Thursday

Fun ride tonight...not too crazy hard but some good digs. I'm getting my legs back but still can't really put the smack down. Karl was drilling it all night as usual and he hurt me bad when we got away on airbase...a trick when you're hurting and in a small break is to not just quickly pull through but to ride the front and recover there at a hard but manageable intensity. Plus this gave Karl a chance to recover a bit from his long pulls. There was a decent headwind too which didn't help so it all came back together.

Coming up to the sprint I was just chillin' when I saw that Les Amis kid come off the front leaving Mark in the wind with a long way to go so I jumped getting a good gap--leaving everyone else boxed in. Nice blocking Mark!

Karl was Mr. 35 mph Leadout on Shop road and when it was time to sprint I didn't feel like I really was going that much faster and then slowed to try to entice Robin, who was away, to sprint again. I like to inflict pain whenever possible.

2 new guys showed up and it's hard to gauge ability just standing around. It would suck to get dropped out in Hopkins with no idea where you were and tonights ride is prime for that as we only sortof regroup a couple of times. One guy made it, one didn't. The one who did is a super nice guy from Athens. We'd be chatting and I'd say...hold on a minute...to follow Karl or sprint, then come back and continue to conversation. I think he had a good time.