overdue activity

Mixed week.

2011-12-15T10:48:00.001-07:00

I'm down one day against JT. He drove today, which washes my lack of commute today. Thank god. 2 days would be insurmountable!

I picked up some new cold weather gloves. Looking forward to using them tomorrow!

things I forgot about winter bike commuting in colorado

2011-12-09T22:13:00.001-07:00

1.) the stuff I wore for the 15 degree morning is not at all appropriate for the 30 degree ride home
2.) i don't have gloves that keep my hands form freezing at 30 degrees + 18 mph bike ride
3.) wool is awesome
4.) the views are pretty nice on the way home but it gets cold fast once the sun goes behind the mountains
5.) i want a cycling specific jacket (mostly for the cut) so it doesn't ride up my back if i'm riding in the drops. i don't really want to buy one though...at least not without doing some research and getting some opinions.
6.) my collection of base layer stuff is weak.


Zoolander.

I also signed up for the Winter Series today. Winter Series #3 is up by Pikes Peak Brewing Company. I picked up an $18 for $9 Living Social deal for Pikes Peak Brewing. Hopefully I don't have to use it to pay up w/ JT.

Carpool and Bike

2011-12-09T10:48:00.001-07:00

Carpool yesterday. Bike today. Cold again. 17 when I left, but felt way colder than earlier this week. Roads were way better though!

Cold weather commuting

2011-12-07T08:25:00.001-07:00

15 when I left. Cold but sunny and a nice ride in.

drove today

2011-12-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

Had to go in late, was still only 9 when I actually left. I think I'm tied up with JT right now since he took the last two days off coming back from Vegas.

Freezing

2011-12-05T14:10:00.001-07:00

Way too cold for me today, so I carpooled with my neighbor after I took my grandmother in law to the airport.

Commuting day two

2011-12-02T07:24:00.001-07:00

Drove yesterday and JT took an early lead. Arranged a carpool today, got to work a little early. No coffee yet!

Commuting Death Match Round Two

2011-11-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

Rematch time for the commuting challenge with JT, with the added fun of winter. Same bet, slightly different rules. I can carpool, he can still take the bus. I'm hoping for an early lead while he is in Vegas getting chicked by Kate Gosselin.

omaha or bust

2011-10-11T20:34:00.000-06:00

Work is sending me to Omaha for a while and I'm leaving Sunday, so I'm going to miss Fall Series #2 and probably #3. That sucks...I paid for the entire series and was planning on sucking it up at all of them.

The positive is there is a mid-week cross series in Lincoln while I'm there. I think I'm going to take my bike. Flying with a bike sucks ($), but I think I'll have time to kill, the series is cheap and I think I can bike to work while I'm there. Turns out there is a USAC sanctioned race in town on Nov 6th. I'm not sure it will have a good turn out with the ACA vs USAC funk and the fact it's not up in Boulder, but I'm gonna show up and race it (assuming it doesn't get cancelled..which I'm expecting). Nebraska racing will be a good workout for it.

PPRR Fall Series 1

2011-10-04T21:18:00.001-06:00

Since I've done almost nothing since the baby was born, I figured it would be a good idea to register for the entire Fall Series. I felt surprisingly good up to the creek (running ~9:00/mile...good for me, especially given lack of running). Then I slipped going into the water. Then I fell into the creek like 10 feet in and banged the hell out my knee and ended up walking the rest of the creek and walk/running the rest of the course.

It was still fun though. #2 will be fun.

rebooting again

2011-09-26T20:09:00.000-06:00

August and September were rough. Work and baby again. Baby stopped sleeping...I stopped sleeping. Getting used to it now...sorta. Work has been interesting too..possibly more interesting in a couple weeks since I have an offer from a large commercial company.

I've put on a couple pounds since the beginning of summer...the exact opposite of that should have happened! Time to get series.

Thinking the fall is going to look like this:

Fall Series:

Oct 2nd

3.5M

North Monument Valley Park

Oct 16th

Bear Creek Park

Oct 30th

Ute Valley Park

Nov 13th

Palmer Park

Cross:
10/23/11 CX On the Cross Denver
11/12/11 CX Big Ring Cyclocross Parker
11/19/11 CX Pikes Peak Velo SuperCross Springs
11/20/11 CX Castle Cross Castle Rock
12/10/11 CX E2 Cross of the North Littleton
12/17/11 CX-STATE Alpha Cross- State CX Championships

Yeah..all outside the bubble.

Training to ride in circles

2011-07-31T21:54:00.001-06:00

40 something days till cowbells and lactic acid. I've been bad about training. Following any schedule has been hard with the little guy, but hopefully the calendar will be a forcing function.

To kick off some on the bike training, I signed up for the 26th street and Cheyenne Cañon TT series. First race was last week and I managed to ride within 30 seconds of my best Gold Camp time from last year even though there were some nasty storms Wednesday. I took this picture from the top. The hills were epic.

Today I rode some circles of the neighborhood early and did 10 x 90 second repeats up Dublin. Endurance tomorrow and some Colorado Relay running training on Tuesday.

And there went June

2011-07-01T19:15:00.000-06:00

More excuses for not updating the blog. Work and baby, baby and work. We're finally sleeping a little better. We're getting about 6 hours a night or so. It's enabled me to ride to work a lot and start running more again. Commuting hasn't been bad. I can tell I've lost some fitness, but my times are better than before I started getting in shape last year so I think I'm still doing OK.

This month was good because I bought a new bike to race this fall:

The old cross bike has been relegated to full time commuting status and I've swapped some parts out to make it a little more commuter friendly. I'm not sure If I'm going to put racks back on full time or not, but it's nice to have another bike to race this fall and enjoy the dirt roads im Black Forest/Santa Fe Trail.

This month is was also good because I bought a new car for M. to drive with the baby. I need to buy a rack for the top...since I'll probably drive it to races this fall and maybe to Michigan to see family (and hit up a cross race or two while we're there).

Finally, this month was good because I joined a team to run the Colorado Relay. I've wanted to do a relay since watching the Hood to Coast movie..hopefully this one is fun.

I also bought a Kindle a couple months ago and have been going through books at night between feeding the muchkin and falling asleep. I just finished up Born To Run. It was interesting and made me want to try running in some minimalist shoes, but I thought the most interesting part was the fact that the dudes in Mexico drink a chia drink that is almost exactly what I've been drinking for a while. M. grew up drinking it in Nicaragua and converted me a while ago. I was cool before I knew it was cool to drink chia.

Plans for the next couple months, event wise, are kind of in flux. I might have some international travel (I hope not) and I might have to work a bunch of hours (likely) so Im not sure what I'll get in. I'm signed up for the Cheyenne Canon Time Trials and I'm going to start "training" for CX soon. I think I'm going to do the CTS field test this weekend to see my levels for the TCTP. And running to train for the relay.

June

2011-06-06T18:36:00.000-06:00

Work and baby continue to dominate things. Getting some commuting in and recreational riding in, but no serious training yet. I am registered for the omnium this weekend, though I am unsure if I'm still doing it given the lack of training. I've got a tentative training plan set aside for cross and will hopefully be a little more in the clear since Carlos will be 6 months or so when training sets in. I've also signed up for the Wed Night Time Trial/Hill Climb series up Cheyenne Canon and the two races Jayson Middlemiss organized to go along with the USA Cycling Pro Challenge (or whatever it is called): the crit by university village and the hill climb. Those should be fun and good training in August.

Speaking of cross, I decided to get a dedicated race bike. I've been using the Trek as a race bike and a commute bike, but racing minimized commuting and that always annoyed me. Ascent had a nice new Rocky Mountain Solo CXR when I stopped in to look at new mountain bikes that I couldn't pass up. I test rode it and the Crux from specialized, but the RM felt better. Almost perfect.

The Elephant Rock Fat Tire ride was Sunday. It was a little slower than I planned, but I had a good time riding with coworkers and the views along the ride are pretty spectacular. I will definitely want to get back up there to ride that again and make it a little longer. I took the Trek and that was a pretty awesome choice. I think it would be a pretty boring ride on a mountain bike, but it was sweet on the cx bike.

what the...

2011-05-05T21:24:00.000-06:00

Shortly after my last blog post, I got a new assignment at work and found myself working an insane number of hours (80+ a week). I was able to keep running a little and managed to do the 3rd Winter Series race. The hours got worse though, and I found myself pretty much only sleeping and working. I didn't make it to the last winter series, which sucked because I paid for the gloves and didn't get to pick them up. Finally as that was letting up, m. went into labor a couple weeks early and Carlos was born. Fast forward five weeks and I feel like I can start getting back into the swing of working out. I commuted to work last week and could totally feel the drop in cardio fitness. My weight has been pretty constant during this entire crazy period, so that's a plus I guess. In general though, I can tell I've lost a lot of fitness and need to build it back.

This weekend, I'm planning on running the Nielson Challenge. It's the first of the "summer series". I think I'm still mostly interested in CX this fall, so a little running in the shorter distance things will go well with the biking. I'm not really planning on racing this summer, but I'm going to do a few things as training/experience events.

On June 5th, I signed up to do the Elephant Rock 25 mile "Fat Tire" ride with some coworkers. On June 11th, I'll be doing the Hotter than Habanero Omnium in Ute Valley. On July 24th, I plan on doing the first Dirty 30 Duathlon and then starting the time trial series on the 27th. I'll continue doing those and the finish up with the events that coincide with ProCycling Challenge. Hopefully that plus some running will have me in good shape for CX and some dedicated training. I'd like to do 5 CX races this fall.

coughing it in

2011-02-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

almost a week later, and I am still not feeling all that great. I'm either still running a low-grade fever or my body temp is just 99 now. Given my general crappy feeling, I've stayed clear of the gym and have given myself a break on exercising. I actually feel guilty not exercising now. I find myself amazed that I would have never felt that a few years ago.

I'm supposed to start my bike racing training plan on the 13th, but plan on using running for most of the early base workouts. I'm curious how the week off and the asthma will impact my Winter Series #3 run. Hopefully not too much of a setback for my body.

I'm rebuilding the single speed to ride to work. New brake pads today and new tires this weekend.

2011-01-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

i think the asthma flare-up at the winter series was caused by an oncoming visit of the cold or flu. I went to the Y and swam Wednesday, ran on Monday and Tuesday but felt pretty crappy through all of it. Thursday I woke up with a fever, but went to work anyway. I made it through most of the day but felt like I was crashing around 2:00 and had to head home. Woke up today feeling just as bad, with a higher fever, so I took a sick day.

falling apart

2011-01-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

I missed my 34:30 goal by a little over a minute yesterday. I was doing pretty well for the first mile, running it in 8:01. Around mile 2, I started wheezing and had to stop and use my inhaler and walk for a bit, that destroyed my time. I think if that hadn't happened, I would have been in decent shape to beat my goal time by a good bit. The second half of the race was not very pleasant and I didn't come close to a negative split. I managed to pull back some of the people that passed me while I was stopped, but not enough to get back the age group people that I wanted to make time up on.

Coincidentally, or maybe causally, as I was nearing mile 2, Robert Cheseret was already passing me on his way back. That guy is fast!

Hopefully I have a better showing at #3.

circles

2011-01-19T21:51:00.001-07:00

The Y was unusually busy today so I ended up running the track above the gym. I managed to pull off a 6:50 mile. One of them, although it was the last of the four that I ran. I'm not sure what is worse, 4 miles on a treadmill or 4 miles on a 13th of a mile oval. Hopefully I'm on my way to 34:30 on Saturday. Work had a health and wellness expo with local gyms. Golds Gym had a body fat analyzer. I came in at 11.7%. I'm sure that in 2009 it would have been like 30%.

Jayson put up dates for the Cheyenne Canon and 26th Street TT Series for 2011.

Cheyenne Canon: Wednesdays June 22nd, July 6th & 20th 2011

26th Street: Wednesdays June 15th, 29th and July 13th 2011

two weeks down, 50 to go.

2011-01-16T17:25:00.000-07:00

No outside running this week. Managed two days of treadmill at the YMCA and one day of running laps on the track, for a grand total of ~10 miles.

Swam twice, ~40 minutes each time. Probably a little over a mile total...slow.

Lifted twice.
Tuesday: 2 sets of :
30 reps leg press @ 150 lbs
30 reps lat pulldown @ 70 lbs
30 reps squat @ 150 lbs
30 reps seated row @ 75 lbs
30 reps leg curl @ 80 lbs
30 reps standing row @ 70 lbs
30 reps abdominal crunch w/ weight

I'm expecting something similar this week, but with the CTS Computrainer Races on Friday and Winter Series #2 on Saturday. Last year, I finished with a pretty pathetic 0:37:18. My goal this year is 0:34:30.

Five weeks until real "training" starts. I'm still unsure on my bike plans now that I've seen the RMCC schedule. Only one COS road race, and it's the weekend the baby is due. Still kicking around the idea of the Triple Crown.

one week down, 51 to go

2011-01-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

Ran about 12 miles, swam once for 25 minutes, did weights once.

This week:
Monday: swim
Tuesday:weights + run
Wednesday: Go down to CMSP and get my glove if JT doesn't get it, visit Bristol.
Thursday: swim
Friday: run
Saturday: CRC Saturday Morning run
and on the 7th day, maybe brew beer.

I'm hoping the weights + swimming help me take some time off Winter Series #2.

2011 Winter Series #1

2011-01-08T18:02:00.000-07:00

Pretty perfect day for the first Winter Series...except it wasn't really winter. I ran in shorts, a long sleeve t-shirt from CRC and my sweet new Sugoi gloves. I also used some Uber Secret Coffee embro, even though I didn't really need it. I more wanted the tingly warm feeling after my shower..and it delivered. I think I like running in the cold with it though, my legs felt fantastic the entire time, even when the Woodland Park kids that were behind me kicked all the snow onto my legs.

My only real goal was to run faster than last year and I managed to do that. Last year, I managed to run the first race in 0:32:52. I wanted to go under 30:00 this year, and managed to finish in 29:49. This year was longer than 5k though..my watch said 3.3 when I shut it off in the chute. They changed the course a little, I think to avoid the bottleneck right off the road that we had to run through last year. I actually hit the lap button on my watch at 5K and the stopped at 28:45.

My time for race #2 was 0:37:18 last year. I'm going to shoot for 34:00 this year, since that course is pretty much just a flat paved trail. I managed to run 9:00 miles for the 2nd Fall Series race, and that was longer and much hillier. I'm 47 seconds from the Top 10 for my age group right now.

In sadder news, I lost one of my gloves at CMSP. I think it's in the lost and found, but driving down there is a PITA for me. I can either drive down and pick it up, or go buy a new pair at Colorado Running Company.

ouch

2011-01-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

Did my first swim today. Did 35 minutes split between front crawl and backstroke. I forgot how hard swimming is, given that I felt pretty spent after that 35 minutes.

I had a Green Monster after I showered and felt better.

I've managed to make one every day this year, except the 1st, and I am enjoying the results so far.

Weights at the Y tomorrow, and maybe a short run to warm up. Run Thursday, swim again Friday. Winter Series #1 on Saturday!

2010

2010-12-31T21:31:00.000-07:00

No Rescue Run for me tomorrow. Way too cold.

For 2010, I ended up riding over 2000 miles. I did some road racing, did some mountain biking and did some cross. I also did a little running, logging a little over 300 miles since May.

I set some goals for myself, but only achieved a few of them. I started out with a training plan, but didn't stick to it. I kept active though and kept off all the weight I lost.

What were the best things of 2010?

My favorite event was the Livestrong Challenge in San Jose. I beat the goal I set for myself, rode with some good people, saw family and took my first real vacation in a long time. I won't be doing it again in 2011 though, since we're having a baby and it's moving to Davis. Maybe 2012.

My least favorite was the first Pikes Peak Supercross race. I was in a decent position after the whistle but had a mechanical on the first lap, got lapped and gave up.

My favorite cycling related purchase of the year was the Lazer Genesis. Best helmet I've ever worn.

My trail shoes (Adidas Supernova Riot) were two years old by this point, so m. got me a new pair, best Christmas present of 2010.

Worst loss? The commuting challenge.

Looking forward to 2011, I'm hopeful I'll be able to stay fit with the baby on the way. I got a YMCA membership. I'm planning on doing some strength training and some swimming as cross-training. I can't imagine I'll run there, since I hate treadmills, but I'd also like to get in some Yoga and some group cycling. I think the strength training will help me all-around, both running and cycling.

So what are my 2011 goals? Similar to my 2010 goals, but maybe a little more realistic.

1.) Build a training plan and follow it!

2.) Finish at least 3 USAC road races and at least 2 criteriums.

3.) Do the entire Ascent Series.

4.) Do the entire Winter Series (I'm signed up for the entire thing..).

5.) Finish 4 CX races.

6.) Go to the Y at least 3 times a week.

7.) Beat whatever number of Green Monsters JT drinks.

2011 Planning

2010-12-22T18:01:00.001-07:00

Boo. The CX race in Bear Creek on 01/08 was canceled. I guess that just leaves the first Winter Series!

Running things I have planned:
Rescue Run - Jan 1st - Palmer Park
Winter Series 1 - Jan 8th - CMSP
Winter Series 2 - Jan 22nd - El Pomar
Winter Series 3 - Feb 12 - Santa Fe
Winter Series 4 - Feb 26th - Black Forest.

That should keep me moving during the winter, and take me into Spring...where I decided I am going to focus on bike racing again next year, time permitting. Yesterday, I renewed my USAC Road and Mountain Bike licenses for 2011. I need to do the ACA license again, but I'll probably wait till after the first of the year. The first ACA race I see myself doing is in June.

Road races:
Metro State Road Runners TT - March (???) - Lakewood
Colorado Springs Classic Weekend - April (???) - Colorado Springs
Front Range Cycling Classic - April (???) - Colorado Springs
26th Street / Gold Camp Road TT Series - May to June - Colorado Springs

Erock Twilight Crit - June 4th - Castle Rock
Angelo's Crit - July 16th - Pueblo

Sand Creek Road Race at USAFA (states) - August 14th - US Air Force Academy

Mountain bike races:

Ascent Cycling Series - May 15th - Palmer Park
Ascent Cycling Series - June 1st - Bear Creek Park
Ascent Cycling Series - June 8th - Bear Creek Park
Ascent Cycling Series - June 18th or 19th - CMSP

This is a pretty decent amount of racing..not quite sure I'll do all of it. I know for sure I'll do the ACA Road Race at the Academy in August, that will be my A race for the road season. The mountain bike stuff is just for the hell of it and to keep my dirt skills up for CX in the fall. I think there will also be a local wed night crit series, that I may do once they post some info. The two April races are real iffy for me, since the baby will be born pretty close to then. They are both pretty local and not too long, but close to the due date so they probably won't happen.

I'm also not planning on a century this year, but may do the Tour de Cure in Woodland Park.

cold morning run

2010-12-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

Showed up at the CRC North location for the Saturday group run. It was around 15 when I pulled up. It was a pretty small group, but it was fun and I'll be back if they do it again. They were giving a free tech t-shirt to the first 10 people. Since I was the only non-store person, I got a shirt. I ended up wearing it around today, pretty nice shirt. The run ended up being 5.3 miles according to my GPS. Pretty slow run for me...the cold air was bothering me for most of it. I ended up being the last one back to the store. I also stopped to take this picture.

I love the low clouds and the steam from the power plant rising up out of it like a mushroom cloud.

I still haven't gotten layering right for running.I have lots of good cold weather cycling knowledge and gear, but none of it seems to carry over to running very well. After the run, I decided to pick up a pair of Sugoi Firewall GT gloves.

I still haven't made up my mind what my goals are for next year. Running? Do I try and do the Ascent and the Triple Crown? Cycling? Crits and Sand Creek Series, then cross in the fall? I've been reading the Cyclists Training Bible again, and a good chunk of me wants to do some bike racing next year.

a little biking, a little running

2010-12-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

Got in a 20-ish mile ride with Bill Keller today. We talked about cross, running, and life in general. The day started out cold and we had to turn around at the North Gate to the AFA and head back...wind and cold, numb toes. The weather seemed to get a lot better on the way back and it totally made the first, sort of sucky half, worth the ride.

I'll do a little running tomorrow, then back to the work. Maybe some commuting?

Monday: Sunny, with a high near 66. West northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph.
Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 29. West northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph.
Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 60. West northwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south southwest.
Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 29. West northwest wind between 5 and 10 mph.
Wednesday: A 10 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 46. North northwest wind between 5 and 15 mph.
Wednesday Night: A chance of rain and snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 19. East northeast wind around 5 mph becoming southwest. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Looks pretty good for Monday or Tuesday. Probably Monday.

state champion i am not

2010-12-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

Last weekend saw the 2010 Colorado Cyclocross State Championship visit the town of Louisville, Colorado.

I decided to go race the cat4 race after not even touching my bike for all of November....and it showed. I convinced Roger to go up with me and we headed up for our 10:00 race. Saturday saw pretty balmy temps in the 50s, but Sunday was a little colder. When we left the Springs at 7:10, it was in the low 20s. We got to the race venue around 8:30, I'd guess high 20s. When the whistle blew at 10:00, maybe low 30s. The sun managed not to show itself for the entire race, but that's part of the fun. My original glove choice sucked, so at the last minute I grabbed my lobster claws and waited for the call ups. Having zero points, I started about 5 rows back. Around 78 guys lined up and the race would eventually be won by a fast as hell 14 year old. He also went on to win his age group at Nats this weekend. Fastest kid alive. I managed to pull off a pretty mediocre 65/78...but considering I had done zero biking (let alone any high intensity stuff) and my bike speed had been shattered by all the running, I was happy with that.

Here I am after losing the main pack, running the barriers.

Here I am suffering through the sand.

If you notice in that black and white picture, there is a guy behind me in a white jacket. Even though I got dropped by the main field, I still had a race on my hands. This guy in the white jacket and I kept trading positions the entire race. I'd lose him on hills, flats and the dismount sections. He'd make time up when we got to a technical turn (which I sucked at that day...I lose my cornering and descending skills fast).

Here he is after passing me in one of those sections. I eventually beat him by a pretty good margin. He was done when we got to the sand on the last lap. I almost caught the guy ahead of me too, but he crossed the finish line about 20 seconds ahead of me. In retrospect, I didn't leave it all out there and probably could have caught him. Was I super happy with the result? No. Was I pissed? No. It did make me realize I still love riding bikes. More than I love running. I'm thinking about my goals next year. The cross bug bit me again after the race, too bad the season is over (mostly). Do I want to focus on running next year? Or try and seriously race cross? I'm still not sure what time I'll have after the baby is born, so early Spring road racing is totally off the books. Winter Series for sure, hill climb series if they do it again for sure, some crits and mountain bike racing in the summer if the baby cooperates. Riding and running to stay in shape, then end of summer and fall. Ascent? I'll have to do the triple crown of running to do it. Cross? I need quality top end work...

Lots of time to decide. Till then, Rescue Run and Winter Series #1. The very last cyclocross race of the season is January 8th at Bear Creek. That's the same day as Winter Series #1. Cat4 is at 2:40...If i run the short series, I can make it over to race the cat 4 race. There are points, but I expect a smaaaallll field for a end of season race in the Springs.

bad ideas

2010-12-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

Not too much activity for the last couple of weeks. On the 14th, I finished up the Fall Series and ran it in just over an hour. That was a fun run, but it was pretty tough. Constant climbing, then running down, then climbing again. After the fall series, I cut back on the running a little. A couple easy 2-3 mile jogs here and there, no GPS, no hard efforts. Then came Thanksgiving. I signed up for the Briargate Turkey Trot and ran what I thought was a PR for the 5K. Turned out it wasn't a 5K after all. Pace wise, I think I was definitely on track for a 5k PR but the course was only 2.8ish. I decided to try again on a flatter course for the churchy turkey trot. That ended up being more that 5K too....more like 3.25 according to my GPS. I ended up coming in 6th with a time of 26:10 for the 3.25 miles. That would have put me right around 25:00, almost cracking into that 24:00 minute range. Next year I'm going to get that under 23:00.

I was sort of debating running the 5K in Palmer Lake on Sunday, but then I watched some videos of the 2009 Colorado State Cyclocross championships. I miss the feeling of riding and the intensity of racing, so I decided to sign up for the 2010 CX State Championship on Sunday. This is probably a terrible idea, since I haven't touched my bike since losing the commuting challenge and haven't raced the bike since the beginning of October. The course looks cool though, and the weather looks nice and crappy..perfect for some racing. It will hurt, but it will be fun. I had converted the CX bike over to commuting figuring I wouldn't race anymore, so now I have to strip all that shit off of it. One last painful 45 minutes for 2010. And maybe one in January for the second Pikes Peak Supercross.

easy

2010-11-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

Easy three mile run past the school, over the half finished road bed, then down the "trail" along Dublin and back to the house. I say easy because I thought to myself this is easy, I could keep going at this pace for a long time. When I first started out, those 3 miles were hard. Most weeks I was running under 10 miles. I'm already welll past that and it's Wednesday.

On January 3rd, I clocked a 3.1 mile run on my Garmin. Total Time was 34:27:40. I remember being drained after that and I didn't run again until the first Winter Series race (which I did in 35:45:85). Today I took it "easy" and finished in 28:00. I only stopped because it was getting dark and I didn't take the headlamp with me. Why is it dark at 5:00 now? The time change totally sucks.

I'm going to sign up for the Winter Series on Friday when I get paid, otherwise I'll forget. I haven't decided if I want to do the short or the long series yet. Some of those runs are super boring and I'd like come compare my times from last year (actually this year) to feel good about improving.

I also noticed that I finished in 44th place for the Canya Canyon 6k. I think that includes the walkers, but that puts me in the Top 30%.

When I was in the garage today, I saw my bike in the corner...it looked lonely. Maybe I need to do the Dirty 30 Duathlon.

all work and no play make homer something something

2010-11-08T20:03:00.000-07:00

No real activity means no blog updates in a while. Last week, work was busy. Two weeks ago, a friend from Michigan was here, although we did run some and do the incline. We ran the Black Forest Section 16 Trail for his first "trail" run here. It's not bad, pretty flat for Colorado Springs and just enough distance to see if you've gotten used to the altitude..which he hadn't.

He also signed up to do the third Fall Series race. That went pretty well I think. JT finished a few seconds ahead of me, showing that even hung over he runs faster than I do. I still haven't gotten my asthma dialed in I guess, since I had some issues after the race. I didn't bring my inhaler either, which made it worse. Canya Canyon was yesterday. That was probably the hardest 4 miles I've ever run, but it was fun. It makes me want to run more things uphill. I'll definitely do that again next year after I've done some more hill work.

After the race, the beer and beans and rice were a nice way to refuel. I paid off my debt finally too.

Spoils of War

feeling better

2010-10-21T22:02:00.000-06:00

Taking the week off from commuting and work was good, as I feel almost 100% better today. I'm only working three days next week, and only half days at that, so I've lost the challenge.

I went for a run after work today and felt fantastic. I did a 5k loop from my house and ran a PR. I'm not sure if that counts as a PR, but it felt good to go sub 25:00. I almost broke 25 at the Great Race and did it today on a hillier route. No signs of asthma problems either, which was nice.

My friend from Michigan will be here starting Saturday. He has gotten into running, so we've planned to do a bunch of that while he is here. Maybe I'll have a new week mileage record next week. That would be nice. He's also going to run the 3rd Fall Series race. We'll see how he does with the altitude.

running on salbutamol

2010-10-19T21:49:00.000-06:00

Recovery plan is working so far. I felt much better around 5:00 (at least much better than I did when I woke up) so I decided to try a short run. Got in a slow 2.75 miles on a new loop I found near the house. It was still hard to catch my breath, but the plus side is I coughed up a ton of stuff while running and feel even better now.

This summer when I was riding out into Black Forest a lot, I noticed a trail that looked like it would be a nice run. After doing some searching, it's Black Forest Section 16. Same name, different kind of trail. ~4 mile loop, almost all of it in a bunch of Ponderosa Pine. I have a friend coming from Michigan this weekend. He wants to do some running while he's here, so maybe I'll take him there. While on the EPC Parks website, I saw the county just took ownership of some more land up there to create a new open space called the Pineries. The current plan is to put in an 8 mile loop, again mostly wooded.

Game Over

2010-10-19T08:02:00.002-06:00

I'm pretty sure I lost the bet the first time I didn't ride to work, but I'm sure I've lost it now. I woke up yesterday with a raging head cold. Pressure, sneezing and lots of junk coming out of my head. Drove to work. Today it seems to have settled in my chest and I have a low-grade fever. Working from home.

Fall Series #2 was fun Sunday. The ropes at the end were my favorite part. The run didn't go so well. I had some trouble catching my breath..either lingering asthma problems or precursor to whatever crap I have right now. Hopefully a couple of rest days, OTC drugs and restaring the Advair will fix me up.

7 to 9

2010-10-13T17:46:00.000-06:00

JT got commute number nine today, but I got number seven.

It was a cold, foggy morning. I ended up picking crappy gloves and had frozen fingers by the time I got to work. I was also pretty damp, from all the moisture in those low clouds. It was pretty thick for most of the ride, until around Briargate. I hadn't attached the taillight to the bike, but decided I should for the ride today. Once again, livestrong bracelet to the rescue.

I figured between that light and the hideous neon green jacket I was wearing, people would see me.

The ride itself was pretty nice. Once I hit Briargate, the clouds started parting.

You still couldn't see the peak though.

Finally, as I rolled onto Royal Pine, the clouds broke and I got an amazing view of a freshly snowed on Pikes Peak.

This is why living in Colorado is amazing.

The crappy gloves, combined with stopping to take pictures, left me with cold hands for a while. All my clothing was pretty wet too. Luckily I have giant cabinets in my cube to dry crap in, since I no longer have a locker room.

The ride home was a different story. Perfect fall riding. The moisture from the morning made for hero dirt this afternoon. I wish I could have taken the mountain bike out. Dirt paths on the way home had to do.

Down by two....

2010-10-12T08:05:00.001-06:00

Went for a nice 5 mile run this morning. Cold, windy...but nice, felt like winter. Nice until I realized I had an 8:00 meeting....oops. Noway I could have made it to work for the meeting by biking at that point.

So now I'm down by 2 days which will be nearly impossible to claw back from JT.

Getting colder

2010-10-11T21:53:00.001-06:00

Commute #6 for October. Still a day down, but won't lose another day thanks to the screw in the tire on my car.

Weekend

2010-10-09T19:14:00.000-06:00

A friend at work is moving to a new house, so I helped him fill a POD today. He lives about 3 miles from me, so in the spirit of the one less car challenge, I rode there and back. I also did a little work on the cyclocross bike, since I decided to cut most of the racing out. The rear rack went back on, I macgyvered a light system with some livestrong bands and two super bright LED flashlights, and I adjusted the brakes. I'm going to leave the knobby cross tires on for when the weather turns bad. I just need to put some sort of flashing red light on the back to be proper. I think I should also put one of those soma fab bike coffee holders on.

Tomorrow I'm going to run in the Garden. My asthma is still a little annoying, so hopefully the run + "cold" air doesn't aggravate it. Then it's back to game on.

Grilled Cheesus

2010-10-08T17:27:00.001-06:00

Nice ride home. Was going to stop at CRC on the bike, but I forgot my wallet so I rode home and drove up there.

Came home with a pair of Saucony ProGrid Hurricane 12.

4/5

2010-10-08T07:42:00.001-06:00

Totally a fall day in Colorado. A little wind, some sprinkles and some snow on Pikes Peak. At least it looked like snow. Enjoyable thing about biking vs driving is the extra time to look around and enjoy things.

Of course, the asthma isn't much better. Probably means I need to restart my Advair Rx. Took it slow on the way in..close to an hour.

I think I'm going to stop at the new CRC location and see if they have anything for me.

best picture from the fall series

2010-10-06T16:53:00.001-06:00

Waiting for the rock lock

numero quatro

2010-10-06T16:44:00.000-06:00

I woke up with a little bit of wheezing and a cough, but the albuterol tainted meat I ate for breakfast seemed to help. The wind was howling by the time I took off, so I decided to take the "short" (8.8 instead of 9.x) route to work. Slow ride with the wind, got to work in 40 minutes vs my normal 30.

Nagging cough all day gave way to a full on asthma attack on the way home. Had to stop and sit by the Lowes on Royal Pine and Briargate and take a couple of puffs from the inhaler. Too bad the new CRC isn't open, I could have sat there. Almost an hour with the stop and self-medicating.

Tomorrow is looking iffy for riding to work. GTD when I wake up I guess. If I go down one tomorrow I might as well just go buy the beer now.

third on tuesday

2010-10-05T22:25:00.001-06:00

Commute #3 of the challenge. Easy 9.1 miles to work, then an irritating day at work, followed by a relaxing 15ish miles back.

One of the nice things, at least for me, about commuting is the time to think. I thought about the challenge (mostly about how I am going to win), biking in general, running, what I NEED to do this weekend, what I WANT to do this weekend and how things are going to change in a few months. We're having a kid in April. So I NEED to start fixing things up around the house and I NEED to save some money, but I WANT to go race the CX race in Buena Vista on Sunday. I don't really want to sit in the car for four hours to do a 45 minute race though. Being a fan of cross kind of sucks living down in the Springs. Bike racing in general kind of sucks living down here. Everything is in the Boulder bubble, or in the mountains, or east of Denver or by Fort Collins. There is very little down here. I don't think I can devote time to bike racing once the kid comes...but running seems much more manageable. A half-hour run seems better than a half-hour ride. After thinking about that for a while, I think I've decided to give up on the CX for this fall and focus on running...building up miles, going longer and maybe getting faster. I've always (at least since 2008) wanted to do the Ascent someday. Since I started running (and especially since I did that century this summer), I've also wanted to do a marathon. The Ascent seems like a better goal for next year. I think I like the personal challenge aspect of it more than the thrill of bike racing too...so I think I'm going to try and sign up for the Triple Crown of Running next year.

I'll still ride bikes. And I'll probably still jump in the Sand Creek mountain bike series next summer...and do the hill climb series if they do that again, but I think I'm going to focus on running. And biking to work every day this month, which has been pretty easy so far. It was cold today though....time for an ugly neon yellow jacket.

commuting brings ill will

2010-10-04T22:21:00.000-06:00

Easy commute today. I worked from home, then rode to the office park where my doctor and dentist charge me money, then an easy ride to work. I decided to ride the road bike instead of the CX, even though ole crossy is a much better commuting bike.


Be Well, Ride A Bike. Unless you get hit by a car.

Only one near-car experience on Dublin today. The Dublin/Powers intersection is awful. Sure enough, there was an accident there on the way home. While waiting for the chaos to clear, I met another bike commuter named Chris. He has almost the same commute as me, up to the AFA. He was nice, we exchanged small talk and the obligatory handshake. Much different than the roadies I saw on the way to work. I'm pretty sure there is some code that I didn't learn during the race season that says you have to ignore anyone riding without full kit. And you have to ignore to the point of being rude anyone with a backpack. I gave the wave and only got a disapproving look.

I'll be on the look-out for cars tomorrow. JT thinks he can win be default. All this commuting is either going to be good or bad for the race on Sunday in Buena Vista. I'm hoping for good.

day one, a draw

2010-10-01T22:34:00.001-06:00

Day 1:
Bike commute, 9.14 miles to work and 9.05 from work. I forgot my lunch and had to go from my building to the main building on the other side of 83 to get lunch. I biked, that added another 1.33 miles. The ride to work was pretty nice. I left early enough to avoid most of the traffic. The ride home was pretty typical. Briargate is full of kids driving cars that are way too nice. I got yelled at by some teenage girls and almost sideswiped by a kid in a Scion with a crappy after market exhaust. I'm thinking about getting one of those GoPro 960 HD cameras to immortalize them on the internet.

Monday will be interesting. I have to visit the dentist and visit the doctor. to refill my clenbuterol..just kidding..i take albuterol. Luckily, it's on the way to work and I can come in late. I thought for sure I was going to lose on Monday, but I'm good.

Tomorrow, Nielson Challenge if I wake up early enough or maybe first saturday at CRC. Sunday, Fall Series #1.

toughest challenge yet...

2010-09-29T17:58:00.000-06:00

My toughest challenge ever is coming up. I have to commute more than JT for the entire month of October or I will be out one growler of beer. I call this the One Less Car Challenge. Serious business when beer is involved.I also haven't been commuting since I changed jobs. Yesterday was the first time in a while, but it was also a PR for commuting. Extra bonus.

Last week I ran the Soul Runners for I think the 5th time, or maybe the 6th. I had my best 4.37 mile time, so a new PR is always good. I also managed to run slightly over 20 miles or the week. Didn't do much bike training during the week but planned on racing Alpha Cross in Denver on Sunday until I woke up Saturday with a chest cold. Without that race, I won't be pinning on a bike number until Oct 10th for the fantastic XXX Cross At the River in Buena Vista. I'd also like to stop by Eddyline, since I've never been.

This weekend is the first Fall Series race. I haven't decided what to do on Saturday yet. Either Nielson, Great Pumpkin or the Acacia Park ride. I think I'll probably do the Nielson or the Great Pumpkin 5k. Great Pumpkin and Fall Series should put me close to 25 for the week.

this week has been pretty good so far

2010-09-14T17:10:00.000-06:00

I started out the week with a 5K PR at the PPRR Great Race on Sunday. I went in hoping to pull out a time of 25:00. That would have been a full 2 minutes faster than my best 5K time so far. I was on pace to go sub 24:00 until the last hill...i blew up on that and ended up finishing around 25:30. Overall, I'm pretty happy with that and I think I'll keep improving. It got me really pumped for the Fall Series.

I also worked on my bike to get it ready for the race this weekend...kicking off what I hope will be a fun cross season.


Before

After

I'll be racing in the Southern Colorado Velo kit, so I went with those colors for the accoutrement. Speaking of CX, we're starting a weekly early morning practice tomorrow. Some hot laps, some slow laps, some skills work. Hopefully we have a decent turn out. I know at least three of us will be there.

I think I'll be able to get in a tough interval session after work tomorrow as well. I hope the weather is better than today though. It's the middle of September, but it was still 85 when i went for my after work run today. I think I dropped a couple pounds from the sweat.

more running

2010-09-06T22:25:00.000-06:00

Did the short Soul Runners run tonight. That had to be my fourth or fifth time..but alas no t-shirt.

The TCTP kicks into Power Intervals and Over-Unders this week. I'm looking forward to the lactic tingle they will bring and the cross clinic this weekend. Next weekend the racing starts, for me at least. A few more weeks until the fall series starts, but I'm looking forward to that almost as much as CX right now. I need to figure out what shoes I am going to wear for the first race, since I only have one pair right now and don't want to ruin them in the creek.

Nielson Challenge

2010-09-04T12:40:00.001-06:00

Ran my first Nielson Challenge today. Finished with a time of 16:13. First split was 7:52, second was like 8:21. Compared to what I've been running, I'm pretty happy with that. I wish I could have had a little better time on the second mile, but overall I think that's pretty decent for me.It was good enough for 38/116.

I want a pair of running shoes. I've been running in Adidas Supernova Riot because I originally thought I'd mostly be trail running but I've been adding in more and more paved/road stuff..so I think I want something better for that type of running. Right now, I'm thinking of the Saucony ProGrid Omni 9, the New Balance MR1226 , the Adidas Supernova Sequence 3, or the Nike LunarGlide+ 2. I'm not sure if the Saucony comes in narrow, but I think the Adidas, the Nike and the New Balance do. I'll probably wait to actually shoe shop until the new Colorado Running Company opens up here. That will be so much more convenient than BRC or the current CRC location.

New brake pads came for the CX bike. Need to replace them and retape the handlebars before the race and I should be good to go. Training is going pretty well. I had a long ride planned today, but swapped a run after the Nielson Challenge for it. Tomorrow is a mountain bike day. I'll end up with 5 hours of bike time and 1:45 running time for the week. A little less than I planned on getting, but I had to make up some hours at work and that cut into what I had planned.

forget what i said

2010-08-29T21:27:00.000-06:00

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, I enjoyed the Stadium/Golf Course side of the Falcon Trail on the cross bike, so I decided to ride the entire thing on the mountain bike today. Yesterday the sand wasn't bad...today it was awful. Really loose in a lot of spots..almost like surfing..and had trouble keeping speed going into lots of corners. I hope it rains the day before the 24 Hours of COS thing. Maybe that will get rid of some of the horse crap...which was everywhere today.

Pikes Peak Velo weed wacked the cross course in, so I'm going to start heading over there on Wednesday mornings...around 7:00..except this week. This week I'm going to ride there post work.

training round 2, week one

2010-08-28T19:19:00.002-06:00

Garmin Training Center says a week is Sunday to Saturday...so here was the training week so far.

Sunday:
Five miles in Bear Creek. Worst run, pace wise, that I've had in a long time. I think I ate too close to running and dealt with side stitches the entire time. After I shuffled back to the parking lot, I biked up Gold Camp Road and around a little for a grand total of 20 miles. I love that climb.

Monday:
Woke up with that familiar trail running soreness that I haven't felt in a while. I planned on an AM jog and a PM ride. Skipped the jog because of the soreness when I woke up, then got seriously rained out on the ride.

Tuesday:
Woke up feeling fantastic, got in a 3 mile run. I ran around an 8:30 pace and felt good. It was sprinkling and cold...I love running in weather like that. This was probably my most solid run in a while. In the PM, I had a 60 minute EM ride with 3x8 SS intervals lined up. The loop around my neighborhood is pretty flat, pretty low on the traffic side and about 7/10 of a mile...makes a good loop for intervals.

I left work a little early and was starting my first circle at about 3:30. No traffic at all made for a pretty nice ride. I pulled 3 solid intervals and was able to keep my HR at 161.

Wednesday:
This was supposed to be a rest day, but I made up for my missed ride and jog from Monday. An hour on the bike after work, 2.7 miles before work. I ran laps of the neighborhood..pretty boring but easy to track distance and it's easy to get distance w/o being far from the house. The weather was crap in the morning, but that made the run better.The ride was OK. I dealt with some car-on-bike hatred from a guy with a Dan Maes bumper sticker. Apparently he also believes the bike agenda is going to commie up the US like Maes warned us. Strangely, it was right near this crosswalk sign.

Thursday:
Woke up with some nice soreness in my legs. Jogged for 20 minutes...but jogged pretty slow and only got 2 miles in. After work was a duplicate of the Tuesday bike workout. My HRM wasn't working well, giving readings of like 250 BPM for no effort, 350 for what felt like a SS effort. Either it was reading wrong or I was close to having a heart attack. I felt good during the efforts, but did them totally by feel so I'm not sure how close they really were to target. The wind was pretty strong out of the south, so every time I made a left at the top of the neighborhood I felt like I hit a wall.

Friday:
Rest Day

Saturday:
Today the plan called for a 90-120 minute group ride or EM. I rode the CX bike on the Santa Fe trail from the Woodman lot up to Northgate, crossed into the Academy, took the left at Stadium past the Bomber and then hopped on the Falcon Trail on Parade Loop. I took the Falcon Trail over to the BX, then took the roads back down to the Northgate entrance and got back on the Santa Fe. It was a pretty busy day around the Academy. Santa Fe had some sort of duathlon going on and there was a 5k on the AFA. I tried to get a picture of the 5k start from behind the stadium, but missed most of it.

The only place I didn't see a single person was on the Falcon Trail. It's in fantastic shape right now with all the rain. It almost makes me wish I had signed up for the 24 Hours of COS, but there is noway I'm doing that Solo. First CX race on the same day.

Sunday:
Planning on a 90-120 minute ride tomorrow. Possibly the Acacia Park Sunday ride. Possibly another CX ride...maybe up High Drive? Maybe road ride into Black Forest? Falcon Trail?

Excluding tomorrow (but really it's part of the week...), that's 1:45:48 running and 7:32 on the bike. With tomorrow, that's 9:32 on the bike. Next week should be around 7:00 on the bike and probably 2:00 running.

The other good thing about this week...I found my new favorite non-beer after workout drink.

It's got what plants crave

nice weather we're having

2010-08-23T21:32:00.000-06:00

Tonight I had a training ride planned, so of course it rained. Pretty nasty storm on the way home from work.

Yesterday, I got in a 5 mile run in Bear Creek. I started from the terrace parking lot, ran the mountain bike trails and then ran over into the nature center. Rode the CX bike up Gold Camp after, then swung back down to check out the CX course. It still isn't mowed in, but they've now moved the big pile of asphalt to the parking area that usually has the pit. Speaking of running, I joined PPRR this weekend. The fall series price difference alone makes it worth it, plus I need some new shoes.

end of the week, start of fun

2010-08-20T21:31:00.002-06:00

I logged 20 miles this week (running). That's probably the most I've run in a week since like April. I'm enjoying the running, but I haven't ridden since the road race Sunday and I miss the biking.

Solution: Start the CX training plan next week and do both.

TCTP + 20-30 minutes of running every morning should make my legs hurt. Core workout should make my midsection hurt and 100 pushups should make my upper body hurt.

Saturday or Sunday I'll hopefully get a long road ride in, then start "training" on Monday. I originally planned on focusing on the local CX race because it was local, but the change in BCR/BCT to the Cross Cup has me looking later in the year. Of course...most of these are Boulder and North...

10-Oct Cross at the River Buena Vista
23-Oct Blue Sky Cup at Xilinx Longmont
24-Oct Boulder CX Series #3 Boulder
30-Oct Colorado Cross (UCI2) Boulder
31-Oct Boulder Cup (UCI1) Boulder
13-Nov USGP (UCI) Fort Collins
14-Nov USGP (UCI) Fort Collins
20-Nov Race for Rosalie Centennial
21-Nov CycloX Longmont
4-Dec Colorado CX Championships Boulder
5-Dec Colorado CX Championships Boulder

I was hoping that they'd spread it out a little bit more than Buena Vista and Centennial. I'm not sure how many of those I'll be racing unless I share a ride with someone. Buena Vista and Centennial for sure, maybe one of the Boulder dates. Back down here in January for sure!

New fall/winter race schedule...maybe:
Sept 19th - Pikes Peak Velo SuperCross
Oct 3rd - Fall Series #1
Oct 10th - Cross at the River
Oct 16th - On The Cross (maybe...)
Oct 17th - Fall Series #2
Oct 31st - Fall Series #3
Nov 7th - Castle Cross
Nov 14th - Fall Series #4
Dec 4/5 - CX State Championships?
Jan 8th - Pikes Peak Velo SuperCross #2

morning run x 2

2010-08-19T19:55:00.000-06:00

5 miles, 45 minutes.

morning run

2010-08-17T21:53:00.000-06:00

It was a chilly morning today. It was 50 degrees when I hit the road for a run at 6:30. Felt almost like a fall morning. Makes me wonder if the Ascent will see snow this year.

It was a short run, only about 2.5 miles. Pulled off a 8:20 mile and a 7:50 mile..good numbers for me. I'm not sure if I'll run tomorrow or do a hard bike effort.

Pro Cycling Senior Road Championship

2010-08-16T21:20:00.000-06:00

Sunday I raced the ACA / Pro Cycling Colorado Senior Road Championship on the Air Force Academy. The weather was eerily similar to the weather for the Front Range Cycling Classic on the A.F.A in April...except it was 60 instead of 40, so the drizzle and fog didn't suck as much. I was drastically unprepared for racing in April and got my ass kicked. I think I did better this time, but it was obvious I wasn't training anymore and the rest of the CAT 4 field was.

The course was different than the race in April, so it wasn't a true comparison of fitness. The April race was pretty much a pure climbing course, but Sunday's race was a nice variety. Some punchy climbing and fast descending, some flat sections where the sprinters could hammer it, and even a section through the cadet area that was almost like a Crit with all the turns. We started from the stadium lot, made a right onto Stadium, then immediately did a 180 and headed north on Stadium. The hammer was dropped from the whistle as everyone tried to be at the front as we went through the turn. I had a pedal problem and ended up near the back, when a kid from Ridge View Academy went down. I barely avoided him, but that snapped me off the back of the main group. I caught back up to the main group, but realized I was going to be cooked if I kept up that pace the entire time. I eased off and ended up in last place, until we got to the hill. I took back about 10 places on the first hill, but then lost a couple on the descent after the cadet area because i took a couple of the "crit corners" too slow and then couldn't make the time back up on the descent. On the last lap, I caught a guy with an Ascent Cycling jersey that had passed me on the first descent and I slowed for a bit to talk to him. I dropped him on the hill and eventually put 45 seconds into him. I finished about 30 seconds behind the guy that finished ahead of me and I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't slowed to talk to the Ascent guy. It was nice to have someone to ride with for a second though, since I had pretty much ridden a 22 mile time trial up to that point. The leader of the SM4 eventually crossed the finish line in 1:12. I was in the 1:20s. Two of the top 5 were Cat 2 cross guys, and I'm sure they drove quite a bit. I think the most interesting part of the race was that I got an email copy of the results BEFORE Andy from Sand Creek had posted the hard copy. Love the digital age. I checked the other results last night and saw the 35+ SM4 winner was around 1:20. I wonder if my time would have been faster if I had been in that group and could have hung with them vs doing what amounted to a 27 mile time trial. Oh well, rookie strategy/training mistake! I'm going to have different priorities next year, so we'll see how the road racing falls out next year.

Ralph Clark posted a pretty cool picture on Pikes Peak Sports:

Now that it's almost September (we're past the middle of August)..thoughts turn to 'cross and running.


Toward the end of the Run For Rwanda 5k

I ran the Run for Rwanda 5k two weekends ago. I haven't been running and almost went under 27:00...which for me is good. I was going to run the Manitou Cross Country 5k, but it was canceled. I need to up the running so I will be ready for the Fall Series. October will be a busy month. Fall Series, Cross, and my death match of commuting with JT. I can already taste the beer I will be winning.

The fall series overlaps with a couple of cx races: Frisco, Aspen and the Halloween Cup in Boulder. I wasn't really planning on doing Frisco or Aspen because of the drive, but I wanted to race the Halloween Cup. I have friend coming into town, though, so I'll probably skip the cx and run #3. Whatever happens on Halloween, it's time to break out the barriers and get some cross practice going. I think I'm going to try and organize something on wednesday mornings in Bear Creek or Cottonwood Creek, depending on who is interested. Cottonwood has a big open grassy space and good roads for riding, Bear Creek would be better if the trails get run in.

700x35

2010-08-08T10:07:00.000-06:00

I put the Maxxis Raze back on the CX bike and decided to head over to Bear Creek to get some dirt CX time. I started riding the mountain bike trails and the recent rain has done wonders for that side of the park. Tacky dirt everywhere, not the loose mess it was during the last couple Ascent Series races. After a couple laps, I rode across 21st to the place where the cyclocross race was run last year. I'm not sure if they are planning on doing something different this year, but it's completely overgrown and partially washed out. The little quick downhill after the finish line last year is completely overgrown at the top..I couldn't even see it till I went past it at the bottom. The cement street they used for the start also has a big gash across it, filled with broken up and loose blacktop. I hope someone fixes it up before the Pikes Peak Supercross race.

Randomly, I saw a wild hop vine growing by the little downhill section. Not a very good cellphone camera picture, but it's there. They should work that into the race somehow...maybe a new name..Colorado Hop Crusade.

training reboot

2010-07-25T15:54:00.001-06:00

With the start of 'cross season only seven weeks away (Steamboat and Copper CX, might be racing the Copper CX), I decided to restart the training. Last year I raced the Pikes Peak Velo Super Cross, our local race, before I got sick and ended up traveling. I did pretty awful and realized I was way out of shape, but I loved the race. Even though it's way early in the season, I think this will be my "A" race for the year for two reason. First, so I can compare my performance with last year, and second, because it's the only local race this year.

I'm going to use the TCTP like I did before the road season. While I didn't do all that well in the road races I entered, I saw a steady improvement and it definitely got me much fitter. Hopefully, the TCTP, combined with some running and some cross specific drills, will put me in a decent spot for the PPVSC. I'm still planning on racing after that, but haven't really decided what yet. Hopefully some people from Southern Colorado Velo end up traveling so I have someone to hang out with at the races that aren't local. I'd like to get a weekly CX specific practice going, so hopefully there are some takers.

In order to kick the training off again, I needed to do another field test. In February, I ended up having an average HR of 165 for the first test and 170 for the second test. I went out to the same course, the old Woodman frontage road, to do the test today. I got fairly similar numbers for the tests, 170 for the first and 171 for the second. I didn't check the data while I was riding, but I noticed that I recovered much quicker than I remembered from February. I think I was expecting a higher average heart rate and was a little disappointed that I didn't put up better number, but after comparing the data to the test in February I think I'm pretty happy with where I am starting. My recovery was MUCH quicker after each effort, falling back down to the 120s within a minute vs two minutes in February and the perceived exertion I felt was lower overall. I even went for an hour ride after the test because I felt good. I'm taking this to mean I'm more fit now, but maybe it means I didn't go hard for the two test efforts. I don't think I could have sustained more for the times, so I think I did them correctly. I think that's one of the problems of training with heart rate. Today really made me wish I was training by power instead.

With my baseline established, I'm either going to start the training plan next week or the week after. I started running again last week, and plan on doing a 40-60 minute run every other morning. I'm also going to add in more core and strength training on the "rest" days. I think that, plus heading to Bear Creek once or twice a week for some skills work with the portable barriers I made last year will get me ready for racing!

I'll also need some beer. Something like...Duvel. Time to brew.

checking things off of lists...

2010-07-20T22:22:00.000-06:00

That's me crossing the finish line at the LIVESTRONG Challenge in San Jose. I've been back from California for almost a week, so it's time to write about the ride. If we back that picture up 6 hours, it looked like this.

Going in to the trip, I was hopeful I could finish with a ride time of 6 hours. I ended up rolling across the finish line with a riding time of 5:35, thanks in no small part to the two guys (Jeff and Chris) on the right side of that picture. We lined up around 7:00 in the 100 mile chute. There were only a few people flying the Fat Cyclist flag in the 100 mile chute, but we all bunched up near the front. We listened to John Korioth talk about livestrong and introduced a couple "celebs" riding with us, like Ben King from the Trek-Livestrong U23 team. Then Julie Delgado sang the national anthem and the roll out began. There was a 9 or 10 mile rolling police escort as we got out of San Jose and the pace picked up immediately and splintered the 100 mile group. I managed to hang with the front group, but realized that I'd never be able to keep up the 25-30 mph we were riding. I stayed with a group of about 15 or so that fell off the lead group and stuck with them for a bit. Jeff had the bib 666 and his first bit of fun came when he hit a bump and lost all his bottles. I didn't notice and ended up dropping both Chris and Jeff until I stopped at the second aid station around mile 20. Once we regrouped, I decided to stick with them for the rest of the ride and that turned out be a fantastic idea. We hung with a good sized group of people until we stopped at our second stop way out on Uvas road, past the 65 mile split. After this stop, we were pretty much a group of three until we got near Metcalf. We kept a pretty fantastic pace as a group of three. I had hoped to average somewhere around 17 mph, but we held a good 20+ mph for the first 60+ miles as we rode the rollers and false flats through San Jose, Watsonville, Gilroy and the country around there.

Mile 68 or so begins the BRUTAL climb up Metcalf. We stopped at the aid station at the bottom and got water, some Honey Stinger stuff and talked about how much the next couple miles would suck. M. was there with her family to cheer me on and that felt good. We started up the climb and agreed to regroup at the top if we split up. We did.

The climb was intense. It was fairly similar to Cheyenne Canon, but shorter and a little steeper. I've climbed that a few times, but never after riding rolling terrain for almost 70 miles. I'm glad we had white jerseys on, because the heat started kicking up around the time we crossed 101 toward Metcalf, and only got worse on the climb. Somewhere, around the mid point, a guy with a bucket of cold water and sponge drenched me and gave me the perk-up I needed to make it up to the top.

Once I rolled into the top, I got water and some gummy bears and reflected on what I had just done. That sucked!

Our fantastic average speed crashed down to 17 w/ the slow speed up that climb. The garmin even auto-paused a few times because I was going so slow in some spots.

I found Chris at the top after shoving some food in my mouth and we waited for Jeff, then made the last climb before rolling downhill to San Jose. The last 20 miles or so were pretty hard and I ran out of water. We stopped at an aid station, even though I don't think Jeff or Chris needed to so I could get a drink. We ended up picking up another Team Fatty rider and rolled out of the aid station. The 666 bib struck again with 8 miles to go, as Jeff flatted. While we stopped for a tube change, Andrew, another fatty, stopped and joined our group. Tube replaced, we rode a pretty nice pace line in for the last 8 miles. Andrew made it through a light we didn't, but Jeff, Chris and I managed to ride through the finish at the same time and got a nice shout out from the announcer.

In the end, it wasn't a true century I guess...finishing somewhere in the 95 mile range. I didn't care at that point...I had a great ride with some cool guys and saw some nice things in California. I rode up a crazy road and beat my goal time. I had one thing on my mind, eating an It's It! I give myself credit for a century, so I'm crossing that off the list. I'm sure I'll do more..it was great.

Now it's time to turn back to training mode. I need to replace some stuff on the CX bike, figure out a training plan and get ready for cross! I'm 50/50 on riding the AFA mountain bike race next weekend and 100% on doing the ACA Senior Road Championship at the AFA on Aug 15th, even though it's a pretty short (like 27 miles) race. I have no delusions of winning, but it should be a nice hard training race!

2010-07-05T19:52:00.000-06:00

My 50 mile ride went well on Saturday. I finished in 2:40 and felt pretty good after the ride. The rice cakes were also a nice treat for the ride so I'm 90% convinced I'll be making those before the ride Sunday. It was nice to unwrap what amounts to bacon and eggs in the middle of Black Forest after riding for an hour and change.

Thanks to Roger, I have a hard case to take the bike to California. I went for a short ride today. I planned an on being out for an hour and got 18 miles in. The weather was fantastic today after the crazy storms last night. I broke the bike down and loaded it into the case after we ran some errands and I was able to pick up some zip-ties and some pipe insulation. It's funny, that thing weighs less than m.'s suitcase sometimes when she comes back from CA.

I'm planning on reassembling the bike when we get to San Jose and making sure nothing got messed up in transit. Hopefully there is a good bike shop close by if so.

I also picked up new shorts, my first pair of bib shorts. They felt fantastic on the ride today. I also ordered a new helmet, but it wouldn't have been here in time so I had it shipped to CA.

I'm riding to work tomorrow on the CX bike as my last Colorado ride for a week. I'm excited for California and I'm sure I will enjoy it once I know the bike didn't break on the way there.

san jose nutrition

2010-07-01T20:35:00.000-06:00

I've been debating what to consume during my ride in San Jose. I'm hit or miss with Clif or PowerBar type things..somethings they sit well and sometimes they don't. I also don't really like them because they have a ton of processed stuff and I've pretty much cut that stuff out of my diet.

Enter Allen Lim's Rice Cakes.

Bicycling had this text version with amounts:

2-3 fresh eggs
1 (dry) cup sushi rice (Cal-Rose is Lim’s preferred brand)
three slices bacon, Canadian bacon or pancetta
grated Parmesan cheese to taste
2 tbs soy sauce or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (less ore more to taste)
salt to taste, if desired

I used 3 eggs, 1 cup of bulk organic sushi rice, 3 slices of bacon, about 1/4 cup of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, 2 tsbp Soy Sauce, and 2 tbsp Olive Oil to cook the eggs.

A little bit of Olive oil and cheese in the pan.

Rice goes into the pan.

In go the eggs

Parmigiano-Reggiano, Soy Sauce and Bacon join the mix

Everything gets smashed down and heads to the fridge to cool

It would be pretty stupid of me to not try these on a long ride before I head to San Jose, so I made them and I'll do a 50-75 mile ride Saturday or Sunday and see how they hit my stomach. Everything in it is pretty simple, so I think they'll be OK. They have dairy, so there is always that...but 1/4 cup isn't much. I was curious what the nutrional content of these thing would be, so I used NutritionData.com to estimate a per-bar serving if I divide these up into 6 bars.

	Servings	Calories	Calories From Fat	Total Fat	Saturated Fat	Trans Fat	Cholesterol	Sodium	Total Carbohydrates	Dietary Fiber	Sugars	Protein
Bacon	3	43	30	3	1	0	9	185	0	0	0	3
Eggs	3	102	67	7	2	0	215	171	1	0	1	7
Rice (cup)	1	716	9	1	1	0	0	2	158	6	0	13
Soy Sauce (tbsp)	2	11	0	0	0	0	0	1006	1	1	0	2
Parmesan (cup)	0.25	431	251	29	17	0	88	1529	4	0	1	38
Olive Oil (tbsp)	2	119	119	14	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Total		1518.75	600.75	66.25	18.25	0	694	3464.25	164	8	3.25	56.5


Per bar		253.125	100.125	11.04167	3.041666667	0	115.66667	577.375	27.33333333	1.33333333	0.541667	9.416667

For comparison, I checked the nutritional information of a ProBar (which I can stomach anytime).

The ProBar is smaller than a 1/6th of the pan of Rice Cakes, but more calorie dense. They're reasonably close, so I'm not sure what I'll do yet. One is vegan...the other isn't. One comes in PB&J flavor...one comes in Bacon & Eggs flavor :)

how is it almost july?

2010-06-29T17:39:00.000-06:00

The LIVESTRONG Challenge is a week from Sunday. It's amazing that it's already almost July. I've been getting pretty regular 30 mile rides in a couple times during the week in addition to the racing for the last couple weeks with a couple longer rides here and there over the weekends. I'm not sure if that's enough to prepare me, but I feel really good right now. I went for a 25 mile ride today and finished in 1:25. I wasn't really pushing it and felt really good when I was done, so hopefully I'll hit sub 6:00 next weekend.

I also joined the Southern Colorado Velo club. Hopefully I'll get to meet some people to train/race with for CX season. I watched a bunch of CX videos today and can't wait.

improvement? yes.

2010-06-23T20:07:00.000-06:00

I was nervous all day wondering what today would show. Would my T.T. time be the same, crushing my believe that my fitness and form have been on the rise since April...or would my time be better? The answer to that is better! Much better...a little over 2:00 minutes better. I even passed the guy that I almost passed last week. I'm excited to see how my time stacks up against the other Men's C people. Above all, I wish I had done the entire series. I will definitely do the entire thing next week.

My avg HR was lower, my avg speed was faster and I felt better after. I have that nagging exercise induced asthma cough right now, but I don't feel dead like I did in April. Hopefully this means good things for San Jose and better things for cross season!

improvement?

2010-06-22T22:47:00.000-06:00

Looking through my Garmin data, I see typical commutes in Jan, Feb, March of 31-33 minutes. Today I managed a 29:20 commute and the times have been steadily coming down toward the 30:00 mark. It was a commute, so no HRM but I'd say RPE was lower than those winter commutes. I'm not sure it's a good gauge of fitness since it is commuting, but it feels like one. I think I'll have a better one tomorrow. In April I did the hill climb up Cheyenne Canon. I placed a pretty pathetic 15th out of 16 in the Cat 4/5 with a time in the mid 23s. The Garmin said 22:56, but I think the official time was something like 23:30. If I can pull better than 23:30, I'll call it improvement.

It just became summer, but I'm already thinking about cross in the fall. I'd like to join a team to have some people to train and race with, but I don't know anyone on any local teams so I'm not sure how open any of them are...especially to someone like me with results that aren't all that spectacular.

On another improvement front, I saw some pictures from this time last year. I was probably down to 190 or 200 lbs then, and even that was a big change from what I am not. I got on the scale in the locker room at work this morning and saw 157. Skinny. Skinnier than the average woman according to the CDC.

Ascent Series

2010-06-20T07:42:00.000-06:00

Brian McCarrie shot this and I stole it from pikespeaksports.us

I raced the last Ascent Series yesterday. My cardio was still pretty good and I felt much better than the last race from a technical handling standpoint, but still can't descend as fast as others. I would catch people on the climbs, only to lose them on the way down so I need to work on that. I was alone for part of the race but had the 5th place CAT 3 30-39 guy chasing me by a couple hundred yards for the last lap. He caught me with 200 m to go and we raced hard for the finish line. He crossed just before me, so I ended up taking 5th yesterday and 6th overall for the series. I'm pretty happy with my races, given my lack of mountain biking until a couple weeks ago. I remain convinced that Bear Creek has it in for me. This time, I went OTB on a corner on my warm-up and dropped my chain three times during the race. The first time I dropped the chain I got passed by 8 people. I made most of that time back, but it hurt. All in all, it was fun and I'll definitely do that series next year.

ouch

2010-06-18T17:34:00.000-06:00

I raced the 26th Street Time Trial on Wednesday and did a pretty decent 22:30 ride. This put me in the middle of the Cat C race and I was pretty happy with that. My lungs didn't seem to be happy though, because I had some asthma problems that night.

And Thursday. Not enough problems to keep me from my scheduled ride RDBM ride. The plan was Falcon Trail at 4:30, but I was getting out of work at 1:00 so I decided to get in some extra miles and started at 3:00. The moisture from the round of rain is long gone and the trail was dry and sandy. I started at the BX and did a counter-clockwise loop in about an hour and 20 minutes. Not that fast, but I was having a hard time sucking down air. The hot air made the trees smell amazing though, so that made up for it.

I liked this shot. It's right past the golf course, but from the looks of this you're miles away from civilization and it looks like the trail goes on forever in the trees. I made it back to the parking lot in time to meet up with Rob and Scott, only to find out Scott's bike was broken. He bailed to get it fixed (since he is doing the Bailey Hundo tomorrow..good luck Scott!) so I set out with Rob for a clockwise lap. I guess that lap + the TT did a number on my legs because they felt dead. I was stupid, didn't eat anything and bonked on that long climb. I made it over to the cadet area before I had to bail and ride back to the car. I got in a good 26 miles yesterday though, so it was a pretty good ride all around.

Woke up to more asthma problems today, so I took a break from the bike and refilled my ProAir Rx. I'm feeling better finally. The last Ascent Series race is tomorrow and then the last Wednesday time trial is next week. Once those are done, I think I'm done racing for a while until after San Jose.

small victories

2010-06-13T17:22:00.000-06:00

After calling off the ride today, I decided to do some work from home. As the time passed, the sky started to turn blue. I was having some trouble focusing on what I was writing before the weather started to change and even more now that the sky was blue(ish).

I seized the chance to get a ride in and headed out to Black Forest. A little over an hour later, my mind felt fresh again. The rain came back, so I did as well.

In the two hours of work after the ride, I probably accomplished as much as I did in the three before i set out. Einstein once said "I thought of that while riding my bike." I know this because the internet tells me he did. It's an appropriate quote for me today!

I'm trying to decide if i I want to preregister for the last Ascent Series race. Doing so will save me $5, but will require me to actually mail something. I really wish there was online registration for them. I also wish they'd do a short track series like in Boulder. A, B, C races, 50, 40. 30 minutes? It would be easy to do at Bear Creek and would be fun weekly things if they were pretty cheap.

the best laid schemes...

2010-06-13T12:01:00.000-06:00

I had lofty goals this weekend. Mountain bike training yesterday, long road ride today. The weather today totally killed the long road ride.

View Spruce Mtn and Back in a larger map

I drove this yesterday to scope out the dirt road sections and decided it was fine. It's actually a pretty scenic country ride with farms, animals and a bunch of trees. Scott and I planned on starting this ride around 8:00 today, but the rain started the minute he got his bike out of the car. After waiting a few minutes to see if it would die down, we set out. Then the wind picked up and the rain got worse. Then the hail started. The wind and the cold rain made today almost feel like fall, not the start of summer.

I still want to ride this route, so maybe this week. I spent last night working from home and have been doing the same for a while today. Those hours should let me take half a day (or an entire day) off this week when the weather is better.

catching up with....

2010-06-11T16:45:00.000-06:00

Windy bike commute today. Number three for the week, well into the twenties for the week. I think we're well into the crappy summer weather season. I'm also a month out from my LIVESTRONG Challenge ride. I think I'm ready from a fitness perspective. I wish I had worked harder at fund raising though. Team Fatty is in third place right now. We were only $95 dollars back from the second place team earlier today, but we're down by $145 now.

I dodged this nasty looking cloud and the fun it brought with it, but just barely. It started to pour right after I put the bike in the garage when the heavens opened. I guess it spawned a Tornado in Peyton. It was a good way to cap off a long week. Or two weeks...

I did my first mountain bike race in a while on the 2nd. We have a pretty cool local series and I missed the first one so I was excited to line up for the second. The weather was pretty good and the course was in pretty good shape, thanks to the rain earlier in the day. I threw down my $20 bucks and tied on my number.

The pre-ride made me quickly remember that I haven't ridden the mountain bike much this year (once). I was nervous going over things I shouldn't have been and felt sketchy on all the descents. I ended up 4th in the Cat 3 30-39 race. I had a lot of fun though and it reminded me that I like singletrack, so I went back for more early Sunday morning. My favorite part of the race was Scott running the last mile or so with a blown front tube, bike slung over his back. It was almost cross like!

Saturday we had more rain, so the trails were PERFECT.

The only problem was the cactus...I fell during the race and landed on some cactus. Here is the spot I fell.

I got in about 6 laps, then headed home feeling much better about being on dirt again. This time, no cactus. I did have a mechanical while climbing and banged my knee up pretty good. Good enough to call it day anyway. And good enough to keep me from biking to work Monday.

Tuesday was a pretty awesome commute, despite the wind. Perfect temps and nice skies. Wednesday was bike to work day, so I rode over to Scott's then headed to Salsa Brava for breakfast. I headed home early enough to go by the house, pick up my mountain bike and the car, then drive over to Bear Creek for the third Sand Creek race. I made it in time, but somehow forgot my wallet. There was no way to make it back in time, so I decided to volunteer and be a race marshall. I got sent to the top of the multiuse trail on the back side of the course.

It was a nice place to stand and watch the race and look over the city. I also got to ride the course before the race and after, to sweep up a missing rider.

The races were pretty fun to watch. I'm sad I didn't get to race, but part of the course was kind of crappy and it was really dry and sandy. A pretty good turnout over all though, with some locals turning out.

Katie Compton, fresh off her Teva Mtn Games TT win.

Mark Legg-Compton

Russel Finsterwald also showed up. The Pro Cycling Team won again, this time it was Kalan.

By far, my favorite racer was in the Cat 3 race.

Fun times, and I can't wait for the last race on the 19th. Hopefully the weather holds this weekend. I'm planning on a short mountain bike ride early tomorrow and a long road ride (out to Larkspur) on Saturday.

finally summer

2010-06-01T22:27:00.000-06:00

I turned 30 on the 25th and had family in town until yesterday, so it cut down on my activity. I ran the Soul Runners run on Monday and ran an amazing (for me) 3 miles at 8:30 min/miles again yesterday. To go with the running, I got in a REALLY nice, but short road ride on Thursday. Dublin to Rangewood to Vickers, then Vickers across Academy to the nice and hilly neighborhood on the west side of Academy, then over to Dublin again and back to Pulpit Rock. The weather was sunny, warm and best of all, not windy. I'd call it a perfect ride if it had been better. And if a Springs Utilities truck hadn't parked in the bike lane on Dublin by Union.

I had to stop because there was a ton of traffic on Dublin and couldn't swerve around him. He made me stop, so I took a picture of him.

The rest of the ride was good and I was treated to some nice views of Pulpit Rock and Pikes Peak.

I turned around and headed back before the wind picked up and finished with 25 miles and a nice beer from Michigan.

I haven't been training at all for the last few weeks, but I felt fantastic during the ride and both runs. Today I commuted in and felt even better with sub 30 each way with what felt like minimal effort. I decided to race the Ascent Series tomorrow, so we'll see how I'm really doing tomorrow.

wtf leg

2010-05-25T17:32:00.000-06:00

I was able to run the Soul Runners run after work yesterday. I had this weird feeling in my calf all day and I thought it might keep me from running, but the run felt great. Today my calf hurts...seriously leg..wtf.

We made it back right as the hash was starting. I'll have to give that a try next week if it's a weekly thing.

running, followed by more running

2010-05-23T19:17:00.000-06:00

Today I was up pretty early and was out the door for a 4 mile run at 6:45. I love that the only noises I heard were the birds along the "creek".

I'm planning on running the Soul Runners run tomorrow. That will be #3 for me and will be a good way to finish off my 29th year.

This is probably the funniest thing I've read all weekend. Boulder police looking for cyclist with shaved legs, who robbed coffee shop. Good thing Boulder doesn't have many of those!

indignity of multifaction bike commuting

2010-05-22T22:26:00.000-06:00

I finished off the week by commuting Friday. The temperature has turned much more summer like, but the wind picked up again. As usual, it was a wind from the south/west. I think I screwed up my commute karma by laughing to myself when I passed a guy on a Cervelo on the way home. His saddle looked like it was about two inches too low, giving him the crazy knee wobble, and he was wearing what looked like a mismatched Française des Jeux kit. He was having a hard time with Old Ranch Road, so I appologize if you're reading this. I still think you should probably raise your saddle though. After passing him, I caught up to another roadie on Royal Pine. I passed him and rode straight into the wind. After I passed him, he got on my wheel and rode my slipstream all the way to Austin Bluffs. When we got to Austin Bluffs and made the turn, he sprinted out of the corner and dropped me. I wasn't aware that we were racing, but apparently we were. Good thing he could drop a CAT 5 racer on cross bike with panniers! Clearly this was because I blew my commuting karma. That ride down Austin Bluffs sucked once I turned back into the wind. Friday was a busy bike commuting day. Apparently, it was National Bike To Work Day. I ended up seeing a couple people on commuting on hardtails, a couple roadies with backpacks, and even someone commuting on a BMX. Hopefully they are all still at it for Bike to Work Day in Colorado Springs. Clearly the League of American Bicyclists didn't coordinate with Colorado Springs, and Colorado Springs (June 9th) didn't coordinate with Boulder (June 23rd). Denver and Boulder are on the same page though.

I had planned on racing the first Sand Creek/Ascent race today, but decided to take care of some things before my parents come. Good thing too, since my new lack of bike karma would have probably caused me to run into this mean looking lady. Bears in Palmer Park...must be getting close to summer.

chasing the fail whale

2010-05-20T17:29:00.000-06:00

I had an epic day planned today. It should have gone something like bike commute to work, work, bike commute home, throw mountain bike in car, ride falcon trail, drink beer. Sadly, somewhere between work and commute home, i had to change plans and had to settle for a 20 mile day vs a 20 mile day + 14 miles of singletrack. Oh Well. The commute was good. Warm, not windy and traffic free. Perfect!

The weather was pretty good today, and looks even better tomorrow. I'll commute in for the third time this week and achieve my goal of 3x a week. Hopefully this is what the rest of our "spring" will be like. My parents are coming to town next week, so I'm planning on getting as much riding in this week as possible.

the storm that wasn't

2010-05-18T19:54:00.000-06:00

I chose not to bike to work today because the forecast called for a nasty thunderstorm. The supposed storm didn't materialize and the day turned out to be pretty fantastic...at least on the front range (Tornadoes out by Eads right now). I decided to run instead and ended up running my best 3 miles in a while at sub 9:00 minute miles! I'm torn between riding and running right now, the weather is great for both.

This weekend is the Ascent series opener. I don't have a USAC MTB license, so if I decide to race it, it will end up being a $30 dollar race. I'm leaning toward doing it just for the fun of it, but I'm not sure yet. It would be a good hard ride for the weekend, so I think I will. I believe a few friends are as well.

I've been pretty slack in my LIVESTRONG challenge fundraising. I'm almost to $500. so I hope I get there at least. My goal is still $3000, which is still possible I think, if I can get people to donate.

longing for some nice weather..

2010-05-17T22:56:00.000-06:00

I am longing for the warm, dry Colorado summer. Today, I biked to work and had a good ride in. Of course, that means I could expect the clouds to look a little menacing when I would be leaving. I'm glad it mother nature didn't disappoint!

Wind and clouds, followed by wind, clouds and rain. Then a little hail for good measure. Friday actually looks pretty good though, and Thursday might be good too.

Tuesday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after noon. Some of the storms could be severe. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 61. South southwest wind between 5 and 15 mph. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
Tuesday Night: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before 7pm, then showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly between 7pm and 9pm. Some of the storms could be severe. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 40. South southwest wind between 5 and 10 mph becoming calm. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
Wednesday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 60. North northwest wind between 5 and 10 mph.
Wednesday Night: A chance of showers and thunderstorms before midnight, then a slight chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 39. North northwest wind between 5 and 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%.
Thursday: A slight chance of showers, with thunderstorms also possible after noon. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 66. North northwest wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 10%.
Thursday Night: A 10 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before midnight. Partly cloudy, with a low around 40. North northeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west southwest.
Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 77. Southwest wind between 5 and 15 mph.

I think I'll commute Thursday and Friday, then shoot for some long rides on the Saturday and Sunday.

As the weather gets more summer like, I'm finally excited for mountain biking again. The Gold Belt Century also looks like it would be a good ride.

books

2010-05-15T22:04:00.001-06:00

I finally finished reading Miles From Nowhere. I started reading it right after I finished Kurmaskie's latest book, Mud, Sweat, and Gears, which had much better writing. I was a bit turned off to MFN at first because of the differences in writing styles, but the story itself was much more interesting and by the end, I liked it more than MS&G. The time the author and her husband spent cycling from India to New Zealand was by far my favorite part. It's amazing that the some of the events in the book are relevant today. The overthrow of the shaw and the kidnapping of the embassy staff in Tehran are mentioned a few times, along with the danger to Americans traveling through Iran. Last year, some backpackers were arrested in Iran. They're still in jail.

I still had a problem with some of the writing. There were some sections that made her come off as slightly ignorant and intolerant of the cultures she met along the way. That said, it's amazing that they were able to do what they did in the 70s. The world has changed a lot since then, and while there are obviously still remote places that look much like they did in the 70s, I'm sure the story would be very different if it happened in 2010. It's also sad to hear that the author was killed in a cycling accident while training for a triathlon right before the book was published. Both MFN and MS&G have given me a desire to do some bike touring. I'd like to ride through Belgium for obvious reasons. I also picked up the Bike Snob book today. I skimmed it while we were at Barnes & Noble and the illustrations are pretty funny. My favorite was the illustration of the cyclocrosser. I'll review it when I finish.

when is winter ending? hopefully this week

2010-05-14T22:12:00.000-06:00

It snowed yesterday (May 13th). I've only lived here a few years, but I think that's the latest I've seen snow in Colorado Springs. The weather was nice Monday so I commuted in. Winds out of the west all day made for a slower ride in (west bound) and a fun fast ride home (east bound). That weather has me eager for mountain biking again.

Saturday I had planned on riding the 100 Miles of Nowhere, but ended up riding 100KM. I've had a couple of punctures with the tires on the road bike, so I need to replace them. In all the time I've commuted on the CX bike, I've never had a flat. I've had two (both glass, different spots) on the tires that came w/ the Fuji. I'm going to swap them out for something with a little more puncture resistance for training and general riding, but I'll keep them for racing.

Today I planned on riding in, but wasn't really interested when I woke up to wet roads and some rain, so I went to pick up some fenders for the CX bike for wet commuting, but ended up buying tires: Maxxis Detonator. When I bought them, I fully planned on putting them on the Fuji. When I got home, they went on the Trek. I'm going to be commuting more than training for a while so it seemed like a good idea.

Trinity Run #2

2010-05-08T08:58:00.000-06:00

Ran the second trinity run on Monday. Made the stupid mistake of eating dinner before hand and paid the price with a nasty side stitch the entire time. The weather was fantastic, though, and made for a great run. We're getting back into nice sunset season as well!

I'm getting ready to start my 100 Miles of Nowhere ride. 125 laps of the neighborhood, with the added annoyance of community yard sale day. Nunn, Carbo Rocket and Pro Bars will be my friend today. I'm assured a victory in the "Almost 30" CAT 4 race today!

milestones

2010-04-30T18:02:00.000-06:00

Did the lunch run again with Jed. I got in 4 miles, 9:40 pace. I think he was a little slower. That brought me up to 20 miles for the week. I think that's the most I've run in a week since high school. That's pretty sad, but not so sad when you consider that at this time last year, I was 40 pounds heavier and hadn't really run at all in years. Even more so when you consider that a year ago January I was 60 pounds heavier and even more out of shape.

25 days until I turn 30. I will celebrate the day before by running the Trinity Run and drinking some beers.

running again and possibly stupid ideas

2010-04-28T16:38:00.000-06:00

I'm headed back to Michigan sometime in August to visit family. While I'm there, I wanted to either run the CRIM, a 10 mile road race, or race the Cherry-Roubaix. I say either because last year they were on different weekends. This year, they are on the same weekend with the Coolest Race In Michigan falling on Saturday and the Cherry-Roubaix falling on a Sunday. Logistically, I could probably do both since it is only a 3 hour drive from Flint to Traverse City. Realistically, I doubt I can do both. I've never run more than about 5 miles at a time. I've run/walked more than that, but never run it. I'm also not very fast. I have no doubt that I'd be able to handle a 10 miler by the end of August...but I have doubts about doing it very fast. I'm also not sure what state my legs would be in for a 36 mile road race the next day.

August is a ways away. And I've started running regularly again...so maybe it's possible.

I ran the Trinity run on Monday for the first time. I ran with Scott and Roger, but didn't see anyone else I knew. The $3 pints were nice though...so I'll be doing that every Monday. I'll give the long course a shot in a few weeks. I planned on running today, but yesterday I started feeling sick and today I woke up feeling like I was hit by a truck. I think there is some crazy spring cold going around and I may have picked it up. The weather was warm and windy today, which probably means crappy weather tomorrow.

Earth Day...and the earth is pissed

2010-04-22T22:15:00.001-06:00

Crazy weather in Colorado today. Woke up to hear that Loveland and A-Basin both got 5" overnight. A powder day at the end of April. Down on the Front Range, we got fog and rain. I planned on riding to work today, but the fog makes the already awful Colorado Springs drivers even worse After the fog burned off, we had a pretty day until the clouds and thunder rolled in. Oh, the Tornados also rolled in. I had hoped to get a ride in after work, so I was hopeful everything would hold off.

The sky didn't look that bad by the time I got home, so I decided to go for it. I decided to head out to do the Black Forest -> Falcon -> Colorado Springs ride. I love the roads up there, you always get to see something good and the drivers in Black Forest aren't too bad.

The sky looked pretty good to the east, but the northern sky was a different story. I was surprised there was almost no wind. I had no real goals except to get in a relaxing ride...the lack of wind was nice. I rode from the plains into the trees of Black Forest and found myself on a nice peaceful ride.

One of the things I like most is the rural nature of this route. Farm smells give way to tree smells. The birds change along the way. Sometimes, you even see crazy animals.

I've now seen deer, cows, horses, llamas, coyotes, rabbits and shetland ponies while riding in Black Forest. Crazy.

After Burgess ended, I headed towards Falcon and left the pavement behind. I would later make the mistake of riding on Meridian. I was almost bumped a couple of times by people who obviously haven't seen a 3 Feet To Pass plate. Oh, and the wind that wasn't around started coming back.

The "bike route" along Woodman has this trailer with a flag sticking off the side advertising some business. It makes a nice weather vane. The wind was pretty epic by this point so I was glad to make it home. A nice 30 mile ride in about an hour and a half. The weather held out too..but turned really nasty tonight.

I've agreed to run with a coworker on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at lunch time. The weather looks meh tomorrow, but every day has looked meh this week.

Friday: Snow showers likely before 8am, then rain showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 47. North northwest wind around 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Little or no snow accumulation expected.

There is a decent gravel/paved out and back from the office.

back to the bricks

2010-04-19T18:26:00.000-06:00

Ran today for the first time in a while. 4 miles @ 9:30 / mile. I could definitely feel it after the race yesterday. I'm going to start running at least 3 times a week again. I need to pick a running club and just do it once a week. Trinity is probably the one.

first road race

2010-04-18T15:13:00.000-06:00

I felt pretty crappy all day Friday with some stomach problems, but got a training ride in anyway. That was probably a mistake and my stomach felt even worse after. I didn't start feeling better until Saturday night.

Today I raced my first mass-start road race today (I've done a couple of TTs). The Fighting Falcon Road Race on the US Air Force Academy. The Men's 4/5 race did 3 laps of the Academy (Northgate->Stadium -> Pine -> Academy -> Northgate). We were supposed to start at 7:50, but the entire base was socked in with fog so we were delayed until about 8:40. For breakfast, I had some steel-cut oats with almonds and dried cranberries, a banana and some orange-carrot juice. I was all warmed up and ready to go at 8:20 (they originally had made an announcement of a 30 minute delay) so I wasn't really sure what to do until the race started. I was also worried my breakfast wouldn't be enough, so I sucked down a chocolate Gu. I ended up having another one mid lap #2.

Once the race got going, I managed to hang with the main pack for the first lap, but got dropped on the second. I had hoped to survive that long and I did, so I am pretty happy with my ride. The weather was a little annoying. It was cold and damp when we got going, but the temp shot up once the fog burned off. I ditched the arm warmers after the first lap and felt a little better, but I was wearing tights and couldn't ditch those.

Elevation vs Distance

Heart Rate (BPM) vs Distance

All-in-all, I think it went OK. My training has been pretty sporadic and haphazard for the last couple weeks, so I wasn't expecting much. Once the fog burned off, it was a pretty great ride. I even saw a bunch of deer and some crazy wild turkeys that chased me and made a bunch of noise on lap two. I finished in about two hours, which wasn't really fast but OK for a first effort I think. I felt pretty good after the race, aside from being CRAZY hungry. I downed a soy milk shake, a chicken salad sandwich and an apple. Then an Odwalla Mango Tango.

Time for a recovery beer!

what a difference a wind makes

2010-04-13T18:00:00.001-06:00

Took the CX bike out toward Falcon to do some OverUnders. Social Trail -> Old Woodman -> Rock Island. EM zone on the way out there, avg speed 19 mph, avg heart rate 140. It's pancake flat and the wind was almost dead calm...very nice. After that, I did a 3x12 OverUnder session. Then, the winds returned. I made it back to the point where I started the O.U.s and started the ride back...slowly. Average heart rate, 156...average speed 12.4. Crazy difference in speed, crazy difference in time. My 90 minute workout stretched out much longer and I was totally ready to be done by the time I got back. NWS says 20 mph winds with 35 mph gusts. OUCH.

Weather this week looks pretty good:
Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 61. West wind 5 to 15 mph becoming south southeast.
Wednesday Night: A 10 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before midnight. Partly cloudy, with a low around 41. South wind between 10 and 15 mph becoming calm.
Thursday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after noon. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 62. Northeast wind between 5 and 10 mph.
Thursday Night: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 44. North wind between 5 and 10 mph becoming calm. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Friday: A slight chance of showers, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after noon. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 56. Northwest wind 5 to 15 mph becoming southeast. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
Friday Night: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 40. South southeast wind between 5 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%.
Saturday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 52. South wind between 5 and 10 mph.
Saturday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 38. Southeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west.
Sunday: Partly sunny, with a high near 61. North northwest wind around 5 mph.

Falcon Road Race on Sunday looks good too.

August

2010-04-12T22:53:00.000-06:00

The Cherry-Roubaix website is live. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make the trip to Michigan to visit family and do the road race. It will be a long drive, but there are other things up there to make the drive worth it! Plus, I love that part of Michigan and I haven't seen Lake Michigan in forever. The humidity will suck then though. A lot.

This is a few weeks after the CO State Road Racing Championship at the AFA and I had planned on starting training to get ready for CX throughout August, so hopefully I won't be off the back.

hill climbing for fun

2010-04-11T16:05:00.000-06:00

I raced the Cheyenne Canon Hill Climb today. 3.1 miles, from 6315 feet up to 7517 feet. I have never actually ridden that climb since it's really narrow and the road is full of tourists..not exactly the most ideal conditions locally. Having now ridden it at more or less a race pace, I can say that climb is a bitch!

I finished in 22:00 minutes, which put me at 14/16th. A pretty bad finish, but still a victory since I told myself I'd be happy if I rode it under 25:00 minutes. Small victories are still victories! The best times in the 4/5 were in the 18 minute range, so I'm pretty happy with my time. I'm definitely going to sign up for the 26th street time trial series to get some climbing in before I head to San Jose. I think I'm going to race the road race next weekend on the AFA and then call the racing good until the Ascent/Sand Creek/Carmichael series starts in May.

The vibe was much different this year. I spectated last year and there were way more people along the course. Of course, last year was also warm and in July....today was chilly and overcast.

Now, it's time to go watch the Hell of the North and think about where/when I plan on riding this week. An afterwork CX ride on Monday or Tuesday in Bear Creek and Gold Camp seems like the go-to for the beginning of the week since my mountain bike is out of commission.

commuting

2010-04-09T17:44:00.000-06:00

Aside from the head wind (I thought we were done with the wind for a while), today was an awesome commute. I almost felt hot on the way home for the first time in MONTHS. I like where this is headed!

Sadly, I read that Jorge Alvarado, a rider on the Bahati Foundation cycling team, was killed yesterday while he was out for a training ride. The saddest part is that the reason he died was because the jackass that hit him, an 18 year old high school student named Patrick Roraff, was racing and lost control of his car. "The district attorney will determine whether charges will be filed upon review of the full accident report, which, according to Beavers, may take several weeks to complete." I hope charges are filed. People need to be held accountable for their actions...high school kids racing their cars illegally included.

commuting and hill climbing

2010-04-08T21:29:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow looks like a good day for a bike commute. As always, I'll make sure I don't suck. This weekend looks pretty fantastic, so I need to make sure I get some riding in:

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 64. North northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph.
Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 37. Southeast wind 5 to 15 mph becoming west.
Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 71. West southwest wind between 5 and 10 mph.

Saturday I'm planning on brewing a Wit for the 100 miles of nowhere tomfoolery, but that can be done either very early or very late and still leave plenty of time for a good long ride. My mountain bike is more or less out of commission due to the chain slippage on the cogs I use the most. I ordered a new cassette, but it won't be here in time for me to ride this weekend. We're hopefully restarting the weekly after work rides next week and I should have the cassette before then. With that in mind, I'll probably do a ride out to Black Forest and back. Cat 4 Boulder-Roubaix is just way too early for me to get up, drive up there and have any enjoyment of the race. Too bad, since the weather looks nice....although the crappy weather is part of what would make that special.

Sunday I'm going to watch Paris-Roubaix and do the hill climb. I also saw there was a 26th Street Time Trial series announced. This will probably be a good round of training "races" as I get ready for San Jose. They aren't closing the roads (26th and Cheyenne Canon) for this, so I'm sure it will end up pissing off some motorists.

spring time and the biking is easy?

2010-04-07T16:46:00.000-06:00

It's been an interesting week. Sunday night, a cyclist was hit by a driver who fled the scene. The cyclist was riding on the sidewalk, rode through a crosswalk and was hit by a driver who probably didn't see him. I have no idea if he was using lights or had any reflective material on, but he was riding through the crosswalk which is a no-no. It doesn't excuse the driver leaving the scene though. Whenever there is a car-on-bike story in our local rag, The Gazette, it's filled with lots of cyclist hate. Apparently that hate isn't confined to the internet. On Monday, there was some apparent cyclist induced road rage where a crazy driver ended up allegedly pulling a gun on a cyclist who had triggered the rage in this individual. They had some verbal altercations, the driver apparently tried to pinch the cyclist with his car and the curb and the cyclist eventually snapped a picture of his plate..resulting in the drawn gun and attempted robbery when he tried to take the phone away. Again, the gazette comments section was filled with an insane amount of cyclist hatred. One of my favorite comments was that if you can't travel at the speed limit, you shouldn't be on the road. Speed limits are maximums, not minimums (unless posted as a minimum) so I'm not really sure what that has to do with me riding on the road and possibly slowing you down for a few seconds. These two stories, and the associated comments, make the fact that we were named #18 most cycling friendly city a bit funny.

I'd hate to imagine the non-friendly cities!

HTFU

2010-04-05T17:40:00.001-06:00

Another "pleasant" spring day in Colorado...

Fair and Windy
64 °F

Humidity:	13 %
Wind Speed:	S 26 G 38 MPH

Barometer:	29.63" (995.9 mb)
Dewpoint:	12 °F (-11 °C)
Visibility:	10.00 mi

The nice weather also came with news that another cyclist was hit by a driver in the Springs. This time, it was a hit-and-run. The cyclist ended up with a broken leg and a broken collar bone. The driver ended up in jail. This one was probably because of mistakes on both sides. The cyclist was riding on the sidewalk and rode through the crosswalk, while the driver obviously didn't pay enough attention to the guy riding through the crosswalk. This is a perfect example of why you shouldn't ride on the sidewalk....especially at night. The gazette comments section is full, yet again, with cyclist haters. Apparently we ALL disobey traffic signs and traffic lights, while all drivers are perfect and never drive distracted. Right.

The weather for the rest of the week looked less than ideal, so I had originally planned on commuting in today. Of course this meant that I ended up waking up a little late and realized I wouldn't make it in time for my first early Monday meeting if I didn't drive. The ample daylight after work makes that a little more acceptable though, so I decided to get in an afternoon ride. It's pretty warm, but it is DRY and WINDY. Riding in a 26 mph wind out of the south with 38 mph gusts is tough, but doing it on gravel roads on the east side of El Paso County is another. I felt like my legs were getting sand blasted. Despite the wind, I did 5x3 PI with another 40 minutes of riding.

While riding today, I discovered there is a catholic monastery about five miles from my house. There is another in Black Forest. Sadly, none of them are trappist. That would make for a cool theme route: ride, buy trappist goods, consume trappist goods.

ouch!

2010-04-04T17:48:00.001-06:00

DFL in the Men's C race yesterday. I felt pretty good on the first lap but toward the end of it I started cramping up like crazy. Looking back, I realize that I drank next to nothing for the couple hours before hand and that probably contributed to my problems. Tough punchy climbs and some strong wind made for a tough race, but I enjoyed it despite how my right leg felt by the end. I managed to finish the last lap but was hurting after. As part of my general health kick, I've been keeping track of my weight every day. I checked my weight when I got home and, despite eating a big burger with a side of fries along with several glasses of iced tea, I was four pounds less than I was when I got up. I guess that explains part of it!

I think I'm going to do the hill climb on Sunday. That should be a good kick in the ass training race. Lots of climbing in those 3 miles.

wtf wind

2010-04-01T16:17:00.000-06:00

More wind today. It's also colder today, so the wind is worse. It actually isn't all that bad, but the last couple days have spoiled me! Good thing the bike is stripped down...if i still had the rack and panniers on there I probably would have been airborne.

The FRMTB promoters have a blog going now. The course is apparently in pretty good condition now, so hopefully the weather holds out. I'm going up early to volunteer before I race the C race. The course looks like it has some punch.

This is right near where the Metro State ITT was a couple weeks back.

It's still months away, but I was looking at the ACA CX Calendar today and I'm excited for CX already.
If I had to layout races I'd like to do, they would be:

09/18/10 Pikes Peak Velo SuperCross
09/25/10 Boulder CX Series #1
10/09/10 Boulder CX Series #2
10/16/10 On the Cross
10/31/10 Boulder Cup
11/07/10 Castle Cross
11/14/10 Boulder CX Series #3
11/28/10 Boulder CX Series #4
12/04/10 Colorado CX Championships

Will I do all of these? Probably not. Definitely the PP, On The Cross and Castle Cross. If I can't make the Boulder CX Series, I'll race the Boulder Cup for sure. One thing is for sure, I need to find some crossers in the Springs and ride with them. I wonder if anyone will organize a weekly CX practice over at Bear Creek. If not, I'll probably just go over there once a week before work with my portable PVC barriers and do some myself...sorta like the Wednesday Worlds up in Boulder.

Holy Headwinds

2010-03-31T21:43:00.002-06:00

Another Red Flag day in Colorado. I woke up late yesterday and ended up bailing on the commute to work. It probably would have been a rough one with all the wind. A garbage can across the street blew over and slid down the street. The wind wasn't as bad this morning, but the afternoon was another story. I've been averaging about 17-18 mph during my commutes but the ride home today was about 13.5. I seriously had a headwind no matter which direction I was riding.

Managed to get a PowerInterval workout in on the way to work before I headed to Scott's house to pick him up and finish up the ride to work. I feel pretty good and I'm looking forward to the Front Range Mountain Bike Series race on Saturday. Hopefully I can bag another commute tomorrow and then take Friday off before the race.

I think my large brewing project isn't going to happen now due to some logistics so that will free up more time to squeeze in a race or two. It will also free up some time to brew a beer this weekend for the 100 Miles of Nowhere Extravaganza at my house. Free Belgian Wit for anyone who comes and rides a few laps with me!

commute-training

2010-03-29T22:05:00.001-06:00

We're having some kind of crazy heat wave this week!

Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 75. Breezy, with a west wind between 15 and 25 mph, with gusts as high as 35 mph.
Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 71. Breezy, with a west southwest wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.
Thursday: Partly sunny, with a high near 56. West wind between 10 and 15 mph.

Today was almost as warm as tomorrow is supposed to be, but wasn't windy at all..a perfect commuting day! I made it to work in about 27 minutes and made it home in about 25. I'm planning on commuting every day this week except Friday. I'm going to work the training into the commutes for the rest of the week since the weather looks so fantastic.

Saturday I plan on racing the first Front Range Mountain Bike Series race in Lakewood. This is the same park that hosted the TT a few weeks back so the drive isn't bad at all. The weather looks kind of iffy for Friday, so hopefully there isn't too much mud (they'll call them off if they are too soggy). Next weekend I think I'm going to skip Boulder-Roubaix and do the Crit and the Hill Climb at Colorado College. The Men's 4 race is so early and the drive is longggggggggg. The weekend after that is the Front Range Cycling Classic. I'm planning on the Road Race and maybe the Crit. Lots of racing and entry fees for the next couple of weekends!

I didn't get much riding in this weekend. Saturday the weather sucked and I decided to brew and that took up most of the day. On Sunday I cleaned the cross bike and the mountain bike. Clean bikes make for happy commutes and good races on the weekend hopefully!

snow, trainers and running

2010-03-25T18:08:00.001-06:00

The storm they predicted for Tuesday night was pretty legit! I got home at around 5:00 and it was still pretty sunny. Around 6:00 it started to get cloudy and by 7:00 we had an inch of sloppy wet snow already. We ended up with something between 7 and 9 inches at my house, I couldn't tell exactly how much because of the drifting. The drive to work on Wednesday was awful though. The rain that had fallen before the snow had frozen into a layer of ice beneath the snow and made for awful road conditions. I was amazed at the number of cars along the side of the road from the previous night.

Wednesday night I did the workout I bumped from Tuesday. 60-90 minute EM w/ 5 x 3 PI. The 12ish inches of snow in the window well (it was really windy all day) made for an interesting visual while riding the trainer, which I managed to sort of disassemble and lubricate a little. I still hate that trainer.

Today I decided to throw a little cross training in since I haven't been doing anything but biking and core workouts. I ran a pretty steady 9:30 min/mile for about 45 minutes. The trail was a muddy mess and the sidewalks and roads were not much better.

I'm debating biking to work tomorrow but leaning toward not because of the thunderstorms forecast for after 2:00.

get commuting while the commuting is good

2010-03-22T22:36:00.001-06:00

Fantastic weather today. Low 40s in the morning and mid 60s in the afternoon. Scott rode in today as well and I offered to show him a different, longer way home so I had someone to ride with for a little while. Once I got home, I had a beer and enjoyed another really nice spring day. There was a breeze all day and the birds were out.

I'm sure tomorrow is going to be a totally different day:

Tuesday: Rain likely, mainly after 3pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 49. North northeast wind between 10 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.

Tuesday Night: Rain before 7pm, then snow. Low around 25. North northeast wind between 5 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 5 to 9 inches possible.

Wednesday: Snow. High near 33. North northeast wind between 5 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Wednesday Night: A 10 percent chance of snow before midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 19. North northwest wind around 5 mph.

welcome spring

2010-03-21T18:17:00.001-06:00

Today was the first full day of spring and the weather was great! Temps in the 50s, almost no wind and almost blue bird skies! I didn't get in my OverUnder workout yesterday since the trainer went kaput, so I shifted that to today. I made it over to the Academy around 10:30 and hit the road. The temps hadn't passed 50 yet but it still felt fantastic!

I clearly need to re-tape my bars.

I did the B-52 -> North Gate -> Academy -> Pine -> Stadium loop first and got in about 12 miles of EM riding (around 45 minutes). This is the route for the upcoming Front Range Cycling Classic Road Race. After dropping off some unneeded clothing at my car, I headed back the other way on Stadium to get my OverUnders in. Stadium drive from the B-52 to Pine is the perfect place to do those or Power Intervals..a slight climb and fairly straight. On the last one, I headed up Pine drive to make it a little harder. The rest of the ride was back down Pine and over Stadium back to my car. Two hours of fantastic early spring riding!

I don't think I'm going to do Koppenberg anymore. I have a serious brewing project that I want to undertake and I think I'm going to have to devote a weekend or two to it. Basically it involves a 60 gallon wine barrel and a Flanders Red Ale. 60 gallons is a lot to brew on a 5-10 gallon homebrewing setup, even with two people doing it.

saturday of fail

2010-03-20T20:01:00.000-06:00

I had planned on doing some snowshoeing today with some riding friends but I forgot to set my alarm last night and woke up after they were supposed to meet in Divide. Fail #1.

Later in the day, I went to do some OverUnders and get some time in on the trainer. It had been making noise for a couple days, but today it got progressively louder and louder until it stopped providing any resistance. Some quick internet searching makes me think the bearings are toast. I guess you get what you pay for. Now I'm in the market for a new trainer and I'll be sure not to buy the same junk again.

The forecast calls for a high in the 50s tomorrow. I'm going to get a couple hours of riding in at the AFA.

worst storm ever

2010-03-19T19:30:00.001-06:00

This storm is totally a bust. I'm not sure how much snow we've gotten on this end of town, but the accumulation on my grassy surfaces is probably less than 2 inches. The Leaving 99 Crusade was canceled as I expected it would be. The lack of general snow down here is going to limit my snowshoeing plans though, so I'll probably need to head up to Woodland Park to do it. The windchill tomorrow is supposed to be between -5 and 5, so I doubt I'd be tempted to do any biking outside. Instead, I'll probably end up doing some trainer time after the snowshowing. Sunday looks much better though, so I'll get a ride in at the AFA.

Speaking of trainer time, the Fat Cyclist 100 Miles of Nowhere was officially announced for this year. Sign-up is March 22nd-28th, with the "race" on May 8th. I was going to sign up for this last year, but didn't and instead just donated. This year, since I'm planning on doing one of the LIVESTRONG Challenge centuries (the one in San Jose), I'm going to sign up. Instead of doing it on a trainer though, I'm going to do 125 laps of the road that circles my neighborhood. If anyone in Colorado Springs/Manitou/Etc is interested in doing it with me, I think a few people will be coming to do the laps with me. I'll provide food and beer if people are interested.