This weekend was supposed to be the Frostbite Time Trial, up north of Fort Collins. I was really looking forward to it, but after checking the weather forecast every day, it just looks like it's going to be miserable. Every time I check, it keeps getting worse. Now, it's calling for 24° and snow. Not a whole lot of fun for a bike race. So, I decided to skip this one. I'll probably still get in some good trainer time, though. And that lets me get ready for next weekend, which is the first criterium of the season. It's the first of the college-sponsored races of the year, the University of Denver Criterium at City Park. It will be 45 minutes of racing on a 0.77-mile course through City Park in Denver.
In order to prepare for the race, I made plans to meet up with a couple other teammates to ride the course during lunch today. Instead of throwing the bike on the car, I just decided it was time for my first bike commute of the season. It was supposed to be a nice day, so it was pretty perfect. So, I rode the 13.5 miles to work, then headed out for my ride at lunchtime. We met downtown, then rode the few miles to City Park. After running into a bunch of one-way streets and hospitals, we finally made our way there. We need to find a better route next time. Unfortunately, once you go from one side of Broadway to the other, the entire city street grid rotates, making everything really confusing.
The crit course is short, flat and generally triangle-shaped. You hit a roundabout in three corners, hitting the outside of 2 of them, and the inside of 1 of them. That one where we hit the inside of the roundabout has a really sharp turn at the exit. It's probably going to make for a lot of crashes. We'll see how it goes. The ride itself was nice. We did about 10 laps, slowly increasing our speed with each lap as we got a little more comfortable with the turns. It was a little sketchy because we had to constantly watch for traffic, and on one of the roundabouts we're actually riding against traffic, which required extra vigilance. But I think overall we got a lot of good info about the course, and a good feel for how to best take the turns.
After finishing work for the afternoon, time for my commute home. Somehow, the temperature had dropped like 30° since lunch, and I wasn't ready for it. After riding about 2 miles, I stopped, dug through my bag, and grabbed my coat, long pants and full gloves, then hit the road again. Then, my Garmin died. I realized that since I've been using TrainerRoad to record most of my indoor rides, I've been using my Garmin, but never plugging it in to sync it (which also charges it). When I turned it on this morning, it said 100% battery, which kind of surprised me. But I guess it was wrong. So, I stopped my ride again, grabbed my phone, and turned on the Strava app. So, my ride is shown in two segments today.
Thursday Food:
- Breakfast: Fruit / protein smoothie
- Lunch: I had an all-day meeting at work, and boxed lunches were brought in. Had an Italian sub from Quiznos. It tasted like crap. It was loaded with olives for some reason. Who does that? Even after picking them all off, I could still taste them. Chips and a cookie were good, though.
- Dinner: Chicken piccata. Pretty easy, and very tasty. Also some green beans, that weren't very fresh. Damn.
Friday Food:
- Breakfast: Fruit / protein smoothie
- Lunch: Protein bar at my desk after my bike ride
- Dinner: Smashburger. Yum. Was planning to get a salad from Chipotle, but stopped by and it was jam-packed. Didn't feel like waiting in line, and I knew we wouldn't find a seat. Smashburger is right across the street, and delicious.
Friday Exercise:
- Commute to/from work.
- 10 laps of the City Park crit course during lunch.
Today's weigh-in: 186.0
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