Monday, November 2, 2009

Orchard Cross Costume Race



More photos of the costume race here. http://picasaweb.google.com/TripleP/091101OrchardCrossCostume# Things looked pretty silly lining up at the start. We couldn't even tell that was Julie inside of her headless horseman costume. Danielle won for the ladies best costume - a robot. I think that was a sympathy vote though because it looked like she was having a heck of a time riding her bike with limited viability through a cut off of a box. My favorite costume was Sue's octomom. Try racing with 8 baby dolls crawling up you! I couldn't stop laughing.

The costume race made up for last weekend's worst race ever up in Maine. The weather was fantastic, but the mud was hellish. I had a general malaise which seemed to have been building since August. I didn't feel much like racing and decided not to pre-ride the course once the suggestion was made that it might wreck my bike. That should have been a sign that maybe racing was not a great idea. Within half a lap I had fallen way behind, then slid through a turn off an embankment. There was a bit of an adrenaline rush when the rocks and trees came flying towards me - but I escaped injury. However it did cement my position as dead last. My pedals were so jammed up with mud that I couldn't clip in which made it pretty hard to make any progress at all through the mud or carry speed at any point during the race. On the second lap, my brakes were so gummed up with mud, leaves and sticks that I couldn't even push the bike. After carrying the bike long enough through the woods to consider dropping out, I fell on a rock and smashed my knee. Fortunately I got lapped the next lap so avoided further humiliation and damage to myself. Ridiculous!