VOS aftermath

Wow, lack of elevation can really boost one's oxygen uptake (and ego). After 2 months of not much more than indoor riding, I headed to PHX entered in the cat2 field. Not sure what I was thinking when I did it other than for the extra racing distance to make it worth the drive. I was really looking forward to meeting up with some of my teammates even if we weren't racing in the same races. We had been planning this for months and I was pretty excited. Got down Wednesday with CF and previewed the road course Thursday. One look at the hill and I started having second thoughts on what I was trying to accomplish by having a bunch of 20 somethings pound me around for 89miles with a sizable hill to add to the mix. CF had already calculated that it would be about 9 minutes of suffering per lap, great. Headed to the TT course to do some openers and actually ride in this warm environ. Was feeling pretty good about myself till I did the a few intervals. It felt like my legs were going to burst and breathing wasn't as good either. Doh! I forgot to take a hit off my inhaler prior to offset my EIB. After good nights rest I was all set to do the TT. I had set a goal to be within 3 minutes of the winner and ended up 2:35 down, goal 1 accomplished. I was then off with my sister Chris and my 2.5 year old niece Katie to get something to eat and find Katie a helmet for the kids race on Sunday. After enduring "Potty Training with Elmo" about 6 times we finally made it to the Performance shop and picked out a nice helmet with bumblebees on it. Next days road race unfolded not as I had hoped for. I ended up lining at the back because I showed up late. Big mistake, the leaders attacked at the first corner into the wind shattering the peloton. I ended up in a group of 3 chasing hard and picking up stragglers for the next 1.5 laps before I decided that I needed to choose wisely when to put out power if I was going to survive the next 4 laps. All went well and I met my goal of finishing, 8:23 behind the leader. By now my legs were really sore and I was really doubting my chances of finishing the criterium. About Tempe, other than the fact that traffic sucked it's also impossible to locate a sitdown restaraunt there must be a million fast food places there. After driving around for what seemed like an hour CF and I stumbled across a Thai place. Woohoo food at last. which was a good thing because CF was bumming about the RR and we needed something quick to occupy his mind. Hey, it's good to be a cat 2 as most races start later allowing for relax time prior to start. Learning from my previous days lesson I was at the barricades waiting to start 20 minutes early. The whole race was pretty much a blur for the first few laps and at about 12 minutes in I was wondering how long I'll hold on. Everything was clicking well though and with the exceptions of the prime laps there were no real surges and nobody got away. I crossed the line in line in the pack and patted myself on the back. There must be something to this lower elevation thing as I was never really out of breath just lacking that punch. I did one cool down lap and headed up to the line again where my niece was under full steam on her tricycle in the kids race. She of course beat me. Next stop: Bouder's March races