Town Center Crit 4/22/12

Well, we had another day at the races last weekend!  I'm excited to get back to some race posting, actually.  The Cyclist did some early season races but between weather, some of them being road races (which I typically don't spectate) and The Munchkin, I hadn't been able to pull together a real race post until Tax Day Match Sprints at the velodrome.

So here I am back with a race post.  I bring you the Town Center Criterium hosted by Folsom Bike.  Let me just start by explaining the weather for those of you who aren't in or around Sactown.  We went from about 50° and dumping rain to a smoldering 90° last weekend.  Typically us Sactown folk can handle 90° heat without blinking (it can get over 100° here in the summer), but a 40° jump will wallop anyone, for sure.  So, long story short, it was freaking hot...and slightly humid, which we are not used to.  Just to establish the heat factor a little more, I ran with CoCo in the morning and drank 7 (yes SEVEN) of my small runner's water bottles.  Seven.

You get it, it was hot.

So here is my perspective of the race for your reading pleasure....

So, once I saw that we had a guy in the break, the field was being controlled very well by the other team members and my Cyclist had dropped due to overheating, I went and sat in our grassy little spot in the shade and made faces at the babies.

And then I came back for the finish....

....just in time to watch Tankyoupete take the win.  Go FB!

Meanwhile, my Mom got a fancy new camera and she did a great job getting these shots...

Great work Peter!

For more photos check out these links:

Jim Elder - Sac Pictures

Images By Derek Novaes

Floyd Jasinksi MYi2U

For real race posts check out these links...they don't have Town Center Crit posts up (yet?), but they will give you true race commentary, which I don't do (I am just a spectator, after all).

 Chuck Hutch

Counterattacking Reality

Last but not least, a big thank you to Chuck Hutch for hooking us up with the Bistro 33 gift card.  We had a nice dinner with the fam.  That was super generous of you, thank you very much!

See you next weekend at Wente!

TCW

Real Food Wednesday

Well, better late than never.  I'm sharing my Marinara #1 - Roma tomato, roasted red pepper & basil over at Real Food Wednesday's today.

Click here for my recipe and click the link above to pop over  to Real Food Wednesday's and check it out, along with lots more real food recipes!

I made a shirt! + Florence and the Machine

Hi.  My name is The Cyclist's Wife and I can't sew a thing.  Not even a button.  For realz.  Pretty sad huh?  Sewing is one of those things I want to check off my bucket list.  But for now I use hemming tape, staple guns and/or other people to assist me in my sewing adventures.

Since I can't sew, the thought of DIY-ing any clothing items is pretty much out of my scope.  But, I got handy last week and took on one of my March Favorite projects.

Photo via Delighted Momma

That's right, I busted out a Tie-dye!  Instructions and ingredients can be found at Delighted Momma.

This was really easy (even for me) and it turned out so cute.  I love the color and I might make a solid one too.  The best part is the dye is natural - just turmeric.  The tank turned out to be perfect for The Cyclist & my date night to see Florence + the Machine!

Florence was fabulous by the way.  I would totally see her again given the opportunity.  I believe she is performing on The Voice tonight too!  (At least, that's what I thought I heard as I was dozing off last night trying to catch the end).

Even though our seats at the Mondavi Center were nosebleeders...

....we were both totally impressed with the venue (amazing!) and sound quality (excellent!).

It's so funny, I know I'm old because I can actually remember being searched at a concert for a camera.  Now you can take all the pictures and video you want.  And let me just say, Florence sounded amazing, even on my iPhone video.

If you have the chance, go see her.  You won't regret it!

The Home & Garden Show

A couple of months ago my Mom got some free tickets to the Home & Garden show so we decided to peep it out.  We had a couple of extra free tickets that we tried to give away before entering, but quickly figured out that everyone had "free" tickets.  Apparently they lured the visitors with free tickets so we didn't feel so bad about paying $10 to park.  Suckers we are.

Anyway, who cares.  Pretty much everything I do with my Mom is fun (like driving a PT Cruiser in schwanky town Laguna Niguel, but that's a story for another time) pretty much because she's awesome and also because we're both nerds (and proud of it).

On this day we had run about 8 or 10 miles and our legs were tired.  So we immediately found the EZ Hang Chair booth and took a seat.

Those guys are super comfy and provide an excellent view for people watching.  I could have taken a nap for sure.It's funny, I had forgotten how much the Home & Garden Show is really a giant sales conference complete with sham-wow style booths and fair food.
Has anyone ever eaten these things?  I have to admit, they totally freak me out.  I'm sure they're good, but there's something about seeing people walk around like cave-men gnawing on an enormous drumstick that makes me not want to eat one.  We didn't.
Here are some nifty garden boxes.  Are you reading this Cyclist?  I hope we find some time in the race schedule to build at least one of these this year.
The "outside" displays were my favorite.  Someday I will get our back patio and back-yard transformed into another outdoor living area.  
Of course, you know I didn't miss the yard art.
Have you ever seen one of these rock walls?  I think they are so cool and such a good re-purpose idea.
Orchid booth.  Nana can grow these like nobodies business.
This fireplace was funky.  It could be kind of cool in the right spot.
So, that is all.  Even though the Home & Garden Show was more of a sales spectacle than we imagined, we still had fun.  Mostly because we were together.

The Velodrome - Tax Day Match Sprints

We took a trip to the Hellyer Park Velodrome last Sunday for the Tax Day Match Sprints event.




For those of you not familiar with a velodrome, it is an arena for track cycling.  This one is 330 meters, so slightly smaller than a regular running track.



With his success at Savage Sprints (and sprinting skills in general), The Cyclist was encouraged by many of our local cycling community to try out the track.  He went a few times before this event in order to get his track license in order and we headed down to San Jose for the event on Sunday.
Spectating track cycling is a whole different medium.  The races are much faster and you can see the entire event, as opposed to watching the pack pass by on multiple occasions.
They started the day off with a time trial in order to seed the competitors into brackets.(You go girl, the only lady in the pack racing all the dudes!)


Once the tt's were done, the Match Sprints started.  I'm explaning this with my limited track cycling knowledge here, so it's probably not perfect, but, essentially two riders go head to head for two laps.
They line up holding on to the wall, and put their left hand in the drop when they're ready.

The first lap they ride very slow.  Like almost stopping slow.  It is like watching a game of cat and mouse.  "You go....no YOU go...".

The rider in front is constantly looking back to make sure they don't get sneak-attacked by the rider behind.

And then, somewhere between the start and middle of the second lap, they GO!  And from there it's a straight up sprint to the finish.

This was really exciting to watch.  There are many different other types of races which I have yet to learn, but I'm looking forward to spending some more time at the track.....I just wish it wasn't 2 hours away.  :(
Here I think, is my best shot of the day....

And here you can check out my raw video of a few of the events...

Last but not least....The Cyclist won the event!  Good job Cyclist!

Have a great weekend.  I'll see you next week with a re-cap of the Town Center Crit.