Ventrura Stage Race...

Sigh...

Great great great course. This race is one for the ages. Awesome prologue, followed by the best crit course in southern california, followed by an extremly challanging circuit race.

I wont go into too much detail.

I was ten seconds off the league in the prologue. Hung in there with only about 15 or so surviving riders in the crit course. Launched a little attack leading into the last lap to try to force some guys to cover and try to give L- Ron a little edge... L Ron didn't need a little edge. That guy is probably one of the best, most consistent crit races in the amature peloton right now. He rocks somthing fierce.

Cirucuit race blew all kinds of apart. I was working really hard at the front to try to keep things together for ron and keep several key players out of time bonuses and protect ron as much as I could. I ended up working quite a bit the first half of the race. Eventually it was the climb on the back side (and Steve Smith's massive massive attack leading into the first half of the climb) that really forced a split and the next hill a few more droped and there was another small split that turned into a larger split that turned into the winning break. Australian Gram saw the lead group peeling away and offered assistance. I grabbed his wheel and rode it right into the dirt underneath a nice big shaddy tree.

That's right, I DNF'd. At the time it felt great...lying under that tree in the soft dirt, drinking water and dousing my head in it... but that night I wrestled with all that malarky.... Feeling like a quitter, like a looser, like I let the team down:
The pitty pot

Fact is sometimes you got it and sometimes you don't. Somtimes you can not train for 3 weeks get out there and place second in a hilly road race purley on guts and will and sometimes you can't.

The lesson learned here is that mamma didn't raise no fool (and by fool, I mean quitter). The other lesson learned is I need to start training again... Get back on the white carbon pony... The mid season lull has come on gone.

Enough with the tom foolery, I got some races to win!

“A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more. Nobody is going to win a 5,000 meter race after running an easy 2 miles. Not with me. If I loose forcing the pace all the way, well, at least I can live with myself.”
-Pre