Castle Amish Classic

After Three hours of hard riding, I find myself coming down the backside of Lone Wolf, panic set in when before me, a parade of young Amish women guarded the entrance to my remaining field sprint. They were obviously disciples of the Destroyers, or possibly, even the destroyers themselves, brilliantly disguised. They are cunning, they are the destroyers.



This was a particularly hard race. Combined with the fact that it was a busy week with lots of entertaining to do, I was nearly a no show. But that is simply unacceptable now isn't it? There is much to prepare for. There are a few 6 and 12 hour races that I am interested in doing so I needed to get this one behind me. I will take a quick trip to Colorado over Memorial Day to get some altitude riding for 3-4 days. That should do the trick The 3 hour endurance race today was a good conditioning platform and this was my second thus far. I seem to be able to hold my own but Brendan slaughtered me as a payback for Klondike. The issue has mainly to do with cramping for me, I literally seized up on the last lap. Dewayne Gorzinski was kind enough to share some of his tactics, mainly nutrition and buildup stuff. I will likely take his advice, considering the fact that he won the race and had a complete lap on me. I missed the 6th lap cutoff by a few minutes, I completed 5, still got a top ten finish. Still not good enough. Still not totally recovered.

Don't you love Amish people? There was a great big bus that brought a bunch of them in to the park today and they were walking around everywhere, frolicking. The bus they rode in on said "Jesus Saves" on the side. It was pretty cool. I wish I was Amish. In a weird sort of fundamental wannabee sort of way. There are lots of benefits. Pearl Izumi wouldn't be getting my 80 bucks every now and then for one. I also like cobbler, don't they have a lot of cobbler recipes? In Sarasota, where the girls and I go a couple times a year, there are Amish everywhere and a lot of them work in a restaurant called "Yoders" or something like that. They push tour bus after tour bus through that buffet joint, I am telling you, they are totally making money there, and the cobbler....they throw down with the cobbler, yo! They eat well and ride the coolest three wheeled bikes. They are stand up people. Very interesting culture. Hats off to the Amish for putting a twist on the race scene today.

The smartest man in the world showed up today and respectfully finished 6th in his first race back since 2004. I was so excited, but let down because he did not wear his 2001 beginner state championship jersey. I think it would have been a nice retro accented statement if he were to combine it with medium sized hoops and a coach bag.

Little Buddy seems to be coming out of his thing with a 3rd place finish. Doesn't Tom Albert totally kick butt? Same with Jim Krewit, always so thoughtful and nice when they come around me sitting up, eating an apple or adjusting their Ipods. Letting me know that a hill is coming and no interest in being behind me on the climb. They should run for city council of Ballwin. They can get the roads fixed and get the Manchester Road corridor re-developed. Not sure where I am going with this. But they seem to take a nice guy approach to kickin some major A.

Schuck reminded me that his times, even though he did the expert class race and not the endurance class, were faster than mine, and he would have indeed made the 6th lap cutoff and I most likely would have lost to him, and been as humiliated as he was after the Klondike slaughter fest where I nudged him out by 5-6 minutes. Eric, it's okay. I knew this was going to be a rough one for me and a good one for you, that is why I tricked you in to not doing my race. The extra lap that I did likely one up-ed my fitness for next week. Word.

Pickled Okra anyone?