grillod85's blog

So it's the night before the big race. I would say I've been waiting for this for a while, but it's really only been a week or so. I just wanted to thank my friends and parents for making it down to Charlotte for the event. With a 4:45 alarm set for tomorrow, I don't know if I'll be in a particularly gushy mood in the morning. Especially considering that that rude awakening will be followed by a two hour drive, two hours of registration/hydration/urination madness, and then 6 hours of racing. Yeah, I should bust out the thank you's now, I'm getting groggy just thinking about tomorrow.

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Does this happen to anyone else? It seems like my bike is the fully functional, smooth shifting, tight braking, creak free ride that I expect it to be whenever I don’t have to ride it. Although this is my first race, I have taught mountain biking through my school’s outdoor education program (www.coe.cornell.edu) for 2 years now. Through the whole semester I forget I even own repair tools. Then my classes start up and I can’t leave the house without brakes rubbing and gears jumping. Scouting rides turn into repair clinics. Repair clinics turn into anger management sessions. Anger management sessions turn into frantic trips to the bike shop to get things straightened out ASAP before my next class where something else breaks… Damn hex.

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So my history with the Cowbell Challenge is unfortunately quite short. I’ve been looking at getting into various kinds of endurance racing for the past two years or so, but the “if I only had time”s have gotten the best of me. My girlfriend as I finally signed on for a sprint adventure race in Macon, GA called the GEICO Ocmulgee Adventure Race (GOAR). We registered early and have been training four to five times a week trail running, biking, and a little paddling as well. But the race isn’t until July and I was itching to compete. So I scoured the internet looking for a race that fit in the one or two weekends I was free and found Cowbell about a week and a half ago.

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Hello Everyone,

My name is Daniel Grillo. I feel like I've been starting a lot of corrrespondences like that recently seeing as I'm a 21 year old college student. But then again, a blog reader is a bit different than a potential employer, professor, or financial aid officer, all of whom need that down and dirty introduction with no dead air between "hello" and "my name is." The reality, though, is that I'm just as nervous with my Yourmtb.com endeavors as I would be with the afore mentioned pillars of a twenty-something's existence. This is, you see, my first blog...it also happens to be about my first endurance race...which also happens to be my first bike race. I know, I know, who accepted this guy as a blogger, right? Hopefully my rookie status will only elicit more comments/feedback rather than scare it away. Anyway, I'll be back shortly with some thoughts on how I got involved, training, etc. Looking forward to Saturday...