Rain

I'm sitting here at the shop watching the rain with nothing to do but blog and ponder my life, and I've realized that I'm glad I'm not in the rain racing at the Gobbler. It would be way too muddy and gross and cold for me to do that, although I could probably win some good money. Good times. I feel sorry for Wes and Chris and all of the other volunteers who are out there making it happen but having to suffer through some really crappy conditions. Good job guys.

I watched Hancock last night... It was good. I like. Now I have to go see bond.

And oh yeah, apparently I am waaaay tougher than I thought I was. I tore my ACL playing youth football about 10 years ago, didn't realize what was up, and kept on practicing. I guess that has finally caught up with me, and I think it is what allowed my crash a couple of weeks ago turn nasty. It looks like I am going to inevitably have to have surgery to repair it, it's just a matter of when. I'm crossing my fingers that I can put it off until the end of next season so that I miss the least amount of time riding as possible. I've already missed almost a month of riding, and if I have the surgery now, it will be another 6 weeks before I can hope to get back on the bike. That would suck.

Anyway, I've got an appointment on Monday to see if I'll be able to start riding again, and hopefully I can get back on before too long.

Also, let me tell you a story... It is a story of karma or sowing and reaping or something like that. Or maybe just bad luck. Either way, Julia has been giving me a hard time for being a cripple over the past couple of weeks. She sprained her LEFT ankle on Thursday at the beginning of a group ride and now can't walk on it. So yeah, watch out y'all, your words will come back to bite you.

Peace.

Riding? What's that?

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything, which is mostly because I haven't had anything to post in quite a while. But, here is a summary of the past few weeks for me.

In my last post I mentioned that I'd hurt my knee in a crash at my first cross race of the year. Well, that swelling never did really go down, and I ended up hobbling around for a week before I went to the doctor to get it checked out. He put me in a "knee immobilizer" and some crutches and then scheduled a MRI to get it checked out. That was a week ago, meaning that I haven't ridden in 2 weeks now. This is the longest that I have gone without riding in years, and I am already starting to freak out. I'm not someone who can sit around for very long at all. The worst part is, I still don't really know what is wrong with my knee. I have an appointment to find out what is up tomorrow, and I'm really hoping that I'm not out of the game for much more time. There is only so much that you can do in the gym with only one leg.

Here is the x-ray...

You can see the tibia is clearly jacked up. Now granted, this isn't MY x-ray... It is a broken bone though, and I feel for the person who had to deal with it. Mine isn't quite as severe. I'm not even sure yet if it is broken. It may just be a bruised bone. I'll let you know.

Anyway, I am getting my leg checked out today to find out what is wrong with it... I'm really hoping that I can get back on my bike soon.

I also think that I sold my mountain bike. Which means that I can get a new one as soon as Specialized gets their act together and gets them on the market. Although I did just get a bad ass new road bike that has yet to be ridden (thanks to a certain leg injury), but is, like I said, totally bad ass.

And I have to give a big shout out to Julia, who won her second cross race this weekend. She claims that this is the first big win that she has had, but I would say that Tsali was slightly bigger. Anyway, whatever, good job girlfriend. I feel like I report more about your life on here than you ever do, making this blog almost as much about you as it is me. Yeah.

Until next time, have fun riding. There are people out there who can't.

'Cross

So I completed my second cross race yesterday... That gives me a 50% completion rate, which is really exceptionally low for an event as short as cross. This was my first Pro 1/2 race, and yeah, it sucked.

I crashed hard on the second lap after leaning my bike a little too far into a corner and clipping a pedal. I wasn't at the front or anything, but that pretty much ended my race, mostly because when I crashed, I hit my right shifter pretty hard on the ground and ended up with a whole lot of dirt jammed in there. I finished the race with a barely functioning rear shifter and a not really functioning at all rear brake. Good times.

When I upgraded, I expected to be able to ride with at least some of those guys, and I think that earlier in the year, I would have been able to. But I think that my snap is gone for the year, so I don't expect to be able to do a whole lot more racing this year. It's cool though... I am really excited about being able to just go and ride my bike. I want to get out in the woods before all of the leaves fall and it starts getting too bitterly cold.

And apparently when I crashed, I hurt my knee pretty badly. Bear in mind that this isn't the same knee that I was nursing before the race and trying to decide if I wanted to race on it. No no, this is my other, previously totally healthy knee. I didn't really notice it yesterday while I was racing, but sometime on the way home, my knee developed a baseball sized amount of swelling over the patella, making it pretty hard to bend it a lot at all. It's still just as swollen this morning. I need to stop crashing and just start riding.

Oh, so yeah. Julia did awesome in her first real 1/2/3 race with the chicks. She got a solid 8th after a bit of confusion about the number of laps caused her to misjudge how long she had still to race. But still, she killed it representing for SYCR. Jenna Bales Walker also held it down in the women's 4's, getting a solid 3rd place finish. Baker Bill went for the double on the day, killing it in both the masters and the men's 4's. Good stuff.

I just got screwed over by UPS. Make sure you actually give an inflated figure for your package's weight, length, height, and width. Otherwise they are likely to tag you with an enormous fee in addition to the original shipping price that was actually more than what it would have cost to ship a box significantly over the large package threshold. Yeah.

I voted today, and I didn't know who most of the people on the ballot were.

I also went titleless.

Sup?

So, I'm wondering what happens if you don't give your blog post a title... Would it work, or would it just be doomed to be forever in title-less existence, not really sure what it is, stuck online without an identity. Whatever the case, I'm kinda scared to find out. But I'm also tired of having to come up with a meaningless title that is, well, meaningless. Yep. Next time, I'm going title less. I wonder if people will be excited...

I've realized that I have been really really bad about posting blogs. First I ditch out on my Clemson report, then I pass on doing a post about our national championship bid. LAME! Well, lets just say that I got owned in both of my races at nationals. I totally fell apart after a really bad start in the XC, finishing 25th I think. The short track was slightly better with a 13th place finish. I just wasn't as fit as I should have been. Next year it's on though.

I've only ridden once since nats, and have pretty much been enjoying the time off. I've spent a lot of time with Julia and bike people, and we had a killer Halloween party at the Tellman/Cowie house. It was awesome... everybody on the team dressed up as someone else on the team, that's how lame and inbred we are. Good stuff.

I've pretty much not done much for quite a while. School. Not much work. I did go on a run. That was fun. And slow. And painful. I don't think that I am all that suited for running. I think I know how it feels to be totally owned by someone though... Julia destroyed me on the downhill, and I was powerless to stop it. I don't think that I like that feeling.

I'm kinda pumped about racing cross this next weekend. Even if it is going to hurt waaay too much. We've got a good group going down though, and hopefully I can hold it down in the 3's. Maybe I'll even let you know how it goes... or maybe not.

Julia... you need a blog. You could make all kinds of witty comments on life in general and the state of the world at the moment, kinda like bikesnob without quite as much fixed gear snobbery. I would read it with great interest. Get on it.

I am so glad that the election is going to be over tomorrow. I am totally sick of hearing about political crap and people bashing. We're all Americans you idiots!!! Stop hating!