A Note from Fatty: A big thanks to those of you who have bought copies of Susan’s book, The Forgotten Gift. And an even bigger thanks to those of you who have left a review of the book. I’ve been really happy to see that the appeal of the book goes way beyond the teenager market I had originally talked about — adults are loving it too.
If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, please do. You can find it available in paperback, as well as in Kindle and Nook formats.
I’m not even going to try to disguise this post. Plain and simple, this one’s all about how proud I am of my 17-year-old son, Brice. Brice is a gifted kid. Extraordinarily smart (he was the top student in his gifted student class back in sixth grade). A great sense of humor. Good at pretty much everything he tries.
He also battles severe depression, which would have been bad enough on its own, but pretty much wiped him out for a few years as his mom’s cancer got really bad and then took her life.
I don’t want to go into the bad times he’s had, though. Not in this post. What I want to do is write about a few awesome things that have happened lately.
TeenScope
The University of Utah has a great program, called TeenScope, Brice participated in. And it did amazing things for him — in fact, I’d say it’s no exaggeration to say that the program saved his life.
It’s also the program my insurance company, Cigna, actively battled me on covering. While they eventually paid for part of it, several thousand dollars are now my responsibility — it’s my hope that royalties from Susan’s book will help meet that.
Following that program, Brice started coming back to us — I don’t even know how to describe it better than that. He even started going back to regular school, and is now back in school full time.
And that’s not all.
Academic Decathlon
A couple weeks ago, Brice did something he hasn’t done in — quite literally — years. He — on his own — joined an extracurricular program at school, called Academic Decathlon (AcaDec). Essentially, this is competitive test-taking, which may not sound all that exciting to you unless you happen to be really good at taking tests.
Which Brice is.
The thing is, though, Brice joined the school’s AcaDec team pretty late in the year, and didn’t have time to read the books and essays that were the subject of this year’s essays and tests.
So he talked with some of his teammates, getting the best sense of the topics he could, and traveled with the team to the state competition.
When he came home, he told us all about the essay assigned: compare a particular Russian short story (which he hadn’t read, and the name of which I can’t remember) to the novel Dr. Zhivago (which he also hadn’t read).
“I totally had to bluff it,” he told the family, saying that he turned it into an essay comparing thematic scope potential of short stories to what is possible in novels, and what each is best suited for.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” I started, wanting to let him know that to me it wasn’t important that he didn’t do well; it was great that he had simply tried.
Brice interrupted me by saying, “I took first place.”
And in fact, Brice was an important reason his team will now be participating in AcaDec online Nationals.
He and I have agreed we will each read Dr. Zhivago by then.
The Big Race
Getting back into his academic groove is only part of the story, though. Around the beginning of the year, Brice also agreed to train with me to run a five-mile race in Moab.
We started by running 2.5 miles, inching up to our longest run before the race itself: 4.25 miles last week.
An then, last weekend, we had the race itself. Brice and I would be running five miles together; The Hammer would be running the half marathon. Here’s the group of us together, sharing a moment as we waited for our respective turns at the port-a-potties:
And yes, Brice really is half a foot taller than The Hammer and I (Susan’s dad and grandfather were both 6′4″).
The Hammer went to get on a bus to the half-marathon starting line; Brice and I found ourselves at the end of the line for the bus to the five-mile starting line (same course, just eight miles further down the canyon).
As it turned out, the last bus didn’t quite have room for us, so we — along with a half-dozen other runners — were put on a van.
It was a very exciting ride:
Even as riders on the very last bus, we arrived at the starting line with almost an hour to kill. “Show me your awesome running pose,” I said.
Brice is way too obliging.
We sat on a big rock, watching all the people mill around, with most everyone waiting for a turn at a port-a-potty:
I swear, races are 90% toilet-related.
The Start
At 9:20am, ten minutes before the race began, we ditched our coats and joined everyone else in a short walk down the canyon road to the starting line:
It was a good way to get ready for a race to begin — standing around for a long time at a starting line just makes me anxious, which in turn makes me need to pee (yes, more toilet-related observations. See?).
We got to the starting line just a couple minutes before the race began, and settled in where we figured we belonged: right in the middle of the pack.
“Are you nervous?” I asked Brice.
“A little,” he said. “Mostly, I just want to get started.”
“Show me your ‘very nervous’ face anyway,” I said.
Like I said, Brice is way too accommodating.
The starting gun went off precisely on time (this race has been run annually for more than thirty years; they know exactly what they’re doing), and we began. Brilliantly, I had set my camera to take rapid-fire shots, figuring that at least once in a while I’d capture Brice in the frame. And I was right:
And I even managed to capture the two of us together in a selfie. Of the fifteen shots I took while holding the camera pointing in our general direction, this was the best of them:
I need to learn not to hold my mouth open in that position when I’m concentrating. I think it may look a little bit silly.
The Rules
Honestly, I didn’t care even a tiny bit about how fast we went or whether we walked half of the course, or whatever. The fact that my son was outside, doing something with me, was a massive victory, and we both knew it.
“A year ago, would you have guessed you’d be out here today, doing this?” I asked.
“No way,” Brice said.
“You should be massively proud of how far you’ve come,” I said. “I am.”
“I’m proud of both of us,” said Brice. “We’re doing awesome.”
And he was right. We finished our first mile in under nine minutes, a pace faster than we had ever run in training.
“We haven’t run this far before,” I said, “So let’s be sure we agree the same rules apply during this race as did during training: either of us can declare a walking break at any time and we don’t have to give a reason. The walking break can go as long as necessary. Whoever starts the walking break also declares when it ends. Our objective isn’t to win anything, it’s to do this together.”
“Yep,” said Brice. But he continued going faster.
Our second mile was faster than our second — 8:19, I think. Maybe it was because of the adrenaline that comes with racing. Or maybe it was because of the drummers that famously play for the duration of the race, their booming drums echoing across the canyon:
“This is an amazing day,” Brice told me as we hit the halfway mark and came out of the canyon.
Price to Pay
Anyone who knows anything about adrenaline-fueled racing knows that it doesn’t last. As we crossed the three-mile sign, we slowed to a walk for break. In under a minute, though, we were back to running:
How did he get to be so tall and skinny?
We took one more break at the four mile mark, after which I asked Brice to slow down a bit during the final mile. He was dropping me.
Finish Line
With a half mile left to go, I looked ahead and could see the finish line banner. “We’re going to do it,” I said.
“And we’re going to finish faster than Lisa’s projected time (47 minutes) for us,” Brice answered. And he was right:
46:34 by the clock, with corrected chip time of 46:15 for Brice:
And a similar placing for me:
And medals for both of us:
The Part I Didn’t Tell Him
“That was fun,” Brice told me, which was pretty much the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard in my whole life.
“Let’s keep doing this,” I said. “Maybe even work up to a downhill half marathon this autumn.” He agreed we should. We started talking about doing the Mt. Nebo half this Fall.
Then we walked into the post-race feed zone, which is really well stocked at this race. Cookies, chips, ice cream bars, chocolate milk, more chips, candy. Brice got some of everything.
“You didn’t tell me about this part,” Brice said. “This is the best part of the race, by far.”
Which made me feel a little bit bummed about the sad little cup of water I had gotten for myself on the way through.
Stupid diet.
The Hammer
Brice and I walked back to the car, changed, and came back to the race venue to wait for The Hammer to finish. While we did, Brice went through the feed zone again (I figured we were within our rights, since I had gotten nothing at all on the way through).
Then we went to wait at the finish line. As we stood there I told Brice that The Hammer’s previous best on this course was a 1:45, so we started craning our necks, looking for her orange, black and white jersey at 1:40.
She came hauling through at 1:43, setting a personal best for this course, and a top-ten finish for her category:
I got a picture of her with Estella, a woman we’ve become friends with, even though we never see her anywhere except for at races.
She’s not even from the same county as us, but we’ve run into her at this race twice, at the Ogden marathon, and at the Boston marathon. She and The Hammer run very similar times, and both have husbands considerably slower than they are.
And then a picture of the three of us, now post-race, taken by the guy guarding the feed zone (whom I could tell was getting ready to turn Brice and me away as we approached):
Heading Home
As we started home, Brice conked out immediately and slept for the duration of the three hour drive. Like most teenagers, he has an infinite capacity for sleep.
As we drove home, I thought a little bit about what we had done: a five-mile race. We had built it up in our minds to be something big, but when it came down to it, the race itself had lasted just over three-quarters of an hour.
A lot of the time, after a race I’ll feel a little let down, thinking to myself, “That’s it? That’s all there was to it? It seemed like such a big deal before I did it, and now it’s just something I’ve done.”
I guess races are as meaningful as you make them. And this time, what we did still seems huge. I don’t think that’s going to change.
I was recently perusing the April 2013 edition of Peloton magazine when I happened upon your new ad.
Now, I firmly believe that when a company does something right, they ought to hear about it. They deserve our praise and respect. And that’s why I’m writing to you today: to give you kudos for your latest ad, supporting your limited edition SS.Lady ellisse jersey:
While I might quibble with your subpar Photoshopping skills, Assos, I can’t help but admire the fact that for your ad, you put a woman on a bike, in the outdoors, wearing biking clothing.
And while I personally believe that the jersey featured in this ad makes a personal statement along the lines of “I really miss 1974,” that’s neither here nor there.
The important thing is you show admirable respect for your female riders, treating them as what they are: an important part of our cycling community.
Oh, hang on. Wait a second. Hm.
Well, this is embarrassing.
As it turns out, that image above is something I put together myself in Photoshop. Here’s the ad you actually placed in Peloton:
In my defense, these ads are so similar to each other that it’s easy to see why I mixed the two up. After all, in both cases, the women are kneeling, wearing spike heels, and form-fitting shiny vinyl pants (over ridiculously sticklike legs) that are specially designed to be so movement-restricting that they come with a warning that says, “WARNING: DO NOT WEAR.”
So the ads may be different in some ways, I guess.
What Is It?
Assos, if this were just an ad featuring a girl — with legs so twiglike that it’s hard to imagine her walking – kneeling (nowhere near a bike) and wearing clothes that are specially designed to be bike-prohibitive, I’d just let the whole thing go.
But I’m so confused, and I need your help. Specifically, I have been brought to tears over the near-impossibility of understanding your ad copy:
Oh sure, everything starts out just fine. I get “NEW” — it tells me this is a new jersey. I get “sS.ladyEllisse” — this is just a peculiar name for a jersey, but no moreso than “Oldsmobile Omega” is a peculiar name for a car, I suppose.
So we’re just going to let those parts go.
But then there’s the heading above the ad copy: “What Is It?”
Now, I think this heading is probably meant to be a question the ad copy addresses, but it doesn’t quite work out that way. Instead, “What Is It?” is the question I was left with after reading this:
It’s the ASSOS celebration of the year 2013! ladyEllisse was created and designed as a tribute to our female customers and to please the eyes of the entire ASSOS community. Number 13 has a special place in the ASSOS world: it’s level 13, symbolizing the manga.Yio state of mind, the perfect ride, ASSOS nirvana.
Well, of course. That all makes perfect sense. Except for the way it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Unless, of course, you’re willing to go down the ASSOS-flavored rabbit hole, that is. In which case it begins to make a scary, twisted, creepy kind of sense. By which I mean, the kind of sense you would expect from a clothing company that shows an anorexic model dressed from the waist down in bondage-wear and calls it “a tribute to our female customers.”
Let us break it down, shall we?
Level 13
In your ad, Assos, you tell us that:
Number 13 has a special place in the ASSOS world: it’s level 13….
So this is a special jersey because it’s the year 2013, which reminds you of level 13.
Super.
But what, pray tell, is level 13?
Well, I browsed, surfed, explored, and otherwise tried to find there’s no explanation of level 13 on the Assos site. Unless, of course, you take the arcane and devilishly clever step of searching for it using an obscure-but-powerful search engine known as Google.
Perfect World In the real world, there are 50 million cyclists, but only a very few can join Manga.Yio. Qualify yourself & join!
In the course of a man’s life (lady’s too), he (she) reaches various levels and hopefully passes onto the next. The higher the level, the more difficult it gets to move up:
Level 0 birth Level 1 party, party Level 2 sex Level 3 show time Level 4 knowledge
Then, the privileged ones, move on to
Level 5 wisdom
For normal people, that is the top level of life. But, a selected few cyclists go on and explore the ultimate dimension of inner-balance:
Level.13
The understanding that a “little thing” called riding your bicycle is the key to personal fulfilment and well-being!
Living a luxury life does not require millions.
It’s not about lifestyle, it’s about health status.
Details don’t matter anymore.
A world ruled by concentrated, pure emotions.
An environment reduced to the essence.
Communication without talking.
No interferences, no hold ups; everything tuned to your personal frequency.
And whatever you do, it just feels perfect.
Manga.Yio – where YOU determine the pace of the ride. Fit the profile & join.
ASSOS welcomes you!
I’ve read and re-read this philosophy, and I have a few questions and observations.
Shouldn’t levels 2 and 3 be switched?
Why is there a period after “Level” in “Level.13?”
When I read “A world ruled by concentrated, pure emotions,” I think of an eighteen-month-old child, having a tantrum. Is that what you’re going for in Level.13?
I assume that “Communication without talking” means that one conveys meaning primarily through the medium of waggling one’s eyebrows meaningfully, punctuated with the flaring of one’s nostrils. And maybe sometimes wearing very tight, shiny pants. Also, I feel I should point out that pre-verbal children communicate without talking…through the medium of tantrums.
When you say “details don’t matter anymore,” you’re not doing a ton to bolster my confidence in your dedication to quality products. JFYI.
When you say “Living a luxury life does not require millions,” is that a willful suspension of disbelief kind of thing? As in, we’re not supposed to consider your pricing?
“No interferences, no hold ups; everything tuned to your personal frequency” — hm. Let’s see. That reminds me of something again. If only I could think of what it is.
More than anything else, though, Assos, this explanation of Level.13 makes me think that you’re just lazy, skipping levels 6 through 12 like that. Or maybe it’s part of the “details don’t matter anymore” aspect of the Level.13 philosophy?
Regardless, based on my thorough understanding of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (i.e., I read about it on Wikipedia once), I think I can interpolate what would go between levels 5 and 13:
Level 6 impertinence
Level 7 despair
Level 8 I forget what 8 was for
Level 9 the all-too-frequent consumption of cheese-flavored snack foods
Level 10 red sports car
Level 11 irritating tendency to make jokes about “this one goes to 11″
Level 12 Cialis
There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I even bolded them for you and everything.
Manga.Yio
Sadly, the “Level.13″ nonsense is only a fraction of the ridiculously cryptic ad copy here, Assos. In the same sentence as the “Level 13″ schtick — as if we haven’t already been thoroughly beaten about the head and shoulders with ad copy that ought to come with a decoder ring — you tell us that Level 13 symbolizes “the manga.Yio state of mind.”
As if we didn’t already know that. Pfff.
So, being the courageous user of Google that I am, I go ahead and try to find what these mystical, mysterious words — ”manga.Yio” — could possibly mean.
It must be something secret. Something that commands reverence. Something as deep as Level.13 itself.
Yep, that’s really all it is. So when you’re in “the manga.Yio state of mind,” they mean you’re in the state of mind of a really pretentious-looking store, with hardly anything in it. Here, take a look:
So what is the concept behind this store / state of mind? Well, both manga.Yio and I are very glad you asked:
Concept
In Ticino, Lugano, Switzerland, “Terra di Ciclismo” and home of ASSOS, the Assos manga.Yio is the Assos Experience Superstore. It’s more than a store.
Assos manga.Yio is fully focused on the Assos values. See, feel, touch & endorse.
Assos manga.Yio, where you can live the unique Assos experience
Assos manga.Yio, where you can indulge, share and receive answers.
Assos manga.Yio, that showcases and makes available our entire Assos product collection
Assos manga.Yio, created to identify and service your needs.
Assos manga.Yio, to provide your perfect outfit for your perfect ride.
Questions? We do have the answers.
We strive to have only happy customers. And we are happy when our customers enjoy a perfect ride!
Thank you for visiting & enjoy Assos.
“A situation which I dislike very much, is to find myself in a restaurant with an endless choice of courses. Total confusion and waste of time. What I appreciate instead, is having the cook welcoming me, looking in my eyes, identifying my needs and finally serving me the dish I was dreaming of.” Nice!
Roche Maier? créateur & ceo Assos of Switzerland SA
Or in other words, manga.Yio is a store where instead of you buying what you want, some guy stares at you for a minute and then tells you what you get to buy. (thirty-year financing available upon request).
I am so excited to visit manga.Yio, Assos. And you can bet I’ll come over as soon as I reach Level.13.
Assuming, of course, I can walk that far when wearing these shiny black pants.
I’ve been working hard on my diet. Between the beginning of January to the end of February, I dropped from 183 pounds to 162.8 pounds. That’s twenty pounds in two months. No, it’s more (0.2 pounds more, but still) than twenty pounds.
But last weekend, The Hammer and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary. And we celebrated it the way we always celebrate it: by going to Zion’s National Park, staying at the Lodge, and hiking and riding our bikes pretty much until we feel like we’re going to pass out from exhaustion.
What, that doesn’t sound like a romantic weekend getaway to you?
Oh, and in addition to hiking and cycling pretty much all the time, we ate like normal people. Which leads to a problem I observed this morning. I’ll get to that in just a moment.
We Are Very Athletic
So here are the things The Hammer and I did while we were on our vacation.
Went on a 100-Mile Bike Ride: Friday, we got on our Shivs and rode from Zion’s National Park to Saint George, and then back. We meant to ride 100 miles but miscalculated and wound up riding 102 or so. With around 5800 feet of climbing.
Went on a 9-Mile Hike: Saturday, we got up and went on a big ol’ hike to a gorgeous overlook of Zion’s National Park. It’s an extremely vertical hike, but more than worth it in terms of the view. Hey, let me show you some pictures:
Yes, I’m wearing running tights and a black wool base layer t-shirt. We were speed hiking, dammit.
I know, it’s not nice to take pictures of people’s backsides without letting them know. Sorry.
The Hammer at rest
I swear, I am not posing in front of a backdrop.
Went on a Mountain Bike Ride With Kenny and Heather: After our 9-mile hike in the morning, The Hammer and I drove to St George, where we went on a fun mountain bike ride with Kenny and Heather. I had specifically requested we ride the Bearclaw / Poppy trail, because I’ve been itching to make a video of this incredibly fun trail. Unfortunately, this was the first time I had used a chest mount for my camera, and pretty much all my footage looks like this:
Trust me, you don’t want four minutes of this.
Rode the Bike Portion of the St. George Half-Ironman: The Hammer has got it into her head that she would like to try doing a half Ironman. Luckily for her (and possibly unluckily for me), St. George will be hosting its inaugural half ironman May 4. And so yesterday, naturally, we went and rode the bike course (but only the hardest 30 miles of it, because we needed to get home).
So, that’s a fairly active weekend, wouldn’t you say?
We Are Somewhat Hungry
You would think that, with all this exercising and whatnot, we’d be completely free to eat whatever we want.
But no. We are much more responsible than that. Especially since I’m trying really really hard to get down to racing weight by the end of March. And so we tried to keep our appetites in check, with the following items being the main things we ate during this trip:
Fajitas at Chili’s: On the way to Zion’s, we stopped in Cedar City and split an order of fajitas.
Free Breakfast: At the complimentary breakfast buffet served at the Zion’s Lodge, we ate a reasonable amount, staying away from the muffins and sausage and hash browns and stuff. Mostly, I just had scrambled eggs each morning.
Jazzy’s: Our favorite place to eat at St. George is a little place called Jazzy’s. We stopped there as the halfway point of our 100-mile bike ride and split a California wrap and an order of sweet potato fries.
Soup: Trying to be both frugal and nutritionally responsible, we actually brought some leftover chicken soup we had made a few days ago and heated it up for one of our lunches.
Egg Whites: We made egg whites and avocados for at least two of the meals while we were there.
Five Guys: Our one truly big splurge was at the end of yesterday’s TT ride, where we each got a burger and split an order of fries at Five Guys.
I ask you: were we crazily out of control, foodwise, especially when you take into account our activity level? Because it seems to me like we weren’t.
The Damage
So I weighed myself this morning — the first time I’ve been able to since leaving on our trip on February 28 (on which day I weighed 162.8).
I weighed in at 168.6 pounds.
Yes, over this weekend I gained 5.8 pounds. Which, I believe, proves the following:
Life isn’t fair.
I am able to create mass out nothingness.
That whole “To lose weight, simply eat less and exercise more” thing is nonsense.
A Note From Fatty: If you want to score a free FatCyclist.com / Rockwell Jersey, today’s the last day you can sign up for the Rockwell Relay. So get off the fence. Go sign up.
You’ll have fun. I promise.
And you’ll also be a whole new kind of exhausted afterward. I promise that, too.
Another Note from Fatty: I won’t be posting tomorrow; I’ll be out of town. I hope to post something on Monday, though.
Susan’s Book Is Almost Finished
I’m really happy to announce that Susan’s novel — The Forgotten Gift – has been through editing and production; proofs are now at the printer. I’ll be getting those next week, making whatever changes I catch, and then — in just a couple weeks — the book will be available to purchase.
Hey, let me show you a little bit of what it’s going to look like.
Front cover and spine
Back cover
And — just to tease you — here are a few pages from the middle of the first chapter.
Okay, that’s enough for now. You’ll be able to read the rest soon.
I Need Your Help
I want a lot of people to buy and enjoy this book. And that means I need to get the word out.
So.
If you are a reviewer or know a reviewer or you have a way to get the word out about this book, please email me. Use the subject line The Forgotten Gift so I can prioritize reading it over the exciting offers I get to go on cycling tours in North Korea (the touring company has left a comment to that post, by the way).
Next, while I love each and every one of my own readers and would give all of you a totally not-awkward embrace if given the chance, well…a lot of you aren’t the target audience, which would be pre-teen and teenage girls.
But I’m guessing that most of you know someone who is the target audience. So when you have a chance to buy this book, get one for yourself and maybe another for someone who will hopefully love it and spread the word to her friends.
In short, your assignment is to help spread the word, any way you can, including in ways I haven’t thought of — because this is a little bit out of my realm of expertise. If you have an idea of how, let me know.
A Note About Today’s Post from Fatty: This is Part 5 of my race report on the 2013 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo race. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.
Five laps. Five.
I had done five laps (including the pre-ride lap) at the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo. And I had one more to do. Which would set me up to about 96 miles, all told.
I should have been tired. But I wasn’t. I was excited. Because I was doing this race the way I like to race. Which is to say: whether I’m in contention for anything (we weren’t) doesn’t matter. Giving it everything matters to me.
I’ll talk more about this in a minute.
The Queen of Exhaustion
The Hammer and I walked back into camp and found Rebecca Rusch, once again getting ready to do a lap.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Really tired,” she answered.
“I’ll bet,” I said. “The last time I saw you I thought you were saying that would be your last lap.”
“It turns out I have to do another one,” she said, not sounding all that happy about it.
“How many laps have you done?” I asked.
“I don’t even know anymore,” she answered.
I could tell that Rebecca really just needed to rest and not be pestered by rabidly goofy fans. But I made her take a picture with us anyway:
Brad
A few years ago, Brad Keyes — the inventor of CarboRocket and one of my best friends — moved to Chicago. I don’t see him anywhere near as often now as I would like to.
So it was awesome that he had come down to Arizona and set up a booth at the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo. I had seen him a few times during the race, but wanted to check in with him one last time before my final lap. So I changed into a fresh kit quickly and The Hammer and I went out to Brad’s tent, where we took this completely unstaged photograph:
Wow, Brad’s starting to get gray hair. How did he get so old?
I got to the exchange tent at 11:30 — way too early. At 11:43, though — meaning he had done a 1:08 lap for his fifth lap — Stan came flying in. That guy is as fast as he is consistent.
I took off, and immediately noticed that for the first time during the race, the course was almost empty. Sure, I’d still catch and pass the occasional person, but clearly there were a lot of teams that had opted to not go out on a late last lap.
I started asking myself if I were being silly — pushing myself like I was in contention for the podium or out to set a new personal record, when clearly neither were in the cards.
So why was I going hard?
I had a very good reason. Because a race is meaningful if you give it meaning. That’s circular, but it’s absolutely true. When I’m training, I’m almost always thinking about racing. Thinking about extending myself. Being faster than I ought to be. Going at my absolute limit.
So when I show up at races, if I didn’t honor that image I have of myself when training, I would be cheating myself, in a way. If I didn’t do what I had signed up to do, why take a day off work, get all my gear together, and drive all the way out here?
What I’m saying, in my own muddled way, is that I like every part of racing: the training, the planning, the excitement, and the effort of going above and beyond myself.
And frankly, I worry that if I ever didn’t give my all at a race, I’d beat myself up endlessly about it for months to come.
I finished my last lap in 1:12. Not as fast as some of the laps I’d done, but feeling that incredible well-being you get from having left it all out on the course.
And if I hadn’t gone out on that last lap? Well…we still would have taken seventh place. I hadn’t changed a thing, team standings-wise.
But I’m still really glad I did it.
It’s Awesome to Have a Cleaning Lady
The Hammer was at the finish line, and got this picture of me as I finished my last lap:
We walked back to where the camp should be…but there was no camp. During my last lap, the rest of the team had headed home, looking to beat the rush.
And The Hammer had completely broken down our own camp and loaded the camp. As in, completely. All I had to do was change clothes (which The Hammer had thoughtfully set out for me), and we were out of there.
Have I mentioned recently how awesome The Hammer is? Well, she is.
“Let’s get moving,” said The Hammer. “We should try to get as far as Vegas tonight.”
A Note From Fatty: If you want to score a free FatCyclist.com / Rockwell Jersey, today’s the last day you can sign up for the Rockwell Relay. So get off the fence. 
