Self control at the Allentown fair, to be ready for GMSR

I went to the Great Allentown Fair earlier tonight, and did an absolutely terrible thing in that I didn't take a single picture of the carnies, gigantic pumpkins, jumping dogs or midway games to share with my blog readers. Oops. See, I was too busy looking for female mullets and rat tails of any gender -- because that's the kind of friends I have.

I also did another terrible thing, in that I deprived myself of any fair food -- no big greasy giros, no sausage-and-pepper sandwiches, no funnel cakes, no pierogi, no beer, and no ice cream -- hard or soft. OK, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, but I did have to dig deep to resist temptation. Regular readers know how much I love some good junk food.

So, why did I hold out? After a brief scare that it would be canceled on Monday, in the wake of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene, the Green Mountain Stage Race is on, and begins on Friday with a prologue time trail. It's four days of racing, and will be the only stage race I line up for this year with what feels to me like proper preparation and reasonable legs. So, I'm anxious to not undue my training with poor eating.

This will be my fourth GMSR campaign, the last being 2009, when I was a newly minted cat 2, and had a correspondingly bad race. 2008 was better -- I was a high-flying cat 3 then, and although I was never in contention to win the race, I did wind up second on the KoM standings, and finished very well on top of the Appalachian Gap, at the end of the race's queen stage.

This year, my training has been good since I began my post-broken wrist come back, and although I haven't really raced since the Tour of the Catskills (which didn't go that well), I think I should be set to have a descent race this weekend. Of course, it all depends on who shows up, and what form they've got. So, we'll see. Mostly though, I'm looking forward to racing up in Vermont -- which has some of the best views and venues that I've ever raced.

GMSR is very well run, the courses (even the revised courses we'll race on this year after Irene caused some road damage) are great, and the whole event has a great, relaxed end of season vibe. I was sad to miss it last year when I had to work, and look forward to enjoying my time in Vermont this year. I think I'll even take a ferry to get there.