Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Extremely Tired

It all started at 7:00 pm thursday night. I had softball practice before our game at 8:30 pm. We won 25 + something to zero in 3 innings.

Then I had 4 races this weekend.

To give you a better understanding how I feel now I will run you through the play by play.

You know the feeling when you start exercising for the first time in 7 years or more. Your body is not used to it at all. Well Friday after work for half a day and traveling 3 and a half hrs my body was already feeling tired, Extremely Tired. My chest hurt from softball and my legs felt sore in certain spots. I could tell by the loading and unloading the car at my brothers house before the race that it would be a long night plus my right arm still hurts since Jan. something, old age.

The race was supposed to start at 7:00 pm, It started at 7:20 something. Before we started they told us we would have 3 laps instead of 4. Made sense, the sun goes down in 1 hr and 40 min. The race started and I was going with every move off the front, everything! I didn't want to work with any of them till Mr. Martin came up to join us. That gave us all the power we needed since we had almost every big team up the road and then I messed up. As soon as I saw Paul I attacked, wrong move. That broke apart the whole break and now we have 2 roadhouse and 2 A&F riders with one GodSpeed rider, which would be me. I made the wrong choice and I payed for it all weekend. That Friday night I was in a break or the last break a total of 46 miles which was longer than any other rider that night, that's because they added a lap during the race. When our break got caught by the field before the finish I could barely hang on to the back of the field.

Next day my legs hurt already and after I warmed up they felt a little better. Today was 65 miles with a couple of rolling hills, and they looked like they were big enough to drop me all day. Well I sat in for most of the day and I attacked a couple of times but nothing big. Then after one of the Roadhouse riders were up the road they let me and Paul roll off the front. I went hard for several miles trading turns with Paul, giving it everything I had. Then we caught his teammate and I still went as hard as I could. I thought the harder I could go the more time ahead I will be at the end. Then I noticed Paul is doing all the work and I felt like I couldn't even stay on his wheel. I wanted to help them as much as I could cause after yesterday this wasn't going to come back. So I would just pull through and try not to let them know I was hurting. We got to the feed zone and that was it if I could have stayed on them up that little grade I think I would have recouped enough to just hang on in front of the rest. Thanks to my Dad and Jane for all the feeds that day especially that last lap. I was able to hang on to the field and even make a go at the finish. I almost saw riders go down twice and with 250 meters left I gave it everything I had, for only another 100 meters. I should have never taken that chance to sprint cause when you don't have anything left your going to get passed by some better riders. I got passed by them all and I finished with the field again.

I felt so much better today mentally, I didn't care what was going to happen after that race. It's a good thing I decided to do the time trial cause that went real good. Matter of fact it was a miracle I got 4th overall in the time trial. It was my 4th TT ever and I avg. 27.5 mph 4hrs after I did a 65 mile Road Race. The first 2 miles of the TT went fast I was spinning at 95 + rpm's in my 53 - 11 after the first turnand I could tell I was gaining on my opponent that started 1 min before me. I knew I beat him in the end cause I was only 10 sec behind him at the end of our TT. My legs couldn't have felt any worse than they did during the whole TT. Even though I was close to my min man I said lets go home I am done for the weekend. The rider behind me was a 19 year old Canadian on a decked out TT bike and we knew he beat me by 27 seconds. What we were going to know Sunday was he got 2nd overall. I said what we were going to know which means Dad and family with me all weekend. They told me I should at least go and find out how I did and sit in all day and see if I could get some money in the end.

I showed up and Dad came running out and said you are in 4th overall I couldn't believe it! The times were all 1 min faster so like I said before I finished a 15 : 17 they had me down as 14 : 18. So I checked every one else and they were the same way. Thank you Lord! Man the Lord has blessed me so much. So far the first 2 days I gave it more than I had both days and still came up good. The Lord has blessed me so much. Today I was still going to sit in and just go when Paul did. Well that worked till Brandon Gavic pulled the field for what seemed like eternity and I was on the front, thank goodness. The next whole lap I was on the back which was a big mistake and I knew it was going to be but I needed to rest up. I thought there are still enough strong guys here so I will stay back. Big mistake in the 72 mile race today. Nine riders made it clear that they didn't want to be caught and I came within 5 sec of doing it. We had a group of 7 and 6 of us worked it and were down 1 min 40 sec so it wasn't to bad. I felt really exhausted going into the last 2 laps and I still tried to help the others out but couldn't do much. I took the sprint for 10 place and felt like I was going to have a asthma attack. I haven't felt that way since I was 12 and don't want to feel that way again. The Lord blessed me with just enough money to cover every expense, thanks to Dad, Mom, Chris and Amanda. 4th overall and trying to make breaks happen the first 2 days and missing the winning break the last day is more than enough for me to handle. Thank you Lord for a Safe and Exhausting weekend. I pray that others will see the miracle you gave to me this past weekend.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are tired? well BIG J that makes sense. You did a stage race. Hello?
Dude, you are amazing. Your talents and abilities are coveted.

JC said...

Thank you very much.

It is amazing how much our bodies go through in a stage race or any race. All of us cyclists know that it only takes one mistake and we are off the back, unless your name is Paul Martin, Mark Hekman and a few others. I was so close two days in a row. Lord had blessed me so much.