Greenbelt Pt.1

I was pretty excited to start the Greenbelt series for many reasons:

1. Not really any points so no pressure.

2. Racing is more fun than intervals.

3. Its a good excuse to get in a solid bit of mid-week riding.

4. Cool to chill with some other DC riders and get to know people on other teams better.

5. What else am I gunna do?

Met up with a friend and accidentally crashed another team's meeting spot and rode out with quite a few cool people that I've had the privilege of meeting over the past week. A lovely traffic-filled roll out to the bike path and some casual rollage until we reached the Greenbelt park. I had no idea what the course would be like, but I was assured that it wouldn't be technical, that it would come down to a sprint, and that anyone not in the first two rows would get boxed in.

All three of those adages were true, but that didn't stop me from messing around a bit. I've been fairly bored with just sitting in and I obviously haven't gotten any results from it so I had some fun messing around. I don't remember the details, but I remember rolling off the front once at a meager pace and being brought back, chasing some kind of move, and then an incident that made me shit my chamois: almost getting taken out by someone that decided to weave through the pack and come in way too hot on the only real turn on the course. He rightfully hit the deck, I slowed down and we rode for another few laps. A break got off the front and I decided to chase in earnest again and it was brought back in roughly two laps. A move went right after, but didn't stick and the 'peloton' bunched up on the second to last lap. The rest of the race played out as expected and I rolled in at 13th casually riding across the line. Some dude whose name I don't remember (sorry, I'm just super bad at it) won the sprint and some of the other DC people did pretty well.

I went home to download the power files, mull over the details, and go to sleep. I've felt pretty flat the past few weeks and the data confirms it. There's no need to get into details, but key numbers are only at 75% of my early season numbers so I went to try and figure out what's wrong. A quick glance at my yearly training spreadsheet shows that I hit a chronic training load (CTL) of 88 back in early February and its been between there and 99 ever since. I hadn't realized it, but I hadn't taken a week off since March, when I had the flu, and I had accidentally been holding a peak for somewhere around 12 weeks. I've already registered for both Jeff Cup and Leonardtown so I plan on doing both of those, but the next few weeks will consist of some serious down time and then hopefully rebuilding from there.

If anyone is interested in doing a weekend of riding out by Skyline I will be camping there on the third weekend of May and getting raw in the woods. Not like weirdo pervert raw, but getting out of DC and riding somewhere a bit more scenic than Potomac. I won't be returning to Greenbelt for quite some time and might have to skip out on RideSallyRide, but shit happens.

In other news, I have been flipping out about the possibility that I cut my steerer tube too short and might have to run a positive rise stem or a 'boner stem' if you want to get scientific about stuff. I know fit comes first, but if I flip the stem then I might also start thinking that I should equip my helmet with a clip on mirror and perhaps a neon wind vest and downtube shifters might come next. I will be heading down the slippery path to Fredville and soon my rides will consist of patrolling the W&OD for rogue riders and being overly vocal about informing them exactly what side I am passing them on. I would appreciate it if someone was able to refer me to pros or talented riders that run a boner'd out setup just for inspiration.