Race number 2 in the books. I'm coming along oh-so slowly!

Race number 2 is in the books! I rode a bit stronger and felt a bit better. It was a more flowing course and, while it was still a bit hillier than I like my criteriums to be, it definitely suited me better than the week before at Air Force. I still didn’t finish in the group but, I got a lot closer.

This race was 10 minutes longer than the week before at 40 minutes long. After a decent week of training, and some good resting, I was able to hang in the front group for 10 more minutes longer. I blew at 30minutes with about 5 laps remaining, and the officials pulled me at 2 or 3 to go.

There are obviously some glaring gaps in my fitness. From looking at the power data, I’m falling apart when I have to spend much time over 300 watts. Or when there are sharp accelerations while I’m already at or above 300. I got popped at the race when there was a big acceleration to match an attack. You can see where I got dropped on the graph.

Fortunately, I’m now 1 week into the criterium specialty phase and there is quite a bit of work in these areas. Hopefully I’ll gradually close these gaps until I can finish in the pack and maybe even start participating in the race!

There were some photogs at the race taking pictures, here are some good ones of me (I’m the big guy in the black and yellow long sleeve jersey and white Air Attack helmet).

(Photo credits to Ryan Muncy and Brent Murphy - they own these photos.)

I’m giving myself until end of May to reach the above goals or I’m gonna pull the plug on this experiment. I knew from the start, given my age and my illness that this could be met with failure. And, to boot, a recent CT scan I had found something suspicious on my liver that wasn’t there 4 months ago on the last scan. Now my onco doc has me scheduled for bone marrow and liver biopsies that’ll have me off the bike for almost a week, and if the results come back with bad news, my life is gonna change for the worse in a real hurry I think.

Wish me luck!