It's Race Week!

This weekend is the Annual Frank Maples Reverse Tri in Scottsboro, AL. Now you may be asking yourself, where in the world is Scottsboro, AL? Or, where is Alabama for that matter. Scottsboro is a little town in northeast Alabama that's about a two hour drive from where I am in Birmingham. It was made famous, or infamous rather, a few years ago due to Dennis Covington's "Salvation of Sandmountain". The book tells the story of a fundamentalist church dead set on proving their faith through handling of snakes and drinking poison. Despite their crazy habits they were pretty much left alone until the pastor tried to off his wife with said snakes. It's a sad and odd tale that I'm sure the community would like to distance themselves from. Now, they are known for one of the largest unclaimed baggage stores in the US. Ever wonder what happened to that snowboard that never made it back from your trip to Colorado? Well, there's a good chance it found it's way to Scottsboro. I've been to the store, but have refrained from purchasing. I just can't do it. Well, unless someone just happens to have lost a pair of Zipps. Then it's game on.

Alright, so on with the race. It's a short short race. It's barely worth the drive, but it's a good early season test that will hopefully give me a benchmark to work from. The race consists of a 2 mile run, a 15 mile bike, and a 200 yard pool swim. This race is heavily weighted on the bike if you ask me which is pretty much like throwing me into the briarpatch. I can't say that my bike is still where I would like for it to be, but it should be in good enough form to go balls out for 15 miles.

The last time I did this race was in 2007. I finished 14th, but felt that I got shafted a bit due to getting passed late in the ride by a peleton of 5-6 riders. I didn't know how to handle that then, but I do now and will certainly not let that happen again. The race is too small to have sufficient draft busters so I'll have to let a little anger fuel my legs and keep me ahead of these bastards.

More to come later. Hope everyone enjoys the weekend.