Sike

This past weekend was the first ECCC race of the season at Rutgers University. It was my first time officiating, and it started out boring, and got a lot better as the weekend went along. I started off standing in the freezing cold doing the ITT, writing down numbers of people who passed. After not too long I swung my car around and sat in that instead. It was warmer. Mild entertainment came in the form of people who steered straight through the large line of cones, and did a much harder turn-around than necessary, and from the dude in Men's A who way overcooked the turn, went into the mud, and fell. Hilarious dude, thanks for making my morning. I later found out that two guys skipped the turn-around, and didn't bother to tell anyone... and had times minutes faster than other competitors. Needless to say they were DQed. I felt a bit better after hearing this, as I felt a bit more worthwhile.

The crit in the afternoon was more interesting. I wrote down numbers of people falling off the back, and those winning the prime sprints. It was a little confusing, especially with the Women's B and Men's D and C fields. It was cold and windy, and I was happy to get back to CT's housing hookup for the best post-race dinner put on by a host family ever.

The next day was the circut race and it was real easy to do. Not many lapped riders, or not many lapped riders who kept riding I should say. I just sat around wrote numbers again. I was much better at catching numbers and documenting the race than the first day.

I must say that officiating is not very fun. It was allright because I got paid $100 (which is going to purchase a Mavic Carbone btw). However I'd much rather be racing.

Which reminds me- went to see the surgeon today, and he said the swelling was a lot more than he though it should be... told me to ice it more, some other stretches, and to lay off riding over an hour for a while, like May. He mentioned that 80% of people who see results from my surgery will have seen it by this point. I wanted to ask him how many people really expected to benefit from my surgery, but I think I know what he means. Sucks. I don't think I'll be making it out to many more collegiate weekends now, I can't stand going and not racing, I'd rather pretend it's not going on and I'm not missing anything. Good luck guys/gals. I will still be doing the Philly weekend, however, as I need to pick up that Carbone from Stephan... wonder when I'll get to put it to use.