If you didn’t read the last post, I’ll give you the low-down: I rode poorly and got upset about it.
The low down of this post: I rode ever worse and got even more upset about it.
The final two stages of Redlands didn’t go any better than the first three. I guess the first two weren’t terrible and I was feeling fine. It’s just that Beaumont stage that I was pissed about. Anyways, during the crit on Saturday evening, after about 10 laps of failing to move up enough to get to the front, I decided to just pack it in at 60 minutes to make the time cut. My legs weren’t good enough to get in moves anyways, I wasn’t going to get in the top 10 for the stage, and I knew I’d need every ounce of strength to avoid getting dropped on Sundays Sunset circuit race.
Back at home we ate enchiladas, rice, beans, tri tip steak, and salad. Probably too much tri tip, but our hosts were amazing cooks. I hoped that a big meal with some red meat might help transform me into a less shitty rider. I had my doubts.
Let me quickly introduce the my Landis-Trek teammates since I failed to do that earlier:
Michael Dziedzic
Tim Carolan
Cole House
Drew Miller
Tyler Coplea
Jared Gilyard
Lewis Elliot
We had Brian Lemke as team manager and director, and Scott Price as soignier. It was a pleasure riding for Landis-Trek and meeting this awesome new group of people. I just wish I’d had the legs to repay them all.
Anyways, the synopsis of Sunday’s stage 5 circuit race will be short and sweet: I was in the red leading up to the climb, got popped on the flatter section of the climb mid way up on the first lap, got passed by 50 or 60 guys while I tired to regain my legs, sort of recovered, blew up again a minute later at the KOM, then chased until I got caught by a group of like 10 guys. Mind you, this all happened within six miles of racing. There were still 90 to go.
My legs sort of came back since the small group I was with was riding slower but my motivation was completely gone. We were already a minute and a half back from the lead group of 50, with probably another 70 guys in between that group and us. There was no way we were ever seeing even the middle, let alone the front, of the race again. I chose to cowardly fall off the back and take a short cut home to wallow in self pity and contemplate giving up bike racing. At least I’d be giving my legs the rest that they hopefully needed in order to get out of this slump.
I flew home the following Monday and I leave for Europe tomorrow so there’s packing to be done. All I want to do is sleep and get back massages from Adelaide though. I ended up getting sick. On top of it all, I saw the dentist today for a teeth cleaning and I had two cavities! The cavities were just small voids (cavities) in my last two fillings that needed extra glue, so I can’t really complain about that. The being sick part does suck though.
Obviously I never like catching a cold but this time it’s sort of a relief finally figuring out why my legs were so bad for the second half of the race. In the back of my mind I’d kept wondering if I was fighting some sort of low grade infection, and sure enough I started feeling a trickle in my throat Sunday night. It better pass quickly because I have two races in Denmark this weekend, followed by a five-day UCI in France starting next Wednesday. At least it’ll be sunny and warm over there.
Some suffering going on during Stage 3’s Beaumont road race:
Photo: Dean Warren
KENNETT PETERSON 