44 to 14, and a MERCO Report

44 training hours in January.

14 training hours in February.

Week 1 post-crash: Zero training at all. 

Week 2 post-crash: 2 hours of bike, mostly very easy trainer time, no intensity. 

Week 3 post-crash: 2 hours bike, still limited intensity. 

Week 4 post-crash (this week): I've ridden a little bit every day this week, slowly upping the intensity, but still not that much and with work super busy, all the rides have been short.

So, not the best lead-up to the MERCO weekend. MERCO is race weekend in Merced, CA, sponsored by the MERCO Credit Union and it's the first big race weekend of the season. Last year both Kristy Gough and my teammate Matt Peterson won their respective crits on the Saturday and then 8 days later, both were gone. So, this weekend is kind of special to our team. I'd signed up for the Saturday crit and the Sunday road race weeks ago so I was at least going to at least start the race and see how I felt, both physically and mentally, as last weekend I still had a little nervousness about people riding close to me. What better way to test that out but in a crit with 40 women and lots of tight turns.

The race was a Cat. 3/4 race, so that meant it would probably be pretty fast. The Mice had 7 women on the start line and I lined up in the 3rd row. At the whistle, I couldn't get my right foot clipped in. Damn! So immediately, I was at the back of the pack. There was a long straightway with the start/finish about 3/4s of the way down, then a 90 degree left, another left then through a chicane, then a hard 90 degree right, then a 90 degree left, then a straightaway (about 3/4 of the other), then a 90 degree left into a head wind, then the last 90 degree left to the straightaway. So it was hammer, ease up, hammer, ease up, etc. I lasted about 5 laps (of a 25 lap race) and then the lack of training caught up with me and I got popped off the back.

From then on, it was some good time trialing practice. In the back of my mind, I wanted to quit about 10 laps in but thought neither Matt nor Kristy would have quit, so decided I'd ride hard until the head referee pulled me. I looked at him every time I came through the start/finish, but he never did pull me from the race. The highlight of the day was seeing another rider who had also gotten spit out the back up the road in front of me. I stood up and sprinted and rode as hard as I could and caught her. The only time the entire race I rode easy was in the last turn and then the finishing straight when the final sprint came around. When the motor came by, I pulled over to the side and eased up and let the field go by. The Mice were 2nd and 3rd overall and 1st and 2nd in their category!

The road race is tomorrow. It will be a training day for me.