CA - B2B

Greetings from a saturated New England!

My updates have been lagging this year, and truth be told I have been favoring updates "in 140 words or less" due to sheer laziness. The racing has quieted down quite a bit since CTSR, and I've been working on getting the weight and power back up a bit following my H1N1 go-around. The Candyman telephoned a a few weeks back, Oscar Zeta Acosta-style, and told me to pack a bag and a bike or two and meet him in CA - which I did without hesitation. 32 hours and 30k+ feet of climbing later, I touched back down in New England with some great fitness and no where to test it - typical. I took things fairly easy this past week, dipped my legs in the running pool a bit, and looked to have a good ride at the Harpoon B2B yesterday. Mahk the Shahk is the resident-badass of this ride, and its always good to finish in the lead group of fast guys with him. Timmy J and Lynne Bessette were a very pleasant (and last minute!) surprise for this one, and I had a "Reuter moment." Once I got over the giddiness, it was all business. A group of 5-6 of us spent the entire time at the front pulling triathletes around, and as expected things were strung out and several people got dropped at the hills around mile 90. If I had stayed true to form for this season, I would have done the same - but I didn't. Instead I continued to mix it up with Tim, Lynne, and Mahk over the next 40 miles, and felt phenomenal...until a dropped chain on a hill with 8 miles to go derailed my ride. Things got even better as I absolutely buried myself trying to latch back onto the group solo for those final 8 miles - holding 280W after 140mi of riding - to no avail. The end result was without doubt my best ride of the season, perhaps ever. It is days like these that remind me of why I put all of those hours of training in - I had a blast.

Is it September yet?

CTSR Recap

Greetings!

Quick recap of CTSR: Not my best showing! I had originally planned to hit my first peak of the season for this one, but the combination of the flu/stress & a general lack of desire to do anything remotely resembling intervals in the weeks leading up to it put me in a tough position. I generally do well in stage races that are decided on the TT, but simply stated: I BLEW IT.

TT: I really enjoyed the 8mi out-and-back TT course, it had enough rollers and false flats to really turn the suffer meter on for ~20min, and after crossing the line I felt like I had nailed it....until I rolled over to Atwood 10min later and he kindly informed me that I was in 4th place after only 10 or so riders had finished. I eventually ended up 23rd for the TT, ~1:20 down on the winner. Adversity.

Circuit: Again, nice little course. Yellow-line rule in effect on a very narrow road made it VERY difficult to move up, but my legs were already trashed from the TT so I happily sat in towards the back for most of this one. I actually got dopped 2-3x on a steep little kicker of a hill on the backside of the course, but jumped back onto the group on the ensuing downhill. The finish was pretty hot and sketchy, so I sat up and soft-pedaled in while the knuckleheads tangled bars and wheels up front. Nothing got away, ST for everyone. Adversity.

RR: After 16oz of some overcooked sirloin and a great night of sleep, the legs felt semi-refreshed and I was ready to get after the 91mi course. Recon Clif Notes by one of the Threshold/Harvard guys the week before fresh in my mind, I approached the first ~50mi loop planning to sit in and conserve energy - which I did. The pace got a little uncomfortable at times, but it was clearly much too early for anyone to get away for good. As we started the second ~40mi loop, things began to heat up. My Garmin had us at about 4000ft of climbing for that loop, and it felt like 8000ft. Nuts. I eventually found myself falling off of the back on most major inclines, and burning match after match to get back onto the tail of the group. I had some familiar company alongside me and neither of us were particularly enjoying ourselves. In the end, I hung tough for ~90mi....and got popped on the last hill with 1.5K to go. Adversity.

Overall: Although my results were less than desirable, I walked away from this one fairly satisfied. The past few weeks have been a clusterfcuk of poor health and stress for me, and I didn't exactly train for this one the way I normally would have/should have.

Beyond: It was great to get my stage race on, and I am looking forward to getting my fill at Fitchy and Owasco in the coming weeks/months.

Up next: Back to the roots, heading up to the Mooseman half-IM on Sunday in NH to get my relay on (and get some much-needed TITS on the TT bike!)

There is also a rumor going around that the WC invasion, Round 2 is ON. Details to follow...

Until the next chapter,

C

Among the Living

Greetings!

I've just crawled out of a hellacious two-week period that saw me rockin' some serious H1N1-like flu symptoms for 9+ days, nearly on my deathbed, and some additional severe health issues in the family system.  I'm back in civilization now and resuming my place among the living.  There is certainly never a lack of stress in my world...thankfully my hair chooses to turn grey instead of falling out, I'd be fcuked otherwise.  Turning negatives into positives means:

1.  I am 3lbs UNDER goal race weight, which is essentially a place I have not been since my marathon days (pre-2002).  The weight came off a little faster than ideal, but...;

2.  Indicators this week show no signficant loss of power;

3.  I am well-rested and rolling into CTSR with none of the heavy expectations I typically place on myself heading into a race of this magnitude.

Good luck to everyone getting their stage race on, riding with close associates up in NH, or just choosing to relax with a little DMB @Fenway.  :)

Better living through chemistry,

C

Is It September Yet?

Greetings!

It has been a while.  Plenty of road races have been crossed off of the calendar, and thankfully we are inching closer to the REAL reason why we train and race year-round.  The team has been fairly pleased with our results to date, and we look forward to more success in the coming weeks.  CB has been absolutely on fire in the results department, and the team has had a blast supporting him against some very tough fields.  Sunapee is up next, and barring any impromptu turns off-course CB should be right in the mix again!

On the personal front, I've been logging some serious run time (for me, at least)...so much so that a "comeback" of sorts may be in the works.  It has certainly been a bit detrimental to my performance on the bike, but I'm enjoying it and thus going with it.  I'm not very keen on getting in the water again, but never say never...

Battenkill Redux

Greetings!

Recap of our Battenkill experience this past weekend can be found here.  Glad to see Feltslave's blog is back in business...

Is it September Yet???

http://sveltecycles.blogspot.com/2009/04/week-in-pictures-saturday-night-lights.html

Getting closer

Greetings!

I apologize for the lack of updates lately, but there is not much going on in the H2O (that's 02472... for the unawares).  Transitioning from base to build went quite smoothly, save for recovery from the CA trip taking a bit longer than I had planned.  All is well now, and some field testing and indicators this week are pointing to yours truly being right on track and according to plan.  After a midly successful stint at Wells Week 1 working the jitters out, the team is very much looking forward to this weekend's NE opener in Marblehead.  We have zero expectations heading into this one, other than building the fitness as we inch closer and closer to our first big effort on April 18.  The field is stacked, including none other than Pedro's p/b +3 Network/ Svelte Cycles' Directeur Sportif and current Spooky/NCC/Kenda rider Justin Spinelli, so there will certainly be no lack of speed in this one.

Looking forward, the team will be focusing on the usual New England "Spring Classics" (Turtle Pond, Quabbin, Jiminy Peak, Sunapee, etc.) before crit season (my favorite! [sic]) revs up.  There has been a lot of chatter out there re: the Cat3 field in '09, and our name keeps popping up...so if we've got them talking, we best produce some results!

Speaking of chatter, one of my must-reads on the current blogroll belongs to RMM.

EBTI is chock full of some good reviews, and RMM is never afraid to speak his mind (often times quite loudly! ;) ) and incite a riot in the process.  Kudos, RMM...

My other current must-read belongs to Thom Parsons.  Thom is fucking genius - what else can I say? Go read the post from Tuesday, March 24, 2009 and then tell me otherwise...

Celebrity sighting: I rode with Tyler Hamilton for a few minutes yesterday.  Sully and JimmE thought they spotted him in recent weeks out riding, and now it is confirmed.  I was finishing up a rather pedestrian recovery ride with a climb of Park Ave. in Arlington and saw a pretty sharp-looking kit ~30m up the hill.  I nearly blew up on that short ~0.5mi stretch trying to catch up and figure out who it was - luckily he hit the red light at the Rt. 2 crossover.  Totally humble dude, confirming why I've been a huge fan of his since '99.  Word is that his mom is not doing so well as of late, so thoughts and wishes go out to the Hamilton clan.  

Look for a Marblehead write-up next week...

Rubber side down,

C