Here we are, exiting the eleventh month of the year and nearly at the finish of the racing season, at least for me. This is a good thing, though. As fun as the riding and racing of this year has been, it's time to take a break from riding to train and riding in general. I've reached the point where riding very much at all is making me slower, or so it would seem and feel. The dreaded precipice of over training. The difficult thing about over training in these late months is that it becomes very, very easy to do. When we change the clocks I think the body naturally wants to rest more. Instead, I've been forcing my body to ride with headlamps burning.
Cheshire Cross went well. I'm happy with my result though not fully satisfied. I'm very happy that I finished relatively well in front of the friends that came to cheer us on. A top 50% finish is never horrible. I could have finished better though, but I faded as the race wore on. I was running top ten for a while, but just couldn't hold my pace anymore. The legs just felt more and more tired with each lap. This does, of course, happen every race, though in a different way than when the legs just turn to bricks.
I figured all would be well the next day at Durham though, since I always tend to do better on day 2 of doubleheader race weekends. According to the online preregistration page there were only 5 of us signed up; 3 of which were from our regular group of riding partners. Lee, Taylor and I all figured we could take it easy for a few laps before really racing each other. Things changed as several guys registered the day of the event. The field size was close to fifteen guys. This being the case, the race started as usual; fast and aggressive. I got into a lead group of 5 and was pretty excited. I figured I might have a chance at a win. The pace was high, and the legs hurt; in fact they were feeling that sluggish, made of bricks hurt instead of the "bring it on show me what real pain is, I want more" kind of hurt. I was definitely faster than the others in some places, mostly the turns, and even took the lead at points; but after two and a half laps the legs just couldn't turn an effective gear anymore. I rolled across the finish in 6th. Despite a good finish, the placing was a bit disappointing. I knew if the legs had felt good, or at least some level better, then I could have easily finished in the top 3 or won.
I took advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday to deal with the over training situation. I didn't ride a whole lot the entire week, but I did eat a fair amount of stuffing and pie. I hope the rest allows some snap to return to my legs this coming weekend as I hit up two days of racing at the NBX Gran Prix.
