shovelhd

Hey Cleave, you're still doing stage races, in SoCal, no less. Keep at it.

Sounds familiar. Just one of those weeks. We all have them, except gsteinb.

Criterium de Bethel M45+, mid thirties, windy, and rainy, 11th place. With Gary pretty much solidly in first place overall, a smaller field, not including the #2 guy, and crappy conditions, we could have some fun. My warmups did not go well at all. My HR was 15-20 points higher than normal. The field blasted off on the second lap with lots of attacks. Everyone wanted to warm up. G got into an early 4 man break. I covered, sometimes hard, but I knew they would get brought back eventually with him in it. After a few counters, teammate C from NJ was on the right side of the field to go with a four man counter. I went flat out trying to latch on but I could not separate so I sat up. Three teammates from the represented teams and I worked the front. They would lap the field at 4 to go. With 3 to go a guy I mistakenly thought was in the break took off. I chased him but I could not catch so I sat up (again) and dropped back into the field. I was in good position for the sprint but I was pretty fried and didn't have enough to do much. I couldn't understand until I looked at the files, and that told the story. .93IF, 92 TSS in 46 minutes, a total of 8 minutes in Z7. Maybe my FTP is off, or maybe I was tired and it was a hard race.

I decided that under the conditions it made no sense to stick around and do the P/1/2/3 race. It would have been an opportunity to try and grab some upgrade points, but my legs were beat, my bike was a mess, and I just wanted to take a warm shower. I know, HTFU.