some time off, and a some time on

I haven't updated lately because I hadn't been shaving my legs. I think that if you have un-shaved legs the only thing you should be blogging about is either other peoples races, which I did for a while, or maybe your wife and kids. I don't have a wife or kids, so I stopped blogging while the hair got long. Between staying home for exams one weekend, going hiking some, and going home for another it was a few weekends away from racing. Hence the three weeks of unshaved legs. I did still do some race rides and what not, just nothing very fast on the weekends. A needed rest and good departure from what I'd been doing all spring so far. I wasn't real productive in my time away from racing because I still don't have a job, but it was still worth while. I'm going to refocus on the job hunt though.

So in a come back from my sabbatical I went racing this weekend. It went well. Tim's perspective is available here, but I'll give you mine too.

There were a lot of different races to choose from, a crit in DC that had big money, lots of races in NJ again with big money, a TN omnium, and NC crit champs on monday. After some indecisions I went to TN with Andrew and Matt. Missing the TT we only stayed one night to partake in the crit and road race.

The crit went well. Long story short it was a small field with pretty much everyone being cat 2's. Everyone was competent enough to sit on a wheel but not really drive it. So it was mostly a ride slow, someone attacks, everyone goes fast chasing, catch, go slow until another attack sort of crit. I went with a few moves and bridged to a few others. In the end it was coming down to a field sprint. I found my way to Andrew's wheel. He moved well through the field in the closing laps. He finished second while making his move to come around the guy who won. I was on Andrew's wheel for second unable to come around.

In other news, my already falling apart rear wheel is continuing to fall apart. First it was the bearings, now the shifting is at a loss, and it is wobbling all over the place. It'll get fixed eventually.

We stayed at a nice Double Tree and had mexican for dinner. The mexican food was all right. I ordered something massive (Haciendo Special) that provided dinner and lunch the next day.

The road race was the real story of the weekend. I did not know the course before the morning of but there were rumors of some climbs. I picked up a course map on the start line and took it with me during the race, even though it got sweaty so that it wouldn't come back out of my pocket during the race when I wanted it. The map served as a good luck charm on the course marshal free course none the less. Without a power meter (the wheel is nearly blown remember) I have little to say of how hard it really was. But we went easy the 9 miles into the first 3 mile climb. Tim and then I hit it up that climb. On the other side there were five of us. Into a hard downhill un-swept turn and an I-9 rider went down taking three riders minus Tim down with him. I tore my hand a bit and my hip pretty well. Gloves were in my back pocket.

We hit it pretty well to the second climb trying to keep clear from the closely chasing group. Over the second 1.5 mile climb it was down to just Tim, David and I. We had 2 min at that point. We drove hard on the open highway stretches and kept the pace smooth on the more twisty rolling back roads. Many of the back roads reminded me of Blacksburg riding in the way that they were slightly blind, twisted around and undulated consistently.

Even though we never heard another time check I'm sure the gap was even greater by now. I had no computer on my bike to tell me distance, only time and heart rate which made for an interesting perspective of the race. Going up the last smallest climb I attacked. Tim was following but at a distance. David was gone. I felt comfortable that we had at least 2, if not more like 4 min over the field by this point. If Tim caught me we could keep working, if he didn't catch me, I though we could both comfortably make it to the line.

I had eaten what of my pop-tarts hadn't fallen on the ground and I had been out of water for a little while now. The familiar topography came in handy. There were occasional downhills to tuck and rest on. There was a slight drizzle keeping the temperature down. Not knowing the distance left (it turned out to be 12-14 miles), I estimated my time of arrival as 12:00, but at noon when I wasn't at the finish yet. I remembered that we started at 8:10, so I added 10min to my estimate. It was right on. I checked back every once in a while but never saw anyone. There wasn't a camera at the finish, but if there had been, in the words of Joe Parkin, "there was no one else in the photo." I won, my first p/1/2 win, even though there were no pros and only a few 1's. Tim held on very strong for second about 1.5min behind me. David and an I-9 rider came in another few minutes behind Tim. The field was 7-8min back. Andrew won the field sprint for 5th. Ben had caught the group with Andrew and finished 2 spots down on him for 7th.

I drank some beer courtesy of Ben while I got my hip cleaned up. Then I ate my left over mexican food, it was good. We sat around for a few hours calculating our own results. I've woke up stuck to the sheets the past two nights, but not in the 15year old boy way, in the bike racer hits the pavement sort of way.