Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Stop...Hammer Time

Since my last sort of morose post I have done a lot of riding. A really lot of riding. Last Saurday I went for a solo 55 mile ride at 22 mph through hilly terrain. I wasn't Lance but I could have hung with him on a training ride (as long as it wasn't in the Alps...or when he was doing intervals...or actually going really hard...so I could have hung with Lance on a moderate intensity recovery ride I guess). Sunday I did some hard leg speed intervals on the rollers. Since I'm balancing on the rollers but not going anywhere my pedals stroke has to be reasonbly smooth and even. I was pleasently surpirsed to get up to 32 mph in the little ring. I was spinning with a candance of about 150 rpm and staying smooth. Monday was a day off and Tuesday I did a hard 35 mile ride on the TT bike. Yesterday I did 2 hours on the pig trail in Macon and turned out 31 minute laps which is pretty good considering the tree down across the trail and the fact that I was riding the course backwards for the first time. Tonight I went to the killer Griffin Thursday night training ride. In the middle of a thunderstorm I put the hammer down and dropped everybody and I do mean everyone. I was down in the drops with the bulging eyes and the drool and the snot hammering away into the wind on a flat section and I opened up a huge gap. I eased off on a hilly section and two guyus finally managed to bridge up to me. We rode together for a while trading monster pulls until they decided they'd had enough and sat up. I rode off and finished strong.

I feel good for Nationals in a week. I still can't believe that I'm going. My goal goal of the year was to qualify and go and I've done that. Anything else this year will be gravy. I hope to finish top ten out there but the competition will be strong. My biggest goal is to have the experience of competing at that level and to use the expereince to hone my goals for next year. I think that I can finally justify going out and getting a coach to help with with training and, most importantly, nutrition. In any case, I'm planning to have a lot of fun in Salt Lake racing the race and spending time with my family.

Faculty back week starts Monday with the requisite meetings and welcomes. In a sense I love these things but in a way they are totally boring. Hopefully the administration will remember that we really are professionals and that we don't need to be lectured to about stuff we deal with every day. Classes are full and the College continues to grow faster than the State's budget allocation to it so things are dicey as to where all the students will be going. Let's hope we can find spotws for everyone.

Thanks for reading.

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