Monday, August 13, 2012

Getting stuck, Going home, MTB Racing..

If you're a regular reader you may remember that June 16 (day of the DINO race at French Lick) I woke up with a blown out back. Well to be honest, it never really got (much) better. I've been training, racing, working, living, etc in a fair amount of discomfort for nearly 2months. I have a friend who does acupuncture and I decided this past week to try it. It helped. A lot. My back has bothered me to varying degrees for years, and it's not like it's magically 100% well after being poked, but I had been operating at probably 40-60% for a long time and I'm feeling much better now. I need to keep up with posture and core work to keep this thing in check though.
Also on Tuesday my leg really began to swell from the sting I had gotten last Sunday. I took Benadryl and it is under control at this point (over a week later), but I was a little worried there Tuesday. 
On the subject of bike riding, I started back up with some intervals on the bike last week. Nothing major, just some efforts to get back into the groove of structured stuff. I'm keeping on the core workouts as well, so that means two-a-day workouts a few days/week. It's no huge thing, but when you work 40+hrs/week, and "have" to work out before and after work, it gets tiring.
I wanted to race MTB's at the DINO Logansport race this past Sunday. It's a lengthy drive from Bloomington, and Lindsay didn't want to go anyway, so I went to my parent's house Saturday night to stay. They live ~1hr from Logansport, so it cut the drive way down. When I got there they were Skyping w/ Ramona (my niece/their granddaughter), as it was her actual birthday (even though we celebrated it the previous weekend). I got in on the video chat action and it was nice. She was more interested in the playdough that she had than any actual "chatting" but whatever. It was nice to be home and hang w/ the fam for a bit.
Sunday I got up to head to the race. I felt pretty good, but it was chilly outside; a feeling I was not used to at all. It was perfect weather for racing, but as hot as it has been here, I wasn't sure how things would be. But we got going and I went straight to the front. I spent the entire race never further back than 3rd or 4th place, sometimes in first, mostly in 2nd or 3rd.

I was in a group of 2-5 for the entire race. It felt really good to be really racing, rather just stuck in no-man's land hammering away. One guy got off the front and was not seen again. He won. The guy 3 back in the photo, in blue, got 2nd and I was 3rd. It was a really good race and I felt really good the whole time (for the most part, this course has a very steep, very long run up that started to make my calves cramp after the 3rd time up it, but that kind of stuff is bound to happen). Plus I rode well, didn't make too many mistakes and had fun.
It was a fun day. A lot of friends were there so we convoyed out and all ate in Kokomo. What a shit town.
There is 1 MTB race left and I'm not sure if I will do it or not. We'll see. I'm starting to shift focus to CX, so I'll just play it by ear and see what the weekend of the race looks like. It may be nice to have another race in, but other things may be happening. Not sure.        

   

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