a weekend of racing in nice weather

what a change. short sleeves. sun (sunburn). it was nice, for a change.

turtle pond - 47 miles, finished up a 1.5k climb. Pretty much sat in and tried to stop my wheels from squeecking (yea, I was THAT guy). Was in a terrible spot going into the last time up the climb, found nate's (brandies) wheel and he picked off about 20 ppl, I came around, dropped the hammer, felt good, came to the false flat at 50m and found myself in no mans land between 10-15 riders who were 100m clear of the other 75-80 ppl (or whatever was left of the original field of 100) with a UVM kid about 10m ahead of me. I was feeling cooked, and just rolled in for 15-20th. A few guys off the front, and then however many were ahead of me. I lost my cellphone, got a sunburn, and locked up my rear wheel, ruining a tubular. Christian had a mechnical (go figure, he doesn't take care of his bike), the girls were dumb and none of them brought enough water. Linnea dropped out in like 9th place, although she did awesome for her first race and having ridden 4 times this year, she is an animal. rose missed her start and rode solo, sarah and delia were otb pretty quickly. I beat a bunch of collegiate b riders, giving me some more confidence for riding b's. We spent the night at unh, which was fun

saco training crit - I skipped the b race, rode like 2 laps of it to warmup and spent a lap pulling sarah up to a wheel. A race was a bigger field (30 or so maybe?) no colavita pro, but a bunch of other pro guys (some team, 6 or 7 of them were there). I bridged to a few promising looking break's, made a few attacks of my own, chased, took some (rather short/wimpy) pulls, and generally raced animated-ly again. Coming into the sprint, I was 2nd wheel, but with 5 guys off the front, and another 6 came past me in the sprint (confirming I can't sprint), although I spent a LONG time in the last 1000m out of the saddle just trying to hold the wheel. This series should have a u23 leader, just so I can win by default (I think). Heck, I would prbly still take u25.

176 miles for the week (with 2 days off, 1 for rest, 1 because my head wasn't up for it). That puts me at 2005 miles for the year.

every have one of those days

where nothing goes right? I had one today. First I had to get up at 8:30 for a meeting, I don't have class till 11. Then I did terribly on my pysch midterm, thats two of them now. Then my day went up a bit as I got to see family friends who were visiting the school and a professor helped me out with research for a paper. Then my female situation complicated itself. So I decided to go for a bike ride. It was super windy, but I was pissed and riding hard. I did my ever favorite love to hate it bigalow hill, and on my way back got a flat, about 8 miles from either the shop or campus. Pissed off, I just rode the 8 miles (8.43 actaully) at ~ 22mph just hoping I wouldn't die (it was a rear flat). I was on the p.o.s. wheels, so how much more damage could I do to them? (none). On the bright side, It was a very hard 8 miles and I got in a good workout. Now I have mastik on my hands (yes tubular glue mastik) as I used some to try to glue the leather back onto the shell of my saddle, which is slowly pealing off.

Maybe tmrw will be better. I think any one of 4 packages in the mail for me, if they showed up, would make me happy.

how to respond?

how do you respond to vatech? tyler said it better than i ever could, so read what he wrote.

podium time

Rose and I decided to wake up at 4:45am to drive down to the saco training crit. Turns out we could have slept till 6 and still be fine, but whatever. I sat in most of the b race, went to take one pull and got yelled at by some guy who was just in general grumpy, so I just sat in the back with the a racers. 15 miles done. 20 or so mph avg. Flat and boring course. Rose leads out the field, and gets passed by everyone.

I roll around, a race lines up, we start, rose is there, then disappears. She took off to ride to a nearby gas station to refill water. While she is gone, some dude in a full colavita kit joins in late. At first I think, oh, guess he is on the masters team. Get closer, and he has the helmet, the booties, the gloves, the bike, his name on the top tube. Uh-oh time. I go over and talk (I sort of know 2 of the guys on colavita from targetraining last year, at least I met them once). Things are cruising, I am feeling good. I realize I have half a bottle and a pack of clif blocks...this could be interesting, seeing as I ate a muffin and coffee for breakfast. Turns out (but I didn't know this at the time) colavita guy is dan vaillancourt, from saco. Had I known that, I probably would NOT have tried to follow his every attack, but I didn't know that. So I follow his attacks, at like 32mph, for awhile. I think we are going fast, Dan probably wasn't breaking a sweat (well, it was like 44 degrees out). We come to the first preem in a group of 5, and I take second behind Dan. He won 5 bucks, I get nothing. We get caught, I recover, another break goes, another preem, I take 2nd (and no money) again but this time behind a SMCC guy (souther maine cycling club). SMCC had like easily 1/2 the field. I realize soon that dan is just attacking to soften up the field/break my legs. So after 4 or 5, I decide to just sit in and let someone pull me up. Eventually, Dan and some guy go. Actaully 4 or 5 are up there. 1 falls off. I stop paying attention, but I guess 2 more fall off. They are gone, and the race is for 3rd (although I thought it was for 5th). Some little attacks go, but SMCC pulls them back. I attack at 2 to go, but no one comes with and I don't feel like riding solo for that long, so I rejoin the 25 person or so group. Bell lap comes, and I jump up to the paceline in the first corner. Next turn, I jump up to 5th wheel. At what I judge to be 1km to go, where there is a nice little tailwind and a straight, with only 2 turns, 1 gradual false flat, and the wind, to go, I decide, screw this whole pack finish get outsprinted in crits thing. So I turn on the jets.

I put my head down, count out 45 pedal strokes, look behind, and there is a guy with me. He comes through, then me. I say, lets make this work, between gasps. We take the 2nd to last turn, hit the hill and the wind, and my legs hurt. I say, you can have it if we make it to the line, I don't have anything left, as I try to get out of the saddle to hold his wheel. We hit the real flat and a crosswind, take the last turn, have about 600m to go, I look back, he looks back, I am on his wheel, I say, stop looking back, lets go. As in, I feel good, i'll take a pull. However this passes on SMCC guy (the one who outsprinted me for a preem earlier), because he pulls me. His speed starts to slow at 300m, and I am wondering, how long untill the pack comes flying by. We pass the 200m sign, I look back, see the pack about 100m behind us, and decide to just go for it. At 125 (or so) m to go, I come around SMCC guy and just give it all I have. No looking back, just pure out of the saddle vision is going blurry hammering. My legs hurt. My body hurts. I use what little I have left to attempt a bike throw (in case anyone was near, I had no idea) and come across. While trying to hold down the puke that feels like coming up, I turn around to see about 6 guys. I have no idea if SMCC made it or not, but I know I did. I ride a cool down lap, go talk to SMCC (I apologized for coming around after I said I wouldn't, he said no worries, you played your tactics well and turns out he held off the pack). Talk to dan briefly, go over to grab my sweatshirt, and find out I took 3rd. Woot. Whatever, it was a training race, but still, I'm happy. I took a risk in a crit and it paid off. Turns out, I missed $$ in both of the preems I went for, and the payout was 2 deep. So no money, but something? Oh wait, uscf pts towards the upgrade. 4 of them, brining the grand total to 4. I am 1/4 there now I guess. If nothing, I furthered my reputation as a guy who just attacks and attacks....

181 miles for the week. 18--something for the year. UNH next week. I am feeling good. Hurray bike racing. Both HUP and COLBY kits are supposed to arrive this week, along with my arm warmers. And more clif bars. And no real schoolwork. BUT MORE FRIGGEN SNOW. BOO. (I am clearly still in post-race delerium).

that was fun

wed. ride recap -
47 degrees (semi-warmth, finally) 15mph wind (finally, a "not" windy day)
2hrs, 28minutes, 42 seconds of riding. 48.53miles travelled (thats like mid 19-20mph avg.). 4X12min 89-90% Intervals, 4 minutes recovery (ouch). Rode out by myself, got into the intervals pretty quickly and did them man-style (into the wind). Was feeling good. Just finished up with intervals when I saw christian going the other way, about halfway through the lake loop (a 30 mile loop, I had done a 15 mile loop and then done the lake loop). I turn around, he is just out to kill himself (when is he not?) and he offers to double the legnth of my pulls, as he has less than an hour on the bike, and I have somewhere shy of two. This of course doesn't happen, and I find myself out of the saddle more and more, staring at his rear hub trying to just hold it. Then he pulls through, I kill myself for awhile (at this point my legs hurt to the point I can't put my hr past 85%), and on and on we go. On the last climb (after a fairly hilly ride, not the craziest around here, but in the top 3 or 4 hilliest routes we normally do), it is I who drops christian, not the other way around (as I was expecting). We roll back onto campus, my legs hurting in the satisfied, that was a good ride, type of way.

mike, of carnegie (see pictures/stories below) took 5th in a 1/2/3/4 training crit tonight. 3 guys up the road, he was in a second group of 4, he and the guy ahead of him just avoided getting swallowed by the pack at the line. First off, awesome job, congrats. Second, collegiate crits are stupid....he is the guy usually right around me, and he can take 5th in a 1/2/3/4. The guy who was 4th is a cat 1 who won the pa state crit last year. Yet mike has 0 ECCC pts this year (that means no top 12's). Thats just dumb. Third, maine needs weeknight crits.