In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love...of bicycles and frogs

This past weekend was a lot of fun. I got some work done on my senior biology project and headed home Friday afternoon. Just FYI, if I have any fans that are experts on gene therapy and pDNA vector detection techniques, feel free to offer your help on that. It was the first day I've driven and could really put the sunroof open. I did for just a second, but closed it up for better gas mileage. It was Samuel's junior prom back at WA Friday night so I wanted to be there to see that. Philip was home for the weekend too, so I got to see him.

Friday night after prom leadout Philip and I went out to Casey's camphouse. There's a pond out there and it's the first weekend that frogs would be out, so I went looking to collect for my vertebrate zoology class. It was still pretty early so a lot of critters still weren't active yet, but I found a turtle, either trachemys scripta or pseudemys concinna. That was nice, but I really wanted a frog, because most of the species are divided between the Appalachain foothills to the north of Birmingham and the Coastal Plain to the south, where Camden is. At one end of the pond the woods were really thick and it got really swampy, great frog habitat. I could hear them every once in a while but didn't see one in 1 1/2 hours of looking. So I just switched off my flashlight and squatted down and was gonna try to hear them first. After about 5 minutes I heard a chirping sound a little like a bird, but really sharp, not much tweet. Right there next to me was a tiny little frog (<3cm)
It looks similar to a cricket frog, but because of the continuous dorsolateral ridge and the ventral mottling Dr. Bakegaard decided it was a juvenile Rana catesbeiana.

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Saturday I rode out to Dry Forks and did hill repeats and got horribly sunburned. Upon returning there was just enough time to take a shower and watch Auburn absolutely dismantle LSU. Just a quick sidenote: Auburn got left for dead by the national media after losing to Xavier (with Rashim Barrett injured, I might add) but has been the best team in the SEC since Feb 1. No SEC team with 10 conference wins (as Auburn has) has ever been left out of the NCAA tourney, and if Auburn wins their quarterfinal tournament game against Florida or Arkansas, I think they have to get in. Still, no one at ESPN will even recognize them as a bubble team. Hopefully the real selection committee values a team's quality more than it's name, unlike those talking heads in Bristol.

Sunday morning I drove back to Birmingham. Due to the time change I left later than I wanted and didn't get back in time for church, so I used the time to pick up some groceries and get ready for the afternoon's bike race. It was the same course as the last race with and added summit finish atop Chandler Mountain. Thefield was huge at 65 riders, but the race unfolded great for me. Steel City controlled the front for the first three laps and we were flying around the course. Part way through the third lap I just sort of rolled off the front and got about a 30s gap at the hill of the back section and held it til just before the start of lap 4. It didn't stick but it was the big move that really softened up the field. The pace stayed relatively low through lap 4 until we hit the bumpy section where it got strung out and about 10 of us got a slight gap. 1k from the start line somebody went down and it gave 7 of us the chance to get away. At that moment I accomplished my goal: to make the final selection for the day. We worked together, all content to settle everything on the climb. If you have never done this climb, it's just a little appetizer of what European style mountains are like. Most American climbs are long and shallow, because our road desgners were smart enough to either make circles around the mountain or cut several switchbacks into the hillside to decrease the grade. This is in opposition to the ancient Alpine or Pyreneean roads that were originally built over animal trails and have far fewer switchbacks and can achieve absolutely ridiculous grades. Chandler Mountain follows this mold, ascending 550ft in 1mi. That works out to an average grade of 10.4%. Insane. My speed bottomed out at 3.4mph, I almost fell over there. The pure climbers took off at the first swtichback and I finished 6th, about 1min back, but just experiencing the climb and being in the mix was what I wanted. I really want to focus in on my climbing over the next few years. Even though it hurts so much, I love it more than any part of racing. Sometime when it's slow I need to do an entry just on climbing. I felt like Thomas Voeckler in the 2004 Tour de France, only without the yellow jersey.

Brazil is next week! I am so excited! Check out what Team 1 is doing this week here