Back on the bike this week.

I took a rest week last week after 4 weeks of riding pretty hard consistently. Boy did I need it. Not for my body but more for my own sanity. I am a guy that just needs to step away from the bike every so often. I even said fuck somewhat good eating I have been doing. I went out to dunkin donuts and ate 10 donuts in two days and finished off a carton of ice cream the next two days after that. Boy did I need to do that. Get it out of my system. After the rest week I ballooned up to 200 pounds from 190. I did not care.

The weird thing is I am back down to 189 today. That is a loss of 11 pounds in 5 days. I wish I could lose another 10 but will stop right here kind of like my fitness has done all year. I swear my numbers have been plateaued since march april. Guys must have caught up to me fitness wise because a lot of people are just flyin. I think in order for me to lose weight I am going to have to wait till race season is over. I want to do some long ass rides in the fall with no attention to my power meter but just to do some couple hundred mile weekends.

As for this week it has been harder than expected. I did a medium effort ride on saturday out of the davidsonville park and ride. It took more out of me than I expected. I do not know if it was the heat but the pace was not extraordinarily fast.

Sunday I did a crit up in NJ with a couple guys. We saw only like 20 people preregistered but the race was about 60-65 deep for a 1,2,3 race. The late entrants were a Kelly Guy, a Jittery Joes guy and a Cervelo Test Team rider. It was Dominique Rollin. Wtf is this guy doing showing up in a little 1,2,3 crit in Jersey doing. Isn't he a pro tour rider who should not be allowed to race local races?

I do not know if the races up north are slower than they are down here or I am getting a little faster. Maybe it is in my mind and I do not get myself psyched out when I see other riders show up. But I made some breaks happen and I was gone for a couple laps but not the break that was the one. I was actually surprised that I was able to hang after my attempts because here in mabra it always seems like I am hanging on by a thread if I go with attacks. The most interesting thing I found in the race was how many times I found myself riding Dominique Rollins wheel. I must have been in prime location. Next thing I would know is he would come in on me and I would just happen to end up on his wheel. It happened 4 times. Like I won the lottery. Unfortunately I did not win any legs when he bridged up to the winning break. Luckily it contained one of the guys I went up there with. So one of us ended up in the money.

Tuesdays Davidsonville ride was one of the fastest ride that I have ever done. Or at least it was one of the hardest. The group just got shattered and the pace was high. I was told we averaged 25 for the whole ride. I was able to do that in a 3 man break earlier this year but I think tuesday was much harder because of the attacks put in and not a steady state. I think it was the first time I scored a 200 TSS on a tuesday night.

Yesterday I did intervals in the morning and decided to do greenbelt. Holy fucking hell that thing hurt. We averaged 27 Mph for the first 10 laps ended up lapping the 4s field during that time and later lapped them again on lap 16. We were cooking. It must have been the fastest greenbelt I have ever done, I wanted to quit a couple times but wanted to finish more. Like a 49 percent vote on quitting and 51 in staying in. I kept telling myself that the thing has to slow down any time soon. Why did it hurt?

Well the thing hurt really bad in the first few laps with the attacks. I was sitting on faders wheel. I do not know why I like his wheel so much but it is smooth and he is also a big guy. I am trying to figure out how to be a better racer by following some of the good riders. Chuck would attack so I could not follow him too much. So Tim Rugg attacks on the up hill and Fader goes with him. Since I am following them I was like well shit I should not let everyone down and let them ride away. So I chased them thinking the pack was on my wheel because they were like 10 feet ahead of me the whole time going up that hill. I was dying to catch them but kept thinking at least I have the pack on my wheel and I can rest on the down hill. I looked back and saw I was alone!! Fuck I better close the gap to them quick before the down hill I thought. I tapped in to a place I did not know I had and caught them. That hurt. On the down hill I was working so hard just to stay on their wheels. And chuck bridges up with a kelly guy. Good we have another couple riders and I can recover. Nope the screw gets turned again and I was already tapped out. Popped. Luckily I recovered enough to speed up to get back in the pack.

The rest of the race was just me trying to hold on. When we got to the hill on lap ten I thought we already did like 16 laps. When I saw we had only done 10 I was thinking ahh shit how the hell am I going to last. My legs were starting to cramp really bad(just raised the seat) and was praying for it to slow down just a bit for a lap. I looked back and we shelled a number of riders because I remember seeing about the same amount of guys earlier ahead of me and I was mid pack. Now I was in the back.

This is the time I was thinking of how do I conserve energy to finish this fucking race. On the down hill I was trying to soft pedal most of the time. I was fighting urges when it did slow down not to go to the front. And the one thing I discovered was riding in an easier gear. I was watching DJ ride and saw how fast he was spinning. My legs were beat going up that hill. They were just getting soo tired. When I saw DJ spinning I figured I should try it. For some reason it was working out for me. Previous times I have tried it and it sucked. This time I was able to match the surges and felt fresher. Unfortunately when we were racing for the finish my left calf and hamstring cramped up when winding it up. I was done. I finished.

I guess I have to keep losing weight if I want to do well at greenbelt or gain another 20-30 watt gain in power. The one thing I am learning is how to deal with pain and am discovering what real pain is. I was dying last night. I wish I could be dying and just throw caution to the wind and say fuck it and attack to just hurt everyone but I am not that strong.