Sometimes the luck runs out

Update: After being yelled at by one friend already, I'm adding a warning that there's a semi-gross picture further down this post. Maybe not mealtime reading...

I've noticed, and some guys I ride with have said the same thing, that there are an amazing number of times when a MTB crash results in nothing more than a funny story and some dirt to wash off. You can take a flaming endo down a hill into a rock garden and somehow land in between all the sharp ones. You can even launch yourself into the woods and have the trees cushion your fall instead of impaling you. As it turns out though, it is apparently just luck and sometimes that runs out. Before getting to the gory details, let's first visit the happier days of Domnarski Farm...

Looking at the pre-reg list on Friday I discovered that Mr. RMM who had bested me by one spot at Sterling CX last year had signed up for the cat 2 race... bonus, this could be as good a time as any to test my fitness and try for some revenge. He had been riding pretty well lately too so it was a good goal. At the same time, I needed to start packing in some mileage for Pats Peak and Great Glen so I made the decision to go early and ride the whole course before the race. When I got there, I found Matt (farm owner and race host/promoter) and asked him if the whole thing was marked because I wanted to pre-ride. He looked at me kinda funny and said "The big loop? You're going to be pretty tired." Hmmmm, was this the best plan? Shunning his warnings, I headed out which turned out to be a great decision. I discovered a few things: 1) The hole shot was basically irrelevant because the climbs were going to sort this mess out regardless, 2) There was going to be a complete cluster f about 400m in, 3) There were some swamps and mud pits late in the race that would probably come into play in a close race. I finished up the very casual ride-around in about 1:20 and the posted GPS map of the course said 1:11 so I figured I was doing ok. Off to sit around for about 90 minutes before race time.

Sitting around almost turned out to be my downfall. When I went to saddle back up and warm up my legs were like "Um, dude, we already worked today... F U". Fortunately 20 minutes or so of negotiating with them and we had an agreement to go again. Armed with my course knowledge I nailed the reverse hole shot and walked up the first kicker with everyone else, then got on to the climby climby thing. RMM took the opposite approach and got an ok start and then was a bit up the trail early on, but I caught back on with him on the single-track as we both hacked our way through it. Somewhere along the way he opened a sizeable gap and now I was just waiting for the late hills to bring back as many guys as I could. Out on the brutal climbs up the power lines I picked off several more by riding the first section and then quickly trudging the second and caught a brief glimpse of RMM coming back a little. I knew that once you got to the top of the power lines it was pretty much downhill and mud pits from there so I totally went for it and caught back on with him just after the giant swamp. Despite a good long stretch of the no brakes game on the fast fire-roads and some single-track, he was still there so this was going to come down to the finish. He edged in front somewhere in the mud puts and then I was sure we were winding up for the final downhill into the finish. I knew I could take that hill faster than he seemed willing to so I had clicked up to a big gear to get ready. Unfortunately, I forgot about that last mud pit... I rode into this giant mess horribly over-geared and he was able to ride right through so I was in chase mode again with little time left. We hit the top of the final descent and I got right back on, then tried to bomb around to the left. We were side by side when I realized that there was a giant wheel crushing rock on the far left side so I had to do a brief check-up just as he opened the sprint. Fresh off his Exeter finish, the sprint turned into no contest and I rolled in about 3 seconds back. Turned out we were 2 and 3 in the 30-39 cat 2 and that got me $25 cash money... yay.

Now in contrast to that bit of fun and success, Pats Peak was just plain old bad from start to finish. I targeted getting there around 10 for a noon start and ended up stuck behind some blue hairs so I got there at 10:15, 10 minutes before the riders meeting. They then announced that they didn't want us setting up bottles or feeds near the finish tent unless we had paid for a tech site (WTF?). Fortunately, mountain bikers are good people and I got 3 offers to bum some tent space from those who had paid. I even tried to pay the people I hooked up with and just got "No worries, it's all good." This would be the end of goodness for the day.

Pats Peak is another course where how you handle the climbs 4 or 5 hours into the race matters a hell of a lot more than being out in front for lap one so I put in a nice little jog to the bike and just was ready for some bottleneck induced hike-a-bike on the first lap. Not unexpectedly, sections of the course were pretty damn wet and the let-me-make-this-trail-wider-to-find-a-dry-line game had already started on lap one. Fortunately, the really hard parts of the climbs were bone dry so that was not a forced hike last last year's GG. I was riding pretty well up through the first summit and as I started the downhill I could tell something wasn't right. Every time I hit a rock/bump/ditch something would just clunk and bang and I almost immediately figured out it was the fork. I had ridden the day before and had a little tiny bit of this, but I thought I was just running the tires too low and was clanging the rims on the roots. Now it was obvious that suspension fork was not suspending. This made the single-track descent much more hair-raising and after coming through in about 35 minutes for lap one I had to run over to check fork air pressure. Negative pressure was down to like 50 so I pumped that back up and headed out again, hoping for the best. Being admitedly ignorant still on all the innards of suspension forks, I was guessing. Well it became quickly obvious that I was still hosed so I again set about picking my way through anything that was seven semi-technical. Down through the single-track downhill again and I knew I'd be visiting the mechanic and possibly going home. At one spot there was a decent sized hole with a hump after it and I totally botched it with my now effectively rigid fork. Over the bars I go and don't I find the sharp rock in the middle of the trail with my elbow. Hmmm, um, OUCH!!! Blood check... yup, we've got lots. Well folks, it's been fun. Rode it down and headed for the mechanic and first-aid. I think some small fragment of my brain was thinking of going back out if I could which is why I bothered with the mechanic.

The first-aid folks did a bit of cleanup, but were pretty certain stitches were in order and there was a concerning looking bubble in the middle of the bigger cut. Time to pack up and drive home to the hospital. Once I finally got through the totally back-asswards reg process in the ER I got to see the doctor. She checks out the damage and I tell her that the little bubble thing is a little concerning and she says "Oh, that's just a piece of your muscle... we'll put that back in where it belongs." She later recanted and said it was actually some of the fatty tissue that protects your elbow, but regardless, inside stuff was no longer inside. And you know what that means... picture time:

As it turns out, I upped the ante more by chipping the bone in my elbow which then pushed this injury into the category of "open fracture". About a liter and a half of saline to clean the mountain out of it, some IV antibiotics to deal with my insides being outside, and 7 stitches later I was sent on my way to drown my sorrows in beer and pizza. I think I'll be shopping for an elbow pad for Great Glen... maybe I'll hire my own medical crew too.

Pats Peak Race Report

Pats Peak 6-hour by the numbers:

3+ hours of driving
Roughly 1:15 of "racing"
1 Reba fork in need of overhaul
7 stitches

Full report (as well as less suck-filled Domnarski Farm report tomorrow)

All-Mountain

And BTW... if someone feels ambitious they can try and explain the concept of the All-Mountain mountain bike to me. As I browse the web dreaming of full-suspension goodness (maybe for X-mas dear if you're wondering), I find these peculiar creatures of the bike world. In an attempt to make a bike that's good for everything off-road, I can't help but wonder if what they've done is created a bike that's not particularly good at anything off-road. A bit too heavy for XC race and a bit too whimpy to be seriously dropped, maybe it's only intended for the not quite so daring weekend warrior who will never race. I guess that's _A_ market, still just seems a bit odd...

My body hates me

When you're in generally good overall shape, you feel like you can jump into any activity and be pretty much fine. When you're young, you can typically even get away with this. Well I think I must have somehow reached the age where this isn't possible because I feel like crap today. Saturday I participated in my yearly what-the-hell-I-shouldn't-be-able-to-do-this running event and tore it up with a 4:54 1600m on the track. I also drove about 210 miles on Saturday between that race and going down to work the club crit at the speedway. Sunday morning I rode about 2.5 hours in Nam with people better than me (oh wait, that's about everybody who owns a mountain bike). I then went home and spent way too long mowing my overly watered and healthy lawn. Sunday evening I had a softball game during which I had a picturesque slide into home while scoring from second and successfully tearing up most of my right shin and knee. This morning my shin stings, my wrist is very angry with me, and I generally feel like I let the kids beat me with hockey sticks (which they would enjoy greatly). I'm sure it will all wear off by lunchtime once I've been mentally flogged at work for a few hours...

Tour de Mediocrity

I continued my campaign of non-descript road racing on Saturday at the Mystic Velo Crit down at Ninigret. The report will be about as exciting as my performance:

- That was the sketchiest field I have ever ridden a crit with. I had to yell out loud at one point "Smooth line through the turns guys... Jesus Christ!" It is mind-boggling that there wasn't a crash.

- They rang a $10 prime with 6 to go. With my history of results and the fact that we were bound to go down in a pile at any second I went for it and took it relatively easily.

- I went from having a good position for a finish sprint to having a terrible position in about 1 second. Such is racing I guess... especially when I'm doing it.

So on to guys who do not suck at racing their bikes, both Coach Guy and Nega-Coach Guy scored nice results. Yay for the guys who don't suck.

I'm making a semi-official almost-complete cutover to mountain biking from here out through December with a minor detour for some runnin'. Insert exploding hamstring here...

T-Rex

It's no secret that cyclists and runners are close descendants of the T-Rex in that they're all badass until someone asks them to do something strenuous with their arms at which point people might as well just start pointing and laughing. The newest roadie has referred to this in the past so yes, I'm just repeating/stealing a point. But that's not really the end of my point (is it ever?)... you see in the land of the stick armed wonders, I certainly rank well down the list. I'm not sure I've ever done more than 25 consecutive pushups. I know for a fact that I have never done 10 straight unassisted pullups. I'm 99% certain that I've never benchpressed my body weight (there may have been one day back when HGH was still cool). Well I think I've decided to try and at least move myself up the list of those with useless arms (c'mon, your armwarmers can only slide right off by thesemlves so many times before you get the hint). I have a new goal of being able to do twice my age in pushups and at least 20 pullups by 1 year from today. And yes sir, I realize this will be useful for little else other than being able to do pushups and pullups real well. Wish me luck...

Hey look, it's Frank

As I improve my fitness and racing skills, I find myself shoulder to shoulder with more guys I knew I couldn't hang with for even a lap a few years ago. It's pretty cool, but I sometimes catch myself having a very brief moment of WTF/star-struck/intimidation. Then I usually get over it and launch some foolish and poorly timed attack that's destined for failure :) Sunday I got to have a couple of those moments courtesy of Wells Ave where posers like me have the opportunity to give it their best against the guys who are actually good.

A relatively quiet Sunday on the home front meant that I could saddle up around 8 and ride on down to Newton for some good ole training race action. It's only about 1:15 to get there and that's if you're just sort of cruising along. I knew I'd be early, but I also knew I was starving so I'd need time to eat again (and again) when I got there. I couldn't tell during the ride down or the warmup how the race would feel... it alternated back and forth between thinking/hoping a brake was rubbing and feeling just fine. So we get to the line and Bill tries to explain to everyone that we're doing a points race instead just for kicks. He tries to explain the format about 4 times, but guys are still confused (even though it was pretty basic: 1 point for each lap's leader, 3 and 2 points every 5 laps, double points at half-way and the finish, most points wins) so we joke up front that once Spinelli rides off and laps us we'll figure it all out. We roll off and apparently guys got the point that it was ON basically for every lap because two Pedro's guys take off and we're doing about mach 2 after them (with your's truly valiantly leading the charge until I felt like throwing up). We made it maybe 5 laps into the race and I think we had already had a couple near car incidents and I was just begging for someone to sit up and slow down just a hair. Then maybe 6 or so in we come around the big sweeping turn to the home stretch and all hell breaks loose. There are two cars STOPPED in the middle of the road so the entire field scatters. Somehow everyone stays upright, we ride around the cars and find that there is an enormous farking turtle in the middle of the road. I think it was the next time through that they called off the points race and just made it a straight crit.

So after my lap 1 pull I just went to hide for a while and didn't do a hell of a lot. I actually felt like crap for about 18 laps and decided I needed to try a gel to see if that helped. Well I almost managed to get myself dropped by drifting back to eat it. I did latch back on and very shortly after started to feel ok (plus I think the pace had slowed a little) so then me and another guy did a little work to try and tow someone up to the front for a prime. It was a pretty half-hearted effort, but it was work and I was still feeling better. Fast forward to 13 to go and I decided I had been hanging dangerously close to the back for too long so I should move up. Along the backside I was just finding guys going forward and latching on, picking up a few spots at a time. We got to the finish stretch and there were two guys sort of just dangling out front trying to make up their minds. I had been following a couple wheels up the left side when they both tucked in and I figured F it, those guys could use some company. They clearly weren't very far up because I bridged in about half a lap and shortly after a couple more guys came up too. We never really did get organized and I never really did recover from the bridge so maybe 2/3 of a lap later the front guy pulls off, peeks back and sits up. I peek back too and there's the train with Spinelli right at the front... Wait a minute, what am I doing in front of him... ever... at all... unless he's lapping me. Oh wait, cool, I got a little itty bitty gap on a field with Justin in it... Sweet! So retreat the to pack, try to recover, and see what's left. Now I can't remember if it was around now or just before the ill-fated attack that I noticed one of the Fuji guys, I rode up next to him, and noticed it was Frankie Mac (unless Mark was in Maine AND at Wells or someone else looks quite a bit like Mark)... Yes this was my other holy crap moment... brief moment of "I'm clearly in the wrong race" followed up "Well, that's pretty cool". Anywho... 3 to go and our guy wants to get near the front again so he's calling out to us to get him there. We did what we could, but the pack wasn't exactly taking it easy so he had a little to do when we had to pull off (we being me, a cat 4, and a guy who's 50+ and has barely ridden in a month). Well I drifted back into the pack again and realized I had probably quit on him too early because I wasn't totally blown so I tried to start moving up again a little, but you know how well that works when you're right on the edge of done and there's 2 to go. The good news is I didn't go cross-eyed and crash myself or anyone else. The better news is I was able to get out of the saddle and weave through a few guys on my way forward in the finale. The mediocre news is I was going hard for maybe 20th place.

Computer thingy told me we were a spirited 27.5 mph for this little affair. Maxed out at 34 and change when I made my blistering move to close a whole 6 second gap ;) Really not a whole lot I can complain about. Oh... and I got to ride with some guys who are pretty good...

You wanna play, you gotta pay

Spent the weekend in Toronto watching the Red Sox play 2 days worth of bad baseball and one day of good baseball. Sadly I got there Friday to discover that there was a downtown crit up the road that I could neither participate in nor spectate. Overall the weekend was fantastic and I'd gladly head back up there anytime... gotta bring the boys though if for no other reason than the visit mecca.

Unfortunately, since I spent the weekend goofing off and came home very late Sunday, I am now receiving a thorough all-around beating. Work, laundry, lawn care, bills... you name it, it's in my lap now. And this all leads to no training of any sort since Saturday with the outlook looking grim... may have to go back to the 4:30's (shudder)...

Can I get a WTF?

I got the rare chance to do a long-ish ride after work today. I headed out wearing a winter weight jersey, bib shorts, leg warmers, wool socks, full finger gloves, and a light winter hat to cover my ears. I probably should have also had a vest and shoe covers. Any yes, Monday is June 1.

The only consolation is that it was a pretty awesome ride despite the numbness...

What's the O stand for? Oh my God it's early.

A combination of weather and little league schedules showed me that my only opportunity to ride today was on the gerbil wheel in the garage at 4:30 a.m. It sucked less than I feared, but I don't want to make a habit of it. The kicker will be when tonight's game is rained out. Ah well, that'd give me the chance to get my arse kicked in some video games by the little Wii hustlers that live with me. That's ok... I won't be traumatized by losing to them until it happens in a bike race/running race/basketball game/etc... hopefully I have a few more years before that happens.

If Rich doesn't blog, does anyone even notice?

Wow, how'd I go so long without posting... completely lost track. This odd thing called free time sort of snuck up on me and revealed all these wonderful things I can do like sleeping, playing with those short people who live in my house, and bringing my yard back up to acceptable community standards. It's actually been an awesomely productive and relaxing weekend (sort of). Kicked it off with the ride to and from work Friday, nice little early morning beat-down ride Saturday followed by a very full day of yard work, more yard work and some more riding Sunday, 9 holes of golf early today followed by a 2 hour + MTB ride and the cookout and beers start soon. You probably agree that it sounds awesome... go ahead, be jealous... it's ok ;) Hopefully everyone else is enjoying the hell out of themselves too.

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't send a giant thanks to all the vets and current service men and women. I could never do what they have done and words can't possibly say thank you properly, but I'll send it out anyways...

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt

First off I want to issue a gigantic CONGRATULATIONS to my lovely wife who has completed her master's degree with her sanity (mostly) intact. In the past 5 years she gave birth (again), got three hyperactive little boys pointed in what seems like a good direction in life, worked full time, had fairly major knee surgery, kicked some pretty serious butt on the soccer field, completed a master's degree, and, amazingly, put up with me. I may even give her a break and not heckle her about watching reality TV for a while ;)

Now some of you (all 3 of you) may have noticed that I was strangely quiet about having completed grad school myself. I wouldn't say I'm superstitious per-se, but I definitely do try to follow a bit of the "don't count your chickens before they're hatched" mindset. One of my two professors literally waited until the very last second to turn in our grades to the registrar so I was left hanging for an extra 6 days to find out how I did in my final class. To be honest I was a tiny bit concerned because I hadn't done stellar on the midterm and the final just simply sucked... like 2.5 hours of pure suck. Turns out taking the day off from work to study must have paid off because it seems I did genuinely ok. So now, finally, as of 5 a.m. today I can breathe the big sigh of relief and say "I'M DONE!" Why don't we throw in a "WOO-HOO!" and a "YAH-BABY!" just for good measure. Calendar time, I was at this for 9.5 years. That included a 4 year hiatus and a couple of skipped semesters when we were elbows deep in newborn diapers. It's an incredible relief to be finished... and now I can wear the t-shirt :)

Sterling Stories

I've gone back and forth with myself repeatedly about how much of a writeup to do on my race and I finally decided the short version was for the best all around. We had a strong squad of 6 in the race, but there was some apparent mis-communication with regard to some plans that had been discussed for the race. The end result was me completely burying myself on lap 3, trying to sit in and recover on lap 4, trying an attack approaching the end of lap 4 and completely exploding, and ultimately coming in about a minute back of the pack. I've managed to continue my poor history at Sterling and I have to say that road racing so far this year has been very un-fun. But enough of that...

I got back to the school and changed up right away. I was already booked to drive follow for the 3/4's at 1:whenever, but then a driver no-showed so I got asked to do the 4/5 <35 also. It was a short race and the official was my best friend who randomly decided to become an official this year so it was all good. Two interesting stories from this race: 1) There were guys who literally had their numbers written down as being dropped before we even got up the hill to the official start of the race. I think that qualifies as a bad day. 2) We had fallen behind a little while working our way around dropped riders and came upon a crash out on the back streets. There were only 2 guys down I think, but one of them was laying in the gutter with a pile of shredded carbon next to him. He somehow had snapped his frame at the head tube on the top tube and on the downtube just up from the bottom bracket. And this was on a slight uphill. I have no freaking clue how.

Then it's on to 3/4 follow duties and I found out that I'd be driving around the same official who had earlier had to speak to be about a bit of a yellow-line infraction. It was a marginal situation where I had carried too much momentum into the section of rte 12 where the dotted white line (virtual yellow) shows up and comes into play and I passed a couple guys before squeezing in. He pulled up and reminded me and I apologized like a good cooperative racer. We had a laugh later and he told me he just wanted everyone to know he was paying attention. So remember, be kind to the officials because you may spend 2 hours in the car with them some day (or that same day). Ok, where was I... Oh yah... so the Pro's go off first, then the 3/4's, then the pro ladies. So we cruise around for a while and then we hear some radio chatter about the Pro's catching the women... they apparently make the pass ok and then we hear an update that there's a couple women up the road, then a small chase group, then the rest of the women are everywhere. So we go a bit more and see that we're going to catch the women's chase group, but there's a problem. By now, the women's chase is about 1:30 down to the break. We also have a group of about 10 up the road by about 1:30. So neutralizing either field basically decides that race for them. So the finger crossing begins that everyone will meet up on route 12 where there's tons of room to make a pass. Of course it doesn't happen that way. Thinking back now, the details are a little fuzzy, but I believe we managed to pass the chase group rather cleanly on the hill, but now the women's lead is in play. Sure enough, we start to catch them before we get to 12. We have also switched to leading the break because the gap was still growing. I still don't know how exactly it happened, but coming up the last narrow hill before you go down to 12, we catch the SRAM car that had been trailing the women's lead and some random car that had gotten on the course AND THEY STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD! So we've got a charging pack behind my truck and we have to come to a dead stop. You can imagine the chaos that ensued, but fortunately I don't think anyone went down. At the same time, as much as it was an out of control situation, the racers didn't exactly handle it well either because 1) as the official reminded me, you are NEVER supposed to pass your lead vehicle unless told to, and 2) there were all kinds of obscenities flying from behind us from people evidently forgetting that the official for their race was sitting in the car. So the pack goes around us and the other cars, we get on the radio to give a big WTF to everyone who can hear, and we proceed on our way. But wait... it gets better. So now we hit 12 and the group has caught the two lead women. We are not yet back ahead of the group and are trailing them. So they take it upon themselves to swarm around the two women and their lead car, but just as their about the complete the pass they basically sit up. Now, the women's lead car is having to honk at them and basically let the ladies draft off the car. We go to the front and basically tell the guys that they're going to have to drive the pace for a while to get the hell out of the way or we're going to have to just simply pull them over and wait. FINALLY, the whole thing managed to sort itself out going up the hills the next time, but we had basically a full lap of total chaos until it did. It's hard to say that much could have been done differently other than just recognizing earlier that we were going to catch the support car when we did and just neutralizing the men until we hit a more open area. The break was teetering right on the edge of being out of reach so it was a tough call and they wouldn't have been happy, but they weren't happy riding into the back of my truck either so it was a no win. Regardless, I still contend that every racer should try driving for a road race some day. You learn and see a lot that I think makes you appreciate both the official's job and the race as a whole more.

Despite the chaos, I hope all who were there enjoyed. Don't know when I'm racing again... my training the past 3 weeks has been suspect with all the school stuff I had so I should probably get that back on track. I also need to cutover to the dirt at some point to get ready for Pat's Peak, Great Glen, and CX. We'll see...

Is it too early to start a CX discussion?

Nah...

Now I'm not sure how many people out there have a first-hand perspective on this, but there's gotta be a few... Typically, which is the faster field: A-Masters or the Killer B's (2/3)? My gut feel is that the standard podium crew is faster in the Masters field than the 2/3 field, but the average pace of the field as a whole may be higher in the B's. I could be way off on this, it's always seemed however like Mark and crew have a legit shot at the front end of a pro race where I'm not so confident about Colin and friends (no offense intended man... I still can't carry your water bottles for you).

Debate/Discuss...

Who knew spare time would be bad?

I'm sitting her in the library at school (hopefully) 3.5 hours away from the conclusion of my graduate academic career... and that's the problem. The way my final night lined up was that I had to give a presentation for my 5 p.m. class and then I have a final in my 7:30 class. This final is nearly guaranteed to be a beatdown to the point that I took today off from work to study. So by the time I got here for the presentation, I was at mental saturation anyways and I just wanted this night to be over. Well there were only 2 groups due to give 15-20 minute presentations in the early class so we finished before 6. That gave me another 1.5 hours I hadn't planned on having to stew about this final. And you know how it goes when you've crammed for something... there's a breaking point where you start confusing yourself or questioning what you know, but regardless, you're not gaining anything. And just throwing in the towel, closing the books, and going to the library to blog doesn't make the final start (or end) any sooner...

Blue Hills Race Report

This is about all I've got for you kids (scale of plot withheld to protect the untalented). Prizes for anyone who can do a witty job of captioning/adding commentary.

Bell Lap

One week to go in my academic career... but who's counting?

Totally the right decision

Having 3 hours done before your race would have even started = good
Already being home when that 3 hours is over = better
Making it to the baseball field to see your son's game = best

Knowing your limits

When your a motivated and slightly neurotic type-A person, the hardest thing in the world to do is knowing when to say when. You go go go go go go go and everything goes well enough that it doesn't all fall apart, but the trick is to recognize that the next go could force it to do so. That happened tonight. I've truly hit the perfect storm of commitments right now and it dawned on me that going to Turtle Pond tomorrow would have been the last straw. After 9 years I really don't need to jeopardize the last 2 weeks of grad school and/or blow the first really big opportunity I've gotten at work. I also don't need to fall asleep and drive myself into a guardrail on the way home from Loudon. I'll hit the early Saturday morning beatdown ride instead. It'll be more miles, more fun, and I can ride there in 20 minutes... call it a belated earth day contribution. Even though I'm out $30 or whatever it was and I'm skipping what was supposed to be a target race, it's amazing how much better I feel. Have a good weekend all. Wear sunscreen... what's the current over-under on how many of your coworkers will have hideously painful looking sunburns on Monday? :)

idonotplaysoftball?

About the only major sport that I have never played in an organized fashion is baseball. I grew up in a soccer town... if you did any sports it was soccer. I know they had little league at some point because my cousin played, but I honestly don't know a single kid who played when I was little. I'm counting my distinguished career in neighborhood pond hockey and men's pickup leagues as "organized" because there were uniforms involved and we kept track of who won. The extent of my "bat sports" experience however has been limited to wiffle ball and that typically involved holding beer and/or food while batting. Oh and don't forget all those fundamentals I've picked up from watching T-ball. So when my buddy called me up and asked me if I was interested in joining a softball league what else would I say but "Sure!" This could be comical...

Sunshine and Kittens (or puppies if that's your thing)

After the recent insinuation that all I do is bitch and whine, I'll keep this upbeat... which will also mean short... oh wait... I think that's the lead in to more bitching and whining... anywho... Really very little other than status quo going on. Wednesday marks t-minus 4 classes. I had a killer ride Saturday in the 2 hour window where it didn't rain. I ran today for the first time in literally months and running is still pretty relaxing. Looking like I'll race Saturday with the other 5 people not going to Battenkill down at Ninigret.

Yup... told you it'd be short...

My Son the Trooper

And no I don't mean law officer although if that happened some day I'd sure be proud of him... Our middle son has come down with mono. He looks and sounds about as miserable as one can be. Just picture the worst sinus congestion you can imagine and then swell up most everything else in your head and neck for good measure. Then punch yourself in the spleen and just simply be worn out for no good reason. Sounds fun huh? Not only has he not really complained to speak of, but he got up this morning and grabbed the mountain of homework that was sent home to start working on it without us saying a word. He's cozied up in bed now with the pile next to him and he works on it every so often when the mood strikes him. I asked him if he needed something and other than some crackers and water (all he feels like eating) he was like "Nah, I'm good". We still don't know how long he's out of school for so we'll see how long it takes the stir-crazies to set in :)

Am I the only one that does this?

Somehow, I have an amazing ability to procrastinate even when I am overwhelmed by how much I have to do. Maybe it's a subconscious effort to avoid reaching total burnout. Maybe it's a sign that I need to calm the hell down and realize that I probably don't have quite as much to do as I think if I can procrastinate and still get it done. Maybe I'm simple sitting here defining procrastination. Maybe it's all just the Delirium Tremens talking.

BTW, Intermediate Statistics is probably going to turn out to be the class I both loved and hated the most in my entire academic career. Data that tells a story is cool...

Overwhelmed

Just a few days ago I was flying high when I realized that I have only 6 weeks of school left (ever!). Now I've been hit with the fear that there's no way to get it all done in 6 weeks. It's partially the volume of work there is to do with school, partially work picking up at the same time, and partially the realization that I may finally have to push riding into the background. Going into this semester I had said that training/racing would have to be a secondary priority to school. Up until now I've managed to do both successfully enough. I'm not sure it's going to be possible to continue it. I'll see what I can do, but the fact that I didn't even bother considering when I would ride today when I should have been heading out for a few hours is not a good sign. Oh well... gotta keep things in perspective...

I still just don't know if I get it...

I had started this post a different way, but then walked away and lost motivation to go on being all philosophical about road racing. The short story: I went to the Charge Pond race today expecting to do very well and didn't. I had to do the B-race in the interest of getting home early and it was, unfortunately, every bit the sketch fest that I feared. Several times during the race I went to the front and pulled everyone around for a lap or so simply to get the pace up and to stay away from people. With 6 to go on the downhill left-hander some guy on the inside of me must have panicked or something because he locked it up, fishtailed, and then when I tried to get around him he came close to completely t-boning me. Fortunately he sort of just grazed me and my bike handling skills are about a billion times better than a few years ago so I was able to ride out of it, but by then I was chasing big time since the pace picked up right at the same time as this incident. It took the better part of two laps to completely latch back on and by then it was getting pretty late in the affair and the general bike handling of the pack was not improving at all making moving up through it difficult. I thought I finally had an opening up the last rise, but then all but the first 8 or so almost seemed like they sat up cresting the hill so that was that. Disappointing to say the least. I got a good workout in so that's worth something, but I still find it hard to count a race as good if I wasn't where I had to be when it mattered. Then again I could always just stick to the dirt...

A: Oh Kiss My Ass!

Q: What did Rich say, out loud to nobody, when he got caught in a blinding snow squal while out riding yesterday?

We having fun yet kids?

All's well that ends well

So despite the warnings I was being given by some people about attending opening day at Wells today, I gave in to the peer pressure and my burning desire to find out whether there had been any value in all the 4:30 a.m. sessions on the trainer to date. I may have just done a hard cut over to ice cream and Wachusett if it had gone badly. The original plan was to go all in and ride down from home (about 90 minutes) and then have the family drive me home. Unfortunately I woke up wearing a skirt and decided it was too cold at 8:30 to ride down so instead I rode to CCB wonder-stud (and eventual winner today) Ciaran Mangan's house in Natick and left from there around 9:30. It's only about a 30 minute jaunt over there from his house so there was plenty of time to sign in and get ready for the A race.

Now I must pause here and point out a couple things: 1) I'm licensed as a cat 4. It's a combination of not racing much and not having any results on the road save my $5 prime last season. 2) I've never done above an A/B combined race at Wells. 3) There were those warnings I was given about the crashtastic nature of March racing at Wells. 4) I knew there would be a big field because there are a lot of people who ignore those warnings and it was beautiful today. What all this meant was that my heart-rate was 102 standing at the line waiting to start.

Now I could go all G on you and give you the pedal-stroke by pedal-stroke recap of the hour 15 of racing, but I'll go with the more efficient short list of highlights instead:

- There were crashes. Two that I know of, but I didn't know about one until after the race so it must have happened at the back when I wasn't there (for a change). I was not in either.

- I made 3 or 4 legitimate efforts to get into a break. 2 never really materialized because we never got a gap. The last one was a group that went away with 11 to go including some big horses and I tried to go across but blew up about 5 bike lengths away. That effort got me a 60 second avg power of 544W and jack shit to show for it. Fortunately, they came back anyways.

- The big efforts hurt... a lot.

- My positioning in the pack sucks, but no longer in the sucky way that gets you in crashes. Now it's in the sucky way that has you burning energy to get near the front or missing breaks because you're not there.

- After one last-ditch try with 1 to go to get near the front I called it a day and rolled in rubber side down

So let's call it a good opener. I think the test of fitness was successful, but there's a ways to go. I protected the body and equipment so that's never bad. I got almost 3 hours of riding in once you add in the ride back to the car in beautiful weather so how can you go wrong? And then I got to come home and study for an accounting midterm... damn you grad school... damn you straight to hell...

Has blogging become un-cool?

Is it just me, or does the blog-o-sphere seem more quiet these days? Maybe it's because bike racing hasn't started. Maybe it's because I've been more absent than not. It seems like it's partly related to everyone spending their time Facebooking, twitting, blipping, or whatever else it is they're doing. I've pretty adamantly resisted Facebook for a ton of reasons, not the least of which is that I have no time and it seems like the type of thing that's not even worth the effort to set up unless you can instantly turn into a crack-addict-like user. As I've told people, the few people from high school that I care about how they're doing I either talk to a few times a week already or I get the occasional update from my friends who did cave to the peer pressure. Ah well... not intending to turn this into a rant... more an observation.

I may just do something stupid and show up for the big kids race on Sunday... we'll see...

Colin save me

When your evening involves the computer command CHKDSK C: /R there's a good chance you're having a bad day. If you're computer illiterate, just trust me... it's all kinds of bad.

Reuter, I pay in whatever malted currency you prefer...

Burning it at both ends

I'm still running ragged full time. Work is a beatdown, still training fairly well, grad school, kids, wife, the occasional load of laundry, etc. Tonight I get home and I'm just a zombie. Wife tells me "You really should go pick up a belgian and plan to sit on your ass tonight" Um, ok... twist my arm. Sadly I'll probably still sit here and do various forms of work :( Go ride this weekend... bring the fenders.

Snow Daze

All who have had enough of this unrideable weather raise their hands...

Well with the entire state going into lockdown last night by 10 with the impending doom that was a whole 10 inches or so of snow, I lost the 3 out of 5 game of rock paper scissors and here I sit with 3 stir crazy little boys. I actually give them credit... they've been ok (let the bloody wrestling match ensue now that I have jinxed it). I'm trying to get little bits of homework and real work done here and there and being moderately successful.

Unfortunately the little weather preview we got yesterday coupled with me being slave to the MBA program meant I spoiled 2 very good weeks of training by doing nothing yesterday. I hate missing good training days, but at the same time I just remind myself that one day means very little other than me feeling like garbage the next day.

Ok, having trouble stringing coherent thoughts together so I'm done. Lets hope we can see the pavement again any time soon. Wells in 2 weeks? We'll see...

Thanks for nothing

To the a-hole who somehow got their scumbag hands on my credit card number: like I needed to deal with cleaning up after you. Sadly for you, it turns out that those monitoring companies are good at what they do. Nice try. Now get a life.

And sorry for the negative post folks... some people just flat out suck.

Mmmmmm, outside

Things that are good:
- Going from weeks (if not months) of riding inside to getting 5 hours in outside
- My Seven. Thing is farking awesome even if G does hate me.
- Doing some really big big ringing. I'd throw out all kinds of power meter nonsense, but you really don't care anyways.
- Duvel

Things that are bad**:
- Logistic Regression
- Activity Based Costing
** By bad I of course do not mean without merit because I am quiet enjoying both in a bizarre "trying to be positive and find the good in this situation" sort of way, but bad in that I am sitting here pondering both at great depths rather than simply enjoying the 4th good.

Let the "good" weather continue...

Weird things your body does

Monday morning at around 5 a.m. I weighed 201.5.
This morning around 5 a.m. I weighed 195.

As much as I wish it was this easy, 45 minutes on the trainer Monday and 55 minutes on Tuesday did not cause me to loose 6.5 pounds. Especially with the donut I was eating last night at about 10 o'clock. Mmmmm, forbidden donut...

How I'm doing

Frantic, tired, a little chunky, holding it together... The beatdown continues but I'm hanging in there. Here's just some random recent tidbits:

- Training is going very well all things considered which really means that training is going well on the occassions that I get to do it. Quality is there, but volume is down. I think it's supposed to be the other way around this time of year...

- Because I continue to eat like Marlon Brando, the weight is up a couple few maybe 5 or 8 pounds. That should reverse itself once the volume goes back up, but I should probably watch it anyways.

- I finally figured out over the weekend that the SRAM OG cassette with its weird missing tooth thingy has very little tolerance for a stretched (not severely) chain. How I love thee smooth and quiet new Dura Ace chain.

- The good news is I've already blown through the first chain on the new Seven. The bad news is that SRAM 10 speed chains don't seem to be lasting as long as I'd expect. The worse news is that a lot of that wear was done on a trainer.

- I just finished a weekend of Daddy daycare since the wife had a work trip to Cozumel (yes, her work rules). It was the weekend of comedic B-movies. Meet Dave and Paul Blart, Mall Cop are actually pretty entertaining when you assume a 4 to 7 year old sense of humor along with your fellow viewers. Physical comedy and fart jokes never get old.

Ok, times up. Hope everyone is well.

Thoughts on Worlds

I have about 2 seconds to empty out a corner of my brain... I ponied up for the cycling.tv UCI subscription yesterday so I could watch the men's race after reading the coverage of the women on cxmag. As truly awesome as their interactive feed is, I nearly had a stroke waiting for the updates during the women's finale so I went with real time on the men... sort of anti-climactic after all. Stybar put up a hell of a fight and for a second I wondered if Nys could shock everyone, but Albert would have none of it. Never would have expected someone to ride away, but what do I know. Went back later and watched the women's race... smart clearly won out over strong... Hanka and Katie had her schooled on flat out power, but I guess they both got outsmarted. I couldn't believe how many times Katie fought back on just the final lap and did anyone catch how much ground she made up every time down the big descent? Girl can handle her bike. As a nice contrast I also went back later and watched the Roubaix men's race... there's some good crossin for ya... course nothing like the grass crit at Hoogerheide... looked wicked damn fun ya know... ok, now I'm sounding like G... time to go.

Why this site may get a little stale...

I'll check in when I can kids...

You know you're from New England when...

I had this long rambling post almost composed this morning at around 4:45 and then figured out that even I had lost track of what the hell I was saying. The summation was this: You know you're from New England when you have a full understanding and associate fear of ice dams. At 9:30 last night I noticed the kitchen ceiling was wet. At 9:45 I was waking up children and neighbors trying to chip ice off the roof. I quickly gave up and remembered that the task is most easily completed mid day, preferably when it's about 40 degrees... huh, that kinda sounds like the past couple hours so I need not tell you what I've been doing. Damage sufficiently minimized I think. Stupid house...

The Big Man is Goofy

Nothing like a nice day off to catch a little winter fun with the youngins. The daycare was open so with the schools closed the big boys were able to hit Wa-wa-wa-Wachusett for a little snowboarding fun today. A few years back me and my brother-in-laws went and took a lesson and it was a trainwreck. We still debate whether the one of them had a concussion, the other one gave up and was just sitting on his board and sledding, and I was sore for many days after. After reading up a little before this trip (everything on the internet is true right?) I decided to try something different and switch my stance from the last time I went. Well apparently riding goofy was the secret because I genuinely felt like I got it this time (note I did not even imply that I was good). Couple that with the fact that 6 and 8 year olds do not yet know fear so they had no problem bombing down the hill and I think we'll all be going back. The younger one did give us a scare when he wiped out some lady coming into the bottom of the hill too fast and panicking thus forgetting how to stop quickly. Everyone was ok and she was probably nicer about it than I would have been. The oldest is convinced he's Shaun White now because he sort of half hopped his board about a half inch off the ground on one run so he can't wait to go back and throw some more steezy tricks (see, even old men can learn all the lingo the yutes are using these days).

Oh, and the snow this weekend really f'd up my long ride. I am already starting to hate my trainer and it's looking like I've got a while to go on that bad boy...

Cross training is supposed to be good for you

Over the years I've dabbled in a pretty ridiculous number of sports from running to rock climbing to bike racing to ice hockey. I basically suck at most of them that require any amount of coordination (which explains why running is good for me), but that usually doesn't stop me from trying anyways and having fun reveling in my suckitude. For some off-racing-season fun I managed to hook up with the company ice hockey game. It's not really a league, but it's more than a pickup game too (they pick 2 teams and you basically keep those for about half the season unless there's some week with a bunch of no-shows). As a nice coolness factor, we get to play at Walter Brown Arena, former home of the BU Terriers. I give myself no more credit than being an ok player... maybe a high c-level when I've been practicing a bit. For the bike racers out there, think of it as a cat 3 roadie... you're definitely above the new guys racing in t-shirts and you could show up for the big boys race and not hurt anyone, but you're just going to get smoked if you do. The legitimately good players accentuate my lack of coordination. Ok, wait, I had a point here... oh yah... here it is... So at this morning's skate I tweaked my back a little in a moment of skating grace. It's my extreme lower back to the point that I'm calling it my ass. So it was a bit uncomfortable all day, but nothing exciting. At the end of the day I was sitting down and bent all the way forward to tie my shoes. When I sat up and tried to stand up, I almost fell back down. I could now no longer stand up straight without extreme pain. So now I'm parked in the chair, watching hockey, and hoping Opa Opa IPA works as a muscle relaxer. Right now sitting = good, standing = bad. I'm hoping it's just a weird muscle thing because I've heard all manner of horror stories that sounded like this. Nothing like a lasting reminder that you suck...

Poor man's year in review

My time bank is on overdraft these days so I'll count that as being poor. I'm hoping at least a few caught the irony of calling myself poor man... there I go with the digressions again...

When all was said and done, I got the competitive juices flowing 30 times last year. Yup... 30. Surprised me too. I think this was the breakdown:

17 Cross (including last Jan's Beer Cross)
2 Road
2 Crit
2 Wells (might have been 3)
1 Circuit Race
1 Solo 6-Hour MTB
1 24 Hour Team MTB
1 MTB TT
1 MTB XC
2 Running (1 track, 1 cross country)

How's that for variety? Definitely an off-road bias there and that is likely to continue this coming year although we'll see. Due to that time bank thing (already been interrupted once while writing this), I haven't looked up my goals for last year, but as I've mentioned, I think I hit most/all of them. Progress throughout the season was noticeable. Sure I would have liked more, but I surprised the hell out of myself a couple times so that was good. I have been tossing around some goals for this year, but having a hard time nailing them down. If it snows again this weekend and I get stuck on the trainer for multiple hours again it'll give me time to think about it. One thing I know for certain is that my season will start late because I have to finish up school... 2 classes to go. 5 hours every Wednesday evening for 16 weeks and then they let me out. Have I mentioned it can't come soon enough?

Rare work post

Some may know I'm a manager (stop laughing, yes they put me in charge intentionally). A little while back they expanded my group to become quite sizeable (at least enough for my liking). I have 18 full-time staff. I think it's like 23 total... I should probably know that... but I digress. We just finished our yearly review process. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was left with a grand total of 2 work days to conduct a performance review and discuss goals with 18 people. At the end of it all one person had told me I clearly put a lot of thought into it and several people had thanked me. I think I may have even done some of that coaching stuff I think I'm supposed to do in there. Yay me. And nobody seemed overly traumatized... then again if you hear of a workplace shooting in Cambridge you may know why.

And the amazing thing was that I was absolutely spent after holding 18 meetings in 2 days. Who'd have known sitting in my chair talking with people could be that taxing.

Really, I'm going to post something interesting

Having missed the chance to ride today, I'd somehow feel a little redeemed if I were able to bang out the obligatory end of year/new years post, but I don't think that's happening easier. My day went like this:

Alarm at 4:15 (and 4:25 and 4:35 and 4:45)
Get ready for work, make lunches for me and the boys
At work (40+ minutes away) by 6:15
Start the first of 9 performance review meetings at 6:30 a.m.
Conduct 8 of the 9 planned reviews by 3:45
Drive 1 hour to pick up 2 of 3 boys
Coach seven 6 to 8 year olds in basketball for an hour
Drive to next town with oldest for a baseball game
Watch U10 indoor baseball until 7:30
Drive home
Get kids ready for bed
Eat dinner at 9:15
Open beer at 9:16

I do this to myself... oh well, time for bed so I can do some more stupid stuff to myself tomorrow.

Here's To a Great '09

Happy new year guys and gals. Genuinely wishing you the very best in '09 and beyond. Thanks for stopping by.

Missing

Somehow less scheduled activity is resulting in less free time. Been trying to enjoy the holidays, reset the brain and body a little, and catch up with the parts of my life that get ignored during school/racing/etc. Rib thing is feeling better, but still reminds me not to be stupid. Rode both days this weekend after 2 weeks of nothing. At work most of this week, but fortunately it will be dead. Maybe I can piece together the year in review if I find the motivation to dig up that old post on goals. Frighteningly, I think I hit most of them. It can only be downhill from here.

And Xmas was fantastic... the boys claimed it was the best ever, family drama was at a minimum, and much fun was had by all. Hope your near the end of December holiday-ish celebration was great too.

Good thing the season is over

After the Ice Weasels race, I noticed that the left side of my ribcage felt like I had pulled a muscle or something. I figured that some combination of hurriedly throwing furniture around and something I did while racing was the culprit... no big deal... sucks to get old. Well that was 9 days ago. Most of last week the pain was sort of back and forth and I noticed after a couple days that there was one very specific spot, about the size of my finger-tip, that was very very tender to the touch. I started thinking "Huh, I bet this is what it would fee like if I broke a rib." Not remembering any sort of impact that would break a rib, I wrote it off. After a weekend of snow removal said rib was particularly angry with me so last night I had to make the promise to the wife that I'd call a doctor today. Doctor's recommendation basically came down to go get an x-ray because we're going to want one anyways. Out of work early and off to the ER I go where I enjoyed about a 100-minute turnaround for 3 chest x-rays and a diagnosis. Sadly, that was pretty quick. The diagnosis: If it hurts, don't do it. There was nothing on the film that indicated a healing break of any kind so the theory is that I severely aggravated the cartilage between my ribs. I was told to basically just take it easy for a bit to let things calm down. I follow up with the doc in the a.m., but I'm not expecting any sort of different story. Of course I then came home and used the snow rake to clear off the bottom few feet of the roof. Fortunately 12 fl. oz. in a glass bottle don't seem to be heavy enough to bother it...

Update: Likely diagnosis is an intercostal muscle tear. Treatment: don't do anything stupid for about 4 weeks. Probability of me following treatment plan: Low.

NTEP, the finale

Finally huh?

When we last left our hero, he was standing in the driveway in a combination of horror and disbelief about destroying his road bike. What to do... what to do? Well it turns out this story has a silver lining. About 3 weeks prior to said incident I had become officially fed up with the poor fit of my road bike and the fact that there was effectively nothing more that could be done. Even with the custom fork, there was just something about the overall setup that wasn't right and I had been getting very uncomfortable on anything more than an hour. Well I had been sitting on part of a bonus from work and my wife graciously agreed to let me go for broke and order... wait for it... my Seven that I had always wanted. So once I was able to speak again, I made a call to the shop and told them what happened. Then I asked if anything could be done to expedite the build. I got a call back that I'd have my new steed within 3 days. So lady and gentleman, meet my silver lining:

A picture taken in my poorly lit garage really doesn't do it justice. Some sunny day I have to do a proper photo shoot.

See... good thing I split that post up... it only took me like 3 months to finish it.

And you think I'm an unusually large Person

I just had to buy my not-even 8 year old son MEN'S size 7 shoes. This poor child is either going to be rich and famous from crushing other large men on a turf field or pointed at and mocked like his old man...

Scam

Apparently ground water intrusion of any type is not covered by insurance, or at least mine. Forget the fact that we've gone to great personal expense to prevent damage to the house and that I've gone to great lengths to minimize the size of any claim I'd be filing from this incident. I knew they'd find a way to weasle out of this... pictures to follow on my other blog (link forthcoming with the pictures).

Oh, and I hand in my final today... One. Semester. Left.

I almost didn't goeth

Rewind back to Friday early morning... About 4 a.m. when my brain was starting to spark to life my wife pointed out that she thought the power had just gone out. Once it registered, I looked at the clock and saw that it was on so I thought she was crazy or it was just a blip. About 30 minutes later I was more conscious and noticed when the power really did go out. Probably 5 minutes after that the overflow alarm on my sump pump started to go off and thus started the mad scramble to save anything we could. Despite being in line at Home Depot when they opened the doors at 6 to buy a generator (fortunately the next town didn't lose power until a couple hours later), we still ended up with about 4" of water in some parts of the basement. Saturday morning as I was tearing out more sections of the floor that was destroyed, I contemplated whether I should just bail and attend to that, but was then given the green light by my wife since it was the last race of the season and it would be a good stress relief (have I mentioned she rocks?)

Now just because I had the go-ahead, didn't mean I was prepared. I think I was half packed, it was already 11:15, the race was at 2, and I hadn't eaten lunch. I had to take the gamble and go with 2 junior bacon cheeseburgers from Wendy's while driving as pre-race food. Fortunately there was no second coming of the burgers so that part worked out ok I guess. Got to Wretham about 12:40 which left me barely enough time to get myself organized. With the small race and parking right there it was no problem to get to reg and see a couple of the noon racers going by at the end of their festivities. Just then Coley says "Ooh, they're done, I can get a lap in" so I'm thinking "Oh yah, I should probably check out the course, but I have about 10 minutes to do that". Run back to the car and throw on the bare essentials... shoes and helmet and even the shoes were debated. So my course preview was in jeans and a work jacket... oh well, I was warm. Someone had warned me the course "would make you learn how to turn your bike" and they were certainly right. Note to self, set your expectations low when the course is designed by 2 nearly pro mountain bikers and they have very little space to work with. All the twists and turns were pretty fun and I was actually more worried about the drop of death on the backside of the course. If it had been smooth it would have been a no-brakes thrill ride, but it was riddled with potholes so it was instead an attempt to not injure myself.

With the course checked out I got suited up quickly and then hit the oh-so-pro warmup area in the barn. Let me tell you, pro treatment when you're lining up for your first big kids race is... well... pro. The lineup was uneventful except that Colin was still standing casually in front of the field shooting the shit with the officials when Chris yelled "15 seconds"... dude puts on a race and he thinks he can do what he wants ;) Whistle blows and I am VERY quickly reminded that I need some big adjustments to my starting mentality when racing fast people. Everyone was off like a shot and by about 2 minutes into the race I realized that me, GD, and lil Stevie are bringing up the rear of the field convincingly. Well I'd like to tell you that I got my act together and went blazing through the field from there, but you'd know I was lying. Some high/lowlights from the rest of the race:

- Passing a guy going into the super narrow 180 and then crashing hard while doing a 3-point turn on my giant bike and making him and GD stand there while I insulted myself

- Thinking I was taking a Bud Light handup only to discover it was a malt liquor handup. I think it's good that I then hit a pothole and spilled half of it.

- Getting a free Colt 45 fueled Nega-Coach session in the middle of the race. After screaming a bunch of stuff about being fast and power and all kinds of other nonsense he eloquently summed it up by screaming "DON'T SUCK!" Amen brother.

- Realizing that I was gaining on Coley and CCC only to have them mock me to try and catch them and later find out that they had "shut it down" and realized they should pick it up when I started getting close

- Being mocked by a tri guy for my bike handling skills

- Not getting lapped despite deserving it with the way I rode

Overall it was a killer race and I was definitely sore and tired Saturday night. I didn't feel great during the race, but it's unclear if that's because I sucked or if the race was just that fast and the speed was killing me. All the twisties were definitely not made for me, but I held my own on the 2 long straights and barrier sections. There's definitely improvements to be made, but whether it's the 3-4 minutes worth of improvements I'd need to actually compete in that field remains to be seen. Sounds like a goal for another season...

What do we do next weekend?

Yes kids, I think the withdrawal has begun already. I'm pretty beat from the past couple days and I'll give the long story on all that tomorrow. For now I just have to give it up to Results Boy and Thom for putting on a hell of a race today. There's got to be some sort of award for making the most out of very little space and these guys would win it. Seriously, I think they packed about 3-4 minutes of a 7 minute-ish course into a space about 150' x 150'. Although I will request that next year they use my bike to gauge the width of some of those 180's ;)

So for now I'll leave you with this Mr (and Ms) Cyclocross Racer... to a season well done:

Bad day for tires

I finally got 2 seconds to capture my blowout from Sunday:



As an added bonus, while trying to frankenbike some shizz together for Saturday I discovered this little gem:

Fortunately I never liked these tires much anyways. I suppose that's one way to clean out the garage...

Sunday Suckfest

The silver lining of shitty races is that the reports can be short... 5th row lineup, mediocre start, 2 guys come together and almost eat it in front of me, took the wrong side on the first run and literally came to a standstill, spontaneous flat on lap 2 about 30 seconds past the pit, just try not to get lapped. Rode the flat slowly and carefully just since it hurt less than running that far, but there wasn't much to accomplish by that point. Only highlight was plucking a dollar off the barriers although I did miss the brownie handups. 1 race to go... guess it will be on clinchers. I'm not scrambling around this week to buy and glue a tire. If I were headed to KS then I'd be freaking out, but the likelihood of in-race shenanigans Saturday is very high so why bother.

Dear God, What Have I Done?

Dear Colin,

Please make the lap long... really really long. I'd like to get to race 30 minutes or so before Diane just laughs and pulls me.

Thanks,
Giant Frame Guy

OK blogosphere, prove that you're cool

Manny Goguen from MRC has been invited to participate in the Euro Cross camp. Yah... that one. That whole go live in Belgium with super fast guys and race super fast guys thing. Problem is, Manny only has one bike and was told to bring two. Manny needs a decent loaner 50cm cross bike to bring with him. Obviously I can't give him mine or I would have driven it down to him tonight. Help a brother out? I can put you in touch with him and his dad if you can...

A few days late

I should have linked this last week. Just one of many things I have to be thankful for. And yes, the looks and charm get him out of a lot of trouble he causes.

The fun continues

This will be quick because something tells me I should be working... maybe it's all the people working around me, but I'm not sure. Sunday was another fantastic day of racing at Palmer. Lined up with 25 or so in the 35+ race, dutifully watched Dan Coady and Curtis Boivin ride away off the line, battled it out with a small group, didn't suck on the mountain bike sections, took advantage of the 3 runups (woo hoo), and came home 10th. I added to Saturday's tally of beating people I've never beaten by coming in ahead of several more fast guys. At this point I won't be at all surprised if this week 1) I get insanely sick, 2) my frame snaps, or 3) I show up Sunday and suck badly. Let's see if I can keep it rolling for another couple weeks...

Crossomeness

What is Crossomeness you ask? Well I'll start out by telling you what crossomeness is not: It is not the crash that happened at the start of the 55+ race which sent David Rath and another guy on an ambulance ride. It looked bad there for a minute, but later reports were that they were "better". Of course better is relative to being out cold in the mud. Heal up quick guys.

While we're at it, crossomeness is also not the general vibe I was getting from the 2 guys I battled with late in the race. I'll leave names out of it, but I had the one guy yelling and complaining every time he didn't like my line and the other guy getting me up close and personal with the course stakes the few times I tried to come around. Ah well, it's all good especially since it was a feat to even have the privelage to battle those guys.

So now what crossomeness is:

1. It's the Sterling course. I love that place. I had one of my better finishes there last year. Funny to look back and think that 11th in the 4's was an accomplishment. Oh how far one can get with a few 4:30 a.m. workouts. And BTW, I'm petitioning the UCI to make it mandatory that there's a big nasty runup in every course. Can you fellas hook me up with that? Thanks.

2. It's 2 MRC guys on the podium in the B Masters (not that anyone cares) :). It's also the mike time that MRC was getting from Richard thanks to some real solid riding all around.

3. It's getting hardware and cash:
4. It's Big-Ass cupcakes. Man was I bummed that I had like a nickel and some lint in my pocket so I couldn't get one or three.

5. It's finishing a race, coated in mud, and having your kids ask "What happened to you?". More importantly it's them being there in the first place to yell "GO DADDY!"

6. It's coming oh so very close to beating one of the NE cross legends. More than once during the race I caught myself thinking "Holy crap, I don't think I've ever been this close to that silly wheel during a cross race". Next time...

7. It's getting my hack-mechanic's license back. After a near full drive-train replacement this week and some other tinkering, it held up great. Apparently those 2 extra teeth did matter too.

Couldn't hang around real long to enjoy the rest of the crossomeness, but I can only hope it continued for the kids, ladies, and uber fast guys and gals (speaking of that there's some crossomeness going on with MBR's new bike... that thing is SICK!)

Love your drivetrain, it will love you back

It's been a week huh? Maybe that means my life has turned uninteresting... maybe I'm just being lazy. I successfully ate myself into a food coma yesterday, but at least I got out for 2 hours in the morning so I could pre-burn some of those calories.

So back to the subject... my cross bike has been a little unhappy lately as several parts of it are in need of a total teardown, cleaning, and possible replacement. I've been keeping it going as best I can, but it needs some major love. After Lowell I was scrubbing all the mud off and noticed that the rear derailleur pulleys didn't look quite right. As it turns out, running mud, ice, and other CX debris through them for 2 seasons is bad. You guess which are the old ones and which are new:


I also took the occasion to swap out the chainring for the 44T which I picked up after the Gloucester debacle. It doesn't seem like the extra 2 teeth will kill me, but you may not want to be behind me the first time I try to muscle up a steep pitch. You may however want to get on my wheel on the flats as I will now be able to put out like 2 more watts which will make all the difference between 19th and 20th place...

Thursday is the new Hump Day

The strangest thing has been happening the past few weeks. Actually maybe it's not strange at all and kinda makes sense, but it's a trend nonetheless. Thursday is my least busy day of the week in terms of commitments. With class on Wednesday I almost never have to be thinking about the next week's work yet, I have nowhere to be after work, wife's soccer games are usually after the kids are in bed, and I typically have no late meetings at work. Sounds like it's screaming "great day to ride" huh? Well as it turns out, Thursday has turned into my most mentally challenging day to ride. I think I'm putting so much physical and mental energy into surviving the Sunday through Wednesday stretch that I hit Thursday and I'm just like "You know, I just don't feel like it". On Friday I'm better again because it's time to start thinking race prep, but Thursday it's just a struggle. Good news is that a tired and cranky 7 p.m. interval session on Thursday should be easily (and probably better) replaced by a rested 5 a.m. interval session on Friday. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

No racing this weekend. Mentally checked out of this weekend so I could be sure to get permissions slips for Sterling, maybe Palmer, and the double at RI. Unfortunately the church/school had other plans for my Saturday of RI weekend, so maybe it becomes Sterling, Palmer, Sunday at RI, and then Ice Weasels. In either case, it sits better after being home this weekend.

There's a Lot to Like About Lowell

Please tell me everyone remembers that annoying little radio jingle...

Anywho... just a quick race report preceded by today's PSA: If anyone in the freak crew had some money burning a hole in their pocket, check it. It's been revived and rebuilt from our little incident.

Let's go with the good/bad method of race reporting:

Good: Second row lineup
Bad: With the A-Masters

Good: Getting off the line well
Bad: Those guys are fast

Good: Riding both of the steep uphills (all 6 laps for the long one, 4 of 6 on the shorter one)
Bad: Riding both of the steep uphills

Good: Cleaning the mud bog twice
Bad: Can't find a bad with the mod bog... I'm a big fan of deep sloppy mud.

Good: Going up 2 to 1 in the newly developed battle with CTodd
Bad: Giving him a display of my severely inferior bike handling skills laps 1 and 2

Good: Holding off the 45+ winner at the line (those guys are typically more than 2 minutes faster than me)
Bad: Having to hold them off with my chain skipping every 4th pedal stroke (should have gone for the bike change)

Good: Getting closer to catching Coley
Bad: Having Coley be in the self-described "worst shape in a long time" and still not being able to catch him

OK, gotta get back to work. Hoping to get the final chapter of the psuedo Epic up this week.

All is well in the world

Today's Plymouth South race proved that all is normal in the world... GCD is still fast, gravity still works, loose dirt is still slippery, and cross is still fun. About 40 lined up for the start of the 3/4's in the rare 20 wide format. It was actually a little concerning, but fortunately everyone handled it well... hell, even the 4's made the first corner without killing each other. I got off the line moderately well as did Gary and JimmE was out like a rocket. By a short way into lap one it was the lead 20 or so and then everyone else... trust me, I was the tail of that train and I looked back and there was a gap. The course was all kinds of good fun with a combo of fast packed dirt, wide open spongey athletic fields, and really tricky technical stuff. The best/worst part of the technical stuff was the 5 or 6 short punchey uphills that really made you hurt as the race went on. 2 were long-ish and the rest were just enough to kick you in the nuts. The kicker on some of the short ones were that if you didn't set them up right you were (annoyingly) running. Lap one was hot and I was working hard to stay on. Going into lap 2 things were sorting themselves out and I was trying to stay with/near Gary. First Gary went by Jim into the first ballfield and then I went around in a deperate attempt to 1) pull him, and 2) catch Gary. There would be none of it as I just watched him ride away (the dude can put out some WAAAAAAATTTTSSSSS). I eventually fell into a pack of anywhere from 3 to 5 and we proceeded to take turns mangling technical sections of the course and fouling up the whole group. My lowlight was nearly pulling a Reuter on the downhill with the stairs, but skidding to a stop just shy of the tree. Long story short after a number of bad words and lots of pain and drooling, I rolled home 11th. An acceptable day I guess, although I was AGAIN odd man out of 3 as 2 ahead of me sprinted it out for 9 & 10 and I just spectated. Super fun race regardless and next weekend we get to follow up with another uber-fun one. See you there...

I accept your challenge Results Boy

If you've actually read the side-bar, I'm an engineer and rarely just accept anything. So when Colin implied that my recent assertions needed data to back them up, well... I just heard "I dare ya". So here you go:

The task: Analyze the results 3/4 Masters 35+/45+ and 55+ races at Gloucester and Northampton Day 2. These are the two races I had direct experience with and had been referenced in my comments.

The assumptions (some of these may seem invalid, but maybe they'll make sense later or from my descriptions):
1) The start gap between the two fields was exactly 1 min
2) All riders in all fields rode even splits for the entire race.
- While this is clearly not true, it was the only way I could perform any actual analysis
without direct knowledge of what actually happened which I didn't have
3) All lapped riders were lapped because they were very slow and not because they started great and then had a mechanical, bio or otherwise
4) Once a pass had been made, there was no pass back
5) I defined a "lead pack" for both races that was a set size for the entire event.
- This is also clearly not true and there are many in the "go and blow" camp who fade later.
Again, in order to be able to show any results based on what I knew, I needed a cutoff point.
- For the 3/4 35+/45+ field I defined the lead pack as 15. Why? Because it seemed like a
good number and I think I had said something like "the top 10-15 were catching almost
everyone"
- For the 55+ field I defined the lead pack as 4. Why? Because there was a distinct dropoff
in both races from 4th to 5th place.
6) If the start order of the fields were reversed, each race would have played out the same as it actually did
7) I defined two "congested periods" in the race:
- The first two laps because riders tend to be closer together and people are being possibly
a bit more aggressive
- The final lap when small groups could be battling for finish place.

The method:
Pretty simple... I just merged the two sets of results, normalized by the start gap, and sorted to see when people crossed the finish line. Then used the assumptions above to come up with some "statistics"

The data:
The two events actually turned out to be quite different, partially due to size of the fields.

Gloucester, the way it happened:
- There were 10 55+ riders passed by the 3/4 lead pack in the first two laps
- 8 of those 10 riders were passed by the lead pack in the first lap
- Another 2 riders were passed by the lead pack in the final lap
- Note the top 55+ rider crossed the line 4th

Gloucester, if they had reversed the fields:
- The lead pack of 55's would have passed 33 riders in the 3/4 field in the first two laps
- 7 of those riders would have been passed by the lead pack in the first lap
- 5 more riders would have been passed by the lead pack on the final lap
- Note the top 55+ rider would have crossed the line 21st


NoHo, the way it happened:
- 16 55+ riders were passed by the 3/4 lead pack in the first two laps
- 9 of those riders were passed by the lead pack in the first lap
- 1 more appears to have been passed by the back of the lead pack at the finish
- Note, the top 2 55+ riders were never caught

NoHo, if they had reversed the fields:
- The lead pack of 55's would have passed 15 riders in the 3/4 field in the first two laps
- All 15 would have been passed on the first lap
- 2 more riders would have been passed on the final lap
- Note the top 55+ rider would have come across the line 16th

Conclusions:
None... draw your own. The last time I made conclusions I ignited a holy war ;)

Mechanic I am not

Good news: I will now never forget that the drive-side of an italian-threaded bottom bracket is threaded like every other normal threaded thing in the world and is removed by turning it left (lefty loosey kids)

Bad news: This learning experience cost me a bottom bracket (which I probably never would have used again anyways, but probably could have sold at the flea market for 5 bucks)

Ignorance annoys me more than most other qualities in people... I really hate demonstrating my own...

Add on: This would have been the perfect post for a link to the bottom bracket removal TodCast. If anyone's feeling ambitious enough to dig it out of the archives, we can all get a good chuckle

Analogy

What to do when you ignite one of the biggest debates ever on your blog... well fuel the fire of course. Actually, maybe this will put what I'm really getting at to bed...

Imagine they decided to start the U19's in front of the A Masters... I mean hell, the kids are battling for world team spots and the masters can't even get an upgrade out of it so they're more important right? Sure, given a minute head start MAYBE Luke, Gavin, and some Belgian kid who happens to be in town stay away, but at some point in the race, Manny, the Henry's Bikes kid, and little Keough are going to get swarmed by the pain train of Johnny, Mark, Roger, Kevin, etc. Manny and co are trying to battle back for the last bit of cash and a podium spot so they're not exactly going to pull over into the tape, but Johnny just attacked and the others got blocked. In the meantime, little Goguens and Keoughs are chopping G and Solo in the corners as they try to come around (the nerve of these kids)...

That's all I'm saying... it's a situation that doesn't make sense for all involved and must have a better option.

NoHo Report

Family commitments meant I could only make it to day 2 of the fun that is NoHo. To skip the same old pre-race story, lets cut to the chase... the day 2 course was wicked damn fun, but I found it to be surprisingly technical in race situations. I even said to CTodd one of the dozen times I passed him (more on that later) that the course was surprisingly hard to pass on. One thing that certainly didn't help is this wonderful start concept the Verge folks seem to have in their heads as a good idea... start the 55+ race ahead of the 35+ 3/4 race. With all due respect to the elder statesmen of the sport and the tremendous effort the Verge crew puts out, THAT START FORMAT DOES NOT WORK! They tried it at Gloucester and we damn near killed a couple back of the packers when we got to the runup the first time. I think it was a half a lap yesterday before I started catching guys. Even right through the end of the race, the top 10-15 B Masters are passing the lead elders. It just creates undue traffic and I'm still failing to see the benefit. Oh wait... this was a race report...

I lined up third row out of 10 or 11 and noticed that T-Needham had the primo front row spot. The Professor was row two and CTodd was lurking around somewhere as was Cookie. Now the good and bad thing about NoHo is that you can't really go balls deep at the start or you risk giving you or your neighbor a rude intro to a giant steel gate. So off we go and about 5 seconds in someone mid to back of the lineup decides to make everyone's day a little more interesting by causing a pileup before they even hit the start line. In the meantime I'm off somewhere in the top 30 or so. Right from the get go, the battles are on. Cookie and CTodd were all in the neighborhood and so were some fast starters who were trying to hang on. The worst part about the tight racing was that the very rideable sand pit and ride-down-turned-ride-up became enormous cluster phucks. Fast forward to lap 3... the 55's have been passed or are just one at a time. Cookie is gone from my group, but close. JimmE has moved up from his DFL lineup and is within site on the double-back sections. And me and CTodd have found ourselves in a battle. Looking back it was really the most comical thing... we spent the better part of 30 minutes taking turns pulling each other, trying to drop each other, exchanging words of encouragement, and heckling each other. I think being able to try and drop a guy, but offering that he jump on your wheel all at the same time is some of the beauty of cross. Final lap now... I know we're in the top 20ish and we've had various guys with us off and on and now we can see the next big group right in front of us including Mr. Needham. Into the litter box and we both ride it while Needham and another guy run. I was sure TN was gone, but he jumped on quickly and then he and CTodd were in front of me. Unfortunately we were now headed to the upper deck where opportunities to pass almost don't exist so it was just setting it up for the sprint. We turned for home and the (now) 3 in front had gapped me and right at the entrance to the stretch an NEBC guy came around. I wound it up a bit late and found myself essentially odd man out in my group. I've definitely decided I'm not a sprinter so I'm going to have to both work on that and work on getting to situations where I don't need it.

So the tally was 14th overall, just over a minute down to the winner and around 45 sec down to GCD. Gary was an easy 2 minutes up on me last year so it's progress. At first I was a bit down because I know I have beaten or can beat at least 6 of the guys in front of me. In a race that close though on that course and with the fun I had, I'm not going to worry about it. The upgrade has come through so the battles are only going to get more fierce... better get used to it.

NTEP IV, WTF... OMG

As we continue our series about my comical life, we find ourselves at a fine weekend in September where me and the wife actually got to go away as adults and be in the company of other adults for 2.5 days in Newport. Yes, we love our children, but if you have kids, you get it. Hell, if you've ever been to a store and seen one of the little monkeys throwing a tantrum about a 49 cent pencil you get it... anyways... I digress. So being in the throes of this fancy training plan and planning to have lots of free time I bring both running shoes and my bike. Saturday I get out for a very nice run that got capped off with some sprints up a nasty grass hill (think NoHo runup, but in good condition on grass). Sunday I had it planned that I'd head out for 3 hours in the greater Newport area. I got a tip from the local shop that the best bet was to troll the farmlands over in Tiverton so I bummed a ride over and got in a very very nice loop over there. Everything's good right? So far, right. Monday morning we drag out of bed and pack up to head home. We had to give the minivan to the weekend nanny so we're in the Civic with the bike on the roof. We drive home, yada yada, nothing exciting. We stopped off near home to get some food then finally get to our road. I pull in the driveway and as I get about half way up the driveway, there's just noise and chaos that shouldn't be happening when driving in your driveway. "WTF" I say, to which my wife replies "Oh my God... your bike". By this point I was at a dead stop and I look out the passenger side to see what looks like the corner of the basketball backboard out through the corner of the windshield. It then registered and I was horrified to get out of the car. Turns out that I was in a haze when I drove in and forgot the basketball hoop was lowered down for the boys. I drove right under it, hooked the right brake hood on the net, and... well use your imagination from there. The only saving grace was that I think I stopped at EXACTLY the critical moment before the weakest link broke, but the bad news was that the weakest link was stronger than the amount of force it takes to twist the legs and dropouts of a steel fork around. I just stood there in the driveway dumfounded and didn't know whether to laugh or cry... I think I did a little of both...

And yes, the story continues...

I had to open my big mouth

All this talk about the training and what happens... it goes to hell. It's a good thing last week and the weekend went well because this week is turning out to be a joke. Dammit. That's all... just dammit.

NTEP, Part III

First off, photo credit for that last set goes exclusively to Rob... nice work dude. Now...

As a continuation of our series, let's explore a possible reason for recent success... You know how all these coaches are these days... they're all about their science and their fancy training methods. It's amazing how easily they brainwash you and how easily we cyclists give in to shiny stuff. Well, I am sad to say (ok, not real sad) that I in fact washed down the red pill by drinking the Koolaid and I bought myself a PowerTap. Some people are probably going to be sorely disappointed in me, but tis true. Fortunately, the greatest LBS on the planet hooked me up big time and lessened the impact on the wallet as much as possible. And hey, call me a sellout, but I think it's working.

Let's see... fancy testing, a coach, a little yellow buddy... what the hell else could be going on (I think the media industry calls that a tease... here in tall freak blogger land, we call that a 3 year old who needs the oreo crumbs washed off his face)...