Tour of Wishy Washiness

Well another edition of the Tour of Walla Walla is in the bag. This one was just good, not great.  I have typically done well at this race.  Last year I won the final stage and got 6th GC as a Cat 3.  And the year before that I was newly a Cat 3 and got 6th on the final stage.  This year would be tougher for sure since I'd be doing it as a Cat 2.

Waitsburg

This year it was 4 times up the hill. First time was neutral as always. The p12 field got the whole road which was pretty cool. On lap 2 I bridged up with Ian Mensher to a break which shortly thereafter got caught. I made sure I was towards the front before each time up the hill and managed to hold on. The final climb was just holding on as best I could, but I managed to get the time of the first group which was great.  My Mom and Dad came down and watched the stage and took a bunch of pictures.



The pack going up the hill.


At the finish, barely holding onto the back of the first group.


Chowing down on Mom's applesauce after the race.

TT

I had ridden my TT bike exactly once since Eugene back in August. And that one time was on the Thursday before the race. I had had it stored upside down in one of my bike lockers that wasn't under a garage so it got wet in there. When I pulled it out it had a spiderweb and spider crawling over the handlebars. Anyways, I had hoped to ride somewhere under 20 minutes but got 21:03. I may have gone out too hard, not quite sure.





Logistics

This year I departed from my usual arrangement of sharing half a bed with some random racer I just met that day and stayed at a host house where me and my carpool buddy got our own bedrooms.  That was nice.  My parents headed home, so I got no pics of the rest of the weekend for ya.


The Crit

This crit ranks as one of the scariest crits I know. I had a great start, except then I decided to chase Trevor Spahr I believe for a $60 prime still on the first lap where we both got caught on the backside. I think I did one more breakaway attempt and then I was done and in damage control mode. 30 minutes to go and I was anxiously looking at the clock to see it count down to 0. The final lap I had to sprint to stay up with the lead group which stretched nearly single file seemingly all the way to the final corner.  That night we went back to the host house and I stayed up way too late watching a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Kellogg Hollow

It was the final race and I had to try some kind of breakaway, it's just what I do.  I sat in except for positioning for the climbs.  On lap 2 I tried twice to get away and stayed off the front for a bit the second time I tried, but nobody joined me and that was that.  Then I got a little bit of a cramp and knew it was damage control time again.  On lap 3, Hagens Berman lined up and set a pace that dropped a lot of people including me.  I was in a decent sized chase group which got whittled down even further.  And that was that.

Post-race thoughts

Well, I ended up 37th GC out of 120ish riders.  On the one hand, that isn't such a bad result.  I was able to mainly stay with the lead group each race which is good.  On day one I bridged up to a break with Ian Mensher - the same Ian Mensher that utterly crushed me in the Time Trial at Wenatchee just 2 years ago.  Now I'm at that level, heck I even finshed a few groups ahead of Ian on the final stage.  Another cool thing was that my TT time would've been good enough for 2nd place in Cat 3.  But on the other hand I got dropped on the final day and was just barely hanging on in the rest of the races.  My TT time was wayyy back in the 1/2s.  So I dunno I kinda feel like pack fodder at times in the 1/2s but then again I'm hanging within the p12 pack.  Well, we'll see what happens next.

Oh I do know one thing, I'm feeling a little more disciplined now.  I started doing my core and stretching again which I have been not doing nearly enough at all.  And another thing, just this morning I looked at my speedplay cleats and noticed a screw was missing.  I had actually brought replacement cleats to Walla Walla, but if I had tried to replace them there, I would've been screwed since I didn't have the right length of screws for the replacements.  And one last final thought, I resolve to never ever watch a Quentin Tarantino movie again because it is the same worthless never-happens-in-real-life waste of time plot of an outcast vigilante who goes to fight some despicable nemesis but the vigilante has to kill at least 100 people in the process.  No value is added to my life by watching those movies.  No more.

I'm having fun, right?

Well, I figured I fire off a quick post since I'll probably do another one for Walla Walla which is this weekend.  After my last smack-talking post prior to Independence Valley I just wasn't in the mood for another post.

IVRR

When the winning break gets away 5 miles into the race and you're not in it, that's a bummer.  And when you're trying to make moves to get a chase break started and they aren't succeeding that is frustrating.  And then it is just downright not fun when someone else chases you down just to yell at you for riding your bike hard.  Fine, my tactics weren't the best and I really shoulda just tried to form an alliance with Porcella, Soraz and Team O to actually chase that break down.  But I really don't like getting yelled at and that set me in a bad mood for the entire next week.

Rest Week

So yeah, the next week was a rest week and I even chose not to race Vance Creek which I've done well at before.  Sigh.

King's Valley

The week leading up to this my coach decided that I shouldn't have a life besides riding my bike after work and that is what happened sort of.  4 hard days in a row and I nearly fell asleep at my church group just to go do 4 zone 5 hillclimbs afterwards.  But I didn't feel miserable which was strange.  One thing that kinda sounded nice was that my coach also suggested that I just call it a season after Walla Walla which gave me some hope that I may have a life again.  Actually if I had more time, I'm not sure if I'd have a life again since I'd probably sit behind a computer screen and code on personal projects most of the time.

Anyways, I was fairly happy to go down to King's Valley with some teammates.  Dave drove Joe, Mike and I down there.  Our race strategy was to watch out for Rob English and some other guy who I wouldn't have know.  So I stayed at the front a lot and chased down English about 30 times or so. 

Oh wait, before that actually there was a beer prime on lap 1.  At the corner to the finish road most of the pack forgot to turn, but I didn't and took the front of the pack.  A small break of 3 masters got away and then I jumped and passed those guys, but they eventually caught up to me and then like 4 others bridged up too, but it didn't look like there were serious threats.  I maintained a good spot going up the hill and timed my sprint perfectly and picked up that beer prime.  First prize winnings of the year!

 

So yeah, the rest of the race was a lot of chasing down English and then holding back while Joe and Dave both got in breaks.  When the finish hill came I didn't fare too well in all the traffic and was top 20.  Meh.

And onwards

Sunday I did Logie trail intervals and on the 3rd interval there were 5 rabbits with bike gallery kits which really helped me up the wattage!

Today I did PIR, gave Byron a good leadout for a hot spot and then kamikazeed on the final lap with Nate Gibson.

I'm thinking in the races that I don't get yelled at or the course isn't dangerous I generally have a good time, but all this training and not enough sleep sometimes makes my workouts a real chore.  I'm thinking next year I either need a break from all the training of racing or to find workout buddies or some other source of motivation or both.

See y'all at Walla Walla.