Notes
Sorry for the long logs. When I look back on this weekend I want to remember as much as possible because I had a blast.
Not much to say about this race. Collegiate PR of about half a second. Got hopped up on enough caffeine to kill a small elephant beforehand. Got boxed in really hard by the pack with 250 to go when I was trying to kick. Like actually the worst boxing in I've ever experienced. Kind of annoying but oh well. Highlight of this race was having the entire MSU section cheering for me as I toed the line. Thank you Austin Langlianis. But my log from my 1500 was about my racing, this log will be about the weekend itself.
This was the most fun I've ever had at a meet. Huge shoutout to Michael Jang for putting together cars and hotel rooms that for all intents and purposes should never have existed in the first place. The car was Ryan, Connor, Rod, and myself. I think I was laughing for at least 3/4ths of the car ride down. My face hurt from smiling too much. The hotel room, dubbed "The Money Suite" was Connor, Hanskat, Rod, and myself. I had plans to build another Mega-Bed, like we did at XC Nats with Khava. For my non IXC friends that are reading this, the mega bed is when you push both hotel room beds together to make one big bed that you and your homies all sleep together in for maximum team bonding. In the immortal words of Nick Hauptmann, "Boys who sleep together run well together." When the #gridlife gear head Matthew Beckerman heard about the Mega-Bed, his curiosity was intrigued. Everyone that was going to sleep in his room with him ended up not coming, so he had a whole room to himself. That room was directly across the hallway. Matt, being the absolute lad that he is, decided to sacrifice a sound night of sleep. Instead he would sleep with us. We moved an entire bed from his room into ours, creating the largest single bed that NIRCA has ever seen. Cody Lund would join the bed as well for night one. 6 boys, 1 bed. Matt said something that stuck with me. "20 years from now, we won't remember our races. But we will remember the Mega-Bed."
Night two, we got a big chunk of the team to come back to our room to watch The Incredibles. Even Liam Bots came through. Anneliese and Katie tried to teach me how to French braid hair. I still have no idea how girls do that so well. Beckerman, Dickinson, and Rod took some money to the Casino where they put it all on red and won big. I made $20 off of my investment. When it was time for bed, most people had cleared out. Muneeb and Rhode decided to stay the night, pushing the Mega-Bed to new limits of 8 boys, 1 bed. I sacked Muneeb when he came back to the room and then we watched some Fox News before turning out the lights. Really cringey dancing and aggressive news casting. I was laughing the entire time.
The team atmosphere was awesome this trip. I felt like everyone was clicking really well. Between all the "67?!" and the "Busty Thots" and a bunch of other quips, the team banter was fantastic.The races were fun to watch and we placed 3rd as a team. This was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Nonstop laughing.