1. Suffer through the first madison. Everyone is a bit ragged by the third day.
2. Find a splinter in what I had thought was just a cut on my hip. Pull it out. Realize it's disturbingly big to have been in me for 2 days.
3. Be on the receiving end of multiple Dave McCook head-butts. You get these for the simple reason of "You were there."
4. Crack hard with 40-some laps to go in the last madison. Not just crack. Blow sky high.
The splinter I found in my hip tonight, with a pop tab for scale. Sleeping on my side should be more pleasant now.Brad sheparded me in after I blew in the last race. It was ugly. He was doing doubles, we were letting ourselves drift back to whatever next group was behind us when we got gapped, and I still was wondering which would happen first: Lungs burst, legs cramp and lock up, or pass out. Turns it was none of these, but rather "Race mercifully ends."
Staying warm between races. Super Rookie will be glad to see that his hero Svein Tuft is also pictured here, along with Zach Bell.Tomorrow is going to really hurt. Especially the 200 lap madison. If anyone out there is wondering, 5 weeks on the rollers is not a particularly good way to prepare for a race like this.