Tuesday Night World Champion

LAST NIGHT I WON THE TUESDAY NIGHT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS. I DIDN'T FEEL GREAT COMING OFF OF A LONG WEEKEND BUT WITH A GREAT LEAD OUT FROM THE PRIOR TUESDAY NIGHT WORLD CHAMPION DAN BENNET I EASILY CAME AROUND MARK TO TAKE THE SPRINT OUT OF THE DAYS BREAKAWAY OF 5. THANKS DAN!

Host Housing

The first two days at the Tour of Arkansas we stayed with the Parker's who were so nice, and pleasant. Even better is they had an awesome little boy named Brooks!!! I bet he grows up to be a bike racer. Below are some pictures of there gorgeous house at the top of the mountain in town!

The Back Yard Was HUGE. I wish we would have had time to go swimming :)

The view off of the front porch .... true southern style.

I wasn't even halfway out in there front yard when I took this picture; its all just expansive.

I actually got to stay in Brooks' room. With the excepting of one of his electronic games coming on in the middle of the night on the first night it was way cool. It even had my name above the bed ... well sort of! Evidently he decided to rearrange things. SO from now on I'm considering going by "RBOOS"
AND yes, they had a basketball goal in their driveway and in tribute to our very own HORNETS who are in the second round of the playoffs I figured I would go slam it for the home team!!!

90 miles of pain

Today, I decided to train. To ride my bike even though I didn't want to and the only thing I could still think about was being time cut yesterday. I met Zach at the foot of Mount Magazine the 9 mile climb that the race would go up later. We were riding it for training. He had been resting all week and wanted to make a hard go of the climb; I just wanted to get it done. He dropped me in the first 2 miles which were the steepest. As I was climbing the Cat 3 race caught me. I was expecting to see D'go in the front group. D'go is a small guy who is coming up through the ranks in NOLA fast! While living under sea level he is about the closets thing that New Orleans will ever have of a climber. Well he wasn't in the first group or the second. Finally I saw him coming up to me. I figured that I didn't want to be shown up by a 17 year old Cat 3 so I decided to pick it up. When the gradient would lessen I would shift to my big ring and take off shifting back down when it got steep. I was sure he was going to catch me. For a while I would scoot away on the less steep stuff only to see him coming back on the steeper stuff. With about 10k to go I was able to shift into my big ring and stay there for the most part of the remaining ascent. At the top I saw Zach who said he hadn't finished that long ago :), and Andres the director of our Developmental Team. After a quick chat the "Old Man" rolled up to us after winning the masters race. Zach, the "Old Man" and I all started to descend. It was good practice to be riding with these two as they both are experienced in descending. Once at the bottom Zach turned to climb the mountain again. The Old Man and I continued back to the feed zone to feed the elite guys. We were keeping a good pace because we had 40 minutes before the peleton was expected to come through he feed zone and we were about 10 miles away with about a 20 mph head wind!!! I was trying to pull as long as possible to save the Old Man's legs for the Crit the next day. When he did pull he almost dropped me on some of the hills --- STRONG Old Man was more like it! We made it to the feed zone in time and saw the break coming - a Mercy guy was in it! It was Alex. I would learn later that he was in the break for about 90 miles with Karl Menzies and some other pro. At dinner he said it was 90 miles of pain. Regardless, he did an awesome job. They ended up getting caught on the climb but Menzies still managed to get a top 20. The day was done. I went back to my host house and got ready for the 10 hour drive back to NOLA.

ToA - I thought the hard part was done

Going into the Tour of Arkansas it was really hard to convince myself that I would be making it past the first day. Well, I did. That really only meant that I made it over to the next day to suffer - I was actually really happy. The next day had about half as much climbing at a little over 5,000 feet and was a mountain top finish up the dreaded NEBO! My goal, to make it over the first 3 mile climb up Petit Jean with the group and recover on the flat sections ahead. We would cross Petit Jean again but it would be only 30 miles from the finish the second time. We start and after a short neutral roll out the attack started coming. I was feeling fine. We were rolling between 30 and 35 on the way to the first climb and I was not on the rivet at all. We hit the climb and I started close to the front maybe in the top 20 (Brice Jones, our Director for the weekend, told me to start in the top 5 but have you ever tried to get up to the top 5 in a pro race....yeah). I made it up the first little pitch but then they just started going faster!!! I fell off of the back along with a couple other guys. After the descent we ended up with a group of about 8 of us that were fighting to make the time cut. We all made it to the second time up Petit Jean together and started climbing. Spear Chucker fell off slightly before the climb and the BMC guy I was with yesterday fell off at the very bottom. I lost contact with the group about halfway up and continued to climb as fast and steady as a rock can. The group of 5 summited about 600 meters in front of me. I came across maybe 60 to 90 seconds back. I was kinda expecting to see them at the top of the ridge but they were no where in sight. I started chasing to try and get back in but to no avail. I ended up TTing the next 30 miles solo to the final climb. As I met the foot of the climb spray painted on the ground there were the words "WELCOME TO KNEE BLOW!" Yeah this climb is the most difficult climb I have ever done (it was a bit easier than the time I did it back in 2006). The gradient reach upward to 25% with most of it being around 18% for a little over 2 miles straight up. I missed the time cut by 10 minutes. I was hurt, not just physically mentally and emotionally. To pour everything into 30 miles to be time cut by 10 min. The group of 5 in front of me made the time cut. I don't know their margin but they had about 8 minutes on me at the feed zone about 15 miles from NEBO so who knows. Tomorrow, I would get to feed the race, and watch a race that I should be in.

When to give up!

Today hurt. I'm too tired to do much or write much but here's the short of it. I got dropped at 1:15 in today and that was after a 15 mile neutral roll out. When the road goes up I seem to go back. I continued on and could not catch back on. I tried. I kept going with one other guy from the BMC team in which you could tell was more of a sprinter (I was out climbing him). So after a lot of motor pacing and holding onto the sag wagon, we reached the 1st feed zone. I wanted to give up, quit, call it a day, and pretty much go home. It hurt (did I mention that). Rob from our team (our support this weekend) convinced me that it was mostly downhill from there (he lied) but I kept going. I ended up catching Justin first, then Bill, finally Scott from our team. We ended up finishing with a group of about 15 or so. I think we made the time cut! So I'm not sure I know when to give up and today I was glad because of it. I may be stupid for keep going but I think I made the time cut. That all that matters now.

Moving on to ToA

Not everyone can win. I've realized this a long time ago. However, you never really get used to loosing. The important part is to move on. I've somehow learned to do this quite well. There is always tomorrow if today doesn't work out. I hope this resilience keeps up. Forgetting your failures and embracing hope and success has to be the way to go. SO in 3 days I start the Tour of Arkansas. Its going to be a new race, a new result.

JMSR - FEEDZONE

So today was the first time that I worked a feed zone. I got yelled at for feeding from the left hand side of the rode and I think I got fined. It sucked being in the feed zone instead of in the race. The team did ok though so we'll see what happens tomorrow.