a week... dang

so it's been a week. but then it has been a week since I raced. Make it race report here right? Why not.

Busy.

Hooked up the trail-a-bike to the Tandem for the 10 mile trip down to the Parade. 20 mile round trip hauling them around wasn't too bad, other than the heat, kind of fun. Crazy number of reactions, my wife liked hearing them all. We were quite the spectacle. And we were passing people, passing everyone. Kind of sketchy a bit, took quite the zen focus planning to pass everyone.

Then it has been a stay-cation week. Took the short week as a vacation week to hang out and have a couple days with the girls here at home. Got the car fixed. It purrs nicely now. No A/C anymore but hey, it is what it is, so quiet. Turns out the pulley bearings exploded. Got a junk yard compressor with a good clutch/pulley, makes all the difference. Back to two cars. Just in time to potentially need it next week.

Managed a commute into the shop for tuesday, wed night was a one way commute home, so not a total relaxed week. But mentally it has been very nice. Not quite total vacation but I've managed to catch ever stage since monday. Oh Sunday.

Right. So has anyone ever ridden 3hr 10min with an avg HR of 87? Reed had announced a coffee shop ride on Sunday morning. It was billed as a 2 hr ride, 20 min or so ride down to the start at the coffee shop. I figured a nice decently long mellow ride would be good to work out a few kinks and just sort of loosen everything up. And hell it was a great morning and I had the opportunity, so I grabbed it and wound up working with a guy on the ride who'd only been on a bike for two weeks. It was pretty damn cool. He made it the whole ride. Totally knackered at the end but he survived and learned a ton.

Hm. Not as much of an off week physcially as much as mentally I guess.

Tonight of course was another running of the BikeWorksMA.com time trial (bob is supposed to be putting the results on the web page, guess it hasn't been up there yet).

Much hotter tonight than last week. Wind definitely NOT favorable. But I felt much better going into it. No side stitch/cramps, decently fueled and two bottles of water. Took up position behind a not fat Burke (he's regaining form, watch out CX season). Eddie O came rolling in with Jack T just as we were lining up. Eddie started last, just like Solobreak did last week.

I hit it hard after a flubbed start (hitting the wrong button on the stop watch on the bike computer doesn't work to get it started). Anyway. Hit it and hit it hard.

Heart rate was in the 170s most of the ride. I pulled it back a few times but mostly just kept the pressure on. Hit my max for the season so far at 177. It was pretty brutal.

I felt like the effort tonight really eclipsed last week, but coming in about 100 yards out of the final turn and I checked the stop watch seeing a number higher than I expected was a wtf moment. It felt much harder, felt almost like i was going faster (but I wasn't).

19:58. Still kept it in the 19 range but barely. Eddie O was on his cannondale TT bike (normal helmet) and set the fastest time at 19:08 or something around there. Within a handful of seconds of my time last week. We were all way off. But pretty consistent.

I was a few seconds slower than big Joe, and Burke didn't let me get too close. Certainly hurt, and the interval was absolutely max effort, despite the crappy time I'm still happy with the effort. All this on a bike from 1986... at least the wheels are somewhat modern.

Earlier this week I was going to write about sunscreen and some more evidence or reasons not to use the hormone based chemical types but that got side tracked.

Some other ideas have been rolling around, like that Morgan Blue stuff, the photo in velonews with the SRAM approved wicked long rear-der cable housing loop. I should get my ass back in a routine. but hey. i don't want to force it. I should have mentioned the slight changes to the hummus recipe (add lemon zest and extra garlic) or pancakes (add choco chips and orange juice). Or the increasingly popular bean salad, and the knife work my oldest is getting chopping tomatoes for it (she's getting pretty good with the santoku).

Attleboro crit is this weekend. I don't think I'm going to make it. Oddly it might just be the closest race (aside from the Cox crit) and i've never done it.

Just going to keep plugging away at what I hope will pay off down the road. Suffering is good, right? 50 miles after 5pm isn't bad either. Right? Not so slow either. Well the last 5 miles were pretty slow. Fuel gauge on empty.

heddwch
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