Group rides and calories

So I rode with a group of guys here in Springfield.. and boy did they kick my butt. They were fast, relentless, and I barely held on. I think we went around 35 miles with an average speed of upwards of 24 mph. The roads were very gravelly, I kept wondering why everyone kept saying "watch out for the gravel" but the ride we went on was basically roads to access the corn fields (surprise surprise.. it is Illinois after all) and every turn was very dangerous and there were small rocks everywhere. Very annoying. But.. I kept up with the Cat 1 riders.. stayed in a break away a few times.. and even broke off the front a few times on slight inclines. So.. all in all I had a good ride. Walking tomorrow might not really happen. I really wish I had had a Roubaix.. at least then I would have had a more comfortable ride.. and probably could have done even better.

Anyways.. calories, sort of. I just saw a commercial for a new type of push-pop. You know.. the candy that comes in what looks like a really fat pen.. and you take the top off and push up the candy goodness. Well apparently kids are too lazy to push their candy up.. so now it is springloaded.. so it sort of pops out at you. I mean, come on.. are our kids really so lazy and fat that they need the candy to be mechanically ejected into their mouths? What comes next.. a pez dispensor that attaches to your wrist.. and shoots candy into your mouth when it comes close to your face (using some sensor I'm guessing..) Actually that sounds like a good idea.. time to write Pez a letter.

Oh.. funny thing.. someone from the Illinois EPA's air monitoring group was in the ride today. Small world eh? I hope to talk to him next ride.. and damn he was a good rider. Sort of tiny so it was hard to draft off of him.. and he had a Guru.. nice bike.

Later

Eh..

Stuck in Illinois till God knows when. Work is sort of stupid.. and I'm sort of ticked about it. But on the plus side there is a climbing gym within driving distance which I will probably be spending a lot of time at hopefully. And in theory I might even ride a bit while I'm up here.. though who really knows. I was going to ride tonight, but there was some rain and I decided against it.. plus I need some sleep.

Anyways, I am going to take care of some work things, then probably read. Thanks for all the comments, sorry that my posts have been few, crappy, and far between.

Later

Update

Will be living in Illinois for an undetermined amount of time... but am going to try to make the most of it. Found guys to ride with, a pool to swim in, a gym to climb at (or try to climb and fall as I did tonight..) and just need to find some places to run. Won't be so bad.. just gotta keep telling myself that.

Ok, need to get to sleep. No major updates.. other than Liz updated her live journal with pics and the such. Go check them out. Hi Liz.

Later

Crash

Well just like most of the guys in the Tour over the last few days, I took a pretty nasty spill in my crit race on Wednesday. I hope to get a nice picture of it soon, a friend at the race took a picture. So, when I get it I'll post it in all my road rash glory. But one thing that I know.. from now on I'm going to keep my legs shaved. It is already starting to bug the crap out of me. Fellow road bikers, you know what I'm talking about.

Later

Ouch

I'm sure not everyone is following the Tour de France is closely as I.. and I shudder to think that there are probably people out there much more dedicated to it, but I must say that I feel horrible for David Zabriskie. Only the third American to wear the yellow jersey and in his first tour none the less. Then he goes out in the Team Time Trail and is kicking some serious ass when he crashes going around 40 mph. Holy crap that must have hurt. And he lost his jersey since he was too far from the finish line to be considered with the rest of his team. Poor kid. And as much as a lot of people don't like Lance, he did not want to wear the jersey today since he wants to earn it rather than get it from someone's accident. I think that is pretty honorable thing to do, though I guess when you are supremely confident that you are going to win the race, not wearing the jersey isn't that big of a deal. Though of course race organizers told him that he had to wear it and he finally relented.

Hope to do a crit tonight, though if the weather stays crappy as it is now I'll probably pass. Not worth trying to do a crazy race with slick surfaces, don't want a broken thumb or anything. And lately I've been having odd thoughts of crashing when I've been descending and cornering. Hopefully it isn't some sort of premonition that I've developed. I really don't want to be picking at road rash at the moment.

Can't decide if I want to do the Forest City race on sunday. I've not been in the pool in a while, and I need to run more. So I guess I should give it a shot. Actually, wait, the state road race is sunday. Perhaps I'll do that instead. Well which ever I'll be doing something this weekend.

Ok, back to work, or whatever as the case may be.

Later