Here is what Dario's weekend looked like:
- Dario was super excited to climb some hills in Montana and spend the entire 10 hour drive sitting next to his buddy Maya (Luke's bike).
- Dario and Mackinzie's bike crushed the TTT in the wet/cold/snowy conditions and he was bummed that the crit was cancelled because he really likes cornering (he's been helping me out with my cornering confidence this season).
- On the morning of the road race, Dario woke up feeling a wee bit ill - Berto was able to make all of the other bikes feel better after some were complaining about frozen shifting cables. But Dario had caught a pretty bad case of pneumonia from the TTT the day before and wasn't even clicking when he tried to shift down on the rear cassette. His brakes were also super sketch and when the brake handle was pulled back it would just stick. We thought he was too sick to race and Whitney decided as a last ditch effort that he would let Dario sit in the suburban to warm up. The road race had two separate staging areas, so after Berto had done quick fixes on all of the other bikes, he, Luke, Nick, Cam, and Adam started loading up in the car to leave Walter (our lovely chaperone) and Whitney and the ladies at the staging area halfway around the course. Just before they took off, I decided to apologize to Dario about his pneumonia and pushed his shifting lever not expecting anything to happen. AND THEN HE CLICKED! So I screamed that he clicked and everything turned to chaos. We got Dario out of the burb, people were yelling to get him to the ER, Berto started dumping chain lube into just about every part that he could, and Kristin & Jenna just laughed at how ridiculous the whole situation was from the back of the suburban. Long story short, Dario was ready to race!
- During the road race Dario got to meet Danni's (WWU) bike while Danni and I ran into a gas station to use the bathrooms in the middle of our 58 mile race.
- Dario finished the road race even though he still had a bad cough (his brakes sounded awful all day).
- Now Dario is with Dr. Justin and will hopefully be over his bout of pneumonia soon!
Highlights/thoughts/events from my weekend:
- One of the best parts of the weekend was coming in from the TTT with Mackinzie. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to unclip from my pedals because my feet were so cold and I could barely move my hands. As soon as we saw the trailer, all of the guys on our team (they were all done racing and fairly warm) practically lifted us off of our bikes, took our bikes from us, loaded us into a suburban with the heat on, and gave us towels and our duffel bags. Thank you so much, you guys - I honestly couldn't ask for a better group of boys to spend my weekends with.
- Listening to Macklemore with Walter in the car. Macklemore is definitely his favorite thing to listen to...
- Going out to lunch with the team after the crit was cancelled. It was so weird (and kind of fun!) to relax with my teammates - so much different than the constant go go go of a normal weekend.
- Hunting for newspaper to dry out our shoes in one of the MSU academic buildings.
- Slacklining in the snow with the OSU team
- Doing homework in the MSU library which has an awesome motion-sensor water bottle fountain
- Hanging out with the Seattle University team at our homestay and watching a few minutes of the super epic movie, Sharktopus, with them
- Finishing my first Women's A race (I flatted out of the UW RR and didn't start the crit due to asthma issues)! Wooohoo!
- Realizing that this was the last weekend I will be at a normal collegiate race with Luke and Berto (this is NOT a highlight).
Unfortunately I think Dario gave me his sickness because I haven't been feeling very ideal today. I'll be ready to go for my last normal collegiate race this next weekend though! Yikes! Where has the time gone?
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