Wanted to save you the boring-ness of talking about riding base miles, and haven't had much else good stuff to talk about as work is turning me into a dullard. Sleep, work, ride. Repeat ad nauseum.
Now on to some actual fun stuff. Bike racing!
After the last cross race of the season (a very fun Cap City Cross in rural Columbus) I took a few weeks off.
After those few weeks off, I was back at it in early January for the first of three Snake Creek Gap time trials. A few weeks off after a tough cross season left me with legs fresher than any in recent memory. I was feeling so good, when... wait for it... a mechanical!
The course is sort of like if they dumped West Branch on a big-ass mountain. Tons of climbing and rocks everywhere.
I was boogeying along, well on my way to my best time and hopefully a win, and before you know it, the familiar hiss of Stan's flying everwhere. Rad. At about mile 29 of the 34 mile race, I get a mechanical.
After dicking around with my tire for way too long (thanks to the people who bailed me out with co2 and eventually a frame pump after I exhausted my stash), I was back on the trail 30-45 minutes later. Fuckin' a. Did I mention that while I was trying to get my Stan's to seal up, it was 30 degrees and super windy and I was on top of a mountain ridge?
Less learned: if I flat on the trail, don't screw with getting my stans to seal a cut, just throw in a tire and go.
After that I was super cold and sore and pushed through the last 5 miles pretty slowly. Finished in 3:50, which is ok, but it was a bit of a blow to go from feeling great to that. Oh well.
February saw me doing the race again. I had a semi-big week of training before, so my legs felt like trash. The weather wasn't cooperating at all. And crossing the deep and freezing creek sucked.
Yep... sucked.
It was muddy and cold and miserable, and my head wasn't in it.
Those three factors culminated into me cracking terribly the last 9 or so miles, where the race gets hard. I started getting into the negative feedback loop of "Why do I do this to myself?" and pretty much just started my deathmarch to the finish line.
I still posted up a respectable time: 3:27, which is only 4 minutes off my best time from last year. With the crappy conditions and my mental health issues, I'll take it.
March should hopefully go a little better, and I am shooting for around the 3 hour mark. We'll see.
I'll get back into this bloggin' thing a bit more soon!
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