2nds and Seconds

This week brought plenty of racing in the form of two local events (Ring of Fire and the River TT) as well as another event (Iron Gate TT in Mebane, NC). After a solid weekend of training last week I had a couple of rest days before racing at the track on Wednesday.

The team rocked it Wednesday. The plan was for me to 'take it easy' and sit in, in preparation for the TT the next night however I eneded up taking some points and then being in a break with Thomas for 10+ laps. After being a little scatter-brained two weeks ago we were able to pull it together and put two of our guys, Thomas and myself, into the top 3. Unfortunately those were the bottom 2 positions as Luca Damiani beat me in the last sprint to take the win. A little secret: Nick from Metro cut me off from the apron on one of the sprints to take points which would have put me in the lead . . . oh well, it's a TRAINING RACE! Either way, it was fun, the team rode well, and it was good training. Jess and I stopped at Lucky Otter afterward (as usual) to finish off a nice evening.

Thursday was the first River TT of the year in Asheville. Unfortunately when I was registering I found out that the course had been arbitrarily lengthened this year, by about 400m!?? Not the best thing to tell racers that have been doing this course for nearly a decade. Either way, a TT is a TT, so I did my usual 30 minute TT warmup and in the process realized that my plan of 'taking it easy' Wednesday didn't work out, and I was about to pay for it with one of my worst performances on the river. My fatigue led me to break my position several times and I couldn't produce the power in my tight position like I normally do. Either way, my 4th place and the associated effort was good training and gave me a benchmark to go off of for the real race on Saturday.

Our son, Ethan, is now 6 weeks old and Jess had a trip to her parents' place planned so we decided to visit our good friends, Pete and Kristy Cannell in Mebane for the weekend and introduce them. Of course we decided to multi-task and I did a time trial on Saturday around a local winery there. While Pete said he wouldn't recommend the wine, he did recommend the race, so I registered and planned on the race on Saturday. I wasn't super-fresh going into it, but as I warmed up, I liked the course, the weather was perfect (mid 70s, partly sunny), although there were sustained 15+mph winds (not ideal for holding my ultra-low TT position!). I went off 3rd and despite the hills and wind I was able to pace myself well while maintaining the best power during a time trial that I've done aside from the National Championships last year. My effort was good enough for 2nd place and I missed out on the top-spot to Ken Johnson, a formidable albeit toothless opponent. The rest of the weekend consisted of good friends, food, and wine and some well-deserved rest. Tomorrow it's back to the 'real world'. I hope you all enjoyed your weekend as well!

Full results here: tricyclists.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/all_men1.pdf