Cherry Blossom Update: Storm's A'brewin'.

Before I go into detail about the state of the race, I wanted to revisit yesterday morning:

I woke up feeling fine, and started going about my business preparing for the TT. Roughly half an hour before we were supposed to depart, I noticed my wallet was missing. After searching all my personal belongings, I thought I'd go out to the Cooper's car, a logical place to check, since that's the last time I remember having it -- we made an excursion to the Dairy Queen after the race to get these:

So I open the back hatch of Coop's Audi station wagon, search for my missing billfold, and then close the hatch. Note: I didn't slam the hatch, nor was there anything in the way of the door -- I merely allowed the weight of the door to bring the hatch down. And yet, somehow, the gods of automobile mishaps decided it was a good time to smite me down -- so when the door closed, the rear window shattered into 5'000 pieces. I stood there aghast. Adrian, who witnessed the whole thing, burst into uncontrollable, inconsolable laughter.

A few minutes later, I convinced myself that my wallet had fallen out of the car into the street in the middle of Hood River (I later found it wedged in the couch cushions), and then a few minutes after that, I discovered that a spoke in my carbon Easton wheel popped for no reason (it was fine when I put it on the car after the race....).

I felt completely shit on. In less than an hour, I went from feeling pretty darn good about the day, to receiving a mighty downpour of negativity and misfortune. I'd convinced myself my wallet was lost, I broke Cooper's car window, and I found out my race wheel was out of commission for the rest of the weekend. I didn't know what I'd done to warrant such a karmic swift-kick-to-the-nuts, but it must have been pretty bad.

That's where my mind was before the TT yesterday morning. Not the best place to be. I'm not making excuses -- I actually felt ok, and thought I did pretty well -- but my mental state pre-race certainly didn't help.

ANYWAY--

TT left us in pretty good standing overall: Nick leapfrogged me into 3rd overall, I'm now in 4th, Adrian downright pole-vaulted into 6th, and Stanko ollied into 9th. That's FOUR Hagens guys in the top ten.

Yesterday's crit didn't change anything -- we butchered it, failing to get any primes, or get anyone on the podium -- but nobody lost time. I'm finding it difficult to be patient in crits. I get to the front with five to go, but can't keep a holster on it -- attacking, or drilling it, when I should be waiting patiently for the last lap where it really matters. I'm resolving here and now to not do that next weekend at volunteer park or boat street.

Today is brutally hard -- a 7-mile beast of a climb that we get to hit three times. Thanks Chad Sperry -- you've maintained your reputation, another "epic" race.

Let's hope we can hold it together.