I had been kind of waffling about what to do this weekend. Brian had too much work to take Thursday and Friday and I really didn’t feel like doing a triangle drive to Hillsboro – Iowa City – Topeka, so was sort at a standstill.

Then yesterday, Heath Blackgrove, out of the blue, called me and said he had an extra slot on his team for the Pro race at Joe Martin. So I emailed Bruce Dunn, the promoter of Joe Martin and made sure it was cool that I registered late. It was all good, so right now I’m driving the 6 hours to the start of the time trial at 1 pm. I’m gonna be a little stiff for the 2 mile hillclimb, but I never seem to have much of a stellar time, I’ve only broken 9 minutes a couple times, so it will be fine.

I need to do more stage racing to get to another level of form, so this is a good place to start. Heath and his guys race hard, very aggressively, I like it. When Heath is in good form, he’s very capable of winning any race he’s in.

I haven’t done Joe Martin for the past two years. 2 years ago, I fell at 47 mph, warming up for the time trial and destroyed my left shoulder. Then last year I had shoulder surgery from crashing at Cyclo-X Nationals, so couldn’t do it.

The first time I did the Joe Martin race was back in 1979. It wasn’t called the Joe Martin race then, Joe was racing it. I was a first year Elite and was 2nd to John Howard in the hillclimb. I was stoked. I’ve never won the race overall. I finished 2nd to Thurlow Rogers one year and 2nd to Jason McCarthy too, but I was racing MTB and was just using the race for training. Kind of wish I would have took it a little more seriously now.

Yesterday, Catherine came back into town for a day one stop, on the way to Florida. I rode to Lawrence with her on gravel. Not the best rest day before a 4 day stage race, but I hadn’t seen her for a while and would rather do a good ride with a friend that worry about being fresh for a race. At least that is what I’m telling myself right now.

Of course it is raining like crazy right now, before 6 am. I think it is going to be a shitty drive.

Today is only 2.5 miles uphill, so it is really a rest day, but very important for the race overall. I’m pretty light right now, but am not thinking I have enough in me to do a real time today. But, you never know until you do it.

From 2 years ago. A little racy. This is how I came back from the hospital. I wasn't too ripped up considering, other than my butt is not good also.

The gravel wasn’t all that smooth along the river, but it was still great. It was pretty warm, 20 degrees warmer than Catherine’s Seattle weather, so she was a bit hot.