World spinning by

it is friday...

even with the ride in I don't have much to say today. I did grab a vid of the same coal ship unloading - it looks to be almost empty and has really popped right out of the water...

shoulder is still hurting a bit... but honestly the arnica stuff (1X gel) is totally kicking ass... I got a bit on when I got in and by 2pm it was starting to ache again, put a touch more on at 2:30 and now i can lift my arm up w/ just the barest amount of pain. I rode in with my arm warmer rolled down and the jersey rolled up a bit so i'd have some cold 40°F air blowing on it, and that seemed to help. I could almost stand up and power through most of it today. But i didn't hit the hills, it is turning into even more of an off/down/recovery week than I had intended. Maybe that is a good thing.

I went through the Cat4 black list of riders and found 46 of the 126 had raced the previous year, 25 or 26 of them as a Cat 4, the others either Masters or Cat 5 and one Junior. Cat 4 Black seems to be the catchall and I expect it to be a bit like last year, the one field with the biggest time spread. Looking forward to racing with a decent number of guys from out team. A bunch of them are going to do Mt Tom repeats tomorrow. Lucky bastards.

Oh and time to rethink my current no caffeine rule? Maybe. maybe not. I've read a fair bit (no - i don't have the references handy) showing that habitual users see far less of a benefit than those who only take it occasionally. But we'll see. I do have a good pile of half caf clif shots that are set to expire sometime soon... maybe i'll give one or two a try next morning work out... that or I'll just start doping up for races. But I knew i needed to cut the stuff out completely so I could break the cycle. I still doubt if I can be just an occasional coffee/caffeine user. That or it is just a handicap I have to overcome. *shrug*

Too tired to care right now.

Also too scattered to keep it all together. Things run great when nothing is breaking down.

Things haven't been great. Ah well, I'm proving to have more answers than questions lately... sort of... or if I don't have the answer at least I know where to go to start finding the answer.

I can't wait to get on the bike and ride home with the hopes that Monday will start and I can finally get some resolution.

Till then, I got a weekend with ballet and parties and ya know - i don't have a clue about Sunday, haven't even managed to open the tunnel up far enough to see what's around the corner.

I feel like turning into a pile of 2% agarose....

Heddwch
G