Monday, May 17, 2010

Silverton: 95%

That's how I'm feeling: 95%. The missing 5% is anything and everything involving accelerating my bicycle. Endurance is back, sustainable power is back, lungs are almost back. I can grind a big gear again, close gaps, ride fast. I just can't dance on the pedals and match surges anymore. So Silverton was all about getting gapped off my groups, and grinding my way back on. Three times: on the second climb headed towards the back of the course, on laps 2, 3 and 4.

Lap 2: I'm right at the front when the hammer goes down, I can't match the jumps, find myself behind the 2nd group on the road, with 20-some guys ahead of me and the race blown up. Uh-oh crunch time. Keep grinding it out, end up pulling away from the couple of guys I was with and riding on to the back of the 2nd group. Then jumping away from them and bridging solo to the break of the day. Nice, except that it took way more energy than it should have.

Lap 3: We've caught the two early solo breakaways, now there's about 12 guys in the lead group here and some silly beggar throws down an attack. I'm gapped big-time along with maybe 3-4 others. I just keep grinding along at the same pace, Carlson and I trade turns ride ourselves back to the group again.

Lap 4: The beggars do it again, and I go right off again and there are 5 guys ahead of me and I'm alone. 2 guys up front get their own gap and they are gone. Browning comes up and we pull ourselves through the 20" gap to the 3 guys left ahead of us and we all stick together until the line. Where I promptly get gapped when they all sprint. Damnit. It's worse than usual, like any fast twitch I ever did have all atrophied and died. Sad. Those are kind of useful in bike racing.

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