The Auburn Collegiate Race

I am not happy

Chatting with Kim before the time trial

The mail man suspects something fishy is going on

At the end of the 2007 collegiate season, I vowed I wouldn't race collegiate this year (see my 'collegiate racing' post). This past weekend made me wonder why I chose to forget that vow.

The drive up was peaceful enough. We listened to music and talked and laughed at Shawn's singing (not because it was bad but because of the fearlessness with which he conquered "The Circle of Life"). When we got to the host apartment and realized there wasn't room for all ten of us - that was when the trip started to go downhill. After spending thirty minutes on the phone when I really wanted to sleep, I found a place for three of us with the Cumberland cycling team. The one girl on their team had an entire hotel room all to herself and kindly offered to share it with us.

The time trial went really well for me. It was on a flat course through the Alabama countryside. I was able to remain focused. I averaged 25.4mph over the 7.8 miles and beat second place by over a minute and a half. The road race, on the other hand, was one of the seemingly longest, most annoying races I have ever participated in. It was five versus one between me and Lees-Mcrae. My shifting was screwing up at the beginning and I missed covering the first attack. Over the course of the first lap, I chased the solo break down. The rest of the race I covered all the attacks from the LMC girls. When they weren't attacking me, they were going 8 mph, and that was what really annoyed me. On the bright side, it was great sprint practice. Due to horrible positioning on my part I got second in the sprint.

The criterium went pretty much the same way as the road race. I covered all the LMC attacks and ended up second in the sprint after the Cumberland girl, who I'd kinda forgotten about at that point. Anyway, I'm racing more consistently than I was last year, so I'm not disappointed in the weekend.

So I spent most of the weekend trying to not be upset due to lack of housing, race support, and teammates. I was sick of driving such long distances, sick of cramped hotel rooms, and sick of dealing with LMC.

That's my rant for the week. Now I'm home, and I'm calm. Today I officially switched my major to mechanical engineering, and I got a flip ton of PowerBars in the mail. I got my materials test back (I did well on it), and I finished Hemingway's The Garden of Eden. I was going to try to write this blog entry with a Hemingway-like edge to it, but I failed miserably. I guess it's just not my style.