So the Tour of
Shenandoah is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t mean that as a whining
thing either. It’s cool. Hard as hell, but cool.

Quick recap so
far…

Stage 2 – Crit

It was a decent
enough crit, flat and fast, really fast. There were times I’d look down and
we were doing over 60 k/hr. Craziness. It wasn’t too hard though. I played it
really low for a long while, then tried to move up and get in the mix with 8
to go. I didn’t succeed all too well, I finished 32nd. I didn’t know it then,
but that was going to become the theme so far of the week.

Stage 3 – Somewhere
to the Homestead – 102 miles?

That was a pretty
easy stage…yeah…no. Andy got in what would be the GC defining break of the
week and rode it hard, unfortunately he got dropped off on the KOM about 2/3
through the race. It was a nice move though, at least he was out there with
a chance at doing something cool. I was just sitting back wondering how hard
the last climb was going to be.

The midway KOM
was crazy hard, and the final one was even harder. I ended up just off the back
of the second group over the top of the climb after I came completely apart.
I was with Mike Norton from Nerac, and thankfully he wasn’t cracked like I was,
otherwise I’m 100% certain I never would have caught back on. It was a long
chase, but we got back, and I quietly rode in 2:30 behind the leaders. I couldn’t
talk when I finished. I’ve never been so wrecked after a race.

We stayed at the
Homestead that night, and it was without a doubt the nicest place I’ve ever
stayed. Phil gave a little speech on diabetes that left me speechless. It was
damn good. They had a silent auction that raised 1100 dollars for JDRF and Team
Type 1 that night. Pretty cool.

Stage 4 – Homestead
to Somewhere – 108 miles

So this one was
supposed to be the hard one, because yesterday’s was easy. There was a KOM almost
right from the start that rocked my world and shredded the field. Most everyone
came back together for that, just in time for the next one, which tickled some
more. Then came a really hard section that was straight WV-style – narrow, winding,
roads with hard, steep climbs thrown in every 4 seconds. The field shredded
again in this section, but it all came back together for a little while…just
in time for the big climb up Vesuvius – that’s the name, for real. It was steep,
hard, bla bla bla, I got waxed, ended up a little behind the second group again,
except this time there was no getting back on and my group was to be the gruppetto.
That would have been fantastic if I hadn’t ended up off the front of the gruppetto
somehow and ended up riding a three-man ‘break’ to the finish. I just wanted
to get done…the quicker the better, and with the least amount of work possible.
I don’t think I ended up doing the least amount of work possible, but I got
some quality tempo work…I guess.

That wasn’t exactly
the best day ever. Not too much to say about it. I got rocked. I didn’t do anything
stellar on the 20 minute climb, but I didn’t do anything bad either. I just
need to get stronger.

Mark Hekman left
yesterday too. We were sorry to see him go. He’s off to the wonderful world
of the Crit World Series starting in Athens tomorrow. Wish I could be there.
Maybe not to race at the moment, but at least to watch.

As for me and Andy
(because Phil left for Atlanta this morning) – it’s a 95 mile rolling stage,
a 25k TT tomorrow, and then a hard crit Sunday. Some would say the worst is
over, but the way my legs feel at the moment…yeah.

That’s all for
the moment. We don’t race till 2 today. That’s a good thing.

First stage of
Shenandoah is done. It was a Prologue, 2.6 miles, first half was flat to rolling,
second half basically uphill, and it got steeper as you got closer to the finish
line, nothing too complicated.

I actually did
a little warm-up, went kinda hard, had a tachycardia episode, and then had it
scared out of me when a car almost ran me over. Guess I’ll have to add that
to my strategies at getting rid of it whenever I get smacked with the butterfly
beats. Nothing like being scared shitless to adjust your heart rate.

Actually made my
start time, ditched my TT helmet, cuz I broke it, but found out later that once
again I had dispoved any notion of natural selection, because I was trying to
force basically a square through a circle. Not wearing the TT helmet probably
cost me the win, I got 50th. Yeah.

Blazing time. I
guess I can’t be too upset, it’s by far the fastest I’ve ever gone, wattage-wise.
But yeah, 50th, I figured that when I had a breakthrough ride, birds would sing,
cameras would flash, and I’d win, or at the very least get a podium. No, no
I didn’t think that at all, but for real, 50th. I lost 54 seconds to the winner,
Tom Zirbel, he’s fast…there were a lot of people smooshed in those 53 seconds
between me and Thor Zirbel. I rode with Mr. Zirbel once…it was right before
Nationals last year…he was pretty fast then too.

The official
results say that I did 7:08.84, I worked pretty freaking hard for that,
I averaged 434 watts. I’m pretty close to saying I’m proud of the ride, because
I didn’t know that I could do anything like that. I can go faster though, I
don’t know if I could go 54 seconds faster, but at least a little bit quicker.
I watched the SRM pretty hardcore the first section, because I knew I’d go out
too hard otherwise. I was restrictor plate racing for the first 4 minutes, trying
to keep myself under 450, mainly between 400-425, because I figured I’d blow
all to hell if I did anything more than that, then I hit the climb and started
to really motor…I maxed out at 209 heart rate, so I obviously wasn’t holding
too much back at the end – can you ask for much more? Nope. That’s why it’s
cool.

I’ll just keep
working hard and smart, and I’ll keep getting faster, that’s all I can do. I
rode better than I could have hoped for yesterday if you had asked me, true,
it doesn’t measure up to where I want to be, but it’s a good step in the right
direction.

Crit tonight…I’m
looking forward to it. I feel good, but apparently a lot of other people do
too, right? After that, it’s road race time – three stages in the mountains,
53 seconds probably won’t be a big deal in the end…if that’s all I end up
losing until the next time trial, I’d probably weep with joy.

Phil says hi.

I don’t know how
my week of nothing leading up to Shenandoah became so damn busy. Maybe it’s
because I played too much NASCAR on the GameCube, or maybe I just didn’t DO
anything the whole week and then realized I had a lot to do on the last day.
I felt like I had a plan, I even wrote it down on my To Do Board, but then I
didn’t do anything.

So yeah, the week
was really slow training wise, that was frustrating at first, but then I quickly
fell into my natural state of laziness. I went kind of hard yesterday (Sunday)
and it hurt, imagine that, I rode easy basically everyday this week and then
all of a sudden went hard. Well, that’s not totally honest, I’ve been throwing
in little efforts here and there to keep myself, hopefully, primed, but I didn’t
feel primed yesterday.

Driving up to VA
today, so I’ll get some more priming time on the TT course. It’s less than 3
miles long, but it finishes on some kind of mean hill…can’t really tell though.
It might be hard, might not be. Well, it’s going to be hard regardless, just
can’t tell if the hill is hard. Scratch that, the hill will be hard regardless,
it remains to be seen how FAST it will be ridden.

So yeah…didn’t
leave Athens for Asheville until 830 last night. Quality early start for me.
I made damn fine time, just over 2.5 hours. I took a pee break about 15 minutes
from Asheville and I’m still happy I did…because right after I pulled out
of my pee break destination (which happened to be a rest stop that was locked
up…so I peed on the wall) – there was some kind of speed trap with cops all
over the place. I’m fairly certain I would have been part of the mayhem had
I not stopped to relieve myself. I was driving fairly quickly, cuz I had to
go so bad.

That’s actually
the second big time police shindig I’ve seen this week – I saw another one driving
back to Atlanta on Friday. They had a HUGE sobriety checkpoint set-up on the
other side of the highway. Thankfully it was on the other side of the highway
because I was trashed. Just kidding. Seriously. Probably shouldn’t joke about
that. But seriously, there were at least 50 cops on the other side of the road,
flashing blue lights everywhere, that stuff could give a fool a seizure.

I’m chillin at
Andy’s at the moment, we’re about to head off for the fun five hour drive to
wherever we’re going. I hear there are mountains there, because the race is
in the mountains, so it makes sense, right? All that matters are two things:
I’ve got a free place to stay every night of the race thanks to Philpott and
Phil has a one page ad of some sort in this month’s CycleSport for Team Type
1. That’s pretty bad ass.

I got satellite
radio the other day. It’s the coolest thing ever. I love you satellite radio.
Thanks Jamila for the best birthday present in a long, long while. I like music.
I’ve got some bad ass music lined up for Shenandoah, I don’t plan on talking
to anyone the whole time. That’s funny. Seriously.

I guess it’s time
to go now, Andy is running around packing and I’m typing a meaningless post.
So it goes.

I think I’ve have
internet for most of the trip, so hopefully I can keep a smokin race journal.

Back in Athens
again after a damn fine weekend in Asheville.

Asheville is probably
one of the top places I’ve ever ridden a bike. It’s like some kind of perfect
mixture of West Virginia and North Georgia – long climbs, short climbs, medium
climbs, steep climbs, gradual climbs, winding roads, awesome scenery, good roads.
What else can you ask for?

The first day we
rode by Lake Lure, which is right around where they filmed Last of the Mohicans.
How do I know? Larry Perera told me. He said something about the rocks up above
being the spot where that one dude got his head chopped off at the end, and
he was like, know what I’m talking about? Of course I do. That was a bad ass
scene. I like that movie a lot. I always thought that was in the Northeast or
something, but apparently it’s less than three hours north of Athens. We rode
on some crazy road in that area that might be the tightest road ever – like
somebody picked up a quality section of WV road and plopped it down right there.
I rode kinda hard a few times through there and felt like an ass, cuz there
was no real need to go hard, but it was just fun.

I had a complete
come apart on Friday. It was all hot, and I was riding hard, and I wasn’t drinking,
and then I ran out of water, and then my heart rate started going bonkers, I
got all cold, stopped sweating, got goosebumps. It was bad ass. I got really
cranky. I tried not to whine or have a generally public come apart, but yeah,
I was very unhappy.

Andy must be special
tough, cuz that fool was ice cold about the whole liquid thing. It’s like Crowe
when he does long rides with only two small, half-filled water bottles. Not
I. I did the next two days with enough water to power a hydroelectric dam. I
rolled through almost 10 bottles on Saturday, and 7ish on Sunday I think. Yeah,
that’s how I roll.

Saturday was a
merry band of 11 for a long, hard ride somewhere into the mountains. We went
northish to Hot Springs, which is really close to Tennessee. It was a quality
ride, I had a lot of fun, and rode hard, which is about all I can ask for. Hekman
brought along his good friend Mark Hendershot who is a 24 hour solo mountain
bike specialist. Ouch. He was cool as hell, but for serious, 24 hours…solo…on
a mountain bike.

It was definitely
great to have the SRM back as well, and even better now that I have a new bottom
bracket that isn’t dead. Speaking of bottom brackets – I can do all that stuff
all by my lonesome now. Jacob learned me on Thursday and it’s easy enough for
even ME to do it. I think. Nah, I’m pretty confident in my BB prowess now.

So yeah, the riding
was solid and I definitely have to say thank you again to Andy Applegate for
guiding and providing lodging, hopefully I wasn’t too bad of a guest, cuz I
want to go back, um weekly. The only thing I’m bummed about is that I can’t
keep training hard like that – I love it, ride till you’re tired everyday, go
to bed, repeat. Only a week till I leave for Shenandoah though, and it’s like
Jacob said this morning, the only thing I can do between now and Shenandoah
is piss away my form, all that’s left is to rest and chomp at the proverbial
bit.

Mark Hekman turned
28 while we were in Asheville, so there was a celebration of sorts. Hekman got
tore up, so did Rich. It was hilarious. I finally caved in and had my first
alcohol since Jacob’s birthday way back in 05…November 28th or something?
Crazy. It’s not that I don’t love drinking, I just sort of stopped for some
reason, but yeah, Hekman and Harper dropped down some major alcoholic beverages.
Hekman got real happy and then fell asleep, and then Harper started picking
words out of a hat and randomly fitting them together to form complete nonsense.
It was, to use the adjective that I use much too often: awesome.

That’s all I’ve
got. Lots to do this week to hopefully get everything ready to roll for Shenandoah.
I figure if I pack everything 5 days in advance and check it everyday leading
up to it, there won’t possibly be a chance for me to forget something.

I just wrote my
third PEZ article of the week…that might be some kind of new record for me.

It’s not like I
really have anything else to do. I’ve had to take it pretty easy this week,
cuz I’m going to Asheville this weekend for three days of long, hard, mountain
fun. Next week will be even worse, cuz it’s the week leading in to Shenandoah
– meaning I won’t be doing too much bike practice. That’s mad frustrating. I
remember last year before Nationals, I just about freaked out the week before
– 2 hours, Zone 2, or super short intervals. The whole taper thing is hard on
me mentally. I really really like to ride my bike, I love to ride my bike hard,
so waiting around to ride my bike hard is painful.

Never thought I’d
whine about not training hard. I guess it proves that I can indeed whine about
just about anything.

I’m supposed to
get the SRM back today – YEAH. I was super happy to be rid of it for a long
while, but then I had to do some intervals, and I feel like I did them well,
but I don’t know HOW well. I’m hoping to get it on in time to leave for Asheville
tonight.

I had some kind
of story to tell…

Well, speak of
the got-lom devil, the UPS man just dropped off my SRM. Hallelujah.

Back to my story.
I swear I had something of consequence to talk about. I raced last weekend…yeah…it
was an interesting affair. I actually rode a TT and finished in the top third!
What an incredible result 17th is. Nathan O’Neill only beat me by almost 2 minutes
over 10k, but who’s counting, right?

I rode the crit
and I rode the road race. Nothing too serious to report, I was present and accounted
for, but that’s about it. That really needs to change.

I’ve been riding
a lot in TT position this week, that has been interesting. I did a 20 minute
effort yesterday and actually went pretty fast. I’m not used to going fast in
a TT position. Who am I kidding, I’m not used to going fast at all. Ha.

I’m getting pretty
excited about Shenandoah for real. The idea of doing a 20k TT on Stage 6, is
somewhat scary sounding to me, but it’s so far off in the future, I can’t even
fathom it at this point. I’ll just keep tappin along and just get there first.
There are a few road stages before that to contend with. Hell, there’s a prologue
and a crit, three road races, and THEN that to contend with. I’ll just get through
this weekend first, and then next week, drive to VA, then race my bike.

I think too much.

Time to get my
SRM back on the bike and in working order.

So I went to the
mountains yesterday with Reid…

I checked the weather
the night before, looked like it would be a bit chilly, so I made sure to pack
everything I might need – gloves, oversocks, long-sleeve jersey, base layer,
an extra jersey, arm warmers, a jacket – I was on TOP of it. Nothing was left
to chance.

So we get up to
the mountains, I get out my bag, shuffle through it…hmmmm…shuffle through
it again…getting nervous…shuffle through one more time…

"Reid, I forgot
my shorts."

Yessir, once again,
I have done my part to prove that if breathing wasn’t automatic, I would probably
forget to breathe.

So I’m looking
around up at the sky, the trees, the trunk…there has to be an extra pair of
shorts here somewhere. RIIIGHT.

Well, hell, I drove
an hour and a half up to the mountains, I sure as shit ain’t turning back, nor
would I expect Reid to. I look down…I’m wearing some track pants…that should
work just fine. I rolled up the legs to about knee height and off we went.

Nearly four hours
later, we returned to the car…I was a bit sore, but nothing too bad, but damn,
it was a good ride.

I rode in sweats.
How retarded is that. I’m a menace to myself.

I felt good though…

I think I’ll ride
with my shorts today, it should be pretty hard to forget them when I’m leaving
from my very own place of residence.

I guess that’s
another race weekend come and gone.

Well, lemme just
summarize the following disseration quickly and succinctly: bla bla bla, racing,
bla bla bla, no placing, bla bla bla Hekman is a bad mofo…bla bla bla…yay
team.

Well, first things
first, Dale Jr. was 4th today at Martinsville, and from the sounds of it, he
was driving a car towards the end that might resemble the beat up hoopties they
drive at dirt tracks or a demolition derby. It was awesome. He got in like three
or four different wrecks, but drove like a mad man, and stuck it to some fools,
and if it wasn’t for Ryan Newman’s lapped ass, he might have been in with a
chance for a big time win. Tony Stewart won…yawn. Gordon got in there, he’s
cool now, cuz he tried to fight last week, got a 10,000 dollar fine, and is
on probation. Now he’s trying to be a bad boy that doesn’t win very often. If
he keeps it up, he might be popular here pretty soon. What am I talking about,
I don’t know anything about NASCAR…I feel inferior when talking about it,
but that race played a fundamental part in our drive home…all three hours
of it.

This weekend it
was to Rock Hill for my third try. As a Cat 5, I got dusted hard core, I think
I managed to place close to dead last of the finishers in both the crit and
road race. It’s funny, but I might have gone close to that this weekend too.
It was a slightly different story though…

The crit was crazy
cool, downtown Rock Hill with 1,2, (gotta figure it out in my head), 3…6 corners,
a long downhill, to what was for me the scariest right hand turn ever created
and then a tough finishing straight. Yeah, I think there were something like
125 starters and about 30 finishers. It was mad fast, I finished, but that’s
about it. The finishing stretch was g-narly. I did at least 40 solid race winning
sprints to hold the wheel in front of me. That cleansed my sinuses in a big
way. For whatever reason I just made myself pack fodder, while Mark Hekman went
and romped to a big time win.

I had always seen
pictures of teammates hugging another teammate when he won and everyone was
all happy. I didn’t go so far as to hug Hekman, but damn, it was pretty cool
to at least say I was in some way part of the win, even if I didn’t do one damn
thing the whole day and I was pretty close to useless. Even when people were
out of the race, they were sittin there yelling at me, even if it was mean stuff,
which it wasn’t, it was cool. I couldn’t do too much moving up when it was single-file
for as far as I could see, but I sure as hell could wave back and say, I copy.

It was different
for me to have most of our team at the race. Not to sound too annoying, but
damn, I like my team, it’s cool, I feel like I belong and somebody has my back
if I talk too much in a race, and maybe I could be of help if anyone ever needed
it. I like looking around and seeing them and knowing that everyone is riding
hard, and…yeah, I guess it’s just cool for me (and hopefully not just me).
I’ve never really been a part of a biggish team with lots of riders, hell, up
until now I only ever really rode for one team (and that’s not a knock on Locos
– not one bit), but I don’t know, I just think in my little head that this is
what it’s supposed to be like. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Yeah, whatever.
I bet you can’t say cool more than I just did in one paragraph. How else do
you describe…mad love? I’m just playin. No, but seriously. Nahhhh, just playin.

The road race was
long as always, they reported 119 miles, I think I did 189 km, that’s probably
pretty close. I tried to get in an early break right off the bat, got in a couple,
but nothing really eventful went down. I kinda messed up the one time when we
had a solid move lined up, but didn’t take the responsibility of driving the
shit out of it to establish it. Probably for the better though…how painful
would that be to drive a break for a long long time? Probably about as much
fun as stabbing myself in the forehead with a rusty nail.

Hamblen eventually
went away and did his deal SOLO for 50 miles. Good lord. Another group of three-ish
with Shaker in it followed shortly afterwards, and never caught him. I guess
that means he was going fast. I can’t imagine how horrible a solo break like
that would be, especially going fast.

Once I gave up
the ghost of the ‘glorious’ early break, I went to the verrrrry back and did
a whole lot of nothing for a few hours. Ate, drank, thought about peeing, didn’t,
eavesdropped on lots of convos, generally did the job of being completely worthless.
With that said, there probably wasn’t too much else to do, but sitting last
wheel probably isn’t the best, but I just like it sometimes, it’s good for my
soul.

I started to play
again in the last 30 or so miles…I tried hard a few times…followed some
crazy fast people…tried to be really fast myself…missed some important moves…almost
made a couple of important moves, but basically the theme was, didn’t get it
done. Whatever, no excuses, I tried, felt damn good, but couldn’t make the difference,
either on my own or getting attached to a good group. So it goes. In the end
though, 5ish? got away to the finish and behind there was a field sprint of
like five bajillion people, which I of course took no part in. So I basically
just got a 4.5 hour group ride in today. Yay me.

At least I didn’t
flat. A couple of guys from the team flatted out (cough…Shawn, Tim, Chad),
I felt bad about that, cuz I can feel the frustration. That’s just a crappy
way for a race to end, especially when you drive nearly double digit hours to
do it. You don’t want to say it’s not fair, because that’s just how it is, but
it still sucks.

Positive note though…I
felt good when it mattered. I felt like donkey crap for the first 80 or so miles,
but then magically, things started to get better and better and I started feeling
stronger and stronger, so I do take some solace in that. I feel good that I
was comfortable in that mean crit on Saturday. I wasn’t in the winning break
or anything, but baby steps…

That’s lame. I
need to do something in some races. This whole, I felt good, but it just didn’t
work out, is played out. At least I can kill myself for a teammate that can
get things done. That would be a good use of energy.

Another good note…this
guy from the Clif Bar team, Chad, he said hi to me and said he reads my site,
asked me when I was going to post again, how cool is that? I get all happy when
someone recognizes me for my website, it’s cool I guess, I just hope someone
doesn’t come up and punch me, but I don’t really think I say anything of any
consequence, and usually steer clear of race analysis, unless it has to do with
making fun of myself. I mean, cuz that’s all that matters right? Me, me, me.

Ouch.

Anyways, so it
was a good weekend, if not for amazing personal results, but for getting to
know my team better and for once actually being healthy and happy when I was
around them. The two other times I’ve been around the whole team, I was a miserable
sack of shite, so at least now if they don’t like me, at least they know what
I normally act like, and not the zombie, cranky sickly me. Ha.

Other news…yeah…doing
the Tour of Shenandoah. I’m crazy psyched about that. It’s April 25-30. Reid,
me, and Andy will be doing it with my friend Phil Southerland of Team Type 1.
We’ll form a composite team for the race, and hopefully I can help the TT1 cause
a little more, as I’ll be writing at least one article for PEZ about TT1 being
present and its importance at a race like ToS.

That race should
be easy…6 days…2 TT’s, 2 crits, and three road races (back to back to back)
all 100+ miles…in the mountains. DAMN. It should be a good learning process
for me, and hopefully help me get some fitness that I could otherwise never
dream of getting. I’ve never done a big time multi-day stage race before. The
most I ever did was five days in a row at Superweek this summer and that cracked
me so bad it wasn’t even funny. This should be easier. Haha.

I’ve got some cleaning
to do…mopping…I slept through it on Friday…dunno…think I might sleep
first though.