Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Waxing poetic...


...or maybe just waxing.

Anyway, I apologize to my faithful blog readers (all 3 of you) for not posting in awhile. It has just been one of those months I'd rather just forget. The whole world has seemed rather "blah" and nothing has seemed worth blogging about! So maybe blogging about not blogging is interesting? (I think not).

So the month in recap. I raced a lot. I didn't blog about any of them. The short recap:
Island View Crit: Super fun until I crashed about 1/3 in, and my bike got messed up so I couldn't continue.....bummer. I got to watch my teammate have a fun race, though...

Ojai 3/4: A bit sore from crashing the previous day, and a 7:01am start time. I just wasn't quite feeling it, and didn't quite have the fight in me. I got 10th. (again, my teammate had a great race, finishing 4th)

Ojai P1/2/3: In order to redeem myself (or maybe just beat myself up more) I toed the line for the women's 1/2/3 crit. It was kind of cool to just BE at the starting line with such a large group of amazing women. So many of the big teams were there...that in itself was cool. I didn't have unrealistic expectations...my goal was to hang on as long as I could, and race until I got lapped. It was 100 degrees, and a hilly course, and my 2nd race of the day, so I knew it was goign to be painful. And it was. I made it through 35 minutes of the 60 minute race, and I was ok with that. It was actually fun at times. I made it a grand total of 6 laps before I got gapped, and I was ok with that, too.

Sea Otter: Let's just forget it ever existed. It was not an A race for me, and I knew my climbing wouldn't be in gear, and news-flash, I didn't have enough! The circuit race nearly killed me. It was demoralizing, and it was really hard to get up the next morning and do the road race (which was not a good one for me last year--even more reason to not want to do it at all). However, the RR went better for me. Although I got gapped on the climbs, I was able to chase back on in every case, and rode the entire race with the lead group. I only got gapped on the final climb up to the finish, when my legs proclaimed loudly that they were done with this climbing crap, and should NOT be required to do it any more. Oh well...I actually felt ok about this race, even though my result was still only 12th place.

I skipped Devil's punchbowl and the following day crit in the interest of having a weekend away from racing to find the joy in cycling again. The weather was beautiful in SB, and it would have worked out perfectly if someone didn't manage to take me out in Sunday Worlds! I mean completely and quickly. I'm back to form now, but unfortunately my poor bike is not! I am looking at new bikes today. And I've had a loaner bike for the past week. Anyway, I guess if you're a racing bike, it's not a bad way to go....

So Kern is coming up...and my expectations are different this year. I'm going to go and have fun. I know it is going to be hard, the longer distances in the 3s are going to be no picnic. But Kern has such a special atmosphere, everyone is so competitive yet supportive, it's just a really unique thing. I wouldn't miss it for anything, even if I'm not quite where I want to be form-wise.

Ciao!!

6 comments:

Steve Weixel said...

Ooh, what bikes are you looking at?

Itinerant Rick said...

Welcome back to blogging land! Sounds like you continue to have bad luck with the crashes. Bummer on the trashed bike, but perhaps the new one will be luckier .... and less crash-prone.

Ms. Chatterbox is so looking forward to Kern. She was picking the brains at the track last night for intel on the various courses. We'll see you there in a single digit number of days!

Kimberly (aka. DrKim) said...

Cyclistrick-yeah, I am in need of some better luck! :-) And I'm happy to give Ms. Chatterbox the lowdown on Kern from my perspective, too! It is super fun...

Greg Knowles said...

I loved the your comment about your old bikes passing. ;o) Welcome back to blog land and enjoying the bike is all it's about. Have fun!

chatterbox said...

hope you're all set with a new set of wheels for Kern. When I didn't see you registered, I was worried you weren't coming! See you this weekend!

Anonymous said...

You are made of sterner stuff than I! I just saying "no" to the collective masochism of bike racing.