Coffee and Lies #5

First off, you will note there was no Coffee and Lies #4.  I rode with Hottie last week and skipped the team ride on Sunday.

Today we were kicking around the upcoming trip to Cyclocross worlds next week.  El Jefe, The Judge (a.k.a. Seabiscuit) and Peter Parker (a.k.a. The Pirate) will join Evo and Hottie in Louisville.  If you're wondering how I'm preparing you can check here.   My second son and his fiancee are in town and we went snowboarding this past week.  That was the second time in two weeks, which sounds like I go a lot.  To correct your misconception; it was also the second time in two years.

The freezing fog of the past ten days was followed by enough rain yesterday so Evo decided to ride indoors.  Although cloudy it was dry this morning and it was a blast to be out riding.

Bike racing involves the Pain Bank. If you want to do well it takes sacrifice. As KB wisely said, "it hurts when you made deposits into the pain bank and it hurts when you make withdrawals as well."  If you don't bother to suffer on your training rides then when you need to make a withdrawal, there is nothing there.  France didn't involve much suffering, it was just lots of miles.  Racing means going deep into the pain cave and you had better have the currency to pay the bills or you'll be watching the other riders getting smaller and smaller as they ride away.

 Evo is planning on dipping his toe into the pool of Washington road racing again in 2013.  Thus I am trying to log some miles and throw in some early season intensity. I even managed to hang on to the elite group that today consisted of Seabiscuit and McWoodie.  I noted my HR tickling the 178 limit and after the climb I was at 181 and I knew I was a ticking time bomb.  I popped, recovered and pushed again. On the way back I was pulling another rider who looked strong (McWoodie and Seabiscuit had pulled away by this point,).  We traded pulls and I was feeling cooked from my outbound effort. I took a longer than usual pull and when I pulled over, he was nowhere to be seen. I had inadvertently dropped him.  Rather than let up, I continued to drill and pushed up up the final hill.  I was spent but pleased to have made a deposit into the pain bank.  I figured my vision would return to normal sooner or later.

After crossing the bridge we kept it real and chatted on the way to where the coffee was waiting.  We enjoyed a cup and chatted. As we left FUEL the rain was starting to fall.  We were all chilled and the cold rain didn't help. I was glad to get into the war wagon and head home.