Long Beach Crit - Don't Ask

Sorry I haven't been more on the ball with the blog posts of late.

Memorial Day I did indeed head up to Long Beach. There's not too much to say about the race. The course was very flat, four corners, and I found the pace to be pretty easy. For the most part I hung in the top 15 to 20 with little effort and waited for things to develop.

With 3 laps to go I was feeling pretty strong and riding on the front. As we crossed the line the announcer rang for a prime. Typically when the bell goes the people who care about the prime tend to make a move for the front. Because I was already on the front I was pretty oblivious to what was going on behind me. I just kept on with working at my pace. Coming into turn four I was still on the front and feeling really strong. For some stupid reason decided that I would try to jump the field coming out of turn 4 and sprint for the prime. I got a good jump, but unfortunately didn't have enough in my legs to win the prime.

At that point I was pretty much shot. I tucked into the pack to try and catch my breath, but found that I wasn't able to recover fast enough to respond to the surges that were now going on in front of me. With half a lap to go there was a small crash that I was able to avoid, but by that point I was so far back that I knew my day was done. Lesson learned, with less than 5 laps to go in a race don't get tempted by the primes, stick to keeping it steady and trying to stay near the front.

With the race done I had a couple hours of driving ahead of me. During that time I began to reflect on how things were going and where I was at with my cycling. The bottom line is that I was starting to feel like cycling was becoming more of a job than a hobby/passion. I had been doing lots of anaerobic/power training, which is painful to do (every cell in your body is screaming out in pain when you're doing these workouts), I was feeling tired, and really wasn't enjoying myself. So I resolved to take a week off from cycling and not even think about riding my bike.

Two weeks later I'm really enjoying things again. I've been working hard on my aerobic endurance, which is something I really enjoy. Getting out on some three to four hour rides; sweating my way up the hills; and seeing the country-side is what I really enjoy about cycling. Two and a half weeks from now our team will be trying to pull off a result at the Manhattan Beach Grand Prix. I hope to be in good form for that race, such that I can help one of my teammates get to the front and bring home the win.