Work, life, and racing.

I guess it's been some time since I last blogged.
Well, work got busy with about two weeks of straight travel and of course I didn't have a chance to ride. Right after the last race, Ft. Ritchie, I really didn't have a chance to even clean the soiled bike and I left on my business trip to New York City. Yes, you know it, all day long meetings and poor eating habits.

I got home late Tuesday night and tried to take a look at the bike. The headset was stiff from all of the grit from the wet race. I drained my bike, lubed the headset a bit then hung it back up. My rear tire was flat from the shard of glass which caused it to leak right after the completion of the race. Luckily it was after the race had completed!

The next day I went to work and then left for another couple of days. This time it was worse as the airline lost my luggage and then the delivery process seemed to be about 5 hours delayed every time they tried to deliver it. So I missed it at every turn, till I finally was forced to stay an extra night, because the flight was delayed so much that I would not have been able to get back to DC. Oh well, that's what flying is like these days.

Saturday, I don't know what happened as just happened. Oh yeah... Friday evening, I had enough time to get home from a long day from work, pick up some used cassettes from the Funga, and depart for the beach (Cape Henlopen) where my family was camping with some friends. I decided to bring my bike along knowing that I could probably ride at the beach. Not so, I arrived Friday night just to be able to grab some late dinner and a couple glasses of wine at a nice wine and pizza bar. I had a sleepless night hearing all of the rain splattering on the roof and sides of the tent. I was wondering when the tent might leak. Luckily, North Face makes some nice tents. No leaks in our tent or my children's tent. Either way, I didn't have a good sleep. The next morning we woke up early, had some breakfast and headed to the beach. I crashed out on the beach to catch up on some sleep... which I was lacking all week. The weather was beautiful, great for a nice ride, however I was snoozing on the beach. At noon our friends arrived, had lunch, set up their tent we headed back to the beach again. We stayed for another 3 hours and I did get a bit too much sun as my face was a bit burnt and chest and back.

We headed back to get ready for dinner with the rest of the extended group of people. It went on and on, cooking, drinking, cooking, eating, drinking, it almost seemed like more drinking than anything else. My wife put the kids to bed and then came back to join us... it lasted another couple of hours and then I dragged myself back to the tent to pass out.

The kids got up early the next morning, none of the adults wanted to get up, even one of the adults from the other family dragged his son over to our campsite, dropped him off with our kids and I believe he went back to bed. Nice, I think I tried to get an hour more of shut eye, however couldn't get any real rest. We went back to the beach for a few hours, tried to get some more sleep, I think actually did fall asleep for about 30 minutes or so. We had to leave by 1:00 pm, so we packed it up and left. (No biking at all!!)

We had to rush home as my wife had an event to go to, which I dropped out of. Luckily she had another friend attend as a replacement for me. I had to catch a plane that evening for another meeting on Monday. I had enough time to get home, shower, pack, and arrive at the airport just in time for my flight.

Monday, Tuesday were long days, in meetings all day. Luckily I didn't lose my luggage this time around. To say the least, I was still tired from the week before. Each day was early and the nights were late. This was wearing on me. After I got back into town, on Wednesday through Friday, I was catching up on work. I still haven't caught up yet. I rode in on Friday and I was feeling the effects of being off the bike.

Saturday, I decided to race at Bike Jam. What a nice coordinated event! Unfortunately I checked the registration the night before and the 30/40+ race was already booked full. Well, I would give it a chance the next day to see if anyone didn't show. I arrived and they said that I may not have a chance to get in, however I could check back right before registration closed. Luckily, a few didn't show and I was able be substituted in. With no warm up, we started up. Fast and furious was all I could say. I was definitely not in shape with all of the accelerations. Several times attacks happened, and I was able to hang in there. The beating was taking the toll. A solo crash happened a little bit before the start/finish line and that was enough to produce another gap. SuperDave took advantage of this and away he went with about 8 other riders, who were chasing down Ramon and another rider who were away by about 20 seconds for a few laps now. I didn't have the power to react, I saw it happen, but because of the wind and the fact that I was tired, I just sat in watching this group of riders ride away. About another lap later, I saw how the Artemis/Immediate Mortgage rider the Kelly Benefit Strategies/LSV were trying to control the pack and block for their breakaway riders. I attacked on the back stretch to see if I could get away and possibly chase down the pack in front, no such luck, I pulled for a half a lap and no one pulled around me to help. I pretty much spent myself and moved towards the back. With only 4 laps to go, I had to see if I had enough energy in reserve to make a good final sprint for 10th place or so. On the last lap, the pack got aggressive, there was definitely some pushing going around as I went elbow to elbow and shoulder to shoulder with one rider, for about 20 meters or so, luckily no real forceful motions so neither of us went down, (he probably was a 40+rider too, as we understand that we're too old to crash). I know the others behind were a bit weary about us wobbling as I could hear a few whooah! and watch out!! That incident dropped me back several spots and I spent the last lap trying to make my way back up. By the last turn, there was definitely some braking and I didn't have the momentum to glide me forward, so I had to start putting out the power early, I made up a several places but not enough to get to the front of the sprint. Apparently I ended up 18th, uggh. Not too good, however I was happy not to be dropped and to know that I could still hang in there even without riding for almost two weeks.
I enjoyed the race course, and hope it will be held next year and maybe life won't get in the way again. (of course it will)

Today, I took a rest day, not by choice, however I had to run errands in the morning, buy tires for the car, then take my parents to the airport, play with the children at the park, in the afternoon, watch a movie, and then have dinner, blog a bit, then do more work as I still haven't caught up, and go to bed. Tomorrow will probably be the same as today, though it will be more family stuff than today, if that is possible and maybe an afternoon party to go to if I am lucky.

So...as the title of the blog states... don't train like me.

By the way, it looks like Murad is completely booked for the CAT3's so... I guess I won't be participating in that race. CSC maybe??? It doesn't look good for that one as I will be having a late dinner at a friend house the night before. Who knows what's next.

After Poolesville update.

We'll it's about time I update my blog.

Since Carl Dolan, I haven't done any racing. Good thing because from the stories about Poolesville, it was pretty sketchy. Bottles flying all over the place, crashes left and right, poison ivy... you know all of the things you don't want to be a part of. I was really thinking of going, however, I acted responsibly and stayed home with the kids. I don't think I would have made the race and back before my daughter's appointment. If I crashed... well, who knows... all hell would have broken loose. My wife would have been in a panic as she was out of town in NYC playing with her friend. My kids would probably not know where I was as I would have brought them to the race.
Well to say the least, it wouldn't be something I wanted to experience, so I didn't go. I was e-mailing a fellow rider, providing him tips on who to watch, what to watch for, and so on. He apparently finished the 40+/50+ race and placed decently. Attrition was big in the races. 75 racers start and only 25 finish? Well, I have to say something about the 50+ riders. They sure are tough. It was a pretty equal split of the to 10 finishers 5 were 50+ riders and 5 were 40+.

I've been riding to and from work about 3 times a week. It's about a 10 mile ride each way. It keeps me in shape to a certain degree, however it doesn't provide the longer 30-40 mile ride which will help me in keep my endurance up for the longer races. I ride the hill ride on Wednesday about half the time. I've actually gotten to memorize the route now. It is a decent ride, with several individuals sprinting up the hills and taking the KOM. Is that good for training? I don't really know. I've been feeling that I need a bit of change in my routine so this evening I did the horrible drive from Arlington to Greenbelt. I got there with a decent amount of time before the race started, thankfully. The ride was pretty smooth with several individuals attacking early on, however the pack was ready and gave chase everytime. I even got away for a very brief period going up the hill, however again, the pack didn't want to let us go. Finally after a hard attack by one of the Harley riders, several of us also jumped to try to chase him down, a second group attacked at the top of the hill and rode away. I was recovering and didn't have the legs to react to the attack. I thought we would reel them in after several laps, which we almost did, however for some reason, after about 5 laps the pack finally gave up and slowed and allowed them to go out of sight. Well I knew that that was it as there was Dave Osborne and Joe Baremore and a Harley rider and probably a couple more strong riders away. All I could hope for now was having enough energy for the final sprint. I apparently did and passed a few at the end to finish up 2nd on the group finish. I exerted so much that I felt dizzy and felt like tossing my cookies. I had to do some quick and deep breaths to feel better 30 seconds later. Tonight was a good training race as it helped me work on the speed work a slight bit with all of the chasing I did. I'll have to go down to Hains Point soon and work on my intervals as all I've been doing is a bit of the hills.
I'm going to Ft. Ritchie this Saturday and I hope be competitive. It's been sometime since I did a crit. This course seems pretty technical and I hope it will be fun. I'll want to stay out of any crashes.

Oh, BTW on that thought, I noticed how there were lots of B racers tonight and made a remark that there would be a crash today. Sure enough there was. There were an awful lot of racers tonight and it was good to see that many participants. Hopefully those who crashed are all right and will heal quickly. This brings me to the next comment: One of my teammates crashed out at Poolesville. "RayMan" as most know him, separated his shoulder, had stitches internally on the kneecap and externally on the skin covering his knee. Ray, I hope things look up for you and you heal quickly, cause I know how much you love the trainer. 4 hours a day on it, that's ridiculous!

Anyway, as you can see my training regiment is probably lacking. Work will be really busy with trips out of town for the next few weeks, so I will get even less riding. Kids and wife things of course will be the priority, so that leaves little time for riding and racing this month and probably for the first few weeks in June. Then it's vacation time for them and I will have more time, however I don't know what work will be like.