sm100 and beyond...

saturday's photo ride with mike was fun. it was so hot & muggy out that i was dripping sweat even when i was off the bike shooting. sunday i skipped the cranky monkey to spend the day with heather, who'd been up in philly for her first (family this time) bridal shower. we went out to breakfast then drove out to leesburg to pick up a bench we ordered a couple of weeks back for our mudroom.

mike at avalon

i say i skipped the cranky monkey to do this, but honestly, except for wakefield, my heart hasn't been into the middle distance xc events this year. after doing 3 24 hour races so far this year (more on that later) i think that's what i'd rather be doing.

1st lap transition at killington - photo by mike klasmeier

got a couple of fairly easy hours on the road bike in the afternoon then we went to quarry house for dinner and a couple of beers. the place was pretty quiet and the crowd at the bar made for some good people watching. interesting characters we have here in silver spring.

1st place overall, 24 hours of killington
photo by some guy with mike's camera

an easy spin on monday, then a harder ride last night with matt... a couple of nature center hill climbs and then i rode over to his place to pick up some bike parts from the last team order (new fork!). spent the evening putting the new fork and bars on the epic, only to realize half way through that i don't have a star-nut for the fork so i guess i'm heading to the shop at lunch.

joe p climbing braley's

what's all this leading to... the 100. it's here, just 4 days away now. not as scary as it was a couple of years ago. can i finish? yes, without a doubt; will i finish? who knows, so many things can go wrong in a day this long, all you an do is give it everything you've got; if i finish, how will i do? no idea and i'm not going to try and predict. i just want to go out, have fun, see how it all works out. it looks like heather's coming down to the race with me which should be fun.

lyne bessette at glouchester 2005

what comes after? well, we're going to head out the 24 hours of landahl for a final showdown with the atlanta wrecking crew for the series crown. between that, a wedding we're going to in september, and our own wedding i don't think i'll get to do a cross race until november. suits me better anyway, since the field sizes will be going down by then. i'm even going to miss the inaugural DC-CX that the team is hosting.