Stages 3 and 4 - made it, just barely

When I awoke this morning, after a decent night’s sleep, I thought all was on track, and with my time trial start being 1:16pm, it seemed there was some time to relax and even do a little studying for my latest course (with 8 out of 20 under my belt toward the BPA completion degree I’m working on as distance studies). I didn’t detect any real problems with my body, although last night at a BBQ for the riders I noticed a slight sensation like I might be catching a cold - but I dismissed it. However, when it finally came to my warm-up for the time trial, it was apparent that my legs were full of acid, were rather weak and sore - a terrible sign, I was going to have a lot of trouble generating any real power.

I was at a further disadvantage, in that the TT was uphill for the first half, and downhill for the second, and my gearing for the downhill was not sufficient, as I’d heard many riders were going with 54,55, or 56 tooth chainrings, which would have made a big difference on the downhill half. As it was, with my 53 tooth chainring, I had further troubles switching into my 11 tooth cog on the rear.

Needless to say, the TT did not go well, and while I was not dead last in the TT I was 7th last, I believe, and was the last rider inside the time cut. The rider back of me was less than 20 seconds behind, and they chopped him and the others behind him out of the race. This is unfortunate, since the race bible indicated there would be no time cuts on the TT, and for the Commissairs to change the rules after the fact is poor refereeing, in my humble opinion.

In any event, after such a horrible TT, being 7 minutes behind Levi Leipheimer over a 23km course, I didn’t know what to do about my legs. I ate a grilled ham sandwich immediately after, then rode around for another 20 minutes after the TT trying to move the acid from my legs, returned to my homestay, put my legs up and massaged them, and then sat in a bath full of cold water.

With the criterium beginning at 7pm, I did not have a good feeling about it. I rode around for about half an hour before, with some short accelerations, and finally concluded that they felt better than the morning, but still pretty questionable. The crit was to be 90mins, and the time cut was such that you needed to finish at least 30 minutes before being lapped in order to receive a pro-rated time.

With 130 riders on the line, the start was fast, as to be expected - 50km/hr laps. Being rather near the back, but hanging on not too badly over the 6 corner course, I began to think I might survive the entire race. At one point I looked up to see we’d completed 25 minutes, and I was still in the race - I knew I was going to make it at that point. However, not one lap later, a crash occurred on one of the corners, and just as I came around there were three guys lying in the middle of the course. I was forced to swing wide and slow up considerably, skidding, and just barely missing the sidewalk and going over the bars myself. At that point about 10 guys were off the back, just in front of me, and as they went racing ahead to try and catch the quickly escaping group, a gap had formed between me and them, and with one other guy, we attempted in vain to bridge. About 4 laps later were finally lapped out. However, we were at about 33 minutes - just inside the time cut! I live to fight another stage, but it does not get any closer than it did today.

Tomorrow will be brutal, though - it starts right away with 24km of gradual climbing, and I can only hope that my legs are feeling better tomorrow than they were this morning. Hope, hope, hope.

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