Word

Well my friends, we've made it through. We're officially done with the Base building of 2006, and with a week of recovery coming up, it's time to rest up and prepare ourselves for the real work of the Build phases.

Though I came in a little shy on my hours this week, I'm pretty satisfied with the way in which my Base ended this year. After Thursday's 70 mile jaunt through Connecticut with Sebastian, I took Friday easier than I probably needed to by only doing about 20 miles at recovery pace on the bike. My legs were telling me all day that a short recovery spin was just what the doctor ordered (as opposed to the trail run I originally had on schedule), but in retrospect, I probably could've gotten a little bit more time in. Oh well. The weekend was rounded out with another 70 mile ride today through some of the great hills of Nowhere, NY, where I saw some great power and apparently quite a bit of sun, as my legs are now glowing red from the mid-thigh down.

Today's ride did have kind of a "downer" moment. I wound up hooking up with a group of guys from the area to have some company over the miles and to help motivate me to pour the power on a little bit more than usual. As we rolled out towards the West, the wind was on our face making whoever was at the front work like a hound. For the added training, I actually hovered right at the front the entire time, while everyone else rotated through - essentially never leaving the wind in order to reach the power numbers I was aiming for. Beyond the halfway point, however, when the wind was on our backs, the group decided it was time to take advantage of Mother Nature and collectively push the pace on the way home. Cruising along on the flats with a strong tailwind at our backs, I made my way to the front frequently. On my last rotation of the day, I moved up - my hands on the hoods and my head down - and I started laying it on heavy. For the first few minutes, I was turning around about 330W and pulling our group along at near 30mph - this pace quickly approached 35mph as I upped my wattage to right around 380, with periods over 400. With heavy breaths and heaving gasps behind me, I glanced over my shoulder to see the group finally strung out and splintered. Satisfied, I gradually wound it back down to a more manageable pace, helping the group re-collect. But then, just as I was pulling off the front to recycle my position in the paceline, I heard that dreaded sound of wheel-touching and scraping metal... A couple of our riders in the very back had overlapped wheels, and as a result, one of our group's guys went down. Hard. Very hard, in fact.

After the dust cleared, a few of us helped stabilize him while the others worked on calling the local ambulance via 911. It was his own best guess that he broke his arm and/or dislocated his shoulder in the crash. Of course, like any true-cyclist, his attention quickly turned away from his own injuries to that of his bike's status. Luckily, both seemed to be "okay" when measured against just how bad a slip like that could have been. And this guy seemed remarkably tough, so no doubt he'll be back out on the road in no time, dicing it up with the rest of the locals just fine.

Incidents like this are just little reminders that we always need to be careful out there and fully cognizant of our own abilities and limitations. And we need to abide by those by riding within our limits to keep ourselves - and those around us - safe.

Now. Back to our regularly scheduled program. After the incident, I broke off from the group and took "my own way home". I met Liz at the local park & ride and together we did 20 miles or so under the warm afternoon sun... With no fear of crashing. As we rolled home together, I took great satisfaction that Base is out the door, and in a week's time, we'll see things get really interesting as we progress through the first several weeks of Build workouts, and pre-season races. As always, I thank all of you for reading, and I hope you'll continue to stay tuned!

Keep it safe out there.