just riding along

Look who decided to show up

2012-02-11T18:40:00.008-05:00

Now that we're halfway through Feb, Old Man Winter decided to blow through. Sure everything has been dead/dormant for months, but it hasn't really been too nasty outside. Well it got nasty-cold for this weekend. But I still got 3 decent outside rides in this week.
Today w/ a raging high temp of ~30, we decided to to ride of road bikes and hit some gravel roads. When it's really cold I like to get off the open roads where you just sit and get battered by the cold wind. Plus if I'm going to hit ice patches, I'd rather it be at a slower speed, with fewer people around and preferably not on pavement. We definitely hit some ice patches today, but thankfully we didn't go down. We put in a solid under 3/over 2.5hrs on gravel and some roads.
All this nice weather got me thinking though. I usually attribute a lot of my early season strength to my willingness to get out and do the work in the bad conditions. I've said for a while that "any pussy can get out and ride when it's 70, but to get out when it's nasty, you have to really want it." Of course it hasn't been in the 70s here, but you get the idea. I have a feeling people are going to be faster earlier than in years past. And with my CX season stretching into mid January, I'm getting a later start than in years past. But regardless of all that, I have been getting some good rides in. I also feel pretty fit in general with the off the bike things I've been doing.
I'm still not sure when/what my first race(s) will be, but it'll get figured out. I'm going to start reintroducing some intervals in the next few weeks too. Speaking of new things happening, Lindsay and I are scheduled to become aunt/uncle for the second time this week. My brother and his wife are expecting their second bundle of joy on Friday the 17th. I'm told these dates aren't always 100% firm, but it should be somewhere around there I guess. They're not into being told the sex of the child prior to birth, but I have my guess as to what this one will be. It may be worth noting that I was wrong with their daughter, but with I like my 50/50 chance with #2. So sketchy uncle Adam will have 2 opportunities to teach cuss words, etc to the young'ens. I'm told Ramona (#1) is just about talking...can't wait....

How did this happen?

2012-02-05T21:02:00.004-05:00

It went and became February on me! I can't keep up with time. It consistently blows my mind how quickly time seems to go by. I think I'm getting old.
But weakening bones and hair growing out of my ears didn't stop me from having a pretty good week of workouts. I got in some good rides, but the highlight was Wednesday. I decide to go out and do a power test. A power test is riding as hard as you can for 20minutes. Testing is important because the zones in which intervals are done are determined by your 20min power. But it's also a pain. Riding as hard as you can is, well, hard. I was expecting to post a low number because 1) it's Feb. and I haven't been riding a ton and 2) I have done no intensity in about a month. But it actually went really well. I finished 10watts below my best power, which I was pretty happy with.
Sunday we went out for the Sunday group ride. Ryan S and I were going to meet the group in town on their way out, but we missed them. And as it turns out we missed them by quite a bit. So we rode waaay hard to catch them on the road. Long story (kind of) short, we basically ended up doing a 30min threshold effort to catch the group. But, there were turns sitting in(power considerably below threshold), and my average power was around threshold which means when I was on the front I was turning well over threshold. So I was about half blown when we caught the group. Then after about 5min of reprieve a few accelerations occurred and it was basically full-on from there. The big group of probably 20 split into a group of far fewer which eventually ended up just 4 of us. I was keeping my fluid and food levels up, but at a little under 2hrs I came unhitched from the group of 4. I spent about 45min trudging solo and while it sucks to get shelled, it's good for me at the same time; you have to suffer to prosper as they say.
I was pretty wore out for the rest of the day and pretty much just sat around. Lindsay and I got an invite to a Super Bowl party, but I didn't really feel like putting the effort into leaving the house. And while I am not even a "fair weather fan" of football, I did watch the last 10min (which in football time is more like 1hr) of the game. Knowing virtually nothing about football, I'd say for those that are fans, it was probably a good game. It went down to the last 10 or so seconds. Plus everything I've read/heard indicates that Indy was a great Super Bowl host city. That's pretty cool. Of course if it had been a shitty Feb weather-wise, it could have been a different story.

I don't have any killer training pics this week, but I was digging for a battery charger or instruction manual or something and found my first cell phone and a Sony Discman. Sweet. Since I just took on the smartphone lifestyle it got me thinking and I realized that I've had just 5 phones (that I can remember). And that's dating back to 1997 (when I left for college). Pretty low number by today's standard. But I tend to hang onto electronics until it is totally outdated and/or just stops working.
Anywho, this week doesn't look quite as warm as last week, but still pretty good for Feb in Indiana. I'm going to try get out a few days this week for some good rides.

Getting back to it

2012-01-29T20:05:00.006-05:00

This week was about getting things moving again. I'm not really operating on any schedule right now, which never lasts too long for me; I'm just too routine oriented. But I usually try to make it a few weeks of "winging it" and doing whatever whenever.
The weather is helping right now. I got out 4 days this week. Plus I did some core/strength work as well. My low back/hips (left hip esp) gave me real problems throughout the CX season, but things feel better already after taking a week off and starting up some core exercises. Things aren't 100% in that region, but they're much better.
Today (Sunday) was the elite CX World Championships in Koksijde, Belgium. The races were shown live via the internet with the women's race airing at 5am our time and the men's at 9am. Getting up at 5am to watch sports seems crazy to me on pretty much every level, but I did it anyway. I really thought Katie Compton could win worlds this year. She didn't I went back to bed, but made sure my alarm was set to get me back for the men. In both the men's and women's races the winner rode off the front early on and soloed to a boring-to-watch victory. It's pretty cool to think that next year I will be at Elite CX Worlds as it is in Louisville. At least I won't have to get up at 4:50am to watch.
After those races I ate something and waited for it to warm up a bit. Also the 4th stop of the 2012 Supercross was on (yes, I like motorcycle racing too) so I watched that then headed out for a couple hours of riding.
It was insanely windy, but I wanted to get in some seat-time and hit some grave roads I'd never been on.

This is Farr Rd which runs between Anderson Rd and Old SR 37 north of Bloomington. It's a cool road and it climbs the entire way from Anderson to Old 37. I also planned to ride Bryant Creek road, which runs between Old 37 and (new?) 37. I was just going to ride out and back, but about halfway down it there's a creek (I'm guessing Bryant Creek) and you can tell it is probably dry in the summer, but it was hub-deep and I didn't want to get wet with it being ~38deg out, so I just turned around. I wanted to get ~2.5hrs in and I ended up over 2/under 2.5 but whatever.
So I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks just riding, with nothing in particular as an objective. Just riding along. And keep up on the core/other stuff. Then I need to start thinking about intervals. Which I love. Riding w/ purpose. Training.

2011-->2012 the year in CX and stuff

2012-01-19T19:01:00.008-05:00

The 2011/2012 CX season can be searched for in the RAM of my mind by a few key words.

1) muddy.

2) sweet artsy photos.
3) hardware and/or Worlds.

Without being (or consulting) a weather historian, I feel safe saying this is the wettest/muddiest season the OVCX has ever seen. 2010 was undoubtedly the driest/dustiest, and though not EVERY race this year was muddy, I did get pretty good at pre-laundering my cycling clothing outside with the hose. Not to mention having to deal with three bikes (my A, my B and Lindsay's) nearly every week. The kind of "dirty" they were getting requires more than just superficial cleaning. It took a lot of time. Also the way the weather has been lately more mud is on tap if you're not on the roads. And even still you're going to get messy just from wet nastiness. I feel like The Mudfather: every time I try to get out, it pulls me back in.
Also this year saw about every other person at any given race w/ a camera. This made for a crap-load of photos and most people gave them away for free download as well. Some even have a keen enough eye (and fast enough shutter) to catch killer shots like the one above. So thanks to them, I won't forget the 2011/2012 season until my hard drive crashes and the data is irretrievable.
Finally: hardware. Going into the state championship I liked my chance for gold or at least silver. After finding out Eric Anderson is a Cat II, I liked my chance for silver, maybe bronze. I brought home bronze. Not exactly what I wanted, but at least I have more crap to hang on my wall. Worlds. See previous post. I'm still not happy with Worlds a week later. Blah.
As for my overall season, I was a little behind were I wanted to be. The structure change of the Elite class made more of a difference on the top of the results sheet than I had anticipated. And though I worked hard throughout the season, I learned a lesson and will do my homework for next year. But that's many months off. We need to get to and through the Spring/Summer first. Not that I normally do a ton of rad racing anyway, but this year looks even thinner than normal in terms of a road race schedule (and it's usually pretty thin anyway). I'm hoping to get in a couple RR's, but honestly right now it's not looking like there is going to be much offered. Good news is there are two full MTB series' up and there should be a good run of TT's to do. Every year I say to myself 'maybe I'll jump into some crits again this year' and every year I don't. But who knows, maybe I'll jump into some crits again this year. I mean, when I last did crit races I was new to cycle racing and just didn't like the style of racing. But I'm a lot more experienced no and a lot better cyclist. I still probably won't though.
Let's go get 2012!

The good, the bad, and the ugly: CX Worlds 2012

2012-01-13T19:49:00.009-05:00

The good: my preparation. As for the bad and the ugly, well those are the course and as a result, my race.
My preparation and general lead up felt good and felt 'right' for the most part. Things seemed to fall into place as I would expect for a good race. My fitness was good but unfortunately, for me, it wasn't really a test of fitness.
We went down to Louisville Wednesday to pre-ride the course and get our numbers (or "accreditations" as they called them). When we got to the venue we weren't sure if we would be allowed on the course to ride or not. There was a good deal of standing water and it (obviously) it was very soft/muddy/wet. We walked most of a lap then suited up to ride. Other people were riding, so we figured the officials were allowing it. It was almost 60 and misting rain. The course was good and hard; I liked it.

(ruts across the entire course, but not frozen)

We went and got our numbers which were assigned via a random draw. I drew 18. With 8 per row, this meant a third row start. Not ideal, but the start straight was long and I was feeling confident; I wasn't too concerned (and as it turned out, I was somehow 2nd spot of the 2nd row anyway, not too sure how that worked).
Thursday was a full day of heat races. I worked all day, but kept tabs on what was going on at the races. It was 50+ and raining all day as it turned out. The course conditions deteriorated to such a degree that the heat races were eventually shortened to just 2 laps to not completely destroy the course. After reading this I wasn't really sure what to expect for our race the following day. It was supposed to be below freezing over night, but warm to around freezing during the day (our race was at 1pm). My thought was that the course would freeze over night, then begin to thaw and get totally churned up by the heat races that took place prior to our race.
I was wrong (as were the weather reports). It froze over night, but it reached a blazing high of ~26. So the muddy racing the day before left the entire course nothing but frozen-solid ruts. I can't describe how difficult this was to ride on. It was nothing but ruts from tape-to-tape that were parallel along the course and ~3-5" deep. It's a helpless feeling when you are trying to ride on a straight, flat piece of terrain and you simply can't go straight and are pulled off line, but onto more ice and then hit the ground. I ran more than I ever have in a (non running) race. Plus I fully crashed 2-4 times (I can't really remember how many). It was a terrible race. I guess a good CX racer is one who can be good on all/any conditions. Well I sucked horridly on ice. And those who were willing to throw all caution to the wind, be willing to break bones/bikes are the ones who prevailed. I wasn't able to do that.

(this is basically concrete. I cannot describe it)

I felt good going into this race and had a high expectation for myself. I failed at that. But being part of the first CX World Championship to be held outside of Europe is a pretty cool thing. There was a Belgian, a Brit, a Spaniard and a German all in our race, but it really hit home to me that it was truly international when the starting official gave us the "2 minute" call. He was an official I'd never seen before and when he called out "two meenoots" I got the feeling he wasn't from around here.

So though I am disappointed with my race, I'm trying to keep perspective. Given how fast those top guys were, there's no way I was going to win anyway, so I need to just be satisfied having participated. And as you can see from the pic above (which is not me btw) the sun did come out and the course did thaw. I wold have far-and-away preferred mud to ice. I think it's probably true that we had some of the worst conditions of the event. And hey, I finished and got a finisher's medal to prove it. Now I take some time off. This week is no working out at all. Other than my commute to work, I won't ride in order to rest up. Then next week I plan to start some lifting and general strength stuff, then get back on the bike some either late next week or so. It's crazy that it will likely be into February before I start back riding. I usually take my time off and do some strength work in December/early January. I guess that means I need to start thinking about the spring/summer of racing. Dang, I just finished racing a couple days ago for 2011...

One more week

2012-01-08T17:59:00.005-05:00

1 more week until 2011 races season is over for me.

Sorry, but I don't have any cool, epic or even lame pictures this week.

This week was about getting in some final good training days leading into Worlds. The week started out with pretty cold temps in the mornings so I was inside Monday and Tuesday. I got a good trainer workout in Tuesday. For me a good trainer workout is about putting out some decent numbers while keeping it "busy" enough to not want to kill yourself. If I can accomplish these things and be turning over the pedals for 1.25-1.5hrs, then it was a good session.
Other than those two days the weather has been off-the-chain-good. I got out every other day and got some quality riding done. Wednesday I spent some solid time on the CX bike and Thursday I busted out one of my favorite workouts: Vo2 intervals at the Monroe causeway.
Today (Sunday) I had a bunch of time consuming things I wanted to do. I wanted to watch the Belgian National CX Championships race at 9am, then I wanted to watch the American Nationals which between both men's and women's races took up from 1pm to 4:15pm. So I needed to ride after 10, but be back by 1 to accommodate my sports watching schedule. So by the time I got ready, ate, etc I got out at about 11 and put in a solid 2hrs and watched all of the crap I wanted to catch. Wheew. Tough day.
So all that's on the racing horizon now is Worlds. We're going down Wed for number pick-up and pre-ride. I'm taking my B-bike for pre-ride because 1) my A-bike is totally clean and I don't want to get it all dirty and mess w/ all that and B) I borrowed my friend Will's wheels with Challenge Limus tires on them so I can mud tires on both bikes. But I have never ridden this tire and would like to have some idea of how it rides prior to the race. Of course hopefully I don't have to pit in the first place and can just stay on my A-bike, but if I can be prepared, I might-as-well. One of my favorite quotes is "success occurs at the intersection of preparation, execution and luck." I feel like I've prepared well, I feel as ready as ever to execute and for luck...well, that's out of my control so wish me that.
After this week's racing I'm going to take a little time off the bike to recover physically and mentally. I've been hitting it hard for many many months now and to have a good spring/summer/next fall I need to take a break. Plus that will give me time to start thinking about 2012 bike racing. I haven't really though about it much yet. Plus my poor TT bike has been hanging from a hook for 5 months or so. I need to dust that thing off as well; I love TTing.
Well, talk to you all after my first World Championships!

20fckn12

2012-01-01T18:52:00.012-05:00

Holy crapoli. Another year has passed. 2011 was definitely a great year, but I can't really fully reflect just yet because I'm not done racing for 2011 yet. I can recall last New Year's Eve though. It was spent in an Indianapolis Hospital w/ Lindsay after her surgery. This time of year last year kind of sucked; 10+ days in the hospital, me going back/forth and spending several nights in a waiting room. But at least I hadn't been cut opened and had to have tubes going into and coming out of me, right?

Anywho, NYE this year was spend racing bikes! And in true form, the beer helmets were out and in full effect.
I'm not sure that these are UCI legal, but nobody was checking this day. Also in true form of the 2011 season, it was muddy as all hell. This course in Zionsville was tough. The ground was very wet and to make matters more difficult, the grass was very long and thick. It wasn't a "groomed" cross course. It was a full-on slog.
My race was good/bad. Not in that order though. It was actually bad/good. I got off to a good enough start, but then I started crashing. And I don't mean bobble-put-your-foot-down, I mean off the bike, on the ground crashing. I think I was on the ground 4-5 times. I crashed more this weekend than I do in a typical season. This saw me kind of buried back in the field and having to ride around people that I normally wouldn't be around. I eventually got my head on straight and started making up places. Once I started riding and stopped making mistakes I rode myself into 4th place which is where I finished. What started out looking like a total disaster turned into an okay race.
After leaving Zionsville we continued north to my parent's house for a late family Christmas. My brother, his wife and their daughter were there as well. We spent the night and did Christmas stuff on the morning of Jan1. It was a nice weekend with everyone.
That brings us to this week. This is really the last training week before the Master's World Championships. Our race got moved to Friday 1/13 (Friday the 13th!), so the following week isn't really going to be much in terms of actual training. We're going to go down mid-week to scout the course and get our numbers, so this week is all that's really left. And a cold front is parking here for next few days. Actually, it was carried in today by 30-50mph winds from the west. It was a little sketchy driving home today with that kind of wind. But I'm not complaining about having a few cold (probably average) days because we have been above average so far and the weather has been really good considering.
So that's that. Happy New Year people. Make 2012 good for you and yours; I intend to for me and mine.

Merry Christmas to All!

2011-12-25T18:06:00.006-05:00

Well, I spent another Christmas alone. Which is totally fine. Actually I wrote that purely for dramatic effect to draw in the reader. Because as noted by the pic below, I wasn't alone at all!

Lindsay went home to OK for a week for the Holiday. I skipped the trip because I need to hold onto my form for Master's Worlds and honestly I hate traveling; it's just not my thing. My brother said their are a few types of people: people that love to go places, but hate travel and people that love to travel and love to go laces (himself being the former). He let out one set though: those that don't care to travel AND don't care to go places. That's me. So I hung out here for Christmas. And that's just fine.

We at work have started (something of) a tradition of Chinese food on Christmas for those that are here. We changed it up a bit this year and went to the Great Wall Chinese Buffet on Christmas Eve. It should be noted here that while Chinese buffets generally are terrible, The Great Wall is truly a cut above. Any B-towner worth his weight in Mu-Shu pork can attest to this. So four of us met up and ravaged the buffet. We were given our own private "karaoke room" but thankfully for the other patrons I was too stuffed to belt out any killer Christmas songs. After we ate I parked on Kirkwood and walked around town a bit (and snapped the pic above). It wasn't too cold, and there was uplifting organ music coming out of churches along my route. The town wasn't quite dead, but there weren't a lot of people out. It was nice (plus it kickstarted the digestion required to process 3-5,000k/cals of Chinese buffet!).
Christmas day weather here was the best I can ever remember having. It was 50* and sunny. I got out for a couple hours of riding and felt absolutely great. I know it's absurd to even think, but I had a tailwind in almost every direction. That is great, but usually a tailwind means lost power. I had good power numbers too though. It was just a great day.

Plus while riding I saw this guy and stopped to give him a pet. By far the friendliest "random-ass cat" I've ever run across. He had a companion, but (it) ran off. Not this one though, he ran right up to me wanted petted. Nice little guy. So despite doing nothing festive whatsoever, I had a great Dec. 25, 2011.
This coming weekend is the final race of the ICX series on New Year's Eve. I plan to race this unless the weather is total crap, but right now it's looking okay. Then we're going to spend NYE at my parent's house and have a post-Christmas Christmas get together with my brother and his family then. They were elsewhere today and with Lindsay out of town it was decided to do it that way. I'm not a big fan of celebrating holidays in general and am even less of a fan of celebrating a holiday on a different day than the holiday actually is, but it'll be nice to get together with everyone all the same.
Thanks for reading and I do hope you have great holidays.

Back to the Backyard

2011-12-17T22:16:00.006-05:00

It's bronze in case your monitor settings are out of whack. Not exactly the hardware I'd hoped to bring home, but still not terrible. My real motivation was the software though. For the first time ever, IN is going to have State Championship jerseys.

There were two guys I knew I had to beat to be the first CatII. This was my goal for the day: beat those two, get the software. As it turns out, one of the absolute top guys in the state (region?) is a Cat2 also. That put a serious damper on my plan. But in CX you never know what will happen, so even w/ odds against you, you have to lay it out.
It was going to be another muddy affair due to freeze/thaw. The sun popped out long enough to thaw the top layer of soil to make it muddy, but then cloud cover came through to keep it cold for most of the day. It was above freezing, but below 40 (and w/ no sun), which made for a cold day to be out in lycra. I once again rocked the old colors to be in the (relative) comfort of my fleece-lined skinsuit.

I wore a long-sleeved baselayer under my race suit and kept on leg warmers as well, but prior to starting I couldn't stop shivering. I felt fine once we got going, but I was slightly worried for a minute.
In these local races they are starting the Cat 3 with the Elite men and our field had maybe 30 guys in it; a big field for a smaller local race. The start was fast as always, but I was in good position. I was trying to keep tabs on the two guys I'd set my sights on, but it gets hard to do in a scrum off the line. On lap 2 I passed guy #1. He and I were taking very different lines on certain sections and I passed him in section where we were riding on complete opposite sides of the course (probably 12feet apart) so he couldn't jump on my wheel and use it for motivation: he was gone. Guy #2 was further up the road, but I was closing on him. I passed one guy between us which helped me along, but I didn't get him in the end. He beat me by 4seconds. I'm not one for "if _____ than I would have beaten______." But, our race is normally 1hr, but we're racing 50min here. I was riding well and making time. I am confident saying that if our race were 1hr, I would have beaten guy #2. But that shit doesn't matter because our race was 50min.
Regardless, I rode well, was in the money and got a medal.
Next weekend is Christmas and there's no racing to be done. The following weekend is New Years Eve and the ICX series finale' is NYE. I am undecided on doing this race right now. I want to wait and see the weather first. Then two weeks after that it's Worlds in Louisville. I'm taking this week "off" of training, so no intervals and probably and extra day off. I have to take Lindsay to the airport Wed to go to her family's Christmas, and with actual Christmas falling on a Sunday we're not really closed at work for any extra days. Bummer. Basically I'm not sure how this week will turn out training wise. Whatever, I'm just thankful the weather here is really good right now. It's nice!

NIMBY

2011-12-12T11:04:00.007-05:00

This weekend was the Indiana Cyclocross Series race "Backyard Cross." It was Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) because my yard's too small. But the dude's backyard it was in is perfect for a CX course; because his backyard is an empty housing addition thanks to the crappy real estate climate that occurred right after he bought the addition.
It was a cold dry day. I had to bust out the old threads because I don't have a fleece-insulated cross suit in the new colorway. The dryness was deceiving because the ground was frozen over night and most of the morning, but the temps creeping near 40* and the sun being out made the top layer of soil thaw leaving a muddy mess. Plus this was some of the heaviest soil I've raced in (on). You could have made pottery with the clay stuck to my shoes. It made a for few tough clip-ins after being off the bike.
I felt pretty good for most of the race. Pretty standard, I guess. And despite the mud and general slipperiness I rode pretty clean.

This course was used once last year and I have to say I really do like it. It was kind of a mini-OVCX race with a lot of Kentucky and Ohio riders making the trip over to get some more racing in before nationals and worlds.

I raced good and hard but only managed 6th. 1 spot out of the money. To add injury to that insult, I experienced some of the worst "effort sickness" I can ever remember having. Relatively short, but super hard efforts often cause stomach issues for athletes. Because cross is by its very nature a short hard effort some people call this "cross gut" and things to that tone. I get this "sickness" in other disciplines as well, hence I call it "effort sickness." ES in-and-of itself is nothing new to me; sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. But this round when I got home I was out for 3-4hours. Just on the couch motionless. I could actually feel my stomach throbbing. I have felt pretty bad before, but never that bad for that long. I knew I needed to eat (all I had eaten was some cereal, a Cliff bar and a banana all day), but I really couldn't make myself get up. When I finally got myself up I ate some toast, took a shower and started feeling mostly normal around 10p.m. It was rough.

This coming weekend is once again at the Backyard venue for the Indiana State Championship race. Our State Championship is usually part of the OVCX, but it's been moved to a local ICX race and later than usual. Oh well, I don't even really know who all are Cat 2's, but I'd like to win that title as an Elite. I won the state title as a "B" 4 years ago when there "A" "B" and "C" races. It kind of blows my mind a bit when I think to how far CX has come around here since then. A long way.
Photo Credit Chris Jones. thanks.

Fancy Footwork

2011-12-05T00:01:00.015-05:00

A very muddy course made for a very run-heavy race this weekend in Cincinnati. Fancy footwork could take you far here.
It was an interesting day from a weather perspective. I guess it had rained for several days in Cincy leading up to this race. And there was basically a 100% chance of pretty much all day rain. It was pouring rain for most of the drive over, but when we got near Cincy it stopped raining and the sun was even poking out; it hadn't rained there (yet) at all. As the day progressed you could watch fronts push through, and everybody had their mobile devices out saying "oh...here it comes..." but it never actually rained. The ground was so messed up from the the week that rain would have made for better racing conditions, as it would loosed up the "drying" mud which as is was like riding through clay which just clogged every open spot on your bike. Well, since weather-men are never wrong, about 10minutes before the start of our race, it started pouring. Hard. And it poured hard the entire race.
The course went from real bad to way worse very rapidly. I somehow missed the call to staging and though I was called up in the front row, I had to squeeze in to the 3rd row. A race this messy was sure to "sort itself out," but the less traffic one has to deal with the better.
I was able to pass several people in the first few corners and despite shitty conditions, I felt really good. I had the course as dialed as I could for the sloppy/slippery conditions and I had a couple of people in pit for me so I could swap bikes in order to get my "A" bike cleaned. It was raining enough that the real muck wasn't building up like it was in earlier races, but I knew since I had people in the pit, it would be a good idea to pit and get the bike cleaned.

Problem was I had dry/intermediate tires on my "B" bike and I was used to riding the course on my mud tires. I was all over the place once I switched bikes. I knew I needed to get back on my "A" bike ASAP. When I got back around I saw they had my bike ready so I came back in and swapped back to my familiar bike w/ mud tires, but it was clean now. Weird thing was, it was somewhere around this point I started to get very cold. I know it doesn't seem weird to get cold when you've been out in the rain and 50* for an hour in lycra, but I've never really gotten to where I feel cold while racing in these conditions. But I felt shivery while riding. Then I started making mistakes. Nothing huge, just little things here and there that cost me a few seconds here and there. During this time when my mind was going hay-wire and my body was revolting 2 people passed me. There was another coming, but it was very close to the finish and as the course was, the finish was on foot because it was far too chewed up to ride. I entered the finish stretch first, dismounted to start the run section and thought 'okay I got it, this is a bike race not a running race and I beat him on the bike, so I just have to 'run it in.'' It was at that exact second that he ran by me like Usain Bolt would run by The Refrigerator Perry. Obviously I'm trying to be funny here, but no joke, this dude ran by me like I was standing still. Full on sprint while carrying a bike in ankle deep mud. I had no response to that and settled for 15th. Not a great result, but not terrible. And good enough for 7th overall in the series! I will take that for sure.
As you can see it was all smiles and fun at the after party thing. This was a great OVCX series. I fell a little short of where I wanted to be, but I had a good series. Lindsay won the overall for her category and that's awesome for her. She also won the overall race here and that's the first race she's ever won. So very good for her.
From here there are a few more local races to do, then it Worlds in January. I don't have my training fully laid out beyond this week yet, but it'll come together. The weather could do just about anything at this point though, so maybe it's best to play it by ear...

Thanksgiving week

2011-11-27T14:43:00.013-05:00

Weekends w/out racing feel weird to me at this point. Gorging on obscene amounts of "holiday food" feels weird too; but so right.
I had this week scheduled as an "off" week of training (meaning no intervals) so I did a couple of fun rides and took an extra day off. Then we made the trip up to my parent's house for Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving weekend is historically a weekend off of OVCX racing, which is fine due to the midweek travel and the multi-day feasting (leftovers, right?). It was nice to see the fam as my brother, his wife, my niece and their 2nd child (due in Feb) were all there. Highlight of the day was jumping on my parents neighbor's trampoline while Ramona lay in the middle of it and flopped around like a fish out of water. She had a blast. (I'm aware that not everyone is going to get the link referenced here w/out watching it all the way through)(also, I'm told there are pics of the aforementioned fun-ness, but I don't have them. My mom said she could print and mail them to me. If only information could be shared in an easy more efficient manner, you know, like fax).
Anywho, with no weekend racing, I wanted to get a long ride in Sunday. The weather was great Saturday, but it was "small business Saturday" for shoppers, so I needed to work (even though we were actually busier on "black Friday" than SBS and in reality had our best day of the week on Wednesday). Sunday was a 100% chance of all day rain. And the forecasters were dead-nuts on that one. In fact, I made a run to the nearest IDS box on Saturday to get a bunch of newspaper to put in my shoes on Sunday to dry them out. and it turned out to be a good things; it rained all day. I wanted to put in 3hrs, but I settled for ~2.5. I met up w/ local superstar Ryan Knapp on the way out of town and we rolled together for 45min or so then he turned off. As much as Id like to say he couldn't handle my blistering pace, he had done the Gravel Grovel race the day before and won by minutes over a quality field and was out for a recovery spin. It would have been a great day to turn in, but I really wanted a long ride so I kept on. The ride was fine, but 45deg and rain is hard on you. It eats away at your soul. But in endurance sport I truly believe there is value in forcing yourself to do things you don't want to do. That value is what refills the voids left in your soul from less-than-favorable conditions.
So this weekend is the finale of the OVCX for 2011 in Cinci-nasty. I'm looking forward to a good race, even though the conditions could be just about anything. I have to get through this week first though. I have my training planned, but I may need to shift days around if the forecast is accurate. Whatever, I guess I'll see.
As always, thanks for reading!

Oop! This just in: I received the pics mentioned above via (e)mail. Whodathunk?

We had fun. It's good that she enjoys being repeatedly knocked over than bounced around like popcorn. Because I wouldn't have enjoyed it otherwise!

...and then there was mud

2011-11-21T20:41:00.009-05:00

This weekend was the OVCX stop in Lexington, KY. I've never gone to this venue before because I though it was waay too far to go. Turns out it's just a smidgen over 3hr, which is far, but not the 4+ hour slog I though it was.
The race, on the other hand, was the slog I thought it would be.
I was checking the forecast all week and it was looking like rain. It wasn't raining for most of the drive down, but the (NPR!) radio station was calling for a "100% chance of thunder showers." Well it turns out they were wrong. Because it didn't thunder once. But it rained all fucking day.
It was one of those days were the course deteriorated greatly throughout the day, similar to the Ft. Benjamin Harrison Indianapolis race earlier this year where the Elite men's lap times were the slowest of the day.
I rode a pretty good race, but didn't have a great start. I had trouble finding my pedal (I know, it's attached to end of the crank arm, but sometimes that sneaky bastard moves around I swear) and things got really bunched up at the first corner due to it being a mud pit. I eventually got things going and rode most of the race right around 10th. For it being one of the muddies races I've done, I rode extremely clean (meaning I made no real mistakes, but did still get very dirty) and felt pretty good. Somehow the timing got messed up and we were sent out for 1lap more than we should have been. So our 1hour mudfest was actually a ~1.25hour mudfest. As if it even matters at that point. Anywho, I rode in for 13th. Not bad, but the real work was yet to be done: cleaning up.
When you look like I do here (above) and you have no facilities other than the back of your car in which to undress or clean yourself, it's a very difficult matter. People say to me often "oh, you a CXer, you must LOVE mud." I don't mind racing in the mud, but overall I give it the thumbs down. I do ride okay in those conditions, but the lead up (standing around in the rain) and all of the post race dealings are not worth it. Plus all in in race logistics: your bike ends up weighing pounds more, stuff doesn't want to work as it should, you can't really wear glasses because you can't see out of them after about 3minutes, but if you don't wear glasses you get tons of crud in your eyes, and the list goes on and on.
And then there's the equipment. Bikes are a mess, inside of the car is a mess, clothing (cycling and non cycling) is a mess...Yea, mud's alright, but more so if you're a pro who has someone to take care of all your stuff for you and you have an RV to clean up in (or at least a trailer).

I normally warm up under the hatch of my car, but Bloomingtonian Andy Messer showed up with his pop-up, so we were able to huddle up and stay (kind of) dry while warming up.
The series finale is next weekend 9this weekend is off due to the T-giving holiday). I believe I'm sitting 5th overall in the series. I was hoping to move myself into 3rd over the last two races, but the series drops your worst (2 I think) races, so this weekend I went from 4th of 5th. Not the direction I wanted to go, but I can only control my own racing.
Happy Thanksgiving all!

USGP weekend

2011-11-14T18:39:00.005-05:00

This weekend was the annual stop for the USGP in Louisville, KY. It's always a good weekend of back-to-back racing, pro race spectating and generally a fun time w/ friends. The weather turned out to be awesome this year, so it didn't disappoint.
Lindsay and I went down Friday afternoon to get a little bit of riding in on the course before Saturday. Other than a few minor things, I immediately liked the course a lot. It had several different features that tested a rider's skill set; that, in my opinion, is a cyclocross course.

We raced considerably earlier than I have grown accustomed to. Plus USGP runs a tight ship with little (read: no) time between earlier races, so I had no time pre-ride the course (which was okay Saturday because I had ridden Friday aft noon), but I also left myself little time for a decent warm up. Despite all that, I had an okay race Saturday starting 34th and finishing 10th.
The rest of the day was spent spectating and hanging out w/ friends. Good times.
Sunday the course was similar, but had a few changes. Again, I didn't have time to pre-ride but I was able to note the deep-ass mud pit (pictured a few posts ago) was back in the course. Upon noticing this I booked it into the pit just prior to my race to get the wheels off of my pit bike and put them on my race bike since the pit bike wheels had my mud tires on them. This slop-pit was bad enough that on an otherwise dry course, a mud tire wasn't a bad choice. But then it turns out that the course was re-routed around said pit right before our race. Apparently (from what I heard) the UCI saw the Cat3/4 women coming through the start/finish covered in mud and were asking each other "where is all this mud coming from," went out to check the course, saw the mud pit and said "there's no reason reason for a mud pit on an otherwise dry course" and took it out. I was glad to not have to deal w/ the pit, but I was now on a slower tire than I wanted to be. Oh well, I had a worse race, being caught in more traffic and feeling kind of "flat" anyway. I started 36th and finished 18th.
As with Saturday, then rest of the day, post hotel checkout, etc, was spent watching the rest of the races and hanging out w/ friends. Most of Saturday I was watching from the front "woods" section of the course while my posse was at the back "sand" section of the course. I guess at some point of another the UCI came to them and told them they were being too rowdy and to stop offering hand-ups to the racers (hand-ups consisting of beer, cookies, waffles, etc).
Well Sunday I spent most of the day w/ my posse and things w/out the consumable hand-ups got interesting as you can see below:
As it turns out the UCI also frowns upon holding blow-up dolls on the course and "we" were shut down two days in a row.
Whatever, it was a super fun weekend with great fall weather and mediocre racing.
The end if the OVCX is upon us and it's kind of weird. There are just two races left in the series, but there is an Indiana (ICX) series that still has, like, 56 races or something. I have decided to do the Master's World Championships because it is in Louisville and is the first time it's been outside of Europe, so I may need some of the ICX races to keep my "race legs." I haven't really thought beyond the end of the OVCX yet so as it approaches I need to plan another month or so of training and racing.
I think I'll get through the gluttony of Thanksgiving first though.

UCI 3 Cincy (UCI 1 Cincy for me)

2011-11-07T09:43:00.010-05:00

This weekend was the famed UCI 3 Cincy Festival. UCI is the governing body of all disciplines of cycling world wide. Races that award UCI points are sought after by big pros because the number of UCI points they acquire determine their starting position in other UCI races which becomes crucial once they get to Europe later in the year for World Cup races. So the Cincy weekend offering 3 days of racing w/ UCI points to be won is very popular amongst top US pros and even some Euro-pros make the trip over.
I've only ever done all three races once. It was a tiring weekend, but more than that it was an expensive weekend. I guess it was a fun weekend too though. And I guess tons of people spend shitloads of money expensive vacations, so it's probably not really that bad...but I digress.

I decided to just do the Sunday race which is generally the most popular because, well, its Sunday and it's a great course. It's a hard course with several technical features including the uphill sandpit pic'd above (yes, the sand is tackled going uphill AFTER having been riding uphill on grass for ~1.5minutes. Brutal) But it also has a very fast descent and some long burning uphills. I'd say it's one of my favorite courses.
I'm not 100% sure how they figured the call-up's for the races, but I was the 2nd rider called-up so I got a sweet front row start.

I felt good and rode for a while in 3rd-4th-5th-ish position. As the cream rose to the top I ended up 8th, but had a good race for it. The course wasn't muddy, but there were some very muddy sections. It was the type of muddy that taking a pit bike probably would have been an advantage. If I had someone working the pit for me I probably would have swapped bikes at least once. As it were, I would have had to pit, find my other bike, drop my "a" bike, get my "b" bike, etc and it would have cost me time. I don't think a cleaner, lighter bike would have been worth it.

The good part of only using one bike is I only had one that looked like this (above) to deal with instead of two (well, technically I had to deal with Lindsay's muddy bike too, but still pitting saved me from dealing with a third mess).
I had fun racing and hanging out w/ friends while watching the pros duke it out. And maybe the best part of all is we get to do it again this weekend in Louisville. It's the USGP weekend in LV and we're going down for Saturday and Sunday. This is always a fun weekend with more top-notch pro racing to watch. Should be fun!

The Old Stomping Grounds

2011-10-31T07:56:00.012-04:00

I got stomped at the old stomping grounds.
This weekend I did another Sat/Sun double race weekend. Saturday race was in Yorktown, IN which for all practical purposes is Muncie, so I had to go it.
The e-lite race had just 4 people in it.
One of us 4 is a pro road racer and a good CXer. One was someone I didn't know (or a ? in other words) and the other was my teammate Josh, who grew up about 1 mile from the venue and spent his entire childhood riding BMX bikes and such at the venue. With just 4 starters my motivation to go 100% was low. I don't really know why, but it was. And when we started pro road guy and ? took off like Meatloaf (Bat out of Hell, get it?) my mojo sank a little more.

The official cut our race down to 45min due to there only being 4 of us and the race was not too terribly likely to play out over an hour anyway. I was fine w/ that because I was racing the next day.
So whatever, I rode hard, but not full-on and got last place. Dead last. First time ever. But since it was paying 5 places, I still got paid 4th place $$!
The down side was that just prior to the start I noticed that my left front brake caliper was bent. It most likely happened in one crash or another a couple of weeks ago and has probably gotten worse/noticeable from use. The brake wouldn't center and when I got down to look at it I noticed stress marks, which are not comforting to see on aluminum bits. I was just hoping it would make it through the weekend w/ no problems and it did.

Sunday was the classic Louisville race Storm the Greens. Quite a contrast to Saturday's 4 man field; I think we had over 50. I had to get to the venue very early to be there in time for Lindsay's race (which she won) and it was cold in the early morning. Like 30degrees cold I think. So I just kind of sat in the car for a while to try to stay somewhat warm. Aside from being cold, the ground had frosted heavily which meant the track would go from firm, to wet, to kind of wet, to firm over the course of the day.Plus they added in this killer big-ass mud puddle just for good measure (bad measure?).
The course had a few long, flat, straight "hammer" sections, but otherwise suited me pretty well. Problem was the long, flat, straight hammer sections suited some other guys well that were much slower than me everywhere else. So while I'm struggling to hang on to them on the straights, I'm running over them in the tech sections. It took a while, but I was eventually able to get a gap over the people around me most of the race and catch a few guys that were ahead of me most of the race. I rode well and felt pretty good. I finished only 17th, and had to fight for it. It was fun though; and overall an awesome course at the venue of the 2013 World Championships.
There is now a 2 week break in OVCX races. There are still big regional races though. In fact, there are 5 very big races over the next 2 weeks. This coming weekend is a big 3 day UCI race weekend in Cincinnati, but we're only going to go Sunday. Then the following weekend are the USGP races in Louisville. We'll go for both days of these. It is really cool to watch the country's top pros race. We're lucky enough to have them racing within a short-ish driving distance two weeks in a row here! Plus we get to race on the same course earlier in the day. Cool. I always look forward to these races.

Not exactly as planned...

2011-10-23T11:42:00.006-04:00

This passed week I planned to take an easy week, but as it turns out I was kind of forced into an easy week. First the weather turned to absolute shit for a few days. Highs in the mid/low 40's and all day rain. Then I caught the cold that everyone seems to have/have had/be getting.
I took Tuesday off of riding just for a recovery day. But Wednesday I decided to HTFU and ride out in the rain/40's and I started feeling ill later that day. Thursday was more of the same crap weather and I was feeling even worse, so I opted to not ride at all and I ended up leaving work early to come home and go to bed for a while (which I rarely do).
Friday the rain cleared out, but it was still cold and I really felt like I needed to get a ride in. I had new brake pads on my CX bike that I needed to get some wear on, plus I just didn't want to not ride. So I went out on the CX bike for ~1.5hrs and felt okay (plus I rode the brakes extra hard to get the edges off of those pads).
Lindsay's mom was going to be in town for the weekend and we were going to dinner Friday night.
We went to Janko's Little Zagreb, which is supposedly one of the best steak houses in the Midwest. Though I wasn't feeling 100%, I was able to power through a 16oz sirloin and can say it was excellent. And if cost weren't a factor, I'd totally go back (and we may go back sometime anyway, but good steak ain't cheap).
Anywho, I got out for about 3hrs Sunday and felt pretty okay. I have some intervals scheduled for tomorrow (Tues), so we'll see how un-sick I am then. Regardless, it worked out pretty well that I had planned a down week anyway, the weather turned bad and I got sick. If there was a good week for all that to go down, it was last week.
This weekend I'm doing another double w/ a local series race in Muncie(!), then the next OVCX stop in Louisville.
I'd also like to say that as big Moto GP fan, RIP Marco Simoncelli. He was just 24yrs old and was killed during the race at the Sepang circuit this weekend. Big rising star in Moto GP. Some riders said he was dangerous, and they may have been right, but that's because he rode the bike to the absolute limit of its capability. He didn't ride conservatively and made mistake that cost him his life. It's so unfortunate when anyone dies doing their job, but especially a sportsman; because ultimately his job is to simply entertain us. Ciao Marco.

Hilly 100 + hometown racing = busiest weekend of my life!

2011-10-17T08:15:00.009-04:00

Hilly 100 weekend is always the busiest weekend of the year for me. Usually there's a race on Hilly weekend, but I miss it because Hilly is good money and pretty fun to work. This year the race was in Bloomington though, so the bright idea was to take the busiest work weekend of the year and add a race onto the end of it. What could go wrong?
Well, I happily report nothing did go terribly wrong. Hilly was busy; the weather was great. It was joking being referred to as the "Windy 100" because there was some serious wind all weekend. I honestly felt bad for the folks out riding the Hilly. It was consistent 40+mph gusts and heavy sustained. Needless to say the Hilly tent was taking a beating. But all that aside, it was a good Hilly.
The race.
I'm normally a zombie on Sunday afternoon of Hilly weekend. SO I went into Bloomingcross with a 0 on the expectation meter. I hoped to finish. I did a few laps to preview the course and realized that there were ~zero technical aspects to the course. It was wide opened and mostly long sweeping turns. A "roadie" course if you will. I was hoping for a more "techie" course because being on my feet and repetitious heavy lifting ought to have had less effect on my handling ability than my pedaling ability. But it wasn't to be so all I could do was go Leroy Jenkins on that mother.
(Josh and I spent a lot of time together this weekend)

Despite what I would call a so/so season I have maintained my front row call-up spot thus far. That being the case, I had a pretty good start and felt pretty good for the first couple of laps. But eventually I completely lost track of laps and the race seemed to be going on forever. Due to the lack of technical aspect in the course, I was caught around riders with little technical ability, but that can pedal well. They were slowing me way down in nearly every corner, but I couldn't get around them once out of the corner.
The barriers here were super tall and I had to channel both Lolo Jones for hurdling prowess and Blanka Vlasic for the height. Seriously, I had to actually jump to get over these.

My Race ended up between my buddy Will and I. It was a good battle and he got the better of me by half a wheel at the line. I ended up 15th.
We all went out for Mexican afterwards and it was a good time. Also, with another group of friends we went out for Thai food Friday night. So yeah, a pretty killer weekend.
There are no OVCX races this weekend, so I'm taking the weekend off of racing and I'm taking the week off of training. I'm going to ride, but no intervals, or any of that mess. Just a few rides and an extra day off. It's been a busy season already, I feel like a little break will do me some good.

Guns-N-Hoses

2011-10-10T19:10:00.005-04:00

Allow me to explain the sweet title of this post: this weekends race was at the Gun Club venue in Cincinnati and my bike got dirty so I had to hose it off. Literary genius at work here people!

Gun Club is probably my favorite venue on the calendar. And judging by the number of participants, it is most peoples favorite as well.
People say it's a very "mountain bikey" course, I would say however that it is a very "cyclocrossy" course.

I went into the day feeling good and prepared; and success in racing occurs at the intersection of preparation, execution and luck. Preparation and execution are up to you, but luck you cannot control; those strings are pulled from elsewhere.
I ran into a bit of bad luck (or some bad luck ran into me), but otherwise had a good race. I had a great start and was running in the top 5 with my buddy Will for most of the first lap. On a left hand transition from dirt to gravel Will slid out and crashed. I was able to steer around him and loose no time, but when he stood up he ran his hip directly into my front brake. This did two things: it put my right brake caliper below the braking surface and stuck into the wheel and also disconnected the brake's straddle cable. The pit was all the way around the course, so I had to pry the brake arm out of the wheel, get the cable reconnected and get the brake centered before I could continue. This seems to have cost me ~20-30seconds and ~20places. I rode a good race and passed ~10 people back for a 15th place finish. I felt good enough that I think I could have gotten at least a top 10 without the miss-hap. But as they say, "that's racing."

This coming weekend is the busiest weekend of my year: Hilly 100. Hilly 100 weekend means close to 30hrs of work in 2.5 days. It's always pretty exhausting alone, but this year the Bloomington stop of the OVCX is the same weekend. So Sunday we have to boogie to get our stuff packed to get to the venue for the race after working on our feet Friday evening, all day Saturday and part of Sunday. It's going to be rough. If it were any other race I would skip it, but I can't miss my hometown race.

The final pic is a "gimme" to my competitors: if you take me to sprint, there's a good chance I'll be beaten. I just don't have a sprint. Notice I'm lunging as this guy is sitting up and he still is beating me by a wheel. Hey, if Spud Webb could dunk, I could probably train a sprint out of my physiology, but that's a horse of a different color.

Fought for the money...and lost!

2011-10-03T08:06:00.005-04:00

This weekend was another double CX weekend in Ohio. We had an employee out for a wedding, so I worked Saturday, but went over for the John Bryan Park Classic CX in Yellow Springs, OH. John Bryan is usually course I like and I have done pretty well there in years passed. This year, I liked the course, but as for doing well...not so much.

I felt really good and despite having to get up at 4:30am to leave at 5:30am and not racing until 2:45pm, I was ready to go after almost 12hrs of being up.
I started i the second row and was feeling strong. I was holding my own and passing people as needed. I was rolling in the top 10 then I crashed. Hard. My right pedal caught a downed tree limb, which sent me instantly to the ground. I'm not sure how it happened, but the limb ended up on top of me. Another rider crashed into me and his bike was on top of me as well. He got up and got his bike, and I bench-pressed the limb off of me and got up. I had lost a bunch of places, but was determined to get back going. But when I stood up I quickly realized I couldn't put any weight on my left leg; my knee was jacked. I fangled my chain back on considered quitting due to the pain in my knee. I got on the bike and slowly stared t o pedal. It hurt, but it was subsiding the more I pedaled. I realized I had whacked my handle bars well out of kilter during the crash, so if I was going to continue, I was going to need to get my "b" bike. I decided I'd pedal as much as I could to the pit, and if i felt okay by the time I got there, I'd get my spare bike and continue, if not I'd throw in the towel.

I got my 'b' bike (orange one pic'd here) and continued on. I dropped from somewhere around 7-10th place to ~32nd place and lost almost exactly 1minute. I made up ~10 spots and finished just outside of the money. Bitter sweet; it was bitter because this was my first race as an elite that I finished outside of the money spots, sweet to htfu and finish.
Bummer.
(sand pit pre-crash [still on 'a' bike])

Here's my knee Monday morning bruised and swollen, but seems to be working pretty normal.

So what turned out to be a mostly bummer race, turned into a pretty cool weekend. We went into town (Yellow Springs) to eat and grab a coffee. I knew Dave Chappelle lives in Yellow Springs and I have heard he lives there so he can just be a normal guy and do normal people things like go to coffee shops, etc. Well after eating we went into a coffee shop and Dave walked in right after us. After getting my coffee I said "hey" to him and asked if I could snap a picture. He politely asked that I didn't and I said "no problem at all, I totally understand..." I think he thought it was cool of me to respect him not wanting attention because he started chatting me up for a few minutes. After that I went outside to wait for the rest of the people I was with and when Dave came out he walked back up to me, stuck out his hand and said "nice to meet you." I shook his hand and said, "it was nice meeting you." Pretty cool encounter considering I've lived in Bloomington for 6years and I think I've seen The Coug twice, though I'm not 100% of either of those sightings (and I ride by his house pretty much weekly).
Anywho, this weekend is back to Ohio, but Cincinnati this time. So far this year I've had 1 good race, one okay race and two bad races. Let's hope I can bounce back and salvage this season and be were I think I can be in these races.

What did I do this weekend?

2011-09-25T21:37:00.006-04:00

I paid money ride a bike in mud.

This weekend was the first round of the Indiana visits of the Ohio Valley Cyclocross Series. The Indy Double Weekend. Saturday was the race at the classic venue Brookside Park. It kind of rained on/off for a lot of the day making the course tricky. It wasn't muddy per se, and the sun came out and tacked it up quite a bit for our race.
I don't have a good explanation why, but I found myself completely buried at the start and I had to pass people the entire time. It was not ideal and I rode pretty well, but I could only pull out 11th.

Sunday was quite a contrast in terms of conditions. The first picture is from Saturday; nice and clean. The second is from Sunday; the muddiest race I've ever done.
It was nasty. All day rain. Getting ready in the rain sucks. Starting a race in the rain sucks. Racing through inches of peanut-butter mud, that's just the way it goes sometimes. I wasn't feeling very good most of the day. My stomach was in knots the entire night before and I just wasn't feeling 'on' at all so I decided early on that I wasn't going to pre-ride the course; it was just too muddy to bother and I wasn't feeling good anyway. But I eventually changed my mind and went out for a lap prior to our start. It was clear to me that I would be racing against the course, not the other riders. I couldn't push hard, I just had to try to stay steady and not crash. One probably could have crashed 10-20 times per lap if he were not overly cautious as to what he was doing 100% of the time. It was one of those races you hear about where going slow is fast and going fast is crashing. I did crash once and cut up my knee some and get a little 'hipper', but nothing big. I lost two places as a result and couldn't get them back. I ended up 17th. Not what I'd hoped for, but in the money at least.
So overall I guess I can say it was a...memorable weekend. Not the best in terms of results, but got to hang out w/ a lot of good friends and despite not feeling great and horrid weather, had a good time.

One down...

2011-09-19T08:03:00.004-04:00

This past weekend was the series opener of the Ohio Valley Cyclocross Series. Race #1. And since I was speedy with my mouse finger and registered first, I got the #1 to pin on.
It rained on-and-off pretty much all day. I arrived at the venue some 6hours before my race to get Lindsay there in time for her race (which she won). I started pre-riding the course early, since I was there anyway and the conditions were wet and sloppy in places. I switched over to my "wet tires" thinking this was going to be a mud race. But a lot can change in 6 or so hours. It did spit rain on/off, but by the time our race got going the course had dried up to a perfect tack. I would say it was perfect; I switched back to intermediate tires and that was a good choice.
Our races are different for 2011. The organization has lumped the Elite Master's racers into our race which as an effect nearly triples our field. Having 50 or so men in an Elite race made it far more interesting. Way more happening during the race. I got a good start and got "settled in" to a good group and rode a good race. I felt really good, but with ~3 laps to go my legs started cramp in places. Fighting odd cramps and riding 100% effort is a very challenging balance. I worked through it and finished 13th. I was 8th of the non master's Elite's. Not bad. I was happy with that for my first race of the year on what many consider the hardest course of the series.

Not sure what's up w/ this picture. My guess is I had just spit, but maybe I'm just trying to look stupid.

This weekend is the Indy double weekend which is usually in December. I don't think I've ever raced at the Indy venues in above freezing temps, so this will be kind of weird. Not to mention doubles are always hard; shouldn't be as bad as last year though which featured blizzard-like conditions Saturday, then frigid (sub 20) temps Sunday. Add into that trying to clean/prep both of my bikes in the waaay sub freezing temps and in the dark Saturday night, and that' a weekend I will probably never forget. These races being in the fall rather than the dead of winter should remedy that.

Not as planned

2011-09-10T22:29:00.007-04:00

Well this weekend did not go as planned at all. Rather than readying myself for the first cyclocross race of the year, I spent Friday night on the bathroom floor throwing up and Saturday in bed w/ a terrible headache, hot/cold spells and feeling very weak.
I had no appetite all day but I really wanted to take some ibuprofen for my head, but didn't want to take it on an empty stomach. Around 4pm I ate a banana and took some meds and started feeling better. Lindsay made me some green tea and some great completely homemade chicken/rice soup. I was able to eat some of that around 7pm or so. I gt feeling much better, but still somewhat light-headed and weak so in the interest of not ending up setting myself back further made the call to not try to race on Sunday. It's a tough call to not race when you train, train, train (not to mention when you preregistered), but this first race is a non-series race, so I'd rather miss it and make sure I'm healthy for the series opener next weekend than do it and end up realizing it was the wrong choice. Ugg. I hate it, but sometimes things just don't go according to plan.
(my bikes, which were loaded in the car and RTR Friday night, were removed and sitting in the garage race day. Bone deal.)
I'm feeling better today (Sunday) and though I skipped the race, I did get out for about 1.5hr of easy riding. I felt fine and will be back at it next week.

A "podium" picture from the State Time Trial surfaced today too, so I thought I'd throw that up for you viewing pleasure. That was July 17. Seems like forever ago.

No Rain

2011-09-04T20:00:00.006-04:00

It was supposed to rain but it didn't. A cold front definitely pushed in, but w/out the usual fanfare of storms/wind/etc. I had a so/so training week and wanted to get in a good longer road ride Sunday before the CX season gets underway because there aren't a ton of free weekends to get in longer road miles once racing gets going. I kind of planned Sundays ride around the storms that never came...and that's just fine.
As for my so/so week, I had a few little things add up to get my head out of it. We had a sick cat that required 2 visits to the vet. Also I had to meet at our house w/ an appraiser because we are refinancing due to mortgage rates being hella-way low. Plus I have been taking care of my neighbor's cats for, like, 6 weeks now. She had foot surgery and is staying somewhere else. Not a huge thing, but she is a compulsive hoarder like you see on the TV shows. It's kind of stressful to go through her house, which is 1 path through stuff piled ~4-5' high.
Tuesday I got my planned workout done as needed, but didn't feel good doing it. Wednesday I had a meeting w/ a rep, that turned into an evening ride w/ the rep. In our industry riding w/ a rep typically would mean riding way slow/waiting for some fat dude who "used to be a sick cat II." But our Giant rep is totally legit and we rode out to Wapahani Park and did some follow the leader (he on a MTB, me on a CX) so I was riveted while following his lead. Thursday I had a good workout and felt really good doing it.
Then as mentioned above I wanted to get a long road ride in Sunday. I wanted to do some good roads that I don't do all of the time so I planned my route to include Grandma Barnes rd and North Shore Drive, but from east to west (I almost always do this road the other direction) .

Grandma Barnes road always makes me think there will be the smell of cookies and/or pies being baked on it. You know, grandma stuff. But it is one of the more difficult climbs in the area. So there's pie all right: humble pie (that was a terrible joke, I should probably delete that...). Anyway, I had a great ride and felt really good.
On another note: Lindsay and I went out to dinner and then went out for drinks afterwards; what old married couples call a "date night." We NEVER really do this, so it was nice. I'm super frugal plus try to be pretty conscious about what I eat and sometimes (most of the time) that = no fun.
So, this weekend is the first CX race of the season in these parts. It's a non-series race, but a good "warm up." I'm looking forward to it, I just hope it's not too hot.

Locals Only

2011-08-29T10:01:00.007-04:00

This weekend was the final DINO MTB race of the season at Town Run Park in Indianapolis. I don't like to make excuses, but pretty much everyone will agree that this is a course typically dominated by local Indy riders. The course has very little elevation change (meaning it's FLAT), and it's basically made up of turn after turn after turn...so the locals who ride there several days/week know the course so well that they have a huge advantage. It's always been that way. This year was no different. I was riding pretty well and inside of 1hour I had Cat II men passing me. Knowing that course will make you much faster at that course. (period)
Whatever though; I went in w/ no real expectation anyway and came out next to last. Our field was much smaller than normal (10 riders), but next to last isn't a result to write abut which makes me wonder why I'm writing about it...
My brother, his wife and their daughter were at my brother's in-law's house for the weekend which is on a lake west of Indy, so Lindsay and I went to visit w/ them after the race. I brought my swim trunks not really knowing what we'd get into...good thing. We were going to go for a boat ride around the lake and when Lindsay sat down in the boat her sunglasses fell off of her head and into the water. We tried to fetch them w/ a butterfly net but to no avail. Looks like I was going swimming whether I wanted to or not.
So after the glasses search (I totally found them) Ramona decided to go for a swim w/ me. As it turns out the mixture of me (a for-the-most-part stranger) and the somewhat cold lake water didn't equate to baby fun. This picture was taken during the ~5seconds that she wasn't screaming/crying. Whatever though, it was super fun time. I did however drink 3 sodas which is about 1/4 of my typical annual consumption. Weird, but damn, Coke is just good.
So assuming I don't get an onset of diabetes, cyclocross season is here. Races start in 2weeks. I've been training hard; you know eating salads and stuff. So I should be good to go. I shouldn't joke around too much, there's some serious competition out there. Will I be ready? I don't know...pass me the ranch dressing.

Windy City weekend

2011-08-21T19:30:00.008-04:00

I finished a training block this past week so it made it good time to take an extra day off of the bike and head to my brother's in Chicago for the weekend. His daughter turned one last week, so I wanted to go up to be a part of that and just to visit as well before the Chicago weather turns terrible.
The trip was like most of my trips up: tons of walking (which no serious cyclist would do, adding merit to my full chump status) and otherwise basically a food tour.

This trip's tour started with a Chicago dog. As you can assume, it was killer. We also went to a place I saw on a Food Network show called Heaven on 7, which is a Cajun joint. It was right up my alley due to it having 20 (I counted) different hot sauces on the table. Very good.
For pizza (you kinda have to eat pizza in Chicago) we went to Pequods pizza. My brother has raved about this place, but I had never been to it. I'd probably put it on the top of my best ever pizza list. It was superb.
We went for late breakfast/lunch at a vegetarian place called Handlebar, as in bicycle handlebar. I had an awesome egg dish (vegetarian, but they do have eggs and fish on the menu). Plus they play pretty killer music and tout their "bike-friendliness." Great place.
We met up w/ my buddy Raw-dog (Ronnie Semba) from B-town, but who now lives in the big city. He went to Pequods with us and we went to the bike shop where he works now. It was totally cool to see him in his new town/new element.

This is the view from the quarry park which is a short walk form my brother's place. On a nice clear day you get a nice city-scape view.

This is us at the big mirrored "bean" shaped thing in Millennium Park. I decided this is probably the most photographed object in America. Maybe the world.

Also in Millennium Park there's a fountain kind of thing that has water which runs down the ground and into cranks along the parameter, then is cycled back up (does that make sense? probably not). It was a mad house of kids running around, and baby Ramona got in on the action.
Overall this was a really good trip; one of the better. What I like about Evin and Lisa is they never seem to mind doing the "touristy" stuff wherever they live even though they're loc's. I think a lot of locals wouldn't want to do the stuff out-of-towners do, but they're always down for whatever.
So that's my travel blog. Other than that I have a "recovery" week this week which means no intervals, just riding and a little less intensity. The we ramp back up for another few weeks. Races are just a few weeks away now!!!

Chase the race

2011-08-15T08:26:00.008-04:00

I should have known things were going to go wrong. Race morning for the DINO MTB race at Logansport started out fine, but different. I'm a creature of habit, very ritualistic and superstitious to boot. That said, whenever possible, I eat Muesli cereal on race mornings. It's just what I do. But at TN training camp in March we ate Bob's Red Mill steel cut oats prior to big volume training days. I normally don't like oatmeal. I don't like the texture and it's flavorless gruel to me. but steel cut oats have a totally different texture and a little salt and a little maple syrup and it's pretty good stuff. Anyway, I decided to eat some of this prior to DINO Logansport. No biggy in-and-of itself, but eating cold cereal forces me to open the fridge (to get out milk) which causes me to see the flask of First Endurance EFS gel that I put there the night before, which reminds me to put it in my bag of "food" and water bottles. Well, eating oatmeal, I didn't have to get out milk, so I didn't grab my gel and I showed up to race w/ no nutrition.
Whatever, I bummed a couple of gels from my friend Will, not my brand of choice, buy I was thankful that he had some extras and was willing to give them to me.
FF to race time.
I didn't have the best stat of my life, but I felt good. The first lap is slightly shorter than the following three due to the position of the start). First lap is ~20min long. I'd say by about 12minutes I had moved into third. Then at about 17minutes I picked up a huge thorn in my back tire. Then by ~20min30sec (just after passing through the lap chute) my rear tire was completely flat. Crappers.
I stopped and got it fixed, but lost probably 5minutes or so in the process. The entire Cat 1 field had passed me at that point and a good portion of the Cat 2 field had as well. So I was left chasing for the remainder. I was able to ride good and hard and passed back 3 Cat 1's and was just a couple minutes off of a few more so it wasn't a terrible day, but I was riding good enough that w/out the lost time doing bike repair I might have pulled out a good result. It's worth mentioning too that w/ the co2 cartridge I was only able to get ~25PSI in the tire and I still had over 1.5hrs to ride so I really had to nurse the rear of the bike to make sure to not pinch flat...no one wants to double flat.
So, meh, whatever. Not the best day ever, not the worst.
On the way home Lindsay and I stopped for food at Red Robin hamburgers on Indy's far north side. I have to say, the burger was on point. I also have to say this place is why Amerikkkans are fat. Okay, not "this place" but the ethos of this place. 1) I ordered A Coke (as in one coke). I like the sugar, etc after sweating my balls off for 2hrs, sue me. Anyway, before I had even finished the Coke in question, the waitress had brought m another one. I understand that this is "good service," but I'm a one Coke-pony. 2) this place has "bottomless" baskets of fries. That's absurd. We were asked more than once if we wanted another basket of fries. Again, their just trying to be good service people and I'm sure there are a host of people who come just for the endless fries,but god damn, all you can eat fires? Really? Obviously that kind blew my mind. And yes, I fully understand it's not much worse than a all-you-can-eat buffet, but at least you have to get up a time or two (or three or four) at a buffet. Not that it matters.
Enough of that. I think I'm going to go to Chicago this weekend to visit my brother and his family (my niece turned one last week). And then the following weekend there's the final MTB race of the season which I may or may not do. I'll just see. It's a course I've never done particularly well at, but I like to have the racing in.
We'll see. That's it.

40k all the way

2011-08-07T18:14:00.005-04:00

I hadn't really planned (read: fully committed to) on going to Monrovia for a 40TT this weekend, but there were only two left for the season and I really felt I needed to get one in. I've been getting into some more specific training, but honestly, riding as hard as you can for 25miles is just something I cannot do without the motivation of a start line/finish line. So this was probably pretty good training. I had the underlying goal of beating my personal best time for this course, which I guess is pretty much always to goal. That aside, the goal is always to go under 1hr in order to score the Sub Hour Club T-shirt.
There was a light but stiff wind going out on the course, but it wasn't enough that you could really tell if you had the wind your face or if you were having a bad day. Headwind out/tailwind in is ideal for a TT, but I like to know before hand that I'm going into the wind, otherwise it just seems like you've blown. But I kept it smooth and steady and although my time at the turnaround had me down on my previous best, I knew once I hit a couple of time markers (houses/bridges along the way that I know are X minutes form the finish) on the way in that I was on PR. I rolled in at 53.49 which is 50seconds better than my previous best time. I really wanted to go under 54min this year. I had 39 seconds to play with and still PR for the course, but not go under 54, so I was happy to have gone sub54.
Otherwise, I'm back to structured training after a couple weeks off of it.
We also went to the wedding of two friends/local cycling couple Erik Hamilton and Caitlin Coar (Hamilton). It was a nice get together and the speeches delivered by both groomsman and bridesmaids were really nice. They've been together as long as I've known them, so I'm sure they'll have a wonderful life.
With that, it's another week, more of the same. God I love regularity.

August Already?

2011-08-01T19:36:00.005-04:00

I haven't blogged for a bit, but not a boat-load of blog worthy goings on over here. I raced MTB two weeks ago and sucked. Sucked bad. I stunk up the place. I'm not sure what happened or why it happened, but I had no power. The race was on the final day of my week off the bike and it was mid 90's heat. So not only had I not ridden for 6 days, but I hadn't ridden in serious heat for over a week. I think these factors just led to a power melt down. I wasn't hurting per se; I couldn't ride hard enough to hurt. It was slow and finishing felt like an accomplishment. Whatever, I'm trying to forget about it.
In the week that followed, which was last week, I got back to riding, but not proper training; just turning pedals and putting in some miles. I put in a good week and even hit the gravel roads a couple times on the CX bike.
You all know what that means, right? Probably not. Well I'll tell you: it means CX season is approaching.
With that it's back to structured training this week. Start slow and build.
There are still a couple of MTB races on the calendar, but other than that it's ~6weeks to CX. And it's a long season at that.
I'm trying t get a trip to Chicago worked out to visit my brother while the weather is still good, but I have to find a free weekend. His daughter (my niece) turns 1 in a couple of weeks and I have a killer gift to take up. Just got to make the time.
That's about all I have to say right now. I know there was a lot serious blog worthy news laid out above for you all (all 3 of you) to digest, so I'll leave you now with these parting words: good bye.

State TT and looking ahead

2011-07-18T21:17:00.003-04:00

This past week was the build up to the State Time Trial Championship race. This event is in New Haven, IN which is just outside of Ft. Wayne. In other words: it's a long ass drive. The riders start at around 8am, so this race requires an overnight stay. Luckily there's a hotel basically right across from the start line.
I wanted to get up there early enough to get out on the bike for an hour or so the evening before the race to get the "car legs" shaken off. Last year we didn't get there after dark and didn't the chance to ride any.
This year we got in w/ plenty of day light left so I set out for some openers. It was hot, but I felt really good riding at threshold.
Race morning my start was 8:53am. I got up, got my routine done and headed toward the course to ride around some prior to starting.
It was going to be hot, but I consider myself to do well in heat in general. I got started and immediately felt good and in control. Time trialling is such a delicate balance of going as hard as you can w/out blowing up. To do it right you have to ride right at you limit, but w/out going over your limit too far/too much. This northern course is dead flat; it's interesting to ride a road 12miles out then back and not have to shift gears at all really. It gives your mind plenty of chances to wander, but staying focused is important. Staying on top of your gear, keeping your head down, keeping you rhythm, these things can become difficult when you're staring at a straight white line for an hour. But I had no problem keeping focus this day. It all came together and I had the best feeling 40k TT I've ever done. I came in and had dropped 1min 1sec off my last year's time. I won here last year and I really thought no one would beat my time this year. I was right. It's only Cat3, so nothing to brag too much about, but I did post the 4th best time overall. I was very happy with my race.
So now I'm attempting to take a week off of cycling and shift gears to cyclocross mode. After this week off I'm going to get back riding next week, but w/ no specific workouts, just riding. I do plan to race MTB this weekend (after this week off), so we'll see how that goes. I'll go into it w/ no expectation. Hard to believe it's almost August.

2011-07-10T16:02:00.008-04:00

I finished up last week's training and wanted to do a long ride today (Sunday). I had heard rumor that one of my favorite climbs in the area, Bear Wallow, had gotten fresh pavement and I really wanted to go check it out. (you take a right here)

The rumor was true! Fresh pavement all the way!

Not sure why it's my favorite road; this is what I look like for the duration of the climb:

It was very good 3hr ride, but w/ most of my buddies out of town I did it solo. I suppose w/ the State TT a week away it's probably good to practice in solitude.
I'm feeling really strong right now so I'm going back off this week to hit the TT fresh. I haven't done a 40k yet this year, but I've done enough of them in the past to know how they feel and how they go; I'm hoping for a good time.
There was a bonus points MTB "race" (I put "race" in quotes because to was more of timed exhibition it seems) that I didn't go to. I haven't chased the DINO series points for many years now, so bonus points aren't worth anything to me. Anywho, Lindsay went and Lindsay crashed...hard. She seemed okay for the most part (via text msgs) so I called her to make sure 1) she was okay and 2) she made it home okay. When I got through to her she said she wasn't at home, but in the waiting room at Bloomington Hospital ER. What!?! She thought she might have had a concussion because she was nauseous and had a killer headache. I left work and went over to the hospital as fast as my Giant Via would go and when we got into the ER the Dr said she didn't think there was evidence of a concussion and just to take it easy for a couple of days and she should be fine.
She looks way too excited to be actually hurt but hey, w/ head injury she could be going crazy right in front of me here. On the other hand, I'm no Dr, but anyone that excited in the ER is probably either suffering a head injury or waaaaay drunk.
Seriously though, she's fine now and all seems well. The reports from this event were pretty epic sounding though. I heard of broken wrists, broken ribs, concussions and broken collar bones. I'm kind of glad I skipped it and I probably won't take part in it in the future. On the other hand, if I do have to crash I'd rather it be due to my own short coming than some idiot taking me out on the pavement. I'd rather not have to crash at all though really. Point is: I'm glad Lindsay's ok. She's become a tough beeoch. Riding bikes a lot will do that to you. Just ask this guy he got up off the barbed wire fence he was launched into by a car and finished the stage of the Tour de France; that's one tough bastard right there.

Off my game

2011-07-07T19:34:00.003-04:00

I'm off my blogging game...sorry. I'm on my riding game though. And as such I've been totally tuckered out.
Last weekend was 4th of July weekend which is always one of my favorite MTB race weekends of the season; the DINO races at Muscatatuck Park in North Vernon, IN. However I was not there this year. I haven't missed this race in 7+ years, but Lindsay was out of town and had the car, so I was left stranded. Oh well, not a huge thing. Though in true half-assed amateur bike racer fashion I should probably say "I totally would have done awesome if I had been there."
Anywho, Sunday the 3rd I did a nice mid distance ride w/ a buddy who just moved down here. This is such a great place to be a cyclist and he is learning the routes/roads and i thought I'd take him out to show him a route or two.
Monday the 4th was a different story. I met up w/ some local fast guys and hammered out 2.5hrs w/ them. As much as I want to make a killer "4th of July fireworks were being blown" joke, I'll pass on that one . Suffice it to say it was a hard ride. But one of the aforementioned fast men was throwing a small get-together when we got back in, so it was nice to throw down some "cookout food" as soon as we finished.
In other news I guess I've decided I am going as fast as my legs will push me on my TT bike so I have to see how many MPH's my wallet can provide.

Though not full on legit disc, I bought a cover for my rear TT race wheel. It was $100 compared to ~$1,000(++) for a good disc, so it will hopefully return some cheap speed. We shall see. The State TT champs are 1 week away and I have generally been working hard for several weeks now; I'm in need of rest. I'm going to take it easier next week in hopes of hitting the State TT full-on. Then after that I plan to take a legit rest week.
Swimming has been going, well, swimmingly (lame joke, whatevs). I've been going at least 2x per week and I feel really good in the water. I still have general body pains and aches, but I do still believe this a big step in the right direction to alleviate hip/neck/back pain(s).
I'll keep you posted. Thanks for reading!

On my own

2011-06-26T21:21:00.004-04:00

Well I don't talk about my cycling coach much. Mostly because I find it terribly lame when people feel the need to talk about their coaches all the time. But I have been working w/ a guy for a couple of years and he's moving up and on in his career as a coach. He basically coaches on his own, but he's a pro cyclist and knows a lot of good workouts. Plus he lives in the Indy area, so he understands what I have to deal with in terms of weather (so he's not sitting in California in Feb telling to go out and do a 4hr endurance ride). The price he charges is waaaay lower than any other coach. (period) One might say it's too good to be true and can't last forever...that person would be right.
Anwho, since he got picked up by a top coaching firm, his price is tripling. And I can't hang w/ that. So I'm going to have to start fending for myself. Sure, it's nice to have a week's workouts in my inbox every morning, but I feel like having been coached for a couple of years that I am well enough equipped to make due on my own.
I got some good workouts and my swimming in this past week. It's only been a week of swimming (4 sessions now) but I rally think this is going to help me overall with flexibility and strength of secondary muscles. And I'll have one of the fullest tans at any bike race.
As my own coach I do feel very in need of a rest week. But i have the State TT in a few weeks, so I need to plan w/ that in mind. After that I do plan to take it a little easy and start looking ahead to CX.
It has been raining a lot here, and while that sucks for many reasons, it's good for this little tree that friend and I planted in our front yard.

Rolling the dice at French Lick

2011-06-19T09:49:00.005-04:00

This weekend was the DINO MTB race at French Lick Casino Resort. Dice were being rolled inside and outside the gambling floor. It was a rainy, stormy morning and no one was really sure if this race was going to happen or not. There were no updates saying it would be cancelled, but none saying it was on either, so we rolled the dice and headed for the venue.
It rained the entire drive down, but stopped when we got there, about an hour before start time. Needless to say the trail was a muddy mess, but the race was on.
This race starts on the driving range of the golf course, which was mostly standing water; it made for an interesting first few minutes.
Our race was 3 laps and about 3/4 of the way through the first lap another storm came through and it poured rain for about 20minutes or so. We were in the woods, so the rain was hampered by the trees, but the train was running water in many places. Then after it stopped raining the course turned into thick nasty "peanut butter" mud. It was a tough day.
I rode well and squeaked out 2nd in my race. I entered the woods 5th (I think) and moved up steadily and even led for portions. But in the end the winner put about a minute into me; he's faster than me. I had a good race though.

The problem w/ these kinds of races is they pretty much mandate a bicycle overhaul afterwards, which is a pain. (side note: the night before, even before it started raining I put on wet condition tires just in case. Look at my tires in the above pic: they're totally clean while everything else is covered. Score on tire choice!)
In training news I officially began my assault on low back/hip and shoulder/neck pain today: I started swimming. I swam for about 10years of my life, but haven't been in a pool for laps" in about 7yrs. I swam around 1600meters today which is about a mile. I have to admit, I felt really good in the water and swimming felt great on my body. I'm going to try to get in 2-3 sessions a week from now through August in hopes of strengthening my neck/shoulders and hips/hip flexors. I'm kind of excited about it, I mean, I look dynamite in a 'speedo,' so why wouldn't I be? Plus I really think it's going to do me good.
Time will tell...

Peace and Love my Brothers and Sisters

2011-06-14T10:28:00.004-04:00

This is what I've felt like for a week now. Not because I haven't showered and stopped wearing shoes, but because my right hip has been bugging the crap out of me (get it, "hippie?") Okay, lame joke. But last Tuesday while doing some high intensity intervals the muscles of my right hip flared up. These things happen and I try not to worry much about it; and this particular 'tweeker' has gotten better every other day or so, it's just taking longer than usual. I my general hip issues are a perfect storm of cycling, standing at work, leaning, lifting, sitting, basically being a living human. Bummer. I will say this though, today, one week from the inception, I feel much better than any of the previous days. Let's hope it lasts.
This passed week wasn't all that eventful on my end. Same old/same old. Of course that's only on my end; there's a girl missing from this town. Very weird situation. I can't help but think there's more going on here than a run-of-the-mill abduction. There's a lot of people on this case though, they'll figure it out.
As for me, I just rode and worked. That's about it. This week will be similar. Though tonight is a Tuesday Night Time Trial (let's hope my hip can hang w/ this) and this weekend is another MTB race.
I had just one 40k TT planned prior to the State Championship TT, which I would rather have more than just one, but the one that fit into my schedule got rescheduled for after the State Champ race. So that makes 0 opportunities to race 40k before the States. So I'm thinking about going up to the Monrovia 40k course and doing one on my own just to get the effort/time in. We'll see.
That's it for now. See you's!

DINO MTB BCSP

2011-06-06T10:29:00.003-04:00

I think I use that post title (or something very similar) once a year, but for some reason a big long string of letters abbreviating something kind of cracks me up.
Anywho this week's lead up was to the DINO MTB race at Brown County State Park; my first MTB race of the year (and really my 2nd MTB ride of the year). My fitness is good, but I was a little worried about my ability to handle a bicycle going 20+mph on a trail. But I made major equipment changes this past winter/spring so I was excited to race on my new setup.
This off road race starts on a ~1/5mile road climb; a nasty one at that. It would be hard enough on a road bike, but racing that climb on knobby tires and w/ suspension is way difficult. But I'm pretty confident in my road climbing so I wasn't overly worried. Plus I know there's usually 1 or 2 guys who shoot up the first pitch like a rocket, only to blow sky high shortly thereafter. So I rode hard and stayed in good position, but didn't panic when people going mad; I just stayed steady-hard. I went into the trail in 3rd position and quickly took over 2nd. I held second for most of the first lap but was being closed on by someone. Heading into the second lap I let him pas me, but held onto his pace for a good portion of lap #2. He eventually gaped me on a decent and I settled into my own rhythm in 3rd place. In about the same place that I was overtaken the previous lap, 4th place was breathing down my neck. We were close enough to a climb that I did not plan to let him pass, as I assumed I could climb faster than him and re-gap him. However, as I was thinking of all this my under-seat bag (which is probably 12years old) was coming un-velcro'd form my seat. Next thing I knew it was in my wheel and I had to stop to get it out. Boom! there I went onto 4th place. I tried to shove the bag into my jersey pocket but it wouldn't fit. So I had to get the straps sorted out and re-attach it. Boom, boom, boom, there go 3-5 more people. I considered just tossing the bag, but I KNEW 100% of I did that I WOULD get a flat requiring me to need the tube and air canister in it. So I got it on and started chasing. But the damage was done. I ended up 8th. But I wasn't unhappy with that. I rode really well and felt really good.
When I got in I heard that Lindsay had won her race straight up. That pumped me up. For us mortals it takes a long time to get good at bike racing; there's just so much involved. She says her field wasn't as stacked as usual, but maybe she's starting to get it.
Sorry I don't have any sweet photos, but no one really takes pictures at DINO races anymore.
My training is becoming a little more focused on the State Time Trial championship, but I'm going to do a few more MTB races through the summer. It's pretty fun really.

TT bike seems to be working

2011-05-22T21:06:00.004-04:00

I rode two TT's this week. And finally busted out the aero lid for the year. Tuesday was our local Tuesday night training TT at Morgan Monroe State Forest. The weather was less than ideal and I was totally on the fence to even go. It was cool and wet; kind of a misty rain (that'd make a sweet stripper name, "Misty Rain"). But I had an offer for a car ride home afterwards, so I decided to make it less of an exercise of bike riding and more an exercise in making myself do something I didn't really want to do which is important in endurance sport. So I went out, sis it and posted a pretty good time. 50sec off my best, but in the conditions that were present, I feel pretty good about that and think I can PR this year.Plus I got a ride home (in a car) which was awesome because it was cool an wet, you know 'Misty Rain.'
Today (Sunday) I went over to Seymour for a TT in their local series put on by the bike shop there. There are two courses off the same start line, one flat and one w/ a climb. Today was the climb course. I try to do a few of these every year. They have a god course and it's something different. I was off my course PR, but felt really good. There was stiff headwind out and a headwind on the climb, but then a big push from the tailwind on the return. I set the fastest time here today by about 6minutes over 2nd. Good hard workout. I'll take it.
The forecast for here this week looks like it cold be a total shit fest. If not I plan to ride the MTB Wednesday. I'm going to do some MTB races coming up here and i would like to have put at least some time in on the dirt. I have good fitness, but I need to ride the bike too.
On a side note, I decided I'm going to swim some this summer. I'm not 100% sure when I'm going to start, but I'm thinking July sometime. My plan is to swim 2-3days/week for a few months to help strengthen my back/neck/shoulders before I start cyclcross this year. I was a competitive swimmer for ~10 years, but that was over 10year ago now. Point is I have technique, just no swim fitness. So I don't have to learn anything, just suffer through the first few sessions. I have enough friends who swim that I should be able to find people to go with and maybe it will even be fun/refreshing. Only for supplemental cross training though. Don't look for me in the triathlon circuit.

Just training

2011-05-16T20:21:00.006-04:00

Last week was just training. After the week prior being mostly a bummer due to being sick and the race weekend being something of a disappointment, I wanted to get a good solid week of training in so that I knew I was still capable (it's crazy how a bad week can kill your confidence).
I bounced back pretty good and was able to solidly knock out every minute of every interval for the week and feel good doing it. And I had a pretty hard week.
The temps here were unseasonably warm all of last week. It was in the 90's one day and in the 80's the rest. I ride pretty well in the heat usually, so I was fine. I had a work meeting Tuesday morning so I had to get out that evening which I generally don't prefer (riding in the evening). But local hammer Erik Hamilton had a teammate in town so a few of us went out and did some solid hard vo2 intervals. That was my first hard session back after not feeling good the week before and I felt really good that set.
I did two more solid-to-hard days during the week, then the weekend came. And the temps dropped. And it rained. But I wanted to cap the week w/ a solid paced long ride Sunday. I was able to find two other local hardmen willing to go out for 3 or more hours in the rain/50*. So we did. We didn't ride particularly hard, but very steady. And we faced a stiff wind in the face out of the north for a long period of this ride. And it rainded the entire time non stop. Long steady cold wet windy miles will wear on you. And my body is sore from the day. But I'm glad I put in the time. We ended up riding a climb which is a road that is never in good condition, but was in terrible condition due to all the rain we've had. We've climbed it anyway and since it was my great idea, I had to be the only one to get a flat on it. Que cera.
I'm going to get out the time trial bike this week and look into some legit suffering. I'm behind of where I typically am in terms of time trialling this year. There's a local 10mile TT tomorrow (Tuesday) and then a local (in Seymour) 20k TT this weekend. I'm planning to go to the Seymour event if the weather isn't bad.
Then I'm going to do some MTB racing in a few weeks. It's hard to even think much about MTB riding w/ the rain we've had, but it's coming soon enough.

St Leon + The week leading up to it.

2011-05-08T10:09:00.008-04:00

That's my week and my result. Dumpster.

I hate making excuses for bad performances, so I'm going to get this out of the way first: I've been battling a chest cold all week. I don't feel super super bad, but my immune system is definitely on the ropes and I haven't had quality sleep for 5 nights now. My nights have mostly been 2-5hrs of coughing bouts, then finally falling asleep for a few hours, then waking up coughing again... My training for this week was so/so at bet, which isn't a huge problem because I have a solid base, but still a little unnerving.
So we headed to St. Leon. This race suits me and I usually do pretty well there. Very weirdly though, on the car trip over I started feeling nauseous. I haven't felt nauseous at all this week while sick so it struck me as odd. My guess is it was just my system being "off kilter" and the motion sickness symptoms creeping on me (I don't really ever get motion sickness BTW) .
Anywho, it was raining when we lined up to start and I really had no idea how I was going to fare.

I had my teammate set me up to hit the climb at the front of the race. A few kamikaze pilots took off around me on the climb, but I wasn't worried much about them. I was feeling okay, and started to look for a move. A few came and went quickly and then Ryan Shanahan went. I know he packs a lot of horsepower, so I jumped as hard as I could to get up to him. Once I made contact we were gone. We did 1 lap w/ just the two of us and we got over a minute on the field. Then on the second climb Jon Atwell bridged to us making it a 3man break w/ some real firepower.
Us three worked together well and got 3-4minutes on the field. As far as all were concerned, the race behind was for 4th...so it seemed. I came unhitched from the break midway through one lap to go. We had enough of a gap that I wasn't overly worried; I should be able to hang on to third. I kept riding but I was slowly dying and quickly slowing. Still though, I reached the bottom of final climb alone and couldn't see the group behind; I still had hope. But no legs. I went up the hill the final time at 4-5mph turning squares. But I was still clear of the field...until I reached the top.

I was picked up just as I crested the climb and I didn't even have enough gas to get on a wheel to ride the ~1mile to the finish. I limped in for 17th after spending 2.5hrs in a breakaway. I fell apart like I've never fell apart in a race before. That's the breaks though. Sometimes when you go all in you loose. Andi lost big time. I do believe if I had gone in healthy I would have hung and had a better day. But ending a week of sickness w/ 3hr hard road race is putting your fate to the wind.
Oh well. The results sheet are all that really matter in the end and I have a terrible result. But I put in a great effort and great ride.
Today (Sunday) I made the explicit plan to do nothing but rest all day to get rid of this cold. I took two naps and just sat around all day. Hopefully I have this thing licked.
I don't have a lot of racing on my calendar for May so I want to get some quality training in. This race (St. Leon) always feels like the end of the true road season for me. From here it's mostly criterium racing around here and I don't generally care for criterium style racing. So from May on it's typically the odd road race I can find but mostly MTB and TT racing for me. Then after a couple months of that it's time to be thinking about the Cyclocross season. One step at a time though. It needs to dry up enough to be able to even ride MTB's, let alone race them!

It's seriously wet outside here

2011-05-02T21:01:00.005-04:00

Screenshot of Southern IN's radar. This was taken 5/2, but could have been taken pretty much any day of the last 6 weeks (though some days there wold have been a lot more red).
I was looking for record data but not having much luck finding it. I have to believe this was one of the wettest Aprils on record. One fact I did find while looking for that was that May is the wettest average month. We're in for it if that holds.
I had fully planned to go to Seymour for a 20k time trial this past Sunday. I got up to another rainy day and asked myself "do I really want to pay $4.++/gallon of gas to drive ~1hr to race my bike for 20min in the rain?" The answer was "yes I did," but "no I wasn't going to" (which means I didn't want to bad enough I guess). I figured my time would be better spent going on a long ride, even it was a long ride in the rain. So I did a nice ride w/a friend even if it was raining from door to door. I do feel as though I've developed a small chest cold though. I am coughing some and not psyched on that.
One positive thing the crap weather has brought though is that most of my Monday recovery rides have been done inside on rollers. What's positive about that you ask? Well, after Saved by the Bell over on TBS, I can now flip over to ABC Family channel and watch Grounded For Life for the remainder of the spin. That show wasn't on long, but has a great cast, great format and is a very funny show in my opinion. I liked it and thoroughly enjoy it in rerun.
This week is supposed to be the start of the Morgan-Monroe Time Trials here. Of course rain is forecasted for the first one. We'll have to see if we can pull this off or not.
If you've had your head in a hole you might not have heard, but Osama Bin Laden was killed. And Americans are pumped. Was he an evil man? Most would say 'yes.' Did he mastermind the murder of many innocent people? It seems so. Is the world better off with him gone? Probably. But I have to say the way people are celebrating his murder is kind of sickening to me. I mean, yes the guy probably should have paid with his life for his intrusions, but what kind of people celebrate the murder of anyone? I know what kind of people: psychos. It's one thing to fell a sense of relief that that the leader of a terrorist network is removed but 1) it's entirely different thing to party about the fact and 2) it's silly to believe that the terrorist organization can't/won't carry on w/out him. Just my thoughts, non bike related. Weather dry up so we can get to riding!!!!

Stormy racing

2011-04-24T21:32:00.009-04:00

This weekend was a stormy affair, but racing in the Cinci-nasty area all the same. Honesty I almost didn't go. Night before the race Bloomington had tornado sirens, crazy wind, crazy rain and all that. Mostly 1-2am to boot (I had to get up ~5am). Looking at the radar when i got up, those storms were heading east and not moving particularly fast. So I was going to drive following the tornadic storms to go ride a bike in them, right? Check. Problem was I pre-registered. I wasn't about to loose $20 for safety's sake or any other sake for that matter...it was on.
I'm glad I went. It turned out to be a pretty nice day and an ex excellent race course.

(early on. group was still kind of big)

I had never done this race before, but I've heard it's a tough course w/ lots of climbing. So I was excited for it.
Given the storms that had rolled through, the roads of the course were a mess. Tons of water (running across the road in several places) and all kinds of debris. it was pretty bad conditions, but that's what you get sometimes; you can only roll with it.
(these two pics are taken in sequence, we've thinned it down quite a bit. This was the break for most of the race)

The climb was ~1.5miles and we basically started at the base of it. I could tell from the start I was feeling good. I had a teammate in the race w/ me and he and I race well together, usually w/out ever even talking about it. We both have a good enough tactical sense that we usually know what each other is doing. He's not a 'climbing specialist' though (and we were climbing w/in ~2min of starting) and I didn't want to end up missing out on a move in the first lap, so I rode toward the front from the gun just in case. The climb was 5+minutes long and as expected the group was splitting the first time up. I'm finding myself more and more being what Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggit used to call a rider like Thomas Voeckler, a breakaway artist. I am consistently finding myself in the break and/or am getting the break going.
Anywho, I think the break was established on the second lap (of five) and we whittled one or two off in the remaining laps and ended up w/ 5 riders.

(this is probably leading into the final lap I had to take off my glasses because they were so covered in road spray that I couldn't see a thing)

I felt good and thought my best chance was probably to lead up the final climb and set a hard tempo until ~300meters out then go. I thought if I set a hard enough tempo it would minimize the chances of the others attacking me on the climb. With ~200-300meters to go I ramped up the pace from "solid, hard tempo" to uncomfortable, and as the line approached I was overtaken. I didn't really feel like i had another full-on burst left, but I gave it a go and finished 4th. I really feel in hindsight like I didn't go full gas and probably could have given more and probably have won. Coulda, woulda, shoulda...It was a good race regardless and an awesome course.
The weather for this week's training looks like total sh!t. Going back a few days our forecast is 6 days of "severe storms." WTF? I'll get in what I can though. I plan to time trial this weekend.
I think this post is long and I'm now even boring myself (which happens when I start a pot one day and finish it the next), so until next time: thanks for reading my lame-ass blog!

Wind tunnel testing

2011-04-17T18:45:00.003-04:00

Not really. I didn't test at a wind tunnel per se, it was just windy as a bastard out today and I rode a power test.
I fully planned on time trialling today (Sunday), but the weather this weekend was not great. It wasn't terrible either, but Saturday was 40-50deg and rainy all day; miserable day. It set a bad stage for Sunday. I decided that if it was above 50deg when I got up to get ready for the TT I would go, under 50, back to bed. It was in the high 30's. It's not that I'm a total wuss (or rather not ONLY that I'm a total wuss) but being in a time trial position pushing as hard as you can on the bike for an hour or so can be bad for your body. And I don't want to acquire a new injury for no good reason. So back to bed I went.
But I rode my TT bike 3 days this week and I figured I'm ready to race. (sweet shadow pic of me on my TT bike. I have a behind-the-seat bottle holder for training because I can only fit 1 small bottle on the bike and barely at that)
So I decided to go out and do a power test since 1) I've needed a good test for a while now and 2) I was race prepped, so no reason to waste it.
I've experimented w/ a couple of different courses now w/ border line embarrassing results on one and consistent good results on the other. I chose "the other" and will continue to do so.
I rode easy out to the start point realized I was going to have a nasty headwind coming back on the test course. I would normally prefer a slight headwind to test, maybe 5mph. But this was more like 20mph, pretty major. Due to my stature and lack of raw power I can't really push huge watts into a killer wind, but I was committed. I got to it and felt really good starting out. But once I got into the wind I felt like I was coming unglued. I felt like my power was dropping and I was really struggling. But I kept going. When I finally finished I was just 3watts off of my personal best. So it was a god test. I felt good enough and it was nice enough day that I went out for another 1.5hrs of riding. All in all I had a good day.
This coming weekend is the first MTB race of the season. There's also a road race I'd like to do and they're on the same day. I'm not sure yet what's going down, but I'll do one or the other.

Racing...the weather?

2011-04-10T18:20:00.010-04:00

This weekend a teammate and I went down to Somerset KY to race the Mt. Victory RR. It was rumored as a very hilly race, (from the event's website: ...consists of two good climbs, several hills, many rollers, a few flats, and great scenery) so I kind of wanted to do it. I opted into the 3's race (as opposed to the 1-2-3's) for a couple reasons: 1) the 3's was paying out and the purse was only $50 less than the 1-2-3 race and I have a better chance of doing better in the 3's. 2) My teammate reg's for the 3's, so I figured it be good to do the same race as him. And 3) my back was still bothering me some from the weekend before and the race was shorter.
The weather called for 50% chance of thunder storms. So we were winging it for the most part. It was sunny and ~70+ deg at the start line, so I wasn't complaining...yet.
(I don't ave any race photos yet so I'll throw up this pic of some flowers popping up in our yard)

We got going and I could tell w/in about 10minutes that I was feeling really good. I decided that I was going to be aggressive and try to get something going in this race. My teammate Scott and another guy took off early on and stayed off for several minutes. I decided I was going to counter hard as soon as they were reeled in. The field was all together and I wanted to whittle it down. When they were caught, I went, but the group was on me so I sat up. We hadn't hit the big climb yet, so I figured I'd be better off conserving some and trying to split things up on the hill. Prior to the climb we descend (I know Issac Newton would think this is weird and I did too, but I guess we gained enough elevation rolling that we actually went down before going up) And the descent was long and fast (50+mph).Once we hit the climb I went to the front and rode a good solid tempo and split the field down to about half (it wasn't a big field to begin with, so it was about 8 of us left). hat was too many for my liking and while about 4 of us were working, we had way too many passenger's and baggage; I wanted to split it further. But w/ people sitting in and a few of us pushing the pace, I knew it wasn't going to happen until we hit the climb again.
Second time up the big climb I again went to the front, but this time it blew things apart. Only two others were present by the end and they seemed plenty strong, so we started working together and drove that breakaway of three of us to the finish. Once you complete the loops (we did 2) that contain the big climb/big descent you turn off the loop and have a 10mile section to the finish. This is where things got interesting. Almost the second we turned off of the loop the sky darkened and it starting spitting rain. Bummer, but no big deal. Then the wind starting picking up fiercely. Sucks, but whatever. Then it started to hail. Big hail. Like ping pong ball size hail. And it hurt when it hit you. Add to that trying to ride 25mph and things were getting nervous. The hail didn't last long, but it was enough to shake me up a bit. With all of that, the 10mile road to the finish line seemed to go on forever. Furthermore knowing my madd sprinting prowess, I knew that if I took these two guys to the line w/ me, I was very likely going to be third on the day. The finish was at the bottom of a small descent and I remember there was a cone at the top of it. As soon as I could make out that cone, I took off. But my break-mates were on me and as I expected (and possibly because I expected) I got third on the day. However, the "fun" wasn't over. The finish line was in front of a fire station and as we crossed the line people were yelling for us to get into the fire station ad against the back wall. Why? Oh, because there was a tornado warning.
So it ended up being a pretty epic day. Great racing, excellent course, I felt great and it was the first time I've ever needed my helmet to protect my head for hail!
I was reminded of one of the bummers of winning money at races: waiting around for 1-1.5hrs to get paid. That part sucks.
Pretty happy with my ride and the weekend though.
I think it's time to start some time trialling next weekend. Looking forward to racing the TT bike.

Disappointing "race" weekend.

2011-04-03T18:32:00.007-04:00

This weekend of racing started like most others. Saturday evening is a quick 45min-1hr ride to open up the legs for the coming effort. Then gotta get everything packed and ready. Get the race wheels on the bike and the car loaded. Then eat a whole bunch.
Saturday my back was hurting more than normal all day at work; no huge thing, it happens. When I got home and did my openers session I felt really good, so I wasn't too worried.
Sunday when I got up I felt better than Saturday, so I was feeling ready to go. But when I started stretching (which I do every morning) my lower back was giving me sharp shooting pains. It hurt to stand up and it hurt to sit down. I wasn't sure I wanted to drive to a race, pay to race and have my back limit me and possibly make me quit. I decided to not go race. I hate doing that. I hate not racing when I plan to.
But I wanted to ride. I didn't want to waste the entire day. My general theory on back pain is (I'm) better off doing something to keep moving than lying around all day getting stiff. I have no science to back this up, but it makes sense to me.
I had n option to go mountain biking, which seems like a bad idea w/ a messed up back, but the plan was to ride easy, so I figured 'what the hay,' and went for it. I felt fine riding, but I can't really say it made me feel any better. But I really needed to get my MTB out. It needed to be shaken down. The bike worked well. I need t make a few tweeks and I broke a spoke, but otherwise I'm happy w/ it.
So that was my weekend. W/ my computer being infected, my personal info being stolen, all the crap I am having to do w/ the bank to get that squared away and my back getting screwed up, I think I had a pretty terrible week last week. My life is basically sailing and generally great, so I guess a reality check every now and again is probably good. Let's just hope that it's lesson learned for a while. As of now (Monday am) my back is better, but not as better as I'd hoped it would be (like 100% better). I'll be fine soon enough...

I'm Me!

2011-04-01T09:35:00.008-04:00

I'm me people. Just if there's confusion.
This week has actually been pretty crazy for me. I had my identity stolen and have been dealing w/ all the fallout that follows that all week. Well, I guess it's not really stealing if you give it away right? Long story short, I was duped by a pretty elaborate virus on my computer. I feel like a total idiot in hindsight, but this thing perfectly mimicked my banks website and asked me to confirm sensitive info AFTER I had (supposedly) logged in. Anywho, I had cancel all of my accounts and open new ones, cancel my debit card and get a new one, changed all UN's/PW's, spend shit-tons of time at the bank, monitor my credit (to make sure lines of credit aren't being open/used under my name) and take my computer to the repair place.
As of now no financial damage has been done; just hassle. I'll keep my eyes opened for a few weeks to make sure nothing funny is going on, but it seems to me an ID thief would work really fast to get your money/credit before you realize it. Luckily I had my account access shut off w/in minutes of realizing I'd been had.
To top off all that good stuff the weather has basically been shit this week. Which means my training has followed suit. It's been cold, grey and has even snowed some. I've tried to salvage something of a training week, and I've put in a few miles, but as for a purposeful week, it's basically been a throwaway.
I did get a new component set for my MTB. I got my old road group sold (finally) and had the money to update my MTB.

I have been running a ghetto set up 2x9 set up for years and decided to go ahead and get a legit 2x10 system now that they're refined and readily available in configurations under $2,000. I don't have it fully set up yet because in true Sram fashion it was missing parts that have to be sent to me separately, but I expect to really like it once I get it going.
As I flipped my calendar over to April I see MTb racing, more road racing and even TT racing. I don't feel behind on fitness in any regard, but I haven't ridden my MTB since probably August of last year and I have only been on my TT bike a couple of times. Good news is I have felt good on the TT bike. I'm excited to race it. I'd like to get out on the MTB soon to 1) give it a good shakedown and 2) give myself a good shakedown on it. I gotta put that up on my to do list for real.
I'm going to go race road this weekend in OH. I'll hit up a report when I get back.

Weather up/down (spring time!) and Schababerle RR

2011-03-28T08:05:00.006-04:00

This weekend I went down to N/E Kentucky (just south of Cincinnati) to do the Schababerle road race. I've heard about this "spring classic" race for year but have never done it. The weather has be typical spring this week; totally crazy. It was noce and mostl warm early in the week and spitting snow late in the week. The forecast for the race venue (and here) went from 1-3" of snow to 2-4" of snow then back to 1-2". We got a very light dusting here, and that's all the race town got too.
It was cold though. And w/ temps changes come winds.
Looking at the race all the names I knew on the pre-registered list for the 1-2-3 race were people I race with/against in all other disciplines. And if that had been the field I would have done pretty well. But what I didn't count on was a bunch of "pure road racers" showing up day-of.

(climbing that hill)
The course was very tough. It has 1 flat stretch of road that is maybe 2miles long. After that you hit a road maybe 3miles long that is brutal climbing. Then it's narrow, rolling, open-to-the-wind road for the remainder.

(me coming unhitched w/ one to go [looking down is a sure sign of defeat]. I would regain contact, but quickly loose it again w/ in ~5minutes)
My real goal was stay toward the front so 1) I didn't get caught behind dropped chains and stuff on the climbs and 2) so if a move went off the front that I thought I could go with, I would be in a position to do so.

I made the split every time up the hill (except the final times of course) but the moves off the front were too much for me. I settled into the group pic'd above and we made a valiant chase, but a big Cat 1-2 road team showed up w/ several guys, so they were the major players. They made good moves and got the break ~3minutes up the road so were really just hoping to pick up remnants of the break away.

We picked up a few of them, but 4 or 5 stayed away. I came completely unglued w/ 1 lap to go and I flogged myself for while to get back on the group, but it wasn't happening, so I just shut it down and rolled in it to finish. I ended up 10th and am pretty happy w/ that. Doing a 1-2-3 race w/ out being on a big 1-2 team is risky. Plus this course was brutal and the wind and a high temp ~40 made it even worse. The first race of the year is always extra hard and this was 3hrs of mostly torture. It can't get much worse, right?

(this was not a terribly uncommon sight. The "actual hill" was at the end of a 2-3mile road that was nothing but up and down. And I'm guessing the big hill itself had a ~20% grade in its vicious mix)

In other totally unrelated news I have been needing to do laundry and I realized there are cloths in my dirty basket that I wore to the Park Tool Summit which was Jan 24-25. I'm pretty sure I haven't done my laundry in 8-9 weeks. I think that is a new record for me. I'm a little proud of it, but not really.
More racing for me this weekend in OH. My favorite pro race of the year, Tour of Flanders is Sunday too, but I'll likely have to miss it to go race myself. I missed my second favorite race, Ghent-Wevellgam this weekend, but I made it back in time for the end of the Supercross from Canada. I did miss the F1 race from Australia though. This weekend is Moto GP, Supercross form Texas and Flanders. Sacrifices...
(all photos courtesy of Jeffrey Jakucyk)

Time's a changin'

2011-03-21T09:41:00.006-04:00

Thanks to DST that is. I think being away and w/ no real schedule whatsoever during the dst change screwed me up. Or at least set me back a week or so of being used to it. I'm struggling to get out of bed, dragging ass in the a.m. and eating dinner really late. I gotta get my act together.
I've done a few easy rides and one longer ride since back from TN. I think I'm still a little fatigued from the trip and stacking 3days in the mountains, but I think the gains lie beneath the fatigue. I'm going to do some shorter duration but higher intensity intervals coming up this week, then get the cobwebs off and race this weekend. It feels like forever ago since I've raced a bike and it's been 3months. Which is actually a pretty long time. But I've done several hard rides and several group rides and a few hard group rides, so mixing it up in a RR shouldn't be too big of a deal. Of course it's never me I'm worried about; it's the other guys who seem to have attended Señor Sketchball's School of Bike Riding over the winter.(not sure who this is, but I did a google image search for "senor sketchball" just to see what came up and this guy came up as "Dr. Sketchball." He's clearly a Simpsons character, but I'm embarrassed to say I don't know that I've ever seen him. Nor can I find any info on him after doing a google search for "Dr. Sketchball Simpsons." Something's fishy.)

Anywho enough Simpsons nerding, spring is definitely here (as of 3/20!) which means crazy up and down weather is afoot. So far it's been mostly up, so whatever. But I've seen a few IN springs in my day and I know it's probably not done snowing here yet (yes, I said it). And even though it's very wet here already, it's going to rain like a bastard yet. But I'll roll w/ this 70/partly cloudy as long as it's here...

TN TC 11

2011-03-16T22:41:00.005-04:00

This past weekend and the early part of this week my friend Josh and I made our (pretty much) annual trip to Josh's brother Jake's house in Eastern Tennessee to ride bikes for a few days in the mountains. Tennessee Training Camp (TN TC) we have come to call it.
We left Saturday morning to get down in enough time to do a little ride Saturday evening; just a quick little hour or so to spin the legs before dark. We got that in and done and were planning a biggish day in the mountains for Sunday.
My friend and local B-town hammer Erik Hamilton just happened to be in the area doing some riding himself. He had been down since Friday and knowing he doesn't really know the area I though it'd be a good idea to have him meet up w/ us since Jake lives there and knows all the routes. So he went us for Sunday's ride which took us over two mountain passes, one being via Butterfly Gap which is a relentless 15min slugger. Hamilton is fast and everyone knows that, but he really impressed me w/ his climbing. Don't label him a "crit rider" too fast; he may upset you. Anyway, we put in ~3.5hrs w/ ~5,000' of climbing. We did some gnarly descents too. My descending ability has gotten significantly better all of the sudden and I don't really know why. Nor do I care why, I'll take it and roll w/ it.

(Josh climbing the Parkway)
Erik and his lady, Caitlin took off after we rode Sunday and Monday Jake, Josh and I did a killer ride called The Homestead Loop that goes over a mountain pass that has a vacation housing addition plopped right on top of it called Homestead. The addition, Homestead, has a bastard of ac limb to get into it, then rolls a bunch until you hit 2 ~24% gradients back to back. Then it's peel-you-eyelids-back descending out of the addition (really fast, scary, sketchy descending).
The you roll along mostly flat roads until you get into Smoky Mountains National Park, where you climb over another mountain pass then ride the rolling roads home. Great ride. Probably my favorite there.

(Jake and Josh w. mountains in the background)

Tuesday we wanted to do something shorter (we'd done 3+hrs the past two days n a row) so we just rode to the top of the Parkway and back. It's ~2:15 and only 1 mountain pass, but much more steady of a climb (the climbs, generally ended up being 15+minute threshold intervals).
It was a nice little ride, but Josh flatted his front wheel which had on it a ~5-10yr old tubular tire. So he turned around and started to head home on a flatted tubular. There's only 1 person I would trust to able able to safely ride a flatted tubular down a mountain and that's Josh. He made it all the way home on a 100% flat tire (one of the advantages of a tubular is it can be ridden flat, but he rode that thing ~15miles flat and ~4 of those were descending where if you let off your brakes you immediately go ~40mph!).

(driving home)

Wednesday Josh and I were heading home so we all went out for a quick little easy spin in the morning. We woke up to the news that Nate Dogg had died, and Josh had Snoop's "Doggie Style" in his truck, so we had to bump that coming home.

We had a great time. The weather was really great for once. It has rained every day of every time I've been there (that' not an exaggeration either, every single day). It rained for part of one day this year, and it stopped when we rode that day, so we didn't get rained on at all. Plus we went into Knoxville and I'd never been into Knoxville proper; it's a nice place. We had beers at a downtown brewery had pizza (and more beers) at a place called Barley's. There was a band playing there too, but they were taking way too long to get ready and they didn't look at all like bluegrass, so we ditched out before they started. Really fun time though.
Holy crap, this is getting way too long. My apologies. If you stuck it out this long reading, thanks (and sorry).
Now it's back to work, back to "normal" bike training and probably racing next weekend!!!!!!

"...and if your ass is buster 2-1-3 will regulate."

Pain in the neck

2011-03-06T11:09:00.004-05:00

This week was coming off a recovery week for me. I can't say I felt "all rested" etc, but I had a super solid week on the bike. I had two good hard interval days, one which I did inside on the trainer and a really good 2hr ride on Wed. I met up w/ a solid group of hard men today and rolled a good 4hr. It was a hard ride, but not a slug fest. I was a little worried about riding long today because I woke up Friday w/ a very sore neck; like it hurt to turn my head. As the days have gone by (Sunday now) it is better, but still a little bummed. Not sure what happened. I have been having neck issues for months, and maybe I just slept wrong on it, but it was pretty bad. Like I said, it does still hurt, but is much better (2 days later).
I don't have a whole lot to report outside of that. Things are just gliding along right now.
I did figure out a way to impress my garbage collector. Have a recycling bin full of Campagnolo boxes.
His mind will be blown. Probably not. But mine would if I were a garbage collector.
We're scheduled to leave at the end of this week for our annual trip to TN to ride the mountains. I guess there's some inter-family drama going on w/ our host (nothing major), but all should fall as planned. Then I may finally race the weekend after we get back (the 19th). The guy who promotes the race is a total idiot, so there's a good chance it won't take place. We'll see.

Good week for recovery

2011-02-28T08:26:00.008-05:00

Last week was a scheduled recovery week for me. The weather last week turned back to not-so-good, so it was nice to have the option to sit it out. Actually, the weather turned pretty much back to normal, which isn't really that bad, but given that it was in the 60's all the week before it seemed terrible. Anywho,I took a couple extra days off and was supposed to do a power test on Friday. I had every intention of doing it, until I woke up Friday and there was fresh snow on the ground and it was ~freezing. A lot of people do their testing on an indoor trainer because it removes all outside variables (wind, hills, cars, turns, etc) but I prefer to do it outside because having done them both inside and outside I know that I post higher numbers outside. And your training zones are calculated off of your test numbers and I want my zones to be set as high as possible. So snow + freezing = no test.
I had in mind to get it done Sunday since the weather looked pretty good. I hate to "waste" an entire Sunday of riding to get in a 20min test (to do it properly you have to ride to your "test course" waaay easy, ride 110% totally ballistic for 20min, then all you can do is ride easy (limp) home), I would rather ride a good solid 3+hrs on most Sundays. The weather was such that I could have gone ahead as planned, but there was a good solid strong group rolling for 3+hrs and I wanted to join them. So I blew off testing again. Whatever. I'm not pro and don't get paid. I do what I want.
And in other weather news, nuts to Punxsutawney Phil and groundhogs day; a sure sign of Spring around here is "moose day." The best lil ice cream shop in B-Town opened for the season today (2/28). Did I go? Hell yes I went. Did my hands freeze as I was eating ice cream while wearing a coat and hat? You better believe it. Was it worth it? Big time.
Other than that it's bi as usual. Ride, work, etc.

A Little Spring in Feb.

2011-02-17T22:35:00.005-05:00

With all the mysteries of the great classic works of art trending, I noticed a message that not even the greatest art scholars found in "The Last Supper." Clearly Da Vinci was trying to tell us something.
(click on pic to see what is revealed)
It's quite clear when you really look, he plainly wrote the letters "A" "D" "A" "M" with the spaces between the characters and the with the sleeves of another. Take note art historians and biblical scholars; I'm awesome and it's been right there in front of you all these hundreds of years.
(real point is: you can "write" just about anything you want into this painting, hidden messages? Give me a frickin break)
Speaking of absurdities: I rode outside every day this past week. And they were quality rides too, not the novelty outside Feb rides where you're like "yeah I rode outside, it was 12* and I couldn't feel my ___, ___, or my ___ (insert various body parts here), but I was out damn it!" Those rides serve no real purpose (but I do them too). This week was off the chain as far as the weather is concerned.
I kind of wanted to ride the MTB Sunday, but it rained a bit Saturday night and w/ the ground already soft it would have been a bad (muddy) idea. So I decided to go out and ride my TT bike for a couple of hours to get a good feel for the position. You may recall (assuming I posted about it..) that I got a new TT frame earlier in the year (well late last year I guess) and I've not ridden it outside yet; just on the trainer. I was treating it as a standard "shake down" ride meaning I had no real power/speed/pace, etc. ambitions and enough tools in my pockets to make just about any adjustments that may seem necessary. My plan was to stay aero for 10minutes at a time, then get out of aero for ~3min (unless I got to any big [2min+] hills, then I could get up for those) and I figured I would have to be forcing myself to stay down for the whole of the 10min intervals. To my surprise and delight, the bike felt really good, I made 0 adjustments and I had absolutely no problems/issues staying aero. I did and out-and-back route and it was very windy going out and very fast coming back. My power was actually pretty good though, which is promising. Only issue w/ the bike: my right calf hits the water bottle sometimes. This may turn into an issue, or it may not. When I go hard I tend to pull my right knee inward, so I'll have to ride it some more at a hard effort and see if this will be a problem. If so I may have to get one of these sweet devices. Or modify my aero helmet into a sort of beer helmet.
So this week isa recovery week for me. I'm going to take a couple days off and do some easy riding later in the week. I'm tired and the weather is not as good this week anyway. My form is pretty good right now though, a recovery week will be nice; to "absorb the fitness."

Celebratory Weekend

2011-02-13T21:51:00.005-05:00

This weekend saw great weather (for February) and some good riding around here. I normally take Saturday off from riding to pursue my true passion of working, but this Saturday was a "farewell ride" to a good friend and an important cog in the Bloomington cycling community. We met up for an 80mile route that I had never done before, but been curious about for a while. 80miles would be my longest ride in a while and the low pace dictated that this was to be one of the probably top 3 longest rides (time wise) I've ever done (I rarely ride over 4hrs).

But a large showed up and it was so nice out that it made it seem extra easy. I guess 50+ riders showed up to "send off" our friend Gerraint Parry. Just in this picture at a mid ride stop there's like 17 bikes and there were a lot more the lens on my cell-cam didn't get. It was a big ado.
Anyway, I felt really good and although the pace wasn't high, it's probably good to get in a long steady ride every now and then as opposed to the normal hammer fests. (note: my Power Tap hub batteries died before we even left town, so I have no usable data from this ride [similar note, my Power Tap head battery during last weekends ride, so I have little usable data from that{but now all my batteries are fresh}])
In the evening after the ride a bunch of people met at Nick's bar on Kirkwood for a get together in Gerraint's honor. This was my first ever night out at a Bloomington "college bar" while school's in session. It was a fun night and good to hang out w/ so many people.
Sunday I went up to Noblesville to the CIBA bicycle swap meet to try to sell a bunch of stuff. I had hoped to make $500-$600, but I made more like $200. I should have taken it as a bad sign when one of the first dudes I talked to used the phrase "Jewing down" for getting a better deal. It blew my mind to hear that from the mouth a person not wearing a white robe/hood, but I guess it's not too far from Martinsville.
Anywho, while I'm way too keen to think the weather is turning, the long-range forecast is looking favorable for outside rides, so I'm going to take full advantage. It couldn't have come at a better time as I was having good indoor workouts, but I was close to cracking. This little reprieve may end up netting me a couple more solid weeks of inside rides if need be.

inside-out

2011-02-05T18:59:00.008-05:00

The weeks lately are predictable for the most part: weekdays inside, weekend days out.

I've been putting in some solid indoor sessions and getting a quality outdoor session (on Sundays) for the past few weeks. It's become habit-enough that I'm not even thinking in terms of outside riding during the week.
I have good mojo right now and hope I can maintain it for a few more weeks. I'm thinking I have ~two more solid weeks of indoor riding in me, then I'll crack. But hopefully I'll be able to get outside by then. If not I figure I can force myself into into one more week of inside, then it HAS to be outside time, right? Well about a week after that arbitrary date I've set we head off to our annual "training camp" in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains. Then it's basically go time.
I have my schedule pretty much hammered out in terms of races I plan to do, but it always changes. I have kind of had a hankering to ride MTB lately too. I usually have ridden once or twice by now on frozen trails, but I've not ridden MTB since mid August; damn, that's a long time. It'll likely end up as it usually does: my first MTB ride of the year is a race in which I have great fitness, but no skills and no real confidence. Que cera.
This weekend is looking like a winner so far. A friend is moving to England in a few weeks so he is having a "farewell ride" Saturday that I may try to ditch work and hop into. And Sunday will probably be more of the same.
Plus our new 2011 team clothing arrived and I should have mine in a day or two. There were some big changes to our scheme this year, so it should be cool.

Weekend, CX worlds, etc.

2011-01-31T10:28:00.005-05:00

I made my last post late last week because I was gone early in the week, and this past weekend wasn't over-eventful, but for the sake of a post I'll throw sumpin down.
I considered setting an alarm to get up a 5am to watch (live) the women race the World Cyclocross championships in Germany. But I was so sure Katie Compton (of the US) would win that I didn't bother. I got up a little before 8am to watch the men race, but checked the wmns results first. Katie lost. Got second. Man, she has been on fire this whole year and couldn't get it done on the most important one of them all. Bummer.
The men's race was good and Jon Page (of the US) was cruising in the front group, but apparently flatted in lap 3 and was out of it. Still a good race to watch though.
I'm sure 0% of my ~4 readers came here for a commentary on a race that happened a few days ago half way across the globe, so sorry.
Later Sunday there was group ride and big group rides are good this time of year. Several people came down from Indy (including a teammate of mine) and we all set out for ~3.5hrs. Temp was near 40, but there were some nasty winds blowing. I tried to take the front in hard wind sections to force myself into working hard. It ended up being a pretty good ride and wore me out just the right amount. I really dig that people drive down to ride w/ (us) here in B-town. It makes me feel so good about living here. That people who could pop out of their own garages and be riding choose to drive for ~1hr to ride where (I) live is awesome and says something about Bloomington. It's even better when the weather is more favorable and we can hang out after the ride, instead of changing clothes and staying inside to warm up.
Today (Tues) I had to go to a health screening thing for insurance. I had to fast for 12hrs prior, which sounds like a big thing. But I realized after doing it and getting home that I regularly don't eat for 12-14hrs anyway (from ~9pm-10 or 11am). It did cut into my riding time though by setting me back about 1hr. So I skipped riding today, but I think I'll be okay. Besides rumour is we have some heavy weather coming in the form of ice. So it's going to be all inside riding for a few days anyway.
I also took the time to read this entire interview. It took me about 3hrs to read, but the interview took 7hrs to conduct. It's Paul Kimmage of the London Sunday Times talking to Floyd Landis. Kimmage was a pro in the 80's on the successful RMO team and wrote the first book addressing doping in cycling, "Rough Ride." He's a good interviewer (not afraid to ask tough questions, follow them up, etc) and a good one for the topic of doping in cycling, having been there. If you're as intrigued as I am about doping in cycling, it's a must read.

Park Tool Summit (road trip to Chi-town)

2011-01-27T22:05:00.004-05:00

This past weekend I journeyed north to The Windy City to take in the Park Tool Summit which is a two day (Mon/Tues), 9hr (+ lunch and other breaks)/day hands on training conference for bicycle mechanics. It is broken into 3 3hr classes per day put on by people who represent different companies where they give you step by step hands on experience w/ their product(s). It was a cool set of seminars and I had fun hanging out w/ friends that either were there for the summit and/or live in Chicago now. Plus I got to sit in a class w/ this guy who basically IS Park Tool. Having only seen Calvin Jones in pictures and never meeting him I figured he was a total weirdo and probably a pompous know-it-all. He's totally down to earth and really funny/personable. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover.

(I didn't take many pics there, but this is the Shimano class room)

I stayed at my brother's place in Chinatown, just south of downtown and the event was at an airport hotel, so it was ~1hr to get there w/ traffic. So w/ the commute and the schedule of classes I was gone most of the time, but I still got to hang out w/ Evin and Lisa and their daughter Ramona. And Sunday night Evin and I got some good Chinese food in Chinatown square.
So w/ the trip I missed a couple days of riding, but no big deal.This turned into a scheduled "rest week" (as if traveling, sitting through classes all day, etc is "resting"), so I'm back at it next week.
It was a nice little trip but I'm glad to be back/ Now I'm getting the details down for our annual spring training camp in Knoxville, TN.

Unchained

2011-01-16T20:48:00.007-05:00

Not only a killer Van Halen song, "unchained" was how my Sunday ride ended.

Notice what's missing in the above pic.........my chain! Mechanicals suck but they happen to us all. I was on a solid group ride w/ ~8 people and a little over 2hrs in I felt something not right in my drivetrain. I couldn't pin in down at first, but after I was able to notice its consistency I new it was the chain. After slowing enough that I could eyeball it I could see I had a link plate popped loose and I knew it wouldn't be long until it snapped completely. I thought if I could totally "baby-it" on any incline I may be able to ride it home. The first "decent hill" after that it snapped and I was calling for a ride.
Luckily the sun was out and the temp wasn't terrible, being stranded in the middle of Jan has the potential to be dangerous. I struck out w/ my first two lifelines but was able to get a hold of a friend just as she was leaving work, so she came and scooped me up. I had to wait nearly 1hr form break to ride, but it was no big deal really.
What amazed me most was the number of people in big ass trucks or SUV's that drove right past me as I was walking w/ a bike in ~32 weather on country roads. Nobody even stopped to ask if wanted a ride (which I would have taken at the early point before I had gotten a hold of anyone). Like, what did these people think I was doing out there, cross training?
Anywho, I'm not complaining much, I still got in over 2.5hrs of riding; which I'll take considering the rest of the week was indoor riding.
This week looks like it may deliver more opportunity for inside riding too. We'll see. This coming weekend looks to be okay so far, but I'll be gone. I'm going to Chicago for the Park Tool Summit, which is a two day hands on series of classes/seminars put on by bike companies for "professional" mechanics. I know some people who went last year and said it was pretty good and worth going to. The actual classes are Monday and Tuesday, but I'm going up Sunday. I'm going to stay at my brother's place and hang w/ then for the few days while I'm there. If I'm going to get myself established as the "cool uncle," I'm going to have to see their daughter more frequently. She's ~5months old now and I can't risk her starting to form memories w/out me there wearing a beer helmet or some other various "'cool uncle' party attire" (like douchy neon Ray-Ban style sunglasses).
So that's bout all I have going on. I think I race in about 6weeks. It seems like a long way away, but it'll be here before I know it. Fucking bring it.

Fatty guy

2011-01-11T20:44:00.006-05:00

That's my sweet word play w/ the word "fatigue." Get it; fatty guy? See I figure if you're a fat guy, you're probably tired all of the time, so this must be the origin of the word "fatigue." Okay, maybe not. And I haven't put on any weight, but I'm feeling exhausted. I'm having trouble getting out of bed in the mornings and feel as though I'm dragging lately. I think Lindsay's surgery ordeal took a bit out of me, w/ traveling and sleeping (read: being awake all night) in a chair in the hospital AND trying to work out through all that wore me down. Now that I'm home and back in a routine, I'm feeling the effects of it all.
I did manage to ride outside everyday last week (except Sat, which is a no ride day for me). I had some decent quality rides for the weather. Friday I had a 20min power test scheduled. I way prefer to do these outside if at all possible. I told myself if it was above the mid 20's, I was doing it outside. It was 29, so out I went. By the time I got to the course I was using it had started flurrying to boot. Sweet. I cranked the test and was pretty miserably cold, but got it done.
Then Sunday I set out w/ the local flahutes for a 3:30-4hr ride on mostly unpaved roads. It's a ~100k route that goes around the NE/E/SE sides of Lake Monroe including hunter access "roads" that are under water most of the year. Most of the rest of it is gravel roads. Gravel roads are hard in general, but these in particular had relatively fresh gravel that was huge. I'd say the stones were about half the size of (a) fist and very hard to ride on. We were on them for well over an hour. Add to all this that it was freezing or right thereabouts and most everything was snow covered, and the ride gets the nod for the distinction of epic. What was even more epic though, was how bad my back and neck hurt the following day; it was not pleasant. I slept on a heat pad Monday night and felt better Tuesday morning, but man it was rough.
On a totally unrelated and off topic note:
I picked up a bottle of Dave's Gourmet brand Ghost Chili sauce. The Ghost Chili is the hottest pepper in the world, and this sauce is no joke. I mixed some of this about the size of a dime into ~3-4 table spoons of other BBQ sauce and it was very hot. Not un-edible hot, but hot.
And speaking of hot, while the outdoor temps here aren't terrible, it has snowed like a bastard. There will be some indoor riding being done this week. Right now I'm tired, but motivated, so I have to ride this out as long as I can. Then crash and rest for a couple days. Wish me luck!

Hospitals, driving, worrying...

2011-01-03T20:29:00.006-05:00

My post-Christmas week was a doozy. I can't complain much, I wasn't the one "in" the hospital, rather I was just "at" the hospital.

(I got Lindsay a cat at the gift shop to make her feel a little more at home I really think it helped some)

Being "at" the hospital sucks though. I spent 3 nights and 5 days there. Lindsay spent 5 nights and 6 days there. But she was drugged out for 3 or so of those days and I was totally straight.
I somehow managed to toss together a reasonable week of workouts despite driving back and forth to Indy, sleeping (read: not sleeping) in chairs and/or waiting rooms and dealing w/ the general concerns that surround pancreatic surgery and the recovery that follows.
I had to improvise and use what I had to workout while at the hospital. I ran stairs (ran the first day, but the second day I was too sore to run them, so I more like walked them), did core stuff, did push ups and tried to walk around as much as I could. I rode every day I was home, be it on the trainer or outside if possible and managed to squeeze in almost 10hours of training time, which isn't too bad.
Obviously, our New Years eve was spent in the hospital. We had a "veteran" nurse who has worked every NYE since 1971! She brought sparkling grape juice for the other staff and the patients that could have it. Lindsay was cleared to drink whatever at that point, so we were able to toast in 2011 in a hospital bed w/ grape juice. It was nice and surely memorable.
Lindsay has been a serious trouper through this surgery and I believe she's going to come out of it much stronger. She certainly be much lighter. Not that she needed to loose weight but as if this writing, I'd guess she's consumed ~1500 food calories in the past 8 days.
Finally, for those of you who read my lame-ass blog year after year I'll hit you w/ my 2010 stats: I have 426 training hours (8:02 av/week) and 5,819 recorded miles. My mileage isn't totally accurate because my MTB and CX bikes don't have odometers, so there are miles ridden but not counted. I'd put my mileage right at 6,000 probably. My hours are pretty well accurate. There are a few missed hours where I accidentally deleted a workout before recording it, but it's basically right. My goal is always 500hours. I always have this goal, but go about my biz w/out really actively working toward it specifically.
Well, that's that. 2011, here we come.
Sorry this post is jumbled, but I had a ton happening w/ Lindsay being gone for so long and getting back home yesterday (Sunday), trying to workout, working my job and taking care of all the shit I have to take care of. I have to stay busy all the time, as those that know me know, and I have had no problems w/ that lately!

Return to the "dually"

2010-12-24T22:11:00.007-05:00

Hillbilly's call trucks w/ 4 rear wheels a "dually" (like this little slice of heaven). Many of them also call a full suspension bicycle a dually (like this sweet baby), but in reference to its being "dual suspension", rather than referring to the number of wheels it has. Anywho, I've owned two full sus MTB's in my day and liked them both fine. But when my last one broke, I opted into a hardtail as a replacement. FF a few years and last week I noticed my carbon hardtail frame was splitting on the chainstay from chaindrop. It's not a manufacturer's defect and hence not really a warranty issue, but I talked to "my people" at Giant (the best damn bike company in the biz, straight up) and got it taken care of. I opted to return to a full suspension frame this go-round. Aluminum though. Carbon fiber has many, many advantages as a frame material, but for the rough life of a MTB, I feel like aluminum is a better choice for a non factory sponsored chump such as myself. And as for FS vs. HT, thy both have advantages/dis's. HT's are going to be lighter (especially carbon ones) and climb better. But FS's are easier to ride overall. Descending on MTB is probably my biggest weakness in the discipline, and the point-and-shoot characteristic of riding a FS may help me there. The added weight may slightly hinder my climbing ability, but we'll see; I tend to gap people on climbs just to have them right on my wheel on the descent that follows. Besides it all, I don't really take MTB racing too seriously anyway. It's just filling time between road and CX seasons, right?

So, it's nearing the end of December (and 2010) and it has been a terrible December weather wise. Way more snow than normal and way colder than normal. I'm (publicly) hoping for a mild rest-of-the-winter. I haven't checked records, but I feel like my December volume is low. And I'm fine w/ that if I can ramp it up in the next 8 or so weeks. C'mon weather!
This weekend was Christmas. Lindsay and I went to my parents house and spent the day w/ my parents, my brother/sister in law and our (4month old) niece.
We had a nice time, but Lindsay's surgery lingers.
That brings me to today, the day before Lindsay's operation. Even though it was sub freezing and windy I went out for a ride knowing I'll be forced into a few days off the bike this week. We have to leave home ~4:15am to get to the hospital in Indy for her procedure. We have no idea how long it is to take, no idea how long she'll be "out" (literally knocked out) post-op and I'm still unsure of whether I can stay at the hospital for the few days I'll be sticking around to tend to her. I'm not sure if I can stay in her room somewhere, or I can crash in a waiting room or something. I have a few friends in Indy, so if all fails I don't have to stay in the car or anything, but I'm totally flying by the seat of my pants here; trying not to worry much about me since I'm not the one under the knife.
If you care to and can remember to, keep positive thoughts coming our way for Lindsay's operation to go well and her recovery to be good and fast.

Pedaling's pedaling right?

2010-12-18T22:24:00.007-05:00

We have had an extraordinarily cold and snow December thus far. And as such my week back riding has been spent in the basement.
On my Tacx rollers (My all time fav, the Sport Trak model, no longer produced [RIP])

And on my Kinetic trainer (still made, the best in the biz) (both pics lifted from manu websites; my shit looks waaay more ragged than this)

I also have resumed some weight lifting. I have learned to start off lifting very light so as to not end up hella sore. I'll probably do another few sessions at low weight, then get it ramped up to full capacity, which is still pretty frickin' light by most standards but hey, I'm trying to race bicycles over here, not look like The Situation.
I did get outside twice this week. I rode my CX bike on the road Friday and rode my MTB on the IU cross country (running) course and roads Sunday. The plan was to bust out the 5k course in the snow on MTB's w/ a few local hammers on Sunday. We headed over and got started and it was instant misery. Not the good kind of suffering misery that sucks at the time, but you're sure it's doing good, but just agony. Basically (I) was riding at pretty much full effort, going ~3-5mph and couldn't stay on a straight line if my life had depended on it. It doesn't take a math wiz (which is good, because I suck at math) to figure out that the 5k would take close to an hour. There's a convenient bail out about half way in that I took after probably a minute of varying positive, then negative self talk. I rode back to where we started, carved "'f' this--AR" in the snow w/ my finger so the others wouldn't think I was dead out there and left. I went out and rode the roads on my MTB instead. Riding MTB on the road sucks too, but it was a million times more enjoyable than what I had been doing.
So do I feel like bad and a wuss for copping-out on the workout? Yes. But when your goal is say, X watts for Y minutes and you're barely making it it's one thing. When your goal is mere forward motion and you're barely making it, it's another thing all together.
So this week is Christmas and then the following week is Lindsay's surgery. So my schedule's going to get mixed around and it will be spotty as to when/if I can train. So wish (us) luck and have a nice and safe holiday.

Cleaning, building, resting...Week Off

2010-12-12T21:05:00.006-05:00

With the CX season in the books, I took this past week (week of 12/6) off of riding, working out, etc. It turned out to be a good week to have taken off w/ wicked cold temps and residual snow on the ground. Toward the end of the week the weather got nice(r), but I'm committed to time off after a hard season. Besides that I had things to be done.
I needed to wash/clean BOTH of my CX bikes asap. I set out to do it Tuesday, but when I dragged the hose out and hooked it up, no dice. Or no water would be more appropriate. It was was too cold to run the outside spigot.
So I had to hook a hose onto the (inside) basement spigot and run it out to the garage and wash at the garage threshold. This worked for the most part, but both bikes froze over before I got them done and back inside. So I had to let them thaw/drip dry before I could clean them after washing. Ugg.

Then I had to clean my shoes, which I decided was a task better suited for the kitchen sink than outside. I gave them a quick "bang off" in the garage, then brought them upstairs for their bath.
I also had to "detail" clean both pairs of my race wheels. They were super dirty and cleaning them on the bike isn't really good enough. I was able to do this in the basement cement shower stall we have, so now everything's basically cleaned, lubed and put away. I may ride the CX bike still some, seeing as it's snowing rather majorly here, but it ~shouldn't~ get the kind of dirty it was.

I also made a total mess in the car. My bikes were covered in frozen mud w/ became not frozen mud (or mud as it's known) once the car got warm inside. It looked like a mud-wrestling ring in the back w/out the sexy ladies.
Our vacuum fits inside the back of the car nicely and cleaned it quite well.

Taking the week off I also had the opportunity to get my new TT bike most of the way together (it's a Giant in case you couldn't tell from the 5,000x it says it on the side)

No complaints about my old TT bike; it served me very well. But I just kind of thought it was time to step it up a bit. The Trinity has steeper angles and more aero tubing and hence should be faster. I rode my old one to some very solid 40k times and won the State TT title on it, and I feel like I rode it to its limit. Surely I didn't, but hey, a new bike is motivation to go faster, right?

Removing sticky-backed bar tape in a cold garage REQUIRES the use of a hair dryer. Trust me here before you even try it and save the hassle.
This week I am going to start some weight lifting (if you can call what I do w/ weights "lifting") and start back up riding mid week.
Lindsay is having some digestive problems and is going to have to have surgery coming up in the next week or so. This is going to mandate a hospital stay of up to a week and her not being able to lift things or generally do things for several weeks, so I'll be playing things by ear and taking them day-to-day until we get her back to 100%.
Anywho, be thinking positive thoughts for Lindsay and enjoy the holiday season!

Ft. Ben pic dump

2010-12-08T22:36:00.006-05:00

These are pics from Saturday's race at Fort Ben State Park taken by Chris Jones.

(A sequence of a run up. I have spent time this season working on my sweet "euro shouldering" technique. I got it down to where I can do it efficiently, effectively and without it being the worst pain I've ever felt)

(In a Marion pink-bike sandwich)

(this was the muddiest section of the course. It was hard to ride/stay upright just trying to ride a straight line)

(not sure if this is the finish or going through a lap)

(same picture; gritty version/arty version)

Brookside CX pic dump

2010-12-06T22:48:00.014-05:00

Here are some pictures form the Brookside mud/snow fest taken by Luther Prater and Andy Payne. I forgot to mention in the last post the amount of pain my feet were in once feeling started coming back to them post race; walking was difficult. My hands hurt very bad and it was hard to brake/shift (read: use my hands) for a lap or so ~2 laps in. But they stopped hurting and didn't hurt at all once I got warm inside, which kind of scared me. But they seem fine (as do my feet)
(the start)

(it was so muddy that my glasses were getting covered and I had to pitch them into the snow so I could see[I had to do this both days])

(approach to the stair run up)

(Josh and I rounding a corner before the off-camber downhill being cheered on by friend Will Shreman)

(back side of the course)

(approach to stair run up again. My face looks crazy because I'm yelling "other side" to the pits [it's a dual entry pit and I didn't want to pit before running up the stairs, I wanted to pit on the other side so I could ride and ride out])

(Josh and on the pavement. Most likely at the finish judging by our gritted-out faces)

(Josh leading on the back of the course. I'm either signaling to the pit or wiping my nose.)

(the Motley pit Crue going to town on my ice berg bike)

(more of the Motley Crue. The dude in the beer stein hat, Scott Perry, made it easy to spot whether or not our bikes were ready because all we had to do was look for a 6' tall beer goblet standing at the ready) You can see in the background of both pit pics that the people working the pits were busy.

OVCX Finale. End of the 2010 CX season

2010-12-06T08:16:00.003-05:00

This weekend was the finale` of the OVCX 2010 season. This year’s finale` was the Indy double cross weekend (Sat/Sun races). It was also the first major snow and serious cold snap of the winter season.
Saturday was new course at Ft. Benjamin Harris St Park on Indy’s east side. It was also an all day snow. It snowed ~4” over night and flurried and snowed heavily at times all day. The drive up was a little sketchy, but I made it fine and felt RTR (ready to race), despite the sub freezing temp. The course conditions were deteriorating rapidly as the other classes raced. Our race is the last of the day and by the time we took the course it was 100% mud. But because it was sub freezing, the mud just froze immediately as soon as it got on your bike.

So after 20 or so minutes, your bike was just a bunch of frozen-solid chunks of mud. And gears were freezing over causing chains to skip and jump, etc; it was a mess. But I was feeling good and riding well so I had to stay on task. Despite the epic conditions, I rode a clean race. I pitted twice (once to get my B bike which was clean, and two laps later to get my A bike back, which cleaned in the pits). Huge thanks to the group of guys who worked as a pt crew for my teammate Josh and I. Through all the freezing and mud and freezing mud I ended up 7th place; my NEW best OVCX E-lite finish! (last weekend being my previous best [8th])
I got home an had two bikes that were by most standards unrideable that need to be made ready to race by the next morning. It was already dark and I had a lot of work to do. Add to that my clothing that I needed to wear again the next day was covered in ~1’4” of mud too. That all needed to be dealt w/ Sat night.

Sunday was the race at Brookside Park in Indy, which is an OVCX and Indiana CX staple. The course had quite a few changes from years passed (for the better IMO), but was still Brookside. The snow stopped, but the temps were lower. So all the accumulate snow was going no where. Same as the before though, by the time we raced the course was a slick muddy mess.
I went in not feeling great. My legs felt kind of “flat” from Sat’s ride and the course was slick enough I wasn’t feeling super confident. But it’s the finale`, so all you can do is “go.”

I had a pretty good start and was picking off several riders in the first few minutes. It may have been the cold, but I wasn’t feeling my legs as being tired or heavy so I put it out of my mind and went. I went w/ the same strategy as Sat and rode 30min on the A bike>pit for the B bike>two laps on it (though I may only done 1 I can’t remember)>then get A bike back from pits clean(er). Another big thanks to those who “crewed” for Josh and I. I ended up 10th. Numb hands, numb toes…Great day.

Overall this season went very well for me. I set some goals prior to the season and accomplished every single one. They were to be in the money, get (some) top 10’s, not get lapped by Barry Wicks at Bloomingcross and later I made the goal getting top 10 overall. I finished in the money at EVERY E-lite OVCX race I did this season. Every one. I got 4 top 10’s. I didn’t get lapped by Barry Wicks (not even close) and as of this writing the overall isn’t posted, but I think I got 7th. What a great season. I feel as though I’ve set a high bar for next year, but I’m ready to try to jump it.

All of the above pics are from Ft Ben (Sat). I don't have any Brookside pics yet, but I'll throw some up when I get them.
I also learned this morning that I got the bronze medal in the Indiana State Championship! I left before the award was presented because I felt like crap, I was starving and we had been at the awards ceremony for a looooog time. What an awesome season!
Now it's a week (or so) off the bike completely (except for commuting of course). then I'll laof it through December, probably start lifting some weights, then get back at it for Spring 2011 (road season!!)
Thanks for reading.

Yellow Springs CX, Bad Start, crashes, okay race.

2010-11-29T08:02:00.010-05:00

This weekend was the OVCX race at John Bryan State Park in Yellow Springs, OH. It's a little over 3hrs of driving, so it's one of the farther races I'm willing to attend (I hate driving far [for any reason really]).
The day started, err, interestingly when I found out at about 1:10 that our race was at 2:00. Our race is normally at 3:00, and I take that for granted now and don't really pay attention to flyers. So I started to hussle through my warm-up/pre race routine to get going. Then it turns out they were running ~30-40minutes behind n getting races started (which is a HUGE amount of time to be behind), so that threw me off more, but put us closer to our normal 3:00 start. None of this is a huge deal, but I'm very routine oriented and being thrown off messes w/ my head mostly.

Anywho, it's a little colder over there than it is here. So the ground froze and thawed making the course muddy and slick. On the start grid I was slotted in the second row behind some people who just looked slow to me. How they were in the front row I'm not sure. When the start whistle blew, if you're not going 100%+ to the first turn, you're not doing it right. Up the paved start drag I was having to hit my brakes, coast, weave and be desperately looking for ways around the slower riders in front of me (which can be difficult w/ 30+ guys around moving at 25mph). I went onto the grass way back; not where I wanted to be. (you can see in the above pic how far back I am turning onto the grass)

(sand)

On the first half lap I passed a lot of people and got myself in a good position and was feeling really good. Then later in the first lap guy clipped a tree and crashed in front of me. I didn't go all the way down but was unclipped and had to get my bike off of his and resume chasing. Then at some point a few laps later I got caught up in the course tape and went ass-over-tea kettle (whatever that means). Regardless I was flat on my back for a few seconds. Course tape is surprisingly unforgiving.
My final bit of "bad luck" was occurring over a pair of logs across the course that were easy enough to hop over not requiring a time consuming dismount/remount>repeat. Problem was as I hoping them the downward force on my handlebars was causing them to slip down a little each time. w 2or3 laps to go they were getting uncomfortably low so I yelled to a friend that I may need my pit bike. If they continued to slip the bike would become difficult to brake, etc. He went to the pit and readied my bike, but I was in a 3-4man group and didn't want to pit unless absolutely necessary. I decided to kind of lift my wheels over the logs for the final two laps, rather than all out bunny-hop them to put less impact on my bars hoping they wouldn't slip. They didn't, and I didn't have to pit.

But that group became two and toward the finish was a long uphill drag before entering a few final twists, then the finish. I was the strongest on the uphill section by far and the guy I was with knew it, so he tried to attack me on it. I had 0 problem sitting on him during his attack and my thought was 'I'll let him burn a match here and take him when he's dying.' Problem there was I couldn't get around him after the uphill because it was too twisty. He beat me by a wheel (for 14th, BFD right?) I got 15th. In hindsight I should have attacked him while he was attacking me. There's no doubt in my mind I could have taken his place if I had done that. Coulda, shoulda...ahhh well, I ended up 15th, which is in the money.
Overall I was happy w/ my race and felt like I had a good day. I would have liked to finish a few places higher, but what are you gonna do?
This weekend is the final weekend of the CX season. It's the Indy double weekend. We race Sat and Sun. It's always a toss-up for me how I'll respond to the second day of racing. We'll see.
Then I'm due for a little break from training. It's needed.

Backyard CX

2010-11-21T10:50:00.010-05:00

This weekend I opted to skip the OVCX series race in Lexington, KY. It's just a little further than I want to drive. I went up to a local race instead just north of Martinsville in a not-yet-populated housing addition. A member of our team bought this big chunk of land and developed it for a housing addition, then economy tanked and there's one house on it (and I think it is probably his). So he let us host a cyclocross race on the property, in what will someday be someone's backyard. Hence the name, "Backyard Cross."

The weather was "they" call cross weather. Damp air, damp ground and 40-some-odd degrees. Cold enough that it sucks to be outside, but warm enough that you will likely overheat while racing making proper kit-picking essential and super difficult.
The course was setup w/ more "flow" than any course I've ridden. For those in the OVCX series, if King's Cross were tacky, it would flow about as good as this place did. And w/ the ground being tacky like it is right now, you barely needed brakes on your bike here; you could just let your tires do what they're made to do.

I felt really good warming up/pre-riding. And after one lap on the course I instantly loved it. I was starting to feel very confident. We had just 10 starters in the E-Lite race, so I was guaranteed a top 10, right? Sure but I wanted the win.

(riding the "run up." Oddly enough people were running down the downhill that turned into this uphill.)

We got started and I was 4th or 5th into the first turn. Riding on my confidence I stormed past people as quickly as possible and went into the barriers ~2nd. I passed who was leading then and punched it. I looked back and noticed I had a gap and thought to myself 'you're about 1min into a 60min race, you're leading w/ a small gap, keep going!' But on a long uphill section two Marion College guys came around me like I was standing still. Ouch. I clawed my onto them, but I had "burned a match" and knew I would pay. After the long uphill section was a log jump over (pic'd below) and on the log my teammate J.Prater got around me as well.

I didn't really know who the Marion guys were, but I know I've beaten one of them before. I was banking on them fading. They didn't. Turns out this race was decided in the drama of the first lap. Marion riders 1-2, JP 3 me 4th. Not where I wanted to be, but I rode very hard and left it all out there. That's all you can do.

As for the new bike (pictured), it's great. I really like the Sram stuff and the Avid Shorty Ultimate brakes are awesome. Plus I put on a Fizik Tundra seat and love it too. It's billed as a MTB seat. It's very flat and very firm. It works well for me; I can easily slide my weight around on it where I want it and because it's so flat it feels solid no matter where you're sitting on it. Thumbs up all around.
This week of course is Thanksgiving around here. Lindsay and I will make the annual trip to my parent's house and break bread (and turkey, etc). Then it's racing in Yellow Springs, OH on Sunday (the home of Dave Chapelle, yes).
Then just two more races (Dec 4, 5 is a double weekend), then it's off season training! I got a new TT bike. More on that later (it's not assembled yet).

The State of Affaris (in our basement)

2010-11-16T20:41:00.005-05:00

A friend's Facebook post got me thinking about how many bikes there are in our house right now. I'll lay them out here for you all:

3 commuter bikes
1- Lindsay's old cx bike "converted" to commuter.
2- My Giant Via SS commuter
3- My old (~1987) C-Dale full rigid MTB as my full-on winter commuter (I commute by bike every day [6/week] year round, so yeah, I have two commuters).

3 road bikes:
1- Lindsay's Giant TCR aluminum (shim 105)
2- My Giant TCR Advanced SL (Campag Chorus 11) (primary race/training bike)
3- My C-Dale CAAD 9 (Campag Centaur 10) (winter/rain training bike)

3 MTB's:
1- Lindsay's Giant Anthem full sus
2- Lindsay's Giant XTC 29 29er hardtail
3- My Giant XTC composite

4 cyclocross bikes:
1- Lindsay's Giant TCX women's (Rival).
2- My Giant TCX "A" bike (Rival)
3- My Giant TCX "B" bike (Rival)
4- My old Giant TCX "B" bike (Dura-Ace 9 mix) (currently trying to sell this one)

1 time trial bike (soon to be 2):
1- My Giant TCR Aero (DA/Ult)
Soon (this week) to be replaced by a 2011 Giant Trinity, the overlap of selling the TCR Aero will put us at 15 bikes (w/ two on the selling block)!
That's just crazy.
That's 11 Giant's too! How much are they paying me??? NOTHING! I'm paying them!!!
I'd post pictures of them all, but I'd probably crash the whole internet trying to upload so many photos!

New whip, murdered out awww yeah boooooyyyyy

2010-11-14T22:12:00.005-05:00

That's how I would describe my new CX bike if I were douchey. In fact, it's so murdered out that even the chain watcher is red.

I mentioned last week that I got anew "A" CX bike. I got it together and RTR (for the most part) and have ridden it a few times now. Pretty nice. It came w/ 44cm handlebars and I ride 42cm bars, so I have to replace those. The bars I intend to use aren't available for a week or so. So until then I can "handle" the "bars" (get it?).
Since I didn't race this weekend I changed my week structure up a bit and put in a week more similar to a summer week (though w/ lower overall volume). I skipped doing intervals this week, but did two good hard-ish ~2hr road rides during the week, which I haven't done for awhile.
Sunday I went out for a longer gravel road ride on the new CX bike. This is a great shakedown for a cx bike. because racing you're never on the bike that long, so it gives you a chance to really feel the position. Plus you get a lot of opportunity to use the brakes and shifting and stuff to see if any tweaks are required. The bike worked great and felt great. Plus I made it up McGowan road on the maiden attempt on the new bike. So I've now made it up that hill twice (riding) out of probably 20 tries. I found some info on Mcgowan rd (and some other doosies around here) McGowan climbs 250' in .27miles! And it's gravel! (I know I've posted about this hill before, but it's such a bitch). Anywho, I'm happy w/ the new bike is the point of it all.
Now I'm awaiting a new TT bike and then I'm done w/ new bikes for a while. Getting new bikes means selling old ones and while new bikes rule, it's kind of a hassle to have to prep and sell my bikes. Probably because that's what I do all day, then to come home and have to it for another several hours is rough. But I love what I do and love racing bikes, so whatever.
I use a TT bike a lot in season and I like to use it on the winter trainer too. I noticed the other day that not only am I the State Champion for Cat 3 in the TT, but I was checking some results and realized I'm the Indiana Race Series 40k Champion for Cat 3 also. This great distinction comes not even w/ a notification, so it's a pretty big deal.
Otherwise it's starting to get cold and will probably stay that way for a while now. Time for me to bust out the winter road bike and let my TCR hibernate.
Local (non series) CX race this weekend; the series race is in Lexington, KY and I don't want to drive that far.

Gun Club CX- Cinci

2010-11-07T21:53:00.008-05:00

What ended up being a good race and my best OVCX Elite result to date, started as a frustrating mess.
The Gun Club CX has traditionally been a good race for me. It's a "mountain bikey" course, and though I don't consider myself a MTBer anymore, I do have MTB background and can handle the bike fairly well (as evident in the pic below!)

I pre rode 4-5 laps and felt pretty good/felt pretty good about the course (pic below looks like a big smile at the camera, it's a suffer/concentration face really).

I was in the front row starting and they didn't have the usual "slots" painted on the ground, so it was kind of everyman for himself lining up. A Jr. racer who decided to do the elite race as his second race of the day poached his way onto the grid next to me. There wasn't really room for one more, but he put himself there anyway. I immediately got a bad feeling. The gun went off and sure enough the "kid" plows right into me causing a chain reaction to my left and a pile up ensued. To compensate for his left hand scurry he swerved right and cause another pile up on his right. I stayed upright, but had to unclip both feet and was behind right from "go."
----soapbox time-----
There are a few Jr's in particular (I wont' say names) that enter the elite races when they are, in my opinion, not ready for it. They may have the speed, but are out of there league. Not that I'm some superstar, but I've raced bikes for many many years and worked my way up. The one I'm talking about is one and there's another that has crashed into my teammate Josh in EVERY race he has entered as a elite. Weak. I don't know if their parents are making them race up (and multiple times/day) or what, but I have always said/thought that speed is only 1 small component of high level racing, especially CX where so much is required.
------off soapbox-------
So anywho, I got my shit together and started chasing like a mad man to get in contact w/ the group ahead. Little did I know the group ahead was the lead group. I was able to get on terms w/ said group and hung w/ the leaders (running in 5-6th place) for 2+ laps. That's pretty big for me. Eventually attacks occurred and things started to settle in.

I rode a good solid race and came in 9th, my best OVCX e-lite finish! It was a great day weather wise and I threw together a good race that I'm proud of.
In other (related) news, I accidentally got a new CX bike. I was planning on revamping my stable for 2011 season and the bike I planned to get wasn't to be available until Feb. 'No big deal' I thought 'I don't need it until Sept next year anyway.' Well my rep (Giant, of course) called me and said there were some in and do I want to go ahead and take it now? I said sure, I might-as-well. Sometimes ETA's keep getting pushed back and pushed back until a model just becomes not available, so I figured I'm better to get it now and know I have it then to wait and maybe not get it at all. So now I have a new "A" bike and my awesome orange Giant, which has been so good to me, will get a makeover and serve as my "B" bike. Pretty exciting, getting new bikes always is. Pics, etc. to come.
No racing for me this weekend and I'm kind of good w/ that. It's Lindsay's birthday this weekend and I could use a break.
(pics from Ohio's Jeffrey Jakucyk)

Was this post waaaay long? Sorry.

OVCX STG

2010-11-01T08:22:00.005-04:00

This weekend was stop #9 on the Ohio Valley CX schedule, Storm the Greens in Louisville, KY. As I mentioned last week the race was held at the old venue, which is a dormant golf course (hence "Storm the 'Greens'"). The defunct golf course is now a dog park. Yes there were frequent wafts of dog crap in the air and yes I stepped in some prior to lining up. Thankfully there (seemed to be) none on the course because having fecal matter flung into your face from a wheel in front of you would have been enough for me to drop out.
I felt pretty good warming up and pre-riding the course. But I don't really ever know how I'm going to fell during a race until I'm in it.
I got an okay start and felt pretty good for the first two laps. For the first time in my memory, the front of the race stayed mostly together for almost two entire laps. It eventually split up and separated out and I found myself in no-mans land between a group of two (8, 9th places) and another group of two (11, 12th places). I wasn't really gaining on the two in front of me and the two behind me weren't really gaining on me. I did have one (small) bobble that cost me a few seconds and 11/12 gained that time on me, so I had to ride head down to make sure they didn't gain any more ground. And I knew I couldn't make anymore mistakes.

That meant easing it through a few corners, but hammering on flats stretches. I held on for 10th place, which is my best result thus far in an OVCX Elite race.
I had a good race; I felt good and rode well. The above pic is my teeth-gritting going hard look. Plus that's along the fence of the dog park, so I had a bunch of dogs chasing me most likely (I did most laps). A cyclist can ALWAYS put out more power w/ a dog chasing him. So having this race at a dog park probably made for some faster-than-otherwise lap times, plus it was probably super fun for the dogs too.
This weekend is an OVCX standard in the Cinci area. It's a course I have historically done well at. We'll see how I fare at it for the hour. The season is starting to feel kind of long, but there's only 4 weeks left. I'm taking one weekend off (11/13-11/14), then doing a non OVCX race the following weekend, then it's the series finale' weekend in Indy.
Wheeew.

USGP Weekend

2010-10-25T09:52:00.008-04:00

This weekend was the USGP of Cyclocross in Louisville, KY. It was held at the new home of LV CX, Eva Bandman park, which as the sing notes will be the venue for the 2013 World Championships.
Me and some friends got a hotel ~1mile from the course and two of us went down Friday afternoon to ride the course before racing Saturday.
The course was awesome and a lot of really cool features. I've only raced on a handful of courses in the tri-state area, and I've only seen European courses on tv or the internet, but this looked like a true European course (which is good, because they hosting Worlds after all). It had steep downhills followed by short steep uphills (run-ups) and long flat fast sections connecting them and a couple sand pits and a "flyover" in between.

Our race is a combined Cat 2/3 race and as such had >150 riders in the field (which is waaay too many; they need to split this\is into two separate races). I had start #48 Sat and 50 Sun. So I was starting in 50th place both days, basically. The front row is all called up riders, so numbers start on the second row, w/ 8 riders/row. So I was ~7 row back; a pretty big deficit. I went in w/ the attitude "'ll do everything I can to start well, and if anything goes wrong in the start, I'll 'just ride it in.'"
Saturday I had an okay start and was moving forward the whole race. I managed to make it to 12th for the finish. I was able to latch onto a few different groups of riders and pick them of as the race unfolded. I was able to ride a clean race w/ minimal "traffic problems" and was pretty happy w/ the day.

Sunday went okay as well, but I got caught behind several crashes and/or botches. Add to that that I was feeling the previous day's effort and I had a worse day. I rode myself into 21st which is still okay, but not great.
All in all I had a super fun weekend though. Racing, hanging out w/ friends, etc. It was fun to get a hotel and make a weekend out of it. We spent most of the weekend hanging out w/ T O'D of Shamrock Cycles. We all went to dinner both nights in downtown Louisville, which is a really cool downtown.
So another USGP in the books. Looking forward to next year, assuming it doesn't interfere w/ Hilly 100 weekend. And w/ hopes of separate 2/3 fields.
This weekend it's back to Louisville for another OVCX series race. For some reason they're holding the race at the old USGP race site rather than using one of the country's only dedicated CX parks (if not the country's only CX park) and home of the 2013 Worlds. The old course is fine and all, but c'mon, we have gem here...
(photo credits to Luther Prater and Scott Bond)

Bloomingcross

2010-10-18T07:49:00.006-04:00

This weekend was the second annual hometown race, "Bloomingcross." The venue was new this year, at Karst Farm Park just West of town. The venue and the course were both great. I had an okay result, but somewhat disappointing race. I raced hard and left it all out there, but I got tangled up in the sand on the first lap and jammed my pedal hard into my left calf.

(the sand. Local home-slice Erik Hamilton passing through)

Sticking my pedal into my calf cause it (the calf) to instantly knot-up. This knot then pulled on my hamstring, which then cramped every time I had to take a step (which thankfully there was only 1 dismount on the course or I would have been totally hosed). So for the 30sec-1min after the barriers I was trying to shake out my hamstrings from crampage, which is not the way to be riding after a barrier section.
Eventually I resigned myself to walking over the barriers so that I could ride after them. My thought was 'I can run these barriers, then spend ~a minute trying to shake out these cramps, or just walk them and be able to pedal after them.' I think I made the right choice, though it really screwed up my race flow. However, before I figured out the "strategy" I was just flailing over the barriers and one time I stuck my right knee into my pedal while "high stepping." Needless to say I was falling apart and I eventually came unhitched from the group of 4 I was in (I was behind a Red Zone rider and it split in front of him, he couldn't close so I had to attack him to try to close, but I had to just watch the other two ride a way). Then a guy I've raced road/MTB/CX against for years made a final lap charge on me and I could only tell him "good job" as he dropped me.
I still finished in the money (14th), but I had hoped for a better hometown showing.
Today (Monday) I feel as though I've been hit by a bus; I guess that's good and means I raced hard.
Thanks to Chris Bohnam for coming out and everyone else too (except the food vendors, which there were rumored to be two and were actually 0).
This weekend is the USGP race(s) in Louisville. Being a Cat 2 means I'm likely to be starting in the back of a ~150+ rider field of Cat 2's and 3's, so I go into it w/ no real expectations and see what I can do.
Until then, I gotta get these legs feeling better and get going again!
(photo's stolen from Ren-Jay Shei thanks bro.)

Hilly weekend...another in the books

2010-10-11T20:37:00.005-04:00

Just like that, the Hilly 100 has come and gone. Which means two things:
tunnels of fall color in Southern IN

and sweet handlebar set ups such as this tasty little number:

Believe your eyes. It's upside down drop bars w/ aero bars; only at Hilly 100 (oh yeah, this is on a tandem to boot).

I changed up the routine last week knowing I wouldn't be riding at all this past weekend. I stacked three hard days (Tues, Wed, Thurs), which isn't that big of a deal really, but I haven't done back-to-back-to-back hard days on a few months, so I felt it for sure. I had my eye on the prize though, the anticipated fitness gains knowing that I would "recover" all weekend.
As for the recovery, working Hilly 100 is probably worse for recovery than racing. We are on our feet four many many hours over the three days and doing loads of repetitive "heavy" lifting. I'm sore in a lot of new places.
But we love working Hilly. It's a chance to see some people I don't get to see very often and chance to hang w/ my homies from Indie Bike Clothing store. Plus we make madd bank. And there's nothing wrong w/ that.
Now it's back to another ~8weeks of hitting it during the week and racing CX nearly every weekend. Boo-ya.

OVCX #2 Tour de Louisville

2010-10-04T08:00:00.006-04:00

This weekend was stop #2 in the Ohio Valley CX series, the Tour de Louisville. My week leading up to this past weekend was slightly different than normal because I had a friend/coworker moving from town and we got together after work Wednesday and ate/drank some beers when I would normally be at our local CX practice session on Wed eve. I went out to the practice course and did a workout on Wed morning instead, so I had a fairly normal week training, just in a little different order.
The temps have dropped here and it was a cold morning in Louisville. Luckily, unless it's sunny and 80+ I pretty much pack everything I own, so I had clothing down (I did have to change a couple times to get it right, but but that's better than overheating or freezing [overheating in this case]).
I got a front row start and got a good start once we got going. The course was super hard though and I don't want to say I struggled, but I I had a rough go at it. I didn't really come unglued, but I never really got focused and rallied. I'm three races in and still trying to hit my stride.
I ended up 15 and in the money. Okay place, though I didn't feel like I had a good race; I thought I did worse.
I have this weird aversion to eating on race days. I somehow convince myself I don't need real food. But the fact is I would eat considerably more if I were doing nothing all day. I need to start forcing myself to eat more before hand and to take real food with me and eat it while waiting around. I have been getting by on some cereal really early (~8hr before race), a banana later and a Cliff bar during the day. But on a normal work day I eat way more than that. It's totally stupid and I need to work on this because the last three races I've done have been over 1,000 cal/hour efforts. that's working very hard.
Anywho, this weekend is stops #3,4,5 of the OVCX and I'll miss all three. It's the big Cinci-nasty UCI 3 day weekend, but it's also Hilly 100 weekend here and I can't not work Hilly 100. So while I'm kind of bummed to miss the Cinci-nasty weekend, Hilly's always fun and lucrative.
So that's that until next time.
(I'll post some pics form the weekend of I can find some)

My weekend culinary tour of Chicago

2010-09-27T20:39:00.009-04:00

This past weekend I took a couple days off of work and training to go hang out w/ brother. It turns out what I mostly did was eat. And it was pretty awesome.
I got to Chicago on Friday early afternoon, and we took off on bikes to run some errands and just ride around. We stopped for a Chicago Dog at Jim's Original Hot Dog Stand. It has been there since 1939 or something and claims to be the original (though there is a stand next door to it that makes the same claim). Pretty killer regardless.
After going through downtown, around the UIC campus and back to Evin's old neighborhood, Wicker Park, we headed for dinner at Kuma's Corner. This place serves awesome burgers w/ heavy metal themes (if you look at the menu, I had the High on Fire burger). It was awesome, though they play metal so loud in the place that you have to yell to talk. We were able to sit outside so we were unaffected by it. But it's seriously as loud as a concert; awesome though.
We were out for ~7hours and were riding for probably 5hours. Not exactly training, but saddle time nonetheless.
Saturday I was basically up w/ the sun. So once we got going we walked over to a new park in their neighborhood of Chinatown. The park is an old quarry that sits aside a filled-in landfill that is the park. It was pretty neat. We walked up to the Pilsen neighborhood and got coffee at a good coffee shop that's name escapes me.
Once we got back to his place we had to get going so we could grab lunch and head downtown for him to teach a class. We got deep dish pizza at D'Agostino's Pizza which was awesome too. We got a tomato basil pie and I ate waaay to much of it, but it was so good.
So Evin went to teach his class and I just walked around downtown, the lake shore and Millennium Park. I walked around for close to 3hours, then decided I needed to chill for a while so I ducked into a Barnes and Noble to get off of my feet for a while until he finished w/ class. I had developed a vicious blister and some sore shins from all the walking and luckily we were traveling by car at that point.
We went next to the Roller Derby at the UIC pavilion. We oly had time to watch the first bout (of two) and unknown to us it was Chicago's B-team playing Indianapolis. Indy killed them by over 100points. It was an excellent event.
We went from the derby to pick up a couple of Evin's friends and went north to a Middle Eastern enclave and to a place called Chopal Pakistani Restaurant . It was really good. Evin and his crew are regulars here, even though it's ~30miles form where he lives. The dish of choice is chili chicken and it didn't disappoint. It was damn spicy though, and i payed the next day.
We got up Sunday and rode bikes to a Chicago landmark, The White Palace, for breakfast. I had seen The White Palace on a food network show a while back and wanted to check it out. As expected it was awesome and an awesome way to end my visit. I developed a hella stomach ache around this time though from all the terrible food I'd eaten leading up to my departure. Plus I normally eat mostly vegetables in some form or another, and my fiber intake was way lower than normal. I got things dealt with and headed home.
I made good time and had no hassles getting there or back. It was a nice weekend off of work and just hanging. I intended to kind of physically relax a bit too, but that just didn't really happen. But that's okay I like being active and if I hadn't ridden for several hours and walked for several hours I would probably have had to go shipping for new clothes before coming back because I likely wouldn't have into the ones I brought!
So now it's back at it w/ lots of racing over the next several weeks.

OVCX underway!

2010-09-20T23:00:00.004-04:00

I'm getting settled in to my CX training cycle. So last week was more of the same, as will be the next several. We got some good racing in this past weekend in the series opener for the OVCX.
My main goals for my first year in the elite races are to get top 10's and get in the money. This weekend I missed the top 10 by two spots (12th), but was in the money, so while I didn't fully accomplish both of my goals, 1/2 ain't bad.
I'm getting more used to the hour or racing too. I can tell my body's adjusting to dealing w/ such a high effort for an hour.

My teammate and good friend Josh had probably the best race he's had since he won the State title a couple of years ago on an frigid, icy, snowy day in Indianapolis (I was defending State champ and had about the worst race of my life). Josh hammered out a solid 10th and put together an awesome ride this weekend. Props.

As you can tell from the pictures (taken by Josh's brother and mom) it has been bone dry here. Hot too; not exactly what one thinks of when thinking about cyclocross. I like to "keep it real" and not race w/ water. That's what the hard men do. But holy crap it is so dusty and dry I feel less hard and more retarded for not racing w/ a bottle right now. I honestly don't even think about it while racing though. I'm sure I'd drink if I had a bottle, but w/out it it doesn't even occur to me.

This weekend is an off weekend for the OVCX, so I'm going to take a couple days off riding and go up to Chicago and visit my brother while his wife and daughter are out of town. I'm going to take my (new) commuter to ride around the city while he's teaching a class, but just chiller riding is all. Should be a fun weekend. I want to check out some pizza, a Chicago Dog, the metal burger joint and some killer Chinese (they live in Chinatown).

Barrier hoppin' etc.

2010-09-10T22:45:00.009-04:00

(photo from pezcyclingnews.com)
You have Cavnedish (left in pic, in green, levitating) hopping over finish lines in Spain, and here in the IN/OH/KY area we're hopping cyclocross barriers. This pas weekend was the season opener (for most) of the 2010 cross season.
About 1.5hrs south of B-town in Nowhere, IN (Starlight, IN actually) we raced at an apple orchard called Huber Farms. It was a pretty cool venue because there were tons of people there, but most of them were there for the orchard activities (picking pumpkins, touring the land, etc). It gave it a cool feel because all these people were just there and kind of got sucked into race spectating.
The course was cool too, weaving through rows of apple trees, but it's been so dry that it had some very rough sections; the type of stuff that makes you ~hope~ you don't break your fork or something going through it fast.
This was my first race as a Cat 2 and I have 2 main goals for the year and so far I'm 2/2. 1 is to not be lapped by (Ryan Knapp) the leader and 2 is to get top 10's as much as possible. I wasn't lapped, not even close, and since only 10 started, I was guaranteed a top 10 if I finished. I got 5th. Not bad. I was definitely a little "race rusty" but I felt like I rode pretty well and was overall pleased w/ my first fore' in "the main event."
Afterwords we decided to check out the restaurant on the grounds of the farm. It seemed like a cool concept, eating food from the farm on the farm, but the place was basically an MCL Cafeteria and everything was just trucked in; it was a total gimmick (and overpriced). Plus I was suffering from "effort sickness," which I so often do after CX races, and couldn't really eat anyway. Oh well, it was a pretty fun day anyway.
So with this past weekend being the season opener, this coming weekend is the series opener for the Ohio Valley Cross Series...here we go!

"That Guy" status: denied.

2010-09-06T14:54:00.007-04:00

Today (Monday/Labor Day) with no work I decided to change my easy ride up a bit and ride the CX bike out to the local mountain bike park and ride around there a bit, then ride back. I got that all done by ~noon, and what to do w/ the rest of the day? I thought it would be fun and a nice change to just go hang out downtown, etc. So I packed up the laptop into my sweet new pannier and rode over to a coffee shop fully intent on being the guy that sits there for hours on end weazing free internet. (note: I know that it's totally common and totally accepted to be "this guy" these days, but I've never sat at a coffee shop w/ a laptop, so I was nervous about looking douchy, when in reality you tend to look more out of place W/OUT a computer anymore). Anywho, the battery on our netbook was dead, so I didn't get the chance. Still though, I had a nice time just chilling out, people watching and walking around the town.
Yesterday (Sunday) I got out for a solid 2hrs in the a.m. and had a great ride. I felt great and ride strong. I got out a little earlier than normal for a Sunday because Lindsay and I went up and spent the rest of the day at my parents house because my brother, his wife and their baby were there. We had a nice day just hanging and had a good dinner w/ everyone.

(I snapped this pic last week of Griffey Lake. This is normally a small lake/reservoir and not a basin. It has been so dry here only that little stream is currently wet.)

The rest of last week was just more of the same; training, working...feeling pretty good though. Looking forward to racing CX. And that's good because it starts next weekend.

The Foundation

2010-08-30T22:00:00.003-04:00

The past couple of weeks (and the next few weeks) have been largely dedicated to laying the foundation for what I hope to be a good, solid cyclocross season.
The big news from last week is that I was able to ride up a hill that I have never been able to ride before.

The short back story is that the hill pictured above is a gravel road out east of town. I'm not sure how long it is, but not super long and while I'm not totally sure of its max gradient, I'd say it's 20%, maybe a touch more. That kind of grade is hard to ride no matter what, but throw rutted/loose gravel on top of it, and only select riders make it up this monster. Now, I have attempted this climb at least 10-15 times (always on CX bike) and never made it...until Tuesday. I chomped the bit and made it.
Sunday I went out for a longish road ride w/ a strong group of guys. We put in a solid ~3hrs and due to the heat, pretty much everyone started falling apart @ ~2.5hrs the heat and most of the group had ridden hard the day before). Add to that I got stung (by something) on the neck @ ~2hrs in. I'm not the kind of allergic that requires an epi-pen or anything, but I do typically have more-than-the-norm reaction to stings, so I was a little concerned about having been stung on the neck. Turned out fine though, it just itches and is red now; no big.
Sunday's heat made my legs cramp some (actually pretty badly) and I'm still not fully recovered from that now (Monday night), but I guess it's probably good for me to suffer and push through these things right now...first race is only ~2weeks away!

Baby pics, etc...

2010-08-19T21:11:00.007-04:00

Below are the baby pics taken last Sunday in Chicago at my brother and Lisa's place. What a fun day. She's ~4days old in these.

to those parents out there that DON'T have a Yoda hat for your kid, shame on you. Ramona clearly loves hers. (I'm going to go ahead and call it coincidence that Evin's wearing a Star Wars shirt in this pic)

Lindsay and I w/ the baby.

my Dad (Dave), Ramona and I. Lineage.
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I'm keeping well August plan of no intervals/just riding. Tuesday I did tag along on an interval session, but I just hung on/sat in; I didn't do any real efforts. We have begun our weekly Cyclocross training sessions, so I did that Wednesday night. I felt pretty good, and rode okay. The first CX efforts of the season hurt, but there's a lot more hurt to come. Plus the ground is SUPER hard right now due to the dryness. That makes for some rough CX riding. Today I rolled with some buddies that were doing some longer time trial riding. I just sat in mostly, but stuck out my nose on the climbs. It was a blisteringly fast paced ride; good for the legs.
I put my power meter back on my bike tonight. I've not used it for about three weeks but I figured I'd put it back on to get the feel for it again. Next week we're resuming "proper" training (i.e. the hard shit).
3 weeks until first CX race!

Totally Crossed out

2010-08-10T10:31:00.008-04:00

I may not be Kriss Kross, but I did ride my cross bike almost every day this past week. I put some road wheels on it and road it on the road, and I also put CX wheels on it and road it a on a couple different gravel road rides. Good stuff, and I need to get a feel for the CX bike again. I even spent some time riding on grass and doing some drills.
Friday I had the chance to ride MTB w/ a buddy/colleague who holds a Pro MTB license and has raced as an amateur in Belgium on the road, which basically makes him a former domestic road pro too. We just rode at a conversational pace for ~1.5hrs. It's been a while since I've done an easy MTB ride; it was nice.

This is a pic of Bernie Eisel getting some sort of cancer awareness band tied to his wrist. This picture rules because his eyes don't appear to focused on the ribbon being tied to his wrist. He's about one step away from being labeled the German Tommy Lee.

Sunday Lindsay and I met up w/ my parents near Lafayette and we all went up to Chicago to meet their Granddaughter, our niece and my brother's kid, Ramona. It was a long day, but a lot of fun. The baby slept most of the time; I guess that's what they do @ 4days old. We still had fun hanging out w/ everyone though. And there was an airshow going over the city and we could see some of it featuring the Blue Angels from their apt. And they live in Chinatown and I ordered a noodle/vegetable dish from a legit Chinese place and specified "hot" to the guy more than once. He listened. It was scorching, but killer.
There were some pictures taken of me w/ the baby. I'll throw them for y'all when I get them.

few days off...so fresh and so clean

2010-08-08T14:23:00.010-04:00

This week was dedicated to working on my bikes mostly. I took most of the week off, rode today and felt very refreshed; so fresh, so clean.
I took off four days and overhauled my "winter" bike so when the weather turns poor in a few months it ready to go w/ no surprises. Needless to say, it's so fresh, so clean. I also got my cyclocross tires glued, mounted and sealed. They're now RTR.
Prior to taking a few days off, I went out and did a 20min power test. My last test was in April, so it's been awhile. Heading out to my test course I had a slight headwind, which meant that when I turned around to start my test, I would have a slight tailwind. You do not want a tailwind when trying to lay down big power. Not only did it make it more difficult to produce power, but my speed was just enough higher than usual that I ran out of road w/ 5sec to go (meaning I got ~1/3mile further than previously). My power was 4watts lower, but considering losing 5sec and having a little push, I'm happy w/ that (my power was 4w lower, but my speed was 1mph faster).
I planned to take an entire week off, but it is just too nice so I decided to ride today for ~2hrs, but at a "conversational" pace (a pace that allows you to maintain a conversation w/ your buddy, assuming you can convince him to ride that slow w/ you). I felt really good and had a great ride. I took my power tap wheel off and plan to keep it off for the rest of the month. I'm going to "just ride" for August. Not that I don't enjoy riding w/ power, but sometimes doing workouts all the time gets monotonous and I am going to just ride and enjoy riding for the month. Back to basics.
I don't like the new Eddy Merckx bikes advertisement.

First, I'm not a cannibal. And second, it's kind of gross. Sure it's gross looking, but if you think about its implication, it even grosser (implicating that is HUMAN blood and flesh chunks on Boonen's face). Oh well, I would still totally ride one of the bikes its hawking.
Which reminds me, I built a new road bike. Giant TCR Advanced SL w/ my Chorus 11speed group on it. But I need to sell my old one which now has brand new Ultegra on it. Shout at me if you are interested or pass it along.

Late Registraiton

2010-07-29T08:23:00.009-04:00

I had to borrow (steal) the title of Kanye West's second album for this title.
Those that know me well know that my race (and in general) preparation is meticulous, even borderline obsessive; I just like to remove unknown variables and eliminate as many surprises as possible. So in a rare miss for the Rod-man, I found myself facing a $120 entry fee for a 15mile time trial. The story's long, but I missed registration for TT nationals by 1 day, but learned they have day-of registration...for $120! The breakdown is this: normal price is $60, which is a rip off for a 26k TT, "late early" reg is $85, which is larceny and day of is $120 which is out of the question.
Two of my pillars (or motto's) are "Winning occurs at the intersection of preparation, execution and luck," and "the first step to (athletic) success is showing up." Well, I kind of blew it on this one.
Que cera.
But to not let my training leading up to nats go totally wasted, I'm going to head out for a 20min power test on Tuesday see where I am. I set a new best earlier in the year, but I have been doing some specific training leading up to this Tues, so I might-as-well go out and see what it's gotten me. And I'm going to go do a Seymour 20k TT today (Sunday), which I was going to skip w/ nat's looming, so that'll be cool.
Maybe I'll hit y'all up w/ a report of that later.

another week

2010-07-24T23:07:00.010-04:00

Is it just me, or does this dude look like a totally trashed-out version of local fast man Erik Hamilton?
(pic taken from hotchickswithdouchebags.com)

I like to update this thing (at least) weekly, but not much happened this week really. I know you'd all probably assume as the Cat 3 State TT champ I'd have all kinds of press and gala's to attend, but my phone wasn't ringing. I better have the line checked.
Basically just a solid training week. Actually it was mostly easy, but w/ some hard intervals involved and a good solid 3hr group ride today. These crazy high temps seem to be dropping, but the wind was all over us today; it was a tough ride. But a good one w/ a good strong group of guys (oh, and SS is the fastest chick around).
(back story)--A bakery/coffee shop opened down the street form our house last week. Needless to say this pumped us up. Lindsay and I went on the opening day and the line was waaaaay long. We waited ~15min in a line that was not moving at all and decided to come back another day. So we strolled over on a Monday (I think) after I got off work (which is at 6, but I get home more like 6:30). We ordered a couple things and were told "we're getting ready to close." Fair enough, working in retail it sucks having people come in when you're closing. But a neighborhood coffee shop closing at 7pm? Who are they targeting? There are no businesses in the area, so they will have to survive an the people who live around here, who I imagine strolling over for an after dinner snack. I guess we better start eating dinner earlier.
Anywho, FF to today, all I can think about while riding is cruising down to the sweet new coffee shop after I get home, grabbing a coffee and a cookie or something and chilling out. I cruised down to find that it's closed on Sundays! WTF? I think this place maybe wants to fail. The items I've had have been good, but very expensive. And I think the hours were set by a retarded monkey. I hope they either get their shit together or fail.
This week's more training leading up to Time Trial Nationals on Tuesday of next week. I planned to do the Tuesday night TT here this week for prep, but I accidentally scheduled a meeting w/ a rep that night. Oops. I plan to go out Tuesday morning and bust a TT myself though...I bet I beat the course record!

State Time Trial Championship--B-Town cleans up!

2010-07-18T22:37:00.005-04:00

This weeks training led up to the Indiana State Time Trial Championship race up near Ft. Wayne (oddly enough, the IN state course actually goes into OH for several miles before the turn around). This is a 40k course, or 24.8miles, but people's times seem a little slower here than at "our" standard course at Monrovia. Interesting because while Monrovia is considered a flat course, it has 180' of climbing while the Ft Wayne course climbs just 79'. It turns out the Ft Wayne course is a touch long. I clocked it at 25.1miles and I clock Monrovia at 24.7miles. That's why times are a bit slower up north.
Anyway, two friends and I headed up after work on Saturday. It's ~3hrs of driving and the start was 8:30am on Sunday so we had to stay up there. Our hotel was close enough that we could just ride over to the start, which pretty awesome; it was probably 1.5miles. Though riding that 1/5miles through the small town of New Haven in full aero gear was a little awkward, we made it no problem. All of our start times were a little after 9am, so we got our numbers ~7:30 and went back to the hotel to chill for a bit.
Once ready to roll, we rode over to the course, got in warm-ups and were ready to go.
I could tell I was feeling pretty good. There was going to a be a steady cross wind pushing us out, but the same cross wind in our faces coming back. No matter though, since I'd never ridden this course I had no time as reference to try to beat and everyone was going to have to deal w/ the same conditions; all I had to do was ride hard the whole time. Once I got going and settled in I felt good. I knew I was going fast, but I wasn't feeling any real pain, so I just kept turning the gear over, stayed aero and tried to stay focused (which is hard when you're hammering solo for an hour w/ nothing but fields around you). I hit the turn-around at 27min on the dot, did some quick math and realized I was going pretty good. But then I remembered that cross/headwind I was going to have to deal with and knew my back time would be slower than my out. As expected my cadence and speed dropped coming back, but I still was feeling good, so I stayed at it. There were a few big wind gusts coming back that pushed me around a little and screwed w/ my rhythm, but I was able to keep going good. You can see the finish line for a mile or more on this course, which is deceiving, but I had planned to stay on rhythm until I got to the 1k to go sign, then drop to my hardest gear and go all-out. I didn't have power recorded, but I was putting out the watts (for a skinny dude) for that last 1k (~1.5minutes) and finished in a solid 55.46. I won the State TT title for Cat 3 men*. Unfortunately I have to caveat my win, because I was the only Cat3 racing. So all I had to do was finish to win. But, I turned in a time good enough for 8th overall against a very strong field of TTers. And looking at last years Cat3 times I would have won anyway (not that last years times have ANY bearing on this years, but still...) I was a little bummed I had no competition, but happy w/ my ride/time and happy w/ my result, even if it was a given.
As for Bloomington sweeping the states, Eric Hamilton won the Cat1/2 title, I won the 3 title, Jonathan Atwell won the Cat4 title and Ryan Shanahan won the Mas 35-39 title.
No racing this coming weekend for me, then it's one week until TT Nats...then it's a break!

Muncie Endurathon weekend ++

2010-07-11T14:57:00.009-04:00

This weekend was my annual Hajj to Muncie to work the Muncie Endurathon. It was a nice, short visit and I got to see several old friends, many that I see just once a year. I spent most of the day hanging w/ my buddy Zach who has pretty much relocated to FL, so it was cool to hang w/ him. I have worked as the Muncie Endurathon Mechanic for probably 8 years now and regardless of how many times I do it will never cease to amaze me that triathletes show up for a 1/2 Ironman event, which cost them ~$200, w/ their tires roughly half inflated. I would say 9+/10 people that come to me race morning ask "can you just check (or "top off") my tires?" and when I stick the pump on they have ~40-60psi in their tires which are rated to 120PSI. This will always blow my mind. I mean, one of the pillars of success in sport is being prepared; c'mon people.
(doing what? airing someones tires!)

Because the couple that used to host the post-Endurathon throw down par-tay moved from Muncie, there was nothing going on afterwords, so i came on home. 1) the Bloomington Crit was going on in the evening and 2) I was racing at Monrovia in the early a.m. Sunday.
Lindsay and I headed down to the crit and showed up in time watch the end of the 3/4 race, see all the women's race, then the 1/2/3race. While crit racing isn't my thing, it's fun to watch and especially when it's 5minutes from your house! It was nice evening, but I had a long day having gotten up ~4am to get out to the triathlon course by 5am, working all morning, then spectating the tri in the sun all day, driving home, the spectating crit racing in the sun all evening. By the time it was over (~9pm) I was tired and needed to eat. Plus I had to get up ~5:30am to get to the TT this a.m.
Given all this I kind of expected to go to the Monrovia 40k time trial and feel like crap. But to my surprise once I started warming up on the trainer, I felt pretty good. But I was sure it was a caffeine induced fluke and still expected a terrible race.
I got going and got settled in and actually felt really good. I would say I felt the best I've ever felt in a 40k. I was slightly off of my PR, which I set a few weeks ago, but I beat my best from last year by a few seconds. It was a good TT, in spite of only my second best time.
I got home, sat around, ate, sat around some more, mowed the yard and have been sitting around since then.
Lazy Sunday.
State Time Trial Championship this weekend.

Not the best race weekend of my life...

2010-07-05T23:02:00.006-04:00

But a fun weekend all the same.
4th of July weekend for Indiana mountain bike racers always means the same thing: DINO AMBC at North Vernon, IN.
Saturday was the STXC (short-track cross country) as well as a downhill event (which I didn't partake), and Sunday was the normal full length XC.

(start if the XC [I'm to the right of the pic, {#38}])

Saturday we went over for the STXC, which is only 30mins long, but is a non stop hard effort for the whole 30min. I rode okay, but got caught behind a fumble at the start and had to stop, negotiate, riders, then get going again. On a ~1.5min lap, 5-10seconds lost at the start is a huge coffin nail. Oh well, I rode hard and that counts.

(STXC)
(STXC looking SUPER fast w/ the blurry background)(thanks Matt Link for the action shots)

(STXC)

FF to Sunday for the XC main event. It was much hotter and I wasn't feeling great; legs felt kind of heavy. I got a descent start and was holding well, made some passes, etc. Then I started to not feel so great. My stomach started bugging me when I'd go hard and I just wasn't feeling great, but was pushing through it. Then, w/ ~1.5laps (~45min) to go I flatted on some rocks leading into a creek bed. I kind of thought 'okay, I'll use fixing this flat to recover for a few minutes and get my self together.' I got it fixed, got my wheel on and it went flat again. I thought the rock had cut my tire and the new tube poked through the hole, but after getting home and examining things, I think my spare tube had a hole in it from being in my seat bag for like, 2 years. Regardless, I had no other tube, no more air and was done. My least favorite three letters: DNF. I have to say though, over the years I have had really good luck MTB racing, so I can't get too bummed about a little bad luck.

And the bright side is a lot of my good friends were there, some from out of state, and we got to hang out for awhile. By this picture I'd change out of my cycling cloths and out of my pouty DNF face.
Looking ahead, this month is all about Time Trial racing. There's a Monroiva 40k sereis race this weekend, the state championship is in two weeks and then nationals in two weeks after that.
But I have to work the Muncie Endurathon this weekend first. Always nice to go back to Muncie and see so many people I know so well. And it's a great race too. Barring the drive up, it should be fun!

More Pics (of dirt)

2010-06-30T23:35:00.002-04:00

A few from DINO French Lick: (thanks Matt Link)

(at finish/loop split, eyes on the line)

(I think this is taken right before or after the previous one)

(I think this is on the the finishing "chute")

MMSF RR Pics

2010-06-30T20:05:00.004-04:00

Pics from John Bennett(Ryan on the lonely road to victory)

(me on the front)

(me second wheel)

(on a climb, not sure which one)

(climbing)

End of the Road

2010-06-27T14:04:00.004-04:00

Season that is.
The Morgan Monroe State Forest Road Race (MMSFRR) was Sunday and marked what effectively is the end of my road racing season. I will still do time trials, MTB racing and maybe the odd RR that pops up, but nothing else on the schedule.
I had several good races, none particularly bad, but no wins either.A few 2nds and 3rds that were close, but no W's.
I fully intended to win the MMSFRR. The race organizer turned the pre-race planning into a cluster coitus of no support, no police on the course and no sanctioning body. All the confusion left our team w/ just two players, down from four.
On lap 1 (of 4, a hilly 14mile loop w/ a 2mile climb at the end) my other team mate took off up the road. I immediately went to the front of the group to shut down any organization from the field to chase him down. It wasn't exactly what we had planned, but a win for the team's a win. So as he got up the road, I stayed back and chased down every single move that went to make sure 1) he wasn't caught and 2) his gap could grow as much as possible. It turns out chasing down move after move is probably even more work than being off the front, where you can get a good hard (but steady) rhythm going and motor. Hard, but steady. In the field it's hard, but a bunch of hard bursts, no real rhythm at all. Anywho, my blocking (and Ryan's strength) worked well and he got ~4-5minutes on the field and won. I had ambitions of breaking on the last lap and taking second, but I had done too much work and was dead at the end. Our last ascent of the 2mile climb, I was in survival mode, not race mode. I think I crossed the line 8th, but was rewarded by Ryan form his winnings w/ cash for my efforts (which I DO NOT expect, but appreciate).
Overall, it was a hot, hard day. I rode well and we got team win, so good day.
And as I mentioned I'm basically done road racing, so I'll keep "maintenance training" through July, then start thinking about cyclocross. I'm going to have to take a week or so off in a few weeks though; I need a break before CX training/season begins. But the State TT and National TT races are coming up too, so I have to balance all that.
This weekend is MTB racing at Muskatatuck Park in North Vernon. Saturday is STXC (Short Track Cross Country), and Sunday is regular XC. If I can swing getting out of work Sat, I'll do STXC and I'll do Sunday regardless.

Pics from the Lick

2010-06-21T22:55:00.002-04:00

I scored a few pics from the French Lick MTB race. Taken by the trail builder, Alex Stewart.

(not sure where or when this one is, but I'm sure it's me because I can see my number plate)

(this I'm not 100% sure is me, but I think so)

(this is earlier on because I can see one other guy just behind me and we had him dropped ~halfway through the first lap [I'm sitting third in this pic {in the orange}])

Weekend stuffs

2010-06-18T23:03:00.005-04:00

I happened across this photo of (one of the) Olsen twins and thought only 1 thing when I saw it:

Maybe they're triplets and Sam Kinison was separated from them at birth!?!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This weekend was the DINO MTB race at the French Lick Resort trail down south. I rode the trails here a few weeks ago, so I had some rough idea of what to expect, however monsoon rain.storms the night before had me (and everyone) worried about ultra-nasty muddy conditions. It was muddy in places, but overall I would rate the trail condition as not too bad to perfect. The shift in conditions form wet starting to bone dry after a couple of hours was wreaking havoc on drive trains and a lot of people (myself included) were having shifting/chain suck/general chain issues (being wet in the beginning, your chain would loose lubrication, then becoming dry dust and crap would get kicked up into your [now non-lubricated] chain making it cease operation.)
The race started in a cyclocross fashion, w/ a taped off, dead flat drag on a field (actually it was a golf driving range). I thought a few thing about this: 1)Sweet! A CX start, I'm good at that. 2) I AM good at CX starts, but I don't know if I'm in "CX shape" right now and 3) who cares? JFR.
I got a good start and entered the trail 4th. I sat 4th for most of the 1st lap, but capitalized on a bobble made by 3rd and moved into his spot. The guy in 1st was out of sight and once we hit the climbs, I moved into 2nd and tried to pursue 1st; he was long gone though. I traded off 2nd and 3rd another time or two due to chain problems of my own, but was able to lay it down on the climbs and finish a strong 2nd.
It was a good hard race.
Today (Sunday) Lindsay and I went up to my parent's for a Family Reunion of my Mother's side. Plus it was Father's day and good excuse to hang w/ my old man. I got up early and busted out a quick EZ hour spin to get the kinks out from yesterday, then we headed north. It was nice to see everyone, but especially my dad, my mom my brother and his wife (who is7months pregnant).
Good times.
This weekend if the Morgan Monroe Forest road race. I've been looking forward to this for awhile now. I'm pretty well prepared and I'm going pretty good right now in general. We'll see how it shakes out.

40k (got my shirt)

2010-06-13T19:10:00.008-04:00

I have a small collection of these beauties now. Which is AWESOME!!!!!
Today I made my first attempt of the year at the IRS Monrovia 40k Time Trial.
I had a good race, but kind of expected a bad one; I had a few things go wrong early on and was fearful that it would be a sign of things to come.
These TT's start early, first rider off at 7:30, so to get there, get warmed up, etc. you have to get up early. When I got there and got signed in I went to mix my EFS drink mix into my bottle, but I accidentally mixed my Ultragen recovery mix into the bottle. A mistake I've never made before, but no big deal. Next I went to put my bike in the trainer to warm up, and my tire was flat on my trainer wheel (not my race wheel). I had to fix the flat just to get my bike on trainer to warm up; lame. These two occurrences left me a little worried that something was going to go wrong.
But all went well.
The winds were less favorable going out, but made for a slight negative split (the best way to have to race w/ a wind [head out/tail back]). The humidity we're experiencing made it all kinds of muggy, even at ~8am, but I bested my previous time by 9seconds for a new best of 54min39sec. That's 27.2mph for those who care. Once I hit the rhythm I felt really good.
I got home and got quite a few chores done, then watched bike racing on TV. It's amazing to me the effects of a hard 40k race. It usually basically lays me out for the rest of the day. It's weird because it's less than an hour of riding, but it's so hard.
Anywho, I plan to race MTB this weekend at French Lick. Hopefully it stays dry. Though I find myself caring about MTB racing a little less every year, so if the rains continue, I could see myself just skipping it in favour of a long road ride. We'll see...

DINO BCSP MTB RR

2010-06-08T19:18:00.004-04:00

Brown County State Park Mountain Bike Race Report (and other stuffs):

This past Sunday was the DINO MTB race at BCSP. This marked the first time I've toe'd a dirt line (w/ 26" wheels) in ~10months and the third time I've ridden my MTb at all this year. Needless to say, while my fitness is very good, my MTB skillz are not-so-much.
The good part is that the BCSP MTB course start on ~1mile BRUTAL road climb; perfect. I got into the front group on the paved start and we quickly whittled the field to 4 riders and had a significant gap by the time we hit the dirt. I rolled onto the trail in third and held that position for the whole first lap. Some exchanges were made in front of me, and one guy took off of the front and I was unable to respond because I was behind someone. I eventually moved to second on the second lap, but the first placed rider had checked out. During the third lap I was re-overtaken for second and moved into third; still pretty good, but forth was breathing down my neck. I drop him on climbs and gap him on pedaling sections, but on descents he was catching me w/ ease. On the final climb I went berserker to gap him, which I did, but turning onto the finishing trail, I ran into traffic and crashed while trying to pass. During my remount I was passed and moved into 4th, which is where I finished. It was a good day and a good race. I rode hard and finished (pretty) well. (I don' have a pic from the race, but I did snap this pic of a fat B-town cop on a segway)

This weekend I'm racing against the clock for 40k in Monrovia. I'm hopeful I can best my PR from last year. The 40k is a tricky effort though: it's easy to go too hard, and it's easy to not go hard enough. It's all about the sweet spot; "not blowing but still going" (I just made that up BTW). Anywho, I'm looking forward to it.
Training is going very good in general. I need a day on the TT bike leading into this weekend because I've not been on it in a couple of weeks. I plan to bust out some intervals on the TT, and hopefully be ready to suffer like the proverbial dog. Should be fun!

Looong weekend.

2010-06-01T19:15:00.012-04:00

With it being Memorial Day, I had a big 2 day weekend. Plus Sat the 29th was my birthday, so we had a lot going on over the past few days.
Friday night Lindsay took me "anywhere I wanted to go" for dinner to "celebrate" my having been born 32 years earlier. We went to Sushi Bar and got a bunch of sushi rolls. I've had plenty of sushi, but never really been to a sushi restaurant. It was good. Really good. We got ice cream at Brusters afterwords, and of course it was awesome.
Saturday (may actual bday) I worked all day, but had a few surprises throughout the day (I try to keep my b-day on the DL because I'm not into the hoopla of having a big deal made out of it), but facebook blew it for me. R.Semba got me a killer blueberry tart about the time little emily showed up w/ a bag of strawberries and gave me a few to put on my tart. And she got me a New Zealand apple at my request.
Saturday night Lindsay and I got some steaks at the store and I grilled them for us. Great dinner.
Sunday my parents were coming down for the afternoon, but me and a friend had planned a ride to scout the Hoosier Man Triathlon bike course. We drove down to the lake, did 1 lap easy-ish to see/feel the course, then one lap hard to get a feel for it at race pace. It was a good hard ride and a hot day. I rode back up into town once we were done and got in over 3hrs on the bike. Nice!
My parents arrived shortly after I got back, so we did some shopping while awaiting for Lindsay to get back in town from the MTB race she was doing. We hit TJ Max because I needed some underwear and Shoe Carnival because I needed some new sandals (the ones I have I have had for probably 6-7 years) . Once we got back and got Lindsay we went to Lennies and had an awesome dinner. It was a good time.
(you all still w/ me? I feel like this is getting long)

(Lindsay at the Fairfax Beach at Lake Monroe)

Monday (Memorial Day) Lindsay and I went down to ride the MTB trails at the French Lick Resort and Casino. There's a race there in a few weeks and I figured this would be a good time to get down and ride the trails/course to be at least a little familiar w/ it. It's a really good/really cool trail system. And a really cool area. There were some spots that were super muddy, but otherwise it's a great trail w/ some good climbing and nice flowing descents.
On the way back into town Lindsay and I stopped off at the Farifax beach at Lake Monroe. I haven't been there since I was a little kid, so it was kind of cool. It' is a total white trash hangout, but still kind of cool to have a "beach" ~10minutes (by car) from our house. We hung there for a little while, then came home which put an end to our epic weekend.
So while I would normally be doing the Tuesday night TT, I stacked a couple of hard days this weekend, and I have some more hard stuff before racing (mtb) this weekend, so I skipped the TT and did an easy hour.
So let's hope I don't embarrass myself too much racing MTB this weekend. I felt like I was riding pretty good toward the end of my French Lick ride, so wish me luck!!