St. Patrick's Day took place during this hiatus from school, so Mitch, Marshall, Ari, Morgan, and myself set out to celebrate our Irish roots. We ended up at no other than Kenneally's Irish Pub, a favorite of mine. Sporting our green, we discover that a few other people have decided to visit the local pub too...by few I mean about 3000. None the less, we try to have a good time. In short, all I can say is I think I was poisoned by my beloved Newcastle. You wouldn't think such a delectable golden beverage would ever treat you wrong, but it most certainly did. Marshall and I both were sick the next day and it wasn't from drinking too much. I should have drank water.
The "highlight" of my break, and I use that term loosely, was the Fayetteville Stage Race on Saturday and Sunday. Maybe I was a bit over confident going into the weekend, but it was good to get some much needed high intensity work and extra miles into the legs. I feel as if I have been working fairly hard to obtain my cycling goals this year, but it's hard not to want to dominate everyone all the time. There are some who can, but they are hard to come by.The Saturday road race was fairly tame, and with 93 Cat 4 pro's it was hard to make a move anywhere. Several times I contemplated violating the yellow line rule (a safety rule that condenses the peloton into one lane of traffic) but decided I didn't want to get hit by a car or nailed with a time penalty, so I sat in... boring... The next event for the day was the individual time trial. This event separates the men from the boys and I assumed I would be able to rip it up. Much to my disappointment, I didn't. Now, I have a million excuses for why I didn't live up to my expectations, but in the end I was not the fastest man. Oh well, many lessons were learned and I still had Sunday left to make things happen. As the morning of the race rolls around, I get my sexy bike costume on and head to the start. The first lap of three is pretty mellow as everyone gets a feel for the race, but once lap two starts, the attacks come. Unfortunately, I am one of those who attacked, and being the high priority target I am (sarcasm) was reeled back in after a short stint out front. It was looking like it was going to be another day for a pack finish as the peloton would not let anyone go, so I sat in and tried to make it to the end. Now, I consider myself a pretty strong rider for how green I am to the sport, but one thing I did not take into account this weekend was the surging involved with road racing. It was brutal. I did manage to hang in until the finish so all in all it was a good training race and I didn't get crash. I can't say that I am stoked about my results, but I have to think long term and what my pre-season goals where. None of which included road racing.
Oh ya, congrats to Mitch for being in the P1/2 break for 70 miles on Sunday and killing the time trial. There were some big time pro's in his race, but he managed to equalize with them and end up 7th in the GC. Another congrats to Kyle Johnson for his victory at Cameron Park. Now cat up jerk!
One cool thing I did try out this weekend was the Normatec MVP (http://www.normatecsports.com/) recovery agent. Shaun Taylor, an endurance freak and Sugar Cycles athlete, picked up this machine not too long ago and let some of the roadies use it. I must say I was skeptical at first, but my post race fatigue was significantly reduced. A cool product for sure that will certainly help Shaun in his quest for glory at the BC Bike Race. Good luck to him.
My next road event will be the Houston Grand Crit, but until then I have much more time on the dirt to enjoy. The next two weekends I have an XC race out at Bluff Creek Ranch in Warda, TX and then the Ouachita Challenge, a 60 mile mountain bike race in Arkansas. Both of which I am looking forward to.
This concludes our program, have a nice day.
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