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Not a great weekend of racing… My bike was ready, but I wasn’t. Andrea and I traveled down to Covington, Louisiana to race the NOBC Tour de Louisiane a 3-part stage race (3 mi TT, 64 mi RR, 50 minute crit for me, Andrea had the same TT, 32 mi RR, 35 minute crit).

Things did not start out well for me in the prologue. I had left my trainer in Memphis, so my warm-up was inadequate and my legs never opened up on the short 3-mile TT. I also think I haven’t managed to recover from my training volume the last few weeks. Anyway, I only managed to average 22.5 mph for the flat 3 miles posting a time of 7:58 for 38th/40 place. This immediately put me well out of contention at +1:21. Andrea showed me up and easily beat my time posting a 7:28 putting her 3rd out of 20 women. She has been riding strong after a few rest weeks, I probably need the same.

After bricking the TT, I was only left with the prospect of racing out the remaining stages for training. The road race was in the afternoon (1pm), so the 64 miles seemed daunting in the 90F+ heat. I packed up 4 water bottles for the 3 hours of racing. The RR course was rolling, but none of the hills were much more than 50 feet of climbing so it wasn’t too hard to cover the distance after advancing towards the front. At the end of the first lap, there was a tangle that sent a few into the ditch and pilled up 4-5 more in front of me. I managed to slow (and not crash) and drove over some wheels a bit. I quickly backed up and starting chasing through the start / finish (crash was a < 1k to go on the 1st lap) and caught on after a 1/2 mile or so after the S/F. I moved up and worked in the front, but mostly sat in about 5-10 back over the rollers on the narrow course. The worst part of the crash is that I dropped one of my extra bottles when I stood up to accelerate out of the feed zone. I did manage to grab a neutral bottle after the 3rd lap, so I had enough. On the last lap, I moved up towards the front, but only managed 15th in the field sprint (24 in the field). My G.C. place moved up, but I was still far from contention at +1:31.

Andrea also finished with her field and managed to snag a sprint bonus at the end of her 1st lap. Overnight on Saturday, she sat in 3rd place, +0:14.

On Sunday morning, we had our crits in downtown Covington. The course was flat, but about 1/3 of the course was pretty rough. Andrea raced first at 7:30a, taking out the first two primes in her race. Her field was down to about 10 by the end, and she managed a 4th place. Unfortunately, due to finish and sprint bonuses… she end up sliding down to 6th place G.C. [results]

A bit later on Sunday morning (~10:30am), I had my crit (Cat 4). I managed to get a pretty good warm-up riding around Covington. However, my legs still were not as good as I wanted, and the start proved that out. At the start, I was gapped by a couple of riders and the 1st lap prime did not make that any better. I chased the field around the course at 23 mph for about 10 laps picking off people falling off the field. At about 20-22 minutes, I was picked up by the field. I tucked at the back of the pack and rode the remaining time out to 50 minutes in the field. End result: 26th crit, 22nd G.C. +3:39. 31 finishers. [results]

It ended up being a disappointing weekend of racing for both of us. Andrea finished just outside the money (5 deep) by only 1 second. I had trouble getting my legs going and ended up much further back than I should have been. After next weekend (our race weekend in Memphis), I will have to try to have a true recovery week. I looks like my post Soto funk has hit like it did in 2006, just delayed a bit.

Andrea and I took photos of each other racing at the time trial [photos] and the criterium [photos].