The Best Birthday Weekend Ever!

It's been a busy week since returning from our weekend of 'crossbauchery in Louisville, so I'm a little late getting a report up. For the USGP weekend, the focus was more on fun than racing, and with my 31st birthday taking place on Saturday, this seemed pretty appropriate. I milked it for all it was worth getting a birthday shout-out from the announcer, a cupcake from the hostess of the My Wife, Inc. Cupcake Chronicles, and Happy Birthday serenades both during the race and after.

My races for both days fall into the "meets expectations" category, although perhaps my expectations for the weekend were a little low. Between the hotel bed and the restaurant food, I wasn't really channeling my A game. Saturday I had a bit of a motivation crisis, because I was floating around mid-pack in the mixed 3/4 field and didn't know much about the ability level of the girls around me the race. I ended up 23rd out of 40, knowing that I probably didn't fight as hard to get up to 20th or 21st as I should have. I regretted this after it was over and vowed to give it a better go on Sunday. Well, give it a better go after some post-dinner margaritas on Saturday night, you know. Luckily, my legs weren't aware of the dehydration and fatigue that the rest of my body was feeling, and I rode pretty well, except for a failed remount that lead to a fall and a dropped chain after the barriers on the second lap. This cost me about six places, but I maintained fighter mode as I'd promised myself I would, and made back all of the lost places by the end of the race. My only disappointment was that I just missed catching the 2-3 girls that I'd been chasing before the fall, and ended up in 21st place.



So after all us amateur folks were done racing Sunday, we cleaned up and checked out of our hotel. Then we headed back to the venue, and it was time for the real fun to begin. Since I've probably already shocked my paleo cycling advisor with talk of cupcakes (just one) and margaritas (not the NorCal sort), I will now shock my mother (dooon't look at it) with the sequel to "Best Barriers Ever", in which the Shamrock Cycles Super Friends bring their heckle game to a whole new level. Although my face is either obscured or in the background most of the time, yes, those are my hands doing the dollar bill placement in the opening scene.