Sometimes You Are The Hammer...

Sometimes you are the nail. Yesterday, I was definitely the nail, twice.

Last week I had a good race at Roubaix. Legs were good, I could go whenever I wanted and aside from some cramps, I felt awesome. I had a good training week. Ice bath Sunday night, massage Monday and by Tuesday I was riding with Krughoff and feeling normal. I crushed the 2 x 15 min LT intervals with surges on Wednesday and then...I made some mistakes. Thursday night Rob, Mike and I did some TTT practice. We did some hard, but for the most part it was good. that should have essentially ended my week, but I went back out on the TT bike Friday.

Bad choice. The wind was strong and I ended up working a little too hard. I went to bed on Friday night with a little soreness in the legs. That is a bade sign for me, soreness means fatigue. Sometimes it means overtired. It did.

I woke up Saturday at 5:25 and went to coach. 3 hours later I was off to the race. I was a little light on the warmup, but went to the line feeling pretty confident. It was very, very short lived. By 5 minutes in, Boups, who started :20 back was blowing by me. From there on out, the woosh of disk wheels blowing by me became common place. Quickly, I was in damage control mode. The wind was ridiculous and I had a heck of a time finding my rhythm. By the end it was obvious, I was not my race. I rolled in for 15th hoping I had something left for the TTT.

I didn't. By 15 minutes in I was struggling to hold the wheels on the downhill. I needed a 54 tooth ring on the front, but on a normal day, I was there. Today was not a normal day. My lungs were good, but my legs were dead. I screamed for the guys to go without me and rolled in alone. It was not a good feeling. Congrats to my teammate Rob Kelly for a great 2nd place in the 35+'s and to Christiana and Cari for their stellar races.

We all have good days and we all have bad. I think the key is that understanding that typically the bad ones are anomalies and the good are the reality. There are plenty of reason to be off, but it is rare that you go well for no reason. Time for some rest and a weekend in MT planning the wedding and then back at it as a domestique for Lookout and Koppenburg.