i anticipated there would be some whining when i tried to make mark wake
up at 4 am.  (this would be mark johnson, whom most of you have either met
or have heard of.)  but he was surprisingly mellow about the whole thing,
even though i didn't have any beer with which to keep him quiet.

we got all my stuff in the car.  i wanted to make a breakfast stop at
dunkin' donuts but even though it was about 5:05 am the one near my house
was not yet open.  so we got on 93, then 95, and just kept on going.  we
passed exit after exit with dunkin' donuts and then all of a sudden there
were no more dunkin' donuts signs.  this made me very unhappy.  we had to
settle for a burger king in maine.  nasty.

got up to the crit and to my surprise my teammate katrina was               
there.  (she's the team leader on the IF elite squad.)  i was excited
about having someone to work with.

it was a weirdly short race, just over 30 minutes.  so it started to go
pretty fast from the gun.  i had the same problem as usual; even though i
was getting into a decent position, i kept losing it in the corners.
clearly something i need to work on.  i was moving up on the short rise
though.  katrina said she would control things up front and try to lead me
out for the sprint (she's more of a climber/road racer, just finished
4th at mt washington).

when the first prime (sprint lap) came around katrina tried to lead me out
and i just didn't have the legs to stay on her wheel.  i felt really bad
about that and tried extra hard the second time.  it worked like a charm,
as katrina really got the speed up and i came around just fast enough to
edge out another rider for an ll bean gift certificate.  (not that i
really cared, i was more interested in trying to work on sprinting with a
lead-out.)

the next prime was for a gift certificate to a tattoo parlor.  the field
was really quiet for that one until just before the line when everyone
started going crazy.

katrina had been riding pretty aggressively the whole time, trying out
attacks, and at one point she got out in front a little for a lap or
so.  after she got reeled back in i went.  i led for about a
lap-and-a-half and got caught about 300 meters before the line, losing out
on a $50 prime.  oh well.

i was pretty blown but katrina came up and gave me a little push and told
me i did a good job, and i found the strength to hang onto the back of the
pack for the remaining 3 or so laps.  we were too far back on the final
lap though and when katrina tried to lead me out again i just couldn't
pass anyone.  so i think i finished somewhere in the last third.    

dick ring had told us we had one to go, and we were done.  however it
turned out the officials didn't know we were finishing.  so we had to try
to sort out the finishing order and somehow in that whole debacle i
"officially" finished last.  i didn't actually find that out until monday
morning, but i don't think i was much higher than that anyway, so
whatever.

i was really pleased with the race though.  it was the first time i'd
ever tried to attack like that and it felt great!  i was working super
hard, my heart rate about 205, and for a little while i had a pretty big
lead.  hopefully next time i try it i'll have the strength to stay out in
front.

afterwards i did a cool-down ride with katrina.  she was really nice and
invited me to do a few more races with her and the other 1s and 2s.  i'm
going to have to talk to the shop about getting basically every weekend  
off this month, but it looks like i might be doing five national calendar
races in the next few weeks and then finishing up with block island and
jamestown.  i'm nervous, of course, but pretty excited about getting to do
some pro races, even though i'll probably be way off the back.

so i drove 200 miles to race for 30 minutes.  but it was nice to have
company, especially since mark is the only person i know who really wants
to listen to cracker as much as i do.  (he brought me a fan club cd with
an actual "eurotrash"-style rendition of "eurotrash girl" which was one of
the funniest things i have ever heard.)

a final note.  my pants have all started to get much tighter just in the
course of the season because of added muscle (i'm hoping) and it's become
a bit of a joke with some of my friends.  that night mark and i got some
chinese food and he made some comment about how i was really putting it
away (in my attempt to keep up with him--he weighs 75 lbs more than i
do) and i replied, "well you know i've got an ass to feed."