You Win Some, You Lose Some

Cross season...YEAAA!

I had a bad race last weekend and I have been trying to recover from it ever since (it's now Wednesday), the first weekend of October is not the time to get tired...yikes what have I done to myself?!!  There have been a lot of stressors in my life in the past 3 weeks and my outlet to escape is exercise, but sometimes your body can't take it and a rest day is necessary.  I remembered that on Sunday.  The past year of racing has been me playing with my "training", seeing what works for me and what doesn't.  How far can I push my body before I can't push anymore? 

Lets start with a positive note, I had a great race for the Seattle series first race, I placed 2nd, in a pretty stacked tough field.  Whenever I enter a race I never expect any result, because every course is different, every day is different, and everyone feels different, it's important to never get set on any result.  For some reason the race promoters thought it would be a good idea to start us 30 seconds behind the 55+ men....we caught up to them in the first corner!  It was outrageous!  I was cut off so many times, I ended up T boning a guy because he decided to not turn his bike through a corner and rode directly into the tape...it caused me to tumble because I lost my balance after coming to a complete stop.  From there I chased the entire race...and kept chasing. 

After this race I realized I needed to really work on my mounts.  I never looked at a 2 or 3 second loss as that much, but when you add it up over 5 laps, that's nearly 15 seconds, and that's what I lost by!!!  So I have been working on my mounts to perfect them at speed!

Last weekend was MFG race #2, and after not having a rest day for over 2 weeks my body revolted and I pulled the plug after much debate in my head and DNFed.  I thought I could push myself to finish, but all of the sudden I couldn't pedal anymore, and any power I tried to push...just didn't exist.  I decided this would be an appropriate time for a rest week.  I took Monday and Tuesday completely off of exercise and spent today as a really easy day.  I hope the race this weekend goes better than last weekend!

Some great news aside from racing...I found another part time job!!!  Maybe by next year I will have enough money to buy myself a functioning cyclocross bike so I can actually fit in to the Elite field with a bike that shifts and responds, and maybe some wheels with bearings that aren't shot!

YAY to having money!