Mistakes and changes...

I think I made a mistake this weekend. In preparing to race this weekend, I took several (meaning 3 days) off during the week in the run up to the race for this weekend. This was a big mistake. I felt flat and dead during the weekend. Oh yeah, didn’t help much that I projectile vomited during the road race, because I had an upset stomach when I work up the morning of the road race, and my head was thumping like a bass box in a lowrider. I couldn’t eat in the morning because I felt ill, and then I laid down in bed when I got back to the hotel room, and felt a little better later on. Before I laid down, I was feeling like I wouldn’t be able to race. Later on, I felt like I could do it. So I went out there, and as soon as the pace got hard, I wilted, the stomach felt awful again, and after the second lap on the up and down rolly as Hell course, I ejected myself off the back of the pack, pulled over to the side of the road, and puked up anything I had eaten that morning, along with the water I had drank earlier during the race, and some endurance drink as well. Game over, cash me out, I was done. Rolled slowly back to the parking lot, and found The Chad to my surprise had suffered a mechanical error out on the road, got a wheel from the wheel truck, and was unable to make it back to the pack. We were both out at the same time. Except he felt good, I felt like ass, so we packed up, and went away before the race finished. Of course, we saw the field come through on the 3rd lap, and when they did, Chris “Harkules” Harkey was off the front by about 3 minutes. Once again, the Hincapie Bianchi team blew themselves to bits to allow their main man, or men (if you include Scottie Weiss) to get off the front of the race. Time to roll away from the race site, not feeling so good about myself, but OK with the fact that most of the field got shellacked anyway, so it wasn’t too bad. We started with 50-something folks, and by the time the second lap was done, there were 25. And it got smaller from there. And the other thing, guys, when there’s a long road race that facilitates the need to have a feed zone, don’t be assholes and attack in the feed zone, that’s just not cool, but of course, it happens in every single race I’ve ever done that has a feed zone in it. That’s just bad form. Really bad form. Trying to grab a bottle at 30+ MPH is not something that is easily achievable, and if you slow down, well, you might as well just quit because you’ll probably not make it back into the group without a lot of hard chasing. I’m thinking about starting to carry a frame pump during races, and if someone starts throwing it down in the feedzone, frame pump to the spokes of the wheels should do wonders to stop that from happening again.

2nd race of the weekend was a crit. Now normally, crits are usually flat affairs. Not so for this weekend. There was nothing flat on this course. Up a hill, more hill, false flat, up a little more, sharp turn, fast descent, and then you’re back to the hill again after moving through a parking lot. OK, so it was a decent course actually, but when you’re feeling like a gigantic piece of shit like I was, it’s not so good. 6 laps, and out. Simple as that really. 6 laps and I was done. The legs felt dead again, and wouldn’t go around for me. I just cracked, and blew out the back faster than you can say Shazzam! Not my best moment, and gave me pause to wonder what the hell I’m racing bikes for. I can’t even finish a race this year to save my life, and it doesn’t seem to matter what kind of training or riding I do, nothing seems to be working to make me go fast. Heck, not even fast, but I’d take mediocre at this point in time. So of course I’ll try again next weekend in Winston-Salem, and see what happens there. I like the course we’re racing on next weekend, but there are going to be some big hitters in town for this race, so I suspect it’s going to be fast from the start to finish, and we’ll see if I can just hang in there to finish. That’s all I’m really looking for for this weekend. Hoping to finish it off. Sad, I know, but that’s what it’s come down to for me. Just wanting to finish a race. That would actually raise my confidence level a bit at least, because right now, it’s kind of not so good.

The other bad thing is that this week, it’s supposed to be near or over 100 for the first part of the week, which makes riding and training treacherous at best because of the temperatures. With this in mind, I have been drinking a lot of water today, and will do so through the rest of the day, and hope that I can sort of “super hydrate” the body, and the cells, and get what I need before I go out and ride the bike this evening. We’ll see how that shakes out. Worst case scenario, I ride the trainer indoors in the AC instead of training outside. I’d hate to do that though, because the trainer and I have a love-hate relationship. Meaning, I just hate the trainer. It can kiss my ass for all I care. I’d almost rather gnaw my own hand off than ride the trainer, but sometimes, it’s just what you have to do to get by. Normally, I would save the trainer for winter days when it’s raining and cold, or if it’s snowing and or icy out there, or just too cold, but it might get called into action for the hot summer heat. Ah, North Carolina in the summer, sometimes it just sucks.

Speaking of which, it was sort of my anniversary of moving down to NC today. I arrived in Chapel Hill, NC to live on 25-Jul-99. So it’s been a full 6 years now of living in the South, and other than the stupid heat and humidity that I encounter in the summer, it’s been aces living here. Good stuff this North Carolina. I’m glad that I moved. So yeah, 6 years and counting. Seems strange that I’ve been out of school now for 10 years, and 4 of the years were lived in Maine, with the majority now being in NC (post college of course). 10 years ago in 1995, I wouldn’t have guessed that I would be living in NC. I saw myself living in New York State somewhere, but that’s another story. Strange how things change around completely from what you thought you’d be doing. I once pictured myself married, with a few kids, and doing the “family” thing. Now, here I am, 32 years old, un-married, and not wanting to have kids ever. I’d say, that’s about 180 degrees from what I thought I’d be doing when I graduated college. But, things change. Things most definitely change.