As of yesterday, my road season is officially over. This year's Turkey Day experience played out remarkably similarly to last year's. The field was smallish, and I had the legs to make and cover a handful of attacks. The Stars and Bars were rolling four deep in the men's cat four race, including one W3 rider. The three of us more familiar with the men's scene joked at the beginning of the race that we'd be riding for
Monika (killer headline photo, btw). Turns out that's exactly what we did.
I knew coming into the race that the sole DVR and DC Velo guys would be very strong, and that ABRT would at least play a role in the race because of its team size. Early on, some young bloke from Princeton attacked, and I bridged up with two other riders. After we made contact, I barked a few orders and the break was underway. It lasted all of a lap and half. I can only imagine that ABRT had a hand in the chase. I covered another attack or two in the middle bits of the race, and another two by alternating ABRT riders in the closing laps. I felt good about the last ABRT attack, trading pulls as we developed a few second gap on the field. Unfortuntately my breakmate's teammates weren't able to lock down the chasing field. I had neither the gas nor the motivation to push through the last few laps, and watched the scattered and disorganized sprint finish from the back of the bunch. Monika took 8th, and from this day forth, shall be simply known as the Man Eater.
Just for laffs, check out my power file, grabbed from my new iBike power meter. See if you can spot the attacks/covers.
I started yesterday's race with an eye on results. I made the wrong gambles and gave my body more credit than it apparently deserved, but I gave it a go. As cross season approaches, I've got eyes on results just the same, but I'm going to try to play it a little smarter Monday to Friday, so those weekend gambles pay off more often. I've put together a training schedule from now until 28 November, based largely on
Chris Carmichael's Time Crunched Cyclist. I tried to be honest with myself as to what my schedule would allow, and the time crunched plan promises results with even fewer hours than I've got. One of the tough parts of the training regiment: rest days. Some weeks have two (or even more, gasp!) built in already. I've got so much energy on rest days I can hardly coax myself to bed before 1am.
So to keep myself occupied on those rest days, I'm focusing on another transition. Finishing my MA program (
hire me) doesn't mean I can stop learning about and contributing to the discourse on development and conflict in an African context. I'm working on a paper--no, an article--for submission to the Review of African Political Economy. If you're interested in that sort of thing (or aren't, whatever), you can find much more, slightly biased, information
by checking this out.
Listening to the
Limousine remix of Kites by Geographer. It's got a nice Yeasayer feel to it.
