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As Matt already mentioned, I won my mountain bike race today. It’s the first race that I’ve ever flat-out won. I led from wire to wire and I have had this awesome feeling all day long because of it. Just call me Smilin’ Ray.

Of course, I’ll probably get shelled at the race tomorrow.

But today, today I feel great.

I’ve been training fairly hard this summer for an endurance race coming up in October, and it’s good to have events like today’s to keep motivated and to check progress. But I have to admit, ever since I heard about the format for today, I’ve been thinking about it, over and over again. It’s almost as if it has been haunting me for the past few weeks. But I’d always tried to envision myself coming across the line first. But I’ve been so nervous.

Today’s race was the second race of this weekend’s stage race. Last night we had a mountain bike time trial in the dark. I’m not sure what it was, but I just felt off. I couldn’t ever really establish a groove. The trail was slick from the rain, I couldn’t get my helmet light adjusted properly and I fell a couple of times. The rider that started a minute behind me (the racers start at one-minute intervals) passed me and went on to win our category and I came in second, several minutes behind. I left the venue last night feeling both a little bummed and pretty sore.

Today, I have to admit I was a little nervous. But I’m glad I had some family there to cheer me on and help me out. I think that really made all the difference. This course (different from the previous nights’) was fairly dry and I was able to use a faster set of tires, which helped. Also, the format for this race was a little different. It was a short track cross country event. What this means is that the loop riders travel is significantly shorter and faster than you might typically see. This allows the spectators to see more action. For our race, we would sprint five laps—five miles—and the winner would be pulled off the front of the pack. Then each following placing would be pulled on each subsequent lap. We lined up and the countdown began. We took off and while I was trying to get out to a specific line through the field that was the fastest, I wasn’t pushing really hard. At the first corner, I glance slightly back and see that everything is already a little strung out behind me. I head off into the woods and start cranking over the gears, hitting upwards of 18-20mph on some of the straight sections. Then we enter singletrack and the riding gets tighter. Then we’re going up a steep hill, then across more fields, then into the wooded singletrack, whoop-de-dos and log crossings. Then we turn out on the last climb up, up, up to the fields that lead back to the start finish. Beginning the second lap, I have a rider right on my rear wheel—wheel sucking, we call it in cycling. About 10-15 seconds behind him is the guy who beat me last night, the guy I’m most concerned about. We tack on another lap, during which I ease back on the pace just slightly but the distance between riders seem the same. I notice that I’m picking up a gap on the flat, fast sections, and they are picking up time on me in the tight singletrack. Fortunately, I’m always into the singletrack first, meaning that while they might catch back onto my wheel, they can’t exactly pass me until we get out onto paths. Which, coincidentally, are the faster paths. Which is good for me.

Since a rider drafting behind another rider can save something like 20% of their energy, I tried to get the rider right behind me to come around and pull for a lap. Either he didn’t want to, didn’t understand what I wanted him to do, or was having enough trouble maintaining contact. Whichever, I was stuck out front. Not wanting to lose the ending sprint to a guy who was fresher than me due to drafting behind me for the entirety of the race, I figured I’d try to go faster to shake him loose. While it worked, the third place guy was still creaping up. As we were entering the next to lap last, I had worried that I misplayed the race, that he had just been hanging within striking distance while I had been blowing energy up at the front. We’re about 1 1/4 laps from the first place lap and he gets right behind me in the singletrack. I can feel him back there and it blows my concentration just a little going over some logs. I bobble the landing just a little but this causes him to have to brake hard, scrub a lot of speed, and he gets passed by the next rider. This blocks him off until we are back on the wide trail up the hill, where I again start pumping the pedals hard. We go into the last full lap before first place gets pulled and I’m in the big chainring pushing hard. I know I have to maintain the lead throughout the rest of the lap. I look back and I’ve put a few seconds on everyone before going into the woods. I can hear them closing in as we wind through the woods, breaks squealing here, tires skidding there, gears changing behind me. I pull out onto the first steep climb and stand up and work the bike up over the hill and I can feel the lactic acid beginning to build in my legs. I push out into the field and am able to look back over my shoulder before entering the woods for the last singletrack of the lap. He’s probably 5-10 seconds behind me. I enter the woods, hit the whoop-de-dos fast, get over the logs in a less-than-graceful fashion, bomb down a rooty descent and hook into the turn for the last climb. I can hear him and it sounds like he’s right behind me. I get out of the saddle and sprint as hard as I can up the hill. I want to break away here; if we’re sprinting for the finish in the open ground, he might catch me. I burn up the incline and at the top I glance back. There’s nobody there. I was able to break him on the climb. I still sprinted the last few hundred yards to the finish, continually looking back, but as I entered the final turn, I heard the announcer yelling over the PA “And here’s our winner” and my name.

That, my friends, is a cool feeling.

One last check over the shoulder and I coast into the finish line with one hand in the air. The announcer gives me a high five and I pull off to the side—not spent, but close to it. And still, I had this great big smile on my face. My dad and my sister got to see it, which was awesome. And I even got some prize money.

But winning… oh, man. What a feeling.

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so im procrastinating a bit with my reading. im about to start but its so so so dry. and not very good.

all my other work is done and this doesnt have to be read til next mon, so i have a while.

matthew is back posting. im glad. after speaking to 3 different people before i left about posting on the site – none have really followed up and i think only 1 might do it at all. not awful. im not bitter or anything.

wait. thats untrue.

im bitter at hank because ive asked twice, shes accepted twice and then dropped off the face of the earth each time. i dont have the time to chase after her – the invitation was made and if she wants to take advantage of it, good. if not, ok. but i wish she would actually commit one way or the other.

i had a terrible dream last night that took place right after my mom died. thats so yucky. i cant even deal with talking about it.

i havent spoken to david since he dropped by my going away party. that was…weeks ago. he hasnt posted in weeks either. i have no idea whats going on and, honestly, i dont even know his email address. i could call, except that im broke and have no long distance. im preferring email these days. but i hope all is well with him.

its weird. so much has changed for me – ive met zillions of people i didnt know existed a few weeks ago. i cruised sunset and hollywood with my roomies last night for an hour, listening to ‘appetite for destruction’, sitting the back, singing and watching the hookers and tourists wander in and out of stores. if you had told me at any point in my life previous to about a year ago that i would be doing that…i wouldnt have believed you. something new and different and odd. but on the other hand, nothing has changed. im not hanging out with matthew or mike now. i havent spoken to linda much (i think its good for her that we arent in the same city anymore. thats no slam on her, but i think its helping her in odd ways). but im emailing like a fiend now, im still the same person (albeit, ive already learned so much at school). the more things change…

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I got published today. Better yet, it was an article about mountain biking. But enough out of me–I’ve got a mountain bike race in a scant 10.5 hours. To bed!

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i just visited the burg this past mid-week for a couple days and was feeling a strange sense of perspective, being able to walk around campus, watching people do their college thing and talking to teachers from a post-graduate position. Its been another addition to a sequence of events that are marking the end of the usual and pointing to the beginning of the unusual.

i’ve now graduated from college, the end of the structured 21 years of suburban middle-american upbringing. i’ve stopped my full time job just recently and moved out my apartment back home. my girlfriend has moved to the west coast. my middle sister has left for college again. i’ve been back to school and been ‘that guy’, the post graduate who comes back to school to hang out(and i might add i spent most of the time playing warcraft III on the network with my brothers). my youngest sister starts school again tuesday, my parents are both gone all day at work, and my car is at uva with my middle sister. i leave on sunday the 8th.

i’m glad to hear that tripp is enjoying his new life in la. i know that my new life will suit me well, and i am excited about it, but right now i’m stuck in between my old life and my new and its a strange perspective. time speeds up and slows down, friends come and go, family is in and out, and next week can’t come slowly(or quickly) enough. i will be leaving behind my family for anywhere from one to three years depending on how things work out. so right now i don’t know much, including what to post.

peace

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mind-fuckery. it’s everywhere. i hate to think that i too probably engage in it daily. the things that are left unsaid, the inferences. it wears me down. i sometimes wish
everyone would just be honest and completely forthright. but then of course where would the fun be? is it dishonest not to admit something? lies of ommission have anyways perplexed me. how can you lie when you
are not saying anything at all? yet it all makes sense; clear as mud.

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so much good stuff happened last night. i went out for a drink with my ex after work and that was good. i dont know how either of us are feeling or what we want, but it was good to see him nonetheless.

then i went to watch the vma.s with some girls my friend bethany is friends with. that was fun. we drank wine and ate chips and got drunk, sort of. well, yes, drunk i guess. i thought the vmas were really so much better this year than last year’s disappointment. i really liked this year’s show, although i think ‘99 was really the best. anyhow, by the end i was getting drunk, and i was SUPER excited to see g n’ r, despite chris’s (chris’?) disappointment. i was too out of it to notice all the bad stuff and enjoyed the fact that axl was alive and still sounds like he used to sound.

however, i did have some criticism of the show. (1) why doesnt madonna come back? i know she’s british now and way too old (er, i mean cool) to come, but i’d love to see her. (2) what the f was up with the camera work? all the fading, all the cuts and different angles, and the digital video! all of these put together made me not really believe it was a live show. (3) there wasnt much rawness in last night’s vma. no korn catastrophy, no U2 mess up, no blabbering funny speeches, no real controversy. i thought the ozzbornes (osbornes? ozbornes?) were funny. since i dont have cable, i havent seen the show and i found the clips quite amusing. i think they were about as edgy as it got all night. aside from maybe (nas?) drinking onstage and pink/michelle branches dumb comments about being drunk, and enrique swilling down in the audience.

i also missed the pre-show, although it was raining, so it probably wasnt very intense.

after the vmas, i went out with these girls to this awful bar that i hate but was too drunk to care. we got there and before id been there thirty minutes, had been handed a tequila shot and an apple martini. i love tequila shots. i never took shots in college, and took my first tequila shot here in dc around april. they are so good! i dont really like tequila, i just like the tequila/salt/lime combination. so, needless to say, i went home and crashed, thankfully having sense enough to set the alarm for today.

and here i am at work, needing to finish a report, feeling hungover and hungry, and happy it’s friday and happy with my random nights and unstable life here. sometimes it’s nice to be unsettled…it allows picking up and going whenever, wherever.

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Let the record show that I’m the first one up with a reaction to Guns N’ Roses return to the mass market with their appearance at the VMA’s.

First up: Axl looked great, fake dreadlocks and all. It’s good to know he’s still alive, that he has long hair, and that he wasn’t wearing a kilt.

The fact that I lead with Axl’s new look speaks volumes about what I thought of his voice. His delivery was always long on shrill and graininess, but it used to have a savage power. Tonight he lost his breath halfway through an already abreviated version of “Welcome to the Jungle.” If I hadn’t seen it I would have thought it was a shitty tribute band.

Did anybody else notice that there wasn’t even any attempt to replace Slash’s solos? I’ve heard all kinds of hype about the quality of thes replacement players, but even on this, their supposed triumphant return, the transitions in the medley were clumsy. I’ve seen Slash live post Guns and suffice it say his show kicked Axl’s ass and it didn’t take him ten years to put his fucking band together.

I’ll still give a good long listen to Chinese Democracy should it ever see the light of day, but this was not a commanding peformance, despite all the bullshit that the MTV hosts are spouting off about.

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