Big Weekend

Lets just start this off by saying my road bike owns me after this weekend. I knew that I needed some more base work and overall training to begin this year right with the upcoming races.. So I have made an effrot to myself to not doing anything that I wll regret the next day. So what happened exactly.. Well my Coach (Drew Edsall) always tells me the weekends is where the time needs to be put in.. So here was what went on.

Saturday I decided to do a criterium race to get in some high intensity work. Well as I lined up for the A race ( Pr0 / Cat 1-3) it was quite aware this might be extremely hard regardless of the situation. But I went in with an open mind and told myself it was okay if I didnt fell comfortablte just stay in a while and focus on saving energy for tomorrow's long ride. Well right off the back I found myself sucking wheels and following the smart people I knew around the course. This made for a fun race without totally killing myself. I am also pround to say that I finished right behind the front group in a 40 mile pro crit was not such a small accomplishment.

As for sunday this is where the fun was had. My good friend Ryan Woodall came down to do the Oluste ride with me, which is a 115 mile road ride that leaves from gainesville and goes out to the middle of nowhere and back. I had never rode over 80 miles before on a road bike and was not sure if I was ready for this, but it had to be done. The beginning of the ride stays at a pace of about 20-23 mph the whole time for about 60-70 miles..Well that is all good, but it gets rough.. When the pace picked up me and ryan both decided we were going to need more to drink, so we decided to help each other transfer gatorade from our jersey pocket to our bottle on the bike..BIG MISTAKE for we were almost dropped trying to just make sure we has a sip of gatorade.. Well as we recovered from our chase back to the front group I started to recognize we were coming back to roads I was familiar with..

SO we waited until I gave the cue to go.. As I saw we were approaching the steepest hill of the ride I told ryan this is where we go up to the front. So we cruised by people and made are way up front and caught the break in the process, until we hit the red light..thank god.. But I wasnt done yet with about 10 miles to go there were 2-3 guys that kept trying to make a break, so I put it on myeslf to keep them close..After one real hard effort to reel them in for the group it worked..But I was hurting and only 3 miles till the sprint. So about 1/2 mile from the end I noticed two guys out front again and at the same moment Mike Neimi shot out about halfway and I instantly chased him done and somehow caught him but he and I were both dead but at the same time I think we helped the group catch them..After the ride was all said and done I had no problem with cramping and a total ride time of 5hr. 15 min. making for a great day and an awesome end to my road bike weekend..