After West Lafayette, I started loading up the calendar with races. Quad Cities went much better prerace than Lafayette. Got there early, got registered and had plenty of time to warmup and even saw most of the course!!

Small field, short race. Twenty racers, 20 min + 1lap.

Started out on or near the front. Chased down a few little attacks. Then a guy from the Mack team took off on a strong attack, took a while for me to pull him back. Right as I got him pulled back his teammate took OFF! I had no energy to chase him down. I started grinding to keep the gap small, but couldn't pull him back and no one was helping. After 2 laps of that I look back and the only guy behind me is his teammate. He wouldn't pull through since his buddy was up the road. So it turned into a time trial for the last 10 minutes. Guy stayed on my wheel the whole time. I don't know if I outsprinted him or if he let me get 2nd since I pulled him the whole time.

Either way, doesn't matter. I got 2nd.

Numbers:
Time: 23:20
Avg Pwr: 325 w
Norm pwr: 331w
avg HR: 188

After little bike training I decided to throw myself into a weekend of racing. Got down to West Lafayette with an hour of extra time after checking into the hotel, or so I thought. Hadn't eaten on the way down, so I ran acrossed the road to Subway. While in line I get a call from my frantic wife: "Dan it's 2:45, not 1:45, we forgot the time change. Your race is at 3:15." SHIT!!!!!

So I run back to the room throw my biking gear on, get in the car get to the parking lot of the race, throw bike together, ride to registration, it's 3:05. Get my number pinned on, roll back to the lot to make sure wife and kid are ok, sprint back to line. First crit ever, Cat 4/5 field, no warmup, no clue what the course looks like, 35 min race. This should be fun.

We go off, I have no clue what to expect, try to stay mid pack. Course is under 1k, with a very steep hill in the middle, followed by a steep downhill and a tight turn since the course was not completely closed. The first 10 minutes I was on edge. Then right in front of me a guy touched wheels with another dude, and they both went down right in front of me. I rolled over one guy and flipped over the bars. Rode back around for a free lap, got my breath and got back in it.

When I got back in it the group had dwindled considerably, started with 47, probably down to 20 at that point. Stayed towards the top ten the whole time. Didn't really pay attention to where I needed to be on the last lap, the race was really for the top of the hill on the last lap since the last turn was so tight. Should have sprinted the hill, instead of waiting for the sprint.
Ended up 10th, not bad for the first crit.

Numbers:
Time: 37:45
Avg Pwr: 287w
Norm Pwr: 330w

I started the year off in January, planning to do tri's with a bike race thrown in here and there, maybe a running race or 2. Completely planned the tri schedule. Right away my disdain for the pool reared it's ugly head. I don't hate much more than I do a cold pool at 5:30 am by myself or maybe another person. It's lonely, boring and effin' cold. I hate that damn black line.

So I just kept running with the Track team(which I coach the distance guys) and riding on the trainer 2 or 3 times a week. Running was going really good for a while. In pretty decent shape, not as good as last summer before cross, but good.

The end of Feb, I purchased a powertap. With that I had some renewed motivation for the bike. Had a good week of training and BLAMO! Got hit with a bad cold/sinus infection that smoked me for a month. No training whatsoever.

April came and I decided as far tri's go, I was done for this year. As bad as I am at swimming and no swim training to date combined with my hatred of the water, done. I started hitting some decent training on the bike. Semi-consistent. Running was about the same.

May - the running training went down. Cycling picked up big time. Got in 3 races(reports above). Started really enjoying the bike!! Running is now on the back burner. This is going to be the summer of the bike.

May's totals: 30 hrs, 550 miles, 2377 TSS score
May's Pwr #'s:
Peak pwr: 1' 526w, 5' 371w, 20' 321, 60' 277w
FTP: est 290w