Valley of the Sun

Well it was nice to get out of the cold weather for a little while and hang in Arizona for a few days. The two Germans, Brent, Keeny, Conor and I drove down to Arizona Wednesday afternoon. It was a long day for me having to wake up at 4am for work in the morning and not going to bed till after 1 am once we got to Arizona. But before we settled in our place we hit up the first In N Out we saw, it was delicious. We sleep in on Thursday and woke up to warm weather. It was great we got out for a little bit to open up the legs again for Fridays TT.

The TT went as well as it could, got a bike fit from German # 1 a couple of days before we left. Raised the seat height by 3 cm at least and I actually looked aero for once. I felt good and shaved a few seconds off from the previous year. Then Saturday was a 90 mile road race with 400 ft or so of climbing per lap. I was going to take it chill the whole race and sit in and see if I could do something on the last lap. But it was really hard to get away and stay away. A lot of people tried thorough out the race but nothing stuck, so it came down to a bunch sprint at the top of the climb. I was feeling really good and felt like I was going to get a good result. However once we hit 2k to go everyone goes crazy and forgets how to ride and just rides dumb. So once we got past the craziness I was feeling good until 500 m to go I just shut down and had nothing left. Finished somewhere in the mid 20's, not too bad considering I was just going there for warmth, In N Out and some good training. The crit was Sunday afternoon and it was nice and warm. I wanted to get in a break or grab some primes and hope maybe conor could just sit in and get a good result. Right from the gun Conor went with an attack but got reeled back soon. Opened up his legs and sat in the rest of the time. I went with attacks and made attacks and but nothing stuck. I road very aggressive and felt really good for the first crit but with 3 laps to go I knew I was not getting away and sat in. Conor had good position up front and ended up 3^rd in the sprint which was great.

Now I am back in Junction depressed from going to very nice warm weather to crappy snowy weather. It sucks but I got to keep on training through it. Collegiate season is starting in a few weeks and we will have a STRONG team this year. I can't wait to race with a team for once. Then the summer will be great to. I just got some good racing coming up very soon. Until next time…