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I started the day today with some hill intervals. I had to park my car up at the top of the hill going down to Lost Valley, and tote a few parts of my scorekeeping kit down, then jog back up the hill to save on some time. If I recall correctly, I did about 10 intervals between setup, running stopwatches down, and finally fetching my car and doing some rad Focus Wagon offroading after everything was done (no way I was gonna repeat the morning’s work!)

The race was great to work, we had just enough help, and I’m taking a break from data entry since my hand is cramping up. Seems Microsoft didn’t exactly have my hands in mind when they tacked the numpad on my keyboard! We had to do a quick change on the scoring tables when it just started raining out of the blue. Overall, I’d give the organization of Lost Valley a passing grade, other than the lack of communication on both our parts about morning plans.

I raced last weekend, actually – had some fun in Forest Park doing a crit. After much cursing and some close calls between my almost speeding car and the local authorities, two passes of the north side of the park, and more cursing, I made it to the venue just in time to transfer from the 4/5 to the 4 race. This was the first race in a while that I actually went up in the pack for a while, as well as stayed with the pack the whole race. Impressive. They even got my number when I finished, which is an all-too-rare occurrence!

The trails at Lost Valley are freakin’ primo right now. Last week and this week everything was just as good as it gets for groomed singletrack. I think the rain might miss Council Bluff this week, so the trail down there shouldn’t be too bad for next week’s race.

Finally, I seem to be unable to avoid random acts of conflict of interest, from the whole Oz Epic fiasco to Tuesday Night Race plans to the racer that went out for a 2nd lap despite being done for sure (and knowing how Fat Tire races work!). Blurgh. I hate conflict, maybe that’s why it keeps finding me. All I have to remember, though, is just to keep my head down and work through it all, it’s totally worth it.

No pics this week, I keep forgetting about my camera.

It was cold today. Nut-shrinking, ear-breaking cold. Note to self: the Pearl Izumi cap is NOT as warm as the Sugoi fleece cap, so don’t wear it when it’s below freezing! I got to ride with the rolling sitcom today, which consisted of Mr. Beans, Butthead, Propam, and new Tom (wearing Big Shark) pulling me around the Guthrie loop, while I wondered why I hadn’t put my toewarmers on at CycleX. It was fun, it was tough for my out-of-shape arse, and it was totally worth it. March is off to a decent start.

Now I just need to get out and put some miles in as we get closer to Bone Bender and Ouachita. I’m hoping I can get some Sekrit training going on to tire me out? I also need to look at a repair or replacement for the Bianchi; the creaking is really throwing me off and making me think the crack is just going to get worse all of a sudden. I suppose it’s paranoia, but it could be reasonable caution, too.

Since we cancelled Oz Epic due to weather, it appears that we might catch a break out in Lawrence this coming weekend in time for Duathlon #1 and the new start to the Spring Fling races, so that’s my new destination for this weekend. I’m still bummed at the snow and bad trail conditions expected for the Lake…

 I’ve been planning for a couple weeks to go down to the Lake for some trail maintenance this weekend, so off I went at 8:30 this morning. Driving down was fine until I got about halfway between Eldon and Lake Ozark on 54, then it really started coming down. Alls fine, just slowed things down a little. Get to the first Bus. 54 stoplight, OK, it’s snowing a little harder now, start off from the line spinning my tires just a little bit. As I make it to the Osage River bridge, it really starts getting bad, slow it down to 45 to make it up that big hill. Once I made it up to the west side of the Business 54 loop, it’s snowing a lot, and cars are starting to slide around. The decision is made to turn around, so I pull my trusty Focus into the Stonecrest Mall lot and take a quick stop at Charbucks, right before two huge tourbuses pull up and dump 60 people into the same Charbucks. It’s still snowing a lot, and people are not too happy on the roads.

Get back on the road, and it’s just plain nasty. Here’s an artist’s rendition of the conditions on 54 at that point, since I didn’t take my camera:

And it takes around an hour and ten minutes to get to Jeff City, where it clears up around Brazito.

Along the way we have to finish up the decision to cancel the race next weekend, which is still a crazy-tough decision to make, even under the obviously nasty conditions today and for the next week.

Last weekend I helped mark/clean some of the Froze Toes course and then raced it on Sunday. Overall, the race we uneventful; I hung out at the back and just stayed out of the way. I got dropped by hanging behind some guys that weren’t able to match the surge turning on D, but I managed to close the gap, thanks to my couple of rides with the Rolling Sitcom. Heck, I even hung with the group all the way to the finish, where everyone just kinda coasted in, except me at the back. I figure if you’re gonna finish a race, why coast it in? I pedaled all the way to the finish, and probably gained 20 spots in that last 200 yards. The closed finish line was awesome and totally worth it, too – no bunched up group trying to crash everyone else out.

Apparently this is the first outing for the new CBC kit, wonder who that roadie guy is? (And that dang designer guy left the fade on the side of the shorts, too!  

So overall the training plan of lots of rest time is halfway paying off. Now I just have to figure out how to fit more riding time into the mix, but March should help fix that by itself, right?

This site does nothing to change my opinion that people are stupid.

I decided to drive down to the lake last weekend, even though no one else was going to show up due to SAD. I hiked about the first 2 miles of the trail, played around with rocks and mud, and generally had a fun time. The only bummer is that I didn’t have a chainsaw, so I could only clean up smaller stuff on the trail. I didn’t see anyone on the trail the whole 6 hours I was out there, which I thought was a little odd, since the weather was perfect and the trails weren’t too bad where the horses hadn’t been.

I didn’t get on a bike at all this weekend, but I suppose this is my last weekend off the bike for  the forseeable future, since this weekend is Froze Toes, next weekend is the cleanup of the rest of the trail down at the lake, and the Tuesday Night Worlds start up soon. Hopefully it will start warming up soon so we’ll all be ready to get on the bike and start training for the big rides. 6 weeks until Ouachita!

I have to figure out which class(es) I need to take next session, too. Not a lot of free time for the next couple months, between training, school, Fat Tire, and work, but I can’t complain – I hate being bored. Heck, this year might get me back doing a Fleche over Easter, if Clink is up to it…

Rode another 62 miles today, this time was in Hermann. This one was a bit easier, and I’m not sure exactly why. Could be recovery was all I needed, or the fact that I was on a lighter bike, or even just that riding the day before like I did helped out with getting me ready to ride hard again today. All I know is this ride was better, and I liked the course. The hills were way steeper, it seemed, especially Devil’s Backbone Hill – it reminded me of Wren School, but mushier and more curvy. The ride down the back side was totally worth the rise.

We started off going 12 miles down the Katy Trail – which was mushy and totally not fun. Rode north a ways, then hit the first hill. I was near the front of the 7-man group, which was where I stayed the rest of the day. Along comes a car, which stops at the top of the hill – another rider to work with! Guess he woke up late or something? It stayed flat for a while, then we hit a downhill, crossed a low water crossing, and I got us almost lost with my Garmin. Turns out the road we were going to take was an abandoned, private road, so we took a bypass and wound up reconnecting with the old road. Guess tech can’t take us everywhere!

Another climb up Cemetary Hill, and the downhill after that was amazingly fast. Hit 42, no problem. Made it back to the Loutre River and Mineola, and started a long slog up the hill to Danville, where we had a nice rest stop at the Sinclair station, then kept on East into the nice headwind. I was definitely cold along there.

There were 3 separate flat stops, so this weekend we had enough bad tubes and then some. So I made it to 200km for the second weekend in a row, can’t complain about that! On top of the riding, I got home and checked the 15-day forecast and it looks like it just may warm up in time for Froze Toes, and with 50 pre-registrants now, we’re looking great!

I rode Chucky’s Challenge, a 100km gravel grinder put on by the guru himself, Doug Long. I hurt a lot now. We started off with a photoshoot by the local newspaper and a bunch of kids, then took off out of town with the wind at our backs (this is Important Ride Start Info, because riding with the wind makes you feel stronger and take off harder than you should). Hit the gravel and the groups start to split up. I catch up to the front group, just in time for them to rip my legs off on the first set of hills and beat me with them (my own legs, that is). The group slows up ahead so Doug can retape one of the turns (by the by, the course was marked really well, with a lime green tape on signposts near a left turn, and red tape for right turns – really smart and worked really well!). So I ride on ahead, and the group catches back up and proceeds to rip my legs off again. My average HR for that section was roughly 205, so I was dying. The scenery was great, so I didn’t really mind riding alone. Once I made it up one big hill, a dog starts running after me – and kept it up for 2 more miles! I think it wanted me to stop, because it was barking at me towards the end. Not mean, just a ‘hey, wait up!’ sort of deal.

So I rode the next 20 miles alone. I didn’t see anyone in front or behind me, and I even stopped at a few places to take a picture or two. Finally I stopped for a bathroom break and to get some Gu and a Clif bar (and took a sequence of pics for a panorama, to follow soon). Got back on the bike, and not another mile ahead, there’s the group at the cooler that Doug stashed at mile 40! I managed to hang with the group as we rode on down the road to an odd ‘town’, where another Doug had a flat and ran through 3 tubes before everything worked again. Finally, we started rolling again and got out of the bottoms, where the group split apart into the fast 3 guys, and Doug, Jim, and myself. I pulled once, on pavement, and that was that. There was even a pair of hills as bad as Dothage, all mushy and nasty, that we had to walk up. Two Dothages is as bad as it sounds…

I lost the two I was riding with on one of the last headwind sections, and didn’t catch up until the last mile where they had to wait for traffic. My legs are shot, but I want to go to Hermann for that ride tomorrow. Dunno if I’m going to actually make it, but I’ll try.

Oh yeah, and I got a yippee card from Leadville, so now my training plans are set. Ouachita, Syllamo, Dirty Kanza, Leadville, and SSWC09.

Just playing around with the whole layout thing…I like this sunset theme for now.

More stuff is on my xanga page, and my twitter page.

Yeah, no updates. Mebbe I should kill this site again…

So I did the Bonk Hard Chill this past weekend, which was the beginning of the end of my site last year. It is a new beginning for my site this year. I had fun; the whole weekend was better than last year’s.

Let’s do a little list of how much better it was:

• Better Team
• Better Weather
• Shorter Race (8 hrs of fun vs. 18 hrs of forced misery)
• I didn’t lose my bike off the roof rack, thereby preciptating a series of events marking the Worst Weekend Ever (at least for me, but in retrospect, it wasn’t that bad…)
• I still have my job after the weekend
• My car didn’t die on my after the race, and it’s an awesome car still!
• I’m still alive and well, which sounds like the same as last year, but I’m in a far, far better attitude than I was a year ago.

In that mark, I’m rechristening the site with my new domain name: Teamschfifty-five.com, instead of the old, busted tryathletics.biz domain name, which, by the by, is expiring in a year.

So that’s it for today, I’ll try to post more later!