After the reign

My stronghold on the Cat 3 Indiana state time trial has ended. It didn't really leave me asking "what if" because I was beaten by almost a full minute. No amount of "what if" could have made me up a minute. I rode a good ride and felt really good. I kept it under control, but rode very hard. The wind was pretty strong this year. It was a tail out/head in scenario. My speed reflects that fact well: I av'd 29.5 out and 25.3 back. And I had to work for that 25.3. My time was 55.39, which is just under a minute over my best on this course. I wanted to go inside of 55min, but it just didn't happen this day. My heart rate av was 176, which is threshold and right where it should be for a TT; any higher and there's a very real risk of me blowing sky-high.
I got 2nd in the Cat 3's, so I brought home a silver medal. I will admit I'm a little disappointed, but not shattered or anything. I was 7th overall to the usual Indiana TT specialists: Painter, Sperle, Maple, Manfred, etc. These guys I think are all over 50yrs old and blazing fast at the TT. But this race pays out, so 7th netted me a cool $16. That helps in a big way to offset to ~$200 weekend to do this race (gas, hotel, food, etc).   
As you may recall we went up for a friend's wedding also. It was a very nice wedding and it was good to see an old friend. He and his (wife) live in Florida currently so I don't see them often. But it's looking like they may be moving back (to Ft Wayne area) soon-ish so I may get to see more of them at races and what-not.
Also, I had more friends in B-town this weekend. So once we got back to town, we out for some drinks w/ a friend who I haven't seen for a few year because he moved to California and hasn't been back for a while. Plus another friend was in town who I haven't seen for a few months since he moved to Colorado. It was kind of a crazy weekend of seeing old friends. Pretty cool really.  
So I'm going to kind of dial things back a bit this week and re-introduce some non-cycling exercise. I need to get my core/lower back in order ahead of CX season. There's still an MTB race or two to do, so I'm going to keep on the bike of course, but for a week or two I'm going to take it easier. Just kind of ride. No intervals.
Plus the Olympics starts this weekend so I have to have time to devote to watching all that. I get excited about the Olympics. I cant wait!