Racing in high school and college I wondered what was the mark of a full time professional athlete? Was it winning prize money at a Supertour? Racing in high level domestic competition or even in Europe? Was it having a full fleet of skis and a wax tech to make those hard calls for you on race day? Was it having a high strike rate?
I found out today the answer is winning eggs and toilet paper as prizes. 10 athletes living in a house go through lots of food. Eggs (and of course it follows, TP) go particularly quick around here and this morning we were pretty much out of both. I really can’t think of a better prize for race organizer to give out! Big congrats to the organizers at Bolton today (for their prize/raffle selections of course) and pulling off a well run race despite natures best efforts to intervene.
3 days worth of eggs!
The haul: 7th gen. dish soap, dish detergent, and tasty homemade baked goods!
Today I think we saw just about every type of precipitation imaginable over a two hour period. Snow, sleet, freezing rain, all thrown sideways at us from some monster wind gusts. It really speaks to how nasty it is outside when a Casco visor, one of the few choices of eye wear that doesen’t fog, is completely covered in a layer of snow and ice by the end of the first climb. The best tactic for descending today I found was to simply hope the racer ahead was keeping it on the course and follow their blurred outline down the hills. A pretty epic one in the books!
Overall we had a great day as a team with Chelsea taking second in the woman’s race and Dylan Ollie and I placing sixth, fifth, and first in the guys field. It also felt great to get out and blow some carbon off the valves after some steady volume training here in Craftsbury following our Finland racing trip.
Weather outlook bleak- try back later…
So what about the EC Opener this coming week? Hopefully the rain that is falling right now will turn to snow later tonight and leave us with a good solid base with some accumulation on top. I guess it will be pretty obvious if were going to have the races here in Craftsbury or have to move them by the morning. Looking at the current weather forecast right now (and hearing the rain falling outside) I would be pleasantly surprised if we still had much white stuff on the ground come Monday. But maybe, just maybe?
