Saint Louis

Just got back from a painful weekend of racing in St. Louis. Probably one of the worst two days or racing in recent memory. Not because the races were bad, but the weather was just horrible. I am still at only 2 for days I have ridden in only a jersey. This weekend didn't help that at all.

The plan was to go to St. Louis for the NRC races with ISCorp. Normally I probably wouldn't do that because of work and local racing, but the team was going and I didn't really have a good reason not to go. I knew it would be hard racing, but I can sit in a hard crit and get a good workout and with Snake Ally coming up in two weeks I was hoping it would put some speed in my legs. Eh, why not.

Weather forcast was for the 50s and 50% chance of "showers". It rained from my house in WI Saturday morning until we got back to about Beloit Sunday night at 10pm. The rain made the races that much harder. I thought the courses were pretty safe considering the rain, but there were still a ton of crashes, flats and close calls. Because of the rain we slowed down for the corners and the acceleration out of them was crazy. I did 2 - 6 corner crits and we would slow down into the teens for the corneres, then back up to 30+ mph on the straights. I probably did about 500 max 30 second accelerations if you count both days. Sunday's race was harder with a climb in it and after about an hour of racing and only about 40 guys left I got popped off the back. I just couldn't accelerate back up to 500 watts again. I sat in the car and shivered uncontrollably for about 30 minutes, my hands and legs were purlple and I could barely move my face. It was a miserable two days of racing.

Things weren't much better at home as Jamie got pretty sick Friday. She seemed better Saturday morning when I rolled out, but by Saturday afternoon she was smoked and making calls for her mom to come get Ellie. It was not a good weekend all the way around, the only thing I can hope to come away with is some speed and some rainy crit skills for when it matters again. Probably will come in usefull soon enough given the weather pattern. I'm thinking snake ally will be a wet/cold race again this year. Who knows.