Too-er of Warshington Cowwwnt-E

Weekend totals:

Prologue: 12 or 14th

RR: 3rd

TT: 10th

Crit: 11th

Saturday's recovery food: Chipotle Burrito, reduced fat coffee cake from Starbucks, King sized Twix, Reeses McFlurry, 1/2 bag of Goldfish, 3/4 of a 14 inch pizza.

Chipotle weekend double up: Success

Highlight: Seeing a bowling alley bachelorette party at the opulent Hagerstown Lanes.

Education lessons on wide-ons during the road race: 1, but thorough.

Crystal City- Victory for the Nerves

Crystal City was many things- fun, scary, fast, slow, and sketchy as hell.

Excuses

After a mid-pack finish yesterday I took a cool down lap and did a bit of eavesdropping to hear the typical cascade of excuses for why people didn't do well. I often have my own excuses, which are recorded on this blog, but are often directly related to my own stupid decision making, a mechanical, or just not doing things properly. Seriously, people need to invest in Coach Puppet so some serious thought can be put into why things never seem to go down as planned and realize that its not everyone else, but maybe them who made the mistakes. Coach Puppet decided to address some of the common complaints at some of these races.

Oxford, Bike Jam, and RSR

The past 3 weeks were supposed to be used as training races for the big goals of my season- the string of road races that end with Page Valley in late August. After taking 9 days off of training and only doing boring 30 to 45 minute rides in the little ring I was a bit curious to see where I stood in terms of harder race efforts. After consulting Coach Puppet extensively, I figured out several mistakes I had made earlier in the season and set about to correct them. Here's how it went:

Ach Ja!: Dein Jeffersohn Cup

I normally wouldn't have done a race feeling more blown out than a Motley Crue groupie, but I had already registered for a race, had a free hotel room, and the opportunity to ride as a team for the first time so far this year. Shitty or not I couldn't resist the temptation and decided to do the 3/4 and help my teammate The Delaware Diesel get that W to get his auto upgrade to the 2's. Clint is a strong rider and a strong sprinter, but has recently suffered from some bad luck.

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?

Ephrata- From Suck Fest to Bad Luck Fest

I decided to head up to lovely Amish Country and skip Bunny Hop to race the Ephrata Omnium. I switched from the 3/4 to the 4 at the last minute and was hoping to finally 'do things right'.