Wells #2

Wells week 2 was a great workout - I felt good throughout the race. I was keeping a focus on slightly TT + efforts and NOT going into the red zone AT ALL - I think I only went into the red zone a few times. Murat was there too and was riding strong at the front - a few other guys (maybe 5) were working at the front of our chase group (which had about 30 members). I got a great workout in and kept pushing big, big gears (for me at least!) during this race - many times I was in the larger gear ratios and still spinning at a good clip. There is a slight downhill where I got up to 34 mph for a bit - which surprised me. A break did get off - which kinda ticked me off because even though its a training race I really hate not being in the break...I can be really ignorant and stubborn about these things. There were 12 guys in there - which is a substantial break for this course. They were going good but nothing we couldn't have caught. Like yesterday it went really early so I think a lot of guys were caught sleeping - so lesson #1 is not to sleep in races like this EVER. A few of the larger teams worked to counter any field efforts to bring them in though - in this respect I learned my second lesson which is that team tactics can really mess up the effectiveness of a chase group - my hats off to them (although its annoying when you pull 1/2 lap and nobody comes through even though you look behind you several times, slow down slightly, pull off, raise right arm, raise left arm, decrease speed to 18 mph etc...) There was a windy section which slowed down to below 22 mph, which the break was probably doing at 25+ which is where a lot of the damage probably happened and the break got out of sight.

So I've now over analyzed the training race but I learned something from it. Right now I'm going to eat ramen noodles with the packets of Indian curry w/ chickpeas on top - one of my favorite "I don't feel like cooking" dishes.