Collegiate CX and State Champs

Not much in the way of biking has been going on around here in the last few weeks. I kind of thought about it and realized I haven’t ridden my bike for training in about 3 weeks. That’s not to say I’m completely off the bike, but nothing with any intensity. Basically I need to get to work. I think the hardest I’ve gone was those few days when I was almost late to work…almost.

I was thinking that it might be dumb to write about what I’ve really been doing because it’s been school. But I guess I don’t really know what boring to read about because I read textbooks for fun. In any event, that’s what I’ve been up to, school. Like I said before, I’ve been working really hard and it doesn’t seem to get any easier. I don’t seem to understand things much better. I have been relaxing a little more though. But I think that’s just the way I’m wired. I work well under pressure. In fact I think I need that pressure to push me to excel. The good news is that I’m starting to find some joy in school and learning again. Reminds me of when I was younger. I used to be so fascinated by everything and I’m getting that back. I’d like to say that I understand everything, but I think it’s more fun when you don’t.

So I’ve been studying my ass off during the week and the last two weeks I’ve been bashing my head in racing. Two weekends ago was the UW-Madison CX race. It was a huge hit as people loved the course and it was really well run thanks to the awesome volunteers and the leadership of Papa Grady. My race however didn’t go as planned. I was really hoping to dominate. Ok, maybe not dominate, but I think I had a win in my legs. But with all the running around and running the race, I didn’t eat much. With 2 laps to go I had a minute gap back to 2^nd. I was feeling awesome and I was dominating. But I bonked, hard. Everything went numb and my vision went bad. I could barely see where I was going. My teammate caught me and got the win. The gap was reversed, but I was able to hold off for second. Tough way to lose, but lesson learned.

The next day was the Silver Lake Boarder Battle. My team KS Energy Services/ Team Wisconsin was putting it on so I skipped the collegiate race in Ripon to show my support. It sounded like the Ripon course was awesome, but so was the Silver Lake course. I had a decent race, things settled out pretty quickly. I filed in for 5^th and was caught mid-way through the race by the two behind me. I couldn’t hold on and finished 7^th. Not a bad finish against a solid field. Overall, I was satisfied with the weekend.

Maybe sometime this week I’ll write about the State Champs, but overall it was really fun. I certainly learned a lot and had a pretty good race. I would have liked to finish up with the leaders more, but I was just off the pace back in 7^th.

Back to homework, these lab reports won’t write themselves. Or can they? Hum, maybe I should work on that instead of the reports.