Sunday, March 20, 2011

Wake Up Call



The euphoria that comes with "springing forward" comes with an unfortunate side effect--its sucks to lose an hour of sleep.  After a week of early wake up calls that left me groggy and annoyed, I figured what better way to get out of the "time-change funk" then make my 2011 road racing debut.  This proved to be another wake up call.

The Perry Road Race is a five mile circuit at Perry Lake that crosses the dam then circles back on the spillway before ascending a steep half-mile climb to repeat the process.  The race was seven laps, which is 35 miles to those who flunked algebra. 

The first lap felt like we started off pretty fast (but I didn't get too great of a warm up).  Then the second lap I settled in and starting feeling better.  So towards the end of the second lap, when five guys attacked, I was attentive, but didn't care too much at mile 10 of a 35 mile race--especially since the wind was howling and a breakaway seem destined to fail.

I noticed a guy in front of me, who was obviously trying to position himself in the pack to bridge up to the move.  I'd raced with him before and knew he was pretty strong so I figured, "what the heck?"  Sure enough, he tried to bridge.  Since I saw it coming a mile away I had no trouble keeping his wheel.  We immediately cut their lead from about 15 seconds to 7 or 8 seconds.  I looked over my shoulder and saw that we picked up another strong rider to make three chasers.  I pulled through several times and we were making steady progress on catching.  On about the third time I pulled through, I took my pull, then looked over my shoulder to see that my other two counterparts in the chase had sat up.  Unfortunately we were about 30 seconds away from the "dam hill" and I was feeling cooked.  I sat up and fell back into the peloton where I was immediately shot out the back on the hill like crap through a goose--the peloton picked up the pace and caught the five riders in the break on the hill.

I ended up riding the next two laps with two other riders that also got dropped.  We almost caught back onto the peloton but never quite made it.  With three laps to go, my group of three became a group of one, as I got dropped again on the hill.  I think the peloton slowed considerably with two to go because the two guys I road with eventually caught back onto the peloton.  Unfortunately, I road the final two laps solo--which sucked because it was windy as hell.  As usual, I continued my tradition of getting dropped in early spring races.  So it goes.  There's always next time. 

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Springing Forward

Daylight savings time is here!  My heart is a-pitter-patter with excitement-- and I'm not the only person who feels this way evidently.  This is one of the most underrated days on the calendar.  If you disagree, you are simply wrong.  I feel sorry for Arizonans, not only do they have to constantly show their state issued ID's to prove they aren't illegals, but they'll also never know the joy of officially giving the finger to 5pm sunsets for another 9 months.  If you're keeping score, that's three embedded links in one paragraph--an "Off the Front" record.

In honor of the first unofficial day of spring (and not having to endure the embarrassment of proving I'm a naturalized citizen) I rode at Swope Park.  The trails were in great shape.


Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same for myself.  Its funny how on good days--when I'm dialed in--I'm focused on the trail, the next obstacle, spinning a good cadence, etc.  When I'm not on good form, my mind wanders, I feel weird aches and pains that usually don't bother me, and I feel like I'm pedaling in squares.  Today was weird.  For about a third of the ride I felt great and another third I felt pretty weak and another third indifferent.  Strangely, these "thirds" came in no particular order and for no particular rhyme or reason.  This was probably the result of a series of minor myocardial infarctions--you can't argue with science.

If not for the clear medical evidence pointing to the myocardial infarction, I probably would have blamed it on the after effects of this:  (hint: not the disembodied hands, though they have been known to cause trouble)