A little racing...now some rest

On the front early.

 I went and raced road in OH this weekend. As I mentioned last post, this is a race at which I've done well but have never won. Well this year was a little different: I didn't win AND I didn't do well.     
 But not for lack of trying. Knowing that I have ridden this race both in breakaways and off the front solo, I was riding at the front early to try to watch for what looked like good moves to try to get into. I tried to go several times, but nothing was happening; the field was very happy to chase down anyone trying to get a break going, but no one was willing to try to work with you to make a move stick. Frustrating racing. 

Sitting in.

I eventually decided to just sit in the pack. It wasn't worth my repeated efforts to get away just to be chased down immediately and then have the group just sit up. The wind was fairly calm, but I think there was a ton of allergens in the air. I am not usually overly sensitive to allergens, but a little before two hours of racing, my throat became really dry, my nose started running like a faucet and I started coughing a lot. It was a very hollow, dry cough though. And that was drying out my throat even more. Eventually it felt hard to breath. At one point I remember feeling like I could barely breathe and looking at my HRM and my HR was like 127bpm. That's E-Z cruising, but I felt as though I was breathing like I was beating 187bpm. It was weird. Anywho, as you've gathered I wasn't feeling great at that point, but with one lap to go one of my teammates, Hubbs, took a flyer in hopes of staying off to the finish. He was reeled in and when he was, the field kind of turned to chaos and my other teammate, Scott, and I took off in hopes of catching the group off guard and making something happen. We got off and got a nice gap, A few people rode across to us, which was a good thing (strength in numbers). One of the guys who came across was huge though. Seriously, he has twice as wide as me and looked really strong. So as soon as the road went uphill (with probably about 1-2minuts left to race) I decided to try (again) to go alone. I got off and was clear for a moment, but a hard charging pack of riders who have sat in all day is hard to fend off w/ a 190bpm HR. And so it went.

Once caught, I sat up and let the sprint happen in front of me. I was too gassed to bother trying to get mixed up in all that. Note in the pic my sweet womyn's sunglasses. In a most un-Adam like move, I forgot my sunglasses. But I knew Lindsay has a pair of womyn's Oakley straight jackets in the glove box. So I busted them out and rocked them. Actually I was glad they were there because it was super sunny that day.
That race marks 6 weeks of solid training. that's not really proper "blocks," but I am calling in a rest week for this week. So no intervals, an extra day off the bike and I plan to get on the MTB as well. I've ridden it pretty well when I've been on it, but polishing up the skills won't hurt, that's for sure. MTB racing starts up for me in two weeks. So I need to be as ready as I can.