This and That

Westlake on the 6th was a fast paced race. I tried to get away with Weeks and Greg jackson of Spin came along as well. But we got balked by the B's and a slow moving car who was watching Austen race! I felt awesome and thought I had good legs, but when we got absorbed the winning move went up the road with my team mate Batke, Kadar, Clark of RGF and Rudy Sroka.

What made the race so enjoyable was the coming out party of Snake Bite Racing in the A's. They missed the break and instead of sitting in the 4 of them did what they should have and all of them got in the front to pull it back in. I felt like I was in a pro Tour race. Sadly they got the assistance of basically no one even though they drew us within 100meters!! If any of the solo guys or Spin had organized at that moment the break would have been nullified. but they blew up in spectacular fashion and no one jumped across. Great job SBR!!

After the race Chad said he was riding near me when we almost made contact and could tell I was almost shaking to jump across or when the break came back to counter it right away. Funny it was so obvious. But I did not jump across because I felt so good from sitting in for so long that I knew everyone had to be feeling that good. And lo and behold the break went back up the road again uncontested.

To make a long and not that exciting story short the race was 26.9mph ave speed and the last lap when Tris jumped hard to bridge with Tom Keller of Snake Bite the pace jumped to 28.7 mph!! Thats a fast last lap and fast race pace. It didnt feel that fast to me, but thats probably why the talented break never got out of sight of us.

The break was caught by Tris, but sadly what was left of the field also made contact and a bunch sprint ensued. I had 3rd wheel till about 20m from the line and was hoping for that cash and point paying spot then got passed by 3 or 4 guys right before the line. Darn, but I was going as hard as I could. I believe an RGF soloed to victory timing his jump through the final corner to perfection. I was top 10 for sure, but that top 5 at Westlake still eludes me after 7 or 8 tries. I somehow ended up with 52miles for the night.

Wednesday morning I ride with a neighbor for an hour on mtb's after dropping our beautiful daughter's off at school. He is just starting into cycling so it was a relaxed ride (at least for me). I thought I felt good so was looking forward to the nights hilly hammerfest. But weather looked to be a deciding factor so at 3:55pm I headed out with Dave and Chris and we tooled around for a short bit then they headed home to avoid the rain. I kept heading north and picked up the pace substantially with the plan of doing hills hard and endurance pace between. I saw I had lots of time to ride to Spin and ride home with Thom so took a detour and I timed myself up Berkshire. I knew hills were out as soon as I went from Tempo to Threshold pace as my legs burned the whole way up. And not that good kind of self inflicted burn. But I did complete the run in 6:11 even without big power. I can tell now the Unofficial Berkshire Challenge fast time will definitely be in the mid 5 minute time!!

So around 5:15pm it starts to rain and I stop at Squires Castle for a nature break and to call Thom and tell him its gonna be a whicked headwind home as the branches on the trees were folding themselves over in the wind and its starting to rain and get colder. I am going home. So what do i do? I keep heading on north to Spin. Wednesday is endurance day (supposed to be 3 hours) and darn it, rain and wind is not going to stop me!! Hills were officially out, but I still felt like I should tough it out and get in the hours.

Again, long story short, Thom and I rode home steady pace into a cold rain and very blustery wind. I am so glad I brought a shell to wear. So hooray for Ray, I manned up a bit and got in about 3.5 hours for the day, although not all at one time. So many a holes honking at us and making life even more miserable. They are the ones in the dry cars, leave us the F alone!! But as they say, misery likes company.