It was a little chilly tonight at TNW. 60ish, humid, plenty of wind, and a small field made for some serious hurt.

Things didn’t take too long to get started. A few folks were keeping things animated up front. A 3 man break went a little bit up the road with no Sharks in it, so I hit the front to spark bringing it back. Cooper and Justin followed suit and we got it back together. Things went back and forth for a while with no one getting away. There were a couple of attacks put in up front that caused the pack to shrink even further.

Eventually things settled down for about 30 seconds, and then all hell broke loose. I don’t even remember what all happened. I know Justin got in the main break of say four or five guys, and the rest of us were in cover mode. Within a couple of laps, it was all split up. The group I was in was pretty small with Cooper trying to bridge up. I made one hard pull and took a swim in the pain bucket, and Cooper bridged after that.

I swung back into the small second group, and had to sit on it for a couple of laps before I could work again. We chased and kept the group within 10-15 seconds or so forever. We finally got somewhat organized, and as we got closer, more guys started popping. I put in a last ditch do or die effort with about 4 or 5 to go, and got us close, but no cigar. One guy from my group managed to bridge up, but the rest of it splintered.

I am guessing about 10 or 12 of us finished tonight, and I don’t think there was a group larger than 4 that crossed the line. I was in the red the entire time. My normalized power tonight was a new record. 53 minutes with a NP of 337 W. My average was 273 W.

We man handled a few climbs during the ride. Melrose (part of it, we had to turn around when we met Coop), Woods, St. Paul, Marshall and whatever miscellaneous vertical that comes in the middle of all of that. I threw myself way into the red hanging with cooper going up Marshall.

Anyway, later that afternoon the family drove up to the Shark to get a new bike. Not for me, but for Ethan. He is about to turn six, and has outgrown his Like-a-Bike and it was time for a real bike. He was hesitant in getting one, but we got him talked into going. As soon as he saw one, he got excited. We brought home a Releigh with coaster brakes, and a rear hand brake.

We got home and he wanted to try riding it. With butt on the saddle, he couldn’t touch the ground. After about 10 minutes of me walking with him, getting him used to things(like not accidentally deploying the coaster brakes), he was off and riding. He got good enough, that I grabbed my bike and we spent about 30 minutes riding in circles in the cul de sac. It was good times.

He has trouble getting started, and will fall over from time to time when he stops, but for the most part is good to go. I am a big fan of the Like-a-Bike, and will start Noah on it as soon as he wants to(he is only 2 right now). The idea of never having to deal with training wheels is a good one.

No hail this week, so we had that going for us. It was just south of 70 degrees, which felt a tad chilly warming up, but was perfect for racing. The wind was strange though. We had a nasty crosswind hit us at the end of the fast downhill turn. It made the race split up a bit more than usual right there… which made the climb a bit tougher each lap.

There was a lot of single file tonight. There were times that the race was on the verge of completely splitting up. I was forced to put some hard chases a couple of times to keep with the main group. The pressure would let up from time to time, but it was more than welcome when it did.

I usually try to put in an attack or bridge attempt at some point, but tonight was all about hanging on. I was still there towards the end, so decided to head up towards the front and give the sprint a go. I was forced out into the wind a bit more than I wanted to on the last lap, but maintained a decent position. As we headed up the slower part of the hill, I hit it up the outside. Alan Chirstanell lead the thing out for everyone, and I came around him at the last corner. I was already pretty knackered by then, but dug deep and shifted to the 13(huge gear for me) and nutted it home to take the field sprint. Justin and someone else was off the front, and there might have been another group of 2 in between, but finishing with a good sprint felt nice none the less… other than I felt like throwing up.

So I downloaded the data, and it confirmed that the race was hard. My normalized power was 329 W for the 50 minute race! That is crazy. NP for the last 10 minutes was 386 W (280W avg). The sprint was 53 seconds long with a 686 W avg and only a 1076 W max.

The race went well, we were somewhat agressive as a team. I could tell some legs were starting to get soft in the pack, and I was actually feeling pretty good on a course that looked like it would make me cry. After a 15 minute break while they loaded Ken onto the ecnalubma, the race pretty much sucked. It went too easy. No one wanted to go w/ 5 laps to go. Josephine was kind enough to try and make some people hurt by burrying it at the front for a while, but it didn’t spark much from anyone else.

I got to the front on the last lap. Both Kyle and Eduardo were in good position, so I figured I’d try and help the new guys out and attack the hill on the last lap. I managed to stretch it out and stay off or at the front until we crested the last climb, then my day was done.

Anyway, tonight was another episode of TNW. I didn’t think we would get to race, because the skies were threatening to puke. They drooled for a bit while we were warming up, then all of a sudden our closest start poked out of the clouds and all was well.

Well, but kak was it windy! I got a wee too aggressive on the 2nd or 3rd lap and launched to bridge to a break. Josh Carter followed me, and I was scraping the bottom of the pain bucket to stay on his wheel after I pulled off. We were cauht within another lap, but I was in the red. It was 2.5 minutes at a 415 W avg. Heck, my max 5 min ended with that effort at 362 W. After that it was hang on for dear life. Lots of riding in the gutter. All around good times really. I sprinted at the end, but I wasn’t focusing on doing it from a good position, I just wanted to make sure I ended off the workout properly.

When it was all over, the race was 50 minutes with a 316 W normalized power.

Mentally, my head wasn’t in the game for the position I put myself in. I was there today to work for a couple of teammates as I had no chance for the overall (couldn’t do the TT as I had a wedding to attend). Me getting into the winning break wasn’t part of the plan, but the break should have helped string out the field, so it wasn’t a bad thing. What was a bad thing was that I was having a hell of a time holding onto the break. I am ticked at myself, because I really needed to suck it up and hold onto their wheels one last time up the hill… but I let go. The break sort of shattered a bit there, and I don’t even know how it finished up, I do know I ended up getting caught by the pack just before the last corner, and that I was completely cooked.

So what now? Time to seriously put in some focused training. I enjoy racing too much to continue doing it out of shape. I am not going to be able to ride a ton of hours every week, but I should be able to get out more consistently and just make sure the rides really count.