Outlook

I was planning on doing something different this year, the NMBS marathons, but those races no longer exist. I have to rethink my schedule and set my sights on something new.




Photo from this site

a day in the life

"Woke up, fell out of bed dragged a comb across my head" ^*
Breakfast #1, WSJ -- outsourcing is up, take the bike gear out of the truck
Close call with a moron running a red, jerk
Boneyard on XM, scribble tunes to grab later
Breakfast #2, blah blah blah...easy ways to crash a Unix box...yada yada yada
Overpriced french roast & cyclingnews.com
Work, work, work
[Lunch]
Dicky's puzzle is coming together,
Mr. 24 has a unique prep for training camp,
Check tomorrow's workout
[/Lunch]
Simulations take forever
Summary for the boss, clock out
Traffic isn't so bad
All about climbing Kilimanjaro with Gilly; the mussels were great
Team meeting -- got new kit, gear on the way, met the latest addition
9pm & 55 is a parking lot, it's the OC after all
Have to nix the late night spin, core work instead
mp3: Prisoner, E=mc2, Happy, Trenchtown rock, I want to love you...
Blog entry draft & Limewire downloads (thanks Lou)
STR, Geoladders, check the weekend forecast:
Partly cloudy, Sat - art show then party, Sunday - golf
Gotta ride somewhere in there
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz


* From the Beatles, A day in the life

switchbacks

 Sw
    eet!
        pedal pedal pedal
                         feather Sw
                                    itch
                                 back
                             duck            
                       lean
            bunny hop     
   waaayy
       off the back
                  Woooooo WH
                                
                              OA! WH
                
                                      OA! whew! b
                                                  a
                                                   n
                                                   k
                                                  e
                                                d
                                           turn
                       off camber.....
                                      
                .....
   t t e  b m s                                 
  s u t r  u p                                
                                                 
yyy
   eee
      aaa
          hhh
       bb
         aaaaaaaa
             aaaaaaa
                  aaaaaby
                              damn that was nice!

On

It's always a pleasure to watch a racer when she's on. This weekend I saw former WS teammate, Monique Sawicki, tearing up the course at the 12 Hours of Temecula. She was up front from the gun leading all the solos for the first lap until she had chain problems and fell back for awhile. I was riding behind Doug, the lead solo, when she came flying past on a climb. I had a huge grin on my face as I've seen both racers in action and I knew I was in for a nice view of a head-to-head battle. It lasted for a few laps until Monique rode away and continued on to the overall solo victory. Very nice!!

She wasn't the first female to win the overall in a solo 12/24 hour event. That honor goes to Rebecca Rusch who won the overall in Spokane last summer at the Round and Round event. I think we'll see more women rocking endurance events this year. I expect Lynda to knock some socks off at Old Pueblo in a few weeks; a follow up to her top five placing overall at last year's event.

Some heads are going to roll

Wrong legs

I went to the 12 hours of Temecula this weekend to race solo. The only problem was that I took the wrong legs. My longest ride after La Ruta has only been 3.5 hours--been working on speed and power. Lynda warned me, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. I can be stubborn at times. Not surprisingly, it didn't workout too well. I only managed five laps. =)

No big deal. I'm back to training on Monday and looking forward to a road race in a couple of weeks.

Riding with friend Dan Cain on my last lap

A first

I just registered for my first road race, the Boulevard race down in San Diego. My heart starts pumping when I read this race report from last year. I decided to race Master 35+ instead of Cat 5. The former should be more experienced, stronger and most importantly less crash prone than the latter bunch. I can't wait.

Maybe I should watch this movie a few times over the next two weeks.

The opener

The only reason I've been doing some XC races recently is for training. This race was a little different than the last one; my legs were trashed from my workouts at the Torture Clinic. I go twice a week for different types of workouts on an ergometer, a trainer and rollers. Anyway, rather than me hitting the trails or doing one of the local road rides like the popular Simi ride, Lynda scheduled a race to ensure that I'd give it all I've got on my Saturday workout. Training with a bunch of friends on the MTB is definitely more fun than riding alone and more dynamic than a road ride. It was good to see former teammates and many familiar faces.

Did I give it 100%? Ummm. Well, sort of. I didn't know the course. I didn't preride it nor did I download the turn by turn directions from Geoladders. So the plan was to just hang back the first lap behind riders like Doug, Mr Geoladders himself, then give it all I had on the last two laps. The bonus of hanging back was being shielded from the strong Santa Ana winds that were blowing riders off the course.

Near the end of the first lap Doug was battling it out with another rider, but I couldn't keep up when they turned it up a notch. I gave it everything I had and it was enough for a win in my category. Didn't catch Doug though, even with a broken front derailleur he was still a few minutes ahead; just one of those guy that keeps getting faster.

The team had a nice showing and everyone who raced made the podium. Ty, Josh, Todd and Bern placed first, Brad second and Craig fourth. Craig was also getting in some good training, but I think his legs were more thrashed than mine.

Training was the main goal, the win was a bonus

We're still growing

The team just added three new riders to the roster: a couple of insanely fast guys and a future endurance star.

-Cameron Brenneman holds the VQ record for geared and SS bikes.

-Perry Paolini was formerly on Team Devo (a Maxxis blurb about some of the talent that started out at Devo)

-Matt Nourmohamadian is only 16 years old but I've seen him ride and I think he's going to rock the endurance scene down the road.

If you race in Cali you will be assimilated.

We are Borg

Tomorrow isn't just another day

The past two weeks have been a bit crazy; two weddings and a funeral. I suppose change is the underlying theme. I couldn't help but wonder what my epitaph might say if I was the one being laid to rest.

 Rode it like he stole it.  --Nope
 Kept the rubber side down 90% of the time. --Nope
 Enjoyed the ride. --Nah
 Rode like every ride was his last. --Maybe

Is it possible for a ride to be unpleasant if I knew it was THE one, the final one? Even mishaps couldn't interfere with my having fun, they'd just be part of the experience.

I can't claim that I've ridden every ride as if it were my last. Perhaps it's something to keep in mind.

Making up for lost time?

Photo from these folks

If

I don't like the word. Something definite becomes speculative, questionable. It's the root of many needless self-imposed limitations. I've heard it too much recently:

If it wasn't so cold out...
If my bike was lighter...
If I had more time...
If I were in better shape...
If I was sponsored...
If I only had a [insert training gadget here]...

A New Start

This year is going to be different. I'll be doing some road racing starting in February and I'm excited about that. I still have to determine which of the local crits and road races I'm going to do. I did post a few of the MTB events that I'm planning on racing. My first event is a XC race next weekend in Fontucky; it's a training race.

Headed down a new path this year

Perfect

Started thinking about perfection in sports after reading this paper in the current issue of Athletic Insight.* The perfect race. The perfect season. Do they exist? Yes and no.

THE perfect season, sure -- win every race entered. Rare, but it's possible. Of course the difficulty in pulling it off depends, for the most part, on the competition at the races. A perfect season, as opposed to THE perfect season, could be making the podium at every race. Maybe for the pros it's top ten in all their races or their target races.

I don't think there's ever a perfect race in cycling. Winning a race doesn't make it a perfect race. Assuming the athlete is fit, there's always something that has to be dealt with that might not have been in the mental rehearsal of the race: a flat tire, busted chain, crash... It becomes an exercise in adapting to the situation at hand. Adapt well and minimized the time lost or adapt poorly and reap the whirlwind. The former is made a whole lot easier by "trusting your gut" or "going with your intuition." Just trust the guy behind the wheel; don't think just do. That in turn is not much of a problem if the athlete is relaxed and enjoying the ride.

So
where E _t is the enjoyment over an interval of length t, T is the duration of an event and P is perfection! =)

Trust yourself

*The older issues, pre 2006, have some of the better papers as last year was pretty lame.

Keep the "good" fat, lose the bike fat

There's plenty of benefits to having several teammates: group training rides, support at races, easy access to spare parts...

I've been tapping into the team's collective knowledge base about the various trade offs between strength and weight for race setups. Manny and George have two of the lightest bikes around and they've tried numerous combinations to see what works and what is just too light to hold up in races. I left the carbon s-works hardtail with Manny and Terry to brainstorm different options for shaving off another pound or two. A few days later Manny called me with a two-phased plan for losing a little ugly bike fat; it'll take two rounds because of the $$$ involved.

Phase one of the bike lipo is done and the feel is completely different, much better. I couldn't believe it was the same bike. Thanks to Manny I don't have to worry about forking over extra cash to get this book since the weight lost on the bike almost cancels the weight I've put on since my last race. I loath 21 day plans! =)