2010 early season summary

I haven’t been blogging much lately. I’ve been too busy training and racing but I thought I would share what’s happened thus far this season.
My first race of the year was the Adventures For the Cure Sugar Hill Cross Country MTB race in Elkridge, MD. It was held on March 20 and billed as a pre-series race for the Mid-Atlantic Super Series. So I treated it as such. Just rode it a race pace but didn’t care where I finished, just looking for signs of what kind of shape I was in. I ended up having a great race (no crashes, no injuries and had fun). Things were looking good.
My second race was the Tour of Walkerville, in Walkerville, MD a 50 mile road race on April 10. Things were going great on the first lap until I made a mistake that caused me to crash. I actually was anticipating and acceleration and was sitting in the middle of the pack. My anticipation caused me to get out of the saddle and start to accelerate as we hit a minor rise. Unfortunately, as I jumped, the folks in front of me hit the brakes and as I started flying into the middle of the bunch I bailed towards the edge of the road. When my front wheel hit the grass I endo’d and brought a couple of guys with me. I had some minor damage to my bike and got dropped from the bunch because of the wreck. Because I was dropped I got pulled after two laps.
My next event was the Ride to End Hunger in Calvert County on April 24. I did the Metric Century and skirted rain showers for the whole 3+ hours but made it back dry. It was a fun event!
I raced again on May 1, in the Michael P. Murad road race in Poolesville, MD. This race did not go well for me. I got dropped within four minutes of the start and spent the rest of the first lap solo. I caught a rider on the second lap and rode with him for most of the second and third laps and we were pulled on the third lap.
The fifth a last race so far was the Urban Assault MTB race in downtown Richmond, VA on May 15. I’ve done this race three years in a row and always had a good race. Well, the race was going well for me until about two thirds through when I crashed in a rocky area. My front wheel kind of got wedged into a crevice as I rode through and since I had been gripping the bars hard preparing to lift the front wheel I sort of pivoted over the bars and was looking down as I started over the top. It seemed like I hovered there for a second and thought to myself that it would not be good if I landed on my bike. So I semi-vaulted myself forward, twisted and ended up landing on my right side ahead of the bike. I popped back to my feet and went to grab the bike when I realized my left wrist was really hurting. Not wanting to fall/crash again and hurt myself further I pretty much dismounted and carried the bike over the rest of the obstacles on the course so I got passed by a lot of folks that last part of the race. I looked at my time and compared it to last year’s race and I was eleven minutes faster this year. So I think my fitness is getting there, I just need to find a way to stay upright.
I still have a lot of races on my schedule for this year. My next race will be the Church Creek TT in Church Creek, MD, a 40K flat TT on June 5. I’m hoping for a PR in this race. BTW, my left wrist was just bruised and feels much better now. Good luck and good riding to all!!!