Austin - It's hot

After our race up Rist last weekend, Christine and I rushed off to Austin. Generally, I'd put a blackout on trips to Austin from about mid May to September, but our attendance we requested at a shindig down there in a swanky downtown loft. It was as hot as I expected. Maybe hotter.

The party was cool. Lots of people to talk to and some great food. Sunday morning, we got up and walked over the Whole Foods mothership (also known as Christine's go-to eatery) to get some breakfast from their taco bar. After that, we drove out to Texas hill country and did another road race.

I knew my legs would be completely shot after Rist, but I also knew I'd have oxygen on my side. Mostly, it was a good excuse to do something outside of Austin and I wanted to take the opportunity to get in another road race.

My Austin bike (my old Trek) is not exactly well tuned. I'm not there to ride it much, so it's never a high priority. When I pulled the bike out of the car, I noticed that there was a large chunk out of the tire. Just the right size for a piece of the chipseal to squeeze in and pop my tube. Fortunately for me, one of the guys there lent me his training wheel.

After making the equipment change and getting my stuff ready, I had exactly 0 time to warmup. I can't say I was disappointed. I mean, it was 90+ degrees outside. I was already "warm" enough. It was a really fun road course. Lots of rolling hills. And the best part: We had full use of the road instead of just one lane. They weren't wide roads or anything, but it was super nice to have that hard boundary.

In addition to my crappy tire, my derailleurs were also behaving like crap. The chain kept skipping teeth when I'd get out of the saddle. That made climbing out of the saddle very interesting and tiring.

I actually had a good time sitting in the pack and watching the race develop. I guess I'm usually either too tired or too focused on surviving to really digest what's going on. In the end, what really did me in was the heat. Late in the race, I started feeling pretty ill and I just had to slow down and make sure I wasn't about to become roadkill.

Racing in Texas wasn't all that different from racing in Colorado. There were some strong riders, and some not so strong riders. People who could ride a straight line and those who were a little less steady. And rest assured, there was some entertainment in the form of people chasing down and/or attacking their own teammates. Note - If you've got 5 people strong enough to be at the front of a group of 20 riders at the end of a race, you ought to be able to get someone to the line inside of 10th place.

After the race (and after I dumped as much cool water over my head as possible), Christine and I went to Pedernales State Park. Some friends had recommended it to us the night before. The Pedernales river runs through the park and it's a popular place for people to go hang out, tube, and swim in the river. I wish we had brought our bathing suits with us and had some more time. I looked like a lot of fun to swim around, but instead we just waded around in the water.

On our way back to Austin, we stopped for some BBQ at The Salt Lick BBQ. Delicious. One thing I can appreciate about the Austin area is that you can be chilling with some BBQ and the live entertainment is doing Whiskeytown covers.

One delayed (as usual) flight later, and I'm back home in Colorado.