A very Cormac Christmas

I’ve just finished the novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, a very inspiring tale about cowboys and indians

and in the tradition of this festive time of year, it begs the question: how would Cormac convey the spirit of Christmas through a rewrite of “The Night Before Christmas”??

Needless to say the ensuing carnage would taint the soul.  If i had to take a guess, the story would involve Santa shooting the reindeer and cooking them over an open fire in the Arctic wilderness, getting gun happy and scalping elves and urinating in the living rooms of houses he visited.  Lay off the whiskey Mr. Kringle.

I’ve begun flossing my teeth every night for the past 3 nights,  its not a pretty sight

flat lining

for

Michael Vick treats his pets better than I treat this blog

The past month has been an absolute blur.  Not even sure if having the Dolorian around would help piece together the days.

I’ll do a recap piece of the cross season later this week- my best and worst at the same time, now that i’m home for a little while and have nothing better to do than circle the computer.

Aside from cross, I’ve been inching forward with grad school, managed to put together my best semester in college (2 A’s, 1 A- just sayin’) and still maintain some sort of semblance of a social life

moving forward to being absolutely overqualified for any job i apply for.

today i was going through all of the shoe boxes i’ve accumulated over my illustrious running career

getting them all sorted out so i could donate them to Jus’ Running who gives them to the homeless shelter so people can have shoes that can’t afford them.  My contribution may have been more substantial than your average donor

you should see my running short collection

after tying the laces together i made a big lasso to drag them to the car

you could put an eye out

the end of an era

Santa will be here soon!

racesss

the past few weekends have begun the intensity and fun that is the cyclocross season, second only to Christmas in terms of fun, excitement and gifts

such as the new derailleur i will be purchasing this week as a result of a racing mishap.

The season so far has been going smoothly, making the selection, hanging in there and all that.  After bumping it up a level in the speed department i find myself facing a new arch nemesis in each race so far:  Cornering

whether it’s a lack of experience, something not clicking in my head or not having a pair

i seem to lose massive amounts of time and energy going in directions other than straight

figuring out how to defeat this enemy will hopefully allow me to take it to the next level, of what, i dont know but i think it will be good.   Fortunately this weekend my other arch nemesis Omega Red

was busy with Wolverine

Weight off of my shoulders.

In other news my seasonal tenure at the bike shop has come to a close for the year, now i will have plenty of time to do school work, blog and beg for change

it gets cold down here in the winter

blogging recession

just type in steve brule if you would like to see some hilarious videos ( i had to take it down because it will play every time the page loads, and i load it a lot, to keep the numbers up)

and cross racing

its fun

who needs health care?

thanks tim

cx training 2k9

Friday.  No work, no school.

Long ride?

No.

100% chance of rain at 2pm decreasing to 80% chance with thunderstorms by 6pm.

Stayed inside and killed Nazi Zombies for 7 hours.

it never rained.

FML.

my first pro race

lasted 3 minutes.

driving up the to the great Mennonite land of PA for the UCI Lion Cross and Charm Cross races, a wily group of four JV and former bloggers attempted to stake their fortunes in the first weekend of professional cyclocross racing in the US in 2009.

arriving at the race course on saturday 4.5 hours early to unleash Fawley on the unsuspecting 2/3/4 yankees, we anxiously awaited our start for the UCI race.  Lining up with about 50 pros we got started

diesel engines a must

No wonder they called it the War of Northern Aggression.  The start was a chaotic mess much akin to a Cat 4 Crit coming into the final corners of the race, people crashing, falling everywhere, looking like a bunch of idiots and throwing bows

scrappy

needless to say my inferior handling abilities and kind demeanor put me near the back and in a despartate bid to regain some placing before the train left the station I made a daring/silly move down the middle of the gnar root section

This is the actual root section- odd

notice everyone going left, i went right to get around the trash but ended up breaking a spoke and walking to the pits and dropping out.

ain't it the truth

Tim rolled his $200 tire and Flo held gamely only to be pulled with 2 laps to go.

To console ourselves we drove 3.5 hours back to Washington DC.

There we were greeted by our host and fan Bodge.  Dispensing drinks, he took us on a trip through the night scene of bourgeois DC.  Resplendent in our neon tank tops and skinny jeans, bathing suits and poor form we mingled with the rising stars of our nations capital.  Flo embarrassed himself, par for the course.

The next we drove through the slums of Baltimore to get Fawley to his race with barely enough time to spare.  He again crushed in the face of such adversity.

The UCI race started as fast if not faster, but everyone stayed upright and 60 minutes of riding a super sweet course and actually passing some people had me ending up 16th place overall, 2:33 down on the leaders.  Not bad for being sick for a week and taking a 3 week sabatical from bike riding

and it pours

driving back was ultimatley a blast and we racked up 1300 miles of driving in 2.5 days.  ProTour lifestyle.

I got back to find out that only one of my comp questions needed revising and i passed the other 2.  it turns out i may actually indeed be a real grad student.  Awesome

getting ready for the weekend

if only it were that easy

in keeping of my tradition of being the last to know about anything i give this to those who don’t already know

it’s a scary world