Smithville Cx...great course, bad legs....damn!

    Iam at the fire station today.  Got a few minutes before me and my crewmates head out to do an annual night training.  We are gonna do some search and rescue in an old office complex and do some other cool trainig stuff.  This past weeks race was north of my house at Smithville Lake, which is about 25 miles north of Kansas City.  The Wheel Cyclery and Chris Locke put on a great race.  Even with a lot of locals out of town racing elsewhere, the fields were still pretty good size. 

I will post some pictures from some of the days action shortly that my wife took.  Her pics are still being edited and I will post them ASAP. 

I made the decision along with teammates Jeff and Ty to do the Open race.  A pretty good field lined up with a few missing regular faces who were in  Lousiville KY racing the USGP races.  THe big hitters on the day were Jeff Winkler and Brian Jensen.  21  of us started the race.  I camped out for a front row starting spot.  Maybe not my wisest decision on the day, which was followed by my decision to go for the 'hole-shot' with the sound of the officials whistle that started the race.  I was 2nd wheel behind Travis Donn of Ethos Racing into the 1 left hand turn entering a hard grassy 90 degree turn.   Within 20 feet of exiting the paved start, I slid out and stacked up a slew of guys behind me.  Was down only for a moment, recovering quickly and was back on the bike and chasing.  I think I may have gotten back on my back and back in line in maybe 7th or 8th wheel.   Not as bad as it could have been.   I spent the nest 11 laps laps trying to maintain some form of racing.  My legs were dead and I had no power what so ever.  3-4 guys beat me on Sunday that had never been close to me before.  Mid race i was already prepaing for a recovery week.  Not good thoughts to have mid-race.  Every portion of the race hurt.  I seemed to be going backwards the whole race.  No power in the pedals at all.  Really dissapointing but altogether unsuprising.  I have had some good races up until yesterday, so I should have and I do know that I can't maintain that good form for more than a feww weeks in a row.  In retrospect, I always struggle with a lull in form about this time anyway.

Really though, the writing was on the wall before the race began for me.  I was just beat and rundown from all the racing of the previous few weeks.  I could feel it coming midweek.  Legs and body just didn't seem to e recovering from a weekend of racing both days and my midweek hard race workout was not good either.  In retrospect I should have shut the intensity midweek down before it started.  Oh well.  I am prescribing 3 days off the bike this week with no race on the schedule.  I am at the halfway point in my cx season.  8 or 9 races to go.  The 2nd half of the season is more spread out though.  With a good rest week and another ramp up in training, I  hope to peek again come the Kansas State Cx Championships in Topeka on Decmber 5th.   I am working next Saturday, so I will miss the 3 round of the Boss CX series.  Thats a shame cuz I race those events for free this year, thanks to winning the 35+ Masters category last year.  No race on Sunday either, because the Dumbshit Deuchebag promoter that was suposed to put on a race that day, totally fropped the ball and screwed the Kansas City Cx community.

Oh well I need a break....some legs up on the coffe table for a few days and I will hit the the training hard again.  See yah next race!

p.s.  pics will follow shortly