No 5th gear!

Desert and the venue

Imagine you’re driving your car. You’re trying to accelerate but instead of going faster, you just hear your engine revving to higher and higher RPMs, and if you’re not smart, the engine will blow up. That is pretty much how I can sum up my weekend of racing so far. The engine was pushing as hard as it could. In fact, my average HR in both the short track in Super-D was around 200, and I hit 211 and 210 in both races and blew up multiple times. 🙂 That shift to 5th gear just wasn’t happening, no more power! I was secretly wishing that I would show up to my first race on antibiotics after not racing since August 5 and be fast. Call it naive or call it over optimistic. Without hope, what do we have anyway? I’ve never been fast in April, and much to my chagrin, this year proved to be no different. I can’t say that I’m happy with my results, but sometimes all you can do is go hard, stay positive, and hope to be faster next time. Quick review. Super-D. Not so super, not much D. It’s more of a flat TT on double track. I did it last year, and the course was a little faster with not as many sand pits. Flat roads have never been my strength, so it was a good workout. In the height of my anaerobic hell, I saw the saguaros waving at me as I was choking on my own breath…or lack thereof. Short Track. The course was, well, interesting. There was a super steep, sandy jaunt that you really couldn’t ride. I think the only person riding it was Kabush. It was more of a cyclocross short track. I actually made up time on the run-up, but there was a long, flat section in the wind and ha, ha, that’s where I’d lose time. A lot of time. I need the trail to point up. What’s up with this flat business? Anyway, short track is usually a good event for me, but this one was probably my worst. Gotta get those bad ones out of the way, right? At least I had some sweet short track socks (which is also my thing) to at least give the crowd something to look at besides my scowling suffer face. You now, teeth gnashing, drool, head cocked to the side. Hot! Which brings us to today. The XC. I love the course. I LOVE my Cannondale Scalpel. Last year I was having nerve problems, crashed, and got a concussion…so it really can’t get much worse than that. If I have nothing in the tank, at least I’ll enjoy the desert singletrack. 3 days of hard racing is going to start boosting my fitness. Next weekend is the first stop of the mountain states cup in Fruita, CO. I’ll let you know how the XC goes, but don’t expect anything too big, just expect me to come across the line with a big grin from all the fun. 🙂 Thanks sooo much to Eric for taking care of us at the swank Cannondale trailer and to Chris for feeding us during the XC. You guys are awesome. 🙂