Monday, September 04, 2006

Three down, one to go.

My thighs have been stiff and sore since before the Cup started. I'm not sure they got that way before the racing even began. If you lightly squeezed the thigh, it hurt. The pain was not noticeable so much when riding but I'm sure it was there.

Before heading to the race Sunday, I figured it would be good to give the legs a short massage. There was a fair share of grunting and groaning as my fingers and palms dug into the muscles. My untrained hands did what they could and I just hoped that there would be some benefit.

My legs did feel better once I started warming up. Better than the past two days, at least. And they still feel pretty good this morning. I'm thinking I will give them another rubdown before heading off to "The Loop"

The "Giro" went okay. Better than Washington Ave for sure. It was a day of mishaps, though. While warming up I saw Jose and stopped to say "Hi". I looked down and my rear tire was flat. That's twice in three days. Luckily, Jose had a tube in his bag and I changed it out without much hassle. Thanks Jose.

Then 15-18 minutes into the race, I suddenly felt myself struggling to hold onto the pack and heard an occasional squeak. Around turn 3 and 4 we went and heard it again going down toward the finish. It had to be my brake rubbing. I wasn't sure if that was a legit reason for a free lap but I pulled into the wheelpit anyway. I wasn't going to finish the race if I didn't get the problem fixed so nothing would be lost if they said I was out of the race. We fixed the problem and it was back to the rear of the pack again.

About 30 minutes into race, was the Hill's obligatory uphill crash on straight road. About three guys went down and several others, including myself, had to lay on the brakes to avoid running into them. One of the victims jumped up from the ground, grabbed his lower back and repeatedly yelled Fu@#, Fu@#, Fu@#. I took another free lap for that incident, as did about 11 others.

So again it was back to the rear of the pack. My legs didn't like stopping that second time. It took a good two laps before they started moving properly again. The rest of the race was no problem as I picked off some guys who began to struggle. The last lap saw a lot of guys sitting up for whatever reason on the backside and I picked up a bunch more places. All for a spectacular 64th place, woohoo! I'm not happy with the placing but satisfied with it after Saturday's debacle. The whole team was pretty worthless, I think. Aaron either sat up or blew up as even I passed him in the final 100 meters, Jose crashed, Joe and Chris were pack meat like me and Matt... I'm not sure about Matt.

Maybe the team can do a little something today. They better have that beer on ice at Mike's house. I'm ready for it.

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