Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Waffle Race #2 and Back to School

St. John's Cycling crew held the Waffle Race #2 last night and Nate and I made the short drive from Bodunklivar. The rain held off all day and the temps were nice and decently cool.

Nate jumped in the B race while I toed the line in the A. Pretty small group in my race considering the good temps and no rain, but it was a solid crew who did show to include several of the St. John's boys and Brad Huff (Jelly Belly rider). Pretty routine for the most part, but on the last lap (of 3) Huff and Austin Vinton (a 17yr old St. John's phenom) slipped away and it was full on pulling our butts off trying to bring them back. I had two choices 1) bury myself with a handful of others and see if we could reel them in or 2) sit in, skip some pulls and try for a decent finishing place... Since it's a training race I opted for #1 and roasted myself with Cale, J Brackett, and another trying to close the gap. We got it pretty close, but couldn't seal the deal and on the last climb up the dam wall I was done and rolled in for 5th (video clip shows me limping in to the finish). The evening turned out exactly as I hoped as the efforts will pay dividends down the road. ***Pics from Roger Hinson and video from Nate Bethell***





While I am liking the Dirt Crits it was a good change of pace to hit 33miles full of efforts. Next Tuesday it's back to the dirt.

Wednesday I took a lite spin this AM on the road to work out the efforts from Tuesday night; ended up with 1:30hrs of flat roads. Would like to hit the FT early mornings for recovery, but every 10' you eat a spider web (no fun) so I usually try to get on in the afternoons after someone else does community service and clears it out.

Played an intense hour of basketball at SBU at noon and took Ian with me so he could shoot around. All summer long Coach Guiot (head men's b-ball coach) has had E-ball step up the free throw line (in front of everyone) and see how many free throws he could sink out of 10. He was always around 4 or 5 as it was obvious the pressure of everyone watching would get to him. Wednesday, the last noon ball of the year for Ian since he goes back to school, he stepped up and sunk 9-10; he was on cloud nine. Coach took him in the locker room afterwards and gave him an SBU Basketball t-shirt and then his favorite player from last year's practice jersey - way cool. It was a fun noon ball.

Workout #3 for the day found me at the SBU pool after work. Splits the laps up with a pull buoy (small foam piece that sits between legs and forces you to use only waist up, but still provides some flotation/balance to your legs) which torched my upper body and core. I know I keep saying this, but there is no better total body workout than swimming. Being a bi-lateral breather (every third stroke and sometimes I am pushing for 4th stroke) it forces a controlled breathing that I think aids in my breathing during efforts on the bike (less short shallow and more long deeper).


This morning (Thursday) it was back to school for the kids. Hard to believe I have a senior in our house. Both the boys won't admit it, but you can tell they are ready to be back. Deb has taken a 'back to school' picture every year since he was in kindergarten so he was drug out again for the last time this morning... sigh.



Rest day and looking forward to it!!!

1 comment:

  1. Go on you Chief! I want to make it down for one of 'dem dar waffle bike drivin' thingamajigs!

    ReplyDelete