tough monday

still feeling some lingering fatigue. i headed out this morning in the same easy gear that I used to ride back from the pool towing the little one on the trail-a-bike.

I thought, "I'm going to warm up in this gear, switch over the big ring in Riverside."

Got to riverside and kept ticking the same gear over. No change. And that's how I rode in. Took me an extra few minutes but it was just a walk of the bike on the first day of summer.

A slow walk of the bike.

While riding it.

Results are out. I'm feeling neither disappointment nor excitement about my results. If the times are to be believed I would have been in the top ten of the Cat 5 35+ race, heck either one likely. So by that metric I'm a Cat 4, plus the fact that the last lap was the one spend alone more than working with someone else, and the lap I feel was likely the slowest for me. And all that makes me wonder, I can't really suck that much, there's a hell of a lot of cat 4s who are fast enough but never move up to the 3s. They should be racing 3s no? No point worrying about everyone else. I've got enough to deal with just keeping myself going.

I wonder if I could have gone faster up the first time. Maybe if I'd left it in the big ring and tried to power through standing instead of sitting and spinning my head out. If I'd done that might I have stayed with a group? It was a tough course. And yes, I need to do more long - not flat - road races to really get better at them. One or two a year isn't cutting it, at least if I hope to improve.

There is a better feeling in my legs now than last year. I think I might be stronger and faster. I'm hoping so. But it is time to start building and focusing. Last summer i managed to do too much muscle tension work in a short period of time and that set me way back with the knee injury that took nearly 6 months to go away completely. Actually now that I think of it I was feeling pretty strong going into the Thompson Speedway race. But that's canceled this year.

Summer schedule also means smack downs will have to be without me for most of them. Time to switch up and start doing focused work or hard rides in the morning. Time to sit down with a calendar and make it work. I think the plan from last year was successful, but peaked a bit late. I hope maybe that I can turn it around and start the season somewhat higher and peak a bit earlier, not right around Nationals hoping that luck helps me finish well. I had good legs just a shit start position and the wrong attitude on that first lap. Post crash? Game the fuck on man. A little too late. oops.

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wrote all that yesterday - had some idea to tie it all together and finish in some creative writing theme like stuff that sometimes I do but I forget right now.

Trying to switch over to a new computer here in the office among a massive pile of other stuff hanging down.

going to post and start over