Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Long Weekend

With a two day weekend I barely know what to do with myself.



I decided to just layout and enjoy the weather...not really. (FYI, I didn't take this pic, I found it via a google image search for "fat guy at lake") 
I really got a little more riding in than normal and a little more sitting around (relaxing) than normal. Other than it being the hottest weekend of the year so far, and our AC crapping out Saturday afternoon, it was a pretty good weekend. Lindsay's parents were in town for the weekend so we hung out w/ them some and went out to eat a few times, which pretty much satisfies our going out to eat quota for the year.
I took an ez week last week so I rode less, with less intensity and took a couple extra days off. I've been at it for a while now and I was feeling fatigue. I think/hope that a week "off" will do me some good.
I'm going to start MTB racing this coming weekend at the BCSP (Brown County State Park) DINO race. The weather is supposed to cool down quite a bit so that will be better for an MTB race where your speeds aren't all that high and there's no wind to cool you down. 
My friend Jake rode his bike from Eastern TN to Indianapolis where he picked up his brother Josh. They are both riding back to TN together. The first leg of their trip back was from Indy to my house!   
They left B-town Tuesday morning (after staying the night at Josh's petite amie's house) and I rode w/ them out of town. I wanted to get a few intervals in, so once we got out on the roads, I did the work I needed to do them looped back around to pick them back up. I rode out for ~1hr w/ them, then I turned around to get back in to go to work (and did my last interval on the way back in).  It was nice to see Jake because I usually only see him once or twice per year when I go to TN in the spring to ride on his terrain or at the occasional bike race. It was cool to ride w/ him for a bit on my terrain.
This turned out to be my "birthday ride" too because as of Tuesday May, 29 I am 34.No reflection, no hoopla. Just 34 f*****g years later.
L-R Josh Jake














                           

Monday, May 21, 2012

A little racing...now some rest

On the front early.
 I went and raced road in OH this weekend. As I mentioned last post, this is a race at which I've done well but have never won. Well this year was a little different: I didn't win AND I didn't do well.     
 But not for lack of trying. Knowing that I have ridden this race both in breakaways and off the front solo, I was riding at the front early to try to watch for what looked like good moves to try to get into. I tried to go several times, but nothing was happening; the field was very happy to chase down anyone trying to get a break going, but no one was willing to try to work with you to make a move stick. Frustrating racing. 

Sitting in.




I eventually decided to just sit in the pack. It wasn't worth my repeated efforts to get away just to be chased down immediately and then have the group just sit up. The wind was fairly calm, but I think there was a ton of allergens in the air. I am not usually overly sensitive to allergens, but a little before two hours of racing, my throat became really dry, my nose started running like a faucet and I started coughing a lot. It was a very hollow, dry cough though. And that was drying out my throat even more. Eventually it felt hard to breath. At one point I remember feeling like I could barely breathe and looking at my HRM and my HR was like 127bpm. That's E-Z cruising, but I felt as though I was breathing like I was beating 187bpm. It was weird. Anywho, as you've gathered I wasn't feeling great at that point, but with one lap to go one of my teammates, Hubbs, took a flyer in hopes of staying off to the finish. He was reeled in and when he was, the field kind of turned to chaos and my other teammate, Scott, and I took off in hopes of catching the group off guard and making something happen. We got off and got a nice gap, A few people rode across to us, which was a good thing (strength in numbers). One of the guys who came across was huge though. Seriously, he has twice as wide as me and looked really strong. So as soon as the road went uphill (with probably about 1-2minuts left to race) I decided to try (again) to go alone. I got off and was clear for a moment, but a hard charging pack of riders who have sat in all day is hard to fend off w/ a 190bpm HR. And so it went.


Once caught, I sat up and let the sprint happen in front of me. I was too gassed to bother trying to get mixed up in all that. Note in the pic my sweet womyn's sunglasses. In a most un-Adam like move, I forgot my sunglasses. But I knew Lindsay has a pair of womyn's Oakley straight jackets in the glove box. So I busted them out and rocked them. Actually I was glad they were there because it was super sunny that day.
That race marks 6 weeks of solid training. that's not really proper "blocks," but I am calling in a rest week for this week. So no intervals, an extra day off the bike and I plan to get on the MTB as well. I've ridden it pretty well when I've been on it, but polishing up the skills won't hurt, that's for sure. MTB racing starts up for me in two weeks. So I need to be as ready as I can. 
     

Monday, May 14, 2012

Solid

I had a very solid week of training this week. With no racing to be done this weekend, I could really focus on the training without thinking in the back of my mind "am I going to drain myself for this weekend?" Weeks like these make for good quality training and are very beneficial. I felt like I was struggling on the short intervals I did Thursday, but my numbers were good and I got them done. And Sunday a few of us did a good hard 3hrs and I felt really good. So that's good!
I mentioned a few posts ago that I had been to 2 different Dr.s in one week and said I would expand on that. Here's the deal: I had a "bump" on my left ear for a long time. Like months, maybe a year. I noticed it whenever I looked in a mirror, but it gave me no problems, so I didn't really worry much about it. But a couple weeks ago I was drying my hair after showering and I guess I rubbed it hard because it started bleeding. A lot. This worried me a bit. I decided I should get it checked out. I went to a normal Dr first and she was throwing around words like "malignant," "benign," "aggressive," "pathology..." Hearing these words scared me. She didn't know what it was but said she was surprised I had waited so long to get it checked out. She sent me to a dermatologist. Before getting in to see the dermo, I basically didn't know what was going on. This was the closest I've come to a "cancer scare." And I didn't particularly like it.
So I went to the dermo and she wasn't worried about it at all. She said it just looked like cysts. She numbed my ear, dug it out and told me to come back in two weeks so she could check on it. Two weeks was this passed Friday and the dermo said it looks fine, but if it's not 100% normal in 1month to call. I usually heal pretty fast and it's still kind of scabbed over and a little red. But I get the feeling she dug pretty deep/hard at it, so that may be normal. She gave me a topical steroid to put on it, so I'm totally on 'riods right now.
Anywho, it seems to be getting better and it doesn't seem to be a problem. And I am fully aware that this story is probably lame to read, but it had me kind of freaked for a day or two; I don't like having a Dr. dropping cancer terms on me and being left not knowing. But it's all good now.
I plan to race road bikes this coming weekend. It's an Ohio race that ~shouldn't~ suit me particularly well, but that I've done well at in the past. I've almost won it a couple of times. It's not very hilly, but is probably one of the more technical road races that I've done. And it does have a couple hills, just nothing major. Maybe it'll finally be my year to actually win!!?!! 
In the mean time I'm getting sucked into watching TV all week by the Tour of California. It's two hour nightly coverage but I'm at work for the first hour, so luckily my TV time will be chopped quite a bit. Good deal.  
        

Monday, May 07, 2012

tick, tock...

I did race against the clock this weekend, but not on dirt as I originally had planned. I had fully planned to do an off-road MTB time trial this weekend and a tune up for the MTB race season. But mid-week I found out there was a 40k road TT at Monrovia, the old standard central.southern IN course. I usually have a precious few of these per year that I can do due to conflicting events. So although I planned to do the MTB TT, I wasn't totally committed to it and decided to do the road TT instead since the weather looked to be favorable for a long TT. Though the conditions seemed nearly perfect, it was deceptively windy. Nothing crazy, but even 5-7mph wind can mess up a time trial. Plus as I've mentioned in the past, I would prefer and head wind out/tail wind back scenario, given the choice. This weekend was the opposite though; tail wind out/headwind back. These conditions make pacing extra difficult. If you're a strong rider, you can pretty easily roll >30mph out, but then you still have to get back facing the wind. You have to resist the urge to roll 32+ mph, which goes against your instinct to go as fast as you can (hey, going fast is fun!)     
I paced well out, averaging right at 30mph. But the wind coming back wold be my undoing. I just sat and watched my average speed drop. It ended up just below 27mph, which is too slow to PR. I ended up posting a 55.17, which isn't terrible, but about 2minutes off my best. Ah well, good workout, right? I couldn't force myself to do a 1hr threshold interval without it being a race, so whatever.
No racing this weekend, but I have some good workouts planned nonetheless for this week. I may try to get an extra long road ride in Sunday or maybe go MTBing if others want to go.
Speaking of going places, having raced a few times and making a MTB trip to Brown County since having our Mazda 5, I can fully say that car is the pimpness for cyclists. Plus I got the roof rack on so it's carrying capacity/different configuration ability has gone through the roof. It's awesome. If custom license plates weren't o expensive, I'd get one that said "d-shznt." Because the car is "d shiz-nit," but that's probably too many characters. One can dream...