Time to Update

Ok so its been just over a month since my last post...time to update. The last two crits that ive done i haven't finished...aka...been dropped. That was the Glenwood Springs crit and more recently the Niwot crit. Niwot was especially difficult due to the tiny course- not to mention the stacked line up with Tom Danielson shelling the pack from the get go. Held on as long as I could and that was that. I think 30 or so finished out of about 90? Yup need to stay in the front, that's the key.
But in two days I am leaving for the last week of Super Week out in Chicago. I will be racing every day for 8 straight days with a big crit in the Downtown of Chicago for the last day. This one has 25,000 big ones just for the pro field that pays 25 deep. I'd be happy for 20th but I'm feeling that I can do even better, top 10? Yeah top ten. Last week was a huge rest week for me. I have been over due and I really took it seriously- all I did was ride to work and back with about 3 days off the bike entirely. While I was well rested ti didn't help to do the Niwot crit just afterwards with no real riding in between but thats ok. It took me a couple days of hard riding to get me feeling like my usual self again, and actually I'm feeling much stronger than before- like stupid strong. I've been working on my pedal stroke, concentrating on pulling the mud off my shoes when my leg comes back around. Its now to the point where I don't have to think ab out it anymore which is where it should have been all along. Ive been mashing the entirety of three years and missing out on a good chunk of power. So I climbed rist yesterday to compare my time to the time of my first day back from the long rest week. Last week I climbed Rist (starting from the last dirt road on the right just before the climb really starts) in ab out 52 min + change. It hurt a lot too. Its been awhile since I have suffered that hard up rist. Yesterday I did it in 48:30. Before I leave for school I want to get under 45min. There was a bit of a head wind yesterday as well so that could give me a min or two under ideal conditions. But overall I was putting out lots more power than before, even more so on the reservoir hills coming back into town. I'm usually not one to focus all my efforts around numbers but I was pushing out a constant 420-470 watts climbing. Now I cain't sustain that effort for long periods of time, like there is no way I can sustain that all the way up rist, least now yet anyway, but up these shorter climbs I was amazed at the power I was putting out all while staying under the red. Which is making me really excited for the group ride tonight. They better damn well do the hills tonight than the freakin flats. Who rides the flats around here anyway??? Geese!!!
This will be the first real group ride with my newly found power, more to come tonight...