Same thing, only different

So I was hoping my week off would make my legs feel all bouncy and ready to rock, but it was more of, "meh, we'll go if ya want." With that can maybe sorta do attitude I took off for my TT.

I had the advantage of already knowing the time to beat, although I only looked at my watch once as I tend to go faster concentrating on the trail rather than my bike. I got a huge stick jammed in my wheel at the bottom of a small up that killed my momentum, but it got me a bit mad and helped get me going, I think. I got to the top of the last long decent knowing it was about 4 minutes at a good clip to the line and I had a shot at it (the one glance at the watch). I passed Nikki on the 3rd switchback (worked out well for us both as it was a big wide one) and continued to try to hammer it home. It seems that keeping my concentration and goin fast is my biggest problem this year. My mind tends to wander and I just kind find myself riding along...doot doot da doo...oh crap, we're racing here, c'mon. So I cross the line with the best time, 13 seconds better than Schworm. I thought I was a genius cuz he wouldn't have enough time to do another run and the short track. Well, I was wrong, he did, he got me by 15 seconds and i didn't have time to do a second run. D'oh.

The old Slowinski Strategy Machine® worked a bit better on the STXC. Just 4 of us, but 4 strong guys still makes for a hard race. It was basic pacelining for much of the first 15 minutes with me and Schworm both putting in little "lets see what happens" attacks. I decided I was gonna attack on the back stretch on the 2nd to last lap and just keep it up enough to keep anyone from sprinting around. It worked great, I caught them at the right moment and just had to maintain my gap for the last lap and take the win.

Legs a bit tired Sunday. Garth and I took a slow warm up on the road and I just wasn't wanting to kill it today. I took The holeshot and but just couldn't generate much power goin up the hill. I stayed out front until the long climb about 1/2 way through when Schworm attacked and got a small gap. Not a minute or so later, I see him pickin his bike up off the ground right as I came to one of my favorite sections of Youngers. So I pushed the pace up a short climb and tried to keep it high, making Brian have to work to get back on. Then all sudden, I was on the ground. Somethin just reached out of the woods and pulled me down hard. I lost my glasses and lenses and took enough of a shot I had to take stock for a second as to what was happening. Brian whizzes past, now it was his turn. I got myself together and started to chase. I was able to bridge back up by the top of the long climb on lap 2 where I just sat on until about 1/2 way through.

I figured I needed to be in control and make him have to react, especially if I was gonna be slower on that second climb. So I attacked and he reacted. I was able to open a small gap on a long downhill and then started the long climb where he attacked on lap one. This was perfect. I suspected his legs were also getting tired and I might be able to hold my gap, until I passed Morgans daughter, Edie. She got too close to the edge of the trail and took a tumble. She landed upside down and started crying. I normally get my jollies beating up on children, the elderly and homeless, but it was Morgans kid, so I jumped off my bike and ran down to help. Brian also stopped and she said she was OK, just scared. Whew. So the good news of not being inderectly responsible for the maiming of a friends child was offset by the fact the gap I worked hard to create was now gone. And Brian is a competitor. There was no way he was goin down easy being right there.

I was only able to drink about one time that last 8 miles cuz I couldnt risk taking my hands off and giving him an opening for a milisecond and was starting to feel the bonk comin on. I tried to keep the pace high in the tight stuff and just accelerate any place he might have room to pass. I saw the fuzzy sign (well, the sign wasnt fuzzy, just the eyes I was peepin at it with) for 1 mile to go. Sweetness. I new I could take the downhill faster, as long as I could keep my focus. Well, Brian had a slight mishap on turn one and that was all I needed. That was the hardest I have worked for an entire race in a long time. It was great.

So the weekend turned out pretty well. Had some good hang time post race with some fine folks and made a little money. Lets just hope the good fortune of Youngers this year doesnt bring the curse it did last year (5 weeks of Bronchitis).

Younger's creek stxc and tt

Bout what I expected, I was slower than most but not too too far back. I did the tt first. Started out through a field, crossed a creek, then the road, then started up some switchbacks that were slick in some spots. Of the 6 or 7 I think I only successfully got up one or two so I was hoping off my bike and back on a lot, and not too quickly at that, my cleats were getting mudded up and I don't think I did a hard enough effort warming up to get myself ready for the pain so I kept just wanting to chill and asking myself, "why do I do this?" That was 3 minutes into the trail, haha. Well anyway, after I nearly slid down the side of the hill and stood in one place for a bit cause I couldn't get my footing I finally made it to the very top were things were in good shape. Rolled around for a while just doing my thing trying to figure out if I should over gear myself or do high rpms because of all the sharp turns. I think I ended up trying both. With about a mile to go I started thinking about how I hadn't clipped a pedal on anything and was pretty pleased with myself, so then I made a sharp right and clipped my pedal on a root which caused me to bust my peanuts on the nose of my saddle a bit. The rest was uneventful.

For the stxc there were only 5 of us. I got on rusty's wheel, he was on blaine's wheel who was on josh's wheel, who was on annajean/niki's wheel and someone was on my wheel for a minute, an older guy, we rolled that way for 3 or 4 laps and I was feeling okay but wondering if I could keep that up for 20 minutes then rusty started to pop a bit and I considered coming around him but then told myself I would definitely pop if I did that, so he and I chased for a while then after another few laps of taking turns he wanted to accelerate a little and I told him to go on, eventually we were both lapped by the other three. That field was choppy and unfast I would have hate to have done it on a hardtail. Josh ended up winning. I never caught rusty and now I think I should have tried to jump around him and got on blaine's wheel, then rusty might have gotten discouraged and slowed way down before I popped. Doesn't matter, I just needed to get a tune-up in, I'm done with school tuesday and should be able to start riding more than once a week at that point.

white and wet lightning

it just wouldnt be a trip down to western ky without some rain. not that rain has been a uncommon commodity lately, but without fail, like a trip to columbia, sc for stump jump, a trip to western ky for some mtb racin could always be a drought breaker. but like its SC counterpart, rain isnt a big deal for the sandy canal loop. the course had some bad spots, but was pretty good, def much better than staying in town for the road races.

the rainy cool saturday gave way to a sunny and perfect sunday. the race was fairly unremarkable; dustin and i were the only pro/semi to show and i was able to pull one out and actually raced a full race, which is always nice. i never felt great, but considering i had 100 degree+ fever 9 days ago and i'm still on antibiotics, i felt pretty good. so with a non-mechanical (apart from rolling my tire off the rim once) and non-bonking race under my belt, i got the fingers crossed that the rain will hold off this weekend for the switchback attack. thats about all.

Greenriver and the infection part 2

Greenriver sucked and I have Acute bacterial prostatitis. Lets hear it for antibiotics.

The Infection

Somewhere between Monday afternoon and Monday late afternoon, an otherwise uneventful stop to the men's room turned into what felt like trying to pass Frank's Hot Sauce through my urethra. Tuesday mornin I woke up sweating with the same wonderful burning sensation still downstairs. In constant denile, I took some Ibuprofen and rode my bike to work. By noon, I was in some kinda hurt with a full on fever settin in with a vengeance.

After realizing I was not feeling any better (despite endlessly trying to convince myself otherwise) Tuesday, I hit the emergency care center. Kidney and bladder infection. The good news being the antibiotics seem to have helped loads and it's not clamidia from one of the girls at the Dizzy Wizz. But the process of taking in (and therefore excreting) a lot of liquid over the last 48 hours seems like telling someone with a broken leg to do some extra jogging. Ouch.

Off to the doctor tomorrow where he will hopefully NOT want to put a scope anyplace that is normally reserved for exit purposes only and we can figure out how I may have got into this mess and therefore avoid another run-in.

So what? So if I race Saturday, I have my excuse for suckin published here ahead of time. Always thinkin ahead.

Tsali Tspankin

Man, that was tough. After days of radar watching and some last minute bailouts had me trying to decide if I should head south, a pleasant surprise call from Matt Batton Saturday morning got me off the fence and rolling down to Tsali North Carolina to get hammered. Anna Jean (Nikki) Dallaire joined for the fun and off we rolled into the rain and mountains.

We were the last wave to start, the sky was turning blue and the trails were shaping up pretty good. I had a decent start jumping in the woods about 7th. I had to take some aggressive lines right at the top of the fire road since I got pinned behind a guy for much of the opening climb that was making it hard to advance, and then made my way into 5th pretty quickly. From there we seperated ourselves and rolled along pretty well. Then, just because I cannot seem to get my stuff together, my camelback hose came loose. I ket yo-yoing on the back as I tried to fix it on the fly then finally had to stop 2 times to get it secured, losing many spots in the process. I mounted a good effort at the start of lap 2 to catch a few of the guys and get back in the top 5, but perhaps tried to do too much too fast and burned all my matches. The fire went out.

The last 5 miles were a death march. I would like to think if I hadn't had the problems and could have just stayed in with the lead group riding at a steady tempo and not been fallin off then chasing repeatedly, I woulda been able to maintain and finish better, but who knows. I still managed 10th and the season is young – there is much time to improve. Matt finished 14th and Anna Jean won her first Pro race in convincing style (congrats to her). We took the scenic route home through the Smokeys and Gatlinburg which always provides many a good spectacle. Next stop; Green River next weekend to kick off the KY series - Yee-Haw.