Good days & bad days

I went riding yesterday & my legs felt good. I didn't think I was pushing it that hard. I did the usual route I do with Will. I kept up a good pace and did a few hard efforts during the ride. I managed to do about 38 miles and average 19.4 mph for the ride. Yesterday was the good day, I paid for yesterday today. I went on the usual group ride and my legs just felt heavy during the warm up part of the ride, that was a sign it wasn't going to be a good day. I hung with everyone on the first climb, but then come the second climb is when I found out that the legs weren't there today. I survived the second climb and up to Bible Camp Rd. Everyone was regrouping at the silo. We were missing Kim so I headed back down Bible Camp Rd to find her. Shane met me part of the way down the road & called Kim, she said she was taking the shorter route so Shane & I did the smaller loop of the Tuesday ride. I was just glad to survivethe ride back home. I learned a good lesson today, it's hard to do two hard days back to back, but I learned I need to recover better than I had been lately. I guess I'll take tomorrow off & try my best on the group ride Thursday.

Weekend Wrap Up

This weekend I went to St. Simons Island with a group from church. It was a choir retreat, but seeing as I'm not in the choir I went as a guest of a friend. It was a bit more humid than I'm used to, but the scenery was beautiful. I cruised around the island on Friday night. It was very nice just to cruise and take in the sights. On Saturday morning I went to breakfast and after that, I went cruising around the island again. I was able to explore more of the island this time & took advantage of it. I cruised down to the beach & around the lighthouse. The water looked very inviting, but I had to take a rain check on swimming. I checked out the other parts of the island I didn't get to see on Friday & then headed back to the hotel to get checked out & do more exploring by car. It started raining while exploring the island and most of the way home, but all in all it was a good weekend.

Final Thoughts on the Tour de France

Well the Tour de France has finally concluded & Alberto Contador of the Discovery Channel team was the overall winner. Cadel Evans was second and Levi finished on the podium in third place. The final few stages gave the breakaway artists their chances for glory. I really loved the final TT. I actually thought Levi just might jump 2 spots and take over the yellow jersey. Levi rode a great TT and made his goals for the Tour. It turns out that Discovery also won the team competion, something they never did during the Lance years. I was very pleased with the way they rode the race. I have the utmost respect for Levi. Once Contador was in the yellow jersey, Levi said he would ride for him & sacrifice his personal goals for the team. That is the mark of a true professional & team member. I'm glad that Levi was still able to podium after taking care of Contador the final few stages. After all the problems during this year's Tour, I have hope that the next one will be clean. It seems that they are getting better at getting the dopers caught and that's a good thing for the sport. The sport is taking a beating right now, but it's what needs to be done to clean things up. Cycling is doing more to catch dopers than any other sport that I know of. I keep getting teased about my sport, but at least they are trying, which is more than I can say for the other major sports in this country. All in all I enjoyed watching the Tour this year and I'm going to keep following my sport, no matter what everyone else says. I think eventually things will clear up & the dopers will be either caught or just quit. They always say you have to hit rock bottom before you'll change. I hope cycling has hit rock bottom & is on the way back up after the black eye they received this year. Here is to the future, & it's looking bright with the new stars.

My Thoughts on the Tour

This year I was really looking forward to the Tour de France. I knew it was going to be wide open this year. It started out great, the prolouge was fantastic and the first week was a sprinter's field day. I felt sorry that Vino crashed so early in the race. It was looking like he was going to be out of things. The Alps stages were great, but I thought Levi was going to do more there than he did. Michael Rassmussen took the yellow jersey on one mountain stage, but there was the first time trial coming up & I thought he would lose it, but he rode the TT of his life so far and was able to keep it. Vino won the TT & it seemed like he was back in the thick of things, then he bombed the next stage and it was stick a fork in him, he's done. Alberto Contador was looking great in the mountains & I thought it was just a matter of time till he's in yellow. The battles in the mountains were some fantastic racing. This year's Tour was really great so far & clean so far. Then the bottom fell out. It turns out that Vino was busted for illegal blood transfusion after the TT. It also came out that his sample after his victory on stage 15 was the same. I thought this year would be different, no doping, but I was proved wrong once again. While I was on my way back from a recovery ride today, I got a call from Will telling me that a buddy of his told him that the leader of the race had been kicked out. He asked me to check when I got home & let him know if his buddy was yanking his chain or not. I got home & got online and found out that Rabobank had removed Rassmussen from the Tour and the team for breaking team rules concerning his missed out of competition tests. It seems that he lied to his team about where he was at during the missed tests. I don't know what to think about pro cycling anymore. I love the sport, but it seems like everytime I turn around, another big named rider is getting busted for some sort of doping. It's getting to seem like cycling is getting worse and worse instead of better, but at least they seem to be doing more to remove the cheats than most other sports. I'll still follow the sport, but for the time being, I'll wonder if the winner is on the juice or not until all the cheats are out of the sport. The Tour is still wide open right now & it seems like it's going to come down to the final TT on Saturday.

Thursday Group Ride and weekend wrap up.

This past Thursday was the usual group ride. Will picked me up and told me what his plan was for the ride. He told me he was going to attack up the Haynesville hill and see if anyone could catch him. I told him I'd try to go with him, but didn't know if the legs were up to it. Well his plan didn't go the way he wanted it to. On the first short climb on 341 Mark Dufus took off, Will countered the attack and slipped in behind him. The rest of the group picked up the pace a bit hoping they would slow down going into Haynesville, but no such luck. They got a gap going up the hill and it was all I could do to keep up a steady pace on the climb. On the way up the climb, Charles passed me on his cyclo-cross bike. I just kept to my own pace. Once we turned onto Grovania Road, it seemed like Will and Mark had slowed up a bit, we caught onto the back of them, but then I started to get cramps and had to slow down a bit in order to feel better. The group of them went ahead and it seemed like Mark & Will picked up the pace again & no one could stay with them. I manged to catch BK, Shane, & Charles before hitting Elko Road. Once on Elko, I could see Mark & Will ahead, but didn't think I could catch them. I just settled into a good cadence & pace for me. They turned on the loop off Elko and I just kept my same pace. I was caught on the loop by BK, Shane, & Charles, but it was ok. We worked together heading back towards Elko. By the time we reached Elko Road again, it was just Shane and myself. We turned on Elko to head back to the start of the ride. I caught a couple of the other riders who didn't do the extra loop and passed them. I was going at a good pace for me & my legs actually felt pretty good. Near the fairgrounds I caught two more of the group. Once into Perry, I saw Mark and Will, Mark ended up going home but I was going to try my best to catch Will. I caught onto his wheel & he started pulling us towards the finish of the ride. I did my best to hang on, but the pace was a bit too high for me. I told Will to go at his own pace and not worry about me. I finished the ride with an average speed of 20.7 mph. It was the fastest I've done this ride this year. It seems that riding with Will is paying off. On Friday I decided to ride home from work as a recovery ride. My legs felt good the first part of the ride home. Once I was near Robins AFB, the route started to go up a bit. My legs felt fine until I hit the small hills just before Sandy Run Road. They hurt a bit more than usual. I headed home and my average speed was still 18 mph. On Saturday, I waited to ride with Will. He had a class but called me about noon to go for a ride. We were both pressed for time so we decided to push the pace a bit. I met him on the road and we started pushing the pace. We did a shorter version of the loop we usually do and it was a good workout. We did 25.5 miles and my average was 19.4 mph. All in all it was a good weekend and my legs feel better now.

Tuesday Group Ride

Today was the usual group ride with the Central Georgia Cyclists. I met everyone at the shop and we headed out. I just started at a comfortable warm-up pace and then I noticed I had a gap on everyone. I just started out towards the hills solo, thinking that I'll get caught on the second hill. I made it up the hill and really didn't look to see if anyone was getting close or not. I was riding my own pace & if I got caught, fine, if not, that was fine too. I went up Bible Camp Road and when I hit the silo, I noticed about 3-4 riders behind me. I just started out on my own, thinking that if they work together I'd be caught soon enough. I got into a nice rhythym and just kept on pedaling. I took the new loop they added on the route & it added another good climb. I got on Maynard's Mill Rd, and found about 3 riders ahead of me, so I figured I'd see if I could catch them. I tried taking the second loop they added to the route, but missed a turn and ended up doing a loop back to 42. I saw the same 3 riders ahead of me, so I put my head down and tried catching them. I caught them in Byron at the stoplight. Once the light turned green and we got going again, I just sat on the back and sucked some wheel. We headed back to The Bike Store and Kelly just asked if she could sit in and just suck my wheel. I told her it was no problem and if I got going too fast to let me know. She was able to hang with me the entire way back to The Bike Store. I never saw anyone else during the ride, so I guess they must have not done the extra loops or were behind me after I left. All in all it was a good hard ride & I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow. That's all for now.....

Georgia Games Criterium Report

I went up to Marietta for the Georgia Games Criterium. Will was racing the Cat 4 race & I was racing in the Cat 5 race. The entire trip up there was in the rain, it never really stopped at all. We arrived there, the bikes were soaked, but we got our numbers and proceeded to get ready. I pinned my number on my jersey and then set my bike on the trainer to warm up. I was able to warm up for about 20 minutes on the trainer in a dry area, then went out on the course for a couple of warm up laps. It was still raining and by the end of the first warm up lap, I was already soaked. The course was in an industrial park. It was 1.2 miles in length and had some rolling hills. The uphill parts were on the front part of the course and the back part of the course was pretty much downhill. The race was 30 minutes plus 2 laps. The gun went off & we started up the first hill, the pace wasn't that bad, probably due to the wet roads, but I was able to keep my place in the pack. We did the first lap in about 3 minutes. Everyone was very courteous towards everyone else, there was plenty of space to race on as we had the roads pretty much to ourselves. About lap 2 a rider from Reality Bikes took a flyer and gained about 10 seconds on the pack. We let him stay out there for about 2 laps then he was reeled back in. The Land Rover & Reality Bikes teams had the numbers in the pack. I was still in the pack, watching how things were going. My bike computer quit working after the second lap, so I had no idea how fast we were going or what our lap times were. They gave us a count with 3 laps to go & I started trying to move up towards the front. We got the bell for the final lap & coming out of the final turn I was about 4th from the front. I thought I had a good position. The pace was picking up as we got closer towards the finish line, I was holding my own, only dropping back about 2-3 positions. Then suddenly another rider shoved me from my right side. I had to slow down to stay upright and that gave the rest of the field a gap. I tried my best to close it, but I couldn't. I ended up 11th out of 19 riders. The winner was from the Aaron's team. All in all I had a great time, did the best I've done in a crit for a long time. I was able to stay with the pack the entire race. By the time the Cat 4's started, the rain had stopped. They took off & Will was in the group most of the race. All of a sudden, he slowed down & said he had a flat front tire. I ran to my bike & gave him the front wheel from my bike. He used his free lap and rejoined the pack. He said the pace was brutal, they were going uphill @ 27 mph he said. He said he was in a good position coming out of the last turn on the bell lap, but just flat ran out of gas. He ended up finishing 17th, only .4 seconds back from the winner. He said he had a great time & looks forward to the next race just as I do.

Getting ready for the weekend.

Yesterday Will & I went for a ride. We started our usual loop down Lake Joy, but we decided to add the hill going to Haynesville to the route. I met Will at his house then we headed out for the ride. My legs felt good the first part of the ride. I pushed it a bit on the climbs on Lake Joy Rd, but the legs felt good. By the time we hit the Haynesville hill, I had been on the bike for 1 hr. 45 mins and that hill really hurt going up after that much time in the saddle. We hit a store stop in Haynesville, then headed back home. My legs recovered after the store stop and we were able to ride a good pace back towards home. At the end of the ride we ended up doing 52 miles at an average speed of 19 mph. We were averaging almost 20 mph till we hit the headwind on the way home. All in all it was a good ride. Today was a recovery ride. I kept in under 17 on the flats. My legs feel good so far, we'll see what happens the rest of the week. I'll keep everyone posted........

What a storm!!!!!!

It's been too darn long since my last post, but I've been riding as much as I could. I'm getting ready for the Georgia Games crit this coming Sunday. I've been riding with Will and the CGC guys on the group rides. I really enjoy riding with Will, he pushes me harder than I probably would if I was alone. We went out yesterday to do our usual loop. My legs felt good going up the hills on Lake Joy, we took turns in front and kept the pace up pretty good. On the way back home we noticed that the sky was getting darker and darker the closer we got to home. We were hoping we would get back home before we got caught in the rain. Needless to say we didn't get that lucky. Once we hit Piney Grove Baptist Church, the lightning and thunder started. Will & I each headed towards our respective homes, and the closer I got to my house, the worse the weather got. Once I made the left turn on Mt. Zion Rd. I could barely see 10 feet in front of me, due to the amount of rain and my glasses fogging up. By the time I hit Peach Blossom Rd, for the final leg of the ride, I was totally soaked. I could feel my shoes squish water with each downstroke of the pedals. My jersey and shorts were soaked, but it was kind of fun riding in the rain. I finally made it home in one piece and was just wet. I'll file a race report after the race & I'll try to post at least one or more times before then. Stay tuned.......