Steve Tilford

I somehow didn’t sleep much last night so am back in the state of sleep deprived. I watched both the men and women’s World Cup cross races, so it wasn’t a complete race. I had to go to Hola and fool the UCI channel into thinking I was watching from England. The women’s race was in way better resolution than the men’s. I nodded off for a few minutes and missed Katie Compton charging up from 9th to the lead. She won handily. Jeremy Powers finishing 9th was pretty great too for the US. Sven dropped his chain after about half the race, when he was in 6th, then quit with a lap to go.

Yesterday, I should have done enough to get pretty tired, thus sleep, but that isn’t how it works nowadays. I rode 60 something miles on gravel over near Lawrence to watch a cross race. It got sort of cold on the way back, in the 40’s, and I was under dressed. I worked over at the building for a few hours too, so I’m not sure why I didn’t sleep.

Pretty much the same day today. Work some, ride to the cross race. After, doing a team dinner with the guys in Lawrence. Then maybe work a little more.

Anyway, I hope your day is a little more leisurely.

I moved a ton of snakes off the road yesterday. Must be that time of the year.

More than 1/2 had been run over. Sad.

Ben and Brian finished 1st and 2nd in the cross race. Ben has been riding pretty good and Brian hadn’t raced since Leadville. Painful.

Nice fall day. This guy looked great standing by himself in the matching field.

I had to do a little bush wacking yesterday when the road I was on just turned into a field, then worse, nothing.

My cassette had a bunch of grass seed in it.

Fall picture of the Kansas River from the River Road.

I like to take picture of train tracks at sunset.

Yesterday it set in that maybe I’m not going to be able to race cross at all this season. I’m thinking it now because I rode to watch the Kansas State Championship race yesterday and didn’t have the smallest amount of anxiety that I wasn’t racing. That means to me that I, even though I haven’t addressed it, my mind knows that I’m not anywhere near to the point to be able to dismount a bicycle and do a cyclocross race.

That is sort of interesting and depressing at the same time. I have physical therapy in an hour or so, and might ask Burt if he thinks I could try to go and run a little bit and see if it works. For sure it would be painful, but I’ve found that pain isn’t what necessarily dictates what you should be doing in recovery for injuries sometimes.

Like I said yesterday, I watched both the women’s and men’s World Cups yesterday on the internet live. I’m not sure about allowing everyone in the top 50 in the UCI rankings to race. 13 Belgians in the race seem a little ridiculous, if we’re really saying this series is by country. If it is just another race, then, for sure, all the best riders should be at the line. If that was the case for the Olympics, then there would be country sweeps of the podium lots of years by one country.

So yesterday was all about cross. I watched the best in the world race in the morning, then road my bike over to watch the best we have around here ride around on grass. I’ve exclusively ridden back and forth to Lawrence on the Scenic River Road this past week. Three times to be precise. It is my favorite ride around Topeka and it is especially great during fall when the trees are turning and the fields are changing. The farmers are just about done harvesting their crops, so it looks a little barren, but it gets rid of the big trucks, thus dust, hauling the grain away.

The race was good too. Benn, Brian and Shad Smith were set to duke it out, but Brian had a mechanical and Shad ran out of juice towards the end. Benn has been riding great and won, with Shad finishing 2nd. Micah Gordon rounded out the podium.

We had a little impromptu team dinner after the race in Lawrence. The new guys that are racing cross for Tradewind, Ben Stover, Austin Elser and Garrick Valverde came and ate burgers and drank beer. Nice after cyclocross handout. I miss the after cross camaraderie more than the racing I guess.

Okay, like I said above, I have PT now and then am going to hopefully put in a new floor, plumb and build a new shower base. Sounds a little ambitious now that I think about it.