Okay...so this was pretty cool.

As previously noted, I raced on Sunday.

Instead of going with my usual Monday night routine and going on the Chicago Cycling Club Monday night group ride, I went to a small (3 people) impromptu cyclocross practice at Cricket Hill. It was a nice change of pace from a 40 or 50 mile day. I also wanted to be "fresh" for the Tuesday morning Johnny Sprockets cyclocross practice at Montrose Harbor.

I set my alarm for 6AM. It woke me up, I hit "Dismiss" instead of "Snooze" and fell back asleep. I woke up again at 6:27AM and in a fog realized what had happened. The pillows called loudly to me. "Lay back down. It won't hurt anything if you skip this week. Come on. We miss you already."

But I was already up and mentally figuring out how to cram what normally takes 45 minutes in a slow stupor into the next 20 minutes. I thought a little panic would help so I panicked.

I made it to practice fashionably late, with just enough time to drop my bag and drop my tire pressure.

We played 2 games of "foot down" as a warm-up, and then went to hotlaps around a course. During the hotlaps we noticed a photographer with a big lens who was taking pictures of us. During our break he came up to ask us what we were doing. He came to the harbor early to enjoy some wonderful morning light, and stumbled across a bunch of people in brightly colored spandex crawling in and out of the pain cave.

He explained he was a photojournalist with the Tribune, and he had no idea what we were doing. We started explaining cyclcross to him, and he asked if anyone would be willing to give a little explanation on camera of who we were and what we were doing. I volunteered so I could give a shout-out to my friends at Johnny Sprockets and the Chicago Cyclocross Cup

This was the result.

It was one take, and looking at it now I wish I had read today's update so I could have said SIX HUNDRED AND EIGHTY RACERS instead of 560 pre-regs. Also, I used the word "discipline" too many times. Other than that I think it went pretty well for being before 8AM on a Tuesday morning.

I am also very glad I broke out my good baby-sharks-clubbed-to-death-with-baby-seals-skin suit with red racing strips for practice this morning and not the faux-red regular-lycra-skin suit or heaven forbid, matching separates with arm warmers.