Post-Crit Recovery, Ice Cream

Is it cold or what?! When I talked about the Dog Days of Summer I wasn't expecting the stove to get turned up a notch or two, but if we can race through heat like this then we can get through anything on the bike. There isn't much hope either if you look at the 10 day forecast for Nashville, which makes one wonder are we in Arizona or Middle Tennessee? My first year of pro ball I spent some time in Yuma, Arizona during the summer before being assigned to Spokane for short-season. It would get to 115 degrees during the day, which meant they had to close the airport because the runway would get too hot for planes to land! The heat would literally blow the landing tires. Now that's HOT!

I found a great way on Sunday to try and beat the heat and recover after the Bike Pedlar Criterium. After only slightly cooling off after the race we went to the Purity Miss Martha's Ice Cream Crankin' 2007. It's a benefit for the Martha O'Bryan Center which focuses on the needs in the James A. Cayce Homes. The event is in its 22nd year and is held in a field just across from Overton High School on Franklin Road. Granted, this recovery method can only be utilized once a year, so mark your calendars!

Churches from around the city gather and offer up their best recipes of homemade ice cream for several thousand people to taste. Entry fee was just $8, which is a bargain when you consider you can sample every single flavor of at least 100 or more. The ice cream served not only as a coolant but also as my recovery from the crit! I ate up as much chocolate flavors as possible of course. I was only able to sample about 20, but man were there some good recipes! I tasted the 2002 winner of the competition and if it were for sale I'd stock it in my freezer.

I'm a people watcher kind of guy so it made for good entertainment as well. As I looked around I see a guy riding above the crowd, literally. Then it hit me; I've got a camera on my cell phone! This guy had everybody's attention.....

I don't even know what this thing is called (high rise unicycle?), but he had total control as he pedaled through the crowd. He had amazing balance, and later I saw him ride a shorter one with three wheels stacked on top of one another. Maybe I'll offer a new division at the crit series for guys like him.

Back to the criterium on Sunday; there are no words to really describe how hot it was during the race. It was worse on the course because the area had just been resurfaced, and the new black top attracted much more heat to radiate. During our Pro 1/2 race we could feel the heat rising up into our bikes as the smell of the tar was sucked down into our lungs. Afterwards we had to wash off the speckled grit from our legs and cool off with lots of cold water over our neck and heads. Fortunately for me I actually love competing in that kind of heat. I've had to do it all my life, albeit with short breaks in a shaded dugout.

So that's it, I now propose TBRA rule 5.22.15 which would require ice cream in shaded dugouts to be provided at every bike race. Now that would be something to race for!