Click on the image to see a closeup. All photos courtesy of Cecile Redoble.


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Hell Weekend 2007

We generally don't like to overbook the weekends. A soccer game, maybe family swim, and we're ready for a nap. Which is why the weekend of December 8th & 9th is thusly named. We had the following activities planned:

Throw in an ice storm, and you see why it was so much fun. Let's get started.

Swim Meet (Day One)

Ella was signed up for SIX events! Three on Saturday:

I won't bore you with too many details, but let's just say that a swim meet is generally 2-3 minutes of action, spread out over a four-hour period. Bring a magazine or three. However, it was pretty cool watching Ella go from a nervous tummyache to completely blowing us off and having her friends mark up her body with "Eat my Bubbles" and "Go Wildkits!" Throw in a couple of skull temporary tattoos and she had her game face on. While the results don't look impressive (32nd of 50 non-disqualified 6-8 year-olds, for example), she shaved three seconds off two of her times. We're starting to figure out how it works...she's seeded by best recorded time, so for example, she raced in heat 4 of 7 for Breaststroke, and her time should be good enough to get her into the fifth heat next time. You can win a heat of course, but in this format, that's kind of the luck of the draw. For example, you could race for two years and be the 8th best swimmer in the field, and get seeded in heat 7 of 7...you might come in LAST place, but chances are, you'd still have beaten the other 56 racers. Fortunately, she doesn't quite know how it all works, and she seems pretty happy to finish near the leaders of her heat, and look around to see that she beat SOMEbody. For some reason, her butterfly time got worse, but she's rising up through ranks in the other two events. She seems to be pretty strong in Breast stroke, in particular.

Climbing Class

Lang got WAY up the wall, higher than Ella ever did at that age. He seems particularly eager to outdo her in this sport. Ella was practically comatose and sat out most of the class, but finally took a turn on the wall...and for the first time, made it to the top! 47 feet! She hardly spoke a word, and was probably too tired to be scared, but this only motivated Lang even more. He's almost halfway.

...

At this point, we had to take a break for some social obligations. Party One, dinner, Party Two, and unfortunately we were kind of "prisoners" at Party Two (forbidden from leaving until 3 am). To make matters worse, our taxi driver was probably under the influence of something, and was going 17-25 mph. That was ok on the icy side streets in Evanston, but on Western, for chrissake? He cheated us out of 17% of the sleep we were hoping to get that night. 2.5 hours of sleep later...

Swim Meet (Day Two)

Three more events:

Again, nothing particularly Olympic about the results in the short events: middle of the pack heat, middle of the pack finish, but again, knocked off 3+ seconds from her PR. The big event was the IM - 4 laps, 4 strokes! The nerve-racking part is that there are very particular ways you have to make your turns from one stroke to the next. You'd think that they would ease up on the first timers, but they were pretty relentless. We thought at one point that Ella was DQ'ed, but the referee had just DQ'ed the girl in the next lane (who came out crying). Ella finished fourth (like she did in almost every heat) but we chalk it up as a win because it was her longest race ever, and she didn't get DQ'ed. Plus she got a shirt with an iron-on of all the competitors' names, with a star by hers. Woohoo! Fortunately, these big meets only come a few times a year.

Lang got a gold medal in "charming mom and dad into getting every possible ounce of junk food from the snack table." Seriously, that poor guy gets dragged along for everything, though he did manage to skip day one. He was a trooper.

Cyclocross State Championships

Snowy and nasty is a great way to end the cross season. It was slushy, icy, frozen, slick, muddy, had two back-to-back runs up cricket hill, lots of switchbacks, a patch of ice that took me out 3.5 of the 5 times I crossed it (to the derision of the "fans" at the curve: "You hit that rut EVERY TIME!"), a bombing downhill that fed through a soccer goal, and for good measure, a guy who collapsed at the finish line with an apparent case of hypothermia. I got a great starting position considering there were 60 guys lining up (second row, outside) and went into turn one thinking I had a wheel to hold. It got a little hairy and a few guys just cut lines in front of me that I didn't feel like contesting. I'm really not as aggressive at the opening bell as I should be. I did ok on the first runup, still in the "ant march" at the head of the race, but there were gaps opening up. I really could have kept the gaps shut but the guy in front of me (also on a single speed) could not, and didn't have the decency to let someone through that could, so three of us got held up in an energy-wasting battle. The guy on the geared bike seemed to be more of a threat, but he was stuck behind me and I wasn't giving it up. We battled for a couple laps, each making an occasional mistake and trading leads. Finally single speed flop-crashed over a barrier, pushed his bike up a few steps and let us by. At the start/finish, the course was wide and fast (about the only place) and I hammered past geared guy for good.

I think I only got smoked on one runup; two guys just bolted past me shouldering their bikes. It's difficult to explain how surreal it was. If you've ever had "race dreams" where you feel like you're running or biking in molasses, you know it's your psyche playing games. When you're pushing a 20+ pound bike up a hundred yard hill through slush, and someone BOUNDS past you, it's like that dream has crystallized into reality. On lap three or four, somebody tried to do the same thing, and I just started turning over these tiny little steps and he faded hard. I was afraid he'd come back on the return (the hill was barrier/up/down - u-turn - barrier/up/down) but he was spent. After my initial three way battle, I picked off a few more, lapped a couple, and I thought I would be able to hold my position until the end. One of the guys I'd picked off had been held up by a lapped rider, but he came back strong and was shadowing me with 10 turns to go. We were shoulder-to-shoulder on a down/up/barrier/turn. I was cashed out, but had the inside spot over the barrier, and thought I could just get into the turns, I could hold him off. We both slipped, side by side, only I more than him, and he had inside position on the next turn. Somewhat cleverly, he didn't remount, but pushed his bike through while I was on the outside position trying to get back on. He was halfway to the next turn before I got going and I couldn't catch him.

I ended up 17th (of 60ish) and I was pretty damn pleased about that. Other than attacking harder at the start, getting passed by 3 racers, and *just* missing a couple chances to nick riders on the remounts, I think it went pretty well, especially considering I had two and a half hours of sleep.

I hooked up with some familiar faces. My old rival Gerald had beaten me by ONE position in every race in 2006, and the first race of this season I lapped him for a bunch of spots. However, I was in Marathon shape (long since spent that capital) while he, on the other hand has done 17 'cross races this season! He smoked me (8th) but it was good to catch up. Also ran into some messenger types from old alley cats and such. It got me thinking about doing the Tour Da Chicago in a month. Non-sanctioned, in-traffic, $5 entry. I haven't done an alley cat in years, but I couldn't stop thinking about it after the race. The street is where this all started, and it feels like the street is calling me back. Tresa didn't sound enthused when I mentioned it, though she didn't forbid it, either...