Burnsed Freyes

I found (remembered) this photo tonight. It's of my boyz Burnsy and Freye guy after they rocked the Bradbury 12 winning the 2 man competition, having the highest number of laps and, to top it off, Mr. Freye got the fastest lap prize as well.

Nice job guys!

I've Got This Slacking Thing Licked

Long Time No Talk

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday. What, you didn't even notice??? Shame on you!

It's hard to find blog fodder when you haven't touched any of your bikes in 10 days. My cheeks literally haven't touched leather since the Bradbury 12 over a week ago. For the first few days, I just didn't want to ride which is totally understandable and probably the right thing to do anyway since my body was trashed but since then it's been a combination of being too busy with the house AND not really having any desire to ride. The weather has been crappy (rained parts of the last three days), the bikes need a bit of work and, lets face it, I've been too lazy to try to squeeze a ride in where little time allows. Earlier in the season I had the resolve to get through situations like this but now? Now I prefer to get some sleep.

Since I haven't touched the bike in 10 days that also means that I skipped the final race of the MMBA season this past weekend therefore giving up my chance to capture the Master of Mud title and the overall expert victory for the season. I sort of wanted to race but with rain predicted for race day (and boy did it rain!) I couldn't raise enough resolve to get my apathetic ass in gear. So sorry to all of you who will have to listen to me bitch and moan about what could have been for the next 8 months.

Just think of it as GREAT blog fodder!

I am the Walrus

Let's see here. It's been 6 days now since the BB12 and I've touched my bikes exactly zero times. I've kind of had an inkling to go for a ride but not enough of an inkling to override my inkling to get this frickin house done!

I'm on the fence for this weekend's MMBA finale up at Sugarloaf USA. On one hand I want to race but on the other hand I want heat in our house this winter. You see, I'm way behind on prepping (sawing and splitting) our wood but our boiler is being hooked up on Tuesday and without wood we'll have no heat or hot water and Marcy, being the pampered white girl that she is, has become accustomed to both. Of course, I've got a 1 1/2 day wood blitze planned for this afternoon and tomorrow so if all goes well, maybe Sunday's race can happen. As you can imagine, there's no better way to prep for an xc race than to spending the entire day before developing the most righteous sore back ever. Then again, I had a similar day before the Camden race this year and that went well so who knows?

Bradbury 12, The Post part 2

It's around here that things start to get fuzzy and everything starts to meld together for me but I'll do my best to piece it all together is a somewhat coherent fashion. That also reminds me, you know how you can get a song stuck in your head during a race or long ride? I know that it happens to a lot of people and I've talked about it here before but during the BB12 I hit a new record. I had the same song running through my head the whole time I was out there. It's the music they play before the Opie and Anthony show on XM (I've been told it's the theme song from Hang em High I think). What does this have to do with the race? Not much really but it turns out, it's a pretty good song to ride to. Usually I get some crap ass kids song stuck in my head so this was a pleasant change.

Back on the course after another quick nutrition break and I believe this time I found myself with KillBill and eventual 3rd place geared solo finisher Greg Jancaitis. Nothing too exciting happened here (that I can remember) so flash forward another lap. KillBill had disappeared up the trail and Greg and I rolled into the pits together. I don't remember who got back on the trail first but within 10 minutes we'd be riding together again. This would happen for three or four laps total where no matter who was on the trail first, we'd always somehow find ourselves together and finishing the laps together. Very weird.

By around the 8 hour mark I finally knew that I was solidly in the lead. Apparently I was correct and Chris' fast early pace was taking it's toll and his laps had slowed considerably. Mine, thankfully, were staying consistent (within 6 minutes of my 3rd lap time) so I was gradually pulling away.

Around 5:30 I mounted my lights (mandatory after 4:45) and headed out again beginning to hate life. My low back, shoulders and neck were frickin killing me. Not quite enough to make me stop but enough to make me really want to. Two thirds of the way into the lap I met KillBill who was on the side of the trail. The day was taking a toll on his back as well so he had stopped to stretch and would end up pulling the plug at the end of the lap. It was Steve's first 12 hour race so if he does it again next year I'm sure he'll have more success. He certainly was fast for the first 8 laps.

Into my tenth lap (with the lights finally on) I really felt like I was slowing down. My lap time didn't really show it but I was in a world of hurt and I was being passed by many more people. My neck was frickin killing me and it was starting to cause a nasty headache. Not good. I found myself listening very carefully to riders as they'd catch me hoping to hear the tell tale sound of derailleurs and chain slap so that I'd know that Chris wasn't closing in.

By the time I came around to finish my 11th lap it was about 6:45pm. Race rules said that you needed to be out on your lap before 7 or you were done for the day. There was no way that I wanted another lap but I had no idea how much of a gap I had over Chris in second. So, once in the pits, I dispatched Marcy, dad and darren to the timing tent to see where I was in relation to Chris. I was hoping I had lapped him at some point while he was pitting but that didn't turn out to be the case. The last lap that was logged I was 40 minutes up and with only 15 minutes left before the cut off I figured I was safe. Never the less, I asked my father and darren to backtrack a bit on the trail and give us a call if they saw Chris coming so that I could dart out for another lap if necessary.

Time ticked by painfully slow but, finally, I was given the go ahead to cross the line and call it a day. Phew.

Bradbury 12, The Post!

I'll spare all of you the whiney bullshit that is typical over here on this completely pointless (unless you consider stroking my ego useful) blog. Yeah, I haven't ridden much this summer but guess what? The summer's over, I had some good results and it's time to stop being a little whiney bitchy bitch bitch. It feels like I've said this before this summer but apparently being a whiney bitchy bitch bitch comes naturally for me. One of my MANY talents I guess.

Anyway, I was pretty freaked leading up to the Bradbury 12 since I had no idea what to expect from my body over the course of 12 hours in the saddle. Truth is that nobody really knows how their body is going to respond unless they've done it a ton of times but having my longest ride be in the 3 hour range this summer had me really worried. To top it off, the single speed start list had some name that I was unfamiliar with and despite google attempts I couldn't find enough info to make myself feel better or worse about my competition which, of course, made me feel worse. At some point I figured "ah fack it!", I'll just do what I always do and see where I stand when the dust settles.

With that in mind, in the days leading up to the race I prepped everything I thought I would need during the race and got it all (with the exception of my toolbox and pump) to fit in one large blue rubbermaid tote. Everything was in there, food, drinks, change of clothes and my helmet and lights for the night laps. If there's one thing I learned from my melt down two years ago is that you need to show up to this thing with everything already in order or you will forget to set something out and then die an agonizing death and pull the plug at 6 hours. Not me, not this year.

I got to the start line a smidge late and ended up in the second row of solo riders but I wasn't too concerned. It's a long race plus there is a 1 mile stretch in the opening lap to help sort things out. Once off, I entered the trail in fourth or fifth wheel. There was one singlespeeder in front of me so I hopped on his wheel for a bit figureing I'd better keep him in sight for the first lap. About 10 minutes into the lap I realized that I was squarely in the middle of my zone 5 heart rate which didn't seem to be too smart considering I still had 11:50 to go so I dialed it back and TRIED to bring my heart rate down. I didn't know the ss'er in front of me but I hoped that he was over zealous with his pace and that he'd come back sooner or later. I hoped. The rest of the lap was pretty uneventful. I was having a blast on Bradbury's super dry and fun trails. So much fun that my heartrate kept creeping back into zone 5 and I'd have to force myself to dial it back. Mountain biking is too much fun to not rip it!

I rolled through my first pit transition quickly (maybe 30 seconds) and headed back out for another fun but uneventful lap. I was now solidly in 2nd place in the solo single speeders despite trading spots briefly with another ss'er over the course of the first two laps. By the end of my third lap I began to worry that the ss'er who took the flyer on the first lap my not be coming back after all. During that lap, I caught up to KillBill (who was in the geared solo class) and we cruised together for a bit until, out of nowhere the mystery ss'er came up from behind me. Of course I freaked out and asked if he was already friggin lapping me??? He put my mind at ease and told me he had just taken a long pit the last lap. Phew.

Sometime around then, I realized that I had either lost my bottle somewhere during the begining of the lap or had forgotten it all together. Not good. And to make matters worse, soon after Chris (the mystery ss'er) caught up to us, both of my quads started to cramp just above my knees. Frig! Of course, this is sport so I couldn't show him my weakness and give him an opportunity to attack to I hid it the best I could and pushed through the rest of the lap with both KillBill and Chris on my heels.

"ouchie, cramps!"

Back in the pits I hit the water and heed hard, had some endurolytes and food and headed back out having noticed Chris skipped pitting and had headed back out. It wasn't long before Chris, KillBill and I were all back together again and riding comfortably (I think we were all in a recovery mode for that lap). For the most part, this lap was uneventful as well except I started to hear a weird rattle towards the back of my bike. Eventually, curiosity got the best of me so I glanced back to see what it might be and when I looked back up I was heading straight towards a 6" round spruce tree. I hit the brakes hard but it was too late and I hit the thing head on doing probably 8-10 mph. I scraped up both arms but otherwise things seemed ok so I settled into a new, slightly faster, pace and slowly caught back up to KillBill and Chris.

Sorry, that's all the time for today. Look for the rest tomorrow.

Race report tomorrow. Promise!

Until then, I'd like to congratulate my talented and apparently clairvoyant family on team "The Awesome Rick Nelson's Family" for their impressive come from behind almost victory snatching a podium position (3rd) away from "One of these days..." in the late portion of the race. "One of these days..." maybe your ship will come in one of these days. (see what I did there??? I slay me!)

Anyway, congrats to my brothers Rus and Darren, my father and, of course, Marcy for pulling it off despite having two teammates who have never raced, one who raced twice 6 years ago and one who can race but is just a lazy slacker.

Rus (lazy slacker)

Marcy

Darren

My dad (just after he tagged Marcy)

I'm not sure that I'll have a whole lot of bloggie time today for a real race write-up so I'll give you the lil rundown today with the real report to come.

race: Bradbury 12

class: solo single speed

gear: 32x18

laps: 11 (could have done 12 but I would have cried the whole lap)

miles: 88 (roughly)

8 servings perpetuem

8 bottles heed

6 endurolytes

4 super mini snickers

1 banana

4 sleeves shot blocks

2 cans chicken and stars

1/2 coke

result: 1st YEAH BABY!

Tummy Tingles

One day and counting before the throw down. Did you hear that Jason??? Tomorrow, September 19th is the Bradbury 12. Not three weeks ago, not last week, not yesterday. Tomorrow. As in the day after today. We clear now? Good, lets move on.

I've been doing xc races for long enough now that I don't typically get the pre-race jitters until the day of the race at which point I make several trips to cut weight before each race. Funny side note for you. When B and I were both doing the race in Camden (me in the real race and B in the kids race) we crossed paths several times leading up to our races. B complained about having to go so much and wondered if it would ever end. We were afraid that she was getting sick but the funny thing is that once her race was over (which she rocked!) her tummy was all better. Apparently the nervous colon runs in the family.

Anyway, while xc races are old hat for me, endurance races are anything but and myself and others in my family (who will remain nameless because she can withhold sex) tend to get the motors running a bit early. Today to be exact. Maximum weight will be cut for sure.

Tension is starting to build as well. I sort of freaked last night while getting things together and I think I may have annoyed Marcy a bit. I could tell because she was slowly edging closer and closer to the frying pan which she planned to use to give me an attitude adjustment. Hopefully, since tonight is a B free night, we'll both be able to pull the rest of our stuff together and enjoy at least a couple hours of relaxation before a night of fitful sleep and numerous jaunts to the loo.

Off to the races!

Let the skirt blowing begin

Over the past week, a local e-mail list I'm on has been all a twitter about this weekend's upcoming 12 hour race (yep, that's right, talking about it yet again). It's really quite amazing how jazzed up people are about the race especially since the state's xc series is officially toes up after this season because of low turnout for races. There are literally dozens of e-mails going back and forth on a daily basis now as people are getting amped up (and probably a bit nervous) about the fun and suffering 250 souls are about to enjoy together.

In addition to excitement, there seems to be a bit of gamesmanship happening as well with one of my competitors blowing a bit of sunshine up my skirt with this:

Rick I did the complete loop with some extra credit thrown in Monday night at 1 hour 2 min.

With your talent and speed you should be in the mid 40’s or lower.

He has to be trying to into my head with the whole "your talent and speed" remark. Sure, I am extremely talented and quite speedy (in bed! ba da ba!) but I have to question his intent. Is he trying to make me overconfident and therefore an easy mark or is he trying to make me question my abilities by making a comment that I'll surely over analyze? Cagy bastard!

Tick, tick, tick

With only about three days til the Bradbury 12 I'm finding it hard to think of much else. In fact, if I didn't have this pesky little house I'm frantically trying to finish before winter it probably would be THE only thing I'd be thinking about.

Today, I had planned an early but easy commute this morning and then a short but intense ride home after work to open the legs up a bit. It was a solid plan which would allow me to get a quick ride in, 10 hours at work and then a few hours of work on the house but, sadly, it wasn't meant to be. During the night I woke up with a sore throat and immediately starting hearing ominous music in the background and thought, "shit, am I going to be sick this weekend???". Sure, one of my coworkers, who I spent a bunch of time working with yesterday, called me last night to tell me that her family has been quarantined by the cdc (no frickin joke) so what did I have to worry about??? Anyway, I didn't want anything to get in the way of me making good bike race (thanks Dicky) this weekend so I shut off the alarm and slept in to an ungodly 6:15. Notify the authorities! It wasn't much but the extra 1:30 of sleep seem to have done the trick and my sore throat is gone. Hopefully for good.

Fire in the hole!

Ok, so I have nothing to blog about today (surprise, surprise!) other than the Bradbury 12 is officially sold out at 250 riders so the place is going to be a madhouse this weekend. Unfortunately, there are fewer ss and expert solos this year but the solo sport class is huge so there is still plenty of interest there. I'm not sure why there is an expert and sport class anyway. If you're riding solo why not just go expert and get a chance at some cash (sport racers only get a medal) since you'll be riding the same amount anyway. Questions to be pondered I guess.

Oh yeah, the title. Since I had nothing to write about today I was going to post these two totally hilarious photos of myself from B's birthday party last weekend. The first is me trying in vain to get the fire started before eventually resorting to the propane torch to get things going. The second shows me having no trouble what so ever getting flames to burst from the grill while I was cooking for the masses at the party.

Aren't you glad you tuned in? About 5 years of this crap now that you'll never get back.

Care package

Over the weekend, I received my "prize" for a most excellent suggestion in Big Rings empty Bag Balm tin contest. Despite my obviously best submission, Craig decided to give everyone who entered a little package. I can only assume that were all slightly different because mine didn't include a pair of used tighty whities and nipple guards. I feel so slighted. I did really appreciate the personalized "transvest-bike" photo though. Thanks Big Ring!

In case you were wondering what my suggestion was:

rick is! said...
why not a naked gear review with yer nuts securely nestled in the tin? Bag Balm-Bag Box
August 24, 2009 6:46 AM

Followed a day later by shameless groveling...

rick is! said...
come on now. bag balm-bag box is comedy gold!
August 25, 2009 9:04 AM

Anywho, it turned out to be a great weekend (despite having raw nipples and clean tighties) with a bunch of siding going on the house and two rides down at Bradbury State Park to prep for this weekends throwdown showdown in the 12 hour race. Along for the ride on both Friday and Sunday were Marcy, my brother Darren, my father and mother! The Nelson's are taking the racing world by storm. Speaking of storming, on Friday, my brother got to throw a leg over his new bike for the first time. I wasn't expecting much of a change in riding from my goofy, all kadywampus brother but, once on the carver, the boy had wings! I swear to god, he went for a total noob to a pretty frickin fast rider. Very weird. Hopefully, the new bike nirvana will last him through the race this weekend so that team "The Awesome Rick Nelson's Family" can bring home the gold. BTW, Marcy is embarrassed by the name of their team and feels like I should be as well. For some reason, it doesn't bother me and THAT does bother me a bit. Is it because I have a good sense of humor and know that my brother was just being an ass when he came up with the name or is it because I truly am awesome (in many ways) and don't mind if others yell it from the rooftop?

That Was Better

A couple nights of restful sleep later and I was able to manage a fun mountain bike commute this morning. Apparently, whatever was messing with me on Tuesday's ride has passed (thank god) and I'm back to my wonderful, normal self. Yay for me. It may seem silly for me to have been so concerned with Tuesday's meltdown but for some reason, I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself for next weekend's 12 hr taint destruction and the thought of getting sick right now just doesn't work with my plans...

Speaking of the race. Pretty much the whole Nelson clan is signed up to race now. I thought my brother Rus was kidding when he said he wanted the team named "The Awesome Rick Nelson's family" but I was wrong as you can see in the confirmed rider list. Currently, B isn't slated to defend her kids race title in the "6 minutes of Bradbury" but who knows? Lancy pants came out of retirement, maybe B will too???

Oh yeah, and my youngest brother, Darren, pulled the trigger on a new Carver yesterday so he'll be going from a "vintage" (ie crappy) giant with non functioning everything to a SRAM X9, Reba, BB7 clad riding machine for the 12 hr race. I predict good times ahead.

Stinkerooo

Well, that stunk. Yesterday, I had planned for a long evening ride to prep for next weekends 12 hr race. I didn't have anything too special planned, just a 3-4 hour mountain bike commute home. Unfortunately, I was groggy all day at work but I figured I'd come out of it quickly once riding. WRONG. After about an hour in the dirt a headache had set in, my power was super low, I was f'ing up all sorts of technical stuff that I can usually clean and I began looking for deep, abandoned wells to pitch myself into. Basically, I was hating life and decided to bail. Long story short, I altered my route to take me directly home and I crawled my ass back with my tail tucked between my legs.

The suckiest part of this is that yesterday was my long ride day for the week. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. The good thins is that I got a good nights sleep and seem to be feeling better now so hopefully my ride tomorrow, while not a long ride, will at least go better.

Wowzer

I'll be damned if I didn't blink and summer was gone. Here in Maine, we're finally getting lots of nice sunny days after a summer full of drearyness which is nice to finally see but it's messing with my head. Because we never really had a real summer this year my brain is now seriously confused and thinks that we're finally hitting summer so why are those frickin school buses on the road? And why is it cold enough at night that I've worn two nipple sized holes in my favorite polos?

Fall is quickly approaching and I can't say that I'm psyched. Usually, by this time of year I welcome the cooler nights, the insects and trail side weeds dying back and being able to ride on a summer's worth of endurance and fitness but not this year. One, we don't have a heating system in the house yet (set to be installed end of the month) so all these nights dropping below 50 isn't really a treat. Thankfully, our house is well insulated (we received Energy Stars highest possible ranking) so we don't lose much heat over night so that's a bonus. Two, I'm fully into siding the house right now which is kinda important with winter rolling in. And, three, did I mention we still don't have a finish roof on part of the house. With. Winter. Rolling. In!

I'm sure that sometime soon I'll be looking back at this time with fond memories (if I can look back at those 24 hr races, the W101 etc with fond memories) but right now I just want to curl up on the couch and take a 6 month nap. Wake me in the spring.

One interesting little 'spearment will be the upcoming Bradbury 12. Last year I won the single speed class after making a late switch to racing ss at the end of the season. We had started the house construction so I was racing purely on endurance reserves but I was definitely on the downswing of my season. This year, I'm currently on more of an upswing in terms of fitness right now. I'm still not riding tons (6+! hrs a week now) but at least I'm on the up. Plus, since I've spent the whole season on a single speed I'm definitely better prepared and on a much nicer bike (with suspension) to boot. In short, I'm feeling pretty good about next weekend's race but since I don't really know any of my competitors, who knows what will happen...

The Maine Sport Run Off

Note: To the two readers who come here on a semi-regular basis a lot of what you're going to read here in the opening may seem familiar to you. That's because I'm writing this to also show up on Bikeman.com so I need to give some background that you're probably aware of. Of course, if you are one of my regular readers, you've sat through worse here so I guess there is no need apologize.

2009 has been an interesting season for me for a couple of reasons. At the end of the 2008 race season I made the switch to single speed because I was building a house and making the switch would allow me to still ride/race and have fun but it would take the sting out of not being as competitive in the races because of lack of training. Figuring I could always use the "I'm racing against geared riders on a single speed" excuse when I had my ass handed to me on race day. I was also looking for a bit of a change in my racing as well and since the house was SUPPOSED to be done in the spring, I'd have time to learn how to really race fast on an SS in 2009 and maybe actually compete against the geared experts who I've been jockeying with for years. Unfortunately, the house still isn't done and I still spend most of my free time working on it so this season has been less than stellar with a dismal (but fun) race in Orono, a fun race in Presque Isle (things were looking up!) and then a solid kick to the jewels at Rangeley where I seriously considered giving up racing when I finished 10+ minutes down on folks who I should be able to jockey with. Of course, I can't expect much when my typical training week this summer has included less than 6 hours of riding (and many with as little as 3!).

For some reason, I thought that the race in Camden would bring a change since it's a course I know well and enjoy riding on (one of my favorite places to ride in fact). The only problem was that the opening climb is a 20 minute switchbacky brute and not at all single speed friendly (racing at least). As a result I made the decision to run my lowest gearing ever at 32x21 and hope that the lower gear would help me enough on the climb that it would be worth the time lost spinning out on the downhill side of the course.

In a golden shower of divine inspiration I also decided to not carry any water with me during the race. It was a scary decision but I figured that losing the almost two pounds of weight would help on the climb and there were really no good spots to drink on the course anyway since there are NO SMOOTH SECTIONS except for the start/finish run where I stashed two full bottles to chug from as I rolled through each lap.

Ok, lets get to the race.

The start

I got to the line late and was forced to line up in the second row but still managed a good start and hit the climb 5th wheel with four elites in front of me (Andrew Freye, Wheels, Chris LaFlamme and Peter Ostrowski). I got into a good rhythm and managed to clean most of the first climb despite the slippery conditions left over from the 4" of rain the day before. Once to the top, I could just barely see Wheels in front of me and hoped to catch him on the sketchy downhill to come. It wasn't long before I had Mike Patrick on my heels and when he passed me I barely had time to comment on his speed before he was out of sight. Man, for a guy undergoing chemo for a brain tumor, that dude can rip! By the time I splished and splashed my way through the first lap I was sitting in 6th, had Mike back in my sights and was feeling surprisingly good.

As I rolled through the feed area, I grabbed a bottle and managed to guzzle half of it before the start of the climb. Divine inspiration indeed.

Once on the climb, I caught Mike surprisingly quickly and saw him accidentally start to take the short loop option (the elite/expert race consisted of two long loops and two short loops) and hollered to him to turn around and he was back on course when I got to the intersection. Mike was looking a bit peakid but I just figured he was hurting because he couldn't be getting a lot of riding in given the treatments he's been getting. I rode by with a quick greeting and continued on my merry way up the climb. This time things weren't so peachy. Since everybody had now been through the course once, the trails were getting greasy, not much mud yet but slick enough that torquing up the climb on a single speed became difficult. Thankfully, nobody caught me on the climb (although I was hearing phantom noises behind me) and I headed down the second downhill with no one in sight.

How is it that I can make a 29'er look small?

Given the amount of rain we had on the previously day, the course was holding up really well. Most of the single track was draining beautifully and there were only a handful of short puddles and muddy sections. At some point during this lap, I heard the ambulance take off and I was a bit bummed to think that someone must have eaten shit somewhere on the downhill.

By the time I finished the second lap in 5th place I was very thankful that I'd only be doing the short loop this time which cuts out 2/3 of the opening climb. I still had some good power on the short climbs but the legs were too cooked to do another 20 minute beast.

Lap three was pretty uneventful. I was catching lots of lapped riders from other classes but everyone, with no exceptions, quickly moved out of the way when they heard me coming. Something that was not necessary for them to do but much appreciated by me since I lost very little time making passes.

Lap four I was starting to lose hope of catching any of the elites in front of me but I still had gas in the tank so I pushed as hard as I could hoping to catch glimpses of my rivals in the twisties. About five minutes from the end of the lap I passed one rider hoofing it through the woods with what appeared to be a flat tire. I didn't immediately recognize him but found out after the race that it was Chris LaFlamme moving me into 4th place overall and first place expert.

One thing that totally bummed me out after the race was the ambulance I had heard earlier was for Mike Patrick. Apparently he was knuckle deep in a "small seizure" (his words) when I passed him and totally lost it shortly after I went by and needed to be helped off the mountain and was taken to the hospital. I was wracked with guilt that I didn't stop and help him but at the time I had no idea what was going on. Thankfully, I heard from him on Monday and he's doing fine.

No Excuses

Okay, today I'm not going to make any excuses about why I don't have my Snow Bowl Run Off write-up done. I just don't feel like doing it. There, now lets move on.

Part of my reason for not wanting to do the write up is that all I can currently think about is the Bradbury 12 coming up in a couple of short weeks. Not only am I excited at the prospect of riding for 12 hours straight as I attempt to defend my title but I'm also excited because, as of right now at least, both of my brothers, my father and Marcy are planning on racing as well, on a four man team. They haven't officially signed up yet but I think it's going to happen which is pretty frickin sweet if you ask me. What also is sweet is their tentative team name "The Awesome Rick Nelson's Family". I don't know who this Rick Nelson is but he sure does seem pretty awesome.

Drat!

Ok, so today I got in early to do my race post but forgot that they were switching our power over from 6-7:15 this morning meaning no power during that time. Guess what time I got in this morning... Yeah, 6 o'clock on the dot so my bloggy time went out the window and instead I got to work while all of the computer battery backups went flippin' ballistic, beeping incessantly and causing me to go out of my fricking mind! Anyway, I'll try to do the write-up again tomorrow.

On the news front, as some of you may have seen, I made a mention yesterday on Facebook about Michael Patrick having a seizure during the race and wasn't sure how he was doing. Thankfully, I heard from him today (and he has a blog post up about it) and it seems like he's doing fine. I am exceptionally glad to hear it.

Speaking of Mike, he has got to be one of the toughest dudes I know. The guy has a brain tumor, is actively undergoing chemo, is on a million meds (I know because Marcy and Andrew's girlfriend, Hattie, broke into his car during the race to get in contact with his family) and he was still drilling it out there on the course. In fact, on the downhill on the first lap, Mike passed me so fast that I barely had a chance to comment before he was out of sight. The dude rips.

Get well Mike!