Torn Legs Yesterday

Yesterday was a day of pain.  Right now, after 11 hours of sleep, my whole body feels tired and my legs are dead.  Great success!!

Tuesday started off with a morning ride with Tony and Mike.  We met at 10 at the shop, ready for some serious burnination.  The first part of the workout was 1’2’3′ 24mph intervals at the crit course.  Cadence at about 120.  We completed four of those for a total of 12 intervals.  And man was it windy there.  

After the 24mph intervals, we headed back in town for some more pain: Nectar Way.  But this was no ordinary Nectar Way day.  It included another hill as well.  Right at the bottom of Nectar lies a hill called Garmet.  The two hills converge at the bottom to form a U shape.  Our intervals consisted of going all out up Garmet, turning around and riding down and then going all up Nectar.  That counted as 1 interval.  We did 10.  

So that was the morning workout.  Roughly 3 hours.  I went home and ate and laid around until 4:30.  Time for more pain.

My next ride was an easy 2 hours with some quick sprints, but I never got a chance to do the sprints because right at the back side of Welder’s hill, I found out that my top 3 gears wouldn’t work.  So I hammered it back to Life Cycle before they closed at 6.  I got there a little after 6 and Gilad fixed my shifting, then it was off to the Tuesday night crit.  By now, I was sufficiently blown up.  I had that tired feeling that sits in the bottom of your stomach, asking for food and rest.  I got to the crit course and couldn’t stop shivering in the cold, gloomy June afternoon.  While waiting for my race and chatting with Quinn and Sam, I had one leg down on the pavement and one still clipped into my pedal.  The one clipped into my pedal shook with fatigue.  That’s usually supposed to happen after a race, not before.  I warmed up a bit more and the crit began at 7:15.  I had been on the bike for 5 hours by now.  

I spent the first half of the crit bridging up to break-aways and pulling on the front.  But I realized that if I kept it up, I would eventually be dropped.  I told myself I would only pull at the front, no more bridging–which is more risky.  Galen from Midtown broke away and after 20 seconds while no one made any effort to bring it back, I got on the front and began pulling.  Half a minute later I looked behind and saw that no one was on my wheel.  Crap.  I caught up to Galen and I took one pull with him, then we were caught.  I was tired, and the pack was going fast and I wanted a spot in the line NOW, so I just merged like a one-eyed driver, hoping the person behind me would see me and get out of the way.  He did.  

After this happened, I got on the front again fairly quickly for some stupid reason, and pulled.  I can’t really remember what happened, but basically the next 3 laps were pure hell.  The field split up as a bunch of breaks went away and some people on the front put some serious hurt on.  I sat behind Nick’s wheel, trying to  make myself as small as possible.  My legs felt like someone was holding them on a burning skillet.  Just when I thought the pain would be over and we would slow down, I would have to sprint again.  After this incident, I just sat behind Nick for the last 10 laps.  I had a weak sprint for 9th and rode home on the bike path with Quinn and Chris.  6.5 hours of intervals, hills, and crit.  And I have a sprint workout today.  Belgium, here I come.

-Kennett the sore mofo Peterson