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That was the text i got shortly before my invitation to Defi Sportif (http://www.defisportif.com/en/) arrived friday morning from US Paralympics. Defi Sportif a two day competition in Montreal in April, and I see it as a sign that something is going right with my training. After two years of working my ass off, spending time in doctors offices and in bed with illness and injury i have a chance to prove myself on an appropriate stage. With this awesome news in my head i dove head first into our home collegiate weekend.
I planned on racing twice on saturday, in both the Men's C race and the category 4 race in the afternoon. With my experience of collegiate races starting off slow i decided to make my race count for training as i rolled to the line. After working on my clip in from the line in the past few months I nailed my clip in as I drilled it to the first corner. I think i surprised the field as i lasted about a lap off the front as i railed the 1 km course in kilo mode, no holding back as I knew the field would never let a break roll. After i blew up spectacularly I sat in the field and recovered until the last laps when i patrolled the front with my teammates sitting on my wheel. after this 25 min of us all riding pretty easy looking at each other people decided they would sprint and i slid to the back, saving my legs for my race in the afternoon.
The afternoon race was a simple 45 min crit, sat in, opened my legs up, closed some gaps. My main regret was dropping off the back on the last lap and missing my friend John's domination of the finish.
Saturday was an early morning. we got up at 4:30 to get to santa maria at 6:15. I got stuck ar reg when I should have been warming up for my time trial. After a truncated warmup i rolled to the start line, ready to bury myself. I felt terrible the first half of the race, my sore legs having a hard time pushing my big gear around. Thankfully I was in a groove when i hit the final climb before the finish, and crushed it up the 2km ascent before sprinting down to the finish line. After the race i felt terrible but knew that i did all i could. I really don't think I could have gone any faster. My pain was evident with my inability to breathe and answer people's questions as i cooled down.
This weekend showed my head is in the right place for racing this season. I had some tough moments where I wanted to quit, slow down. But I didn't, couldn't, not with the fact I'm going to be racing against some of the best in the world in a few short months.