2011 rebounds

Not much action here anymore, but I figured, what the hell, a little summer wrap-up:

2011 didn't look to be too promising, what with a torn rotator cuff and surgery keeping me untrained for 10 weeks. I played it by ear this year, doing long solo rides, hella intervals, fartlek-on-a-bike, some swimming, and a new one for me: rest and recovery between hard workouts. I guess it worked: I only raced 8 times this year, but the results were pretty good:

-Gravel Metric - win (tie)

-Glencoe - Cat 4 sprint points competition (yeah, it was only a couple of primes, but damn it's a fancy watch)

-Cat 4 State Champ - Points race. That's *my race* and I wanted it more than anything since the SSCX in 2009. I was marked but I took the last 3 sprints FTW. I won both cat 4 races that night, and was the top 4 in the 3/4s race. That's when I started to notice my form was coming on...

-Cat 3 State Champ - Scratch. My first night as a 3 and I won both 3s races! I came looking to work for Jeff, but he ordered me to go for the win myself. He worked them over and made it look easy for me. No disrespect to my fellow racers but the 3s field isn't too deep right now. A couple big dogs have upgraded, and one of the strongest 3s doesn't have a teammate, so Jeff's attacks were particularly effective. Just to bring me down to earth: In the 1/2/3s Points race, I thought I was the baller, getting on Moyer/JT/Whiteman as they established their break...I lasted about 20 seconds.

Felt ok on my first CX race, but I haven't touched the CX bike in 8 months and apparently I've forgotten how to corner in the dirt. I blame all those laps on 20 mm tires at 145 psi.

Onward!

This one time...

I was on this xxx ride on a single speed and this cat rolls in with no helmet and a track bike and he pretty much killed it, riding solo in the wind alongside a thundering pack the whole time. I was like, uh yeah, he's good people, I gotta hang out with this guy.

I ran into this same guy wearing legwarmers at a ChiCrossCup race, a skirt too, because the year before they awarded double points for crossdressing, but I don't think they did that year, but I don't think he cared anyway. He told me to come out for the Tour da Chicago, and that whole thing happened, and I got on a team with this guy.

And one day I leaned on him to race with me at the track and help me out. He hadn't planned on it, and didn't feel like it, but I hassled him and offered to bring him Zipps and give him my prize money. And he came out to race, and it was fun and I won a lot. Andrew Nordyke rules.