title.

So i raced joe martin but i dont feel like explaining 3 races in depth. In short, i more or less finished the road race with the pack, like 5 seconds off but they gave me pack time. The tt was ok, i got 25th. So i was in 25th overall. I wasnt feelin it in the crit and after the first crash on the first lap i was almost gapped off, 2 crashes later i was pretty much dropped and i got pulled with like 5 minutes left. So then i ended up 35th overall. My friend brice, who i met at hells kitchen, had a good weekend and ended up 5th overall i think. Long drive home and i got home at 1 am. This past weekend was the state rr on sunday. I did jrs cause i didnt reeally wanna ride 70 miles and i wanted a decent shot at a jersey, where on such a hilly course if i did 2 laps i would proly get dropped on the second lap. Anyway Luke, John, Jan, Ben, some other mesa kid, and I were in the 17-18 jrs race. Ben and I are both cat 4's and John, Jan and Luke are cat 3's so I figured it'd still be a good race. We rode slow for the first 7 miles then we started a fairly easy paceline at like 19 mph, and then the attacks started. First Ben, then Jan, then John then Jan then Me. We dropped Ben and the other Mesa kid, and john looked to be hurting. Jan attacked up the next hill and luke and I were the only ones able to hold on. We pulled hard for like 4 miles until John finally caught back on. we rode fairly easy till the main climb, where Jan hit it hard seeing that John was hurting again. Initially luke and I sat on his wheel but i felt like i was jsut churning a huge gear and wasnt able to hangon. I thought i tried to shift down and i was in my easiest gear but i got to the top and looked down at my cassette and i saw 2 gears left? whatever. Luke almost hung on to jan but then jan hit it hard up the next climb and shelled us both. I caught luke and then he dropped me on the next climb. John eventually caught me and seeing as we were around 5 minutes down on jan and 3 on luke, john said to ride in slow and sprint at the end. I was fine wiht that cause i was pretty sure i could outsprint him, and i knew i wasnt gonna pull luke or jan in. We rode slow, so slow in fact that ben and the other mesa caught us. We rode moderatly in and sprinted, i won the sprint really easily, and took 3rd. Yesterday I had 2 10 minute intervals. I decided to ride solo, and headed out towards high ridge after warming up around the webster crit course for like 20 minutes. I rode my intervals on marshall after the downhill and before it hits 141. I was able to ride for about 6 or 7 minutes before i had to turn around quickly and go the other way. All in all one of the best training rides ive had all year. I think it was nice to ride solo and actually do my workout well and exactly like i was supposed to. Riding with austin usually works cause he has something similar and he knows what to do, but riding with keaton or mike t i always talk too much. I had 5 sprints today. I headed out and warmed up in webster again and then went to adams by the golf course leading into k-wood. I thought for some reason that i had 10 sprints and after the first 5 i was cooked. It was pretty windy and the road was bumpy. I headed home after the 5 cause i was really hurting. I came upstairs and checked my plan, turns out i was only supposed to do 5, so im all good. I have it easy for the rest of the week and then snake alley this weekend. Im riding with a girl from nerinx, Perry, tomoro so that should be fun.

"drip drip drip...goes the water"

Quoted from chumbawumba.

So the tour of stl was this past weekend. It was a pretty good weekend that got me siked for summer, where we all just go to the races and hangout when were not racing. Its been a while since weve done that. I did the 4's races all weekend. carondelet was hella sketchy. There were 3 major crashes. The first was like on the second lap, some guy hit the curb and a dogfish guy went into him, I skidded and was able to stop, on an endo, pretty much hitting him lightly. so I took a free lap, which I wasnt going to be given because I didnt really crash, but I said I fell into the grass, cause Im sure as hell not paying 25 bux to race 2 laps not even crash and quit. So then a ghishallo guy crashed himself out. Then mikey b comes back to me, cause I havent really been able to move up too much after getting stuck smack on the end, and starts to pull me up to the front to lead me out. With 3 to go, another bigger crash, which took out the same dogfish guy and some more. Anyway Mike and I shoot to the right side of the road to go around it, we were around 25th at this point, and he makes it through before i get cut off by some momentum guy ridng sideways, and I have to unclip and kick my way through, in the meantime the pack has put about 10 seconds into me. I chased solo for about a lap then pulled out to watch the sprint. keaton finished 5th and mike finished 7th, not too bad. The dissappointing thing is that I know I could've been top 3 because Mike was 2nd or 1st wheel at the place that austin said to start my sprint, and had I only been on his wheel. The tt was next, all the way out in hell. It was a waste of time. Sketchy course, lonnie broke his collarbone, waste of gas gettting out there and bad roads. I think i could've gone a lot faster. I kept seeing old guys come up after me, dying. Gasping for breath, and I wasnt really worn out at all. I think mentally going into it I thought it was maybe a 20k tt, so I needed to save something but I dono. Fopo was next on sunday. I love the forest park crit, cause mainly I like racing in Fopo. The only thing that made sunday kinda suck was that it was pretty hott, Fopo is usually either cold, cool or rainy. Id like it to have been a little cooler. Anyway, I raced decent and was able to move up into the strung out top 15 but then the first guys would slow down in the corners and right before them and we would get swarmed and I'd be on the back. So after doing that a few times I desided to sit at the back and chill. I was getting set to move up at 30 minutes in, with 5 minutes and 5 laps to go, when they rang the 5 lap bell. So I guess they shortened it to compensate for the classic, big shark race = late to start. I moved up and was on mikey b's wheel but I kept getting it ganked and kept getting swarmed in the corners again. I moved up solo to about 15th coming thru with 1 to go, and I finished 13th or 14th, but I didnt go to the "i think i was in the top 15 meeting" afterwards so I dono for sure if I was put in there or not. Im sorry, but this race had one major flaw. They didnt have a working video camera. The jrs race at carondelet had to be solved by a coin toss, and every race from there on had to have a meeting where everyone in the top 10-15 voted. Stupid. How cant you get a video camera over night, everyone at that race prolly had one theyd be willing to lend.

Our team had a good weekend:
Mike Heffernan won the 5's at Carondelet got 3rd(ish) in the TT, got 2nd at FOPO and maybe won overall.
Austin got freaking 2nd in the 1/2 race at carondelet.
luke was in the money both days I think.
And keaton and mike 5th and 7th respectively at carondelet.

Rite now I should be getting in my car after tuesday nights but its pouring and it has been for the last 2ish hours. trainier ride tonite

My friend, and head mechanic at Trekstl, Katie Arehart-Rose had a really bad mountian biking accident on sunday. She was riding at castlewood and ran into a guy going around a corner, and fractured 3 bones in her face. It was her first mtb ride of the season and the first ride on her procaliber. She has some kind of surgery next week but apparently is in quite good spirits, I recieved a jovial text message the day of the crash telling me what she had done. I wish her the speediest of recoverys and that all of the surgery goes well.

peace.