Training Delay

I'm writing this post from Brooklyn, NY. After 8 midterms in Santa Cruz I jumped on a red-eye to NY, and proceeded to stay awake for a total of 42 hours before finally getting to sleep in a beautiful house in Princeton, NJ. The period of time between the red eye landing, and my head landing on the pillow was filling with a lot of amazing sights and time in NY, and honestly I didn't really want to sleep, but most of what I said to Bethany, my NY host, was received with a sideways stare as if she expected me to fall terminally asleep at any given moment. As if anyone could sleep in this city anyway. New Yorkers put up with a lot of noise, incovenience and commotion. On the flip side I have always been fascinated with cities what have basically grown so congested with people that they reach some level of functionality. Much to my amazement standing on the crowded subway, or weaving myself through thousands of people in the financial district of Manhattan I couldn't help but feel a sense of calm. New Yorkers do also fulfill a few stereotypes that we newbies to this city come in with. For instance, and I'll spare you the details of all of them, delivery drivers and cabbies in the city pull up to a line of traffic, one which they cannot see the source of, throw up their arms then lean on their horns for literally no less that 3 or 4 seconds. That doesn't sound like much, but the next time someone in front of you doesn't notice the light change to green, try leaning on your horn as you count out four seconds... You'll be disgusted with yourselves! (and if any of the folks in Santa Cruz try this you know they'll probably hold a lengthy city hall meeting about you and the possible implimentation of community based grassroots programs to train young kids on the humanitarian use of horns)



The seating chart in my life seems to have been built not to accomadate large crowds. There is just one front row seat, and it seems the many things I have going in life fight constantly for that one spot. Occationally the arrangement makes sense: school's comfortably up front followed by racing/riding and work is back in the third row trying to peer over their heads and despite the busy environment the arrangement feels right. But other things come in from time to time and steal seats causing everything to get messed up.



Last weekend was an XC race at Ft. Ord. I haven't had the chance to post a true race report yet, but I'll link to Stacy's photos. The race, in a brief synopsis went really well not in the sense of where I placed, but how I felt. As the laps wore on, my body seemed to feel stronger and stronger, and when I crossed the finish line I was barely winded! The ride was very encouraging. As I sit here now, though I see the Sea Otter approaching in about 10 days, and I feel drastically under-trained, under-prepared and just plain not ready! Between then and now is a few more days in NY, including a trip up to New Paltz...a town I've always wanted to see, and a climbing trip to Yosemite to climb the South Face of Washington Column in preparation for Half Dome this summer. If you're wonder which seat that mission has taken in the Jesse's life auditorium, it's standing in front of the front row jumping up and down, waving it's arms and throwing popcorn...