...how many to go?

Saturday we went to Glencoe to cheer on Erica (whose birthday it was!), Ben, and the rest of the crew. It was hot. I couldn't even imagine racing in that. It was a great time, and a great day, but as usual, I walked away super happy that I'm no longer involved in officiating. Somehow a teammate who wasn't even there took a top-20 finish, and Ben, though he was told to pull off at the start/finish by the motoref, the pit ref, and at the finish line, was DNF'd. He was in the middle of 4 packs of racers and in no way even close to getting lapped. He shouldn't have been pulled, but he certainly should have been placed. Can someone tell me why it's worth paying $30 to race if this is what you end up with? And when he asked about it, they said they had "no record" of his laps or times, although the race was chip timed. Super frustrating.

Reminds me of a few weekends ago in Elk Grove, where a teammate who was riding in a group of 4 off the back of the main field was pulled by a certain official just laps into the race. The group was still racing eachother and was at the time in no danger of being lapped. They had paid $25 to race and got pulled waaaay early, and when they asked why, the official said "you would have been caught and lapped by the end of the race anyway." Really? They could have raced eachother for probably 10 more laps and then been finished a few laps early, not been in anyone's way, and had a far better experience.

Same dude that threatened to fine my team for violating a rule that didn't even apply to our event. And also forced us to pay for an extra official for one of our events for no reason at all really, claiming it would "enhance safety" but really it just meant one more bored, cold official sitting at the finish line at a price that had to be passed on to each of the racers.

This pregnancy isn't the reason I'm not officiating, it's people like that. I'll start working as an official again when leadership like him shows by example that it's about contributing to the safety, fun, and sportsmanship of the race and not just exercising some misplaced and overblown notion of "authority." It's completely out of hand.

Had to be said.

Anyway, Lyne came to stay with us for the weekend while covering the Glencoe race and we had a great time trying to stay cool. Sunday, Audrey, Lyne, and I enjoyed some great outdoors time and delicious dinner and just had a nice girls' day. I needed that.

At this point, I'm 2-5 weeks to go. In yet another hormonally-driven nesting binge, I re-arranged the diapers (OMG do we have like a bagillion prefolds!), washed all the used baby clothes we got, and went with Audrey to pick up a lovely rocking chair. We're slowly whittling away at that insane to-do list. Still need lighting and a rug in the baby room, but that's the last of the big stuff. This morning I had the realization that we have nowhere to keep baby feeding supplies- bottles n' such- and thus need to find a solution to that problem.

I had a great run this morning, a real breakthrough. It's been probably 10 weeks since I've run all the way through a workout without walking, and equally as long since I've gone past the 3 mile mark. This morning I ran 3.5 mi straight through, walked 2 blocks, than ran to finish off 4 mi. It's nice to know I still have... something. I can't stay I still have "it." It for me is running 10 mi any day I choose. But I'm still out there, 30+ extra pounds and all.