Load the Car and Write the Note

...I am headed north.

It's Battenkill Week.  Time to gear up for Deiter Drake's self-proclaimed toughest one-day race in the US, the so-called American "Queen of the Classics."  I'm not disputing the claim--it certainly seems to be a successful event, and I'm looking forward to my second go-round with the gravel, the dirt, the vicious northern cat 3s and the covered bridge waiting to clip my elbow as I jockey for an inside line in mile 5.

I'm loading the car and writing the note...

• Bike:  check.  Generously rassled repeatedly into race shape over the last month by the hard-working folks at Oxford Bicycle Co.
• Gear:  It's a long way to go without a helmet.  Or shoes.
• Beer:  check.  A sixer of Lazy Magnolia's best, payment for a free night on a couch.
• Dog:  uncheck.  Annie, not racing, gets to enjoy the modern-day luxuries of an indoor-outdoor suite (without me having to grumblingly open the door), puppy pals, play days, and unlimited treats.  Lucky her.
• Training:  check.  Got the plan, stayed compliant, and only had a few workouts at the end where I had to ask myself what I had gotten into.  It gave me one bad week with a strangely gimpy left knee, a few spring races with up-and-down results, and a wonderful feeling of tapering freshness in the past week.
• Car food:  Lara bars, apples, bananas.  Lots of water bottles.  I can't help that I weigh ten pounds more than I did last season, but I can at least try to eat healthy on the road.
• Warm clothes:  check.  Did I mention it's been 70-80 degrees down here consistently for the past month?  What?  It's not like that everywhere?  I might have to go back to arm warmers?!?
• A full night's sleep:  whoops.  But you do what you gotta do.

Almost ready to turn the key and crank the road tunes.  Three separate days of driving after classes and I'll be lining up for the start.  I love starts.  A new day, a new race, a new category, new forms of suffering and a new finish line--here we go.