Rest

Ride today you may ask? Only if it is warm and sunny. So it would appear no. A tiring weekend of racing. I'll give you the short of it as I really just feel like a nap and a movie. Maybe some stretching and a session on the foam roller. Got down to Ste-Raymond area Friday evening and settled into our home for the weekend. A somewhat early race start Saturaday morning for 110km. I raced aggressively trying to get into a good brake for the majority of the race. Got hit with some wicked stomach cramps in the second half though which stayed with me for the rest of the day. I tried to stay near the front after that, but lacked the power for the sprint and got swamped. Crawled back to the car and tried to sleep and recover a bit to get the stomach calmed down before the evening tt. 8km tt with some real good burn courtesy of some good little risers made for a tough time on my hot new tt bike. Not super happy with the tt result (I came out a little hard on the first climb and never could settle back into a good pace) but on the other hand it wasn't terrible. After a real late dinner we finally arrived home and in bed for about 11. With an 8am start the next day, this was far from ideal. 130km on a hard course promised to make a selective race, especially when the big guns decided to go and make the selection. With JS sitting in 3rd overall (1 second down on first) and 3 others in the top 11 (max 23 seconds down) I was working hard today. Cover early moves and follow attacks were the orders of the day. And that I did. Rode in a few breaks, chased some others and generally created Sandy the human time bomb. Eventually, a break I was in was caught on a long false flat headwind section with the pack strung out single file in the gutter. I managed to jump back in line but riders were detonating all around me. With a few too many gaps to close, I as well blew like the atomic bomb. On the plus side, the selection was made at this point and both JS and Georges made it. Job done, time for a Coke. About 110km completed and one hard ass day in the saddle. Back in Ottawa now for the next few days before the schedule really heats up and some more travel days. Next up, the Tuesday night world championships (sorry, its not a race) and the gluing of 4 pairs of Cosmic Carbones and a Comete disc. I have a camera again now so I promise some pictures soon. Now, about that nap...