What's that elephant doing in the living room?

Okay.  I'm going to do what very few other cycling-related blogs are occupying themselves with these past few days and refrain from talking about Flance Landstrong.  Who cares what I think?  I know neither of the guys nor do I feel like I can even make an educated guess about who did what to whom, etc.  It'll sort itself out...someday.

A lot of my friends and fellow racers sounded like broken records this past Saturday at the Lake Sunapee Road Race in Sunapee, NH: I thought you were retired, I thought you were retired. Well, I guess I was Lance Armstrong retired or Michael Jordan retired, or even Arrested Development retired.  Actually, no, scratch that last one.  I was not brought back by popular demand and, so far, my "comeback" has been anything but funny.  I signed myself up for some intensity that only racing can provide.  The Sunapee race is a 70 mile course with some short sharp climbs, bad road surfaces, and one final 1k ascent up the ski resort's access road.  I was mostly pack fodder for the race, content to sit in an just get that burning feeling going in the muscles again.  In retrospect, I actually fared well considering it was my first race back after only moderate training for two months.  I never tried to get to the sharp end of the peloton and therefore was in no position to make the breakaway when it exploded from the front of the field about a lap and a half into the race.  But, it was nice to see the speedometer reading a consistent 28mph for most of the 2.5 hour ride.  Unfortunately for almost all of us, there was a big crash with one mile to go in a field that went ahead of ours.  Officials were forced to shut the race course down which prompted a one hour delay.  One moment we were speeding toward the exciting finale, still trying to reel in the breakaway and the next, we come screeching to a halt as a line of traffic a quarter mile long blocked the road.  It was impossible to get the legs going again at the level they needed to be in order to contest what now would be a one mile sprint.  After an hour, race organizers let the breakaway get the head start they deserved and then waved what was left of our field through to the finish line.  My legs felt like creaky floorboards at this point and with about 400m to go, I tried to look cool and sat up.  So cool. 

There were parts of the scene I missed and parts I definitely did not.  I realized I missed the racing, I missed people checking out my bike (of which they did a lot, looking at my Lynskey Helix OS); I missed the pain in my legs and the ability to push my body further into the red zone than the average person could never comprehend.  I did NOT miss the 5:15am alarm clock, the force feeding, coffee, bathroom all before 6:00am, the rush to make it to the race with plenty of time to spare, the next bathroom break.  I did not miss all of the category 1 and 2 racers acting as if they were the most glorious and celebrated rock stars of our time, with their oversized designer sunglasses, shiny and oiled legs, and the occasional stare down with rivals from across the Subaru-strewn parking lot.  And then there was the one kid from Dartmouth who was blaring Third Eye Blind from his Toyota Corolla's open doors as he pinned his numbers.  What is this, 1997?  I think he was on his way to see American Pie post race.  Dartmouth, I mean, c'mon.