U g l y

That’s what this past weekend was…very very ugly. About the only saving grace from the weekend was the Dairy Queen blizzard that I had after the races on both Saturday AND Sunday.

Saturday I blew up…pretty badly actually. I could barely pedal my pithy bike to the finish line…I was highly active over the first 1/2 of the race. Attempting to get into breaks, or start one myself…little did I realize that nothing was really going to stick…so, going up the last climb…*ka*boom* yeah…stupid stupid stupid.

The on Sunday…it was/is my favorite style of race. A roubaix-type race with half gravel/rocks, half pavement. I was doing well, keeping with the pace and finding good lines through the rock field. Then, Saturday caught up with me…I got dropped. The kicker was that I didn’t get dropped on the gravel…but on the pavement…with a tailwind!! It’s almost too shameful to mention. The dude on the front was drilling it…and I was slowly getting gapped…eventually those behind me jumped around and left me for dead. 2 laps to go into a 12 lap race and I was done. Again…stupid stupid stupid.

Getting ready

Sometimes the night before a race can feel more hectic than the actual race day. So much prep, so much packing…making sure that everything is right and the bike is all ready to go for the next day’s travel. Fortunately, with a little help from myself, tonight’s prep was remarkably quick.

3.14159

Happy PI Day

Long time…no blog

It’s been quite a while since last I said anything about the things that I have been doing with other things. The thing is that things have been the same old thing. I’ve been going on rides riding my bike so that I can ride longer and ride strong while riding my ride.

This past weekend was my first “race” of the race season. I raced last weekend but it wasn’t much of a race since I was racing against a clock and that really isn’t racing.

I got to race, then the day after I got to help put on a race while I watched other people race since I couldn’t race because I was helping to put the race on. So I didn’t race on Sunday, but I was racing on Saturday.

I raced on Saturday in my first 1/2 race of the season. I raced hard, and I raced into a break with a local fast man.

Him being 6′2 190lbs, I had one heck of a draft…

Sucks to be him…

The racing during the race was just like a race should be. People raced off the front while the other people in the race chased after him since they didn’t want him to win the race. In the end, I didn’t win the race even though I was racing. My teammate did do well in the race by getting second.

3 hours with an average power of around 250W and normalized power of 300W…

Craaaaazy Uncle

I’m recovering from my week in heaven…however my emotional scarring is still healing. You see, when we were down in LA, we were staying at Matt’s Uncle’s place. His uncle is a little off kilter, but I guess that’s what happens if you haven’t worked in 20 years (he’s only 58), never been married, and watch more TV in one day than I do an entire week!

Well, the emotional scar recently re-opened today when Matt called and told me that his Uncle will not invite us back after having the “worst week in his entire life”. Wow…just wow. Well, here’s a tiny little list of the psychotic-ness of his Uncle and the “Rules of the house” while we were there:

• Squeege the shower and scrub the floor after every use
• Wipe down the bathroom counter-top after every use
• MUST turn off lights when you leave the room or face the wrath but it’s ok to leave the TV on at all times
• Read the same pamphlet/magazine at least a dozen times
• The bedroom desk is off-limits, pretend it’s not even even there…you look you die!
• Nothing can touch the walls, only towels
• Being in a rush to go nowhere important
• Can’t hear story without interrupting and telling his own story (related or not)
• Ask for “favors” that are pretty much something that only you want to happen
• Have only 2 cups and they’re both yours and no one else is allowed to use them…if they do, you freak out and yell “That’s mine!”
• Your friend leaves his car at your house (instead of parking it at the airport) which you use while he’s gone. Your friend then returns home from vacation on crutches with a partially torn MCL and you return the car with an empty gas tank
• Constant remind house guests of their burden on you
• Throw a tantrum if you can’t watch the TV show you want to watch

Electrical tape

How hard is it to find black electrical tape? In Seattle, it can be a challenge. I spent a good portion of my evening last night going to 5 different places: RiteAid, Walgreens, WalMart, local grocery store, and it wasn’t until I went to Target did they have some. And even though they did, I bought the last two rolls.

What the heck are people doing with the stuff?

TT

Just when I thought I was going to do well, all the signs kept adding up that I simply was not all that spectacular. This past weekend’s TT was pretty good in terms of getting my first one out of the way, but there certainly could have been a couple of things I would have changed.

First off, I was on my road bike…no clip-on aerobars, no aero wheels, I only had the comfort of an aero helmet which I suspect didn’t help all that much. In the end, there were 15 other people who were faster than me…I’m a little disappointed with my placing, but I’ll chalk it up to experience.

With wind gusts pushing me down the course I covered the first 5 miles in 10 minutes with an average speed of 30mph. Hitting the turn around the wind picked up and put me in my place. It took roughly 12 minutes back with an average speed of 25mph. I did a 22:38 with the winner coming in over 2 minutes faster than me. My average power was about 10-15 watts lower than my PR set last fall, so I guess it’s not all bad…however, I still have about 30 watts to go to reach my season goal…certainly a tall order.

Day 7

This was the final day of my “vacation”. After over 24H of biking and as many thousands of feet of climbing, it was time to end to week of fun. Unfortunately, Matt was unable to walk up and down stairs, let alone ride a bike. So, I had to set off up the PCH by myself into the wind. I headed up Latigo, a climb we were going to do numerious times during the week but never really go around to it. The best part about this climb is the number of times it doubled back on itself. You could really get a good sense of where you’ve been and where you’re headed next.

After the climb up Latigo, I made by way back over to a couple other cilmbs we had already done…and then I had the pleasure of descending Tuna Canyon again just to have a little descending fun. I still can’t believe that some people were able to get up to 50mph…

Matt and I packed up, dismantled our bikes, and got ready for our early AM departure. I was going to race at the first race of the season, but decided to take the day off and prep for my very first TT EVER! Should be a good time.

Day 6

Day of rest. After roughly 24 hours on the bike and 24000 feet of climbing with 400+ miles of road under our feet…we rested. We sat around and watched TV for far too long, then pigged out at a local pizza restaurant followed by some ice cream and then more rest…with a nap thrown in for good measure.

The rest was two fold…the first simply because we’ve gotten a lot done in the past few days…and second:

Those aren’t my knees (thank goodness), but the right knee of my partner in climb (oh boy, that was bad) has developed a bad case of tendonitis. Rest, ice, and nutella are the prescription for tonight with a quiet uncle-free evening.

Day 5

Today was pretty much the same thing we did yesterday…only this time instead of the 2H slog up PCH we ended up driving up the coast with Matt’s uncle (to be featured in a later post) to cut out 15-20 miles of near misses and being buzzed by trucks.

We headed up Yerba Buena again only this time I wanted to have some fun. I decided to climb the entire 10 mile climb in my big ring…Matt managed to snap a few pictures as I flew the coop.

I was quickly on my own (I’m in there somewhere)

I got to the top and had enough time to turn around and snap a few shots of Matt catching back up.

We eventually made our way back to good ‘ol Mulholland Hwy and decided to take it all the way back down to the PCH via Old Topenga. On our way back we ran into some crazy old man who thought it was laugh-out-loud-funny (for a good 10 seconds) that we were 20 years his younger. We never really understood what was so funny when we told him how old we were. But he was a crazy old man that gave us a boost as we were approaching our last little bit of climbing for the day. He also made fun of Matt’s white-a** legs…you go crazy old man…