Wednesday 23 June 2010

Whistling Along


I've had that Wyclef song "Gone 'Til November" in my head for a long time, but now it's morphed into one of my favorite Taj Mahal tunes. Seems like a lot of stuff is whistling right past my head right about now, so it's apropos. But I think that "Gone 'Til November" is going to have a near permanent slot in my mental rotation.

It used to seem that things hit a big slowdown, schedule wise, right after Reston. Not so this year. We have the Long Pine MTB on July 4th, then rumors of Hagerstown the week after, then Coppi, then Lost River, then an off weekend, and then that whole Page Valley thing. All of which is a prelude to the beat down that I'll be taking in the Devil's Backbone races later in August. God I'm going to be tired by the time September comes around.

The heat and the beat conspired big time on the Goon last night. It was a freaking swamp, not nice conditions at all. There are some guys with serious wheels these days. Although I can often (but not always by any stretch) hang onto them, they're either a) so sick and twisted that despite feeling like I do (i.e. one second away from delivering a full-scale vomitorium all over the place), they decide to jump once more into the fray and ratchet it up about nine notches or b) my vomitorium is their warmup. Either way, I was about to turn into Kim Kirchen on the way up the Mormon hill trying to keep up with Nick B and Lumm the Junior, so I tossed in the towel. In case his win at ToWC road race left any doubt, Brig's going fast these days.

For the first time in my life, I proactively got a good staging spot at the ToWC crit. What a difference that makes, slotting yourself into the position you want instead of running around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to make up ground and not have something stupid ruin your day. Last year at Reston, I got a call up for unknown reasons. This year at Reston, I plan to try not to suck at staging. Whatever happens, Gus and I will not be trying to do some sly move off the front. Definitely not. A categorical no.

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