We couldn't GIVE beer away at Harvard, so how smart can those people be?
Who would have thought life continued after August 19th? I certainly couldn't see beyond it. For pretty much the last 6+ months, I'd thought about a mountain in New Hampshire at least 23 times a day. No doubt about it, this was a huge undertaking for me, and my brain simply wouldn't let me process anything on the calendar after the event date. Yet here I am, RDay + 6 and life goes on, I'm happy to report.
Mount Washington is a lot of things to a lot of people. Folks who don't even ride bikes will hike, drive, ski and run the thing. It's truly imposing, majestic, beautiful, harsh and welcoming all at the same time. At its base lies a dense, lush meadow where at least for four days each year an enormous white tent is erected to shelter hillclimb participants from the sun and more often the rain and wind. The big top creates a carnival/Cirque de Soleil type atmosphere. Pretty cool. Volunteers scurry from station to station, helping racers get all the required paperwork filled out and answering last minute questions.
We arrived at packet pickup the evening before the race. The pasta dinner was all but over, but thankfully a couple of plates of pene were still left. The drive from our friends' house in Boston had been a long one, through a bit of traffic caused by construction, but the delay gave us more time to enjoy the incredible scenery. Hundreds of miles of highway and I can't remember a single billboard or advertisement. It was all trees and mountains. Trees that get rain regularly look very different than what we are accustomed to in Texas, with its inhospitable summers beating down anything with enough moxie to try and survive the heat blast of July and August.
I'd been mentally assaulted by a Barry Manilow tune the day before on a bike ride through the outskirts of Boston. Being lead through twisty, undulating semi-rural neighborhoods, I realized most the route was a tunnel of trees. Mature trees which had probably been around when Thoreau lived nearby (Barry Manilow has just been upgraded simply by being referenced in the same paragraph as HDT). Anyway, this being my Weekend in New England, the silly and overly dramatic tune got lodged in my head, unfortunately.
My packet had in it the race jersey I'd ordered back in Feb when I'd eagerly registered at five o'clock a.m. What made this year's hillclimb especially historic, besides that I was in it for the first time, is the fact it sold out in just three hours. That means 600 people from all over Canada and the US were clicking away at the BikeReg site simultaneously, all hoping to get a coveted spot. When the frenzy of clicking computer keyboards was over and the cyber dust settled, the race was full, and many, many folks who had hit the snooze button one time too many were out of the game. But because there was such an incredible interest and demand to pedal a bike up this mountain, race organizers created another event, Newton's Revenge, that was held just last month.
This year's jersey design is a bit lacking and the dang thing's too big, so I won't feel bad about framing instead of wearing it. Besides, how horrifying would it be on a group ride to wear the jersey and get my booty kicked going up a hill while someone chastises, "And where did you get that jersey?" It'll never see the light of day, well, except on every anniversary of the race when I'll take it off the wall and wear it along w/ the finishers medal. Did I mention I did not win it this year? I didn't think so.
It was tough, real tough... to be continued...maybe, ok probably
Mount Washington is a lot of things to a lot of people. Folks who don't even ride bikes will hike, drive, ski and run the thing. It's truly imposing, majestic, beautiful, harsh and welcoming all at the same time. At its base lies a dense, lush meadow where at least for four days each year an enormous white tent is erected to shelter hillclimb participants from the sun and more often the rain and wind. The big top creates a carnival/Cirque de Soleil type atmosphere. Pretty cool. Volunteers scurry from station to station, helping racers get all the required paperwork filled out and answering last minute questions.
We arrived at packet pickup the evening before the race. The pasta dinner was all but over, but thankfully a couple of plates of pene were still left. The drive from our friends' house in Boston had been a long one, through a bit of traffic caused by construction, but the delay gave us more time to enjoy the incredible scenery. Hundreds of miles of highway and I can't remember a single billboard or advertisement. It was all trees and mountains. Trees that get rain regularly look very different than what we are accustomed to in Texas, with its inhospitable summers beating down anything with enough moxie to try and survive the heat blast of July and August.
I'd been mentally assaulted by a Barry Manilow tune the day before on a bike ride through the outskirts of Boston. Being lead through twisty, undulating semi-rural neighborhoods, I realized most the route was a tunnel of trees. Mature trees which had probably been around when Thoreau lived nearby (Barry Manilow has just been upgraded simply by being referenced in the same paragraph as HDT). Anyway, this being my Weekend in New England, the silly and overly dramatic tune got lodged in my head, unfortunately.
My packet had in it the race jersey I'd ordered back in Feb when I'd eagerly registered at five o'clock a.m. What made this year's hillclimb especially historic, besides that I was in it for the first time, is the fact it sold out in just three hours. That means 600 people from all over Canada and the US were clicking away at the BikeReg site simultaneously, all hoping to get a coveted spot. When the frenzy of clicking computer keyboards was over and the cyber dust settled, the race was full, and many, many folks who had hit the snooze button one time too many were out of the game. But because there was such an incredible interest and demand to pedal a bike up this mountain, race organizers created another event, Newton's Revenge, that was held just last month.
This year's jersey design is a bit lacking and the dang thing's too big, so I won't feel bad about framing instead of wearing it. Besides, how horrifying would it be on a group ride to wear the jersey and get my booty kicked going up a hill while someone chastises, "And where did you get that jersey?" It'll never see the light of day, well, except on every anniversary of the race when I'll take it off the wall and wear it along w/ the finishers medal. Did I mention I did not win it this year? I didn't think so.
It was tough, real tough... to be continued...maybe, ok probably
posted by becky at 11:15 AM
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