Representing the SHT

This weekend will be my first races of the year. A 50 mile road race tomorrow in New Bern and then a 45 minute crit on Sunday right in downtown Greenville. I'm doing the 35+ races. Less you be fooled into thinking you can race on a regular basis down here without driving 3 or 4 or more hours, this will probably be the only chance I get to race in June or July. There might be a race or two over near Raleigh in August. The only saving grace is that there does appear to be a pretty extensive cross season. It's all about cross this year for me.

For the first time in a couple of years I've actually been training, as opposed to riding a couple times a week when I got the chance and trying to race into shape on the weekends. Training right now has just been building up a good bit of volume. I've not done any specific work; one hardish century, a couple of long rides with others at a good clip, and one full on weekly world championship (WWC) ride about 3 weeks ago, other than that it's just been a steady diet of easy to moderate aerobic miles. I was able to finish with the front group of 6 or 7 guys on the local WWC ride, one of whom was doing the NRC race in Raleigh the following night, so that was at least encouraging. I'd like to race smart this weekend for once. I'm telling myself to sit in and wait, don't do anything until the near the end if I'm still around. My quite mediocre sprint might even have improved from the steady diet of dog chases that I get down here. It's a given down here, you will be chased by dogs, probably multiple times.