Sunday 20 April 2008

Race, Interrupted

After nearly bailing on the race today with absolute crap weather following an insane, long and way harder than planned ride yesterday, we had a good race at Carl Dolan today. Haven't seen the results to find out whether CP was 2nd or 3rd. Pretty cool to give him his lead out and have him pound it in like that. He's pretty reliable.

I felt particularly good with being a touch more aggressive today. The last lap and a half was elbows out, lots of contact but just keeping eyes on the prize, moving up in the field. No surprise I felt good, since we had a half hour break due to a nasty crash, then restarted the race with 4 to go. I'd say everyone was well rested at the end of that. Anyhow, on the last lap I made a big move before the downhill and turn and got into sweet position with Parrish close behind. The right side worked just fine and we had wheels to ride until about 400m to go, when I let it all out. We'll see how the split up between 3s and 4s works out, but we probably put 3 3's and maybe 4 4's in the top 20, so massive BAR points. Cool. I'm not what you would call a natural sprinter but managed to hold my own okay.

Mixing it up with the 3's is getting way more mellow. I'm comfortable riding at the front and most important I know what to expect and that I can take it. I don't ride the race waiting for the other shoe to drop. That said, I'm pretty psyched to drop into the 4/5 field for Poolesville, which as a race is right in my wheelhouse compared to Dolan. We have a good team and should be able to deliver. There are a couple of people (myself included) who have yet to go to a race this year and have no one from our team finish in the money. The worst the team has done in the races I've done is 4th. In 4 of my 6 races this year, I've come away knowing that I made a significant contribution to the outcome. For my next race, I plan to have as direct an influence as possible on continuing this good streak. The team we've built has certainly proven that it's capable. The question is, am I?

Saturday about 20 people rolled out for a club ride to the Poolesville course. Mechanicals, flats and differing fitness levels made leading the ride a bit of a challenge. I think everyone but me had a good time and got to learn a bit about the course. My intent was a nice steady endurance ride and as it happened the ride was everything but that, capped by pretty much a 75 minute ITT into a nasty headwind on the way home from Poolesville. About the only good thing was getting the first base work done on this year's cycling tan. The Kiwi muscles powered things along nicely today.

Lastly, I have a heck of a wife. I've had to do a lot at work lately and have been spending way too much time getting prepped for the next few races, and she does a hero job of putting up with me and my nasty laundry.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reading a NCVC rider write about how many BAR points his team scored is akin to listening to a Naval Academy douchbag brag about how many All American's they have. With the recruiting, coaching and dollars the Academy spends - every race they don't win is a failure. With the numbers NCVC puts in races any race they don't win is a failure. There is no second. You lost. Go St. Mary's.

Cool blog though.

Chuck Wagon said...

Your logic is f'd up because NCVC's recruiting budget = $0 and training budget = $0. A bunch of people happen to join a development oriented club that has a high profile. So sue us that we're turning that into something. You guys had almost as many as we did in the race.

Navy's sucked for like 10 years now despite all the dough they spend, I don't think they've had 3 AAs in the past decade, have they? And Adam is still a butt munch. Not that Kenny's any better, but go Tufts.

Anonymous said...

I graduated in 96 and haven't really followed collegiate sailing since I got married in 2001. It is hard to read about something you can't find the time to do anymore. It is all in good fun. I just like to stir the pot. You guys were still first loser though.

Anonymous said...

Yes I agree Adam is a butt munch. Is the weed smoking at the Naval Academy banquet by the Tufts team true or just a tall tale?

Chuck Wagon said...

I had to be involved with it for way longer than I wanted to be because I worked at Vanguard. It's fun when you're doing it but becomes painful when you have to see it from the outside.

There are two stories, one is Kenny Read passing a joint from his boat to the Tufts boat at the Macmillan Cup - neither BU nor Tufts has been allowed back since. Then some Tufts drunkard made a comment about the Admiral's wife at the awards presentation of the other Navy keelboat regatta. Tufts is not allowed to stay in the visiting teams dorm for any event or go to that keelboat regatta anymore.

I never saw results, did you guys win?

Your new jerseys are way better than either of the old designs.

Anonymous said...

Yeah Josh pulled it out for us. Kind of the impetus for all of the trash flowing out of my fingers.

Unknown said...

C.P. was clearly 3rd but gaining at the finish. Official results may vary.

Kyle Jones said...

In the pic above it looks like I am caressing your butt. Which I never will unless you offered me a lot of money.

Chuck Wagon said...

Dude except for your right shifter being in view it kind of looks like you've been promoted to rear admiral!