Racing - Pre-Nutmeg State Games 2008

With some stuff happening in the background in my life (and the missus's), the lead up to the Nutmeg State Games has been less exciting than normal. Each year, at this time, I'm stressed about building a wheel for the race, or maybe getting set up with some new part, or something. But the distractions (not related to my racing) have succeeded in freeing me up from all that stress.

I guess it helps that I have good equipment, good wheels, relatively new helmet (about 6-8 uses), and a relatively new kit (3 uses on one set, the other stuff is still sealed). It's hard to worry about equipment when it's all new.

Okay, fine, I'm putting off a chain swap until after the race, figuring that if I do it before the race, something will go wrong.

But otherwise, clear sailing.

I'll be leaving right after the end of my race to get down to Philly for the ToPA. Because of this, and because a number of friends are racing early on, the missus and I tried to figure out a good way to go cheer on our friends while still allowing me to race comfortably.

As an extreme drama queen, especially when relating to pre-race prep, I have a number of specific needs and requirements for diet in the day or two preceding a race. First off I need to eat a carb heavy meal they day before, ideally grazing on such food for the entire day. My day-before-race food has evolved into a standard, stomach friendly, carb heavy, and just-as-good reheated fare consisting of pasta and meat sauce. Being properly fueled is important to riding well, and my pre-race food helps me approach race day without worrying about another variable. Second, I need to eat a relatively big breakfast on the day of. For stupidly early races like Prospect I eat on the way, but I really prefer to eat, prep, and then go to the race. Finally, the pre-race meal needs to fall within a certain window before the race. As far as actual food, it could be anything, but I need to eat in the couple hours leading up to the race.

This becomes a problem when we're at a race at 10 and my race is after 2. My meal window would be about 11 or 12, and we're not going to drive back for food, nor are we hauling around a cooler and a microwave like we did at Bethel.

The missus happened to check out a food review of a good BBQ in the area, and after checking out Google Maps (including a Street View thing I hadn't seen before), I saw that it was just down the road from the race. We decided that we'd get to the race early (after an early breakfast), cheer on some of our early-racing friends, retire for some excellent pre-race BBQ food, then return for my race.

Because I'll be gone to Pennsylvania essentially from tomorrow morning (when we leave for the Nutmeg Games) until late June 30th, I have to get ALL my stuff done today. Laundry, packing, cleaning up, cooking any pre-race food, stuff like that. I'm a heavy packer, bringing about a week of clothing for the overnight trip to Philly, so I need to tone down my packing since I'll be gone for over a week, and my whole dresser won't fit in my car. I also want to leave the apartment like a blank canvas, getting what I can out of the way so the missus can work her magic. So although I may not be good at actually organizing things, I'm competent at doing chore type things. So I'll do those things.

All this makes the actual race tomorrow seem like more of a stepping stone, an interruption to the day, rather than the focus. Unfortunately this is sort of the case, but I always like this race, I always target it, and I always go in wanting to do well.

Okay, now to get to the chores. Plus, as you might expect, I'm hungry. And I have some pre-race food to get cooking.