School, Bugs, Colds, and the Occasional Bike Race

So many things have been going on, I have absolutely no idea where to begin. The last couple weeks have been filled with work, fun, sickness, and things that are just plain wrong. Obviously school and work are constant pressures of the fall season. Unfortunately my training frequency has started its turn towards the winter season. It is nice to give the legs some time to recover, but I am getting that itch to get back on the road for some good training miles. Just the other week, I received a nice surprise at work; I found that I was scheduled for 40 hours. All I can say is that working 40 hours added to 16 credits of school, training, and sleeping is really fun. The week went by pretty well, and at the end I wanted to reward myself with some good food.
While cooking my breakfast I found hundreds of little bugs in my food.
Upon investigation of my food cabinet, I found even more of these tiny bugs eating through boxes and contaminating all of the food.
Needless say, I spent the afternoon cleaning and tossing food. This process continued through the entire weekend, killing all of my free time.

The following week started off pretty well, I had fewer hours at work, classes seemed to be going well, and I even got a few rides in. Of course this was too good to last. By the time the weekend came, I had a bit of a sore throat and by Monday, I had a full blown cold. Things ran their course and I rode out yet another busy week, this time with a cold. This brings us up to this last weekend and Race #11 in the WORS Series: The Wolf River Rendezvous.
Going into the weekend I felt alright, I knew the race would depend on how I was feeling on Sunday, so no big expectations other that just to finish.
In the start shoot I was feeling pretty good, I had my call-up and I wanted to go. Coming out of the shoot I could not clip in and watched as most of the wave passed me on either side. Once I clipped in, it was time to catch up to the lead group. I think I did pretty good for having a cold. I had a few more troubles with un-clipping, but nothing major.
I felt surprisingly well throughout the race with minimal trouble breathing. As I came into the finish stretch I looked at my time and realized I did alright and came in close to my estimated time of 1:17! Results showed 5th in the age group and 40th overall. And surprisingly 1st out of all the Stadium Boys!
Obviously I was pretty happy with the result. No podium, but still a better finish than some of my earlier ones. Now, I need to get rid of this cold, get back on the bike, and give it all at Shvegas!
Also, a big thank you to Heather for taking pictures at the race!