A murder of one

I finished round 4 of the USGP with another 8th place. Not bad, but not what I was looking for either. As I was reflecting after the 3rd race of the series, it really hit home that I have done a lot of shit in the last 5 weeks - not the least of which was 11 races. I guess you could say I'm cooked. I've not really done any focused training which I think is a big part of why I've not done better than what I've done so far. Funny how one's mind wanders during a race, and at some point I thought about taking a week off from racing. Also funny is how much in sync Don and I are since he suggested taking a week off before I could say I was thinking about it. So after some pondering, I decided it best to take a few weeks off from racing so my next go at a race will be the USGP in New Jersey. I thought when I first set my cross schedule my lighter road racing load in the summer would carry me through from late September through Nats in mid December. Alas, as it turns out, I'm getting old and can't sustain that.
Hmmpf. That sucks.
Anyway, it's actually been really good this past week once I committed to not racing. I finally got my new bikes built in both road and mountain form. For the mountain, an Epic Marathon carbon tames the bumps and for the road I got a Tarmac Pro in matte carbon. I was originally planning on sweeting it out with white tape and a white saddle but both Zach and Ryan talked me into murdering it out.
Now of course the white saddle doesn't exactly make it murdered out, but that's only temporary until the new black saddle can get here. Regardless, it's pretty sick. I've also ordered a set of FSA's black 11 speed specific chainrings so they'll make it all the better.
I can't really post any pics of the MTB since I'm going to be swapping out the brakes and gruppo, which would essentially mean you'd get to look at a sweet frame and fork setup. Eh, just wait a week or so...I'll get there.
In the mean time, here's some digital media from day 1 of the Louisville USGP:



photo cred Tobi Herron