Urg.

The NC State Games are today, and there's a criterium race.

Okaaaaay..... I said I'd go, but I really don't want to.

Why? Well, because I spend every weekend on my bike, effectively road racing with people who are faster and craftier than I am, I'm shaping up to be pretty good at road racing. The same cannot be said of criteriums--- which entail racing around and around a city block, slowing to take a corner, then sprinting to catch up. It's a thirty minute race-- but what a thirty minutes! I'm not doing well at those at all.

The take-home lessons for me are:

1) Endurance is a strength for me anyway.... so I naturally get better at road races faster.

2) Goofing off over the winter leads to a disappointing race season in summer. (As night follows day....)

3) There's a specific way to train for criterium racing, and if you want to do well at those races, you have to train specifically for them.

Back to today: There is, in fact, a novice women's category. Specifically, there's a novice women's 35+ category, and I happen to know that my two extremely fast novice 35+ teammates will not be there. If ever there was a race written specifically for me, despite my training or lack of same, this is it.

Okayyyy.... I'm going.

In other news, I'm already investigating the Florida cycling scene. There is no cyclocross (sniff) but the road racing season continues long into the fall. That will mean that, since I started bike racing, I will have raced in:

-California
-Oklahoma
-North Carolina
-South Carolina
-Maryland
-Nebraska
-Florida

and with luck

-Georgia

Okay, so it entertains me to notch my handlebars. Everyone needs a hobby. ;-)

Well, that was not so bad.

podium moment
Originally uploaded by gdecamp03.