Time is at a premium so the blogging has slowed dramatically…so rather than back up, I’m just going to get to this past weekend and not worry about trying to write about the big officiating weekend other than to say I survived it all and while it was all good, I’m glad to be done with officiating for a while.

On to the races. First back-to-back race weekend of the season for me. I’m way late starting this year and it feels really strange, but that’s how things go and for me there’s a lot more to life than bike racing.

Just to put a little perspective on things for the weekend, we start with Wednesday of last week. I went to see Neil – my totally awesome chiropractor early so I could get across the river before the traffic got bad. Then I killed a little time before meeting up with Susan and Pierre. We rode over to the W&OD where we met up with Jeff & Kay on the tandem, Cat and Tania. We headed West for a 4-hour ride. I was fearful of this ride. With my schedule what it has been and is, I’ve been doing 90-minute or 2-hour trainings. 4 hours is a big jump in time on the bike. I started out ok but got my head in a bad place fairly quickly once we exited the trail and started hitting the roads in Loudon County. Pierre came back for me and talked me out of turning back then talked me out of the bad place. After that I was good for a while up until we got beyond the 2hour mark. Then my legs wanted to know where the hell the car was, ‘cause it was time to be done. Another rough patch that lasted about 15 minutes or so that Pierre worked with me to get through. Then the legs-like-sand feeling went away and we picked it up and got back to the others once more. When I ran out of juice to do any more Z4 at the 4 hour mark I didn’t fight it. We were on the trail and getting close to the end, so I just put away the big ring and took it easy on me for the last 20 minutes. Mostly I did ok though. I did almost all the climbs in the big ring – 53x21 seemed to serve me quite well for the most part. I think that for me on shorter climbs like those relying on my power works better than relying on my leg speed. I did my best to stay seated as much as possible, as that’s always best for climbing. In the end it turned out to be the longest ride I’ve done in over 2 years as I have a tendency to do 3-3.5 and call it enough.

Took it easy with Z2 on the TT bike Thursday to start getting used to the new saddle – put an Adamo on to see if it’ll relieve the discomfort. Friday night I had two bikes to get ready so I called the hot walks between the metro station and the office enough for the day and spent the evening setting things up for the crit on Saturday and the TT on Sunday. Plus I had to pack the officiating kit to deliver to the Crit on Saturday as well. So I took the Sable, not ready to beat up the Milan like that.

Travel went ok except for having to go into town and come back out because of construction around the WW Bridge. That was enough to delay my getting to the race a little bit. But it took no time for us to get the finish line set up, etc. Then it was time for me to get ready. I got in a few warm up laps and some time on the trainer. It was very humid, foggy at the start of the day. When the sun came out and burned off the fog it got hot fast! Even with a race at 9:30am, it was nasty. But I survived the heat and the race. It was a fairly fast race – average was 23 and we didn’t slow down too many times. CycleLife and Artemis were definitely there to race. We were a small squad – me, CK, Anna, Tania and Cat. Tania’s crank came off part way through the race. I was mostly hanging on for dear life – seemed to have enough in me to stay with the main group and go with every response to attacks but not anything more. I did wind up a good sprint – hitting just under 34mph at the finish. Almost rear ended Anna cause she sat up just past the finish line and I was still carrying a lot of speed… Cat and I went out on the trail with Tania and Amy (NCVC) for a “cool down” ride post race. Don’t know if it was on the race course or on the trail, but the HRM recorded 107 as max temperature for the morning. Then it was time to get home, eat, shower and get ready to head down to Chesapeake for Sunday’s TT.

Happily Aldona was set to drive so I got to chill out and rest my legs some during the drive. We made pretty good time. Had dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack – not bad for a chain seafood place. Then we picked up some organic breakfast burritos made with egg whites and turkey sausage for the morning (our room had a small fridge, coffee maker and microwave in it). Didn’t sleep all that well but that’s the way life goes. Since I sleep alone in a quiet space it’s always hard for me to get a good night’s sleep when sharing a room with someone. I wonder if Aldona knows that she sometimes calls out in her sleep….

Hunger woke me at 4am. Never got back to sleep. 6am and it was already 80 degrees. Warmed up some, but didn’t have much energy and the heat was really bothering me. HR did not want to elevate. 2nd TT in a row where I’ve had trouble getting my head in the game. Raced but didn’t have a good race. Knew I was going slow, couldn’t get my HR up even when I could get my speed up. New saddle has shifted my position – I’m sitting way forward in competition. End result is that my triceps started screaming at me. I sucked it up as best I could but not one of my better efforts. HRM says it was 92! In the end about 1mph slower than a year ago. Ok so it was 20 degrees cooler last year and I was able to get my HR up but still I’m now struggling with a sense of being slow and not going to be ready for Nationals. Of course I wasn’t DFL and I almost caught Ruth Stornetta – she started 2 minutes ahead of me and finished 2 seconds ahead of me – but yesterday’s result is a far cry from last year’s 2nd to BJ by a couple of seconds. Gotta put it behind me and get my head ready for Church Creek this coming Saturday.