Last night of track racing for me for the year, and the last Wednesday night of the year.

Points (4×5)

Tougher field than I anticipated and I didn’t have much of a pop in my legs tonight, so I basically hung out, didn’t take or contest any sprints figuring I’d have a better shot in the Scratch and Miss & Out.

Scratch (15)

Using the Points race as a warm-up worked out well for me and I took the right wheel through the last lap. Couldn’t come around but I still took third, giving my 2 points for the omnium.

Miss & Out

Anticipated doing well, and did well for the first 9 laps, then I just lost focus and checked out. Sat up since I didn’t have the pop to come over the top and didn’t mark my target early enough.

Snowball

Similar to the Points race I just hung out. A breakaway scooped up all the points anyway.

Overall

My third in the scratch earned me a measly 10th out of 20 riders.

Summary

Monday August 25th through Sunday August 31st, 2008. Pre-Giro week, got a bunch of good workouts in, but still kept it pretty easy to avoid aggravating the burn-out.

Monday

Off.

Tuesday

Run, did a 10k down JFK and back.

Wednesday

Last night of Track racing for the year for me. Also the first day of school.

Thursday

M2, hit the earlier class since I got out of school early, so ran into Seth and Josh. Got in a good workout despite the awful heat. Afterward got some good affordable Thai food around the corner.

Friday

Run, another 10k.

Saturday

Slept in, so did a easy ride with Ashley just through the park, beach, Presidio, and back home. Nice out.

Sunday

Took a long walk with Ashley around the Park.

Summary

Monday August 18th through Sunday August 24th, 2008. Still feeling pretty thrashed at then end of the season. Taking another easy week off, just racing San Ardo on Saturday.

Monday-Thursday

Off, entirely. Caroline is spending a year studying abroad in Hungary, so we had a farewell party on Monday, and a dinner on Thursday.

Friday

Easy morning spin.

Saturday

San Ardo, my last road race of the season. Just crits, then cross through end of the year, then back into road January/February. Damn, Northern California racing is non-stop.

Sunday

Easy, longer road ride.

Summary

Monday August 11th through Sunday August 17th, 2008. After a horrible showing at the track and at San Rafael I need an easy week and some time off the bike. Starting to feel very burnt out.

Monday

Run, did about 4.5 miles. Felt good, headed down to Stow Lake, hiked around the top and ran back home. Running you see a lot of things you miss on the bike. Hopefully training on the cross bike during the winter will give me a chance to hike around and explore more, such as Hill 88 in the Headlands.

Tuesday

Off.

Wednesday

Planned some kind of workout, ended up not feeling well, took it off.

Thursday

My one hard workout of the week: M2.

Friday

Easy spin.

Saturday

Skipping Winters, longer road ride.

Sunday

Gone.

Wanted to do well (ie: podium), felt great going into it, if a bit hesitant about the course that appeared harder the longer I looked at it. Started off well, sat in the top 10 for many laps as was my goal/strategy, but struggled to stay there for very long and about 15 minutes in lost 10-15 spots per lap just trying to recover on the backside until I got gapped and the field was a long way off. Still I was surprised at the number of riders coming up from behind me after I sat up. Also surprised that the field basically held the vicious pace for the rest of the race. Sam and Jake did a hell of a job in one hell of a race.

In retrospect, worked way too hard during the past couple of weeks and underestimated the course/field. I’m not powerful enough at the moment and was not rested enough to do well on a course like this.

Summary

Monday, August 4th through Sunday, August 10th, 2008.

Monday

Off.

Tuesday

Track racing:

Poor night for me. I tried to work on being patient, sitting out the first two sprints entirely and work on winning later sprints. Didn’t work out at all. I still seem to be only good for 18 laps or so at a time, regardless of whether I take the early points or not. Sat out a lap in the first race, but otherwise just ended up watching the action from the mid or back of the pack taking a few pulls and launching one attack off the front with Tim after the 2nd sprint.

My head wasn’t in the 2nd race at all, felt kind of out of it, not safe, so I pulled out completely after dangling around the back again after the 3rd sprint.

Wednesday

Track racing:

The Bs also brought some speed tonight. I’d been hoping to make a comeback after a horrible showing Tuesday. I was aiming to place in the first points race, win the scratch, and place in the miss and out. I didn’t even come close to my mark, didn’t have the legs, save for a moderately well raced miss and out (5th, despite a heroic save when a doofus from Synergy came underneath me on the apron in the sprint and gave my front wheel and left leg a hefty lovetap with his cranks and rear wheel – it threw off my mojo and put me out of position for the 4th place sprint, boxed in though I had the speed).

Thursday

Second M2 class. I hit my numbers dead on and felt good. Put in a hard workout despite two consecutive days of intensity.

Friday

Day off.

Saturday

Carrera de San Rafael.

Sunday

Day off.