Erik already got most of these out, but here's full results from the weekend:

           Mar 15: Lehigh University Mountaintop Criterium
                Men's C (45 starters)
                     5th Erik da Silva
                     15th Joe Kopena

                Men's D (~35 starters)
                     3rd Mike Zajac
                     5th Regi Endriukaitis
                     10th Jason Hall
                     13th Justin KLine
                     14th Joe Peters

           Mar 16: Univ. of Vermont Tour de Hempfield Circuit Race
               Men's C (~35-40 starters):
                     4th Erik da Silva
                     17th Joe Kopena
                     21st Adam Alper

                Men's D (20 starters)
                    2nd Mike Zajac
                     5th Regi Endriukaitis
                     6th Jason Hall
                     7th Justin Kline

     Like Erik said, I think we got a fair bit of points this weekend. I'll let everyone know after they post results. I'm expecting us to move up a few places in the team rankings.

     Ondik decided not to race because he just got his bike and he thought it might be dangerous for him to do this kind of racing while he's still getting used to it (a sensible view).

     In short: We are having an awesome season. It's a total blast to have a fairly big team like we do now. Mike, Regi, Jason, and Justin's Sunday race in particular was just plain great to watch. The four of them took control from the start and pretty much ran the whole race. A few guys got away at the end based on sheer muscle, but we still placed real well. The guys did an awesome job working together, with Justin giving Mike a leadout at the end to ensure 2nd place, Jason supporting Regi and Justin on sprint laps to grab extra team points, and the four of them taking turns leading the race and supporting each other whenever someone fell behind. It was really cool and I think everyone's having as good a time as I am.

     Hopefully we can get Joe out for a few more races, he did pretty well on Saturday. Adam unfortunately probably won't make any more races because of the crew season. It was great having him out there, despite the crit/circuit nature of these races being tough for him with the large and strong fields (as well as coming out on his day off from the tough crew workout regimen).

     Hopefully someone else will fill in the story about the D races. From my end, I don't have much very exciting to say. My races were just sort of racing like usual. I got really hammered both races by not dealing real well with the corners, which I need to get over real quick if I want to move up in the standings a little. I was telling Darco last week that because of the weather and the few people coming out, there haven't been many Thursday night points races, it's been more frequently a medium hill ride. I think that's really hurt me in these races as doing more points races would have put me into better crit shape, particularly as regards cornering and repeated acceleration.

     Erik had a great weekend. I have no idea from where he pulled out Saturday. We were riding in the same little group until he just took off and claimed a whole lot of positions. The effort was pretty intense, and it showed in how drained and sick he (very obviously) was after the race.

     I got really sick after the Sunday race. The heat, a sunburn, not enough food, a tough weekend, it all really clobbered me. We went out for a ride after the races and on the way back I just fell all to pieces. I've only bonked as hard once or twice. Towards the end I was having trouble keeping my balance, switching the meaning of red and green lights (for some reason this is a pretty common symptom for me when I have real bad heat problems, I noticed it a couple times last summer down in Washington), and having trouble holding the handlebars.

     From a technical standpoint, I'm sort of curious as to what may have happened. Jay has several times proclaimed in muted surprise that I'm even more technical than him. It pays off in being able to analyze something like that to keep it from hapenning again. It runs something like this:

     At first glance, I'm inclined to believe I put down enough water. During and after the race and on our later ride I wasn't particularly thirsty, didn't have dry-mouth, etc. However, thinking about it more, I was probably right on the wrong side of being dehydrated. First piece of evidence: after the race I didn't have to go to the bathroom for several hours. That's a real phenomon for me, as everyone will attest (I'm as bad as Justin).

     So, let's think about dehydration. On race weekends when I put down a fair bit of water to try and gain an excess of hydration. On early-morning race days (like almost all of ours are), I put down about 12 ounces of water per hour leading up to the race. However, our race was much delayed from my initial schedule (I had read the flyer wrong plus a half hour delay on UVM's part). In hindsight I realize that my water consumption tapered off as we passed my planned start time (you can only drink so much water before you get sick of it; I can prove that my consumption tapered off because if not I would have had to refill my bottles from somewhere, which I did not).

     For more concrete evidence, I realize now that I didn't go to the bathroom after 9:15 when I started really getting on the trainer. Typically being on the trainer along with all that water makes me really have to go just before the race starts. To keep with the tapering off theory, from the time I got up at 4:30 in the morning until 9 I put out about 48 ounces of urine (it gets real easy to tell when you're mostly using a bottle in the car). First thing, note the slight imbalance---more water going out than in. I'll have to think about what that means if anything (I'm not convinced it's as simple as saying you're losing water; consider that a fair bit of that is waste processed overnight). But, after 9 I didn't have to go to the bathroom before the race and not again until after lunch, around 3. That says pretty strongly that something was off with my hydration.

     Ok, but I didn't feel thristy or dry-mouthed like I usually do, and I don't think I was so dehydrated as to get as bad as I did, so there must be more. Clearly, I didn't eat enough. The race being so delayed really screwed with my pretty well regimented pre-race eating (right now I'm set on Powerbar 2-2.5 hours before the race, banana, piece of toast, or roughly a third of a powerbar for every additional hour before the race, which is hard to follow if the times keep changing, but I think this could stand some more experimentation). Also, I didn't eat before our ride. That was just plain stupid. I think the heat and slight dehydration combined with the usual post-exertion food aversion had already set in to make me not want to eat anything, but given the heat, effort, and times I should have forced something or taken it with me.

     Finally, that leaves the heat. Clearly that magnified every problem. In addition, the sun and the sunburn it gave me really made things worse.

     So, lessons learned:

           - I need to be even more careful about my water regimentation and make sure I'm putting enough down. In addition, I need to be more watchful for irregularities in my pre-race bathroom habits and things like that.

           - I need to make sure I eat something after the race and/or to have something with me at all times. At home I always have excess water and food on me even if I'm going for a short ride or even just walking around, because you never know what's going to happen. But, we've been pretty cavalier about these post-race rides (for example, neglecting to carry tools), and I haven't been restocking my water and food like I normally would before a ride. Clearly I need to start doing so.

           - I need to not get sunburnt and should use the sunscreen that I've been carrying with me every weekend.

           - Being pretty attentive to (some might say anal about) how much water I'm putting down, food I'm eating, etc. can help investigate, diagnose, and hopefully prevent problems like this, even if it does let Jay make fun of you.

     I thought I'd include all this in here in case it might help out someone reading it. In particular I'm thinking of the guys getting ready to do longer rides in the next couple weeks and such. Besides, getting so ill was really the most significant part of my weekend. Well, that and Erik noticing that my derailleur hanger got bent in the crash on Thursday. Beating Simon from Rutgers on Sunday was also a noteworthy point for me as the contrary has been hapenning all too often for my tastes.