Back at the Races!

When rolling across the finish line at the Race for Alex almost a month and a half ago, I had hoped that between my running and my commuting to work via bike, that I'd have some type of fitness to participate in the annual Chapel race. I always look forward to this race as it's close, cheap and lots of fun. With being off the bike for so long I was also looking forward to seeing and racing with all my teammates again. Rolling up to the start line, I really had no expectations for the day but to hopefully stay with the pack. I thought if I could do that, then it would be a successful day. Quickly into the day, Tim pushed the pace to try to get off the front. He didn't have much luck but than Marshall came up and tried the same thing. I figured that I'd give it a shot as well. We had the field packed so I thought I could at least make the race difficult for as long as possible, even if that meant my day would be early. As it turns out, I'd be good for a few more attacks along the way and surprisingly, I felt as good as I ever have on the bike. They say rest is important, apparently I need 6 weeks! In all honesty, I never felt good to go solo for the distance, but if any of the breaks that I was trying to initiate would have been successful in working, I think I could have made it stick. With 5 to go, I knew it was most likely heading down to the bunch kick so I restrained myself for the finish. With a half lap to go, I let it all go and attacked one last time on the backside of the church. I went through the final few turns still up in front but not with enough power to hold on. I ended up rolling in for 7th place for the night but with the satisfaction of making the race difficult and hopefully setting up some success for my other teammates. I'm looking forward to racing again this week.

Unfortunately I'm having some issues with my PowerTap computer as Cycling Peaks had some issues saving the data for me. From a quick glance, I remember seeing a normalized power of 305 W for the approx. 39 minute effort. This really surprised me that my power output would still be that high after so many weeks at sub-threshold riding. Maybe there really is something to this rest thing :)

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