2 race weekends in a row!

Man, racing bikes 2 weekends in a row? Lookout, I'm feeling like a racer again!
Today was another TT at the same course as last week (Monrovia) but it was put on by another organization and they started and finished in a different place than before. They also moved their turn around from where the other people have it. I woke up feeling ready to race, warmed up well and felt good racing. But when I hit the turn around in 25minutes, I knew the course was short.

I stayed on the gas and finished in 50min38sec (time on my watch has to be adjusted because I have to start it before I actually start). After finishing in what would be an absolute blazing time I KNEW the course as short. I talked to a few people and they all seemed to have 22.7mile, instead of 24.8. So the course was about 2miles short. But whatever, you're racing the course no matter what. There were some very heavy hitters here and I ended up 8th overall. But those big dogs only beat me by 3minutes. I was really happy with that.

Yes, there were other people in my race, but they left before awards, so I was on the podium alone like a chump

And since I'm a Cat 3 on the road, I won "my race." Since these races are backed by Colavita, I got a bottle of XVO (extra virgon olive oil), which is totally sweet because 1) I buy Colivita XVO anyway 2) I'm almost out and 3) its like $20 a bottle. Score. Beats the crap out of winning a box of some shitty flavor of expired powerbars!

Despite the turns my life has taken recently, my training is going really well. I'm very focused (but I'm always pretty focused) and I'm able to push very hard. It's hard to say when you're not racing a ton but I think I'm on some really good from right now. The summer racing for me is just getting started and summer racing is less frequent for me than Fall racing, but we'll see how it all goes. It's gone pretty good so far these past couple weekends. And the training should stay up.
This coming weekend is the Indy 500 and because of that my nieces will be at my sister in law's parent's house, which isn't super far from here. I am going to try to get up to their house to see them for the day.
Well, I don't really have much else to say. I have a ton of stuff (little things, big things, tons of things) I'm dealing with right now, but this blog is about my cycling life (mostly). So that's how we'll keep it.
Next race for me will be MTB racing at BCSP. It's a couple weeks out (June 2), but I am feeling pretty good overall and will put in a couple more weeks of training to get started on MTB racing for the year!                 














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I raced bikes!

I haven't raced bikes since the end of CX season in December. If you're a long time reader you'll know that I decided to not race any spring road races to give myself some real time off.
I planned to race MTB last weekend, but the bogus weather cancelled it. Oh well, this weekend was a road TT, so I committed to it. I knew it was going to be cold (for a TT), but I really wanted to race.  

The Rodkey Racing Monster Energy Giant Trinity RTR (ready to race)

The races was Monrovia 40k, of which I've done like a hundred, but a new organization has taken it over and modified the course. The dirty secret of the 40k course as it has been for years was that it was short. I'm not sure how short, but not full 40k. So all previous times are now void.    

Because these races are held on open road, they start them early. Also the wind is weaker earlier (typically). They start at 7:30 a.m. Today it was in the mid 40's at 7:30. And it was quite windy. I have never TT'd in temps that low, but as I said: I wanted to get some hard race effort in.

So not really knowing exactly what to expect, I went out and did what I do. I layed down a 58.15, which isn't a stellar time, but considering the conditions I'm happy with it. That's a touch under 26mph for the ride and I felt great out there. My hands went numb from the cold and I probably lost 3-5lbs of snot out of my face (I have hella allergy congestion right now), but otherwise it was a great day.

After the race I continued north to my parent's house to spend the day w/ my Mom. It is Mother's Day after all. I had a nice time hanging with her (and my dad). We did some things around town and went to lunch together.  

My training has been going very well. I'm very focused and am riding really good. Now that it's getting to racing time, I'm going to try to keep this blog up to date. I enjoy writing about the crap that I do, and I know at least a few of you enjoy reading about it (or are bored enough at your job to read about it). So with things moving forward, and barring any further setbacks, I will try to keep it going.
Thanks for reading!

Road Trip

I got away this weekend and went to My brother's in Chicago. It was nice to spend some time away and with some family. My parents came up Sunday and we all spent the day together.

Ramona and I sitting out on their stoop.

Ramona had never been on the "big" swings before, but I didn't know that so I just put her on one gave her a push.

She liked it. I swung quite a bit this weekend. I started to get vertigo after a while. I don' think adults are supposed to swing for extended periods.

Us on the "big" swings

We did a lot of watching cat videos on my phone.

I didn't bring a bike, but we did ride a little bit. I was on the trike and Ramona on her push bike.

me sitting in

We had to dismount for this stair run-up

Daphne isn't quite as much fun yet, but she's getting there.

Lisa helping Daph across the shaky bridge.

It was a great weekend to be outside there. We all had a great time. I am always amazed at how quickly I can get to Chicago from here (assuming there's no traffic jams). Under 4hrs, more like 3.5. Totally worth it to see these guys.

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Hey all-
Thank you for reading about my training and other general happenings. There are some happenings happening right now that are consuming too much of my energy to worry about this blog for a while. I enjoy writing, even if people aren't reading it, so I will surely get back to it eventually. But as for now it will be on hold.

I did go MTBing with a bunch of people this weekend. Will (3 over from me) and I went out and rode a hard 1.5hrs, then we came back met up with everyone else and all rode together. A few of the people here were new to MTBing and it was their first time out on a "real" trail. We took them out on a loop which took about 1hr20min, then I went out and busted another short loop hard alone. It was chilly when we started, but turned out to be a pretty nice day.

I stopped and spent some time here on my way home. I was looking for answers, looking for peace, looking for pieces. Maybe looking for nothing. I'm not sure what I found. Maybe nothing.  
This is where we were married and our marriage has hit a very rough spot. I do not know what is in my or our future(s); I don't have a crystal ball.
But with so much going on, this blog will be on hold.

Thanks to you all.   





     

Big Week...bookended in snow

The week ended in TN, but started out with some snow...on April Fools Day nonetheless!

I snapped this pic out the window. Hard to see, but there's snow falling.

This was the week we were heading to Eastern TN for some riding in the Smokys. But we weren't leaving until Thursday so we had to get through most of the week here first.  
I planned an easy little ride for Monday, a workout for Tuesday and a ride to specifically hit some of the hard pitches around Bloomington for Wednesday. I knew I'd be riding some really steep stuff in TN, so I wanted to wake up whatever mechanism it is that makes you push yourself up 20%+ grades.
We arrived Thursday late afternoon/evening and it had been raining all day. It stopped raining by around 4:30-5, but was still very wet outside. Plus the temp was in the low 40's. A few of us suited up and went out for an easy 1.5hr ride anyway. We got wet form road spray, and it was rather chilly, but sitting in a car for extended periods does tons of damage to my body, so I'm far better off getting a ride after driving than not.
We had a big ride planned for Thursday. Around 80 miles, 3 mountain passes (one being the famous Tail of the Dragon climb which climbs from TN in to NC over 11 miles with over 300 curves). The final pass of this ride features the famed "Sweetie Pie" section which is a nasty 26% grade. That's hard no matter what, but 1) you hit it at ~3hrs in and 2) you hit it at the end of ~15-20min of pure climbing. It's a hard, hard ride.

a few of us at the top of CD

Saturday we set on a ride I have never done before, but have heard of. The ride to Clingman's Dome. CD is the highest point in TN and the second highest point east of the Mississippi. The full ride from where we stay is 90miles and 3 mountain passes. The actual climb to CD is 20miles, all uphill. It took us ~1hr40min of climbing too reach CD. And it was still quite a bit of snow and ice up there at 6,700'. It wasn't super cold at the top, but it was in the 70's at the bottom. People who had been there before said to take a jacket up because you'll need it for the decent. This was advice I took and was glad I did. Like I mentioned, it took 1hr40min to get up, but a little over 30min to get down! If you do the math, 20miles in 30min is an average speed of 40mph. You go really fast for a really long time. But it was so chilly that I kept pedaling the entire way down to keep the blood moving. It was unlike anything I've ever done before; both the climb and the decent. So I started the week with snow here and ended the big rides of the week with snow on top of a mountain.     

a few (more) of us top of CD

That night everyone came over to our cabin and we annihilated some pizzas and watched Supercross. We were leaving the next morning and had to be out by 11am so a few of us got up early enough to do a good solid hour ride and have time to get the place cleaned up and be out on time.
Everything went off without a hitch and we got home without too major of traffic problems. Getting put back an hour or two on the those interstates this time of year isn't too bad (even though it totally sucks). All of the old people that spend winter in FL are coming back north and the highways are super congested. It's just the way it is.
All in all it was a great trip with good people and awesome riding. Between the riding I did in TN and what I did before we left I put in over 15hrs on the bike last week. That's a really big week for me. I'm still feeling pretty good and I still have "building" workouts planned for 2more weeks. Then I'll be due for a rest week.
And that's that. Definitely not all that's happening in my life, but pretty much the up-to-date happenings of my cycling.
As always, thanks for reading!
 

Easter (dirt instead of candy)

It's actually starting to feel spring-like around here. I mean, it didn't even snow this week! (after writing this I was talking to my mom on the phone and she reminded me that it DID snow Sunday night/Monday). Mind you it's still freezing or thereabouts over night, and since I ride in the mornings I still have to dress in thermal apparel, but 30deg w/ a high of 60 is a lot different than 30deg w/ a high of 30.    
Despite the snow (and my forgetting about it) I got in all of my planned trainings. I am building towards "core" workouts and I'm getting close to where I need to be. I tested the water of threshold training this week and the water was nice. I'm not ready to jump in with both feet, but it feels pretty good.
There was supposed to be a good amount of rainfall overnight Saturday and a chance of rain Sunday. It did rain some overnight, but very little and the chance of rain for Sunday had dropped to nothing. So I decided to see if Lindsay wanted to go mountain biking instead of meeting the Sunday road group. She had MTB'd Saturday and reported that the trails were in decent shape (not too wet to ride), so with the trace amount of rain that actually fell, we figured they'd be fine to ride Sunday. They were pretty fine, muddy in a few spots, but mostly good. We got a couple hours on the MTB's and felt pretty good.

We found this little guy out on the trails. He was running around but there were no people near. So he wrangled him up and he followed us all the back to our car where we got a hold of the owner (who was someone we know as it turned out) and got them reunited. I guess he goes and runs the trails with his owner (who is on a bike) a lot and just got separated. He was a really cool dog and super fast on the trails. No joke. I was trying to go slow so he could keep up, but he was almost passing me so I'd speed up and he'd be right there. Cool.
Turned out to be an awesome Easter Sunday. The sun came out, it was warm, we rode off road, walked around Nashville (which wasn't shoulder-to-shoulder people...yet) and had a nice day.
Hope you all had a nice Easter Sunday too.

This week we head to TN for a few days of riding in the mountains. The weather looks like it should be great. Let's hope so!   



  

Blah

This week has been pretty much the same as every week for the past several weeks. The weekly weather pattern is mind numbingly the same. As with all the past several weeks, I managed to get done the workouts I had scheduled on the days I could actually get outside. But nothing more. It's becoming a bummer.
And there was a big nasty Spring snow storm forecasted for Sunday. I was pretty much planning on doing nothing all day due to all day snow. Well I woke up to no snow and decided to check the hourly forecast to see if I may be able to get out. It looked doable. I have wanted to ride my MTB on the gravel loop I normally do on my CX bike. I'd never done it because I don't really like riding my MTB on the road; it puts accelerated wear on the tires and it's just really slow. But not really knowing exactly what might happen with the weather, I decided to do it.       

It turned out to be pretty all right. The big crazy-hard to get up hill was about a million times easier on the MTB. It wasn't too cold, but I was dressed for it to start blizzard-ing on me at any time, so I actually got a little hot. But there was no precipitation until well after I got home and done.
And then it snowed. And it's supposed to snow all night. And not stop until there's like 5". 
So yeah, I don't really have much to report. Pretty much business as usual. As the title says: 'blah.' 





















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