In my apparent quest to lose fitness during the race season, I managed to ride once this week. Wednesday I was feeling ambitious and hopped on my bike right after work with the idea of doing some longer intervals down along the river bottoms.

My legs were feeling good and I was attacking the little hills on my way down. I reached Meramec Bottom and was faced with a road flooded sign. What? Somewhat disbelieving, I rode beyond the sign and wanted to see how far I could ride before the waters stopped me. As it turned out, not that far. Maybe a quarter mile. Frustrated, and unsure what I wanted to do for a workout, I headed through the subdivision streets and over to Suson to climb the hill in and out of the park several times.

I must have been more aggressive than I realized. My first time climbing out of the park I was woozy and gasping for air at the top. It freaked me out a little. I likely would have quit right then if there had not been a picnic table of about eight very attractive women to look at in the park. So, I repeated the hills another couple times. The other times were a little better but I was still gasping at the top. Maybe there was something in the air. Three times of that unpleasantness was enough and I headed home, disappointed with how I rode.

Yesterday, we were back over in Columbia. Like every weekend lately, it was uncomfortably cool and cloudy with a strong wind to add to discomfort. I started the ride very modestly because of today's race but also because of how I felt on Wednesday. After a looping route through Columbia we worked our way back past Lago di Gilmore, past the awful section of road when Giuseppe decided to attack. I followed but was breathing hard and had no desire to try and go around him. He finally let up, thank you very much, and Patrice countered. We both looked at each other but I had nothing.

After regrouping, we went on to Country Club where I snagged a cheap City Limit sprint before we went onward though Waterloo. We turned onto Andy Rd which means only one thing. Build speed on the downhill and go balls out up the other side. I had been on the front and about halfway down Patrice, Giuseppe, Ken, Marco and Gina all streamed past. I wasn't in a big hurry and was a good 30 ft behind the last person when I figured I had better go hard after all or be left in the dust. I was in a big gear and began passing the others. Two-thirds of way up Giuseppe let out a gasp and popped, leaving only Patrice still going pretty well but slowing a bit. Near the top, he grunted and was done as I went pushed onward. Rather than wait, I decided to push on and see how I recovered. I did okay and kept pushing and didn't stop until reaching the Columbia city limit sign a few miles away. It was a reasonably good effort.

Just as my spirits were lifted by the climb of Andy, Astana has had their spirits lifted by a last minute invite to the Giro d'Italia. One of the conditions seems to have been participation of Contador, Leipheimer and Kloden. That's a big asking price but Astana wasn't about to deny them despite their riders not having ideal preparation. In recent days, I had been thinking about how light the Giro field seemed. No Cunego, no Schleck and an aging Simoni. Astana's invite certainly lifts the level of competition.