UP...ing the fun - Riding a low

My days feels like seconds, my weeks like minutes, and my months like hours.  Even more than true in the months of August and September.  It seems that my weekends are stringed together with no time in between. By the time I unpack and wash and service my bike its all back in the truck ready for another weekend of racing.  Since the Ore to Shore I'm on my 6th straight weekend of racing and 3 of them included back to back Saturday/Sunday racing.  It may be the reason for the "low" in the title.

I love racing my bike....so this is a great time of year, but I also enjoy my training. Even though my training has went steady I don't feel like I've had a solid training week in awhile.  It gets jumbled up when you are racing so much and trying to recover from the weekends efforts.

UP...ing the Fun
In order to split the hectic race schedule I opted to join my 212 friends in Copper Harbor this year for the Fat Tire Festival.  Chris dragged me up there last year and showed me how to laugh while racing my bike.  Ever since then I knew going back year after year wasn't going to be a hard decision.

The normal culprits of Chris and Brian were there.  Along this year was the returning Fat Tire stud, Big D (Darrin B.).  He is the only 180# rider I know that can sing to you while going up hill at race pace!  Damn him.

As I expected, the 4 of us were off the front after descending the Flow trail and heading back up hill to the lodge.  Along with us was a Canadian rider that could rip downhill.  Chris only knows 2 big downhill rippers that can climb and one was with us, Big D.  He pounded the pedals and sure enough it was back down to the 4 of us.  Wait.. that was until the bottom of the red trail when the Canadian downhill ripper was back with us.  Dang, this guy could descend.  Thiss time I noticed my teammate Pete K. coming back to us.  I was on the front and slowed the pace a bit to let him back on.  I was stoked to have one of our Jr's in the front group.  Climbing back up to the lodge I felt the need to race... yup race.  I think I broke the rules with that, racing in Copper Harbor.  Anyways, once again it cut the group down to the 4 of us.  Descending the Red Trail to the finish Darrin and I created a gap but lapped riders kept bringing us back together.  Chris made the right move and called it truths until we were off the Red Trail.  It was the right call, it was getting dangerous with lapped riders.  We popped out on the road and Big D went.  I bridged, countered, sprinted, and crashed.  A hard right hand off camber turn to the finish sucked me down as Chris took the perfect line to the finish.  Down and bruised but not out.  I got up and finished 4th.

Riding a low
This past weekend I was back in Munising.  I say back but it has been 4 years since I raced the Tour da Woods.  It has always conflicted with other racing in the Midwest.  I came back and others came for the first time.  I figured they would.  4 of the 6 top 6 finishers were on the start line for the Tour da Woods!! Dang.  Add the eventual winner of the 2012 Tour, Mike Anderson, and we have whats called a stacked field.

We started fast, it got faster, got faster again, and then I popped.  I guess there is no easy way around it.  The pace was too high for me.  Mike Anderson made the first move. The way he rides I figured he would be gone off the front and not coming back so a good one to follow.  I bridged up, using a huge effort.  Got to his wheel and along came Cole and Brian.  Cole countered as soon as I bridged.  I pounded on the back to stay on.  Over some steep climbs I got disconnected a bit.  Jordan W. worked his way back and passed me.  Just before the single track I was back on the group.  The single track was twisty and Mike A. hit each twist with power.  I was at my limit from the effort to get back on so the power out of each corner was too much. 5 fee became 10 and 10 became 20.  I was off the back.  Onto the gravel road I was gaped by 40 seconds.  Right before entering the woods I had it down to 20 seconds but never closer.  Nearing the end did what I never do and regret, I gave in.  I rolled solo and slow the last few miles and finished 5th.  Quite disappointing to me.

A less than stellar result left me with 2 decisions for Sunday.  Stay home to train or drive to Geneva for some racing revenge.  Being a racer, I opted for the race.  3 hours down to Cole's house, a quick nights stay, and 3 more hours the next morning and I was sitting on the start line for WORS #10 Lake Geneva.  Standing on the start line might have been the fasted I moved all day.  Immediately during the start I knew power was not coming from my legs.  The lead pulled away like I had a string attached to my post pulling me backwards.  I went into defense mode the whole race.  Darrin chauffeured me for a lap until I caught Isaac and then he acted as my chauffeur.  I was passed in the last 1/4 mile and finished 11th.  My worst result of the year and broke my goal of not wanting to finish out of the top 10 in 2012.

The only thing to do. Take your humble pill and move onto the next week.  Realizing that the racing is taking a toll on me I took 2 days off in order to find my legs for a race this weekend.  Oh... its only the largest race in the Midwest. Cheq 40!  Stay tuned.