“Bitterly disappointing evening of bike racing. Nothing like a long drive home to think about it.”

 

As you can imagine from the above Tweet, motivation was not at an all-time high to write this blog post. I had just recorded my first “DNF” on American soil. Not something anyone aspires too.

 

Lady luck perhaps wasn’t in my corner on Saturday night compounded with, to be frank, my lack of experience racing American crits meant that I was taking an early shower(actually we didn’t, wet wipes were what we used to clean ourselves ahead of a 10hour all night car trip). I don’t feel that my shape is bad, but I haven’t managed to log in the consistent hard training with the racing every weekend. The week’s training is a fine balance of recovering from the last race and preparing for the next one whilst still trying to maintain a degree of freshness.

Like calories much? Stroop wafel with Nutella.

Miami sunrise.

Miami sunrise on the Venetian Causeway.

Taking in the Miami sights and sounds with my tour guides Todd and Brian.

The car trip as I’ve mentioned was brutally long and it gives one a lot of time to think and analyse as to what went wrong. Sometimes it is perhaps too much time to think and I perhaps over analyse things. At least with now being exposed to the high level of criterium racing I have a better idea of what is required from me and how I need to fine tune my training to that.

 

The race is behind us and now I am back in chilly Greenville, back in the condo, back into a routine (which I am making more familiar) and back into regular training. There are a couple of weeks before the next big target, Speedweek! This will allow a good block of consistent training which I hope will pay dividends. Along the way we will be at the Presbyterian Criterium, which will be a good leg tester. Speedweek is just over ten days of racing criteriums almost each day. So, if I don’t want to get my head banged in I will need to be going well by there, and hopefully I can use the opportunity to impress.

 

Looking back the Florida trip was fantastic. I got to know my team mates better, met some awesome people, enjoyed the warm weather and got to see another part of the country. I must extend a special thanks to Joe and Laurie, Marilyn and Todd for welcoming me into their homes. It was great to get to know you all and I hope we meet up again soon. Thanks also to Brian for being my personal chauffeur and tour guide, it was awesome dude!

 

So, until next week then I guess. I’ll be racking up some miles, building the confidence and mulling things over.

 
What would you like for dinner? The white machine or the black machine?
Orange Blossom Special a few weeks ago.

Image Credit: Erik Kellar
I had to improvise, pre race meal! It was good!
Getting the legs up pre Delray Beach Crit with Dilly.