I decided to stay local this weekend and race the hometown Perry Road Race, 20 miles from Topeka. I’m flying out to Redlands California for the Redland’s Stage race on Wednesday and figured I needed to train/rest some. One or the other.
On Saturday, we weren’t going to ride until the afternoon, after it warmed up some, so we decided to plant some of the garden before we left. The early season stuff, lettuce, chard, spinach etc. I haven’t added much to the soil the last couple years, so I thought I’d go collect some cow manure from a friends pasture. It was easier and harder than I thought. I’d taken a shovel, but it was dried up and just peeled up in one piece. I filled 4 heavy duty trashbags from Home Depot, probably something like 300 pounds or so. I got home and rototilled it in and planted. It’s supposed to rain something like 4 out of the next 5 days, so it was probably good timing. But, my hamstrings are torqued from bending over so much and manhandling the rototiller.
Sunday was the Perry Road Race. The course is a 5 mile circuit with a pretty good 1/2 mile climb up to the finish. Riding out to the race, racing and home is nearly 90 miles. 90 windy miles. The ranchers have started burning the pastures and field the last week and it looks like England in the 1500’s in all directions. If you’ve never witnessed it, you should. It looks like there’s been a forest fire burning for a month. The air is pretty horrible for a few weeks each spring. Luckily, I’m usually gone at least half the time.
Anyway, I felt just ok riding out against the 25 mph headwind to the start. There weren’t that many starters in the 1/2 race, less than 20. I thought rotating for the first few laps would be civil. But, no one really wanted to rotate much, so I started riding pretty hard in the gutter. The first time up the hill, Bill put in a little punch at the top of the finish hill and only Adam and I were left cresting the top. From then on it was a 3 rider TTT. I was probably riding harder than Bill and Adam appreciated, but I felt pretty good and wanted to get in a hard effort. We had a short discussion on the way up the last hill and I ended up winning, with Adam 2nd and Bill 3rd. Bill won overall since he won the first race a couple weeks ago. Adam finished 2nd overall.
Saturday, Shad Smith won his millionth Clinton Criterium. And also Sunday, Brian Jensen won the Hell’s Kitchen Road Race outside Ft. Smith Arkansas. He only put in a “short” solo effort and rode the last 26 miles by himself. He’s in Arkansas for the majority of next week training during spring break.
Now, as a team, we’re at 12 win for 13 starts. Redlands is going to kill that percentage!!! Below are pictures of manure collecting and bike racing.
