I decided I'd race Green Mountain again. I registered. I posted it here on the blog. Then I went to Albany for the Capital Region Road race on Saturday.
Not my favorite course under any circumstance, but Saturday was about my worst feeling day on a bike ever. I guess I should have figured it out when I got a text from a fellow associate asking me to cover a court appearance on the Thursday morning prior, because she was sick with a stomach bug, and when I had a horrific stomachache all day Friday. I just chalked it up to stress and dragged myself out of bed Saturday morning for the short trip up to Ravena. I can't say I felt bad rolling around before the start, and the 3 miles of neutral were OK. But the Wassner twins began the execution of their race plan by one of them drilling it as soon as we went through the start/finish and it was the beginning of the end for me. The first time up the really steep pitch on the course I just wanted to get off my bike and lay down on the side of the road. For some stupid reason (ahem, pride) I kept going, managed to catch the front group on the flats on the back side of the course, and then fell off again the second time through the climbs when twin #2 hit it. I collected Sarah from Anthem and twin #1 on the flats who had also fallen back from the front group and, with both of them having teammates up the road, they had no obligation to do any work and I just put my head down and suffered like a dog into the head wind, dragging them back to the finish line, and thanking my lucky stars again for my aero cervelo S3 frame and tubular 404s, because I needed all the help I could get. From the results, it looks like the front group blew apart a bit, with Janel Holcomb (previously of Webcor) putting a lot of time on everyone. I was happy to see I had dragged us to within a few seconds of the trailing finishers from the front group, but more happy just to have survived.
So now what. After I made it home, I curled myself up into a ball on the couch and consoled myself by watching Project Runway on the dvr, and decided I was done for the season, no Green Mountain for me. I'd been racing since April, I'd made it to Cat 1, had great results all season since Bear Mountain, had lots of fun, and all with a full time job. Wasn't that enough? I stayed off the bike Sunday, and then went out for a spin on Monday after work. It wasn't so bad, I felt better, maybe I should go! Then Wednesday came. You know, we have stuff to do on the house... put in 3 new windows, refinish the floors, clean and paint the heaters. Time to concentrate on that. But then last night on the Thursday group ride, I had a bunch of fun hammering around the loop with Mike Tanzi, and I thought about how much fun there could be had on the Burlington crit course. But of course, first you have to make it through the TT...and the circuit...and the road race. And I'm tired.
So I've been flip-flopping about this all week. If I were a candidate for office, I'd be toast (ha ha). I still have a couple more weeks to decide.....
Race it! Race it!
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