!!!!!!! Mr. MISANTHROPIC !!!!!

“Shirts and Skins refers to the practice of the members of one athletic team in a competition of two removing their shirts for easy identification in the absence of uniforms. This simple form of recognition is a regular sight in Streetball, Street football, ultimate, or any other pickup games. It is almost totally exclusive to men’s teams, though, owing to the taboo in many western cultures against the display of the female breast.

In all likelihood, the practice has probably existed as long as there has been a need to quickly differentiate between members of two opposing teams.

With a newer version of playing Shirts and Skins games, the teams will play as normal, but then the losing team’s members will receive ‘nipple cripples’ or ‘purple nurples’. This is more painful to the skins team than the shirts.”

Read my race report from the weekend.

Day after tomorrow, it all begins. The offical start of NE cross season. Almost three months of bamboo-shoots under the fingernails torture.

You know what gets me everytime, are the people I overhear bench racing and talking about cross, saying how “fun” it is and how it is such good fall/winter training. The thing they like best is the “social aspect”. OK, Get the fuck out of here - are we thinking about the same sport? Cyclocross, right? At no point in history can I remember being in a cross race thinking “this is wicked fun” or “I love the comradarie with my fellow cross-racers I am sharing at this moment in time”.

For me, the thoughts that run through my head usually go something like “I just went too hard on that start, I hope I can keep from shitting my pants”.

One more thing to all the roadies, if last season (the dryest New England fall in memory) was your Freshman year in cyclocross, you ain’t a “cross racer” yet, buddy.  I look forward to seeing your suffering in a few weeks time as you wallow in the slop. Bring on the monsoons, locusts and the earthquakes.

Last night was marked by the ritualistic nairing of the legs - in preparation for the application of fine euro-style embrocations, in the hellish weeks to come.  Silky smoove!

Next up will be a head-shave, so my damn helmet fits on right!

Yesterday morning I had big plans to go do my regular Sunday morning intervals on my cross bike. I kitted up, threw the bike on the car and headed over to Lincoln. I got to Chase and forgot that Pat had called me earlier to tell me that they were having a civil war re-enactment. Well, yes, there they were, a bunch of overweight, pedophile-looking middle age men dressed up in blue and gray wool costumes. Great. OK, on to plan B.

Plan B- I headed over to Lincoln Woods to the sports fields I had eyed on an earlier mountain bike ride last week. Wouldn’t you know it, they were having a god damn indian Pow-Wow there? And, might I add, I use the word “indian” very loosely, more like a bunch of white folks in wolf-print T-shirts, and LL bean moccasins. Most of them were camping out in pup tents. I did see one actual teepee, so I can give them that. The whole place smelled like stale beer and human excrement. Whatever.

I threw my bike together and started warming up on what looked to be a pretty good interval loop. Fast, flat with several surface types and one run-up.  5 minutes into my warmup, before my 1st interval, I hear Psssssssssssss and my rear goes soft. Yes, I flatted another freakin Grifo - and I didnt bring spare wheels, so that was it. Almost an hour wasted with no intervals. I was done…time to go home and try to get the job done on the road bike.

I rush home, change bikes and shoes and promptly head out to the boulevard to try and get another warm up in and some sembilence of a hard work out. Hunger was starting to set in as I watched my wife preparing a meal as I left the house. I darted to the Blvd.  and as I was crossing the street to actually get on the Blvd, this woman in a car with a little dog cuts me off and almost kills me. Naturally I gave her the finger and called her a stupid blind bitch. When I delivered the bird, i did it between my legs, out of the saddle, since she was now behind me. I guess she didn’t like it too much.

She pulled up beside me and then jerked the car to the right, towards me, I guess pretending to try and ram me. OK, now my adreneline really kicked in. I gave her the bird again and we were now screaming at each at the top of our lungs. Her car lunged forward and sped up the road. In a minute, I saw her pulled over on the side, right in my path. I started sprinting so I would go around her as fast as possible, in case she was going to try some move. As I went by, I noticed that she pulled out again and was now following me. OK, I figured this bitch must be crazy or something.

I kept sprinting down the Blvd and she still followed. I made a sudden right onto a side street in a ritzy East Side neighborhood. Yup, still behind me. I made a few more full speed turns, blowing stop signs and taking random turns - she was still with me. I figured I could eventually make it to Chuck’s house and hopefully I would catch him outside so I could at least tell him that this person was trying to kill me. Then at least there would be some record of my murder. As the chase continued, I decided to stop running and pull up onto the sidewalk and see what the bitch would do. I was preparing myself to knock this woman out if I had to. I stopped and leaned my bike against a tree and stepped out into the road towards her car - she sped past blaring the horn and yelling some more shit at me. Yeah, thats right, keep on driving bitch. Crisis averted, I slowly rode onto the Blvd, and did another warm up for 10 minutes.

I did end up doing my intervals finally.