Points and Potluck

My group here at work loves themselves some potluck. I love potluck too. Where else do you get such a crazy mix of foods on one plate?

Yesterday's potluck included the usuals like spinach dip, meatballs in a crock pot, and weird pasta salads you would never make at home, but it also had chili colorado, spring rolls, kahlua pork, and cheesecake.

And then there was the fruit salad that I kept going back for and getting pad thai instead.

And it was with this eccletic brew packed in my belly that I hit last night's points race.

Talk about a perfect storm.

Last's nights points race was a blast. Larry shuffled up the groups a little and kicked some folks out of the Cs. That was nice. It led to a more evenly matched group and we all had a chance to slice and dice.

We had four women in the group and I think we were by far the animators of that race. Jen loves to attack, Julie has wicked sprint speed and vision, and Natasha (in her first track event ever) can lay down the suffer!

It was also the first time I got to race with a teammate and I think thats why it was so much more fun for me. I love me some potluck and I love me some teammates. I got to sit in while Natasha was in one of her several attacks. I got to yell at her to "hit it!" and she did. I tried to protect her side during the sprints so it was harder for others to go around. It added a whole new layer of learning and doing.

I had big improvement at this race, not just in point scoring which is nice and sort of the point of the points race and all, but in being aware. I am slowly losing that crazy go fast tunnel vision and starting to be able to see around and behind me. I don't know that I want to see these things because sometimes they freak me out, but I am certainly more aware.

And I am spazzing less, although I did have my one spaz moment last night. But it was because someone came out of the pole lane into me during a sprint (a big dangerous no no) and so I think my spaz was justified. I just wish my spazz cries were more like a vicious bark and less like a wounded animal. Eeeeek!



SO anyway, we are going around and around in the points race and I am not spazzing and Natasha and I are scoring and some dude in a white jersey is chasing everything down and Julie is a sprinting phenom and Jen just wants to get away and we are all basically kicking ass, when the potluck starts making an appearance at about 20 to go.

By 15 to go I was tasting the pad thai, but disaster struck when the chili colorado made an appearance at about 10 to go. I made a huge effort at 3 to go and I thought I was going to display the potluck menu for all of Hellyer and had no choice but to back off. I was disappointed to not be in the mix on the last lap, but such is the potluck price I suppose.

It was all okay in the end though, because I won some of Jen's fabulous chocolate chip cookies and nothing calms the chirps like cookies and beer.

And I think I wanna race cross this year.