Ouch.

Raced 'cross yesterday for the first time in September. It sucked, I sucked. The decision to race over the last couple of months has been based on the race's proximity to my home, whether or not I happen to be working at the time of the race and if I'm in town to actually attend the race. Since September there haven't been many opportunities to race. I went home for a wedding, I've been working weekends here and there and on the weekends I didn't have to work the races were two hours away and gas was over four bucks. So no racing quickly turned into no training either.

Yesterday I witnessed first hand how others who have been racing all season have progressed where as my fitness has drastically declined. I crashed on the first lap, had a bike and its rider land on top of me and I managed to get lapped by the two race leaders who by the way, I was able to hang with back in September.

Today was better though, kind of. On Thursday I managed to talk a couple of friends into "ringing the peak" with me. At 6:30 this morning a co-worker, myself and Doug the Hammer headed out and rode our 'cross bikes from my house up some stupid steep gravel roads out to Cripple Creek and went around Pike's Peak. The ride consisted of nearly 80 miles of pain in under 6.5 hours. Just under 6,000 feet of elevation gain, most of which happened in the first 12 miles. This ride was ridiculous but I'm glad I did it. I'm exhausted.