Stomach of Anger, Lansing

My second Stomach of Anger event in only three races of my illustrious new career, and so far I prefer SofA courses, but Tailwind organization and enthusiasm, which is to say "noise." So a perfect day would be a fast course and lots of cowbells.

Anyhow, I had a frickin' awesome time today. Also painful. I'm still getting used to how painful these things are.

Met up with Gary Mudd, he of the C-class holeshot, and for the first time in my storied race career, I tried to get a proper warm-up in, having scoured the internets all week and cobbled together something that sounded good for just such a purpose, including "tempo" efforts with "stupid" and "death" surges. Three laps of course reconnaissance with Gary revealed a fast course, mostly hardpack with some muddy sections; twisty but nary a hill in sight. I dug it (see what I did there?).

Then I warmed up a bit more on the trainer during the first half of Gary's race, where he stole the holeshot with malice from those around him and proceeded to drag his field kicking and screaming through the first lap of his race.

When my race was up, I got close to the start line, but not right up front. Went hard into the first turn, but didn't kill myself getting there, ending up fifth, I think, out of maybe twelve. Maybe a third of the way through the first lap I passed a guy who seems to have blown himself up properly on the first sprint of the race, and then I think it was on the second lap, first turn, that this guy Jason McBride passed me with style on the inside of a hairpin little hill.

The whole rest of the race for me was basically a fight with Jason -- I passed him a lap later, and then I'd look back, having gapped him, only to see him right on my wheel later on. Rinse. Repeat. (Note to self: your dismounts suck. And you can't run. And you kinda can't ride too well half the time either.)

On lap three, I almost went down on this cambered, muddy turn, taking the inside really fast at a weird angle, but managed to slap a foot down and keep charging into more death and suffering. The last two laps were an anaerobic, crazy blur with Jason McBride breathing down my neck and this little blue alien "Sam" (who may or may not have been real) egging me on, all my concentration wavering between trying to put time into that crazy, persistent bastard (Jason, not the alien), and trying to just ride my own hard ride -- interestingly, the near-fall paid dividends in focus on laps four and five. Anyhow, it literally came down to the final straight: going through the last corner, I had a tiny bit of distance on Jason before the final straight, and halfway through it, my dumb ass looks back to see Jason overtaking me. I'm not sure if losing at the line was more the result of being straight cooked, or else being too concerned with the other guy: both were true (and, by the way, that guy earned it). But I literally stood up to sprint and the only thing that happened was great sadness and heartache.

I haven't seen the results yet, officially, but I heard I got fifth of maybe twelve, which I'm happy with (EXCEPT whenever I think of the fact that the first four places got SWAG from the event! I hoping it wasn't cool SWAG.) & by the way, the first three guys were. . . I almost said sandbaggers. What I meant was, those guys were fast!

Awesome day suffering. And beer. Thanks Michigan Brewery!

Good luck tomorrow at Bloomer, fellas.

I have no idea how to post videos or photos on a blog, but if doesn't show up here, you can check out Hot Dog's FB page for an exclusive (more or less) video by Gary Mudd of the day's festivities. You can even see me losing the fourth spot at the end: