I've always found it amazing that I can feel great one day and lousy the next, and yet have no rational explanation for the change. Sometimes, in fact, I can feel slow and sluggish while warming up for a race, and then go on to have a great ride fifteen minutes later. Wednesday and Thursday were like that. On the Wednesday morning training ride my legs were happy. Maybe the cooler air had something to do with it? I really can't explain it, since my routine lately has been, well, routine. Then on Thursday it seemed like all the snap had been drained right out of me.
A bit after 5 pm on Wednesday I closed the office door and walked down the courtyard to the bike rack. The fifteen minute ride from work to home would give me at least another fifteen minutes to change and get out the door on the Orbea for the 25-minute ride out to the lakefront. As I approached the bike rack, however, I found one of the "regular" bikes upside-down and its rather frustrated looking owner putting a wheel with an obviously flat tire back onto it. I asked if she needed a tube. It turned out that she'd had a flat and then found her spare tube was leaking as well. Since she had a fairly long commute out to the lower garden district (one of the streets named after the Greek Muses), she was going to have to call for help. So I put my presta valve tube onto her schraeder valve hole wheel, cutting a hole in a business card and sticking it over the stem to prevent the tube from coming through the gap. Of course, that put me a bit behind schedule. My legs, however, were still in happy mode, so the ride to the lakefront went by quickly and I hit Lakeshore Drive just a couple of minutes past 6 pm. I figured I'd catch the group coming the other way and only miss half a lap, but when I saw Kenny coming toward me I found out that there was no group - at least yet. As the two of us rode together the bikie gravitational effect began to take hold and by the time we were starting the second lap we had a reasonably sided group of seven or so. We were still riding pretty easy as Kenny looked over and said, "I guess the season must be ending...."
Soon, though, the pace started to climb up into training race territory. Brandon had joined the group before the speed increase, and since he was riding his 29'er mountain bike, with knobbies, I figured we'd lose him pretty quickly. Two laps later I was hanging onto his (enormous) rear wheel going 30 mph and wondering where my happy legs had gone. Mike W. was in the group playing games, opening gaps now and then, one of which finally did Brandon in with a couple of laps to go. Rolan was in the group doing a ton of work and taking some really hard pulls, and I was just kind of pulling through and trying to keep the speed up. With a couple of laps left to go, Mike started sitting in, but I wasn't really in the mood to play that game. Thus, I wasn't surprised when I heard him attack after the last trip around the fountain. Although I didn't sprint, my legs were still feeling good by the time I got home around sundown with 60 miles for the day.
This morning I really had to drag myself out of bed. It was dark and I felt tired as I made my way to the levee. I guess it wasn't so much that I was tired as it was that I was sleepy. Anyway, I was hoping for a nice smooth paceline day as we rolled out from the meeting spot. That hope went right out the window when I saw Tim and Woody coming toward me. At the time, I was a bit ahead of the group, but just moments later they all came screaming past me so fast that I had to dig just to get into the draft. After that, it just got faster. When a little gap opened up in front of VJ, I thought, "he'll close it." A few seconds later it was starting to dawn on me that he wouldn't. Just then, Brady jumped around us on the left to bridge up to the front group. I started to go too, but there was some oncoming traffic so I hesitated, and as every bike racer knows, "He who hesitates, is dropped." I went around and tied to pull it back gradually, but it wasn't happening. They were going around 30 mph, I guess, so I wiggled my elbow so the next guy could take over, but the next guy wasn't there. I dropped my head and looked back under my arm to see a vast expanse of air between me and the next guy. Crap. I eased up and we all regrouped, thanks largely to Max setting a good even tempo, and eventually we got a nice rotation going. The front group by then was at least a minute up the road, even though we were going 25-26 mph ourselves. Tim, Woody and Brady turned around at the Dip, so I thought maybe we'd catch the remainder of the front group before the turnaround, but I guess they kept the pace up because we didn't.
I found the ride back kind of frustrating. I really hate having a big group trying to do a circular paceline on that narrow bike path, especially when a certain person keeps surging three or four miles per hour every time he hits the front. Every time there's an oncoming bike, which becomes more and more frequent as we near the city, things get disrupted, gaps open, the pace surges, and general chaos ensues. After a while, it was just Rob, Rolan and me. When we got to the bridge Rob and Rolan surged and I didn't. All I wanted at that point was a nice easy ride home.
No comments:
Post a Comment