Rest Day

Today was a rest day, pretty relaxing. The host housing we have is extremely nice, not only the house but the family. Only 2 people per room, everyone has their own bed and they cooked us an amazing dinner.

We just hung out most of the day, did some laundry and went for a quick spin. My legs are the most sore they have been since I can remember so thats good, I'll be getting faster right?

I'm working on getting an interview of Chris uploaded so hopefully he can better explain Athens.

Oh yeah, a big thanks to the people a Mix 1. They make a nice protein shake, I recommend giving them a try.


Chris' Interview

Roswell update.

Monday morning, just had some breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Macon GA. My legs are a bit sore from yesterday at Roswell. I finish my first real race of my life and was supper stoked about it. I don't really care too much about where I finish but when I find out I will post it.

For me the race yesterday was just a series of small goals. I would see a Haymarket kit and try to get up to it. I could never quite make it to Jared or Chris but got very close a couple of times. Mostly it was just Steven and I playing leap frog. The entire team finish yesterday which was very cool considering half of them had raced earlier in the day.

The thing that impressed me the most was on the start finish area they had I radar station and it was usually showing low to mid 30's every lap. When we watched the cat 2's race I remember seeing the sign read 33mph, in our race I spotted 36 several times on random laps. The race was pretty much to sprints every lap. First up the hill on the back side of the course then out of the last corner into the long start finish straight.

If I get nothing out of this week except my pack confidence I will still be very happy. With my goal of just finishing these races I have found my self much more aggressive in defending my spot. I got into as much of a yelling match as you could at 35 with a Fly V racer after he tried to muscle me out of my spot then got pissed when I would not give it up. I realized he has much more to lose from going down than I do so F him, my spot.

Well I have to get going to for the next leg of the drive..

Athens' Twilight

Its 5pm, I'm sitting in my hotel room and what I'm about to do just hit home. My hotel room is right across the hall from Ivan Dominguez and last night I had Mike Creed in my qualifying heat. Its like the movie Pro's reunion. The Red and Black new paper estimates the crowd to be at 40,000; the Nationals had 9,000 people the other night. To put that in personal perspective, the next biggest race I have done is probably the 3/4 Reston Gran Prix at about 1,000 people.

Everywhere you go people are talking about the race and asking if you are going to watch. Maybe for some of these guys that have done this thing 10 times it isn't even noticed but saying that I'll be racing not watching gives me a mix of pride and the overwhelming feeling that I am in way over my head. Next you can throw in the fact that it is raining like crazy and unlike other events people seem more excited to watch because it means more crashes.

I'll end this post with a clip from the qualifier finals last night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzoLQ6-ADPE

Pretending to be Pro

This is just a quick post to let anyone who cares know that I will be blogging as much as possible next week. I will be down doing the speed week series and should have plenty of good stories from the back of the pack. My plan is to finish as many of the races as possible and see what it feels like to race like a pro (or as much as one) for a week.

Nice to be on a team.

So, I had a good time at Vint Hill. Got to watch Joe do a warm up ride and solo the 3/4 race with Andrew taking 2nd. Chip won the masters race, in a solo break?????? I guess he forgot he is a sprinter.

After paying my $5 to race ,thanks MABRA, I lined up with the team. The plan was to go from the gun and try to set up a break. Then some of our guys would bridge. Check. After we got an good gap from the field with two HH cycling guys, Joe somehow bridges across, it must have been a hard effort. After that I kept letting gaps open with Steve and Joe in 3 or 4 rider groups but it kept coming back together. After several laps of that, Steve attacked and stayed off the front for around a lap or so. Then Evan countered as soon as we made contact with Steve. It was my turn so I jumped onto Evans wheel and let him pull me for the last 3rd of the race. I knew I had two strong as hell guys behind me and was hoping one of them would bridge up or at least Evan would get tired. Well, Evan never got tired and attacked on the little hill before the finish, taking the win. Steve ended up trying to bridge and rolled through in 3rd, Jared 5th, Joe 8th. I won a prime of 2 pairs of Gam Jam socks. One pair is XL and the other womans small.



I now know who Evan is and will not ask him if he was a cat 3 last year again.. Its not my fault I don't know anyone in the 1/2/3 field. Hell this time last year I was still doing 4/5 races. I know the names of these people just not their faces, yet.

Raw Talent Ranch

Thanks to Jay for housing us at the Raw Talent Ranch. If you have not had the pleasure of making out the the barn I highly recommend. The riding is amazing and you do not have to worry about knowing the roads, the place comes with a tour guide.

Friday was a great ride and the final climb up to the barn on the dirt road was a killer. Not only was it extremely steep it was muddy, every time I would hit a soft spot I noticed my tire tripling in size and the bike doubling in weight.

Saturday was not that long as far a miles go but the climbing destroyed me. The last climb of the day I found myself hanging onto the team car for about a minute after I just could not turn the pedal over anymore. Then I finish the climb out with some other fat friends ( you know who your are).

The descent was my favorite part about the trip. There was a bit of gravel on the corner but other than that very fast.


More photos of the team at camp.
http://www.hhcycling.com/multimedia/photo-album.asp?id=42535

Let the fun begin.

I officially started training for next season, yesterday. Damn, cycling has made me weak. I was doing push ups and first set was 20, 15, 2.. I used to do 500 a day, with sets of 50. Well here is what my winter will look like. I don’t mind sharing since most people don’t like to do 4 ½ hour rides on stationary bikes. I’m up to my pre base weight of 155. Last year I lost 13lbs even with eating as much as I could find so I like to get a little fat before the fun starts.

Week
Oct 12th lift 2 days (high reps)
Oct 19th lift 3 days (high reps)
Oct 26th lift 3 days (medium reps)
Nov 2nd 12 hours of base + 2 days lifting
Nov 9th 15 hours of base + 2 days lifting
Nov 16th 18 hours of base + 1 day lifting
Nov 23rd 9 hours of base
Nov 30th 21 hours of base
Dec 7th 24 hours of base
Dec 14th 27+ hours of base

All work and no play makes ryan fast on a TT bike.