Recap from week:

I) Lecture Friday afternoon

Friday afternoon I lectured in Environmental Chemistry in the stead of the main professor. The task started to become more intimidating about 20 minutes before hand, but God providentially intervened to help me make a smooth transition to speaking. I forgot something for class and showed up later than I preferred, making it neccessary to jump right into the lecture. The material, a review of subatomic particles and elemental symbology, was seemed a little trivial to the students. Even so, my presentation felt a little convoluted as I tried to explain how the S-orbitals of the 4th electronic energy level are initially lower in energy than the d-orbitals of the 3rd electronic energy level. Thankfully, most of them remembered this from general chemistry, saving me from an inadequate review of the concept.

II) Race warm-up and Grad IV, Friday Evening.

Friday evening I headed out with Anthony and some members from Illini Cycling to the race course for Saturday morning's mountain bike race. We covered about a third of course before A. and I had to leave - 1st Grad IV large group was going on, so I needed to be back. I dropped A. off and headed straight to union (yes, without a shower) to Grad I.V. The 1st large group, while the same format as last year, was nonetheless entertaining and informative.

We were given a two-fold ice breaker: 1) we split up into groups based upon home-town geography. As a group we we were to come up w/ (a) unique things/qualities resident to our geography and (b) values that were consistently held among the area's peoples (i.e. Midwest boasts of the Mississippi Watershed Basin; we have tornados and snow - sometimes concurrently occuring; and often we're emotionally reserved, yet always seen as cheery) . 2) we split up into groups based upon discipline (non-life sciences, life sciences, engineering, humanities, society). We then discussed what major world issues our fields address and how faith is important to our discipline. The second grouping helped us see where most of the new students fit discipline-wise. It was quite surprising to see that the society group (journalism, social work, medical students, urban planning, etc.) was one of the largest, compared to its small numbers over the past year. Hard or non-life sciences (physics, math, chemistry, atmospheric sciences and computer science) was also very large. Engineering had a relatively small group considering they have traditionally dominated the Grad IV population.

III) Race Day Summary.

Now on to Race Day!!! The morning started at a sobering 6am wake up call to "The Saints Go Marching In". A. and Jeremy rolled over about 6:45 in order to pick me up and meet the rest of the team. We were at Kickapoo by 7:45, plenty early for our 9 am race. After warming up on the trail and getting my first endo (a type of crash where you go over the top of your handle bars) in, I was all ready to race. Initially, I started out at a pace that would exhaust me in the first 5 miles, so I decided to take it down a notch. I took a semi-early spill two or three miles in, hitting my left kidney with the handle bar. At this point, I was in 5th (out of 15-16 riders in the beginner class), close on the trail behind a racer from Butler University (or College, I don't know). The trail is amazing - it's filled with tons of ups and downs, jumps, sharp turns, long climbs and descents, and narrow trails, difficult to negotiate. It was sooo much fun!!! I took another spill probably 6 miles into the race - this one came after my right handle bar clipped a tree and my bicycle went sideways. After a long, tricky downhill I was nearly a mile from the finish. I picked up the pace, flying around turns, taking jumps and wouldn't you know, I hit another tree! This was the most severe of my crashes. I went into a turn way too fast, slamming into a tree with my left shoulder. Needless to say, I went down and hard. Being so close to the finish, I quickly stood up, made sure my shoulder wasn't broken and took off for the finish. All in all, I was really pleased with my performance. I placed 5th with a time of 57:40, ~3 minutes behind the leader. I guess the question remains, would I do it again or will I race again this year? Yes, I will probably race again this season. It was just too much fun not to.

Here are a few photos.

1) Jeremy is stocking up on essential race food - Tostitos and Gatorade.



2) Here I am, winded and red-faced after the race. I edited my lower body out of the picture. It's not all that revealed, especially because I have black shorts on. You can find the full picture at my photobucket site (see link at left). Also, all of us had to borrow jersies, but I'm thinking about getting one.


3) Anthony finished the race without breaking anything, praise God!


3) Jeremy also finished without any missing appendages or broken limbs, praise God!