Painful

No, not my muscles anymore, just my wounded pride in posting about my meager race results last weekend at Washington Park. It was, as usual, a well organized event and a fun course. Props to Velo Trocadero for another great race this year except for handing out PBR instead if French cigarettes for primes- maybe I'd have ridden better.

I'm getting old(er), or, a story of inadequate recovery; that's my leadup to the race. Saturday: race Whitewater, Sunday: race Cam Rock, Monday: easy ride, Tuesday: ass kicking, nausea inducing workout, Wednesday: medium ride, Thursday: another ass kicker even harder than Tuesday's, Friday: off, Saturday: medium ride. By the time Sunday rolled around, I was just cooked. Spent. Useless. So what do I do? Yeah, sign up for not one, but two races. I know, I know, the depth of my intelligence is astounding.

Half a lap into warmup and I'm on the ground trying desperately to work the kinks out of my hamstrings. Another half a lap and I know one thing for sure: today is going to suck. Bad. I don't need a double race day, I need a double rest day. First up is the 4's race, which I won last year at Washington Park. The race starts and I'm in trouble by the first set of barriers. No repeat on this one... By the second lap, I'm getting passed by guys I beat with one leg tied behind back. It was all I could do to just hang on 'til the end. 12th place. Wow.

By now you're thinking, "ok smarty, you at least bailed on the second race, right?" Wrong. It so happened that my wife and kids and my dad were going to be on hand for this race, the only one which any of them will get to see this whole season. No skipping this one, no matter how much I wanted to. If I thought my result in the 4's race was sub-par, this one was downright pathetic. Russell even commented that I was an embarassment to my three year old daughter who was cheering. Word. One bright spot is that at least I wasn't DFL. Nor did I get lapped- my only goal besides finishing this damn race. 19th place. Yippee.

So after the race my dad comes up and says "hey kid, you're not a kid anymore, you need decent recovery". What a genius. Now I know where my big smarts come from. So this week's training plan looks a little different than last week's. Monday: no ride, Tuesday: no ride, Wednesday: 45min easy, Thursday: no ride, Friday: one hour easy, Saturday: one hour easy. My hamstrings are still a bit sore but nothing like Sunday. Estabrook is a fast course and looks to have extra barriers this year- a plus for me. The weather looks to be an un-cross like 50 and sunny but I'll survive it. Give me 40 and rainy, it weeds out the wimps.

Next up after Estabrook is Janesville. It's a new venue and I hope it's better than our other new venue this year, Whitewater. After that it's the championships in Sun Prairie. That is always a fun and challenging course by John Ericsson and the Brazen Dropouts crew. Don't forget to put December 3rd on your calendars. It is the date for the Illinois State Championships at Montrose Harbor in Chicago. Last year this race was held in the snow- truly memorable.