The Joe Martin Stage Race has come and gone. I'll skip the relevant details of the race and talk strictly about the highlights concerning the race as it pertained to me (is that vain?). The utmost highlight of the weekend for me was in Saturday morning's road race. The entire race was incredibly fast in brutally stiffling heat and humidity. Beginning at 8am, when one would expect it to be pleasant and cool, I was already pouring sweat like a faucet. Blah blah blah, with 40k to go, I broke away with Jimbo Meadly (aka James) from Jelly Belly. We rode and rode and rode and rode, with Toyota organizing a fairly efficient chase to protect the race leader. The two of us passed the 10k to go sign, then 5k to go, then with the peloton chasing frantically I dropped James, and kept on truckin'. The gap dropped from 1:30 to 1 minute, to 45 seconds, to 30. I was going full on time trial as hard as I possibly could, but was finally caught by the entire peloton with just 50 meters to go. It was heartbreaking to be so close and to come up empty handed. Sheesh.

Here's a nice picture of the start of the race. Note the foggy humidity. In fact, the fog has actually cleared quite a bit in this picture. On the drive from the house to the race, we had to drive about 13mph in some spots because the visibility was virtually nill!For one reason or another, ever since Gila we've had an abundance of fruit around the kitchen - namely apples and bananas. Due to this fact, I've been baking lots of breads - namely apple bread and banana bread. After making yet another tasty banana bread, I heard Glen holler from the kitchen if he could have a piece. Naturally, I said yes of course. When I arrived in the kitchen some time later, I noted that Glen is obviously partial to the inside pieces of bread. Isn't he clever.