Shedd Park

This may be the post that killed the blog. I wrote it then realized it’s drowning in self pity and whining about how slow I feel. Sorry about that… and please skip to the next post where I tell you about my great finish and that this shit was all in my head (hopefully).

At this point in the season (just 6 races over the course of 3 weekends left) there’s little room for short-term adjustments in training. It seems that there may be a some training regiment that I’m missing, because it seems everyone has gotten a lot faster (and I applaud you all for it), but I'm staying about the same.

My 3 weeks off for the wedding and honeymoon have left me with rather weak legs and little to any lung strength. Lesson learned: Don’t stop riding for that long mid season. 5 or 6 days, maybe ok. 3 weeks? Hells no.

As a cyclist that wants to race a lot for the next 20+ years, so it was a very important lesson to learn, though.

Still, I haven't ever really ridden that hard in cold air. It's certainly not something that I'd claim I'm good at. It’s certainly something that I acclimate to (perhaps slower than I’d like), but right now I'm cursing Florida for its lack of seasons.

Plymouth

It started in the warmup as I realized I haven’t deeply inhaled any 40 deg (and very dry) air since last winter. My nose was leaking liquid, and I was feeling so-so about the course. There was one particular section by the start finish that had me less than enthusiastic. It consisted of a sharp left then right into 20 feet of sand, then 30 feet of grass, then double barriers widely spaced, then 30 more feet of grass, and then 20 more feet of sand.

The whole set was so long that on my first warm up lap my heart rate climbed dangerously high as I was running the length of it. On the next warm up lap, I decided to try to ride the sand and found out this wass super-loose-wheel-sucking type of sand. After picking myself up and dusting off the bike I decided I’d just be running it, no biggie right?

Well I got a good place on the line-up. After the whistle, I realized that I couldn’t shift my right shifter. Immediately I realized I had filled it with sand on that practice lap. What now? Spin like crazy. I kept myself midpack in a 36-21 gear, then grabbed a teammates bike at the pit. This bike was far from set up for me, so on the next lap I yelled for my teammates to get me something with a proper saddle height for the next lap.

So now I have a reasonable bike, but I’m close to last place. Time to unleash the fury and move back up, right? Well, I have asthma and apparently it wanted to unleash it’s fury on me instead. Usually I ride with my inhaler in my pocket in case such an attack occurs. Of course our new skinsuits are sans pockets, so I had to ride off the course to the car and grab my inhaler. A minute later I snuck back on the course from where I left in an attempt to just finish.