1. Training camp in Florida- went solo this year and banged out 455 miles in six days of riding.
2. Delray Beach Granfondo- included in the above mileage was a 100km granfondo in which I narrowly escaped with all of my skin (3 big crashes), finished about 30th out of 600 starters, and beat Nelson Vails to the line.
3. Delray Beach Criterium PRO RACES- watched the men and ladies light it up in the dark the evening after the above granfondo. My mom was with me and also enjoyed the thrilling speed of the closed course.
4. Delray Beach Amateur Crit- Held in an industrial park near the Delray Pro Crit, this was a good test of my tired legs, and gave me confidence after I finished the 40+ race without blowing up, where it was fast enough that there were 10 DNFs.. 12th out of 16 finishers, I'll take it, in March.. in Florida.. The Pro-1-2 race afterwards was just too much though.. I sat up after 5 screaming fast laps..
5. Chris Hinds Criterium- my 2nd test of the season, on the weekend after returning from Florida. Tons of fatigue in the legs.. I felt confident and bridged into the winning break after burning an entire book of matches in one lap. The occupants of said break did not show any desire to let me slack off for a couple of laps, and I was spit out after one lap going 28-29 mph. Just didn't have it, though I'm sure they slowed down after I was gone. At the end, I won the field sprint for 8th.. after a lot of hard work at the front and it was nice to show the family that I had good legs (the sprinting kind, not the time trialling kind).
6. Teaching SPINNING class at the Kent County YMCA 2x/week, all full classes, and really enjoying it as my riders get engaged in the power data aspect of the spin bikes. I have them paying very close attention to the average power they achieve for various durations, and hopefully have given them a golden ticket to avoiding the 'junk miles' so prevalent in the SPINNING world, where people go and thrash themselves for an hour without any goal or purpose, make themselves tired and fail to force any adaptation. The power aspect of my classes adds a whole new measurable dimension that keeps people interested and working hard to improve.
6. Now it's April and my last few difficult rides are extremely encouraging. The data is what it is, it is abundantly clear that I am now coming into very good form. I need to reign myself in a bit because it's too early for any kind of peak. I won't crack 100TSS/day until early June, but maybe I should slow that down as well.. I want to be FLYING in August, not JUNE!
I'm picking and choosing the races I care about though, and avoiding the waste of time, money and energy on races I do not care about, just for the sake of racing. My targeted "A"events for the year are going to be: Concord, Exeter, Chris Thater and Portsmouth, among a few others.. All late season stuff. Not a whole lot going on in May/June, other than a lot of crits in New Britain, maybe I'll race Prospect Park once or twice in July..
Really looking forward to temps in the 70s, if it ever happens. Today I went out for a late ride and by the time I got home it was in the low 40s. Thanks for reading.
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