Lots of Carbs

Piece of Cake, not so much. Wind, rain, and a not-really-completely-flat course awaited us in Amity. Matt, BVB and I were late thanks to the Google, and basically just kitted up and lined up, Matt and I representing for bicycleway in the 1/2s. I wasn't at the front anyways (Matt was) and I missed my clip-in, finding myself on the back on little roads with no shoulder and raging wind. Once we turned onto the course everything instantly blew up. It went ballistic. I looked up and saw carnage all over the road ahead. Not only were we going mad fast in the tailwind/crosswind alternations, but the field and just shattered into medium and little groups with individuals being spat out the back of every one of them. Bad, bad thing to see from where I was. I thought I could see Matt at the sharp end though, so that was nice.

For the next 20min or so I fought, clawed, and brawled my way from group to group and man to man, working with some while they had the gas and jumping them when they slowed, to get up to the next group. Went straight by plenty of them. Traded turns with a couple of similarly minded guys until Team O's Jim and I finally fought back to the 2nd group on the road. At this point, I saw the little "break" of 7-8 up ahead and Matt was definitely in it. The 2nd group wasn't working so well, but when they did I passed on the pulls as there looked like a chance some of the stronger guys might bring back the front group if the leaders messed around, which would not have been good. But I needn't have worried, and a few miles later, on maybe the 2nd or 3rd lap (kind of groggy) the two HPC guys Donald and AC (2 teammates up the road) , followed by a Rubicon (3 up the road), AT, rolled off our group and right before the tail wind section, when they had 60m or so, I bridged up and we pinned it. We lost AT somehow, plus the rest of the group, and the three of us rolled around and found ourselves completely alone. Donald drove it hard. AC eventually fell apart but had a huge gap to do the last lap solo, and Donald and I rolled in. I picked up a check for 9th. Matt, though, took 4th - quite a payday, too.

2,850kJ work done on the ride, and it turns out I did the whole thing on 1 bottle of water and no food. Oops, not the plan. But since I felt fine the whole time, I would say that my pre-race eating plans seem to be working. And those really just revolve around oatmeal.

Getting bored of my usual weekend ride / pre-race meal of regular oatmeal with maple syrup, I made up some wheat-free low fat vegan breakfast biscuits yesterday and put them down with jam on our way to the race. Major success. There's another batch in the kitchen right now, warm and tasty and waiting for some jam:


3 tablespoons flax seed meal beaten into 3 tablespoons water until sticky (because rice flour has no gluten to stick it all together)
add:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup soy milk + 1 capful apple cider vinegar (this substitutes for buttermilk)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (oh yeah tasty)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
mix it all up. then mix in:
2 cups regular oats
1 cup rice flour with 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder dumped on top

Spoon out onto a non-stick baking sheet about 8-10 biscuits, and bake at 350F for 20-22min or until they just start to brown. eat warm or cold, with jam or plain, or whatever suits your fancy.