90210

Last week I was in California for 28 hours. I am disappointed to say there were no sightings of Dylan, Kelly, Donna, Nat or the Peach Pit. But, let's be realistic; if I had run into Dylan there would be no way of recognizing him as his face looked like a worn-in catcher's mitt in the early 90's. By now he probably resembles a Sour Patch Kid more than an actual human. Anyway, my trip to Levi's state concluded with a red eye flight to Logan and no sights of movie stars.

After being crammed into a seat by the plane lavatories for six hours, I arrived to Logan at 5am feeling less than stellar. Knowing I would be racing the following day, I decided to do the best thing after flying all night...a four hour ride. Surprisingly, my legs didn't seem to be all that bad. I mean, they didn't feel superb, but they didn't feel like over-sized paper weights either. My ride brought me over Parker and Catamount along with some quick detours through Lee and Durham. The wheels were turnin' and my legs weren't falling off. Ready for Sunday!

I awoke Sunday morning psyched to get to the start line. My sixth sense told me Mark McCormack would be at the race, and I had to make amends after my last start line fiasco. I was again perplexed by my legs' apparent lack of soreness after the week's travels. This would be a good day. I could feel it.

Why the Pilgrims picked Plymouth to set-up shop beats the hell out of me. Durham was sunny and warm. Plymouth was cold and windy. Durham has nice grass and pastures. Plymouth has sand and pine needles over sand. Basically, I would not be the least bit surprised if the Native Americans had perfect abs after laughing hysterically for months as the Pilgrims picked the "prime" location for a village.

Oh yeah, back to bike racing. I kitted up and began to ride around for a couple minutes. Still, my legs were not hurting, but the power being generated from them was likely not even enough to power the light in my hear rate monitor. I rolled around the rolling one mile course and found the start line. As I had sensed earlier, Mark and his two brothers and three other teammates were standing around ready to ride. The only thing worse than one McCormack is more than one McCormack. This was gonna be good.

I started the race with the goal of minimizing my aggressiveness. Things were going as planned and I was doing little work. Fuji guys, including the McCormacks, were attacking. NEBC guys were chasing. Things would come back together and we would repeat. Eventually, a small break formed with NEBC guys and Fuji guys represented. I missed the move and instantly realized I was screwed. Time to chase. With a group of Fuji and NEBC guys sitting in my group, my chase was basically futile. I would pull a bit hoping to have another rider give me a hand. Unfortunately, the small field was comprised mostly of three teams and those teams were in the break. So, for nine laps I rode around the course suffering into the strong cross/head wind. It was not fun and my legs were not happy.

This week I finally get to start my first road race of the season at Turtle Pond. As of now, I'm hoping my legs will come around and decide to cooperate with me rather than secretly working for Team Fuji. If not, they will find themselves pedaling home the forty miles after the 70 mile race. Stay tuned for more reports of my suffering.

The other guys were in NY this weekend racing Battenkill. RKelly will hopefullyl give a run down of the joy and excitement of riding 30 of 80 miles on dirt.