Athlete Blogs
May 25th, 2009State crit champs and NJ trip...
Hey guys. Today we had a crit in Fayettville that was apparently the "state championship". I didn't realize it was until the other day, not a big deal, but looked like fun.
The course was short, had cobbles and lots of crappy pavement, so nice and technical. I like.
The M35+ field had the usual suspects, some super strong guys, and a bunch of guys I honestly feel bad for. Why? Because these races start, from the gun, at full speed. Attack and go single file until the break goes and sticks. Same thing today of course, and a few laps in Charlie brown and I went up the road with 3 dudes in tow. After a couple of laps of me yelling at them to pull through, which they of course could not, they were gone. So charlie and I lapped the field on our own about 1/2 way into the race.
Charlie is a good sprinter, he has beaten me, I have beaten him so I figured I'd see how it worked out in the end. Well, I got stuck on the wrong side of a guy with 2 corners to go, and charlie did EXACTLY what I was planning on doing, diving into the final turn at full speed and sprinting for the line - I got gapped off slighty and never closed the gap fully. 2nd place. Made a few bucks, bought my lovely wife a nice lunch and was home by 1. Fun day, what bike racing is all about.
I did feel FAR better today than yesterday, go figure. A nice "no chain" type day.
So I got to thinking, I was quite unsatisfied with my performance yesterday in the TT - and the NJ TT is on the 31st...so if I went up to MD to visit family, then popped up there to race, that could be interesting. Motivation would be 100% given the super high level of competition and it would be good to see how it all sorted out. Maybe...just maybe I'll go.
Today wasn't all that hard- so tomorrow I'll hit 2x20 at 96 to 100% plus micros, rest wed/thur, hard friday, tune up sat, hopefully race sunday.
Cheers,
Pete
______
The course was short, had cobbles and lots of crappy pavement, so nice and technical. I like.
The M35+ field had the usual suspects, some super strong guys, and a bunch of guys I honestly feel bad for. Why? Because these races start, from the gun, at full speed. Attack and go single file until the break goes and sticks. Same thing today of course, and a few laps in Charlie brown and I went up the road with 3 dudes in tow. After a couple of laps of me yelling at them to pull through, which they of course could not, they were gone. So charlie and I lapped the field on our own about 1/2 way into the race.
Charlie is a good sprinter, he has beaten me, I have beaten him so I figured I'd see how it worked out in the end. Well, I got stuck on the wrong side of a guy with 2 corners to go, and charlie did EXACTLY what I was planning on doing, diving into the final turn at full speed and sprinting for the line - I got gapped off slighty and never closed the gap fully. 2nd place. Made a few bucks, bought my lovely wife a nice lunch and was home by 1. Fun day, what bike racing is all about.
I did feel FAR better today than yesterday, go figure. A nice "no chain" type day.
So I got to thinking, I was quite unsatisfied with my performance yesterday in the TT - and the NJ TT is on the 31st...so if I went up to MD to visit family, then popped up there to race, that could be interesting. Motivation would be 100% given the super high level of competition and it would be good to see how it all sorted out. Maybe...just maybe I'll go.
Today wasn't all that hard- so tomorrow I'll hit 2x20 at 96 to 100% plus micros, rest wed/thur, hard friday, tune up sat, hopefully race sunday.
Cheers,
Pete
