Success To Sucking
14 May 2006
Well, if you got a chance to peak at my last update you probably got
the impression that things were going well. You could say they were.
We had a pretty good ride in the prologue coming in 4th, but
unfortunately that wasn't a sign of things to come, for me anyway.
The first road stage started off quick with tons of riders looking
for the early break. The narrow roads through town and parked cars
in the middle of the road made things hectic as usual. In fact it is
so usual, I'll stop mentioning it now. Anyway, a break got off and
things slowed down – A LOT. We were crawling. I dropped back to get
some bottles for the guys since I was at the back anyway. But then
we took a right hand corner and the cross wind was horrendous. I had
already moved up to give the bottles to some of the other guys, but
had quickly lost my position and was pretty far back.
From here on it was all out. Just ride as far to the right of the
road as possible, and hope you don't fall off. We were flying and it
was killing me. After a couple of km's I began to lose the wheel in
front of me. I had to pull off and try to fight my way back in the
line. Quickly this happened to me again. I just couldn't push any
harder, and my legs felt like Jell-o. Quickly enough I was
dispatched out the back of the pack – alone. This is not a good
position to be in.
I kept trying to jump behind the passing cars of the caravan, but
like the riders in front of me they were going too fast, and my jump
didn't actually seem to make me go any faster. I was merely standing
up instead of sitting down.
After being left for dead I kept riding for a while, but the howling
winds and ominous shadow of the broom wagon called to me like a
siren and I was done. I would not have been able to make the time
limit alone.
So this “ride,” was pretty much a miserable failure. I went into the
race with high hopes, and in reality I couldn't hold a freakin'
wheel. Certainly being sick the entire week before didn't help. I
did a ride the next day and tested myself, 3 times going all out and
only getting my HR up to 170 bpm. I can only conclude my body just
wasn't recovered enough. In fact my body is getting pretty tired in
general and I could do well with a break and rebuilding. Too bad I
have a gnarly block of racing still in front of me with NO time for
respite, all the way through until the middle of July! I'll just
have to do the best I can.
I'm not too worried about it. Form doesn't vanish that quickly.
Hope all is well. Thanks for reading.
-Zach