Monday, May 6, 2013

Before Collegiate Nationals


I had the pleasure of running the twitter feed for Indiana Cycling this weekend, and so a quick note before I start. For those of you who weren’t aware this is not a blog about drama. Don’t expect to come here and get a full dish on who came to nationals and why, that’s not me and honestly I don’t think anyone knows the full story.

Moving on.

Nationals were full of highs and lows, but honestly to understand everything that happened I have to back up a bit. Thursday night (April 25th) I started to get sick. Fever, coughing, congestion, and the whole nine yards. A phone call with the coach set me on a path of vitamin C mixes, Zicam and five days off the bike. I think Bloomington may be experiencing a serious Kleenex shortage after I went through the stores.

We flew into Ogden on Tuesday April 30th. That evening I discovered that the newly installed cable housing was creating too much tension and one of the brake cables was broken. Contrary to a few friends’ beliefs I was going to need my brakes for the weekend. A quick run into Ogden the following morning resulted in a repaired cable and that afternoon I got on the bike for the first time in five days for a 30 minute spin on the road race course.

I have never felt worse in my life. The altitude was affecting me, and looking back at my ride data my heart rate was several zones above where my power was. Even though I thought I was getting better my body was clearly disagreeing with me and the 5000ft above sea level was not helping.

Thursday gave me the opportunity to do the climb as well as practice the descent several times. Given my history with mountain descents I really wanted to get this one right, I wanted “NO BRAKES” to be an option for me rather than my usual timid descending style. The climb was rough, though I got to do about half of it with members of the Lindsey Wilson Cycling team and I felt comfortable with it. By the time I did the descent a fourth time I was able to get through it with only touching my brakes on one sweeping turn, and hitting speeds that I never see in Bloomington. I was starting to feel ready and was looking forward to Saturday and Sunday.

Friday saw me heading out to Antelope Island to watch the individual time trials. An event I had initially registered but would be scratching due to illness and needing to save my matches for the crit and road race. However, it was great to cheer on my teammates as well as others from our conference. Melissa had an amazing ride, finishing somewhere around 7th in the time trial, and our men did well also with a 15th place finish in the TTT as well as individual results for Becker and Turner.  We were headed into the weekend with high spirits and hopeful attitudes.


More on Saturday and Sunday to come at a later date. 

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