Cap City, UCI3, Homecoming Redskins

I'm slacking again! Its been a while since my last update with was Kings Cross so I'm just gonna throw down some stuff as I remember it.

After Kings CX, my next race wasn't for 2 weeks. I decided to do the Cap City race at Big Run. It was hot on Saturday and then cold and Rainy on Sunday. Summer then to cross weather overnight. A really nice course and which I liked when it was muddier. It dried as my race went on and I couldn't two wheel drift as much on the off camber stuff. I couldn't really get things going so I kinda just rode the race for training.

I had lost serious motivation to train somewhere in the year and a few weeks ago, I sorta decided to just ride, go race and have fun. Not really training means my performance has suffered but all is good. Much rather have fun than dig a deeper hole.

UCI3 was next and this race weekend is always a blast. I stayed with Zach again and did all three days in the Cat 2/3 category. I was originally registered for UCI Elite but with my lack of form and motivation, I decided against it. So from a 2nd or 3rd row start (I was the 3rd person to register for elites), I went to the back of 100 guys. Not the place you want to start but I was really just racing for training and experience.

Friday's course was at Dovou again but a totally different course. Hard, dry, dusty and bumpy. I had my best result of the weekend here at 27th. Not bad for starting in the back. I actually liked this course because it was wide open and required more skill than the other two days. I was able to get around a lot of people through the off camber stuff and power away on the straights. However, the course was rough and shredded up my tires.

Saturday was a very similar course to last year at Sunset park. With more people and a tighter course, I really didn't have too high of hopes. We got rolling and I really couldn't open anything up for two laps. Many of the corners only had one ridable line and it was always too slow to get off and run. FAIL!

Sunday at Harbin park was a better passing course but again starting behind a million people didn't help. Again very similar course. Since it was dry and dusty, I decided to ride my Dugast Rhinos which hooked up a lot better in the corners. However on the last lap, on the section of the course where there is a huge G-Out, I flatted my rear. SUCK! I was already past the pit and I just had to ride back in to the finish. All the people I passed in the last two laps passed me back. Oh well. Luckily back home, a little Stans saved the tire.

The better part of the weekend was helping out Andys and Kirk help Jeremy Powers and Kaitlin Antonneau. Its fun working and helping out, especially when they appreciate the work you are doing.

Now this past weekend was the mayhem known as OU Homecoming. For the past 3 or 4 years, Isaiah and I have had not so great experiences. I won't elaborate any further. However this year, went without a hitch and was enjoyable. We rode 3 hours on Friday, got drunk at night, woke up and rode two hours on Saturday and then got drunk again. We found Greg on Saturday and went up to a Swim team house party and rocked out until the OSU game was over. You should have seen Greg when the Buckeyes lost. It was like the world was ending for him.

On Sunday, my brother and I drove out to Washington DC to watch the Redskins play the Colts. Yeah I guess I could go to Indy which is considerably closer, but I have Season tickets to the Skins so I'll drive the extra hours. We left Athens around 10:30, got to DC around 5:30. Parked my car, checked out our sleeping arrangements at Zach's brother's place (THANKS again! I'll call you to thank you soon), then hopped on the Metro to the stadium. This was my first NFL game so it was an experience.

As you would expect, the Metro got more and more crowded as the train got closer to the stadium. The Metro station is about a mile from the stadium so a quick 20 minute walk among thousand of other fans was pretty cool. As we walked, we passed by all the parking and everyone already drunk from tailgating.

I think we got there about an hour before kick off so we bought our overpriced stadium food, which was actually pretty large portion, and found our seats. I skipped the $8 beers since I had already consumed plenty of it the past two days. Our seats are up in the upper bowl endzone. Pretty nosebleed on paper, but you can actually see the whole field and its a good view. There is also a huge jumbo screen on the other endzone so you can see everything.

It was a very good game but unfortunately the Redskins lost by a field goal. The season is still early and we are still only 3 and 3. Plenty of season left to get going. At least we are doing a lot better than then 1-4 Cowboys.

Once McNabb missed the 4th and 10 throw in the 2 minute warning, it was time to get up and go. A mad dash back to the metro station so we can get back. Lucky for us, we were able to get a seat rather than standing and on our way back. We got to Eric's place and crashed for a few hours. I went to bed at 1am and the alarm went off at 4:30. My brother had to catch a 6am flight back to Dallas from Reagan International. The airport was only about 20 minutes away so we were out the door by around 4:45, got to the car and dropped him off at the terminal around 5:15.

Lucky for him he got to fly as his flight was only about 2:30-3hrs with a 30 minute drive from the airport. I had to drive 6-7 hours back to Athens. I find that driving up to 4 hours is manageable and not too much of a chore, but once past that, I really don't care for it. Especially when running on low sleep all weekend. I have to say, DC is awake and kicking at 5am in the morning. Luckily I was going out of the city and really didn't have to deal with traffic except for the 270 495 split. For some reason, the 495 exit was shut down by police.

On the way to DC, we stopped twice. On my way home, I had to stop 3 times with a short nap at a rest station. I made it back to Athens around noon, just in time for my 1pm class.

Next weekend I'm on the road again, heading down to Louisville for the USGP. Since I didn't want to fight through 130+ guys in the 2/3 field, and didn't want to get crushed in the 60+ Elite field, I'm signed up in the less than 10 Single Speed field. Although we start right behind the 2/3 field, I have a lot greater chance of climbing up on that podium!