Nice pond on one of my slower rides
My Mom had asked me about having a yard sale at our house. I thought she meant in the future, but she showed up at 6:15 on Thursday morning and started setting up on our front porch. She had the yard sale for two days and got rid of a lot of things. It was my first time doing a yard sale. They can be quite intense around here. I did not expect so many people to stop by or for them to get so excited about buying our junk. I didn't have a lot to contribute, but Shannon put a few things out there and we sold $22 worth of stuff. Most of the older people were more interested in our garden and asked if we would be selling any produce later in the summer. Heck yeah! I would love to get a veggie business going from the house.
On the second day of the yard sale, I came home from my morning ride to find a visitor on the back porch. There was a three-foot rat snake exploring the back of the house. I would have given anything if he had gone to the front of the house where my Mom was having the yard sale. That would have been very entertaining! She is scared to death of snakes. The snake was pretty fascinating to me. I was amazed that he could climb a brick wall. He wedged his body in the cracks between the bricks and slowly worked himself up and down the wall.
Back porch visitor
How snakes descend walls. He cheated by using the corner on this one. The second time he climbed up he did it with no corner help.
Here's a lesser known fact about me: I was once big into snakes. I was that kid that was always running around with a plastic critter-catcher finding all sorts of animals. I was the one the neighbors called to come get the snake out of their basement. I had 10 snakes as pets at one time, including a seven-foot Colombian Red-Tailed Boa. I will have to find some pictures of him. He was huge! My fascination was not limited to snakes though. I had many turtles, frogs, lizards and salamanders over the years. When I began college, I actually started as a Biology major focusing on Herpetology, the study of reptiles and amphibians. But the bike racing got to me and eventually I turned my focus more towards health and fitness. Some days I miss having my little friends, but with all of our traveling nowadays, it is impossible to have a bunch of pets. Hence the reason Snoop still lives at my parents' house. I mentioned above that my Mom hates snakes. Yeah, that made for an interesting few years when I had the boa. She had nightmares a lot. Especially after he escaped the aquarium while we were on vacation and we found him hiding in a closet.
After the yard sale was over, we went up to Pleasant View and ate at the local mexican grill on our $22. I have not been there in a very long time. It's good food at a reasonable price. There was a cardboard cut-out of the Dos Equis man, AKA The Most Interesting Man in the World, staring at us from the balcony while we ate. I guess we must be very interesting since we had his attention the whole night.
I don't always stare, but when I do, I do it like a creeper. Stay creepy my friends.
Saturday we planned another long tandem ride with my parents, but it ended up being a little shorter due to some mechanical issues. We got the bike off the rack and it had a rear flat and wobbly wheel. I guess we broke a spoke on Tuesday's ride and didn't even know it. We replaced the spoke, trued the wheel and changed the flat, but it cost us an hour of precious ride time. We still did a good loop, but it was a struggle for my Mom. She was not having a good day and it seemed as if every dog in Cheatham County was waiting in the road for us. My Mom does not do well with dogs. Not at all. The only way it could have been worse was for the dogs to have been snakes. I'm guessing that will be her last road ride for a while, at least until she forgets how many dogs run loose in this area.
Sunday wrapped up my second big week. I started before dawn which was a lot of fun. It's peaceful in the morning and I enjoyed watching all the animals that were taking in the sunrise. I saw turkey, deer, raccoon and groundhogs running around. Apparently, dawn is cow bathing time as there were plenty of them wading into ponds.
Cows taking a dip at dawn
I rode some new roads around Springfield and farther east toward Greenbrier and Ridgetop, I found some fun climbs and was surprised to have good legs. Even though I planned for no intensity, I had to kick it up around the three hour mark just to see what kind of times I could lay down. Again, I was surprised to set some PRs. My legs really have responded well to this block of training. I rode again that afternoon with my Dad and ended the day with 82 miles. It was my third day of the week at over 80 miles. I smashed my goal for the week, logging 25 hours on the bike. I think that is the most hours I have ever ridden in one week in my whole life.
I tweaked my position this week to get me a little lower. I have always had to ride a little higher than most riders because I have such limited flexibility in my glutes and hamstrings. But after working hard on gaining flexibility over the past year, I can finally tolerate removing one spacer from below my stem and dropping my upper body a little lower. So far it feels good. And my gastroc feels good. Not once has it bothered me over the high volume period so I think I have this thing beat now. You have no idea the relief it has been to be able to ride as far as I want without having some kind of soreness in my leg.
Wednesday night ended my heavy block with Music City Crits Race #5. We were back to the normal course this week, which I was excited about. Like Roswell, this course once scared me, but has now become one of my favorites. This is mostly thanks to some air pressure advice form John Carr and Mark Miller. Those two are always trying different pressures and finally convinced me to drop mine last season. It has made all the difference and I am now more than comfortable in the hairpin turns.
I was very tired when I got to the race. It was not so much due to the amount of riding lately as it was from shoveling dirt for more than two hours right before leaving for the race. It was not the smartest thing to do before a race on a 92 degree day, but when you are trying to progress in multiple disciplines you have to take advantage of a day off work. I was doing trail work and building some new obstacles to work on my mountain bike skills. If I get to spend some decent time on the dirt the next few weeks, I'll be racing my first enduro in a few weeks and maybe even a Super D.
My goal for the race was just to finish. I expected to struggle with the pace. It was hot and I knew I was dehydrated already. I just wanted to stay in the main group. No following attacks unless I had something left near the end. I sat near the back the first few laps then worked my way up. My legs burned, but it seemed I was able to hold on in the faster laps with less effort than usual. There were many attacks early, but nothing that was serious. At about 16 minutes, Josh Lewis laid down a good attack and split four riders off the front. They built up a decent advantage. I expected a hard chase to follow, so I moved up towards the front so I would have a little room to drift back once the pace got ugly. As I moved up, a few riders accelerated and I just followed them with my momentum. It would have been a waste to give up my momentum just to accelerate all over again when everybody else decided to follow the move. Well, nobody else followed the move. I looked behind me to see that we had a gap. Five of us had split off the front of the group. I'm usually terrible at getting in breakaways. This time I didn't even try and found myself in a serious move.
The two Jasons were in my group, Tatum and Chatham. They have some serious fire power. We worked well together and caught the leading four after a few laps, making it a break of nine. Then Patrick Walle crossed the gap and made it a break of 10. I was working hard to do my turns. Josh hurt me a few times as he was in full beast mode tonight. I could hardly hold his wheel when it was his turn to pull. After about 15 minutes of being away, our cooperation level started to lag. I got stuck on the front a few times after my pulls, which made me drop to the back and assess the situation. Several guys were sitting on, including Walle, who is one of the strongest riders in our region. I knew he would be laying down a big attack soon. Two teams had more than one rider in the break. The odds of a big attack coming were getting higher. I had been fully committed to this break, but my brain said staying committed would get me dropped when the accelerations came. I guess others were thinking the same thing as nobody really wanted to do much work anymore and the peloton began to close down our 15-second gap.
Tatum was first to attack. Nobody went with him, but it did make us all start working together again to catch him. As we pulled him back, somebody launched a counterattack and split our group in half. I was in a good position to follow the move, but knew my legs were not there tonight to handle another 20 minutes with just five riders. My odds of getting on the podium are better in a bunch sprint than they are in an attacking breakaway situation. I had no acceleration in the legs tonight after all these miles and following attacks was not an option for me. I was very happy just to have made the breakaway for once!
Walle and Tanner Hurst were in that front group of five. Even though the group had closed the gap significantly, I knew it would be hard for us to bring that combo back. Our group of five lasted a few more laps then we were caught by the pack. The break was back out to about 15 seconds, but never really got much farther away than that. We actually closed the gap some near the end, but never did catch them. Walle wound up pipping Tanner in the sprint for the win. Behind, we battled for sixth. Three riders got a bit of a gap as we went to laps. I lagged toward the back and waited until two laps to go to move up. I used very little leg to move up, doing it mostly through the corners. As I got to the front, I realized we were not going to catch the three that had slipped away. We would now be sprinting for 9th.
I found myself second wheel behind Mark Miller with a lap to go. We took different lines off Turn 1 and I was not on his wheel. John Carr made a big move up the left and Mark went after him. I hesitated because I did not want to waste my legs before the sprint even started. Guys started to come up my left and so I accelerated to get on the train. It was too slow of an acceleration to jump on Mark's wheel, but too fast to get into the line that was coming by on my left. I stayed just enough ahead of them to make them slow down and try to find my wheel, while at the same time I backed off trying to let them come by. The result was a big gap for John and Mark. I finally decided just to go for it. So what if I blow up. We were sprinting for 9th anyway. I chased hard but could not get us all the way across to John and Mark. John sacrificed himself for Mark, taking a big pull all the way to the end of the backstretch.
I was a sitting duck as we came onto pit road. Several guys came by on my right. I just kept pushing with everything I had left to try to limit the damage. I pushed for the last turn like it was the finish line and was able to pick off three riders going through the turn and then hold them off in the short sprint. I ended up taking 11th. We caught Mark and the other three that were just up the road right on the line which made it look like one big group finish behind the front break of five. I was very happy with that result. I felt horrible and to still have a sprint left after being in a break for 20 minutes and leading the group the majority of the last lap was awesome for me.
Short video Dina filmed which includes the finish
We ended the night with a 26.1 mph average speed, much faster than I felt we were going. It was the third race of this series where I think I had a big smile on my face for the majority of the race. It has a lot of fun racing with these guys over the past few weeks. I want to send a shout-out to Josh Lewis for getting on the podium. He and I struggled together through Hell of the South earlier this year and now he is starting breakaways and getting on podiums. Great job Josh!
Pro/1/2/3 podium shot
I want to end this blog by just stating how grateful I am for everything in my life. The Lord really has blessed me over the past year, way more than I deserve. I cannot possibly be grateful enough for all I have been given. I am much happier with everything in life. We never seem to struggle with anything for very long. When a problem arises, a way to solve it is usually not too far behind. Working several part time jobs has its drawbacks with no guarantee on hours, but whenever money is tight, something always comes through. I no longer get frustrated with bike racing. Results don't matter. I have had more fun this year than in any other year before and that's what really matters. I use the terms "frustrated" and "irritated" quite loosely on the blog. I would not call what I feel a deep frustration, just a desire to be better at whatever thing I did not do well. Guess I'm just a perfectionist when it comes to expectations for myself. Reaching my true potential is my goal and I have been blessed a lot recently in getting closer to realizing that potential. I have really pushed hard to be a better person, to help others, and to be a good example on and off my bike. I still have a long way to go to being that good example, but I can already see the blessings we are promised being delivered. I am truly grateful for that.
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