ice, ice baby.

Woke up feeling like crap, as I have all week, had some coffee, felt worse, watched tv and surfed the internet trying to forget that the Icebreaker crit was on today 2 miles from my house. At about 11 I threw on some real clothes and rode over to the course on my 'cross bike, and registered for the 2pm race. I had some serious doubts about actually riding it between feeling bad and the sky threatening to deluge the course. I rode home, had some tea, and watched more tv. At about 1 I started to kit up. I looked in the mirror and looked like hell.

I raced anyways. I didn't make the break that stuck, but got pretty animated trying to make something stick. It was one of those rides where I was either going to be sitting in or attacking, since I was solo from my team and there were a couple squads with 4-5 guys each, there really wasn't any point in doing anything else. No closing gaps unless it was an attempt to bridge, no riding or or around the front in that massive headwind unless I was getting ready to take off. Eventually I ended up sitting on in a small group of 6 or 7 between the pack and the 6 guys off the front, and rode away with about 500m to go, before the last corner, to comfortably cruise to 7th. Eh, it's ok. I had no zip all day. No spark. The watts were alright, but I felt like there was very definite lid on my power output. It was really windy and reasonably quick, the kind of race that should suit me well, but it was certainly no harder than the mid-summer crit series on that course. I just felt about capped at 80%, which is certainly tons better than I was earlier in the week. I figured that if I was in for an inch I was in for a mile, so I promptly took off after the race and rode around the lake for another 38 miles or so with a teammate who showed up to heckle.

At least I know I'm getting better! Still, no race for me tomorrow. I feel like I could sleep in all morning, so I think I will do just that.

G