Dead Dog Recap

Well, I'm back from the land of cowboys and high plains. My trip up to Laramie didn't go as planned. Ended up having to work at the shop till 7:30. But the girl was super stoked when she got her bike basket installed. So I rolled out on Saturday morning at 0500. It wasn't too bad. Drive was easy and gave me time to download plenty of calories for the day's work ahead. This was probably one of the hardest road races I have done. It was go from the gun and the terrain made me cry like a little girl, not really but it was sickly hard.

Here is how it goes....Roll out at 8400 ft on some rollers with a slight descent(hardly noticeable) till you get to 7500' and the town of Centenniel. From there, it goes up fast and the race goes from alright to "ohh shit..just hold on...just hold on...lactic acid...why are my arms hurting, ohh yeah, thats lactic acid." Ended up falling off the pace of the lead group. But a few teammates bridged up to me and we formed a nice chase group with the lead group just a few minutes up the road. So after Centenniel its about 20mi till you reach the summit, which still fancied the WY snowpack. I guess when you are above treeline at 10800' snow sticks around. Well after a breaf descent it was pedal-on all the way to the bottom(7800'). Then we do a quick turnaround on the tarmac and head back up the hill we just came down. There was no "bomb this hill." Much to my chagrin, it was pedal-on the entire time. I was taking soming long pulls trying to help the teammates who were looking a little better. Blew myself up trying to bridge up to a chase group in an effort to set up my teammate. Unfortunately, he couldn't close it after 5-7mi and we caught him. After a brief respite, we got back to Centenniel and echeloned it out across the road. It was super fast but really cooked me. As we were rotating, I was expecting a teammate to roll through but looked back and he was 3 bike lengths back. I dropped back, yelled at him to grab my wheel then pulled him back into the mix. Good times. Ended up finishing 17th on the day and totally cooked. Treated myself to an ice bath. The coach has always suggested it, well I took it. Painful until you can't feel anything but it definitely helps with recovery.



Sunday was a 2'fer. Crit in the morning followed by a high-altitude time trial. I was beaming with confidence b/c I knew the course would suit me. A little bit of bad communicado b/w my leadout guy and me left me jumping on the sprint a little too soon. Settled for 9th. Good stuff learned and good sign of recovery. Next up after just about 2hrs was the 10mi tt at 8800'. Its supposedly the highest time trial in the US. Confidence was running high. I put in a lot of work this past few months on the time trial and felt I could put up a good result today. I went out flying and kept it going. 9th on the stage. Helped me move up 1 spot on GC and be the top finisher on my team. I knew as soon as I finished that I would have a good time. Still some stuff to work on but after a 4 day break, I'm happy with the form that came around during the race. Now the 2nd half of the season begins....

Adios,
Matthew