#1

I won a race last night. It really happened. Looking back, I don't think I have won a competitive sporting event since high school... so... 10 years ago. It's been a tough 10 years, a bit of a drought I guess you could say, and I am glad its over. Maybe my parents will love me again?

Tuesday Nights at the Track

Racing under the lights at Kenosha's Washington Park Velodrome is one of the most fun things I have done this summer. Last night I was fortunate enough to have my numero uno fan there to take some nice photos of the event.


I raced at Kenosha last night, for my 3rd straight week of track racing. The 1st race I did was an 8 lap "scratch" race. Meaning you just ride for 8 laps and whoever is ahead at the end of the 8th wins. Sounds straightforward enough. Well, with 3 or 4 laps to go I launched an attack off the front of the field. This is tactically stupid because everyone can see you and you have no slipstream to launch out of. But I am racing in the Cat 4/5 races, so I like to mix it up anyway. I launched pretty well though and got a little distance on the main group. I was hoping one of the faster riders would bridge up and then we could work together and get 1st and second. Instead, I looked back and the oldest fattest guy out there had followed me out. I knew there was no way I was going to make it with just him, so I decided to sit up and rejoin the pack. In the background I could hear the track announcer saying something like "I don't really understand that move by Rauch!" Well, guess what, I wasn't going to pull old fatty around the track while the rest of the strong riders sat in the group and saved energy just to beat me at the end. Anyway, we sprinted it out with about 2/3 of a lap to go, I hung in the front and ended up 4th overall out of about 20 guys.

Here we are hanging on to the fence getting ready to start

The first lap is a neutral lap, to allow everyone to get clipped into their pedals and ready to go

Here we are around the half way point, things are starting to heat up a bit

This is the moment I realized I wasn't going to get any help at all in my breakaway attempt.
As a side note, the big fella is riding on a $1500 set of carbon wheels... nice. Worth more than all 4 of my bikes combined.


Here are the four leaders going into the final turn of the last lap. With me bringing up the rear.

Grinding it out to the end. Sara wishes my head was up so she could have caught my "pain face"

Crossing the line with one eye over my shoulder to watch for late breakers, not tonight.

My other race for the night was a "Miss Out" race. In this style of racing the person who finishes in last at the end of each lap has to leave the track. So, the field is whittled down till the final three riders and then those three race each other for 1 final lap to determine 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. I got 5th in this race, but it left me a little bummed because I got nosed out at the line by a skinny little girl. Also, in this race a guy bounced into my back wheel, I heard the sound of metal hitting the track and I looked back and saw a guy laying on the track. He turned out to be okay, but he went down pretty hard after bouncing off me. I am glad I stayed upright, I was on my friend's nice track bike. That could have been bad.

Overall it was a great night. At the end we had to leave a bit early to get our unborn child home to rest.

A Comment on Cooking

Tomatoes from my very garden.

On Thursday night I had a craving for some baked goods. So, like any good American, I decided to bake myself a batch of 3 dozen Snicker Doodles. I started to work my way through them as they came out of the oven. I probably ate about 6 before I realized I had no limit to the amount of cookies I could eat. So, rather than eat all 36 cookies on my own, I decided to seal up 24 of them into a ziploc bag to take to school with me the next day to share with the rest of Clinic A. Well the first four or five people to partake of my cookies made sure to come by to tell me "Hey, say thanks to Sara for the cookies, they were great." I just rolled my eyes and said sure, even though I had announced to everyone beforehand that I had cooked them and not Sara. Oh well, I came home and told Sara "thanks" anyway.

To spice things up once in a while I like to take Sara back to her Italian roots. I plucked a delicious yellow squash from my container garden this afternoon. I whipped up a rustic style homemade pizza. I paired the dish with a 2009 vintage OceanSpray Cranberry Grape 100% Juice. It adds a delicate compliment to the meal, enhancing the natural flavors while clearing the palate.

The final product was so good.

Ironically, I ate this dinner alone. Well, Dirk was there... barking at the people walking on the sidewalk in front of our house.

More Giselle, some biking and Airplanes

This mouse has a 0% chance of survival.

I caught Giselle in the middle of a hunt. This mouse wasn't found till two days after this picture though.




Lately I have been taking up new forms of bike racing. One being track racing, the other being mountain bike racing. I have actually raced on the track twice now, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have only mountain bike raced one time, and it didn't turn out so well. The mountain bike race was at crystal ridge, I crashed over 10 times, with 4 of those being crashes that sent me over the handlebars. Most of my crashes were just my shoulders hitting trees very hard and knocking me down though. It's now 3 days after the mountain bike race and I still have very little skin on my shoulders. The track racing is fun because the races are really short, about 3-10 minutes long. This is great for me because I have no endurance whatsoever. Last fall I tried a cyclocross race, which I am thinking I want to try again this year. So, now I have competed in mountain, cyclocross, road and track cycling races. As for now, I would say track is my favorite.




Today I went to the EAA Airventure in Oshkosh. It was amazing. I got really stoked checking out the general aviation and sticking my nose in some 500K-3M dollar private planes. I also really enojoyed the Warbirds area, which was filled with P-51's and had a smattering of other older planes. We saw the White Knight II taxiing down the runway (Virgin Galactic).



While climbing into the cabin of a Cirrus, my friend Matt asked the man from Cirrus what the list price was on the plane. He said, "3.5-4 million." So, with a straight face (with a handlebar mustache) and wearing tattered shorts and tennis shoes, I asked the guy if he will take a check. And he looks at me with a slightly dirty look and says "wire transfers only, son."

I don't even know how to do a wire transfer.

Here is the Cirrus below and me digging through my wallet for the the 1.5 million dollar deposit. I was a few dollars short, otherwise I would have flown that thing right home.


The flying car was another of my favorite attractions. The sign says, "transition driving to flying in just 5 minutes, plus walk around." I am confused though, do you walk around while you are driving or flying?



Here is a Russian Mig 21. Not quite the same one that Maverick flipped off in Top Gun, but very similar.


I will soon post an update with my veggies. Hold on to your hats.

Feline Apology

I better clear the air between Giselle and I. Not long after my post about her not eating the carcasses of her prey, she decided to teach me a lesson. Seen below are actual photographs of what she left for me.


Above is a picture of the face of a chipmunk. She ate everything on this poor chipmunk except the feet, tail, guts and face. You can see its nose and whiskers. If you look closely you can even see its tongue sticking out. Don't worry though, she did eat the eyes, so the chipmunk didn't have to witness its own death.



Is it just me or did she arrange these body parts into a smiley face? Don't screw with that cat, she will kill you and eat your eyes.

DNF

DNF =

Doing nothing Fun?

Darn Ninja Fighters?

Dude, Not Funny?

Digital Noise Filters?

Don't Never Fall?

Duke Nuke'm Forever?

Did Not Find?

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

It stands for DID NOT FINISH

What a waste of an Amp energy drink!

That (DNF) was my official place in the 2009 University of Wisconsin Whitewater Road Race. It was a 5.5 mile course through the "hilly" farm country of southern Wisconsin. Our group, the Cat 4/5's, was scheduled to do 7 laps around the course (about 40 miles). There was one substantial climb at the beginning of the loop and then a mostly flat course. It was a perfect day to race, the temperature was great, we had about 40 riders start in our group.

On the 4th lap I got a little behind the group going up the hill. Kyle (Ashleigh's husband) came by and pulled me back up to the group but it took a lot of energy for me to get back with everyone. As we came up to the hill on the fifth lap I knew I was in trouble, I looked at Kyle and said something like "dude, I can't move my legs." He just looked back and said "stay on my wheel!" and proceeded to take off up the hill to catch the group. That would be the last contact I had with anyone in my group until the final 100 meters of that lap. No, I did not catch them. On the contrary, I basically stopped racing and decided to just ride my bike the rest of the way around the loop (4 miles) and be done, rather than riding the last 10 miles by myself. It was actually a nice ride. I got to slow down and really enjoy the scenery, and avoid the horse poop that had piled up in the middle of the road since my last time around the loop. With about 100 meters left another rider came up behind me and we discovered that we had both been in the same race and had both been dropped. We joked about making a sprint finish for the line to see who could DNF first. That was the end of the race for me, but I definitely had a good time and I don't feel too bad about my blaming my poor performance on the health issues I had been facing the last couple months. It definitely knocked me off track as far as my fitness level goes.

It may have ended up being a blessing in disguise that I was sick, and therefore didn't train on my bike and therefore didn't finish the race with the main group. As they came around the last turn and started sprinting toward the finish line, something went wrong and about 10 of the riders ended up on the ground, with at least one landing right on his face. Kyle managed to avoid the carnage by riding into the dirt on the side of the road. But when we saw these guys getting dragged to the finish it was not a pretty site. So, I am definitely grateful that I was not a part of that. Thanks intestines, and Happy Independence Day.



Nice, calm riding for the neutral start (the guy with the red handlebars won the race)

Kyle coming around the turn at what looks to be at least 60 mph



The only guy in the entire race with a yellow bike (Kyle in the background, in orange and blue)
Kyle coming across the finish line in about 15th. Most importantly, he is not one of the 10 laying on the ground in the background, just beyond the camera's view. A quick nod to Jessica King for letting Kyle borrow her bike, thanks Jess!


Kyle and I have some very dedicated fans. They didn't even laugh or make fun of me for not finishing. Well, they do kind of look like they are laughing here.

Some Good News, Some Bad

Good News: I went on the annual Houseboat trip with the high school gang. Brandon, Bryan, Luke, Martin, etc

Bad News: A lot of stories were told, and I couldn't remember any of them. Is my brain full?

Good news: Giselle is still killing animals

Bad News: She isn't eating them anymore, so I have to remove the corpses


Good News: I got to go bike riding along the coast of California, around Monterey, with my dad on Monday


Bad News: I am probably moving to ABQ, NM. Far, far away from any coast, or any parent.



Good News: My unborn child officially owns more clothes, toys and accessories than I do

Bad News: I have to move it all in a year