Another day, another DNF…

I did a road race on Saturday — mostly flat with some rollers.  I lost a bottle on an extremely bumpy portion of the course (first lap of 5) and realized there was no way I could last the whole way with so little water.  I fell off the back of the pack on the second lap at which point my seatpost started to slip (on the same bumpy portion).  After pulling out, I noticed that one of my bottle cages had also begun to rattle free.  I’m not too disappointed since the race did not suit me and was not a high priority.  I’ll definitely take care of the mechanical issues so that they aren’t a problem in the future.

On the training front, I’ll be hitting the hills hard in the next two weeks in preparation for my next targeted race.  This preparation should have come earlier, but the illnesses and personal issues have held me back.  In addition, I am going to try to get back into a weightlifting routine.  During the base period I was doing twice a week but this time I’ll be keeping it at once per week.  Anyway, time for some sleep.

The Pain…

Well, here is a brief recap of the weekend.  The TTT went really smoothly — despite only having 1 practice session we worked extremely well together.  We dropped one guy but handled it fine and pushed on to place 2nd behind another squad from our team.  I felt like I did everything I could in the ITT and pulled in 12th place.  That result was better than I expected.  The road race was hard and fast up the hills.  I made it into the break on the first lap but we were caught on the descent.  I made the break again on the second lap, fell back a bit on the descent, but caught back on.  Our break of 5 stuck and I sprinted it out for 4th place — my first top 5 finish.  A teammate of mine nabbed 3rd.  The team worked really hard in that race and were key to getting us the top 5 finishes.  That’s all for now.

First Race Weekend

My first race weekend of the collegiate season is coming up and I’m really excited.  I’ll be doing all three events (ITT/TTT/RR) this time :o).  I’m actually most excited about the squad we’re fielding in my category.  I’ve spent a lot of time with all but maybe 1 of them and I know they’re all capable of some really strong riding.  I guess I’m getting ahead of myself, but wow.. I’m really happy with the 8 guys I’ll be riding with.  Last year we just didn’t have the experience or strength that we do this year (in my category).  Then again, it’s bad to make predictions like this.  Regardless of the outcome, I’m happy about who I’ll be at the start line with.

Sick -> DNF

A week of missed training and a set of lungs that just wouldn’t recover led to my 3rd DNF due to being dropped.  I’m really going to have to get myself back into proper condition before this weekend… the collegiate races are here.  Not much else to report :o/

Sick again.

Damnit. Another lost week.

The Race of Truth

This was a pretty busy weekend.  I did my team’s time trial (10mi) and ended up shaving 56 seconds off of my time last year.  There was some wind this year so times were, on average, higher.  I’m pretty happy with these results… I don’t think I could expect to take more than a minute off my time in one year.  It’s amazing to see the improvements some of my teammates have made as well… I’m so excited for this upcoming season.

Yesterday I did my 5th century (actually, my first one was 2 years ago today).  This one hurt a lot, and I’m not quite sure why.  I guess I have shifted my focus away from long distance training, which could be the problem.  Fortunately, the new bike held up very well and I was pretty comfortable once I got my saddle dialed in properly.  This ride did have me worrying a little bit about the longer road races I have coming up.  We’ll see.