Back in the saddle

Yesterday I competed in the Bloomfield Classic bike race sponsored by GVCC. It was my first bike race of the year (and first race of any kind since ski season ended 6 weeks ago). The race consisted of four laps of the 11+ mile loop, so about 45 miles total, and covered many of the same roads that I roller ski on fairly regularly as the course was very close to my parents tree farm, where we set up a biathlon range last summer.

I just got home from two weeks on the road where I hadn't been riding anything other than a stationary bike for the last two weeks, so I didn't have high expectations...The race went about as expected as I was able to hang on to the lead pack for almost half the race, then rode the last 25 or so miles by myself to finish somewhere in the middle of the field, counting all the DNF's (why are there so many DNF's in bike racing?)...Not too memorable of a race, but it was good to pin a race number on again and compete. It was also good to get a good solid 2.5 hour race effort in to wake my body up for the races I have over the next several weeks.

Later this week, I'm planning on doing the Thursday night GVCC race and then a duathlon (5k run/20 mile bike/5k run) on Saturday here in downtown Rochester, which should be fun. On paper, I run more than most bikers and bike more than most runners, so you'd think I should be good at this duathlon thing, but I've never done a duathlon before, so who knows what it'll be like...we'll find out though!