Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Janet KILLED her competition!
After my disappointing finish at the High Desert Omnium, I THOUGHT going out to the Eugene Celebration Stage Race to redeem myself would be a good idea.
I was wrong.
It went like this: I went on vacation for two weeks, during which I rested and slept and relaxed, but barely rode my bike. Then, I came home, and my coach immediately made me ride a bunch of hills. During those rides, my heart rate skyrocketed to 9000 beats per minute and I was barely faster than a turtle. On a good day. Also? He may or may not have pushed me a few times while going uphill in his aerobars.
Yeah, embarrassing.
There was no way in hell I was going to be doing anything close to "redeeming" at Eugene.
Coach convinced me to do it anyway and consider it training.
Right. Training while eating nothing but Gu and trying to untie my stomach from its continual racing knots for three days.
The good news? Janet, my amazing teammate, handily won the entire race by winning EVERY STAGE. She rocks.
The bad news? Wow, I suffered. I came in 4th overall, thanks only to my time in the road race, but...ouch. Big ouch.
There were two ways to approach my cycling life after this stage race: throw my bike in the trash and forget about this bike racing thing completely or consider myself in much better shape for cyclocross season.
After some days of rest, I chose the latter. And secretly thanked my coach for kicking my ass once again.
But don't tell him that.
