A couple of things are working for me. Yoga seems to help recovery. I'm not knocking the cover off of it, just a simple 25 minute stretching oriented deal after riding. My flexibility is so staggeringly poor that improving it has got to help.
LT workouts on Tuesday, followed by the basic interval workout that is Greenbelt, seems to work. My LT workout last night kind of sucked, I felt slow as hell and based on the normal distance I cover in the intervals, I was. The last week was whacked as I didn't ride this weekend, and did a somewhat long endurance ride on Monday night. This isn't the normal routine for me. Either way, I felt good tonight. Last week I was a bit more frisky, but I'd also had a great warmup, etc.
So the race started and I led the first lap. Tried to make it fast. Then I sort of mellowed for a while and a couple of guys got off the front. Decided to do nothing about it, since more than anything else the field has been really complacent the last couple of weeks, and a good successful breakaway might shake people up. People seem reluctant to work.
During the race, a couple of people commented that the pace was a little slower than last week's race. Maybe it was, I don't know. If it was, since the field size was similar, I'll attribute it to Bike Rack having a smaller group this week (they had the minions last week, this week it seemed like just Greyson working for Dennis after a while), some quality people missing this week, the mountain bike guys who did a great attack last week weren't there, and (self importantly) I didn't attack nearly as much as last week. Average this week was 23 including my snail-paced cool down lap. Average speed is so deceptive as to be worthless as a measure of how hard a race feels, but it's all I have for this week and I don't have last week's.
The Bike Rack guys have their act together well. Greyson did a nice job of work for Dennis. Dennis has a pretty methodical approach to where he is, when. Not sure I really see it, but it's working for him. At one point with about 5(?) to go, a break came back on a prime lap. I laid in a pretty good counter here, but Dennis led the charge bringing me back. He needed to 1st place points for his season campaign, and it seemed to be the only work he did all evening except for the finish. If he thought that was the good looking move of the evening, good.
I'm working on a new move, which I found out is only new to me and not new. George Girvin (Ice Man - look it up) had the finger roll, Kareem had the sky hook, I am working on the Cat 4 self counter. You can be pretty sure that the slowest part of a Cat 4 race is when an attack comes back. Presumably this is because people are tired and/or there's a moment of indecision about what comes next. Whatever it is, I'm working on this feint where I go just hard enough to get a gap but then allow myself to get caught. Sort of a warmup attack if you will. When the counter should come but inevitably doesn't, I put in the real attack. I've heard that this is one of Chuck Hutches favorite moves, so at least great minds think alike. It's a shame that doesn't extend as far as my legs. Hmmm. Work on that, would you?
So anyway after all that this guy on a red Cervelo just whipped himself the last lap and change, then popped. The surge went by me (I was second wheel) at the bottom of the hill, and I looked at it and said "too fast, too early." Sure enough, a lot of guys popped and I made a play at the front but once again a little too much work a little late sapped me and I think I was 7th. I'm sort of torn between "the guys that put in the workload that I did were nowhere near at the end" and the need to heat things up with some high finishes.
Thinking a lot about mountain bike riding, especially after reading Jeff Dickey's account of getting top 50 (out of 1400), and Colby Waller's account of narrowly earning his sub-9 hour buckle (and a place in the top 100) at Leadville 100 last weekend. Great stuff, really great stuff.
My team mate Jeff Spaulding is riding really well right now. He's even older than I am, and he's got this wicked snap. Good to see.
Mellow weekend this weekend, then racing next weekend.
Just finished a really good interview for GamJams, and have another one in the making. I'm enjoying the hell out of doing that.
Decided to really pursue this professional plan that I have. Spending a lot of time working on that. Calls with investors and a lender tomorrow. There comes a time when you realize that a lot of stuff is firing on all cylinders in your life, which brings the stuff that isn't into stark relief. I'm confident that I can do a really good job for the people who are interested in backing me on this, and make my professional situation a lot more interesting, rewarding and impactful. One of those "I could do this better" type deals.
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