Life is sometimes like a rain forecast. You do your best to avoid it and hope for the best - but sometimes you just get soaking wet.
I'm on the flip side of an epic racing weekend and survived. As mentioned, it kicked off Thursday with a solid motor pace session (thanks PAT!!) where I could barely summon up enough energy to climb up the stairs to our house.
Follow that with the typical Friday Night racing - where at first my motivation was down and I panicked a little thinking I would have to live up to my omnium performance from last weekend. The first race, a win and out, was formatted ass backwards and I placed 10th. A quick little chat with David F. and I put my game face back on. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy miss and outs? It's all about tactics, pacing yourself, finding small holes to shoot through and staying out of trouble. I found myself in the final 5. But this time instead of going with 200m to go - I waited until coming out of corner 4 and then "go-go-gadget-rocket-legs!" to the finish to out sprint all but one guy. Our last race of the evening - a 30 lap scratch was a lot of fun. Brad attempted to do a big lead out for me with 2 laps to go - but a RCR guy got caught up in the mix and then decided to sit up with 150m to go. Punk! So it became a mad dash for 5th. But I'll take it! And I placed 4th in the Omnium!!!
Day three on - a circuit race in Carnation. This was our team race - so although I didn't get home until 11:30pm the night before, I was up and at em' at 5:45am to help set up the course and course marshall for the early races. I was pretty pooped by the time we raced - but summoned up enough energy to be a contender in the final sprint. I had been warned by multiple people that it was a long sprint from the final corner. But that didn't stop me from trying to do a 500m sprint to the line. I glanced down and saw 35.6 mph, then 34... then the 200m line and thought, "oh shit!" and then watched Morgan pip me at the line. Dang! You'd think I would have learned by now. Oh well. It had been a while since I've done a road race.
Day four - Sunday. Woke up to beautiful blue skies but with a threat of rain in the afternoon. I packed a rain jacket just in case. I met up with Linda and Christine near the University Bridge and we made our way down to Seward. It took me a good 25 minutes to warm up the legs and spin out the garbage locked in them. Self doubt lingered in my head - but my body was ready for the challenge. Attacks continued lap after lap - until a 5 person break made it up the road and Liz was in it. The rest of us were content with sitting in waiting until the gap proved substantial enough before we made any moves. Liz did well - placed 2nd in the finish and I won the pack sprint for 6th. All in all - an excellent day on the bike despite having four days of heavy work. Things are on track for nationals!
On the way home, I encountered rain showers though and was soaked from head to toe by the time I rolled in. Sometimes you just can't avoid it.
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