All over the place

It's the middle of summer, and with no job, and very few responsibilities, I often find myself to be very unorganized.

Sleeping in every day without having to wake up to an alarm is nice, but it makes me feel lazy for the rest of the day. There is nothing pressuring me to organize my time, so even my riding has been subject to my lazyness.

This last week has been pretty nice though, I've been spending more time with old friends, trying to enjoy the time I have with them this Summer before I leave for school. What better time than during a burn out period? I also got my cross bike back together and have been exploring some dirt roads. These last few weeks have been some of the shortest and easiest rides I've been doing so far this year and I know it will have a good benefit for the rest of my long season.

I couldn't go 2 weekends in a row of not doing any road races, so I didn't want to pass up BTR. The team had small numbers, but we made sure to stay on the offensive. I initiated a couple of moves early on, but the field ended up working extra hard to make sure to bring everything back. Eventually, Ray managed to get away with a Bissell and Priority Health rider, and the other teams took too long to organize their chase, so they were gone. For the rest of the race, I made sure to cover every move that went and after numerous hard jumps into the monsterous wind, I finally managed to split away from the main pack with many other strong riders. Near the end there were a couple of attacks mixed with some blocking tactics and hesitations that led our group to split into numerous pieces of scattered riders. I jumped my group and went into persuit mode on the last lap and was able to catch 2 other riders before the finish to take 5th place. In the breakaway, the Priority Health rider was dropped and Ray was jumped by the Bissell rider near the end and took 2nd place. He also won 2 primes, so it was a pretty good day for him and the team! I was also happy to feel pretty strong during the race after a pretty easy week on the bike.

I've got a spontanious family trip going on in Bay City, MI for the next few days, so I'm pretty excited about that. A couple more easy riding days just to let the body relax a little bit more, and then serious training will resume when I am back Wednesday night. I have my goals set for the rest of the year, and I will do my best to start organizing my schedule better to be more focused and dedicated. Until then, I will enjoy my sleeping in and eating all day while watching TDF stages multiple times!