Blood, Sweat, and Tony's Tears.

No photos this week, as our queen photographer decided to ditch the Northeast for the South. But plenty of stories. This weekend was a story of blood, sweat, and tears.

But mostly sweat.

The weekend for me started off with a commotion. I showed up for call time 15 minutes late with a paper due Monday still sitting on my laptop in that not-quite-close-to-finished stage. Then, I ended up in the dirty van with the boys through the traffic of weekenders trying to escape the city on the first really nice weekend of the spring. Around midnight we rolled into Fitchburg.

A mere 5 hours, 45 minutes later, we were up for breakfast and call time. Perhaps one of the most precious moments of the weekend was the look on every single teammember's face when the guy at the front desk nicely asked us to park our bikes outside rather than stacking them against the breakfast tables. Asking that of a cyclist on a race morning with <6 hours of sleep is just asking for a death stare. I would feel more sympathy for the guy if there was a better breakfast. But, alas, there was no fruit (no fruit!), at one point we ran out of coffee, and my glutard self was very glad that I had brought my own oatmeal.

Saturday started off really well. We got great results in the TTT, with the Killer B's taking the win in the women's field and the Men's B's and A's taking 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Everyone was really excited until about 11 AM, at which time the theme of the day was starting to sink in--it's really freaking hot. With highs reaching into the 90's during the road race, the majority of us were just in it to survive. (I did not, but that's another story for another day). The highlight of the day was probably Alex Bremer soloing in for the win in the Men's A race after hours upon hours of watching riders come through the feed zone in the blazing sun.

Saturday night took us to the wonderful world of Olive Garden, where we made merriment while attempting to ignore the annoying server girls that just kept coming back with thier outgrown roots and fake blond smiles. ...

...to be continued when I have less than 20 pages to write before going to Penn State. Feel free to expand with comments.