Bike Racer by Day Magical Wizard by Night

The scrambling and rearranging of riders in the last lap of a criterium is something both beautiful and extremely dangerous. Everyone trying to position themselves in the perfect line into that last corner. Lungs pumping as hard as they can, heart rate at 200 and legs feeling like they're going to explode. I was sticking to Mike Nortons wheel cause he was pulling me in for the finish. Whack! he pushes a rider out of the way on the 2nd to last corner, takes the last 90 degree corner around 30mph and lays it all out, putting me in perfect position for the final sprint. I grit my teeth, stand up and give it everything I have, the actin and myosin begin the craziest cross-bridge cycle and every motor neuron in my legs goes crazy, I keep my head down and just goooooo I cross the finish line to see 3 other dudes in front of me !!!! Nooooo!!!! I should have won this race. I was set up in the most perfect way for the sprint but I just couldn't catch the other 3 dudes that were positioned just a bit better than I was. Criteriums have historically been harder for me, I am a little guy and crits, especially flat crits like today cater to big muscular sprinter types so 4th place was a really good finish for me!!!! I am stoked, I won some money and snagged some upgrade points. So I am one step closer to racing in the elite/pro races!!! Later in the afternoon I raced in the category 1/2/3 pro race and did some racing with the BIG BOYS. It was a crazy fast race averaging just under 29mph, I was moving around through the pack and holding my own against the big boys, I ended up finishing 28th out of about 100 guys, so I was very happy with that finish as well. It was a very good day of bike racing especially when last weekend was the most horrible 2 days of bike racing I have ever experienced!

Ok now that I have explained the bike racer by day part, I wanted to touch on a part of my life that most of you didn't know. I'm pretty much a nerd at heart. I started playing a trading card game called Magic The Gathering when I was about 12 years old and I have never stopped. I don't know what it is about the game that keeps drawing me in. I usually only play in the dead of the winter when there's nothing else to do but a good friend of mine called me up yesterday and came over and we had a dork fest for about 3 hours. Picture dungeons and dragons mixed with lots of strategy and really cool playing cards and thats how Magic goes down! Some of the cards I collected when I was a kid are worth hundreds of dollars now! I had no idea these things were going to be worth so much money later on in my life! Anyways, I just wanted to share one of my weird secrets with the world. I have MANY more, so stay tuned.