Monday, June 2, 2008

My Previous Life



Since I normally take the Monday after a race weekend completely off the bike, today I had a little throw back to my life before I became a cyclist. Most of you know, but I'm sure some of you don't, I used to play golf at Appalachian State, in Boone, NC. (Yeah the school that knocked off Michigan, at Michigan in football this season.) Golf was my thing, like 6-8 hours a day of practicing and playing, but after a while I got a little burnt out and decided to put the clubs up and transfer back closer to home, to IU. Now that I'm kind of serious about this whole cycling thing I don't really play much, mostly because I suck now and it isn't much fun to suck at something. Every once in a while I'll convince myself that I enjoy golf and want to head out and play for "fun".



My brother was also a good player and played for IU for a while, before he decided to hang it up as well. Today we both went out to the course where we used to spend our summers and tried to play for "fun." The novelty of just being outside and enjoying the nice day quickly wore off and we were back to critiquing every shot and swing, trying to get back to where we used to be... not happening. We got some good laughs at each others shots, but I guess we can't expect much when we play only a handful of times a year.



Who knows how long it will take for me to re-convince myself that I can play just for fun, but I'm sure it will be sometime again this summer, maybe I'll have better luck... whenever that may be.









I have a race report to do from this weekend, but I'm hoping some pictures will turn up. I'll just make it a brief one for now.

Winfield Twilight Crit- ABD seriously outnumbered us and were throwing plenty of guys off the front. I killed myself trying to get into the move, and it never went. I was toast by the end of the race and didn't have the legs to position myself for the sprint. 20th Place, Mike rolled in nicely with a 5th place.

ABR Crit "Nats"- Pretty simple 4 corner course, and I was thinking it might stay together, however, one of the first few moves I went with got away. It was a group of 9, with Me and Mike, Rob and Ryan White, Derek Laan, and some other guys. Alderfer Bergen and ABD were the only teams with 2 in the move. We eventually took a lap and then we had too keep an eye on the boys from the break. ABD sent their guys to the front, and we put our guys on the front and we kept the pace sufficient in order to keep things under control. It was a really long drag race sprint and Ryan White lead it out and brother Rob took home the sprint, followed by Derek, Me, and Mike. It would have been nice to pick up the win, but it was also nice to see the team work well together and actually race like a team. I think everyone was pretty ok with the way it turned out.

This weekend we have the HUGE money Tour De Winghaven in St. Louis. I'm hoping for good legs and full pockets.

Thanks for reading.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's it like going from the most boring sport in the world to the most exciting sport in the world?

R.Knapp said...

A lot more painful...