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.

Today is my B-Day.........

and so i'm another day older.....so what!!!!! well, not up to much today, propably run by the folks house and get a few pictures of the '55 chevy to post on craigslist. anyways, the last day of the dirt crit's are tonight. i wanna do them, but after a hard ride yesterday and shitty sleep i don't know if i'll make it. just like last week sometimes rest is more important then extending yourself to depletion. i over did it last year and by the end of the season i had nothing left, all the power in my legs were gone. the state crit is this weekend too so i may want to lay low and just get some easy miles in. yesterdays ride didn't go so well, i met dk for about an hours worth of hard tempo riding, but i didn't make it too far. i flatted and then my spare had a flat, i had to patch up and then by that time dk was done. i took his wheel and finished my workout. it ended up being 48 miles with intervals into a nice headwind.....the body is feeling it today, so more then likely no dirt crit for tonight as much i'd like to say screw and head out anyways.

BOINGO!!!!

don't really know what boingo means, but it works and it's cheap. i'm just sitting here at starbucks using their wi-fi. i did have a verizon card, but found it too pricey for what i used it for. while it sucks that starbucks charge a fee, i found that using boingo wifi is the cheapest way to go. sometimes i bring my laptop to work and you would think that a major airport like st. louis would have free wifi, but it doesn't. i did find that boingo charges $10 a month and has partners with all kinds of businesses, airports, and coffee shops. i barely have a signal at work and is slow(because my work area is below the terminal), but it's better then nothing. today i'm to testing its use outside of the airport and can say it works great here at starbucks. starbucks charges like $20 a month for the use of their wifi, so i've got to say it's a deal for $10 a month and use at multiple locations. i guess they just piggyback off everybody else's signal.

i managed to make the tuesday night worlds. i only did the a race. it was pretty hard, but managed to survive. a group went off the front halfway in and i attacked our group with about 20 minutes to go to try to make the bridge. i brought two other riders with me and we worked together for a lap. we had gotten so close, yet we were still so far. it took a huge effort to get a gap and we were all spent. we ended up getting swallowed up by the group. i managed to finish respectably in our group, however i felt like heaving after the race. we had a cookout at work and i ate like crap, the usual cookout food, burgers, chips, and potato salad......not exactly power food for racing.

i'll stay off the road bike today and try to make the dirt crit races tonight somewhat fresh. goal for the race? just make it on time!!!

Summertime blues......

What have I been up to you may ask, well, not a whole lot. It seems as if it's been a while since my last road race. The last race was Winghaven almost a month ago, hence the blues. I was supposed to do the Babler circuit race last weekend which would've kept my race legs going, but wouldn't you know it, it got cancelled becaused of a little rain.......argggghhhh!!!!! That was a wasted vacation day!!! So this weekend I thought I'd head up to do a couple circuit/road races at Superweek, but I cancelled at the last minute. I couldn't see driving seven hours by myself and then shelling out over $300 for two days of racing.

I decided to hang out here and do the Thursday short track xc race. I've been meaning to make the first two, but prepping for Babler it didn't fit into my schedule. I've only had a handful of rides on the mt. bike this year and even had to renew my off-road license yesterday since it was my first mt. bike race this year. I got to the race late and registered as my group shot off the starting line. The fine folks in charge, Dave and Ralph let me jump in after they came by after their first lap. Seeing how it was my first off-road race of the year I'd propably be in that spot anyways. I shot off and proceeded to follow, no warm other then the 20 miles I road earlier in the day, and my heartrate paid for it. It spiked up like a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale. I hung in there and finished. The next race was the B race which I also signed up for. I didn't have any big hopes for this race since there were like 45 guys in this race and I figured the trail would clog up pretty good. I just wanted to keep my legs going. I didn't go for the holeshot, in fact started out a little nonchalant. I just tried to get in a decent position as to not have to many riders to contend with. It still seemed as if there were about 20 guys in front of me. Anyways, I passed a few more here and there. On the final two laps I had two more guys in my sights and finally caught and passed them. I figured it was decent enough for a top 10. Today I found out I ended up in third. The night was mission accomplished, good training, good racing. Hopefully next week I'll make the A race on time.

This weekend is the Tour de Soulard, a favorite of mine, but I won't be doing it since I decided to take vacation for Babler instead. Next up on my schedule is the Tour of KC, so until then I'll hit up a race here or there, whatever fits into my schedule, there's a few to choose from.