Speed, unbridled!

Jason Skelton puts the death blow to the race.

Practice is usually a place to implement some of your skill, then return home before you are so tired you get sick. I often ask:

"What do you want to win? Practices or races?"

They usually answer "races!"

Thinking behind all this, is development comes safely when you practice within your abilities. Inevitably, even the conservative trainer finds themselves out on the edges of pain, and traction speed. As strength improves, skill follows suit.

Reasonably it works within the context of commuters who make race goals and rehearse them on the weekends.

Three off the front, shatter the field.

Recently however, the stakes have risen. Real racing has become one of the practice activities, and a go for broke, devil may care ambeance has permeated the scene. A real race peels your skin back and leaves dust where your heart once was.

Recovery takes days.

Out in northern most Portland's Hayden Meadow, Bob Mionskie showed us a two mile loop. Just two miles is palatteable to anyone. But three times in a row, climbing two hundred foot climbs each time, it bites you like a shark.

"On your mark, get set, GO!" are the mystical words that change everything. Now when you a wheel, the party is over. You are toast.

Everything seems to happen quicker when the racing is real.