5/04/98
I've gotten in to the routine of the biking season. I've noticed that with a full week of biking, I get around 200 miles per week. Commuting 4 or 5 days out of the week, velodrome training on Tuesday, and crit racing on Thursday, and team rides on the weekends add up. I've done two more crits at Seward since the last entry. After skipping the rainy crit, there was a crit on Saturday, the Seward Park Spring Classic. It was 20 laps instead of 15, so I was a bit worried, but I finished in the middle back of the pack with no problem.
I was a bit tired of just finishing, so last week, I tried something different, trying to get one of the primes. I kind of anticipated the prime around lap 6 or 7, so I was trying to be in the front when that time came. Unfortunately, the prime came a few laps after I thought it was going to be. I ended up taking a pull in the front, which didn't help. When the prime finally came, I was a bit tired. I saw two people way off the front, so I was kind of bummed, but then I realized that they were lapped riders. I swung up to near the front, and passed some people up the hill. There were four people in front of me, but after the hill, the third and fourth riders slowed down, not wanting to blow up. I kept going a bit further, but the two up front were a bit far in front, so instead of trying harder, I too slowed down. Now I wonder if I could maybe have caught them if I had tried. This made me realize that maybe I can win one of these primes eventually.
Because of my failed attempt at a prime, I had some trouble keeping up with the main pack, and finished behind the pack with some stragglers. But fun nevertheless.
On Sunday (May 3rd) Lan and I took our first significant tandem ride of the year (I think. I don't remember any tandem rides longer this year besides a couple of times we went around the block.) We went from home to Mercer Island and went around it and back. I was thinking of going on a longer ride, but I was feeling kind of tired. We ended up doing around 45 miles in about 3 hours. Not too bad. I think it was fairly hilly. Lan thinks that I was much stronger than before, from the way we were able to jam up hills. I was kind of surprised that we were able to get up the steep short hill on the west side of the I-90 bridge. The granny ring helped alot.