I just spent the past few weeks selling my life’s items on eBay. And I have to say I am pretty excited. I sold most of the stuff for more than I bought it for. And I was able to pick up some food for training at almost 70% off retail. It is a perfect lead up to my trip to Sydney. Lots of food and a little extra money in my pocket.

Just checking things out to see how publishing from my new fangled iPhone works.

PortRoyalCrit

WIN!

GC as in Guerrilla Cuisine and not as in Georgia Cup. Last weekend I went with my new sweetheart Anita to this intriguing new dinner concept called Guerrilla Cuisine. Basically they take a popular local Charleston chef and let him run loose which their menu. Basically until about 24H before the actual event, all you know is a date and location. Every once and a while you’ll get little snippets as to say the theme or some of the ingredients that you can expect. 

But when Anita and I showed up at this tiny little club house within a gated community, we were both pretty excited. We walked in to Bluegrass playing in one corner and a large U shaped table setting for 80 in the middle of the room. Around the walls were various forms of art (photography, graffiti, litebright, etc…).

Once we sat down, the food just kept coming. 7 courses to be exact. Of course, of the 7, I really only enjoyed like 3 of them…I guess I’m too picky. But all in all it was a pretty fabulous evening, but then again any evening I get to spend with Anita is pretty stinkin’ fabulous.

Well, racing season is upon us so it only seems fair that I start my typical “race->post->race->post” routine up again.

Being new to the Southeastern region, it’s going to be a fun time trying to re-learn all the different people and places. The cool thing about Seattle is that you knew pretty much everyone in the race. You could roll up to the start and carry on like 10 different conversations with old friends and new acquaintances alike. Whereas now I’m just another face in the crowd.

Regardless of that fact, this past weekend was the start of my “A” races. The Georgia Cup series is a number of TT/Crit/RR type stage races throughout Georgia. My season long goal is to get top 10 in the overall with stretch goals placing me a little higher up. This weekend was a good place to see how I compared to all my new competitors.Warming up for the 3.2K prologue TT still rocking my Seattle’s team long-sleeve skinsuit. It was cold out in the AM! 

Considering some of the aero equipment people had at this short 11 corner (with a turn-around) prologue, I was impressed that I snuck in a top 10 finish, about 7 seconds off first (stupid pros).

The crit was pretty uneventful except that any attempt to get some bonus seconds (which went 3 deep) saw me come up 4th far too many times to count.

The road race was nice and frustrating all at the same time. After the crit I had somehow moved up into 8th, a handful of seconds off taking the overall. About 20 miles into the 96 miles race the break of the day went and I was in it! We rolled the break to about a 4′ gap on the peleton when it happened. No, not a flat this time, but a collision at 25+ mph with an overly heavy musette bag! And down I went. And that was pretty much the end of my race and my bike for that matter. I crashed out of the break which could have seen me move to a possible podium or top 5 spot (depending on my sprinting ability). But instead I DNF’d and had to deal with the aftermath…

Note the fingertips, sucks to be a computer scientist these days!

So I got this swanky new camera…hopefully I’ll have more fun pics to post and some good stories, but for now, this is all you’re going to get…proof that I actually DO work…sometimes…

Tonight I headed off to “Hot Yoga”. Basically a series of poses but it’s done in a sauna like environment. 100+ degrees and all you do is sweat. But, let’s just say today is a VERY big day in The Smith Household™

Life Goal #37 – Touch Toes: CHECK!

Early sprint training

In response to Stoked’s year by the numbers, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at my last 365 days as well.

Total number of miles: ~8032
Month with most miles: February with ~1196 miles
Month with least miles: December with ~625 miles
Most consecutive days without riding: 16 (11/11-11/25)

I’m off to a good start for 2008 with a century under my belt and a couple more planned before the end of January.