Highs and Lows

After reading the last blog update you might be checking back here to see if I had taken up something else besides cycling - say something like lawn darts or maybe table tennis, something you don't have to worry about your heartrate, cadence, or being healthy and other things like that so much for. If you know me though you know I can't pass up a race when there's races to do. I might feel like dying, like last year when I raced with a migraine headache, but shoot, there's a race and I like racing so I'm going to do it. Case in point this weekend. Local twilight criterium 40 minutes from home Saturday night, there's no way I'm passing that up. So I haven't felt great lately, maybe getting in there and bumping shoulders at 35mph will loosen things up.
In all honesty it did. I had the best race of the season and felt 100% no joke. This was no small local crit either, this was big money, big teams, huge crowd, loud music, total party atmosphere big time criterium racing that went a little later than just "twilight" and more like nighttime with no lights. It was awesome though, one of the funnest races I've done for a long time. I was having a blast, riding up front, going with moves, cranking the big dog, and generally feeling for the first time in a long time that there was life in the legs and I could actually race. I couldn't see where I was going in the dark, but generally crit racing at a bigger race like this mostly means following for me, so that was easy enough in the dark. Maybe that was the reason I was having so much fun, or the fact that we screaming around the course faster than I've ridden in a long time, heck, I don't even like criteriums and it was still the most fun I've had a race this year. Now I remember why I like riding so much, cause it's fun to go fast!
Sunday rolls around and it's time to make the decision, do I make the 4 hour drive to Phillips to push the luck on the good form that has so recently come upon me or call it where it is and go back to wondering how I'll feel next week. Nah, gotta go race in the dirt if there's a chance for it. Jamie kindly offered to drive me up so after reloading with knobby tires we made the haul to WORS #4 to push the luck and test the form on day 2.
Not a good idea. Red lights flashing, gauges spiking, loss of power - this planes going down. Complete 180 from yesterday. If I'd of had a small chain ring on my bike I wouldn't have been able to pedal out of my own way. It was complete meltdown long before we even hit the woods. I may have been laughing at these guys for being completely spun out on the road leadout while they alternated between spinning and coasting, but if they had known I couldn't even come around them while they spun away at what must of been at least 12mph on a gravel road, they'd have laughed harder at me. I guess they did end up with the last laugh - nice job Jesse, WORS will never be the same now that a singlespeeder has finally taken a W!
I bagged it after riding around in other people's way for a couple laps and spent the rest of the race spectating with the "raced earlier, flatted earlier, injured earlier" group which was a pretty good time as we watched everyone else suffer up the climb.

For those of you wondering, Jamie made ME drive home!