Big Weekend

I'm retired to the couch for the rest of tonight. It's been a big weekend of some great riding(for the end of the season anyways). I'm hosed currently, but I'm at least not coughing anymore!

Saturday, I finally finished my first cross race!! I'll happily take my place as the last finisher (at least I didn't get lapped). Last time I finished dead last was the first road race I ever finished. 2 years later, I was a Cat II. So I'll take it as lessoned learned. I rode all the way down to the course as it was just south of c-470. It was a good 45 minute ride down, and then I got in a good 30 minute warm-up. I put on a great show rolling to the set of barriers near the beach. My left foot never unclipped, and I barrel rolled right into the barrier and went down pretty hard. It was a nice display of form for all the fans, that were congregated in the area. After I dusted myself off, I was dusted in the race, but grunted it out and rode hard. The course was more mt. bike-ish with lots of singletrack, some fire-road, a paved bike path and some barriers thrown in for good measure. It was a super fast course. After the race, I rode back home. Within 10 minutes all the food I had brought was scarfed down. It didn't make much of a difference. I was bonking hard on the ride home, as I slogged up a little rise, I located a gas station and filled my stomach full of hostess orange cup-cake goodness and a snickers bar. Man, did it ever hit the spot. Within a few minutes I was back at it and hammered home. All said and done, I managed a good solid 4 hours of riding!

Today, I was up early and decided to grab the road bike and head up into the mountains. It was an awesomely beautiful day, warm and sunshine. I headed up to Evergreen, then decided to switch my route and head up towards Mt. Evans. Didn't make it to Mt. Evans, but made it up to around 10-11,000 feet or so before I decided to turn around.

Elk Meadows From Evergreen to Squaw Pass

Getting Colder as I get Higher From Evergreen to Squaw Pass

I climbed pretty much for 2+ hours till I decided to turn around, I was getting chilly just climbing as it was mostly in the shade. The views were just incredible, and the roads were lightly traveled and super twisty and fun.

Beautiful Views From Evergreen to Squaw Pass

The Rockies From Evergreen to Squaw Pass

There's a bunch more pics so click thru to view the album

The descent down was incredibly fun. However, I didn't expect to head that high up and was only wearing a vest and arm-warmers. Descending at 60kph and 25 degrees in the shade meant instant brain freeze. I had to stop a few times in the sun, take a few minutes to warm myself back up. I made it to Evergreen, teeth chattering and hands numb and hit up Starbucks for a coffee to warm-up. Once the blood was flowing again, I floored it the final 11 miles down to Morrison. It was an awesomely windy descent, mostly in the sun and the lower I went, the warmer things were, which made me happy!

All said and done, I managed another good 4 hours. It was a heavy front loaded ride as I hit 1800kj in the first 2.5 hours and only 400 in the last 1:30!

Potential Cross Training?

Yesterday made my way over to the FasCat Headquarters for the usual. Day to day stuff includes reviewing power files, answering emails, phone calls, and questions that come up. Yesterday, though was bit different, decided to earn some xtra coin and rake the lawn at the headquarters. I forgot how hard manual labor was. The leaves seemed to be never ending, and somehow I never managed to jump in a single pile. That was probably due to me being taxed from the effort. I figured this morning I'd wake up and my arms and back would be sore. Nope, my hamstrings are killing me! Must be from using my lead foot top pull the rake towards me. Guess, I need to expand my range of day to day activities so crap like this doesn't sneak up on me. Who knows, may be a good way to get some potential cross training in during the offseason.

After the leaves were all bagged up and ready, I headed home and saddled up for some openers. Went across the street here to Bear Creek Park, hit some buff singletrack, dirt roads and few sections of pavement. Railed out a few good efforts and feeling good. Except when I was heading into the wind, dang the wind was brutal yesterday. Luckily seems to have faded today. Temps are comfortable and a light wind should make for a good day of cross racing down at Chatfield. Gonna take the 470 path down to the course and ride back, should get a good warm-up and cool-down afterwards. Hopefully, I'll finish this race! Cross season has been brutal for me, but it will pay off in the end.

Tomorrow pending weather, I'm debating between a good 5 hour road grind in the mts or pulling out the superfly and hitting the dirt for same hours. I'd like to hit the road, as I really haven't been out and exploring yet.


Currently playing in iTunes: Everything's Magic by Angels & Airwaves

Cross Practice

Yesterday was good hard day of Cross Practice in Boulder. Up early to make the drive up and to be there by 8am. At least waking up in the morning, there was a great reason to smile. I'm proud to be a believer.

But enough of that, wed was a tough hard day. My sinuses finally cooled their jets early tues night so I was set for the ride. I'm not sure what the name of the first park was, but it had a decent hill and some good climbs up and down it. I worked on my accelerations out of the corners, each time and was holding my own. I felt pretty good for the early morning lactic acid bath. From there we took a good ride over to E. Boulder park. En Route, I was hacking up a lung again. I did have my inhaler along with me and was able to use that to help keep it down, but it wasn't working that great. I sat out for the re-con lap then jumped in for the real deal. My legs didn't feel like much at this point, but at least the riding stopped me from coughing. Afterwards a small group of us put in some x-time rolling around some open space in South Boulder.

I've realized that I haven't been taking my singulair meds for the past month. The bottle of pills is sitting in my car. Completely forgot about them, most likely all my issues have to do with forgetting to take the little pink pill. Hopefully this hack will go away before the weekend. I wouldn't mind trying my hand at actually finishing an entire cx race down at Chatfield State Park. I'm not planning on racing sunday, even though there is one, and quite a few more coming up after that.

The plan for Sunday is to go out and do a nice long easy z2 ride in the hills, mix a good ride with some sightseeing. That sounds like some good fun!

Boulder Cup Weekend

This past weekend was the Boulder Cup weekend here in Colorado. I decided I was going to go out and try my hand at racing with the big guns. Nothing like lining up in UCI C2 and C1 races, with very little form, and not really any time on the cross bike. Needless to say it wasn't my best weekend.

At the Resevoir on Saturday, I managed all of a few hundred meters before my race was over. I double flatted almost instantly. I probably could've gotten a wheel swap from Mavic Support, but wasn't really worth it. When I got home, I managed to pull 11 goatheads out of the front tire and 4 out of the rear. Needles to say (pun intended!), I put some slime filled tubes in my cross bike for the rest of the season.

Sunday's race, at least I did manage a few laps! I was feeling pretty good pre-riding the course and liked the layout and flow overall. I managed to get there early enough to get a good warm-up and even catch a little bit of the women's race.

We were called up by our numbers for the Sunday race and I got a pretty good starting position, I held my own through the start and up the first set of barriers in the "Beer Garden", but after that things kinda went downhill.

The massive amounts of dust kicked around and the high intensity pretty much shut my lungs right down. 3/4 of way through the first lap and my engine was blown. I was having a hell of a time getting oxygen into my system and just trying to get around the course. The bonus was, I had no problems riding the sand pits each lap, they were kinda fun. I had to completely shut it down and pulled out after 3 laps. I headed over to medical as I forgot my inhaler, they didn't have anything, I was coughing so hard that I ended up throwing up a few times.

I coughed a bit last night, but the major issue has been sneezing. I can't stop, must've gotten some dust into my sinuses. I swear I've sneezed over 1,000 times since the race. I'm still sneezing this morning. Just want to it to stop!!

I'm off to the first "official" day at the FasCat Headquarters!

Busy past few days, but some great riding

My last post was a bit ago. Ever since moving out here to CO, things have been a bit of a whirlwind. It's been a super busy last 5 days, that's for sure. But it doesn't mean I haven't ridden my bike at all. How can one not when the weather is 75 and sunshine (meanwhile it's snowing back in NY!!)

I managed to get myself in gear and do a cross race this past sunday. Nothing like lining up against the pro/1/2 guys having very little time on the bike, at altitude and a lack of fitness. Somehow, I mistimed the start and was spit out the back immediately. I swear I never heard a countdown or anything similar. Chase hard, run up the sand, ride in the sand, run up the sand. It was a tough course, I ended up flatting at the start of my 4th lap and called it quits. At least I wasn't in last place though. So as if that wasn't enough, I went and signed up for the Boulder Super Cup Weekend, 2 UCI races in Boulder this weekend, Running with the big dog's again! Hopefully I'll do a bit better.

Speaking of dog's I managed to get Lizzy out on her first trail ride since she broke her pelvis. I took her over to Green mt. on the singlespeed on Monday. I'm guessing the loop was about 12-14k, but some good climbing. This isn't east coast trails, as she's stuck running the whole time and no place for short cuts. But, she did great! Even when she saw a herd of mule deer, she managed to heed my command and not chase!! Maybe that truck she hit, knocked some sense into her!

Today was a bit of an epic day. I was in Boulder at 8am for the group cross practice ride. There was around 100 people or so! We rolled over to the Elks club in town and did a nice 25 minute or so effort. Mine, was cut short as my tire was soft and I had to steal a pump and get some air in it as I was banging my rim all over the place and didn't have a spare tire. After some air in the tire, I managed to get some good quality work in. Shortly after we re-grouped and headed over to North Boulder Park and did a quick loop on the grass. I felt much better at that then at the Elks course, but I'm still getting used to the high intensity efforts.

The ringer for the day was the road ride with Jeff Kerkove. We met up after the cx ride, and he dragged me up Sunshine Canyon to Gold hill. Head over to his site for a nice video of me suffering in my 39x25. I need a compact.

How Badly? Here's my cadence from the ride



The little town on the top was pretty cool, and had a nice little store with some awesome homemade goodies and a kick-ass cast-iron stove!

Little Village of Gold hill

At least when I was grinding up the hill slowly, I was able to take in some epic scenery

Wasn't the only one suffering though!

Tomorrow night should be interesting, gonna meet a group for a night ride at Green Mt!

Zorro

So, riding has been tough here in Colorado. I mean it's been really hard to get out the door, explore new trail, ride in the sunshine, blah blah blah. You don't want to hear me bragging :) But I got out yesterday with a fellow coach whom I met at the USOC Coaching Seminar in Colorado Springs. Jay G. is from up in Canada country, some province where polar bears outnumber people (he's the Alberta Provincial Coach).

We decided to head over thru Bear Creek, loop green mt and then up the Zorro trail to explore.

The Zorro trail is aptly named as its a crazy "z" across the mt. Picture doesn't look like much but it goes up a few hundred feet, then turns super tech at the ridgeline.

As you can see, we are up there a bit. It was a blast to pick thru the lines and play on the rocks a bit.

We did a bit of climbing as we ascended Green Mt. then Zorro, then back up Green Mt. a few times.

Good thing Lizzy wasn't with us!

This weekend is looking awesome (it's like 65 and sunny right now). I think I'm going to go out and ride the cross bike right now and run lizzy a bit. Tomorrow I plan on busting out the roadie and venturing into the hills for a bit. Sunday though should be a blast, I plan on getting my head bashed in as I enter the Men's Open Cross race. Hopefully I'll last longer than a few laps. At least there's beer. Oh and for more bragging rights, I'm going to the Avs v Sabres Game tomorrow in Denver!!

New Bike Day

Yesterday was new bike day! One of the greatest days for bike racers. I got the email that my bike had arrived from the crew at Geneva Bikes and rushed out after work to start the assembly.

While Mark was finishing up his work, I did the unboxing, prep work and light assembly, aka I was the "fluffer" for Mark to come in and do the real stuff. I managed to do this 2x somehow as we grabbed the wrong size box originally and I had the bike assembled before we really noticed. So the 2nd time around I was quite good and a bit faster.

I've yet to give her a real ride in the dirt, but she sure is purdy' and I'll guess I'll have to get her dirty next week. For now though, here's some pics!

From Cross 09

From Cross 09

From Cross 09

From Cross 09

Today is some fast and furious openers, then head up to my brothers place in Malone and visit him and his family as they are all coming down to cheer me on at Whiteface in Lake Placid tomorrow (click the link for course pics). Looking forward to putting the number plate on this weekend. I'll have to be fast as I need to wrap up, drive home and get up early again to drive the opposite direction for the Root's Rocks and Ridges race in Ellicottville. Looks like its going to be an early start!