I Get by on Automatic.

As far as I'm concerned, John's extended birthday weekend was great. On Saturday we got up early and drove to Cedar Falls for a cyclocross race. It was a a lot of fun.

I raced in the Master's women's category. There were only 3 women in my category. So, if I finished, I would make the podium. There is another woman in my category, who is very similar in her results as I am. She is a lot better at the technical stuff and I can be better on the power sections. We tend to trade-off beating each other depending on the course.

I got called first. The faster women waited to register until the day of the race, and they got staged in back because of it. I chose to stage on the left side, because there was a lot of sand ahead on the right. When they said, "Go!" One of my teammates moved right in front of me and then had to slow down because she couldn't clip-in, which meant half of the women passed us. At first I was bummed, but one of those women crashed on a turn around a tree and if I had been up there, I might have been taken out with her. Instead, I was able to get around her and was 5th overall for the women.

I passed the woman I am usually neck and neck with on the 2nd lap, which meant I was in first for my category and 4th overall. The woman who crashed was in another category, but she was coming up behind me and I wanted to work hard enough to keep her from passing me. I was able to hold her off and finished first in my category and 4th overall for women. It was a pretty small field, so the next race I do, will probably see me with worse results, but I'll take this when I can get it...

 So, I won some money, which is always nice. I used it to buy John and I an late lunch, early dinner. I didn't want John to have to pay for anything this weekend.

 John did two races - a men's masters race and the open race. He won the master's men's race.

 He got 6th in the open race. A great result for that field. Needless, to say, he was pretty exhausted at the end of the day.

There were a lot of cool things about this race. They had Single Speed Brewery handing out free samples. The coffee stout was excellent.

There was also a band that played during every race.

Lastly, there was a guy out playing bagpipes during the later races. At one point, one of the racers was riding  by the officials and asked him if he could get the bagpipe guy to learn another song. The official said, "Why? On the bagpipes they all sound the same anyway..." Everyone is a damn comedian.