Back on track

Last week was a rough one. Took me all week to recover from FL. Normally I recover in 3 days or so from a 12 Hr. race. This time however, I think there were other issues in on the delayed recovery. Rode a couple of times last week, trying to get the new road bike dialed in. I know it is set up right but I've been on the mountain bike for the last month and the Cervelo still feels weird. It'll feel good soon. It better. I'm headed to Albany, GA this weekend with the rest of the team for the GA Cup opener. Sat morning we have a 3.19 K prologue Time Trial, Sat PM is a 50 K- 8 corner Crit, Sun morning is a 148 K road Race. I've done NO speedwork or even gone anaerobic for more than a minute or two since Cross Nats. It's gonna hurt. The TT will be fine, the crit will be a life or death situation, and I am looking forward to the road race. Suppose to be good weather so hopefully I'll get some tan lines before I come home. Gonna do what I can to help my team and get some miles in.
Got to Yoga last night and I feel so much better. Should have gone last Mon. as well, maybe I'd have felt better later in the week. I was afraid to go last week, hurting like I was. My legs may have given out , I'd have fallen over , and knocked some other people over.
Had a nice day on Sat. Liza had an 8 K run out at Folly Beach so I went with her and cheered her on at the mile markers. She did well, right at the time she was shooting for. She out sprinted my Doctor at the line. No, he still doesn't know how to fix me.
Anyways, we got downtown in the afternoon to walk around and eat lunch. Nice day for it, 75 deg. and sunny. Got home and I cleaned up the garage for 4 hrs. Would have been 2 hrs. but I had to rebuild my clothes dryer before I could get anything else done ( long story ).
Got to go- DH

12 Hrs. of Chaos

Looonnng story short: 12 Hrs. of Santos- Started OK-2nd for 2 laps. Felt bad, Front tire exploded, fixed it, too much time in the pit fixing bike at the end of several laps.(wheels, brakes )Legs feel terrible. Going backwards. Back around 30th place now. Meltdown. Forget it. I'm out in 4 hrs. I quit, can't do this for 8 more hrs. Take off jersey, eat some food, relax.

Not gonna work. Not Me.

Back on the bike sans jersey( too hot ). My A game shows up out of nowhere now. 40th place to 7th place in 6 hours. Flying now, fastest lap is the 11th one. Still chasing down the leaders, they know I'm coming too. Crash really hard. Thought I broke my hip. Hurts, but I can still pedal. Run out of time and end up 4th. One off the box.

Should be top 5 in US Ultraendurance rankings now.

Gotta get a spare bike!

Feel like I've been run over by a bus now.

Later-

Virus

Sorry folks,
I had a good post with pictures and everything from FL. Some jerk commented right away with a virus attatched to it. So if you read the comment it infects your computer. Had to delete the post and comments. I'm not looking forward to retyping it - it was a long one. I'll get the details out soon. Later- DH

Last day before FL

Got the Cervelo built last night. I think it will work out pretty good. Have to make quite a few adjustments and it'll be good to go. That thing is definitely light. 15.5 lb. w/ pedals. When my Red group shows up I'll probably lose another 3/4lb. to a full lb. I don't think I've ever had a bike that light. Wonder how it will ride?

Anyways, have some packing to do to get ready for departure tomorrow. Have to set up some spare wheels and load up the pit equipment for Brad and I. Feeling pretty good going into this race, I've always done well there and have no reason to expect anything else this time. I did find out that one of the top guys that I thought was coming is going to another race. Bummer, I really wanted a shot at him. I'll get my chance at Nationals hopefully.

I'd love to write more but I need to go get some breakfast now. And then some more, and then some more. That's probably my favorite part of 12 hr. racing- I can eat whatever I want in the days leading up to an event and it probably still won't be enough. Later- DH

Big day today

Lots of stuff goin' on today.
Got the Yeti ready to roll for an all out assault on Santos, FL.
My Cervelo Road bike FINALLY came in. Have to get that built up tonight. I'll post some pictures soon.
And most importantly---
The Tour de France organizers pulled out the " I aint gonna touch you with a 10 foot pole rule" and excluded the Astana team from the tour this year. About time someone had enough of dealing with bad reputations. This does however exclude 1st and 3rd place riders from last year's tour. Ya lay down with dogs boys, ya get up with fleas!
I've got to go build a bike now- Later-DH

3 more days

Only two more days of work and I'm outta here. Fun and sun on the horizon. On a different note- bad luck has befallen our relay team for the 12 hr. One by one the members have fallen to the following: 1. Broken collarbone, 2. Pnuemonia, 3. Funeral ( not the team member ). So it looks like Brad is the sole remaining member and will be forced to race solo if no one else steps up. Not that there is anything wrong with racing solo- but if you are not planning on it it is another thing. Fortunately there is still time to get prepared. We are both still excited however, and my excitement grows by the hour. I just wanna race my bike!

Check this out:
I devised a formula to determine the races I want to do this year are worth it.

Hours Riding on the trip > Hours Driving X .75

This applies to most races. National Championships and " classics " races don't count because they are worth the drive regardless.
Gotta go ride- Over and out. DH

Friday Can't Come Quick Enough!

Had a pretty good last 4 or 5 days. Got alot of mileage in over the weekend up in the mountains. Thought I would be tired and wouldn't be able to do my tempo workout this morning. Very windy out but I felt pretty good. Didn't have to work real hard to keep it in my Tempo zone and the interval was over before I knew it. I'm really excited about racing in Florida this weekend. They have the best courses down there and the terrain suits me well. I'm feeling pretty good now, my bike is running great, and the weather is looking great at 80 degrees and sunny. We have a large group going down this weekend with a shop relay team and I'm racing solo of course. We'll be camping out for 2 nights and it should be a ton of fun. The only question now is do I go all out and bury myself trying to win the race and be blown for a month? Or do I ride like I'm down there to train and save myself for more important races? I am going to race- and once it starts It will be hard to hold back! Guess it depends on how I'm riding. If I'm running near the front I'll have to bury it, sometimes you gotta go for it. Stay tuned to find out.

Finally some nice weather

The whole last week has been great weather down here. 80 degrees and sun out today. It's good to be able to take advantage of that and get some good base mileage in. Still don't have my road bike yet but I kinda like riding my mountain bike everywhere. I've gotten in about 200 miles or so on it in the last 5-6 days. May just ride it for awhile. Training has been going well lately, finally sleeping better and the abdomen pain is getting easier to control. I'd like to think it doesn't hurt as much because I am getting exponentially tougher daily, but I think it is the Yoga that is really helping me out. If I skip a week then I feel like crud and don't sleep at all. That stuff keeps me right. Got in a very nice ride this morning , gonna get a couple more hours in tonight on the group ride. It's off to A-Ville again on Thursday for some more wheels. Looking forward to the mountains. Hoping to get in at least 4 hrs. daily on Fri. and Sat. We'll see. Later- DH

Weekend Photos

Went to Manchester State Forest to ride MTB on Fri. Road Group Ride on Sat AM, Moto at Wambaw Swamp in the afternoon, and MTB at Marrington early Sun. morning before I had to go to work. Pretty good weekend.