a weekend of suck.

i worked hard for this weekend. why didn't this weekend work as hard for me?

John Muir just sorta didn't happen for us. Brake problems right off the bat, with both front and rear sticking, the adjusters on the levers doing nothing, and no tools/bleed kit for dealing with the problem. Harumph. Audrey went out for the first lap as I stood around freezing in the frost-covered park. When she came in (in front of the other women's team, I should mention) I went out for my lap, choosing lines that would make the baby jesus cry. I found the best ways to fall off the trail, hit stuff, and generally lose speed whenever possible. The light angle through the trees made it hard to even see the stuff I was hitting. Dumped my chain into the wheel on some of that plastic milkcrate stuff, then my footdown slipped on the plastic, and there I lay, chain wrapped in wheel, bike wrapped in me, staring at the sky. (Dear Bicycle: You belong below me, not above me. Kthxbye.) It wasn't fun, and since we ride for fun, and considering the fact that the brakes weren't fixing themselves, after my lap we decided to call it a day. So instead we had Audrey's birthday picnic, chatted with friends, cheered on Mike and Chris, and Amy came by, which was pretty cool.

Sunday just plain sucked. Long story short, car died just outside Aurora on the way to the team race and we instead spent 5 hours at the National Tire and Battery and its adjoining strip mall. The car's still in Aurora. Not so PRO. And did I mention that I got a cold, to boot?

I just have to elaborate a little on this one, though. Ben's been mid-pack in the UCI's at these races we spend $$$ to get to. Now, here we had an opportunity for a local race, cheap to get to, good chance he'd podium or even win, a course he helped design, an event I baked for and worked for and really wanted to be at, and him racing in front of our friends and a rad local crowd, and the freaking car breaks down. The same car that got us to John Muir trouble-free the day before, a nice little car with just 55k miles. I chalk it up to newlywed luck -we can' t believe how many little expensive things are racking up - but it's still just a punch in the nose when it was supposed to be the uplifting feel-good day.