Geography Lesson

No one should accuse my team director Greg of thinking small. On Monday my Targetraining team, a brand-new team with most of its riders coming straight out of New England winter, heads to El Salvador for some international-level races. Count the contrasts: 20 degrees to 95 degrees, Bethel training race to international competition, training blocks to seven races in six days, neoprene booties to dousing the head with water to avoid smoke coming out the ears. Needless to say, it will be a welcome adventure: Adventurous spirit brought me to bike racing and yet the reality of training is that the body thrives on near-boring routine. As far as the race, my teammates and I might be just suriving, but hopefully if we spend our matches carefully we can do a bit of racing and get some results. Because the team has taken care of logistics, I feel woefully ugly-Americanly- oblivious to where I am going. I dredged up this map at least (which looks suspiciously like the kangaroo-shaped city of New Haven, in mid-jump), just as I hope to dredge up my Spanish. A friend from school who was a Peace Corps volunteer in El Salvador will be visiting there as well, staying in San Salvador close to the athlete hotel. She might come watch a race. It would be great to see the country from eyes that know enough to go beyond fearing it.