Waynesboro Grand Prix #1 (CAT 5)

95 degrees at the start.

the course-basically one long up hill and one long down hill with a tad bit of flat in between. everything in total= 1 mile.

at the whistle a few guys really jammed it and i grabbed on.

i noticed i felt like crap...repeat of the Jeff Cup race, type of feeling.

decided to do little to no pulling, and try and just hang on.

Did some pulling anyway.

fell of the back of the breakaway a couple of times.

caught back on. got dehydrated.

put in one stupid "attack" on the last lap...(i should have saved it.)

felt horrible.

led up the hill 200m from the finish.

got passed. hit the wheel of the eventual winner.

bike went sideways. caught the bike.

and managed 3rd place.

afterwards i wanted to crawl into a dark cold wet place and die.

Wednesday Night @ Haymarket

CYCLING
The guys from my team convinced me to show up at the Wednesday night training ride out of Haymarket. I thought i may be getting in over my head knowing some of the people that show up and that they are a much higher caliber group of riders.

I didn't regret it, on the contrary, i was very happy i went through with it. Its been a very long time since i rode in a group like that. I felt like i was 15 again, when i first started riding, very antsy. I would go as far as to say jumpy, a far cry from the smooth and fluid riders that populated the rest of the group.

But, i did my share of pulls, contended in their sprint sections, and made some (short lived & worthless) attacks. And I'm gaining a bit more confidence.

Another (super) short Crit on Sunday...i think 30 mins? geez that's short.

OH! and we got our new kits. they look sweet. pics shortly.

CAPS GAME
...bummer. way to ruin my evening.
Also, a good way to feel weird is to go to sit at the bar by yourself and eat a salad and potato with water.

HOUSE
I'm rebuilding the deck on Monday and Tuesday next week...ripping up the floor boards and putting in new ones. should be nice to have a real deck. AND they are going to start our basement this next week...THANK GOD.

Syns Fit CAT 5 race (1st!)

The race started off quick. Some of the evolution guys thought it wise to sprint from lap one...which lasted about a lap or two. It was pretty uneventful for a while. a few guys tried to go only to die soon after getting off the front or they would just hover about 3-5 seconds out in front.

About halfway through the race as we rolled up to the first corner, someone in the middle of the pack did something stupid and wrecked, causing a great number of riders to wreck as well. We went from 50(riders) to 25 quick. i got stuck behind the wreck and nearly wrapped up in it but i avoided and then chased to get back on...i didn't have to extend myself that much.

A lap or so after the wreck we were cruising fairly slow so i blew off the front and got a gap. Not only did i get a decent gap but i felt great. i asked the moto-ref if the guy up the road was getting lapped or on a breakaway, which it was the latter. I thought once i got to him maybe we could work together but he couldn't hang. I stayed away for a couple laps, but soon after i was slowly getting caught so i just sat up altogether and jumped back on near the front.

More people would put in an attack, again, only to die right off the front. That went on till the last lap. I was getting screwed in the corners because no one has the balls to lean a bike over, instead they grab their brakes.... So i was near the middle/back of the pack after turn 1 of 2 on the last lap. My only lane was up the gutter so i gunned it up the gutter inches from the curb, got about 6th wheel into the last corner. the front was fairly spread out and i thought my race was pretty much over...maybe a podium. So again i gunned it and to my own amazement started to pass everyone. i was quicklygaining places-5th, 4th, 3rd (podium!) 2nd, and then 1st by a bike length.

karma in different forms

Yesterday after making fun of a few people and complaining to one of my "teammates"for not wanting to join me, i ventured forth into the cold rain. Weather.com said "currently 51 and feels like 51". To keep it short...it was not 51 degrees out. it felt more like getting soaking wet and then sitting in front of an A/C unit on full blast. Not to mention i felt like crap anyway. I tried to go do a few hill climbs but once i arrived and ramped up the first steep section i decided that it wouldn't really benefit my body to pound it further into oblivion than it already was.
I'm not sure if it was the cold, not enough rest, not enough nutrition, a combination of those or what, but i couldn't hack it yesterday at all. I basically went straight home; kind of slow.

After a long hot bath (my wife caulked the shower), i went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the opening playoff game, Caps vs Rangers. Every time i would send Dan a text full of smack talk the Rangers would score. literally every time...4-3 Final score. ugh.
Driving the 2.5 miles home from the bar (which i should have walked to begin with but i was being lazy) , i managed to get a speeding ticket. 64 in a 45. nice guy at least. So now I'm up 3-2 vs my wife. bummer.

We have sent out the contract to get our basement fixed FINALLY. also our lawyers are serving the papers to the people we are suing.

race on saturday...

a litte bit of success

Didn't get to follow through on riding with Zach on thursday. he got out of work late and i had to get home to get over to the inlaws. kind of a blown day for riding for me...

Yesterday though, we planned on the same thing...meeting up and racing up Bull Run Mt. and the roads we were planning on going up i had confused with some others. I hadn't seen the roads he knew about...that included about 3 straight steep sections and a bunch of hard switchbacks, also in the middle a short flat/downhill to break up your rhythm.

Anyway, the first time he beat me up by over a minute. and the second time i beat him by just a little bit. It would have been more had he not pulled me back just coming up to the top. That was a huge accomplishment for me though...to beat Zach up the Mt. I'm not the best climber and he is actually pretty good at it. Not to mention we made it up in the low 12's (minutes that is), the first time i made it up in about 15 mins.

we are planning on doing that once a week. its a fantastic workout. churning up the hill at a slow 8-9 mph sometimes slower...it was fun. Hopefully i'll be able to beat him again. I pulled a fast one on him on the steep section and managed through the switchbacks.

tomorrow 8 am. Paris-Roubaix. exciting. i'll be avoiding anything and everything cycling until i watch the recorded version i'll have later in the afternoon.

New Stuff old stuff

A few new things going on.

• Like training. One of the guys on my team gave me a very basic workout to include in my typical riding week. And I've really been enjoying it. Along with that i took some other advice which is rest. Oddly enough i find that the difficult part, whether its riding slowly or not at all. I took last Friday off altogether during which i thought i was going to explode from anxiousness, but it worked out; legs recovered and i felt great come Sunday/race time.
• Still losing weight, though its becoming more difficult, I'm having to be more meticulous about what i consume and how often.
• New commuter bag/day-pack for hiking. (Dan-the one we got from REI sucks...as you know, since you broke the straps 3 times.) Here the old and new side by side-

• Ben is trying to get me to go race the track series "Go Fast Turn Left" Tuesday nights. I'm not terribly interested.
• I get to race twice a night in May on Wednesdays. I'll Cat up in May for sure now.
• Next weekend kicks off nonstop racing for a month and a half. exciting
• Today I'm going to go try and keep up with Zach as he goes up and down Bull Run Mt.

OLD

• I still have no basement.

Fawn Grove Roubaix (another CAT 5 mistake)

Fawn Grove brought out all kinds of riders...or at least all different kinds of gear for the bikes. In my group alone i saw a few triple cranksets, camelbacks, and thin worn down 700x23c. Other excentricities included a nice set of super deep carbon wheels (it was really windy and crappy road conditions), a few cross bikes (slighty over the top), and the list goes on.

The hills ended up being very short but also steep, so those along with the trecherously deep gravel section, it broke everything up pretty quickly. Which in my group (4/5) i figured would happen. All of a sudden i was out in front with 4 other decently strong guys chasing down the one guy who was pretty far off the front. And to be honestly fair...we weren't really chasing nor trying to breakaway from the group. Just keeping a mildly hard tempo. We descended the biggest down hill into a T-bone intersection and everyone ahead of me went left, and i followed without thinking. Shortly after i though it was weird that the pack wasn't in sight since it was a long straight uphill. we all turned around expecting the worst...we went the wrong way, which was the case. A guy from NCVC (Dan Paulson) and i rode the rest of the race together, not really pushing it too hard, but still managed to beat most of the field. 27th and 28th.

The most dissapointing thing is that i felt really good and was doing really well. Probably would have done really well too had i not made that silly mistake.

John Nusbaum took 11 in the 3/4 field, which had he done the 40+ group, he very well may have won. Simeon Green (dude from south France) took 6th in the Pro/1/2 field. He rode up with John and i to the race. Really nice guy.

2 weeks till Syns-Fit.

Silly netflix

I recently returned the movie Marley & Me to netflix. And while having not rated the movie, i logged onto my account to see that they were asking me to rate it so they can recommend two movies i would like depending on my rating.

i would give Marley & Me 3 stars. its decent at best...enjoyable.

So netflix pondered for a moment and searched its database in its entirety, then decided that having given 3 stars to Marley & Me that i would really enjoy the movies Young @ Heart and Synecdoche, New York.

WHAT? How does that make sense? No offense to Marley & Me, but those are two quality movies. Not sure how they justify this conclusion.

redemption?

Another race is a few days away. I felt pretty embarrassed after the last race and I'm hoping to redeem myself.

The finish sprint-

You can kind of see the havoc going on down the road.

NOTE: I'm not sure if my wife knows the camera has a zoom feature. sorry.