The fast, she comes and goes. Actually, for some people, the fast she don't come and go, she just arrived some time in the past and never left. The fast is so damn fun it's ridiculous. I forget the exact context but I think Dave Zabriskie was maybe psyching someone on his team up for a TT and said "don't go hard, go FAST." There is no cooler feeling in cycling, and few cooler in sports.
I just cold sucked tonight. The fast, she had totally deserted me. The ride was pretty quick but not that smoking quick. Going up Beach to get there, I did a charming and wonderful slightly sub-LT interval (kind of a very fast SteadyState(tm) for those of you who speak Carmichael) for just shy of a half an hour and felt great. It was really just fine, and I sort of had the fast. Had a nice chat with a good guy the rest of the way to the ride, felt stylish in the new kit, all systems were fine. The start of the ride was fairly hot, and of course I jumped into taking turns behind fellow cyclist who likes to ride his TT bike on these rides. It only cost around 530 watts to come through him each time, so that was putting the whoop ass on. I shuffled back to get away from the heat for a little bit but my heart rate was still pretty spiked and wouldn't come down.
Just over the bridge at the bottom a guy gave up so I had to stitch a pretty big gap closed, then felt pretty darn mellow up the first part of the hill. Through the left hairpin all was cool, then came a surge, then a quick dance to another wheel as a guy blew up, and then exploded myself. It was over just like that. Instead of putting my head down and getting back to work I sat up and got all pissy for a second and THEN put my head down and got to work, which cost some valuable time. I caught and then pulled two guys down to Beach, whereupon we rotated through nicely for a long time. I was doing a bit more work and it's always tempting to be like "come on, what the f are you guys sitting on wheels for," and then you realize "duh, it's a freaking workout, they're doing you a favor." So that stretch up Beach to East West was pretty darn fast between the three of us and the lead group must have gotten stuck in the light forever because we were right there when the light turned green. I bailed. Sometimes more is less, tonight that would have been the case.
Of all the things that would be nice, not having to get up at 4 in the morning all week would be the best. Here it is 8:30 and I need to go to sleep. My rhythms are all wronged up, and I think it's *uckin' with my shit (my transactional shit). (h/t to Flight of the Conchords).
Some race in Belgium tomorrow, Kenny Van Hummel's my dude. I don't find it fun to pick some million dollar superstar heavy favorite. It's more fun to pick a comer who might turn up good on race day. I placed a heavy bet on Sammy Sanchez in a TdF pool several years ago based solely on some sick effort he made off the front on the final stage of Paris-Nice earlier that year. I saw that and said "that guy's going to be really good." And he was. 4 years later. Who to pick for P-R? Don't know. Give me some young Frog or Belgian. Extra points for anyone whose name contains a "ckx" progression. Does that mean we are picking my man Staf Sheirlinckx? Could he go? I really want to pick him for something.
1 comment:
Damn, Racking my brain to think of an occupation that gets you up at 4am. I've decided you must be a pimp. Going out to check on your employees and take your cut? This construction talk is all a ruse....
In some of the rough and tumble places I've lived I've found the hours of 4-6 to be the most dangerous. The crack heads have been shuffling around all night trying to get $$$ for their fix. If they haven't by then they're pretty frantic trying score some and beat the rising sun back to their hole.
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