Chugging along

Training is continuing to progress smoothly. Got some good riding in over the weekend. Put in a few hours over at Dryer Rd. with Casey, Jer and Dave. Always have a blast at that place and we found a few trails we hadn't even been riding before. All the night riding we had been doing we were just zooming right past them. Speaking of the night riding, what a change it was to ride during the day on the trails. It was truly different and I was amazed at how much faster you actually ride when you can see more than a circle of light 12 ft in front of you.

Sunday we headed down to the Hollow for a "flat" training ride on the dirt roads. It was a gorgeous 55 degrees or so and I was jacked to ride and put in some good time in the saddle. Naturally our flat ,easy ride turned into a few good climbs and seeing who could drop whom. I put my heart rate up a few times on the climbs but never let it get too high and backed it off when it was time.

Here is a nice chart of our "flat" ride with 4000ft or so of climbing


Notice the 4 major climbs, yah had no idea those were coming up, but not one to complain it was fun.

Gotta take some time off here wed-thurs as I'm helping to move the company office from NH to NY so tonight looks like a trainer night and hopefully I can put in a few hours tomorrow am before I have to head out.

~J

Underground Horrible Hundred

Plans are underway for an Underground Endurance race in Naples. I'll have a full page dedicated to the race and the info pretty soon. Website is now up!! Click Here
Will hit some of the best trails in the Naples Area, Stid Hill, The Tower Drop, Ontario County Park (OCP), Cutler, Nature Preserve, East Hill, Wood Hill, Hi-Tor, Italy Valley, DEC descent. It's gonna be a fun crazy event!

A Sunday event in September (FREE)

Interested Leave it in the comments or on the forum thread for mtbr

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=253199

Another Warm Spell

Man, we are just lucking out with the training weather here in the Northeast. Looking at the temp gauges my widgets are giving me says its 57!! degrees outside. Under normal circumstances I'd probably be doing everything I can to get outside. But we are doing a little night riding tonight so It's all good.

It was pretty decent over the weekend also and managed to put in a good 100k on the road up north on the lake. Mark, Suzanne, and I took the guided tour from Brandon. We headed out to Sodus Point and back, along the way our guide filled us with drunken stories from his youth about stealing golf carts, stealing boats, driving trucks on the ice and all sorts of drunken craziness.

Post ride I think he was trying to get us to relive those days as he gave us a nice pint of beer that was 10% alcohol! for our recovery drink. Needless to say it only takes on of those after a long ride for us to start jabbering away on old race and ride stories. It was a good fun ride and relaxing weekend. Looking forward to doing something like that again.

~J

EDIT: Just got a phone call that Mark's Mother's cancer is back from remission: I hope everyone can send some good energy her way.

First (but not last) Trainer Ride of Season

Tuesday night at Dryer was interesting. Ended quickly when Casey slipped off his bars and took a digger over log. Resulted in my first "walk-out" of the woods ever. Pretty good I'd say considering the number of races/rides I have done over the past 11? or so years. He got checked out in the emergency room and I believe ended up with no major problems; albeit a possibly initially separated shoulders and some good bruising.

(Casey post in the comments and let us know how you are doing)

Last night was my first trainer ride of the season; man I really dread that thing. I can now understand why cycling in the US will never catch on with the youth. A: Who wants to sit on some torture device and stare at the wall and B: It's too frigging cold outside 5 months of the year for them with the gaming console of choice so easily available.

My power numbers have dipped a little bit now that I'm back on the road bike with the power-tap. Funny as I can only really tell on the road; on the trails I'm feeling really great and pushing bigger gears than I was last year at this time on the same climbs. I chalk it up to a longer off-season compared to years past along with the lack of road riding or any intensity for that matter the last 3 months. The good news is that I can pretty much only grow from this point. I am feeling a progression of getting stronger and it's only really been 4 weeks in the prep phase. I've dropped about 3 kilos of weight; feeling alot more focused and motivated to excel in next season. Scary to think that the GVCC Giro races are something like 14-15 weeks away??


~J

Listening to ''Suzie'', by Boy Kill Boy

December....

Ah yes. December; 20 days till xmas. 0% shopping done, haven't even thought about it. Hope all you roadies are going stir crazy on your trainers. 28 degree temps are bliss, means only 1 thing; frozen ground!! Makes riding so much more fun. Hopefully hunting season ends soon so that riding areas open back up. Anyone know when the season for those woodchucks ends??

Got down to the Hollow over the weekend to hit Casey's homegrown. Good Stuff, the trails were a little bit muddy as they started to thaw out during the day. Overall they have a kick ass little riding spot right out their back door. Can't wait to get some more time on them.

After the trail session, we hit some dirt road riding around the hollow for about 1.5 hours. Just tooled around the area, jokingly throwing down and covering attacks on Shultz Hill(sp?). Ran into a few back country folks on our route. It was barely 40 degrees and a bunch of the kids were running around barefoot, wtf??

It was a bit chilly from the wind, and the coffee afterwards was a welcome retreat :)

I have an account on facebook now, anyone else use that?? If so, poke me or whatever its called to link up.

Halo 3 commercial was on MNF lastnight! Anyone catch that? Looks frigging sweet. I'm still awaiting xmas here so I can get some Gears of War action in (hint, hint mom;)

That's enough for now; going night riding tonight. Booyeah!

Listening to ''Lillian'', by (+44)