Matt Marshall Made me Cry

I'm not sure why he likes to do it, maybe he can't help himself, but Matt Marshall layed the boots to me today.

We rode from his place in San Marcos up to the Storm the Beach cyclocross race in Camp Pendleton (north of Oceanside); watched a couple of my SDBC team-mates race; rode up to San Clemente for lunch; rode back to the race to watch the start of the pro race; then headed back to Matt's place. We left at 9am, put in 75+ miles of riding, and got back around 5pm; a full day's work.

For the most part I felt pretty good, especially for a guy who has rarely ridden his bike over the past 4 or 5 months. Where it kinda fell apart for me was on the ride back from the race. We left the race at about 3:30 and didn't realize that we couldn't get back onto the base after 3pm. So, we had the privelege of riding 8 or 9 miles on the side of the I5 to get back to Oceanside. We rode pretty hard along the I5, at least hard for me. By the time we got off the I5 I was starting to really run low on steam. The ride from the Coast Hwy back up to San Marcos was a pretty tough affair for me. Matt was nice enough to take it easy on me as we headed up the hills on our way back to base.

This was a great day; a chance to spend some time with Matt, perfect weather, 75+ miles of riding, and my first chance to watch cyclocross live.