meat grinder
what a weekend. friday night the curtes boys arrived and we headed to the 'meet the pros' event at machinery row. cal came with which limited my time there which was ok. we stopped on our way home for some mac and cheese at noodles and then home to get some rest. saturday morning came fast and racing started at 9:00 am. i headed over and did a lap knowing the course would be completely different by my race time of 2:45. mike finished in the top 25 in the 45+ on a very dangerous course - props to him. jeff and joe both didn't finish for different reasons in the 40+ race. i went home to rest (and bake bread) and boy the time went slow. finally, i headed over and got the trainer set up. i spun for a good 40 minutes ahead of the race and i think i need to incorporate that into my pre-race routine because i felt really good. line up always comes quick and all of a sudden it was time to race. my call up was mid 40's and i was amongst 7 or 8 other guys from wca masters racing. the start was fast and sketchy but i managed to avoid any major mishaps. the first time up the big hill was a runner due to traffic (i ended up running it 3 of 5 laps). then, it was just focus on staying upright and riding as hard as i could at all times. i'm not sure of the criteria they applied but i somehow i was the last one on the lead lap. i'm very happy with my effort - 41st is where i should be because there was nothing more i could do to ride any faster.
we had a great night at our place on saturday, eating good food with a few nice beers exchanging race stories. sunday morning we grabbed the mac and set it up in the living room and watched the whole belgian national championships and then switched and watched most of the czech championships. nys and stybar really make it looks easy. cal, robin and i headed over to the course in time to watch the women's race - there were great crowds and watching katie compton crush it was amazing. but that was just a time trial. the men's race was a race with no less than 5 guys duking it out together until 2 laps to go. my guy j-pow pulled away and it was so exciting seeming him win it on the same course i raced on the day before. those guys are so good - lap times in the low 6 minute range (we were closer to 10).
after a great weekend of bike racing we took down the christmas decorations which sucked. we had the worst tree ever and literally just about every needle came off taking it out. it was a dud for sure and makes me wonder if an artificial tree makes more sense... i like the process of getting the tree but this was bad.
i can tell it was a great weekend because i am very tired this morning. it was hard to leave with everyone else in the house still sleeping (oliver included).
i'm going to take a few days to recover and then i'll start doing some unstructured things. the past few months have showed me that if i'm a little more formalized with my training i can see improved results and now i'm excited to make a plan for 2012.
happy monday.
we had a great night at our place on saturday, eating good food with a few nice beers exchanging race stories. sunday morning we grabbed the mac and set it up in the living room and watched the whole belgian national championships and then switched and watched most of the czech championships. nys and stybar really make it looks easy. cal, robin and i headed over to the course in time to watch the women's race - there were great crowds and watching katie compton crush it was amazing. but that was just a time trial. the men's race was a race with no less than 5 guys duking it out together until 2 laps to go. my guy j-pow pulled away and it was so exciting seeming him win it on the same course i raced on the day before. those guys are so good - lap times in the low 6 minute range (we were closer to 10).
after a great weekend of bike racing we took down the christmas decorations which sucked. we had the worst tree ever and literally just about every needle came off taking it out. it was a dud for sure and makes me wonder if an artificial tree makes more sense... i like the process of getting the tree but this was bad.
i can tell it was a great weekend because i am very tired this morning. it was hard to leave with everyone else in the house still sleeping (oliver included).
i'm going to take a few days to recover and then i'll start doing some unstructured things. the past few months have showed me that if i'm a little more formalized with my training i can see improved results and now i'm excited to make a plan for 2012.
happy monday.
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