I’ve been slacking, I know…but back to blogging I go!
There has been a lot of talk in the ECCC about blogging in general, and even some comments are directed towards myself. Many claim I spend too much time blogging and not enough time training, I beg to differ.
There seems to be an positive correlation, however, as I seem to do better the more I blog. I attribute my lack of success this past weekend to my lack of blogging, and thus will blog more henceforth.
Drexel, UPenn, Temple ,and Villanova put on an excellent weekend as usual. No matter what we do though, it seems these last two years we just can escape the rain at the Philly Race weekend. Last year I managed to be one of the lucky ones who was aloud to to suffer through the cold and rain in the Phoenixville Phlyer Road Race to a 7th place finish.
Saturday’s race was good. Pack finish for me, but considering that past two years i finished dropped way off the back of the D field, I’m not whining too loud.
People often underestimate the Philly Circuit race. The fast straits kill
a few and the two kicker hills kill many. Even the flat straits kill, apparently, as all 7 of my D riders were taken out at least once (Matt ate tarmac twice). Now I’m not pointing fingers, but word on the street was that Columbia might have had something to do with this. I’m not callin anybody out…I’m just sayin…
Natan managed to get the break in the A field and continued to look handsome through the whole race, and felt it necessary to pay back Josh Lipka in pulls for tug-boating him all the way back up to the “Field” in the Steven’s Pot Hole Country Criterium. Brian looked good in the field, and Chris looked sexy.
Team Time Trial
This was the first TTT I’ve every enjoyed. I’m so very proud of Ian, Matt, and Preston for participating in their first TTT, and doing so in C’s when they’re all D riders. Although we didn’t get in points, for what it’s worth it’s an amazing learning experience for them, and myself since it was the first time I lead point on a TTT. Le Train Rouge in C’s did a great job, and I’ve never heard Preston make so many pain noises on that last climb to the finish.
Rocket Criterium
Well I like it better than the square crit two years ago, but it was still less than epic. The gynormous C race with 67 (?!?!?!) riders was si
mply a amorphous blob running around a race track. The weather decided to play nice and the temperature increased 10 degrees during the second half of the race, and having prepared for a a cold race i promptly overheated and burned up:
I rode confused as Northeastern Gregg looked on as I suffered.
The Ride Home
We briefly stopped back at Chez Brûlée (where the team stayed the weekend) to drop off the tent and change into dry clothes. My mom had an assortment of Hoggies [another Philadelphia original and a healthier and cold alternative to the infamous cheesesteak (one word people)] ready for the team to eat on the ride back, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.
Missing our exit on the NJ Turnpike, we were forced to take the Palisades Parkway, at which point I took over driving for the rest of the trip as we were engulfed by horrendous fog on the Parkway. Brob and I had a nice chat about life, liberty, and the pursuit of winning a bike race.
We got off the Mass Pike around 11:30 p.m. or so which wasn’t bad considering the distance of the drive. After pulling through the last toll Brob, Kim, and myself watched was we handed James the cowbell to awaken the sleeping crowd in the back. Priceless
Overall this weekend was total water, and it was good to get back to bike racing after my crash at Stevens and my inability to attend Delaware and face the Launch Ramp of Death on the crit. I’m annoyed at the fact that I can’t go to Army as I stare at my 11-28 cassette I bought for the ECCC C D-1 HCTT. Yale looks to be awesome
Though not epic in the same way as Tufts, Memorial Hall is super fun (and safe), and really about two things: Headwind, and group dynamics. Unfortunately there wasn't much headwind this year, which makes it harder to make breakaways work (caveat Kim Gheist, w00t!). But there were still plenty of group dynamics. The Men's A race breakaway was a good example---it definitely could have worked, almost worked, didn't work, probably because one rider kept unintentionally disrupting the paceline (accelerating too much on each pull). Michael Hamilton also has a great account on his blog of MIT's team dynamics in the B race.
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