Yep, as the title suggests, Jenn and I took a page out of the pro book this past weekend. While many of our rivals are in warmer locales (Arizona, California, or if you're really pro, Australia, Qatar, and Oman), the grand tour favorites were out scouting some deserted mountain top finish that still has a few inches of snow on the road. If we were really pros, we would be in the high mountains of France or Italy, but since we are "fake pros," we just rode out to the Greenbush Road Race course that features in the Tour of America's Dairyland (ToAD) series. Instead of snow covered peaks, we rode through ice covered dairy roads. I like to think it is all the same level of hardcore. Anyway, both Jenn and I get really good sensations on that course, and it brings back a lot of good memories. Many moons ago (6 years?), we came up to Wisconsin from Notre Dame to participate in the University of Wisconsin road race in some middle-of-nowhere place in Wisconsin. The race course was nice, and even better, they managed to hook us up with a great discount at a really nice hotel. Flash forward many moons, we now live an hour's bike ride from that same Greenbush road race course, and the Victorian Village Inn on Elkhart Lake is always a place I want to go back to, but can't seem to afford now that I don't get the poor college bike racer discount (funny how that works).
The Greenbush loop is now a fixture in our race schedule, and as we rode the course, a lot of things came back to us. The was the hill that some random racer stole Jenn's water bottle hand up, so she had to go a lap without water. I am now much more stingy with giving hand ups (mile 26). There was the flat section before the finish that I tried to follow an attack, but choked on the powerbar I was eating (mile 25.3). I had to get off my bike and cough it up while watching the peloton ride away, which effectively ended my race. There was the long uphill drag that I remember getting dropped on multiple times, only to make it back to the field on the flat section that everyone sat up on (~mile 27). There was even my moment of glory on the twisty-turny section where I made contact with the winning breakaway once...only to get dropped about 5 minutes later because my legs were toast from the effort it took to get there (mile 30.3). Miles 0-23 and 34-57 were pretty lame and thus, don't deserve comments.
All the good memories made it easy to get out on a beautiful February day (33 degrees and sun!! Who needs Arizona or the Middle East when February in Wisconsin is like this!). Once out there, it was easy to move from the good memories to thinking about the up and coming race season. The memories of races passed make it easy to visualize where I am going to make the winning attack come June. Granted, there is a bunch of work that needs to be done from now until then, but I have refreshed myself on the good lines down the hills, where the potholes are, and where I am likely going to get dropped when people actually start racing hard. Perhaps that is the best thing about the preseason. I am not 100% how my training has prepared me, so I still believe I have a shot. When I have a shot, I can dream of being the attacking and winning rider I want to be, and I can prepare like that rider. It only takes a race or two to put me back in my place, but its loads of fun to believe and prepare like I have a shot!!
That being said, I still have 6 weeks until my first road race of the season. Hopefully there will be some more balmy weather on the way so I can go do some more race course recon and other pro-like preparations, like intervals and practicing my victory salute. With all this visualization and preparation there's no way I won't be winning come this spring, right? RIGHT!?!?!
