finally a weekend and a race in indy......

after one day off over the last nine days i can finally sit here in starbucks and enjoy the first day of me weekend. the last race i did was the state crit, but then i worked five straight days of 14 hour days, ate like shit, slept like shit, then had one day off on saturday. i did a 50 mile ride to st. albans in the middle of a heat wave. needless to say i felt like crap. i then worked my normal week on sunday. i got off yesterday in time to make the tnw a race. i thought i'd better go and get the cobwebs out and all the junk food i ate over the last week and a half out of my system. saturdays ride was hard and not too promising. i thought i'd feel like sluggish and have to bail out of the race. i managed to survive the initial surges and even gon in a semi break to catch the five or six riders in the main break. i could tell i was having a hard time staying in that group so i eased off back into the pack. it was a good choice as they were all brought back. i thought about the b race, but that would've done more harm then good so i left. this weekend there is a race in indy i might do. it's the mass ave. crit. it's right in the heart of downtown indy. i remember watching it back in the day when i lived in indy and only raced mt. bikes. i'm looking forward to going to indy and doing this race.

2009 MO. State Crit....

Today was the State Crit down in Jeff City. Just a few days ago I only had plans to do the Cat 3 race, but once again Denny talked me into doing the masters and the 3's. The last time this happened I made the mistake of getting a massage the day before and I guess they went a little too deep and my legs were worthless. That was two years ago and a big waste of time since I ended up only did that race. Last year I only did the 3's and managed to get a 9th place finish. Since the weather was mild compared to temps in the 90's the past two years I figured I'd give it ago.

The Masters race went ok, I didn't go into the red zone right off the bat. That was a bit unusual since I didn't get much of a warm up if any at all, one lap around the course does not constitute as a warm up. The race was going good and after about 20 minutes Denny was on a break with some Bigshark guy. They had a several second gap. Next thing you know a guy blasts out of the group to bridge. I hesitate and think for a bit, should join Denny and put two Dogfish in the break? I decided to put in a bridge attempt to latch onto him. I finally catch him and we catch Denny and the Bigshark guy. We made it around another lap and I was spent, so I told Denny to go and I was gonna get back in the group. I spent the rest of the time recovering, but during the last 15 minutes I tell I was getting gassed. I was having to put in a big effort on the left hand turn on the straightaway just after the hill. It took a bit of a sprint to grab a wheel. Needless to say I finished the race at the back end of the pack for 15th place. I felt like throwing up and tried to get the thoughts of bailing on the 3's race out of my head.

I sat in my car with the air conditioning on and just rested after that race. I made it up to the line for the 3's race feeling a little better, but not by very much. The race started and I was actually not feeling too bad. I didn't do anything crazy like try to go off the front or cover an attack, actually I was doing all I could to just get my ass to the finish. The last 20 or so minutes my calves started to cramp up and I had to stretch them out on the downhill portion. I managed to keep them at bay. The last couple laps the pace really picked up and I couldn't make it to the front for the final sprint. I ended up finishing in 19th. All in all a good day of racing. I may take this week off the bike since I may have to work all week, so it kind of works out.

I had planned on doing the Tour of KC, then I found out they weren't doing The Cliff Dr. Classic. That's an awesome race and a good reason to go. Then I planned on just doing Saturdays downtown crit, but then I found out it's a late afternoon race. That's not going to work with my schedule so now I don't think I'll be racing next weekend. I may go to Indianapolis for a crit in downtown Indy in two weeks. It looks like a fun race and a good excuse to make it to my old stomping ground.