Wake Up You’re Asleep At The Wheel!!!!
I left off just after the Santa Ynez national in late May, I believe that my next race worth mentioning was the “Terrible Two”, which is a road double century. I’m not feeling up to looking up all the figures but it’s 200 miles and just over 16,000 feet of climbing on the summer solstice in arid Sonoma County. It was hot, it was hard, I had a great time. I was in 7th place for most of the day and was just behind 5th and 6th on the dreaded “skaggs climb”. Not because I wanted to be but because nobody told me that 39×25 was not an appropriate gear choice. Long story short my shit came apart at the very end (after all of the climbing was done) and a group of 4 got by me. I hung on for a bit but I was dead weight and fell off the group, I rode the last 10 miles or so just waiting for another bigger group to chew me up and spit me out. That moment never came and I ended 11th. I fully expect to do this again next year but will be happy with nothing short of a top 5 finish.
That 45 number just keeps on showing up in my life. That was my number at 24hoa when I had the race of my life last year and it was my number at 12 hrs of Temecula this january. Weird.
After that there was a whole bunch of not racing, thinking about giving up on cycling, wondering what it would be like to be a trail runner, self-doubt, blah, blah, blah. Then there was single speed worlds!! This was by far the most fun that I’ve had at a race ever and I’ll bet that if you’re reading this then you were there. In the interest of time ( I have to be in San Fransisco and dressed presentably in about an hour) I’m going to kinda run through this.
First there was some bike racing, it went fairly well. Being as that I was still not in my best shape at this point in time I couldn’t really “go for it”. I think that this worked out for the best because I just steadily picked off people the entire race instead of blowing myself out of the water like I had done at skyline earlier this year. My efforts were rewarded with a nifty bottle opener that I am kinda proud of
Then I drank some beers (and wine) and watched the shenanigans unfold in front of me. Just as Hilary and I were getting ready to leave they called 9th (Cameron Falconer, another Fairfax resident) and 10th place up to the “stage”. Uh oh, now I’m gonna have to participate in the going-ons. Arm wrestling! Really?
Really. Lucky for me I had been spending a lot of time lifting weights insted of riding bikes and I had just watched “Over the Top” the day before. I ended up adding to my winnings a “throne” which I am sitting in right now.
Well that’s about all that I have time for right now. It turns out that I only end up having time for this blogging stuff during the winter time so get ready for some more talk of “epic base miles” and other exciting stuff like that.
Oh, yeah one last thing. I ended up 5th in the NMBS series in Semi-Pro this year and Jim won the series. We had two people from Content Works on the end of the year podium and that was pretty cool. Since there won’t be a Semi-Pro class next year we both upgraded to pro for 09′. It’s looking like the goal at the National races for next year is probably going to be not to get pulled. Oh well I figure that if I end up being too far off the back that I can always down grade or just race single speed again. There’s always good competiton there.
