tour of st. louis...

tour of st. louis was last weekend, i only did saturdays events since i had to work on sunday. that included the crit and then the tt in the evening. the crit wasn't really anything special, just a plain jane four corner crit. it was fast and i was able to take it to the finish. i couldn't really get into a good position and started to fade in the last 50 meters or so. it turned out a few breaks had gone away but were all brought back, or so i/we had thought. it turned out one guy was away and stayed away. i had seen a rider in the distance, but thought it was just somebody preriding the course. oh, didn't really effect my outcome anyways, but good ride by him.

the tt was in the evening and was running late. i ended up riding another 10 miles for my warm-up since i had an hour to kill. the tt went ok. i felt good for about the first two miles and thought it would be good to have this tailwind for the first half. that only lasted that two miles because soon it took a right turn and into massive crosswinds. i was getting beat up and felt the wind through the vents on my helmet. i also never did tape my aerobars so all i heard was awful whistling noises. i tried to reposition my hands to cover them. it was really messing with my head. anyways, i got passed by two guys in full tt gear, but i almost caught back up to one of them going into the headwind. don't know where i finished in that.

i was also able to make my first tuesday crit this year. the plan was to do both a and b races. i was at work and things were going as planned until the last five minutes when everything went south. three airplanes broke and had to stay late to get those worked and turn everything over to the oncoming shift. i missed about the first five minutes of the a race. the legs felt good and the races went well. i'll try to make more of these in the future.

a little c'wood today.......

so i looked at the schedule and saw that the castlewood xc race was coming up. i figured i'd do that race and thought i needed to get down there to shake some of those off-road cobwebs, plus i'd just take it easy from the ride i did yesterday. well, wouldn't you know it, just before i headed out i double-checked the date on that race and i've got to work that day. for some reason i thought it was a saturday race. oh well, it was a fun day to get out on the soft stuff, not to mention it was too nice of a day not to ride. i ended up riding for an hour and enjoyed every bit of it. i'll propably take off tomorrow since saturday is the tour of st. louis.

Tour of Hermann...

Well, what can I say, it just wasn't my weekend as has been lately. The TofH got off to a decent start with the TT. I gave it a good go in the TT. I was satisfied with my performance and it was an improvement over last year.
After a subpar lunch at some dive restaurant we headed to the Crit venue. The battery in my car also died so I had to find jumper cables and then get my car jumped. Mission accomplished. We sat around for several hours waiting for our crit to start. It was about this time I wish I had a hotel to go crash at. I thought I would be ok, for the crit, but my legs were just not up to par. I stayed up late the night before to watch the Blues game and ended up not sleeping a whole lot so by the time the crit started I was already pretty tired. My legs were also physically not recovered from the TT. Anyways, the crit started and everyone started out like a bat out of hell. There was a huge downhill with a 90 degree right turn. I started towards the back and just couldn't maintain my position after all the turns. It was also wet out and after the first two laps I was off the back because of all the turns and not being able to bridge. The climb and my legs didn't help either. I ended up duking it out with several riders the rest of the way. My teammate also ended up in the same position, we actually traded spots every several laps. I haven't felt that bad in a race in a while. The only difference was now I felt that bad and I was well out of the mix. I ended up finishing the race though, got a massage, and then drove home.

The next day came the road race and I decided since I already paid for the race I'd at least show up, which is really about all I did. I got there and had just enough time to change and get to the line. I didn't warm up at all. I thought since it was a road race I'd feel better after a few miles. Well, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. The first climb came three miles in and I was already bad shape. Next, I actually did the first smart thing the whole weekend. I packed it in. I turned around, rode down the monster climb, turned in my chip, changed, and watched the rest of the races from the Dogfish tent. It was pretty demoralizing at the time since I was right in the thick of things in last years race.

I've come to the conclusion that I need to step up my game. Even if I did have some rest, my fitness level is just not where it needs to be for some of these races. I'm going to have to race myself into shape. Although my fitness is not there it's good to see a lot of my fellow racers showing good form. They've all stepped it up and now I've got to do the same.

As for my health, I go to get another MRI on my cervical spine. My catscan found a 3mm bone spur right in the area I've been having problems. My doctor doesn't think it's big enough to cause my symptoms so I go get yet another MRI. My other doctor also found an elarged tonsil, so I'll do a few more tests for that too to see if it needs to be removed. Wow, I'm pretty f'd up.

It's time for Blues hockey, it's do or die tonight. GO BLUES!!!

BLUES GO FROM CELLAR DWELLAR TO STANLEY CUP HOPEFUL

Even though my BHL (beer/brentwood hockey league) season is over since we tanked in the playoffs the Blues are in the playoffs!!!! As of last night I watched the Blues on the telly and the Nashville/Minnesota game on the laptop. It was great to see Nashville go down.....I really hate that team for some reason. Anyways, the Blues completed their bid for the playoffs with a big win against Columbus. Can you say who OOHHWWWNNSSS THE BLUEJACKETS??? That's right the f!@#ng Blues. I also made my tribute to TJ Oshie by honoring him with his own youtube feed as you can see above. I believe if he hadn't been injured for 25 games he'd have been a legitimate shot at rookie of the year. Just so you don't think I'm just joining the Oshie bandwagon, I picked up this kid for my fantasy team at the beginning of the year when most of St. Louis didn't even know what they had in him....jus' sayin'. One last thing is Murray should get coach of the year for what he's done.

As for my training, I had a good ride on Thursday and I'll ride today at some point. With Hermann next weekend the goal for week is to only do short rides of light to moderate effort. My two and half hour ride on last Wedensday may have done me in for Saturdays road race, so no rides over an hour this week. I checked my weight this morning and I've still got a few lb's to be at my ideal racing weight.

My husky skates was feeling not so good yesterday as he jumped over the gate in the kitchen while we were out and decided he needed some B complex vitamins. He tore into the bottle and ate the whole bottle. Well, I came home to two big huge spots on vomit on the carpet, not pretty. He seems to have his jump this morning though.

BHL season finally over!!!

my hockey season is finally over. my teams play over the summer, but to be honest i couldn't wait for this season to be over. after last seasons cycling debacle i needed a break and lacing up the skates was just what i needed. now that cyclings finally here and i've started training again there just doesn't seem to be enough time to do both. anyways, there are three leagues in the BHL, a tuesday, wed. and thurs night league. i play on wed and thurs and the way the playoffs work is the top 12 teams from all three leagues combine to make the playoffs and play eachother. i haven't played for about three weeks and i had the hillsboro race on saturday, which my legs are still trying to recover from. as it turned out, i, and about four of my teammates had to play back to back games last night for both teams since both of them made the playoffs. needless to say, we didn't do so hot. i was pretty much worthless, didn't do much more then take up space on the ice. i just didn't have the jump in my legs and without playing for three weeks my hands weren't there either. by the way the games were at 9 and 10:30 last night which also didn't bode well. by the second game i was so tired that i was just watching the clock click down hoping for a way to speed it up. i actually didn't even want to go out for my next shift i was that tired. we ended up losing both games which pretty much ended the season. sitting in the lockerroom i was the last one to leave, i just sat there so tired i couldn't even change. when it was all said and done i packed up my locker, had my one on one chat with the coach, said bye to the boys, and told them i'd see them in training camp next year.............of course we don't have coach, lockers, or even a training camp, but it sounded good.

on a high bluenote, the blues won last night which put them in sole possession of the final playoff spot.....GO BLUES!!!!! this would be so great for them to make the playoffs. the kids on the blues could learn so much from the playoffs and excellerate their development. heck, even this stretch run has helped them gain confidence and has been beneficial. they're going to be a powerhouse team in the next few years.

i also finished my first week on dayshift working from 5am to 5pm. coming from midnights, now i actually get to enjoy my three or four days off. being on midnights usually sucks because it seems like you're always behind a half day and the full weekend is never like a full weekend, not to mention having to readjust to living like a normal person. heck, this is my long weekend and i don't know what to do with myself. i don't have to be to work until sunday morning. i suppose i'll ride, although the weather may not cooperate. i'd like to ride today, but my legs and body are just screaming not to. time to take the kids to the park.

Hillsboro Roubaix wake-up call!!!

The day started out with me heading to Bigshark in the a.m. to purchase some new Vittoria's for my second race of the season. I called the shop the night before and Mike was nice enough to meet me since he was going to be there anyways, gotta appreciate that. It was about time I get rid of the training tires. It was also the first race for the newly rebuilt Easton 90slx's since they were destroyed at the Gateway Cup last year. Oh, I should mention how nice it is to have a Johnny on the Spot at an offramp!!! Let me just say it was certainly johnny on the spot!!!!!!!! I picked up Denny and we were on the road. After a few scheduled pee stops we arrived an hour early and after registering and putting my number on I barely had enough time to ride before lining it up. I also turned on my garmin and no heartrate, great.

I lined up towards the back third of the 3's and we finally started. The race started like I thought it would. Ride, turn, accelerate, catch up, turn, accelerate, turn, hit afterburners, recover, turn, bridge gap, fight headwind, recover. I did that for almost two full laps before hitting the last turn into town. I just didn't have the jets to bridge that last acceleration. I had to shut it down. I kept the field in my sights, but there was no way I was going to catch them. Running into town I rode by myself and decided whether or not go out for another lap. Well, I was already there, what the hell, I went out for another lap. While out there by myself I wondered what the hell I got myself into. The headwinds were crazy and I was hatin' life being out there by myself. I was actually hoping Denny would've gotten dropped so I'd have somebody to ride with, but as it turned out he pulled the chutes on the second lap. He was suffering from a cold all week and have to give him props for just showing up.

I'll chalk that that one up as a good training race. I ended up 53rd of the 63 finishers. All in all I was satisfied with just finishing that race.