Mt. Hood Part 2

So I left off after losing almost nine minutes in the first stage. The second stage involved getting up at o'dark thirty to eat and then drive over to the start of the TT. It was quite light...and windy at the start. The wind made it rather cold warming up and those who were wise among us set up their trainers in the shelter of tall vehicles.

I kept thinking about not starting...but not starting a TT is like...well um, wimping out...and that's the worst way to be a quitter. So I warmed up, started, and promptly started thinking about turning around and going back to the car. As in I rode the 300 meters from the start house to where the wind hits you...and promptly desired to quit. There was a 20 mph sustained wind, with gusts up to 45 mph. That made life challenging. But what really convinced me I wanted to quit was my legs. Rather using the great dinner I had eaten and repairing my muscles as I slept, my body decided to focus it's energies on fighting this virus thing. So my legs were flat, kinda like soda that's been left in a hot car for a couple weeks.

Being the good racer I am though, forced myself to put out a good TT effort until I had thoroughly established myself as being the slowest rider on the day. At the point that all the other cat. 4 racers had passed me, I called it a day and let myself to soft pedal...and then my whole right leg started cramping. If I came within 20 bpm of my lactate threshold, the cramps came back. So I had jolly time crawling in the last ten miles. I was the slowest cat. 4, but I did beat the cat. 3 rider who flatted.

I didn't start the crit. Instead I took tons of pictures, yelled, screamed, and otherwise motivated my friends/teammates who were racing, and enjoyed the fact that I was not in any serious sort of pain that racing typically causes.

Here are some pics of the crit...and other things...

I beat this kid in the TT, but he won the cat. 3 crit in a solo move...

And then my teammate won the field sprint for second...

My awesome buddy Anders's awesome quotient went up ten fold when he borrowed my sunglasses...

I have no idea who this chick is...but she won the coolest kit award...

My teammate Jen's smile hides the fact that she is just about dying out there...

I stayed at this guy's house...he's a crazy good mountain biker...and not too bad on the road either...

I traveled to the race with Lauren and her husband Adam (who I've mentioned racing with earlier)

When I got home, I sent an email to the organizer of Capital Stage Race that I was planning to race the next weekend telling him I was pulling out. I did however volunteer a bunch and heckled my teammates, which comped my entry fee.

Now six weeks in I'm still sick and can't ride my bike seriously :(

Cycling as of Now

So to catch up from my last post. I did an awesome training block after Independence valley, where I got my average speed on a twenty minute time trial up three or four miles per hour. (time trial is a timed race, where it's just you out there against the wind...and happens to be my biggest weakness) Then I traveled to my two sisters' graduations. The first was a five day driving trip to Alberta, Canada and back...and the second was five day trip fly'n to South Carolina. That had me off the bike for two weeks...and then when I got home I came down with a cold. But as luck would have it this cold morphed into a virus bug. After two and a half weeks I got some cool bug killer pills (antibiotics) from the doctor...which made me better. Until I ran out of them, then I went back to being half sick. So I told the doctor this and he prescribed me super bug killer pills. These seem to be effective in helping with the symptoms, but I'm still nowhere near one 100%...more like 70%.

So after five weeks off the bike and still at 70% I have this epic stage race thing. Stage races are where they combine your times from all the different stages and so there are a bunch of individual races and an overall race. Today was a 39 mile road race. The course was super hilly and super windy by my standards (this is the Columbia Gorge though, so it's not that unusual). On top of that it rained for about half the race.

Coming into it I had no idea what my legs would do. I might have some good form and doing my normal solid racing. Alas, my form was crap...that's actually a major understatement. The field (other racers) were sketchy and mostly not that strong. On the form I had a month ago I would've been giving them a good lesson on how to race a bike. Instead, with my zombified legs, I got dropped ten miles in just at the crest of a 700 ft. climb :(

However, I found a couple other guys off the back and we worked hard to finish it off. So I'm now sitting 8:54 back from the leaders and 22nd out of 28 racers. I forgot how hard it is to race when you aren't very strong (big surprise, eh).

So tomorrow I have TT (time trial) down the Columbia Gorge at eight in the morning on the old highway. It will be long (18 miles) and hard (headwinds and more big, long climbs). In the afternoon I'll race a 30 minute criterium...and when I'm gonna eat pizza and a milkshake.