TheAndrew.net

work really really sucks.
If only I could afford to take a day off and be miserable at home instead of extra miserable at work.

**Wrote this while I was in Pennsylvania because I knew if I didn’t I wouldn’t write anything for a while. It will be revised and prettied up later with some pictures added**
I feel pretty crappy now. Got a nice cold and feel like I’ve got a bunch of stuff I should be doing.
Gonna try to take 2 or 3 weeks off the bike to recharge, and then I’ll be back to it again.

Thursday:
Got into 7 Springs at around 9am. Parked at the main resort and tried to get ourselves situated a bit. Went ahead and ate breakfast in a little diner in the main building. Steve got a haircut, and we peer-pressured him into dying his hair, we went to pick up our registration packets, and headed over to meet Michigan Tech at our condo (they had room to spare and didn’t mind the help in paying for it).

We got situated a bit, changed and Chad, Steve, Jon, and myself rode over to our courses to practice. Those guys practiced the mountain-cross track
and I rode further up the mountain to the short track/start of the cross-country course. Did a couple laps of the STXC course and then rode one lap of the cross-country course. Nice a painful….the course was made up of snow and mud. My toes were numb a good ¾ of the ride. It sucked…enough said.

Met up with Chad at the bottom of the hill, and we rode back to our condo. Nobody was there, door was locked, we were real happy. Eventually Brady and a couple dudes from Michigan Tech showed up and let us in. Brady made dinner, some people drank and played some games, and some just went to bed. After not sleeping but a couple hours during the drive, and driving from around midnight until around 4, I crashed around 9.

Friday:
Got up around 8. Brady made French toast like a nice housewife, then decided to run up to the Short Track Course (a good couple miles) in shorts, shoes, and a hat. It was cold outside.
The rest of us got geared up and I dropped Chad, Jon, and Steve off at the mountain-cross course and pick Brady up, and we headed up to the short track course.

I rode a whole two laps, and then about 8 of us got pulled. Some Colorado guys (CU, Fort Lewis, etc) set a crazy fast pace on the mostly uphill course and a majority of the 60 something riders were pulled fairly early into the 30 minute race.

My toes were frozen after those two laps, my face covered in mud, so Brady and I headed down the mountain and up and down back to our condo to change (brady had shorts, a shirt, hat, and shoes at this point…I was chilly in shoes, socks, a long underwear layers on bottom, with shorts and leg warmers over it, 2 shirts and a thermal jacket on top)

We changed and headed back to watch the guys qualify for mountain-cross (4 people riding down a course at a time). Only 32 guys (out of around 60) were able to qualify for the finals, and chad, who didn’t fall a single time practicing, fell twice in his qualifying run and finished 2 places out of the top 32. He was disappointed to say the least, considering a top 10 finish was basically expected. The other guys fell a bit, had some bike problems, and finished a little bit behind Chad.

Steve, Chad, and Jon

We found out they didn’t make the cut, went back to the condo so they could change, and went back to the course to watch the mountain-cross carnage.

That finished up at 3-something and we headed back to the condo, then to the bike shop down the road, the grocery store, and back to the condo for the evening. Steve and I cooked up a batch of pasta with meat sauce, green beans mixed with peas, and some Italian bread for dinner, and we ate up. Little bit of drinking, little bit of poker, and plenty of sleep.

Saturday:

Got up at the crack of 9am. Race started at 11:30. Overall it was fun. Could only use my largest chainring, and there was a couple huge climbs at the end (went from the bottom of a mountain to the top, with just a few twists) so I was doing the hike-a-bike for a good while. On my third lap I flatted about half way through and rode and hiked the bike in.

Walked the downhill course with brady…parts of it were crazy. Just before Brady and I got to the course Steve came walking towards us with his bike in three parts.
Broke the frame in two places. Then Chad and Jon did a run to see themselves for the race tomorrow.

Had an awards ceremony/all-you-can-eat buffet at 6:30, came back to the condo for a little while, then to the naked crit at 10pm.

Back side of mountain on Sunday

http://digmo.com/sports/story.php?ID=16727

No more shaved head. Thought about doing it one more time for this weekend, but I’ll already be cold enough.

So the question is? Should I participate in the mullet movement?

Yes, sounds enticing doesn’t it?
The best part….i could do it on my own!

I stepped foot in the rec center for the second time all semester tonight (and the first time was just cleaning out my locker the first day of the semester). After work I decided I needed to get some exercise, so I came home, changed, grabbed Ronnell and we headed to the rec.
For not having shot a ball since sometime around June/July I played pretty well. Ronnell could have used some work
I also got a nice cut on the top of my head from some dude that thought his elbow belonged there. Kinda like what happened to my eye brow in high school, only in a different spot by a dude 3/4 the size.

My body will dislike me in the morning. A bunch of different muscles are used to play ball that are used while cycling. Cardio system held up very well….much more than Ronnell could say

Goodnight

During our ride back onto campus last Friday Brady said William Jewell, the namesake of William Jewell College in Libery, is buried in the small graveyard right beside Providence road. There are some famous names in there, so I’ll have to investigate sometime where he really is in there or not.

Don’t ask me why i remembered that right now….

Click on the title to check out, and preorder the new postsecret book.

I’m definately not going to have enough money to pay rent this month. Which means I won’t next month either, and the next. What to do? Hopefully I can sell my mountainbike quickly after Nationals, and get as much as I hope to for it…that’ll take care of the problem for a while. Looks like working more next semester is the only other answer I’ll have.

Had a real good conversation with dad a minute ago.
Why do I feel the need to post it up here? Because I don’t feel like we’ve done much talking before. I’m not blaming this on him, nor am I putting all the blame on myself. (The answer to that is one of those questions like I mention below) So when you get around to reading this…thanks dad, it was great talking with you.

It also raises a bunch of questions in my mind. Questions I’d like an answer to, but some of them are kind tricky and the responses may be the kind that a quick answer won’t really get it done. Maybe it’s more of a question to get the other person to think about it themselves.

What to do…

Mountainbiking…about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on

Created a discussion board for the cycling team. I’m really proud of it, even though it pretty much installed itself. I just had to make changes (stayed up ’till 8am yesterday morning doing it) and get it set up.
You can check it out, but can’t see a lot unless you register
(off-limits are: General Discussion, Phone List…hmm..guess that’s it. So most is on-limits. Just can’t post unless you register.)

http://students.missouri.edu/~murace/forum/

This week went by quick. Class, work and a little bit of riding kept me busy.

Went on a nice 3 hour ride yesterday with a guy from Minnesota that might come to school here next year. Apparantly it’s flat in the Minnesota, so the hills around Columbia put a beating down on him.

Went and saw Waiting last night. Ryan Reynolds is in it, it’s about a restaurant. It was hilarious! Quotes will be coming out of my mouth from this movie for a while.

National Championships are coming up. I’m starting to get really excited….how many people can say there were in the National Championships of anything? That’s right, not that many.