Resting up before Stage 3 JMSR

I'm finally finding time to post something on the blog. The Mercy Team is currently in Fayettville, AR for the Joe Martin Stage Race and right now I'm just hanging out in the hotel. We have a late start today so we have a little time to just hang out and regroup. But first a little bit about my lack of posts. Talking to my dad the other day he wondered why the posts have dried up lately and it made me think, what have I been doing? The usual family and work duties but I think I've really been focusing on cycling a little more than in the past. Two years ago I was doing Masters races and getting pretty frustrated when Mathgeek told me I should "challenge Myself" and do some harder races. Not long after that Steve Tilford told me I should start doing the Pro 1-2 races. So here we are 2 years later and I'm doing the longest, hardest stage race in the area. The last time I did a stage race like this was 10 years ago at the Green Mountain Stage Race in the New York state. I've got to thank my coach Adam from Source Endurance for getting me to a level where I can actually ride in these races. I'm still working on making a few more jumps in fitness but a 50 yrs old how far can you take it? I guess we'll find out.

So back to Joe Martin. Stage 1 was a uphill Time Trial that was perfect for some of our riders. For me I was going into the great unknown, all I saw of the course was the first 200ft from the start line so I had no idea how hard I could go in the beginning. Turns out that I could of gone much harder and rode to a better time but I knew that it didn't matter as I'd be working for our General Classification guys during the rest of the race. In the end we had 5 guys in the top 20 in the GC.

Beautiful area in AR for the race and I don't think there is flat road anywhere. Lyne took this shot of the women's race rolling up one of the hills.

This has got to be the hill before the feed zone. This was the first hill that really hurt. It kept going up like in the picture and every time we went around a corner it just kept going up. Ouch!

Colton and I got our picture in CyclingNews.com after yesterdays stage. That was pretty much my spot in the middle of the field most of the day. I got to the front to cover some moves a few times in the first part of the race but after that it turned into more of a race of survival. With the last major climb coming up and cramps setting in I decided to ride the climb at my own pace and roll in to the finish. Luckily I came over the of the climb with another rider and on the way in we picked up some riders to make a group of 6. We worked pretty well as a group and ended up only losing 8 minutes to the main group.

That leads me into today's stage 3. Another day of climbing totaling 90 miles. We do a loop that includes a pretty big climb so it's going to be another pretty interesting day.