The Race is on

No not that race.  The other one.  I did sign up for a race on Sunday.  I think I will sign up for the races on next weekend as well.  Those are on Saturday and Sunday.  It was funny when I signed up for the one on Sunday because when it's road racing I always wait until the last minute before I decide not to race.

I do this because I don't want to road race in shitty weather (rain).  The great thing about cross is the weather is supposed to be shitty.  So I signed up for Sunday's race without checking the forecast.

Also, I signed up for Jingle cross.  I reserved a motel room too.  I can back out of it if I decide to make other arrangements, but it's 1.6 miles from the Jingle Cross site so ...

When I say "Make other arrangements,"  I mean my brother lives in Amana.  Amana is a pretty cool place.  It is filled with old fashioned German shit.  It's all family style restaurants and wine and beer.

Whenever I tell someone about going to my brother's house, they always say, "oh yeah - that's an Amish community isn't it?"

Then I always say "No.  You're thinking of something else."

If I say to you "You're thinking of something else,"  what I actually mean is "You are stupid."

The problem is Amana is about 25 miles from Jingle cross.  Actually, that is no problem at all.  I will definitely visit my brother if he's in town during Jingle cross, but I may sleep in the motel room I reserved.

I have a confession to make.  Not that you haven't noticed or anything, but I still must confess (it's my Catholic upbringing).  I wasn't brought up Catholic, I just grew up in the St. Cecilia's Cathedral area.  Actually, we went to a little church right next to St. Cecilia's Cathedral.  It was on 39th and Cuming.  It was called Calvary Baptist Church.  Back then, I thought Calvary meant "Soldiers on Horseback" but this isn't entirely my fault.  My dad pronounces both words exactly the same way.

Not that he ever went to Church with us.  Well, maybe twice.  But normally, he stayed at home on Sunday mornings.  Mom made us go with her.  Well - she rarely made us go to the actual church service, but we had to go to Sunday School.

The confession?  Just a minute.  I'm getting to it.

After Sunday school, mom would usually let us skip Church and go over to Grandma Surber's house.  That was wonderful.  All we had to do was be careful not to break her Thermos.

For years, I thought that the vacuum bottles made of glass had superior heat retaining qualities than the unbreakable ones.  Otherwise, why on earth would anyone have a stupid plastic thermos with a breakable glass interior?

I now think they must have been a lot cheaper or something because they don't really keep stuff warm any better than the unbreakable kind.

Mom went to a Sunday School bible study class before church.  It was called S.A.M.  That stood for "Singles and Married."  There was another study group down the hall from The "SAMmers"  It was a small dark damp room with no windows.  Not even on the door.  This group was called 'Group D' and was just a place where the Divorced members of the congregation could go and amplify their shame together.

Mom always took a thermos full of coffee to S.A.M.  But it was not allowed in the actual Church service.  So if Steve and I went over to Grandma's house, mom would have us take her thermos with us.  She gave us a stern warning every week.  "Don't drop it or the glass inside will break."

We took this seriously, because the last thing we wanted was for mom to drink a cup of coffee full of broken glass.  I think I somehow thought that it would break and nobody would notice until mom was clutching at her severed throat.

So we were careful.  Whenever we threw it to the ground, we always made sure it landed harmlessly in a mound of fluffy snow or a pile of leaves (depending on the season).

Once we got to grandma's house, we told her we had stomach aches. Pepto Bismol was the closest thing Grandma had to candy and we couldn't get enough of the pink stuff.  Yummy.

When I watch my kids now, pinching their noses and choking down about 3/4 of the recommended dosage before insisting they can take no more, I realize we spoil them.  "Back when I was your age, we chugged Pepto for its deliciousness.  You kids today, with your Oreo cookies and whatnot ..."

Oh yeah - the confession.  "Bless me Father for I have nothing to say.  What?  Two Hail Marys.  You know I  recently hurt my shoulder, right?"  (What the hell is Cube talking about - Shim).

I seem to have strayed off course.  Maybe I should investigate these things I've just typed and make a few separate posts out of them.  Naaaah.

Anyway - the race is on.  No not that race.  The other one.

Of course I'm talking about the race back to mediocrity.  I have lost some fitness over the last few weeks and have little time to get back to where I was. Honestly though, I wasn't really in that great of shape before all of the interruptions.  The nice thing is the time off has kind of recharged my desire to ride.

I think I'll just go ahead and sign up for next week's cross races now.  You talked me into it.  Thanks for that.  I was going to wait until after Sunday and see how it goes.  I was going to wait until I had secured the proper freedom.  I was going to wait to see how much the Pearl Jam Concert 2 days before the first Bellevue race takes out of me.  But no.  I'll just sign up now.

Did I mention that the race is on?

Like this one:

And this one (I signed up for Saturday too, but I was the only one.  At least EOB is with me on Sunday):