Can I Turn the Heat Off Now?

What a hot weekend. There were moments I felt like I was breather through a sponge soaked in oil, especially while I was racing. I also got to race twice over the weekend. The first race, the New Haven Summer Cycling Celebration was a time trial up through East Rock Park. It started about 2 kilometers from our house. You can't really beat that.

It was a frustrating day. Registration opened late, the race started late and results took over an hour to post. I ended up tied for 6th, three seconds down on 5th. I think I could have made up those three seconds if, 1) there wasn't somebody that wasn't racing on the inside of a long sweeping turn at the same time as me and, 2) a sharp downhill turn was marked to indicate which side of a traffic island one should take. And of course I could have made up more time if I had ridden harder too but I'm not so sure that could have happened. I'm pretty sure my good warm-up wore off standing around at the late start. Maybe I just got to the finish late.

On Sunday I raced the Donovan-Ruhlman Memorial Crit in Naugatuck, CT. The course is a triangle with downhill turn, a turn over a bunch of manhole covers and a pretty sharp turn back to the start finish that happened to be into the wind. The course was just under a mile and we were doing 56 laps. I thought it was a pretty cool course. With 40 or so laps go I though I wasn't going to finish. I felt terrible. I was sitting at the back fighting to get to the front and I couldn't seem to do it.

I'm all the way on the left side of the picture with my distinct red and white helmet. I think only two guys from the picture made it across and I'm one of them. Good thing I stopped hanging out at the back with them.

I'm somewhere in the video. I think it's from pretty early in the race.

Sometime after the halfway point in the race a big break went with 10 to 12 people in it. It looked like a replay of last week in New Britain. I thought that was it. Another group of about 5 goes to bridge and I put in a huge effort to get to them. I was well over my limit. I pulled through a couple of times but I'm not sure I helped the bridge's progress. My own effort to the bridge really cooked me. After a bunch of laps we did make it to the front group. In the end that group grew to 25 people. I had turned myself inside out to get there and I could get some recovery in the group.

Towards the end of the race the attacks starting going. With 6 laps to go my legs starting cramping and I tried to relax as much as possible but that meant I couldn't follow any attacks. In the end 7 guys went off the front of my group and I rolled in for 20 overall. I didn't have much pop at the end but I was happy to have made it across. It was a good effort considering I didn't think I was going to last half the race. I think the pictures will tell more of the story.

Wha' happen?

Unlike Belgium, recovery begins immediately.

We stopped for some post-race ice cream. I heard it's good for recovery.