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

Sunday, May 25, 2008

It's the Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend and I have to say that I'm just about as exhausted as I can be. Since Thursday I've been racing in something called the Tour of Atlanta: seven stages in five days. So far we've done five races in the last three days and, depending on whether there was a timing error with one rider, I'm either in second or third overall. I'd really like to end up on the podium for this but we'll see how it goes. Right now, I'm just trying to hang on. I targeted the two stages I knew I'd do best at; the time trial and the team time trial. I took second to my teammate Robert on the TT by four seconds and our team won the TTT yesterday which has put us into a really good place. That was a big deal because it gives us some bragging rights here in the state. It was a shorter effort (only about 22 km) but we put a minute into the closest team and 90 seconds and 2 minutes into two of the big Atlanta teams that make a lot of noise at these races. Mixed in with those two stages have been a "sprint" stage which I did poorly in, a criterium where I lost a couple of seconds on the last lap and a 50 mile road race where I finished with the pack protecting my place in the overall classification.

While it's only been three days of racing, I already feel like my life is this little routine of travel, set-up, put on cycling clothes, warm-up up, race, warm down, eat and drink for recovery, take off cycling clothes, put stuff away, travel, sleep, get up, laundry, travel... You get the picture. For five days there will be no life outside of cycling. I have to say that while it's interesting it's not something I want to do at this age and stage in my life. When I was 25 and if I had someone to take care of all the non-cycling specific stuff and I had someone to massage my legs after each race I might be a lot happier but not now. I'm really ready to be done at this point. I feel like I need an entire day just to nap and eat and another day to get caught up on my household chores.

Today and tomorrow consist of crit races which I really hate. My goal is to stay out of trouble, keep the rubber side down and finish with the lead pack in each race. I'm hoping I can stay up with my teammates and use their physical presence to help me be more confident in my cornering so that I don't lose so many places every time we make a turn. When that happens I end up getting shuffled tot he back of the pack and I have to yo-yo on and off which is a lot harder way to race. The good thing is that the races will each only be about 35 minutes long and there is only one each day. Yesterday was by far the hardest day I've had racing in that I killed myself on the TTT with heavy legs, had about 90 minutes to rest and then had to go out and do a 50 mile road race. When we finished, I made the mistake of sitting down and almost couldn't get back up again. Somewhere along the line I've managed to strain a couple of intercostal muscles and so breathing is a little painful and twisting the wrong way can be difficult.

Anyways, enough complaining. I'm in the hunt for a podium spot as is my teammate in the biggest amateur stage race in Georgia so that's pretty cool. If we can just hang on we'll be standing on the biggest podium of our lives tomorrow in Buford. Wish us luck and pray that I keep the rubber side down. I'm off to start the process of getting things ready to travel up to Gainesville. The cycling continues...

Thanks for reading.

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