Stay down, keep pedalling

That’s what I kept telling myself. Monrovia 40k tt, my first 40k ever. I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect, except pain. I sorta expected to go around 65min for my first try, and chip away at that over the next few to go sub 1 hour. I made am Ipod playlist of Slayer, Pantera and Sepultura, nothing else. I had the songs in an order that made sense. Two hard h\fast songs to get going, then a "slower" (as slow as thrash metal gets) song to find rhythm, then more hard… It actually worked out really well. The morning was early, but perfect. No wind and warm and sunny. We headed out. I took off and turned my computer upside down so I couldn’t see it. I wanted to ride 100% by feel w/ no numbers. As it turns out this was good and bad. It was foggy out and I didn’t wear my contacts due to a spider eye incident (more later), so I couldn’t see very far ahead. When I saw the finish, I kicked on the afterburners, but if I had seen it earlier (or had my computer visible to see my time), I could have kicked it in earlier and gone .16sec faster and broke the hour. That’s right, I missed the hour by .16 sec. I went 60.16. Really, I’m happy that for my first 40k ever. I now know that I can break the hour, I just have to do a couple little things. It’s still averaging just under 25mph, alone for 1 hour. I’ll take that for a 130lb skinny dude on a road bike.
The Eye Situation:
Last night Lindsay and I got home form the co0ncert in Indy (more later) and thee was a little spider on the wall. I thought nothing of it and smashed it w/ my finger. I then rubbed my eye w/ that finger and got dead spider juice in my eye. My eye instantly started burning, turned red and blew up like a balloon. I got my contact out and it got no better. It watered a lot and burned. I went to sleep assuming it would work itself out overnight. No dice. When I woke up it was swollen almost shut and I decided there’s no way I’m going to race like that. I then decided since I’m already up and they day looks to be good, I’m going anyway, but sans contacts. I wore my glasses throughout the day and the swelling has gone down to almost normal It’s a little red, but nothing big. Lesson: don’t rub dead spider juice in your eye.
The Concert:
We checked out a very talented jazz bass players band, led by (bassist) Lyman Mederos. Lyman is based in L.A., but is form Indy and went to Ball State. He lived w/ my brother while at Ball State and that’s how I know him. The show was great, they sounded awesome and were sooo tight and incredibly funky. I highly recommend checking him out if you get the chance and if you’re into jazz, buy his cd. It was good to see Lyman, as I haven’t seen him since last time I was in L.A. visiting my brother, which has been several years. Lyman is doing very well for himself and is going to be rcongnized as a jazz great some day.
Here’s the link to his blog on eblogger, The Backbeat: http://www.lmbass.blogspot.com/. Check him out.
Adam’s Birthday is Monday, May 29. I’ll be 28 I think.
I’m thrashed after the 40k TT, so we’ll see what riding we do tomorrow, I want to do a good long ride still. I should feel fine after some SLEEP (I’ve got up around 5 a.m., raced, worked all day and now I have to fix my MTB and take off my aero bars). Full day fo sho.