You win some, you lose some

This past Saturday morning, I hit the local yard sale circuit with one motivation in mind. My roommates and I had decided that we needed a blender, and I was out to find one. The first house I stopped at had all kinds of kitchen gadgets, but no blender. However, what I did find was a brand-new, never-been-out-of-the-box espresso machine (As a sidenote, even though I'm not a coffee fan, I do appreciate espresso - don't ask). I left the house without buying it and as I walked from house to house, I wondered how I could call myself a cyclist and turn down such an offer. An hour later, without finding a single blender, I went back and got the espresso machine for $8 - and in the process kept my cyclist's dignity alive to fight another day. And finally as I was about to give up hope, I found another community yard sale and at the very first house, I found an avocado green blender circa 1970's.

Sunday morning I set out early for Southern New York and the Union Vale RR. It was a good course, not well-suited to my strengths, but a good course nonetheless. It was hilly, but not the rolling hills you find in Pennsylvania. On this race course it always seemed like we were going either up or down on a more gradual grade. This means there was no time to rest and I was feeling worked from the beginning because I just wasn't recovered from pushing it hard on training rides all week after the Tour of Washington County. We were supposed to race 58 miles and I was having to dig deep to make mediocre efforts because my legs were so tired. I hate dropping out of races, but I've finally learned that there are times when it's appropriate. These "situations" can be lumped into two categories: one is when I'm pushing myself to the point that my health is at risk, and the other is when completing a race is going to have negative effects on an upcoming race. Since I'm starting the Fitchburg Stage Race tomorrow, I felt that it wasn't worth sacrificing my performance in a 4 day stage race to have a less than stellar finish 4 days prior. So I rode 30 miles, then drove 4 hours back to Hershey. It could have gone better, but I'm looking to make up for it starting tomorrow.

The 49th Annual Fitchburg Longsjo Classic will start off with a time trial on Thursday, Friday is a 35 mile road race, Saturday is a 22 mile circuit race, and it will all be capped off with a crit on Sunday.