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.