Blogging is for the 'happy'

I feel like I'm a big disappointment to myself and my fans 'you still out there Mom' sorry meant to say fan . Not because I haven't blogged in like forever, but because I'm not living up to my self imposed image of...well, myself. The problem is it's the last day in Oct and I can remember where I was and what happened every night for the past two months. The old me would have been twisted, depressed, and feeling like shit at least 50% of the time that I'm awake or slightly coherent. All I can say at this point is, there's a new year coming up, and in a few months I PROMISE to make a resolution to party a helva lot more like a rock star in 2o10. I apologize to my fan (Mom I'm just kidding) and of course to The Muscle - don't worry, I'm even more confused than you are. Blogging is gay, prolly why I do it. See you bishes in the gutter.

Hate it when that happens

Didn't quite make it up the curb, not bad enough to warrant this, but the fork and bars just disappeared. No crack and split or jarring feeling to send a warning to the brain - just remember holding onto my bars as I landed head first and flipped over. Luckily I landed on the grass, so out side of feeling like I went head to head with a full back my body is not too bad. I am now happy I have a crappy fork with an aluminum steer on my cross bike. Not sure if I'll race that much but I'm looking forward to riding it.

TT nats

What would be the best word to describe what I was feeling out on the course....not sure if there's a word that fits, but it was effen painful. I wanted this one, bad. I did everything I could have, before, during, and after (praying to a higher power, which is myself of course 'self, please let me have this one'). Two areas I probably came up short on were - messing with my position for the past few days (just trying to squeeze a bit more power out) and not taking a water bottle with me for a 35k time trial in 100 degree temps - reguadless I suck in the heat.

It seems to me that I'm usually better on shorter courses, 20k or less, around 10k probably being ideal. In hindsight I was a bit too fast out of the gates. The mentality was go up the hill as hard as possible, 12 to 13 k or so, and then recover on the way back down and then crush it in the last 10k. The problem was I never recovered going back down as the heat was keeping my heart rate elevated, on top of that my left hamstring and hip locked up (probably a result of moving the saddle around) and I couldn't get it stretched out. In the last 10k I pushed as hard as I could but I could tell I was going slower and slower.

I finished on top of the leader board so I was hoping that most of the good guy's were cooked from the day before and possibly my time would hold. About ten minutes later my heart sunk into my stomach as someone finished almost a minute faster then me, and again and again I fell further from the top to seventh. The guy who won was Mike Olheiser, he is current 35 plus crit and TT champ and also got 2nd in the RR, and he won the Elite RR the day before, on top of that he was top amateur in the NRC standing last year just a few points ahead of me. Yup, the strongest guy won, and as they say - 'That's bike racing'.

In the interim

Well Cascades has been over for a few days and now I'm just sittin around waiting for the National Time Trial. I decided to forgo the Road Race in hopes of two things: A-The guys who are doing the RR will be So spent they won't have the legs the next day (still can't believe they put them back to back) and B-Of course winning it.

My Time Trialing hasn't been as good as it's been in the past but I have always felt like I was on the cusp of a big ride. For one reason or another I haven't really felt all that comfortable on my rig (maybe it's due to the fact I move shit around almost every time I get on the bike), oh well my nervous ticks or neurosis or whatever you want to call them are not unfounded, but none the less hinder my progression. I thought I got it dialed in two days ago, but ended up moving things around yesterday. Today - I ride the road bike and try not to mess with that too much - you don't want to know what I've been doing with my road bike for the past week.

So as I sit around watching movies on the lap top and riding down to the coffee shop two or three times a day I go from motivated and excited to tired and feeling like my body just went through the grinder. All I can hope for is the right legs and the best possible head for Fri. At a certain point I have to let it all go and do what I can to be prepared and not worry about the rest.

Yes I have way too much time on my hands right now and definitely going a little stir crazy. Isn't bike racing wonderful.

This is a photo after the crit last Sat. Myself and Jp on the other end, and the female half of my host family. I would have to say this has been one of the best host families I've ever had the privilege of staying with. JP being indirectly related as the father and husband is his step brother. Good times 'Viva la Oregon'.

Cascades day 6

This race was a 16 mile circuit that we had to do 5 times. I did one lap.

Cascades day 5: The Crit

I was feeling pretty good at the start and really wanted to be a part of the race instead of pack filler like the previous stages. I attacked on the second lap and was quickly absorbed a lap later, but I could tell the legs had finally come around.

The race was pretty dodgy and it was hard to surf the front. Rock had taken control immediately and let two guys get up the road (Mike Creed and Jackson Stewart) and were holding them at about 10 seconds. There was a slight lull on the backside and as Rock swung right I flew the coup, a guy from Garmin in tow. I bridged the gap solo as the Garmin kid wouldn't pull through and at that point I knew this was the break.

It took me about two laps to recover and then I was able to work as we rolled at 30 plus.

Halfway through it was looking like we were going to lap the field. Stewart and Creed were the motors of the break and I overheard Creed saying he didn't want to lap the field so he sat on for a while as the pack went back out of sight.

With ten to go I could hear the announcer saying 16 seconds but I didn't realize it was the field. I was pretty spent, Creed and Stewart were doing most of the work at this point and I was happy to let them. Coming into two to go Stewart attacked and I made it up to him - unfortunately the field came barreling down half a lap later: Game over.

Glad to be back in the game - sucks it didn't stick. Sheet, that's bike racing.

Cycling News Related story. And the reason I'm wearing mismatched kits from the past two years: laundry issue.

Big Spoon

Like mother effen Clark Kent. Big Spoon aka The Muscle, misses little spoon.