RMO wrap up/etc/blah blah blah

Let's see here, it's been over a week now, so I hope that I can remember enough about the RMO to actually report on it.

Thursday - the WOT crit. In a nutshell, I stayed on Derek "D-rug" Ruggles' wheel the whole race. He's a fast mofo and a nice dude to boot. I knew that with HART having 30 guys there, they'd be ready to set up their boy for the overall. I ended up 8th..him 9th.

Friday - Bear Creek TT. In a nutshell, I needed a 55 up front! They shortened the course by about a mile, and after seeing the initial times, I figured that it'd be safe to leave everything out there and recover in time for Hugo. While my time was less than stellar, it was a good TT effort for me for the year. It's a super technical twisty, turny, and VERY fast course. D-rug caught and passed me in the first 5 minutes, but he only dangled about 10 seconds ahead of me the rest of the TT, except for the final straightaway. He had a 55 on and just LIT IT UP! I couldn't see him after about 4 seconds.

Sat - Hugo. Last years Hugo was completely different. I went in with fresher legs, and the weather was different. There was wind this year so the first leg was freaking S L O W. Once we made a right turn all hell broke loose. We were caught and passed by the 35 +4 group and once we met back up with them, it was chaos. You couldn't tell who was who as some of them jumped into our group/etc. It was just plain nuts. i got gapped, but a few guys came up beside me and we worked together through the feedzone. That's where I started to hurt. I only had a 12 on the back and we were FLYING. I could barely stay on their wheels on the small downhill portions. Eventually, my legs started to cramp and I had to back off. I went on my own for a while, then picked up another HART rider named Mike Welker. I owe this dude!! We worked together for a while, but I have to admit, I was very tired and let him take some longer pulls. I tried to make it up to him on the final leg by sitting in the wind a bit longer, and, I led him out on the final stretch. I believe he won the group sprint. I came home that day and was just freakin ZONKED. I did NOTHING on Sunday and still hurt.

This week's been great so far. I've ridden into work twice already, and will do one more day tomorrow. I'm trying to do the whole 3 day a week ride into work (at least) to try to cut down on sitting in dumbass traffic and sweating my balls off. I hit up yoga last night and it felt great. That's the key to this season...or the answer to why I can't suffer/hurt. I reasoned it around the fact that yoga is basically isometric contractions along with isotonic contractions. In other words, it builds SICK muscle endurance. That's what's lacking. When you're TT'ing or exerting a huge effort, obviously your muscles contract forcefully. Yoga builds up the muscles to be able to contract and HOLD this force for extended periods of time. When I was doing yoga regularly, I built this up over months and months of practice. This winter I did like maybe 10 classes...including last nights, compared to 40+ from last year's offseason ONLY! That's multiple times in one week on occasion. So, there I have it. My MAJOR focus/goal is going to be yoga. Crits are tolerable because the explosive contractions are shorter and not sustained, but, it totally explains why I suffered so badly in the TT's this year, and, complained why I couldn't suffer like I did last year. It also explains why my power is so low.

In other news, the SRM is going back to the shop today. Unfrotunately the Mag Chloride CDOT throws down to melt the snow has rotted the chainring bolts. Additionally, they've become stripped. I could try it, but to hell with it because if I slip and screw up, the unit is toast. I have it insured, so if it's toast, at least this way I send it in, and the repair shop can tell me what's up.

Movies tonight, Winter Park this weekend.

ciao