Six Gap

I did the Six Gap Century today. It had been quite a while since I took part in this wonderful suffer-fest, but I figured what the heck and did it this year. Personally, I think 50 bucks for a century ride is a bit steep, but I figure it can't hurt once every couple years. Total on the bike time was about 5 hrs. 45 min., and total ride time was right under 6 hrs. I think. I had a pretty good ride and didn't cramp really. My normalized power for the ride was 252. Good times!

But I feel the same...

As there are epic rides for people, this is an epic post in my opinion. Not epic to you because you should be awed and amazed by something I did, but epic to me because some big changes happened in my life yesterday. Some people may not think them to be big changes, and others may take them as huge. You be the judge on the level of “epic-ness”. I’ll start with bike related and then to family related.



So yesterday I got an email. It was one I had been waiting for, and had gotten a little worried I may not get it. The email in question was my confirmation email saying I was approved to move up to category 2. I would say that on a 1-10 level on the epic scale, this is a 6-7 for me. It’s a huge step for me to finally be restricted to only racing pro,1,2 races, but still not as epic as actually becoming a pro. I realize that from a cat 3’s racing standpoint, moving up to 2 is quite huge. Here’s a quick school lesson for the friends and family that read and don’t know. When you start racing a bicycle, you are a cat 5. This is better known as a crash 5, due to the lack of bike handling skills, although I’ve seen just as many crashes in the 3’s as in the 4/5’s. Then you move up to the cat 4’s, which to me is known as no man’s land. I was a cat 4 from March of last year to March of this year. I call it this because you usually get little to no payout in races, and it’s actually quite hard to move up due to it usually being the guys that are ready to go cat 3 that break away and win. Next is the cat 3’s, which I was from April to September this season. The 3’s are much more tactic’s-centered, and the strongest doesn’t always win. The payout is decent to good in the 3’s, and there are a lot of “career 3’s” that race there and stay there. It’s not that they don’t do well, it’s just that they don’t want to race pro,1,2. That pretty much covers me up until right now, which is the cat 2’s. Moving up to 2 isn’t like going 4-3. Moving up to 2 is going 3-2-1-pro all at once. I will now race with guys from teams like Columbia, Rock Racing, Healthnet, Toyota United, Jittery Joe’s, ect… I don’t have much else to say about this as I think it is pretty self descriptive on it’s own. This is a big move for me.



Okay, so the last being about a 6.5 on the epic scale makes this one seem huge, because I’m going with a 11 on the epic scale. So last night my brother called my parent’s house. That’s right, I said my brother. I’m 24 years old and have known since I was little that I might have a brother somewhere, but my father never pursued it because the woman that had the boy was unfaithful and told my dad the child wasn’t his. I guess in the back of your mind there’s always a “what-if” scenario playing making you wonder if you really do have the “Montel Show” “Long Lost Brother” episode going on. So anyways, he called and apparently we’re eating dinner with him, his wife, and their two little girls Saturday. For the family members reading this with jaws dropped, don’t feel left out because you didn’t know. My mom didn’t call me until pretty late to talk about it. I have since seen pictures of my “brother”, and will admit that he reminds me of my dad a bit. I had quite a bit of things to say about my other event, but this one has just literally left me almost speechless. I mean, I know it may be rude, but half of me is like “Why now?”. The guy is almost 28 years old and just now wants to meet my dad? The other half is thinking “Wow, I have a brother maybe. This could be cool”. The other half (wait, that makes 1.5) is just straight up confused and doesn’t know what to think. Regardless, there’s my epic events of the hour.

Another Weekend Down.

That's about all there is to say. I did OKAY this weekend, with nothing to note really, minus finishing top 15 in all races, with all of them being climbing races. As the season winds down I'm sure I'll have less and less to post anyways.

Fell Off the Bed!

No I didn't quit racing and use a weird phrase to describe it. Aaron, my son, fell off the bed this morning while my wife was getting ready for work. I got a call and she sounded a little upset and told me about it. I got a little upset, but not at her or anything, but upset that he might have been hurt. Since I decided to make a run at this cycling thing it has been among my top priorities, and it still is. Having a son has obviously changed the way I train as well as many other aspects of my life. When some people have children they seem to detract themselves from their riding/racing, which is absolutely fine and good. I choose to sit on my trainer for a two hour ride instead of go out so I can watch Aaron while my wife works around the house. He usually just stares at me for 5 minutes at a time and then goes back to playing in his activity center thing. You'd be amazed at how motivating it is to push harder while training/racing when you know you now have a little one looking up to you. Nothing makes me prouder than being able to hold that little guy on the podium!

Day off!

Yes it is! I'm planning on cutting the grass and cleaning up the wife's car. The parents have Aaron today, and as stated, I have no bike time planned today. I'm pretty sure the proverbial poop is going to hit the fan soon by way of training this winter to gear me up for Pro, 1, 2 racing next season, so I'll enjoy my time off when I can!

Recovery

This week is a recovery week. It's funny how you can complain about riding all the time, but then when you get a week like this, you're bored because you can't ride more, lol. It's nice to get things done around the house that otherwise would go untouched, but man I miss the bike!

Great Weekend!

So this weekend was the "Atlanta Crit Series". I'm still racing as a category 3 cyclist because my request to upgrade a month or so ago was rejected at the time. It's a long story, but this weekend was good enough to definitely push me into being able to cat up.

Friday was the first of the series, with us being thrown in the pit with the masters racers. I attacked off the front later in the race for some reason by myself. Fortunately, another guy name Tyler from Pacesetters thought it'd be a good idea, and he had a teammate bring him up to me soon afterwards. We were quickly joined by another guy and established our break to finish the field off three deep. I ended up third!

Saturday saw us racing a great course in Marietta, GA that is used in the Georgia Games weekend. Saturday AM was a decent race for me, in that I got 9th overall, but bad in that I missed the break-away of 5 guys and was left in the unmotivated pack to sprint for the 3 money spots left.

Saturday Evening was at the same course, and I was much better off here, getting in a two man break with another guy from Mellow Mushroom who was really strong. For some idiotic reason I decided to let the pain win this time and dropped off our break to drift back to the pack. My break-mate had another plan, and he solo'd for the victory. I did end up attacking a little early towards the end, though, and came away with 5th place.

Yesterday was the best of the weekend, with me getting in another break with 5 other guys mid-way through the race. I stuck it this time, learning my lesson from the day before, and came out with 2nd on the day! I had my favorite podium mate with me, and the whole weekend was a great success!