Well I'm back to the blogging. Time for a weekend recap. This past weekend was the Avery Trace road race and the Cookeville Criterium. For some reason, I think of the Road race as having 3 spread out hills, then a long flat section, then a finishing hill. Boy do have the wrong idea! The race starts and immediately riders are up the road, about 3 of them I think. I decide to attack and try to get in the break, that was my goal, to get in the break. So I attack over a hill and a Piggly Wiggly (a grocery store) came with me. He asks me if I had a teammate in the break. Foolishly I say no, he then continues to tell me that he does and he will do very little work (this turns out to be a lie and Karma will hunt this man down.) My bridging attempt to the 3 riders fails, however it did give us a head start on the first climb, the peleton doesn't catch us until halfway up. Immedaitely, the other guy is dropped (yes karma is a female dog, maybe next time you will learn what goes around comes around.) As the lead of the peleton crests the hill I am just slipping back, containing myself. Everyone riding next to me is breathing like they are about ot explode and I am just pedaling around, not feeling too much pain. We go down the hill, no wrecks, GREAT SUCCESS. After the first descent the second climb start immediately. My teammate, Jeff Mcgrane starts doing a hard pull, then super strong rider, Chris Brown, goes to the front and a gap opens up immediately. Dirk Pohlman then bridges up. I knew my teammates weren't able to cover the move so I knew I had to. I jump from about 10 wheel up to the 2 riders with Brad Spears on my wheel. we crest the hill with a small gap, but we regroup on the descent. Go down the descent with no wrecks, GREAT SUCCESS. s soon as we reach the bottom of the descent, this ion healthcare guy attacks, (the same guy that won the Rome road race, super strong right now) I immediately jump on his wheel and we have a gap. I start working thinking there is a somewhat long way til the next climb. Well I was wrong, the next climb started immediately and I was toast. The transmission was stuck in reverse and I was going backwards. Needles to say, I get in a chase group and we paceline/attack our way to the finish (stupid attacks on their part, if you are off the back there is no need for attacking.)
Seeing how I didn't feel like buying a hotel room, my bro Josh and I decided to camp out at a camp ground a mile form the finish of the road race. We get to the camp ground and there is electricity at all the sites and it is full of RV's and rednecks. the only flat place to put the tent on was gravel so we were sleeping on rocks all night. Also, it seemed like every single car that drove by had flowmasters. Not the most tent camping friendly place. We decided next year we are bringing a microwave.
The criterium was on Sunday at 3 o'clock. The race starts out and my legs feel good. The shims that I had put in earlier this week were really helping (thanks Eddie Sloan http://bikedomestique.com/) About 15 minutes in, a rider is off the front and I decide to put in a good dig to chase him down. I catch him with the field struggling behind me. I sense this and decide to keep on going. I have a 5 second gap for about a lap and a half, I look back and seeing a rider chasing me with the field behind him. I get reabsorbed and my teammate attacks and the race winning break is formed. My teammate takes fifth and I don't really like the the heat so I pull the plug about halfway in (I couldn't unzip my jersey with one hand so I had to sit up to unzip it. a gap opened and I tried closing it but blew up in the process. not the smartest thing on my part.
Overall I'm happy with how the legs felt. They felt much better, probably because the shims. I was much faster. Now if my power tap would hurry up and get here. I am not going to let my sub par results (mid 20's both days) get in the way. I am happy with how my form is. I can't win every race, I'm just happy the legs finally felt good. That's all for now, I might give a midweek update, who knows.
peace love and happiness,
the crow
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