So the bike racing season goes for me: Good to Awful.I don't know what I'm doing. I've gone from being in the top 6 or 7 heading into the last 50 feet of Jeff Cup (before 2 guys crashed a few feet in front of me and ended my top 10 finish) to getting dropped and lapped at Bunny Hop, a self proclaimed "good crit for beginners." Pathetic really.
I'm actually chuckling to myself right now (and shaking my head). Things have been off since last Thursday, starting with tired legs, but I was still able to post respectable top third finishes in the Tour de Ephrata RR and TT (not so much in the crit).
Maybe crits aren't my thing, but still, I usually have no problem hanging in and giving it a go even. It was raining pretty heavily today and I can honestly say that I cornered like I was 8 and it was my 5th ride on a bike. I consistently lost ground at every turn and it eventually became a TT on every straight-away to try and catch up to the main group. In the end it wasn't doable.I didn't use my bike computer for the race. I'm sure it would have been fine, but I didn't want to chance getting any water into the Garmin 705 head unit with the heavy rain. Maybe in retrospect I just wasn't too excited for this race and that manifested itself in more ways than not using my computer.
I wasn't too upset at the end and managed a smile for Cezanne. She, of course, was being a really supportive wife and out there in the rain cheering me on...and watching me drift further and further back. She also put up with my slight grumpiness on the drive over to the crit. This has been the closest race to our place, but leave it to downtown DC to always have stuff closed off! We had to detour, u-turn, backtrack because the police had shut down what seemed like random streets.So, I'm not sure where this leaves me and racing. I'm scheduled to race next Saturday (May 9) at the Fort Ritchie Criterium. After that I leave for a week long trip to go RVing, camping and hiking with my best highschool buds out in Zion National Park and Grand Canyon National Park. I'm out of town Memorial Day weekend as well as the weekend of June 6/7 (Toon's wedding!!!), so it's possible that after the race on May 9, I might not race until the Tour of Washington County on June 20-21, which is a stage race like Ephrata.
The possibility exists to do a the Fulton Road Race in Lancaster County, PA on May 30, but not sure about that weekend yet.
So I'm thinking I should try to bury myself with a tough week of training this week (if I can muster it) and not worry about a result in the Fort Ritchie Crit and then use this next week's trip as a rest week and start things from there.
Including the 2 crits I did in San Diego last year, the 3 Tradezone practice races at the beginning of this year, today was my 10th mass start, so I could put in for my upgrade to Cat 4. I'm still undecided if I'll put it in soon or after the last race of the season and then just start fresh as a Cat 4 next year.
On Saturday Cezanne and I visited 2 Embassies in DC as part of the Passport to DC event. The 2 closest Embassies to our place were Iraq and Nepal, so we decided to walk to both. The line to get into the Iraqi Embassy was so long we went to Nepal first. Above is my gorgeous wife outside of the Nepal Embassy.
We learned that Nepal is bordered by India on 3 sides and China on the other. They served some curried potatoes with some sort of dry rice cereal. It was good!
We worked our way back around to the Iraq Embassy and the line was about half the size. Above pic is of the line.
Yup, this is the Embassy. We went through a metal detector and on in. They had some old artifacts and a brochure with the history of Iraq and a ton of photos of the Iraqi troops working with US troops.
Out back they did a little Iraqi dancing and they had Iraqi food. The dancing and food was surprisingly like Greek dancing and food.
On the way home we walked a different way than we had ever been and approached the National Cathedral from a different angle.
8 comments:
Hey Chris,
I'm really enjoying your blog. Keep me posted on the next race. Also, can't wait to move to DC so we can hang out in super long lines at museums and embassies. Take care,
Ricardo
a) A bike computer should make no difference in your race... so never think that it had an affect on you. If anything, computers and HRMs only tell us bad news in a race ("Oh crap, i'm already at 188 bpm!"). Technical courses get to all of us some of the time, and some of us all of the time. I'm one of them, but hey, you can only get better.
b) My totally inexpert advice would be to race whichever races you've already signed up for as a cat 5. Then my recommendation would be to cat-up to the 4s before the end of the season so you can dabble in a Cat4 race or two before ramping up your winter-training plans.
Ricardo! Glad you found the blog okay and good to hear you are enjoying it. I got lucky at the Tour de Ephrata with some great pics. Can't wait for you guys to get out here, it's going to be a lot of fun and so much to do. Have fun on your trip, I'm jealous!
Sig,
Thanks for the help and advice, much appreciated. Hope to see you out there at some point.
Yeah, crashes will do that to you. Especially when the people you are racing with have less to lose (or they are too stupid to realize they could die) on a super sketchy course. Of course, the only place to be in a race like that is top5. It might take a huge effort to get there, but just do what it takes. You'll spend less energy and will be less likely to crash--as if you dont know this already.
Sometimes midseason breaks do wonders for you!
First excuse any typos, I'm on my iPod.
I am similarly taking a midseason break after fort ritchie. It's the right time and will make the summer races better
I'd recommed putting in for your upgrade after Washington co. Poolesville is a 4/5 race so if you put in before that you should get it in July
Also think about doing church creek the week before Washington co. Doing a 40k tt will make a 20 seem easy
Oh, iraced my entire first season sans computer
Hey -
I blame it all on that 2 mile an hour ass kicking we gave each other in the Park on Friday evening.
In seriousness, you (got) crashed at Jeff Cup. That's in your head, and it might take a while to get out. I'm dealing with the same thing, and the crits are where pack spook becomes wicked obvious. You are plenty strong enough to hang out in the top 5 or 10 of a Cat 5 crit all day and then some, think of that as your safety valve - it's a much better world up there.
No computer = no problem. If your computer records and it's wireless, you can chuck it in your jersey pocket to see the stuff later, but you should absolutely not let the computer dictate how you race. Your plan and the wheel in front of you do that.
Take a break. As I think I said in the park, it's a long season and you're riding your bike like you never have before.
No Cat 5 at Poolesville, I just heard that the other night.
Dave, thanks, you're right on a lot of levels. Great running in to you in the park. Why did you push me so hard when you knew I was racing on Sunday? :) Kidding.
I'm hoping to be out there today tooling around if the rain holds off.
No CAT 5 Poolesville RR...that leaves me with the technical (I hear) Reston Crit. That's right up my alley and comfort zone, hopefully it will be raining too. :)
JW, you've won Reston the past 2 years. As a 3 last year and as a 4 the year before? Give me some tips...off-line... :)
Maybe you can give out your secrets now that you're on the west coast.
Post a Comment