Weekend of racing accomplished

Warning! This post will may be TL;DR for some people so here is a really quick summary:

seized pedal
Train
lost bag, with all my bike gear
Good party, not enough sleep
Early drive to Sequim
Fast race with wide shoulders
some breaks, but field sprint at end
held on for 8th
lunch in Sequim
drive home
Land Before Time
Too early, DST kicked my ass
too early to race
rainy
less intense
Attacked on lap 4, got away 2nd attack, TT all the way to 400m and then got enveloped by field
Lunch with Scott and Andrew
train home

Now for the details. I had been planning this weekend for a while. There were two races on WSBA's calendar (classic spring races of Sequim and Mason Lake) and only 1 race in Oregon. Seemd like a great opportunity to head up to Tacoma to spend some quality time with my sister and Tacoma friends while getting in some racing. On Thursday I had one of those 'glad that happened now and not in the race' mechanicals. My left pedal suddely seized itself after a grueling easy ride around Southeast Portland.

On Friday, I got on an earlier train that got into Tacoma at about 3pm at which point I proceeded directly to Tacoma Bike to get my pedal fixed. Turns out I had ridden this pedal to death and that since I hadn't been regularly greasing the pedal I had screwed myself over. Oh and that new chain and brake pads I had put on back in January were already shot. So turns out I had to buy some new speedplay pedals. Ouch.

At this point, Tony asked me whether my cleats were good or not since I'd be getting new cleats with the pedals. I said "yeah I think so, say, where's my duffle bag that has my biking shoes? Oops, I left it on the train!" I began calling Amtrak, but their line was completely busy and their website even said it was probably a better idea to go to the train station. So I did that on the sweet Civia that Mike B graciously loaned me while my bike was being fixed. I got down to the train station and a lady there made some phone calls, was able to find it and have it sent back down to Tacoma on the next train. Nice.

At this point, my sister Tracy Tracey and my sister had gotten down to Tacoma Bike so we all eventually carpooled over to the train station to pick up my bike bag I had forgotten. The drive was quite exciting as Tracy Tracey had some interesting news to share. We got to the house at which point I still had to go on my bike ride for the day. I got all kitted up and headed out for 1.5 hours. I was making some good headway and was definitely getting farther on the usual route than I was when I began training this year.

I got back to the house and a party for the newest housemate was already going on. I changed into my Irish theme and began to eat. The party was fun as I saw a bunch of Tacoma peeps. Most notably for me was Dean who referred me to my coach. When he saw me he was like "wow, you have really leaned up." That made me feel good. For a party it was good, but I got to sleep at maybe 11:30pm which was not so good for my bike racing.

The next day we got up at 5:45am to head out to Sequim. It was a bit of drive through a lot of rain. And then we hit the rainshadow of Sequim. The line to register was quite long and the I was busy changing and putting together all my bike stuff that I was finally ready to go once the race started. There were some good attacks and all that, but nothing stuck. It came down to a field sprint and I was fighting hard to get and stay up there. Randy made an attack on the final lap, but didn't realize we still had 4 miles to go or so, so he got swallowed up. We rounded the final corner and I held on for 8th place. I was satisfied with the result.

Photo courtesy of Karly Siroky

After this, Landon, Randy, my sister and I went out to a restaurant that Tracy Tracey recommended and we gorged ourselves with food. However, I still got hungry on the ride home. Once home, Karly and I just chilled, ate some stir-fry and watched Land Before Time and went to bed at 9. We got up at 6 which equated to only 8 hours of sleep due to daylight savings time. Zzzzzzz.

I got up, but really wanted to sleep more. My sister was hopeful about riding around Mason Lake instead of being bored standing around while I raced, so she brought her bike too. We got there super early at 7:45am. I thought the race was going to start at 9am, but no, it was at 9:30. It was also raining out there. I have been used to riding in the rain, but with fenders my nice rain jacket and not behind a bunch of dudes flying at 24mph. So it was slightly unpleasant. Also, the facemask I was wearing was starting to become a problem. As it was raining and then being splashed with a constant stream of water from whoever's wheel I was on, the facemask became so wet that at one point I slurped up a big splash of water from it. At that point I tried to keep it below my chin.

Photo courtesy of Karly Siroky

The race was much less intense than yesterdays and about half as many people in the field. Nobody was really attacking all that much which was kinda nice I guess. Eventually I felt like I had to get something started so I tried attacking the 4th lap. I made a move on a hill on the front stretch which didn't really stick. But then I made another daring move on some of the rollers on the backstretch and really got away from the field. I was really time trialing hard and at times didn't even see the peleton behind me. The facemask was now covering half of my left eyeball and I was feeling the meter on my gas tank decrease after each little hill. After a while I was starting to fade on some of the hills closer to the finish and finally the field caught me with 400 meters to go. I didn't have sprint speed or power in my legs so I had to give up and finish just off the back. I just did't have enough to stay away and I was disappointed in that. However, Randy did finish 2nd which was awesome.

Whatever. After this, sister and I headed back to Tacoma where she made some fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. I had invited over Scott and Andrew who didn't know each other or even realize that they lived on the same street 5 blocks away from each other. This was quite fun. Then sister and I made our way to the train that I caught in my own personal style: just after I had finished my bicycle hauling contraption the train started to arrive. On the train I chatted with my coach and he applauded me on my effort at Mason Lake, and that made me feel a little better, but I want to WIN.

This next week I'm gonna hit it hard again and will do either Sequim again, or a crit down in Salem. On the horizon I'm really looking forward to the Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic, a 3 day stage race out in the Dalles April 1-3. There will be a road race, a time trial, a crit and then another road race. I'm really lookin forward to that.