longer discern friend from foe and LMB3 was tailgunning and it was so fucking hot.  So I pulled out due to concern for the safety of my peers and I hope they all appreciated my gesture because if I had stayed in there and recovered……well…my legs were fine.  

But I sensed that I would not recover.  In fact, it took about thirty minutes for me to actually get out of that goddam black vortex. So I just sat on the side of the road and chatted with Rice Man about the art of race craft and moving out of the 5s and 4s and into the vertigo/popcorn machine which is the Cat 3 field of US crit racing.  

Big rest and ride around the block a few times and then back to the truck for some food and water and squirt out a few drops of very dark yellowish pee (and as I did, KP comes by and says “strong stream, man.”) and then on to Starbucks for an espresso and some AC and I run into Josh Richards who was just sitting there looking Dazed and Confused so I sat down at the little picnic table and we chatted for a while about who knows what.  But I was grateful for the AC and some low-key conversation.  

Part 2:

Big boy race.  Very fast from the gun with the likes of Travieso and Hogan and Drew Dillman and KP and it was just really fucking fast.  I felt much better in this race and rode just fine for about half the race but I was just too damned hot and had shit position from the start so I tail-gunned most of the way until I just really did not want to sprint out of corners any more so I admit it….I simply pulled the plug again and let them all go and rode around solo for a few more laps until the Official took pity on me and pulled me out.  I rode over to the fence and released about three quarts of sweat all over the pavement and just sort of panted and scanned the area around me while generally looking like an old jackass masters guy who had no business trying to ride around with Thoroughbreds and whatnot. 

Why had I done this to myself?  I was so dehydrated I couldn’t even move my tongue properly to speak and I think I mumbled some idiotic gibberish about my desperate need for water and the lack of shade to Jeff Beaumont, who was holding my phone.  I grabbed the thing and jammed it into my soaking-wet jersey pocket, said Thanks, and hobbled off toward my truck and LMB3, who was manning the Base.  I quickly surmised that he had been imbibing because he was over by the WRP Mobile Party Unit being silly and overly chatty with Chris Carr and his squadron of very fast women.  I collapsed on the ground, said some probably unintelligible words of congratulations to the gals, and just sat there, motionless, for the next ten minutes until my very happy companion decided it was time for us to leave.  And then we left.  And then the singing began…

YAAAAYAAAAAYAAAAYAYAAYYAAYAAYYYY!!!!!!  ….That is the best I can figure out how to spell the shit that was coming out of Leo’s mouth vis-a-vis Prince and Darling Nikki.  And if you know the song about which I write, you will know the sort of depraved individual that my driving companion actually was.  LMB3 wore his customary 2-day old, 5 o’clock shadow beard and bronze-colored, Frogskin-style sunglasses with acid-red lenses.  A hastily-thrown on, grey, threadbare t-shirt that he’d purchased at some bike race in the 80s and a way-too-loose fitting pair of red gym shorts.  A true first-class passenger if I’ve ever seen one.  And a darling conversationalist as well.  If you do not already know this man, I shall advise you as such:  Should you wish to ascertain a definitive answer about any sort of interrogatory you may have posed to Mr. Beef, be prepared to wade through no less than a minimum of three to four vague and perhaps even completely unrelated answers before you even begin to approach something in the neighborhood of a certainty.  To even attempt a serious conversation with this madman is sheer folly.  He is strictly off-limits for rookies. 

And with that last statement, and owing to the fact that LMB3 and I were truly exhausted after this doomed journey, I shall conclude this thing.  
 

So, Top o’ the Mornin’ to ye’ and please, someone, bring me some coffee.

-C

Oh and one more very important thing I would like to mention:

Many of you may know Mike Langan, aka Big Leg Mike, from back in the day.  He is my friend.  He and I raced together in the early 2000s for Heroes and he needs some help right now.  His daughter is facing a battle with cancer and the prognosis is not that great.  Mikey has not been involved much lately with the Indy cycling community, due to the circumstances in which he currently finds himself, so many of you may not know him or know much about him, but I can assure you that he has given a great deal of his time and money to our community over the years, mostly in a very quiet and unobtrusive way.  I would just ask that if you have the time and inclination, that you might say a prayer for him and his daughter, Presley, and maybe even take some time to just be quietly grateful for our sport and all of the opportunities that cycling gives us. 

Okay I am really done now.  Be cool, now…