Back on the Bike and Racing

So I finally felt strong enough to get out of bed and go train Saturday morning. So I head out to Pasadena to do a slow group ride and at about 30miles in I get a flat, I fix it and I get another flat. I ride to my friends house Josh that lived near by in San Demas and I got another tube and cl2. We get about 10minutes into the ride and I puncture again. My day is over. His wife Carla came and took me to my car.

I felt really bad and didn’t know about racing the next day, but I had a gut feeling that my legs would be okay.
So, I wake up Sunday morning bright and early and go for a ride and once again my legs felt sluggish and flat. So my ride is over and I get home and start to get ready to drive up to the race.

It’s a Simi hard circuit because it’s pretty hilly. It has a long 700mm hill and a bunch of false flat before going back up hill to the finish.

The race started off really fast because they gave as a prime a set of $340.00 wheels to the leader of the first lap. With 100mm to go to the last turn, I hear a puncture. I jump up and down to see if its me and its feels fine so I take the last corner at regular speed with the pack…. my tire was flat and I almost crashed. However I’m sitting like 5-6 wheels and no one is sprinting for the wheels yet, so as we get to about 200mm from the start finish line, I start to sprint. Can you believe I beat those guys on a flat tire? So, now the two guys I beat for the wheels are laughing at me because my race is over right? Wrong. I find a guy that I knew in the race and offered him some money to give me his wheel and he agreed. We did a wheels exchange and after a lap of chasing I got back on and game was on. I know I made people nervous when they saw me again.

My legs never really came around but I did put some people in a whole by riding aggressive. I made a lot of the breaks but not the right one. With about 1minutes to go a break went and I didn’t cover and they stayed away. The picture is of the break and the main field on the last lap going up the final climb. We where so close.

Well, it was a good race for me even though I didn’t win. I recovered well, but didn’t have the good legs and that’s only because I didn’t train for the last 10 days.

So…I feel ready to hit it hard this week and prepare for Philly week along with Captech, CSC and some race in Canada.