All that Jazz...

In New Orleans of course. That is where Lauren and I went to visit my Mom and Bob a couple of weeks ago. They were in NO for an Ace convention so we thought it would be worthwhile to make the 7 hour drive down to see them. The night we got into town we went to a benefit dinner/concert thing, it was great. The dinner was being held at the Mardi Gras museum. Picture this: every Mardi Gras float including many larger than life figures crafted out of something, plaster? All you can eat food and beer was good too, and the live music was great. After some dinner and a few beers we headed back to the hotel and then we all ventured on down to Bourbon Street (it looked just like that). We traveled to a couple of different places, saw some very interesting people, and ended up chilling and listening to some Jazz at a less crazy bar before heading on back to the hotel.

On Saturday Lauren, Mom, and I walked down to Jackson Square and the French Market. I got a sweet hat, we had some delicious food, and we got a little sun. It was quite a bit of walking around especially on the legs after running stairs but it was good to see more of New Orleans. Saturday night we all went to the convention center to help pack up some things to help Bob out. Pretty busy evening and the feet were still tired. Had a bunch of beef jerky and combos, mmmm. Then we headed back to the hotel, not a very eventful evening as everyone was pretty exhausted. We did get to see a guy get busted for falling asleep in the bar/restaurant at the hotel though. Sweet. When we got back to our hotel and were falling asleep the stupid people on our floor were being super loud and stupid, that went on for a little while and apparently I wasn't the only one annoyed because all of the sudden I heard 'N-O-P-D Open up!' I slept soundly for the rest of the night.

Sunday morning we met at a little cafe for breakfast and then headed up Royal Street to check out some shops. Apparently there was a road food festival going on with some pretty dang delicious looking food, too bad we had already eaten breakfast. Then we headed back to the hotel and Lauren and I headed back towards Houston.

It was a great trip and a nice weekend away from Houston. I will post some sweet pictures soon.

On a side note: The next door lady causes a stir in the neighborhood by having a little fire in her back yard. All I heard was "!! Are you back there? The neighbors are all out here and we all think your house is on fire!!" Then Lauren and I noticed like 8 cop cars and fire truck out front. Interesting.

Past due race update

Three weeks ago now was the Comfort race. I had never ridden Comfort so I didn't really know what to expect. I had heard technical, bumpy, rough, hilly, and hard. Sounds like a good place to race. I hadn't know this race was an omnium until I looked it up the Monday before the race, it was then I figured the race was going to be hard. There was a short track and time trial on Saturday followed by the Cross Country race on Sunday. This means I didn't have a chance to pre-ride any of the course except for the time trial part. Oh well I suppose...



The short track race was tough to say the least. The course was fast with some loose dirt/sand/gravel and one loose corner. I hung with the pack for a couple of laps then the race started to spread out. The last couple of laps were tough, the legs weren't happy but I did finish.

The time trial was later in the day so I went and chilled for a while to let the legs recover a bit. My time trial was pretty late in the order so I had a while to eat and cool off and then warm up again. I started second in our group for the time trial hoping to catch the front guy, Luke, but he's fast and I never caught him. I ended up third out of four in the TT so I'm happy I beat one dude.

A great steak dinner that night ensued...mmm

Sunday was the cross country race and the legs were feeling a bit worn. Since most of the guys in the field didn't do the omnium race I figured I was going to get wiped pretty good. That was pretty much the case. I held with the group for a while and then they pulled away. It definitely didn't help that I had never ridden the course. Oh well, I know what it will be like for next year now. The first loop had a bunch of climbing with some technical/rough rocky sections at the top. When I went through the feed zone I was feeling alright but that feeling was short lived as I got into the slow, long uphills in the second half of the course. I was struggling along on the second half feeling some cramps trying to set it so I drank and ate. I changed my mindset from racing to finishing and rode it out to the end. On the whole the race was tough. I did end up getting 3rd in Omnium so I won some money, Woohoo, first ever money won from racing! I also didn't feel quite as dead after the race so hopefully the conditioning is coming around.

Oh yeah and we saw the Kerrville Fighting Antlers. I think it should be the Fightin' Antlers but oh well.