Back to the Grindstone

Well, I'm back here at work for a full week. It has been a busy month or so, I'm still scared of unpacking the bags as I might go away again. Since the Last week in July I was away from home for a total of 19 days!! Being away that much must be like what pro's do. I know that it caused a little stress between me and the gf, but at least we went away to Vermont together. I'm still not sure if the dog recognizes me anymore.

While I was at Snow we went to the Cabana party, pretty boring as the naked crit was a dud. Not nearly as fun as the first year when I was there and participated. I had a picture of me stark naked and showing a little too much, I hid it in my van...then traded it in. I'm sure some mechanics had a few laughs on me. Anyways at the Cabana party was "Backpack Dude". I was wondering, what do these guys that are always wearing packs have in them? He had a apprentice with him, although he must have been very new to being a 'backpack dude' as he only had a camelback on!? Couldn't figure that one out

On other random things my Chicago Bears finally pulled their collective heads out of there asses and signed Cedric Benson, and put Kyle Orton in the number one spot, whew a big sigh of relief. Look out this year as they are gonna be suprising.

On the subject of Football, if you are online and play madden 06 and think you have some skills, try to line up against my brother. He'll kill ya. I'm willing to bet the farm on it. I gave up the game a long time ago, but he has put as much into whupping ass in madden as I have in cycling. Email him if you want to set up an online game. BTW, I gave the game up after I gave him a 60+ point beatdown and refused to play again. I think secretly he is always trying to get better just to beat me, but like Lance I went out on top.

Snow XC

Again, the waiting game was horrid. Waking up at 8 and having to race at 2 is not much fun. You're pretty much trying to conserve as much energy as possible so you just sit on the couch and kill time and eat, thats about all you can do.

My Uncle Jim and his fiance Nancy showed up from Boston to watch the race so that was exciting for them to be out on various parts of the course cheering me on. We are all headed out to go horseback riding this morning.

On to the xc race...You couldn't of asked for better racing conditions, after coming off of WV where it was muddy, and cool, the course here was bone dry and the sun has been shining everyday. I got in a decent warm-up and a good pre-ride the day before so I knew the course well and landed a front row starting spot, exactly where I wanted to be. I launched hard off the start and was in a top 5 spot up the first dirt road section off the climb. Immediately the bungie cord that I was attached to had reached its limit cause it pulled me backwards about 30 spots. My legs just exploded and I had to try and recover for a bit, well it took them quite a while and I was pretty pissed about being so far back.

After that I pretty much chugged on, but my right quad that I had damaged last week in the WV marathon was killing me, I had hit it again during the pre-ride and it just wasn't allowing me to put out any power with my right leg. My assumption is I have a nice deep muscle bruise and maybe tore the quad also as I have been limping around for awhile. So I pretty much rode around the course using only strength from one leg. I did manage to catch and pass quite a few people and picked it up on the last 2 laps. I focused on just having some fun and not worrying about anything else. I have tons of time to recover and I can always try again next year.

Speaking of next year, I'm pretty determined to get to the top of the semi-pro class and most likely going to not spend anytime road racing as I did this year. I'm going to focus exclusively on the dirt and use the road to train. It just takes too much out of me to race 35 or so times and try to be fresh for the dirt. I would also like to hit a bunch of the NORBA nationals, so saving up for them by skipping some races would be best for me.

Snow

Sitting here at Mt. Snow, bored but ready to go. Nationals are a bit odd as you get there quite a bit early and have to wait, racing at 2 pm is just waiting and waiting and waiting. I'd rather go off early in the morning and get it over with.

Knock on wood the course is in pristine condition. I haven't seen anything this dry and this nice in a while. As usual it's full of its nasty rooty and rocky descents and short but leg-busting climbs. I pre-rode today and I'm psyched to get out there tomorrow and tear it up.

Seeing as I'm here with my girlfriend Erin, After the race we have some plans. She is pretty psyched that the hotel offers her yoga and that everything is so close by. But Saturday morning we are going to go Horseback riding. Never done that before so it should be quite interesting. Erin used to be a equestrian rider in High School and College, so I'm willing to bet she will be laughing at me as I flop all over the place.

The Hotel here is sweet. We have everything right here in our room, fridge, kitchen, etc. and the race course is out the back door. Quite a big step up again from tent camping over at Haystack.

The only thing that sucks is internet access is $10 per day! wtf, you'd think they would give you a deal or something!

Is summer ending?

FOR ARCHIVED BLOGS CLICK ON THE DATES TO THE LEFT

Is it me or does the current weather (70's and cool) feel like the summer is coming to an end? I'm sure that everyone is bitchin that its too cold, when they were just bitchin its too hot. I think the weather is the one thing that no one is ever happy with. Also seem like the race season is winding down, but looking at my calendar I still have racing right into October. No cyclocross for me though...

I leave tomorrow for Mt. Snow Vermont, NORBA National. I' m hoping to bust out a great ride. I've worked my ass off this year and ready to earn it. Special Thanks to Frank Overton and Kristen Dieffenbach for setting me up and ready to go. If you are looking to get super fast give Frank a call. If you need some mental edge to get through that final push, look up Kristen.

This is going to be the first real vacation with my babe, Erin. It also happens to be our 1 year anniversary this sunday. Hopefully I don't screw it up too badly and remember it.

Yesterday I worked on a podcast, I figured out how to record my voice, insert a little intro music and whatnot. If you don't know what a podcast is, where the hell have you been living? Podcasting is pre-recorded entertainment that you "time-shift" That is you can listen to it on your iPod (or your mp3 player) anytime that you want. Check out iTunes for some great ones as there are tons out there and you can subscribe to them. If I ever get so inclined I may start a weekly show about cycling and maybe have a few guests to spice things up. I did record an entire show about 20 minutes long, it was a little bit amateurish as there were lots of 'uh's' in there so once I fix that I'll bring you a nice one :)

Also yesterday was the first day we had left the dog home alone for a full 8 hours. She was pretty excited to see me when I arrived home and refused to come back indoors. With that in mind I figured I would take her out to the trails and run her. We headed over to Dryer road and set out for a spin. I had to do some short 45 second intervals, so I was worried what to do with her at that point. Well into the first trail she was more fired up than I was and was holding my wheel, up down and over anything. After some time, I decided to see what would happen if I gunned it in the open field where I usually do intervals on my mt. bike. Well, let me tell you she can haul some serious ass! 45 seconds in the big ring as hard as I could go she was no slouch. She kept right up and even with the short recovery she was still there. I was laughing as it became a race between us to see if I could shake her off or if she could keep up. I was having fun and so was she. After just over an hour of riding including some intervals, I decided it was time to take her home and let her sleep a little bit. I will miss her the next 5 days that I'm gone....

Hopefully I have some net access at Snow and I can bring you a report on how things go down.

Thanks,
Jason

Grandmudders and Grandmothers

BTW, did anyone catch sportscenter last night or today? They showed the start of the marathon from here! I was in the front row all the way to the right of the screen in my normal fisher kit with the blue and grey helmet. Pretty cool? How many people can actually say they were on Sportscenter?



Today was the xc event at Snowshoe. I was quite a bit whooped up from the marathon, but I was looking forward to the race. It rained pretty much all morning so the course conditions were going to be horrid. I went and got a new pair of treads from the kenda guys so I would have some better traction. My grams was a huge help today feeding me for the race, she has been having a good time and has been taking care of me. If she didnt come I'd probably be sleeping in a tent and pissed that I was soaked. I have to thank her soo much for helping me out it's huge to have a support system in place. Thanks Grammy!

I was out warming up and stupidly got a 3rd row starting position. I shoulda been in the first or second row, but oh well. I wound up making some spots up on the first technical descent and taking tons of spots on the long nasty descents. I pretty much cleaned all the descents except on the 3rd lap. Right as I was about to transition off the descent I caught a root and did a perfect face plant right into a large mud puddle. Had to be pretty funny for the 2 guys that were watching the section. I got up spitting up mud and water and laughing. I took a ton of spills out there as there was tons of running and loads of mud, I think my bike weighed about 40 lbs by the time I finished. At least nothing broke off this time around :)

The first lap was good wet mud, but the sun came out and started to dry everything out. Making the mud about 6 inches to a foot deep and sticky as peanut butter. I managed to ride a majority of everything and run where necessary. I flowed much better in the singletrack today than yesterday and I still climbed pretty dang good. I pretty much stayed in the same position for most of the race and the 3rd lap I caught 2 riders in front of me, I launched a nice little attack on the riser on the road section, but that freaking hurt pretty bad. I was oh so close to 11th and 12th as I could actually see them coming into the climb by silver creek resort. Where the hell they went I'm not sure as they finished 3 minutes ahead of me and I was busting ass up that climb.

I managed to come in for a nice 13th place position out of 40 riders. I'm pumped about that and looking forward to racing Mt. Snow with some fresh legs to see how I come out. My time was 3:07, first place was 2:43...thats pretty freaking fast!?

It'd be cool to stick around to see the pro mens and womens race but we gotta get back before hand. I guess I'll catch up with the 2 chicks I helped out by putting their bikes together for them later. They had a nice long story about their tragic adventure. Zephanie and Heather, came from Utah and pretty much everything went wrong for them. I hope they do well and will cheer them on in Vermont.

West Virginia Marathon

Well, Arrived in the mountains of West Virginia around 10pm last night. Did some rally car driving thru the mountains to get here safe and sound, although my grams had to stop to unload her lunch:) whoops!

Marathon went off at 9am this morning. 48 miles of WV singletrack, absolutely brutal stuff let me tell you. If you have ridden ellicottville and know the rockgarden? Imagine that half the course is like that, then add tons of roots everywhere and oh ya, it poured on us the whole time!

Marathon was brutal as usual.  Bishop won and Eataugh in second, both under 4 hours.  3rd was 4:45, I came in 9th at 5:13.  

Got slammed to the back in the start as I was squeezed against the fence, putting me to the rear of the group.  Not too much off a big deal as the race is long and start position isn't a big factor.

Boy did I not have it in the singletrack today, center of balance was just off.  I felt like a roadie, but I sure as hell hit the open sections and climbs like a roadie :). 

I wound up in 9th place out of 14 in the open class (18 starters).  I was in 6th or 5th for the majority off first lap, but couldnt hold it in the singletrack.  I was passed by a rider then fell into a little lull cause I was frustrated about my lack of technical skills.  I was soon passed by 2 others, but got pissed and realized  was not going to my potential and reeled em in on the flats only to lose them in the singletrack, but caught them on the climbs.

I followed 8th the whole second lap, caught him on the super long climb and took off, but he held into the singletrack and got passed me.  I worked hard on the flats and the final section thru the riverbed there and was oh so close and probably would've caught him on the final feed zone climb, but right before I hit the 1 mile to go then, "it happened" my freaking crank arm fell off!? Put it back on rode the descent and started the climb, came off again even after I made sure it was super tight!  Had to run the final half mile!  lost some time there.

Physically I felt awesome in the race, have a bit of a a right thigh bruise from hitting my leg on the seat in a dismount :) freakin hurts but will stretch it and put some medicine on it

Yah and tomorrow is the xc, I'm willing to bet that I am the only semi-pro that does the double. At least its at 2:30 in the afternoon and I can rest up a bit.

Hopefully shimano techs can work their magic and get my rig up and running for me as I wore right thru my brake pads and need some new cables also.

I will give a nice update on that. Right now I've gotta go figure out how to use the miniature washer in our little efficiency. Will probably clog the thing up with mud as I did with the shower.

Stay tuned for tomorrows update!

Whole new Bag o' Tricks

You might notice the big change here at jasonhilimire.com! Thats cause I switched to a different site creating program that allows a bunch of much cooler stuff including podcasting. Stay Tuned as you never now whats going to happen!


I also have an RSS Feed if you have and RSS reader, so be sure to check that out!

To browse through the older site entries click on the dates to the right as they will now be archived weekly. I guess that means that I need to be on top of my updating :)

Pictures of my bikes are finally up

Finally got my bikes cleaned up and got some pictures uploaded of them.
Check them out here

My beloved Chicago Bears lost their quarterback again last night. Rex Grossman broke his ankle in a pre-season game. Only has played 3 freaking games for the team as he tore up his knee last year. He was supposed to be the saviour of the Bears. They were finally going to have a good quarterback...oh well. Hopefully they sign Cedric Benson and establish a good running game.

I picked up a new album off iTunes by Kings of Leon "Aka Shake Heartbreak", I thought the new Coldplay was good, but this album kicks some ass. It's great to listen to on my shuffle when I'm out training.

Some of the logos are missing on a few of my pages but as soon as I transfer everything over from my other site I'll fix that.

Site Finally Updated!!

I finally got around to updating the site. Been some time but my computer went down. So my payments on the old one were finished, so what does one do? Yup, start making payments on a new one. I got myself and iBook, rummaged up my old college id, picked out whom looked the easiest to convince and got my discount plus a free iPod mini. Hell ya, even got asked by a cute college chick if I was a senior or not. Ummm, yahh. One of those super seniors. Pretty funny sitting there fibbing thru my teeth but I'll take my free mini any day.

I got some cool pics from the farmall race also. Check em out Thanks to photoradius

Gritting my teeth!! Feel the pain



FOCUSED!!




Look how ripped my legs are :) !

Adirondacks

I arrived home after 5 days in the Catskills only to head up north 2 days later to cover for my brother as he watched some guy who could never win a super bowl in his life even if he could’ve had ricky Williams, get inducted into the Hall of Fame.

It was nice and as I was doing some prep work for the upcoming norba events, I was able to do a mini training camp. One would think that being in the mountains you would always be riding uphill, but it wasn’t so. The roads were generally flat with a few rollers. They must have tons of money to spend as every road was just about freshly paved. It was nice to be on new roads, see new sights and smells and not have to worry about anything except riding my bike and getting to work the next morning. On Friday I went down to Lake Placid and climbed Whiteface mountain. The road is closed t vehicle traffic after 5pm, so I headed up. 8 miles from the town to the top, rising 3700’ or so. It was intense but my first summit I took it fairly easy. It was eerily spooky as there was no traffic, birds or sounds. Nature in its purest sense. You could use both sides of the road ala ‘tour’ style of climbing and descending. This wasn’t no easy descending though as the road was really choppy and wavy similar to the Fitchburg descent. It was pretty harry leaning thru a turn at 75kph and your tires are not touching the ground for a moment or so. I went back to the climb on Sunday to giver my all. I didn’t feel that great after so much riding so I charged hard but sat at/below threshold for a 54-55 minute summit. The record is around 45 minutes or so. Loose the power-tap and some rest and I could be around 47 I would think?

It wasn’t all fun and games though. As everyday was work at 6, done by 4 on the bike by 4:30-dark, eat and repeat. I was pretty happy to be done, but I got a ton of fitness as it was just what the fascat doctor ordered up for me.

Farmall xc;
Was I still tired from my mini training camp? That would be the key question. I decided to get in a nice long warm-up and ride my mt. bike over to the course and home afterwards. It was about a half hour to get there, but I took another nice hour to keep the blood flowing and my legs open, after a free red-bull I was ready to rip. I was motivated as the family was there and my babe showed up with the doggy to give some more support. Hell even my brother was there, even though he still had tears in his eyes from his beloved dolphins taking a beating by my bears!! I unleashed a hell of a ride and took about 3 minutes off my previous course record. Setting a new record of 1:02:18. Someday I will go back there and break the hour barrier..someday.

My next event is the NORBA Marathon and xc down in Snowshoe, WV. I am super-excited to go as my grams is going with me. It will be here first real vacation in a long time. She is really excited also. But what I am excited about is the fact that I will be in a hotel there and also at mt. snow. No more tent camping for me. Last year at wv, I spent the whole of every day sitting in the car with my cousin brie ann cause it was pouring rain and our tents were floating. What made it even funnier was that she had a kids tent to sleep I and couldn’t stretch her legs out the whole way! Hell I even have laundry so no more hosing down the jersey as my wash or jumping the fence to the hotel for a shower. It’s going to be a good weekend. I can feel it!!

ESG Day 4

TTT: Our men were divided into an “A” and “B” team, basically the Luthers as Wayne was back but not 100%, Peter Edge, Roden, and Matthis. My team was the ‘Shickluna’ squad of Garlapow, Jamesson, Jossyln, and Chris Riley and myself. 42 miles of sitting on the rivet. The effort was going to be pure hell. Let me tell you it certainly was. I felt like I was being tortured pure and simple. Basically like riding in your dream breakaway and giving it everything you have except you are in your aerobars scared to death you are going to tap wheels. Last year our team lost the gold due to a crash in the ttt. I was giving it everything I had on all my turns, helping to lift the speed up as much as I could. I was on the limit most of the time just sitting in, I actually was quite happy a few times to be on the front setting the pace, because I was certain I wouldn’t get dropped from there. The final 10 miles we had to push hard as we were 5 seconds down on the nyc team. Josslyn took a huge turn and dropped the boat anchor going backwards, he gave everything and slung us loose for the climbs ahead (only have to finish with 3 riders). Chris Riley went to the front and gave his all and dropped off launching myself, Ben and Adam up the climb about 1 ½ mi from the finish line. I was setting some hard tempo up the climb and swung off, sitting on the wheels in front of me. Just then it happened, a huge parachute flew off my back and I was going the wrong way fast. I was getting dropped on the climb and loosing time to them. If I was the 3rd rider across the line they take my time, and they could finish 15-20 seconds ahead of me or more at this point. But miracuosly Riley somehow after taking a massive turn re-bridged to us on the hill and had the strength to jump across and make contact with Ben and Adam. I was yelling at him with everything I could muster as I knew he could make it across. He did, and for our efforts we were rewarded the silver medal, by 8 seconds ahead of nyc. Our A team won the gold and our womens team also won the gold.

The Western team thoroughly dominated the games all weekend. We all walked away with a gold overall team medal, plus 11 other individual medals. I must say this was one hell of an experience and to be on the winning side of things and to have made some great friends along the way was incredible. Bob DeRoo and Terry who were our coaches had everything perfectly planned out at our team meetings everynight. It felt good to be an integral part of such a well oil-machine.

ESG Day 3

Criterium, This was a points race meaning sprints every 5 laps and If you had no points, you were sprinting for your place after all the riders who already had points. Made for a tough race with 40 laps and 8 sprints. As usual the western team controlled pretty much the entire race. We had some awesome sprint leadouts from Ben J. , for Adam G. We were still on 9 riders cause Wayner was still sick but feeling better. I pretty much shuffled to the front and to the back the whole race, not really doing much other than protecting my teammates and taking them to the front. At one point 2 nyc riders were off the front, I was told to ‘go to the front’ so I did that and launched myself across to them, well about halfway I ran out of gas, but to my surprise I looked back and there were 5 western riders right on my wheel ready to finish the job. It was a good feeling to now that they had my back right away. Coming to the final sprint I had positioned myself right up into 6th place. I was right were I needed to be, around corner 1, then around corner 4th and 5th go down, I swerve hard and I am slammed in the back by 7th, but I don’t panic. Without losing to much speed I hop the curb, thru the grass and proceed to sprint for 100 meters right down the sidewalk, back onto the grass and off the curb again. I tacked onto the back of the group and made it in with them. A few other riders didn’t fare so well. I know Mike M. tried to follow me but did a face plant as he ran into some lawn furniture. This is where all those mt. biking skills came in pretty handy. It was a pretty insane scenario, but it was pretty fun. Adam G ended up taking the gold for the 3rd year in a row and Ben J took another bronze. Our team fared well with quite a few riders in the top 10.

ESG Day 2

Today, was the tough one, right away we lost Wayne Luther to some food poisoning, and he is out for the crit also. He might be back for the team time trial. To top that off we lost Mike Luther halfway through the race when his chain broke. He walked it back to the feed zone and borrowed Bob De Roo's bike aka "the camel". After a pedal change it made t its first appearance ever at the games. It was quite the site to see Mike on that bike, considering how big he is and the bike was too big for him.

The race course was the Union Vale road course, minus the finish climb. The finish was a fast sprint finish just past the roundabout. Our team executed its tactics flawlessly. Our goal was to always have the numbers and be in control. Right from the gun Adam attacked, once he was brought back, Jay Jossyln hit the field hard. He was away and our team spent a few laps riding tempo, closing down some attacks. Peter Edge jumped away with another rider and made contact withe Jay, giving us 2 out of 3 in the break. We continued to ride tempo and cover any moves that were trying to be made. Soon another rider broke free of the pack and Matthis chased em down like a dog in the junkyard, grabbing him by the cuff and dragging him away. Matthis made contact with Jay and Peter, but they were having trouble, they soon came back to the group.

I must say that throughout the race at this point we were riding very well at or near the front, but one scrawny little climber from Hudson Valley was definately making it a very tough day jumping on every little rise and Ben Jamesson was doing a hell of a job covering his move every time.

With one lap to go; Adam attacked through the finish line and soon our scrappy little climber attacked taking Ben and an Adirondack rider with them, we know had 3 out of 6 up the road. John Roden and myself were holding the reigns in what was left of the peloton. I was feeling god awful at the beginning of the race but was ready to tear shit up of the break was caught. I was sitting in the drivers seat ready to go. Coming to the finish around the roundabout, I was in the wrong gear and shuffled back, I drove it hard to the front to get on John's wheel. John jumped hard with 200 to go and I jumped with him, but the sprinting legs weren't there, I fell out of his draft slowing and allowing 2 riders to nip me at the line. John took 9th (2nd in the field sprint). I took 12 (5th in the field sprint).

How did our boys up front fare? Ben gave it everything to cover an attack by the climber on the final climb and it cost him his legs for the sprint. He took home a well deserved Bronze after all his hard work, with Adam taking fourth and Mike Matthis taking 6th.

It was another good day for the Western team with 5 riders in the top 12, and we continue to hold our lead, although the Adirondack team jumped into second. It was some pretty poor sportsmanship on their behalf as the addy women swept the podium by some constant attacking through the feedzone.

Points race tomorrow, gotta get some rest.

ESG Day 1

Today was by far my most least favorite event; a 10 mile individual time trial. It was on a basically pancake flat course just a short ride here from SUNY New Paltz where we are staying. I pretty much did not sleep at all last night, and it showed in today's effort. I felt good pre-riding the course yesterday and warming up, but the top end wasn't there. My time was a pathetic 25:00 flat, good enough for 45th out of 60, winner was 21:55. It was a slow course due to the wind.

Our team spirit is in high morale as we swept the mens podium, and had 7 guys in the top 12, and we took 2 out of 3 medals in the womans podium. It was a big day here for us and hopes are high that tomorrow will be another big day. We celebrated down at the P & G pub with a few burgers and what not.

The food here at the college is pretty sub-par. I've been eating what I can and filling out my meals with cereal. It's tough though as there is no skim milk only 2 %, it's liking switching to thick cream after so long. Thankfully the weather has cooled off a bit as it was brutally hot on wed when I arrived

My weekend is set around tomorrow's road race and its on the ol Union Vale course, although there is no finishing climb like normal. I'm feeling good and ready for it. Our plan is to stack the breaks in our favor as we have by far the strongest team, and if we play our cards right we should come out on top.

For the games site click here