The Dairy giveth, the Dairy taketh away.

I new it was going to hurt. But I did it anyway. I've been worrying about it like you worry about going to the dentist, or when you have to juggle chainsaws. It's bound to hurt and it's bound to leave a mark. And when it's over, you're not sure if it was a good idea to do it in the first place, but you're glad you did it, just the same.

Blind Date at the Dairy was just like an actual blind date; horrifying, uncomfortable, awkward. But by the time it was done, my lower back was screaming and my undercarriage felt like I'd been dry-humping a belt sander. Wow, it was just like a blind date.

I haven't been riding much in the last three or four weeks. Travel, job, stuff...all getting in the way of carving out time to pedal. You know the story. Besides the weekly torture sessions, I've been basically training for beer drinking. So if there was any victory to be had, it was that I didn't DFL.

Suffice it to say, it was dry, alternately bumpy and fast with lots of dry grass corners to carve up. The corners were the fun part, the dry, dusty parts - not so much. I started in the second row, managed to hit the clip on the first try, and made the right hand corner with the top ten. That would be the best I did all night. Past the softball field there it was a 180 degree turn to the back side of the grass parking area. On the sixth lap, still in roughly tenth place, I started cramping. On the seventh (of eight) lap, just past the 180, I locked handle bars with a single speeder I was trying to pass. I hit a deep channel and it took my bars hard right- into the SSr's bars. We managed to untangle without too much slow down. On the bell lap, at the same turn, I hit the channel AGAIN and lost hold of the bars with my left hand, only this time I was all alone, and crashed all by myself - hard. I lay there, on my back, in so much pain I was waiting for it be more serious. Someone on the sideline even asked me if I was ok. I got up, got passed by six or seven riders and limped in, 24th.

It's going to be a rough season in the b's