we always go to sattley a day early and do our prep out on the course.

cows stared at us while we fidgeted with our tt bars. i have a new giro tt-helmet and i tried that on. we did our efforts. we stopped fifteen million times to tip our tt bars a little up, a little down.

it makes no difference. we are so not aero. but we try. we really do. still it's so nice out there.

i really love sattley. the blue skies, the green, green fields, the brown barns about to topple, the quiet, the wind.

last year we stayed in loyalton.

"the most depressing place on earth," linda likes to say of loyalton. we ordered a margarita the color of engine coolant at the loyalton inn last year. i remember the bartender patting the outside of the jug before making our drink. "sorry, a little warm," he said. and i remember the restaurant menu splattered with spaghetti sauce finger prints like a crime scene.

so this year we booked a room overlooking a river 15 miles up 49 from sattley in sierra city.

we got a beer and a glass of wine and sat out listening to the river. "i like this place," linda said several times, which made me happy. i liked it too. i especially liked leaving the glass door to our deck open at night until i began thinking about carey staynor who killed those three women on vacation a few years back.

so i was torn. i really liked listening to the sound of the river. but i was also rather fond of having my head attached to my body.i mentioned to linda that i'd seen a guy with a scraggly beard carrying a paper sack about the size of an ax enter the room next door to ours.

"i think you ought to shut the window now," linda said.

to take my mind off the ax murderer i tried to think positive thoughts about racing the tt the next day. i saw myself aero and fast. i broke the course down into segments.

once you get to the forested section, you'll be at mile four, only twenty miles to go. once you get to the slight rise after that, you'll be at eight miles. only sixteen more miles to go...

i went back to thinking about the murderer. more pleasant.

we survived the night and woke up with our heads intact. we ate breakfast at a cafe up the road.

"you all going on a hike?" the waitress asked.
"no there's a race in sattley."
"oh, how long?" she asked
"twenty-four miles,"
"oh, not so bad, then," she smiled.

and then we headed out onto the winding road, fifteen miles to sattley. it was lovely and calm and i thought how i might like to just have linda pull over and let me off with my bike so i could go for a nice ride instead of doing the tt when something caught my eye.

a lone Sidi shoe lying off the side of the road in the gravel.

"look someone's shoe," I said.
"oh wow. we should get it, it might belong to someone," linda said and pulled over.

i trotted down the road and i picked it up. i examined it. it looked strangely familiar -- my size, my color, speed play cleats.


"you know this shoe looks just like mine," i said once i got back in the car.
"check the back seat," linda said.

sure enough this was my shoe. i must have left it on the back ledge of the truck and it had flown off yesterday and had spent the night alone on the side of the road. and the other was missing.

oops. my bad.

so while linda estimated the shoe size of every possible NorCal Nevada District Time Trial 2008 entrant, I was pleasantly thinking -- whoohoo, no time trial for me!

when we got to the course, however, Marsha Kirschbaum had my other shoe. she'd found it lying out on the course where we'd warmed up. and when linda checked her iphone once we got into range there were several messages, all with the same urgent theme from Nancy:

we have your shoe. don't worry. we've found your shoe. call us. we have your shoe.

so, in case anyone was wondering -- it is possible to out laura laura.