frisco loop today warm out but i bundled up a bit to cycle through the junk lingering from two solid days of work. no race this week so that means high volume and lower intensity to get ready for roubaix. good food and good sleep helps too. good curry for dinner with zucchini and chicken, pretty hot, but tasty. mary's danish today for the ride, it's fun to revisit music not listened to in a while. the ipod has an amazing effect on musical preferences. i want to explore the old stuff i used to like in favor of the new stuff i listen to a lot. yesterday i listened to the who, it's been twenty years since i listened to them. i love it. then i got bored and switched to sound tribe sector 9, universal shift for sure. all within a two hour ride. tomrrow is donut day, i need calories, i get home from the rides and i feel hungry as a hostage, nothing is enough, dinner is gone within 30 minutes and i just want more, but not more dinner just another dinner. i'd love to eat ten meals a day, brian would be happy if i did that. now that season is here having a tape worm is less fun. brian is lucky i feed him so well.

after how crappy i felt on sunday and the rational move of skipping the race i felt a million miles from sunday on monday. yesterday was a great day on the bike. good blocks of work, solid focus almost like a real racing cyclist. it was pretty cold out and my throat still sounds a bit froggy. today will be more of the same, maybe a bit of resistance training with b in the burley. rolling along yesterday north of the comfort zone was made easier by my newest training tool...ipod! good sounds to do the work, followed by mellow stuff to warm down too. i got home cold and hungry and proceeded to eat my weight in fish tacos, delicious leftovers from sunday night. the paths were empty when i got out for my ride so it made the work that much easier to focus on. the bike feels great and not too far from good form for the engine either. little b is getting super close to walking, he's doing the bear crawl sometimes and then the crawl step other times. it's so cool to watch him start to learn a new skill. his focus is unflappable. good stuff.

good morning, no race this week, life kept me from being fresh enough to go and suffer in the bunch, and make the family take the trip too. got up and spent two hours making b laugh like a mental patient. we had fun playing hide-and-seek. he is the coolest thing since two-wheeled crafts with no motors. a morning coffee run and i'm ready to see what the worlds i care to subscribe to have been up to the last few days, i.e. cycling related blogs and assorted columns. it was nice being out of touch for a few days while i thought about thursday nights' tragedy. yesterday was better, it wasn't as bad as friday but i felt a bit more human. read nimby's bit on not feeling, mongoliachronicles it's going to make you think for sure. it reminds of a reunion i had twelve years ago that restarted an important friendship. i was a bit drunk in the gold pan in breck when a bearded scary-looking guy came up to me and said hi. not quite sure what to do, who this person was at that moment i had a somewhat incredulous look on my face, he informed of who he was and a wave of chicken-skin washed over me, it had been a few years, not like nimby's 21 but nonetheless a cool reunion. we talked about how we had ended up at this point in time after a few years of no correspondence. we had simlar paths all along, bound to run into the other at some point. seeing joel again had me wondering what the newest chapter i had yet t pwrite in my life would be about, i had resigned myself to leaving colorado but now with an old friend i had new motivation to stay in the place that meant so much to me after just a few months. i left eventually but not after cementing a friendship that to this day is one of the most important perhaps second only to my wife. we remain on similar paths though 2000 miles apart. today is a good day to rest, the legs are tired but the body is more beat. long days add up when sleep can't be found in large blocks. coffee and food and an hour on the rollers will make for a good recovery day, next week has mega-miles in store, roubaix in two weeks, 4 hours of rough dirt roads will hurt but hopefully i can come away with no stitches this year. the montivation is there, and i have the maturity of a full year with b to drive me to the finish to see him standing there cheering for his pops! good days ahead.

a good day gone bad. yesterday started off with a challenging ride to work over spring black ice, then a good workday followed by good work on the bike, solid blocks of middle and good legs, then last night it all came down. after a true accident i always retrace my steps as far back as i can that brought me to that exact point in time, if i had waited more here or taken less time there maybe it wouldn't have happened, arriving at the point in time that the tragedy occurs with a different outcome. last night gave me maybe an hour or two of good sleep, i kept waking up every so often in a jumpy, did-it-really-happen mode. i got up walked around trying hard not to wake b and shaubie to make myself tired and hung on the couch with jackson for awhile. enjoying every moment possible with my dog. today will be better.

new smoothie today, odwalla super protein chocolate. hands down the smoothest protein one yet. the naked ones are good and have a touch more protein but not the smoothness that odwalla has. very good! marginal work yesterday, the legs were loaded from tuesday's work in the rain and didn't seem too keen on another hard day without a rest between. i forgot chamois cream so i'm a bit uhh, uncomfortable down there today. riding the path in march is a guilty pleasure, the enjoyment of no cars is liberating and the lack of snow is freightening. i have no control over the latter so i am just going to enjoy the path until it gets too crowded with tourists to really be fun. great dinner of pseudo-leftovers, my sauce from tuesday and ziti and then some fresh giampietros bread and a salad from heaven. sometimes my hunger matches my meal perfectly, this was one of them. sushi last night wouldn't have been as good as pasta and mexican wouldn't have suited how hungry i was as well as italian. the other day when b and i went grocery shopping i bought this beautiful wedge of parmesean, i grate just enough for each meal in long fingernail thin slices, as kramer would say "it's all surface area, there nowhere for the flavor to go." needless to say, it's a treat! the commute today was scary, an inch or so of snow and then it froze on the roads. black ice for the whole ride. somehow i got lucky and stayed up. tripoding the really icy sections and steady nerves for the darker bits where i couldn't really see what was under me. the sky again was radiant, when i was able to look up it seemed to glow in a neon blue. life is good

yesterday was what i imagine belgium to be like. cold and rainy with winds that can knock you over. worse yet i had to do my work. trying to fight those winds alone while maintaining my effort made for more of a skills ride than an interval ride. but after i finished and i sailed home home at a slightly easier interval pace i felt like i did something. i'm desparately trying to avoid the pitfalls of last summer, riding for fun without any work thrown in. if it gets like last summer i need to get the discipline to do 90 minutes of work instead of 90 minutes of piano. after sunday i'm just super motivated, the legs were really good and the body responded well to the steady effort. the silly move to solo up to the break was short lived but it taught me that i have some left after those moves to not be dropped after i'm caught. the commute today was a bit sketchy, or i thought it was going to be with the little bit of snow last night, i thought it would either be black ice or just wet roads, it was wet. the stars fighting to shine through the early reaches of daylight made it hard to pay attention to the road and not look at the sky. i stayed up and got in a few good views as well. another good workout today and then it's easier thursday and easy friday. mmmm spring feels very good!

race

yesterday i put it all together pretty well, nothing short of a solid ride. it was reall refreshing ot have legs to go with moves and even push some home myself. a few silly moves like when i tried to drop the pack 10 or so laps in to get to a break but when i was absorbed i maintained a good pace and avoided the dreaded pop! good to be involved in the race and not just a passenger in it. with 5 to go i found gragus' wheel and tried to stay close to it, good move considering he came 9th and i was just 5 or 6 back of him. the results only did 10 deep. good day overall, fun ride with shaubie afterward to get in some extra time and to see the grandparents watch b. we rode through a soon-to-be reservoir that had signs everywhere to keep us out but who'd be up there on a sunday afternoon? workers that's who! he didn't really yell at us but wasn't too thriled to see us ride through his work site. a great dinner at wahoo's on the drive home and a great day was finished.

yesterday was very bad on the roads, for a nice cool march afternoon the motorists were in an awful state. we almost were hit a few different times all over the county. good work on swan and good work through to complete the loop. weird the bus that almost clipped me is frisco had no reason to get that close, the town almost bought me a new bike! oh well, it's gone now. my climbing is really getting better, the colorado tour of flanders (carter lake road race) will be better if i can just get the foundation laid to do well that day. roubaix will be more of a training run, it's too early in my training for me to expect much this year. last year was good except for the 5 stitches i came away with. and carter lake was better even with a sore body. maybe this weekend i'll attempt one of the big passes. and next week we can start using the derny for some speed work, travis is back monday and maybe tuesday we can get out on the roads and do some work. switch off or get somebody to drive while we suffer behind. mmmmmm suffering.

i managed almost two hours yesterday, i felt like i had more in me but i didn't want to overdo it. being sick with whatever bit me had me apprehensive about any real work. but as it turned out the few natural intervals i did kicked out whatever crud was blocking me. i had a great ride, the legs being further away from my stomach felt better than i expected, able to answer the call to ride a bit harder in the stiff winds. as i was solo thoughts turned to how nice it would be to have music with me, a certain product from apple was on my mind, but maybe soon enough. i got an email yesterday from paco, i hope others are enjoying his blog entries from belgium as much as i am. that dream will never go away for me, i'll be 65 and wanting to race in belgium. if you link form elsewhere check it out at paco.tblog.com i could get into a kermesse, enjoy the process of racing where it really matters. in the meantime i get to race and train in one of the most beautiful places in the world, it's not belgium, but it's home. yesterday was a sunny bright afternoon, a bit of a chill in the air but it felt good, no lung-searing cold but good crisp air. spring is coming, no doubt about it, today i almost didn't need a light for my commute, it's not far off. have a good day, thanks for reading

the last few days have been tough, a bad birthday (food poisoning or some such shit) and a rough recovery from it. the birthday itself wasn't too bad if you subtract the bathroom time. i got in my ride though, my age plus a bit for good measure before i did anything else. errands and all the other crap waited until that was done. the 8 inches of snow were gone from the roads by mid-late morning. i felt very belgian, it was a bit cold, a bit wet and a lot windy. the thought of suffering in the wind for a few hours was appealing early in the day before whatever bit me came out. sunday's race was better, riding up there from golden is doing more than i realized. the effort of the race isn't bad but the two hours before is making it harder. this week will show better race results but overall if i can stay healthy i think i'll be flying come april. i'm still on the fence about racing the 35 plus age group full time, the pros just are so fast and challenging. maybe i'll do a few to see how it goes and help the team. recovery mode all week, eat lots and maybe gain a couple of pounds if i'm lucky. good food goes a long way, just as long as it doesn't make you sick.

training is interesting again, with the option of roads or rollers i feel rejunvenated. another good loop yesterday around the lake, less wind than the day before but less work too, i feel the form coming but it just won't arrive yet. which i suppose is good, who wants to have superform in march if your first "a" race is still a month out? a great lunch made me really feel good on the bike, jambalaya with hearty bread and a cookie, thank you zuppa! i read an article in newsweek about a guy who survived sept 11 because he was working off site that day in new jersey, and another guy who was late to work that fateful day only to die later in the staten island ferry crash and a car crash. whenever i read about what other people go through for work i wonder if there is another way, i think it would be pretty cool to ride a ferry to work, or better yet paddle a kayak as your commute. personally i love my commute, i wish it was a bit longer but who can complain with the views i get to enjoy on my way to work, stars, snow covered peaks, that slight hint of sunrise now that the days are getting longer all on a bicycle, the most energy efficient means of conveyance. second chances are double edged swords, you feel that you maybe escaped death once but do you change the way you live because you are on borrowed time? or do you push on without any changes? i think a re-evaluation is in order, take that trip you always wanted or try that other career you never had a chance to. life is a one time thing as far as we know. enough philosophy, have a good day.

broken dishes

i finally got a road ride outside. i was able to get out of work early enough to get up to montezuma and home before dark. the wind was pretty fierce getting out of breck, headwind the whole way to dillon. from there to keystone it mellowed for a bit then up the hill to zuma in the quiet. climbing alone out of the wind with the snow all around made for a great solitary effort. i'm not sure how well i was going but it felt good. ticking over a nice cadence, 75-80% effort. little patches of snow and wet road here and there to remember for the trip down. the worst thing about the ride was the amount of airborne grit, whenever my glasses were off it was like riding through a sand storm. whit once explained to me why denver has a brown cloud over it, not so much pollution but pulverized sand/gravel from the winter road crews lingering in the air. this was pretty clear to my eyes yesterday. oh well, it's better than that nasty mag chloride or salt. even the cars were ok, nobody really tried to buzz me or anything, odd...coming home i had a chance to motorpace behind travis returning form a ride on the western slope, i lasted less than a mile and then all the juice was gone, i rode home up the hill feeling like a pile of broken dishes. great dinner, first a cheddar and mushroom gardenburger on whole grain bread and then a big bowl of pasta with fresh garlic...mmm garlic. and my big treat, a coca-cola classic! i love making the little things in life seem more special. little treats, that's what life is all about. have a good day

i can feel it in the air, spring is almost here. i rode in today on my road bike, without a fall! it was glorious to fly through the neighborhoods on the roads and see no ice for once this winter. i was pretty skeptical about not falling, skinny road tires and black ice don't mix. although watching paris-nice yesterday made me wonder just what was possible, they were riding over wet roads with snow on the sides and not a single fall, it must have been a bit warmer than it looked. leon van bon and thomas zeigler were away for 200k and held it to the line. at the finish they had about 30 seconds on the pack. really cool roads through old french villages, one hill they went over had about a foot or more of snow on the sides. yesterday was all b, we were never more than 5 feet away from the other. an official rest day off the bike which was a guilty pleasure, no nap, he wasn't having any of that. we walked in the woods with number one and had a great day just hanging out. monday was better than sunday, though no race it was just a good day out on the bike, nothing too long but the legs felt really good, maybe sunday was a bad day b/c of the short ride on saturday? i should know by now that i need a bit more volume to open up the legs for a good ride, race or not! after monday i feel good about my training, the fire is there to do well next week, maybe contest the sprint a bit. the legs are good but they need work.

well, the first one is out of the way. not too bad. i sat in a while without too much trouble, the pace was high due to the superstar quotient. postal, navigators and health net all on the front killing it. what was i to do? all i could, and finish totally empty! i got to ride up to the race from golden and get in a few hours before, i just needed more food. that and better legs. first one is always a bitch, next week will be better. i'm still learning the bike. a few mis shifts (my fault, not the bike) and general first race jitters made for a fun day. i still need more time with it. i think it was maybe ride number 4 outside on the new set-up. racing is a chance to see where i stand, see where the fitness is and have a good hard group ride. the real races are still a month out. enough of that have a good day

last night was unreal, shaubie had a work function until late so i went to bed about 9.30 and was sound asleep when she walked in the house and jackson started barking, while laying right next to me! i woke to greet shaubie and that was it for two hours, sudden onset insomnia. it happens a couple times a year, it really sucks! then when i was trying to get back to sleep after reading for a while the wind kicks up and never stopped. blasting wind all night, noise like i haven't heard in a while. the late winter mixing of cold air and warm air, moist and dry spells lack of sleep. i never thought of myself as a light sleeper, but last night i was waking every few minutes with a new gust of wind. i finally got some sleep, not enough but it never is. the trip in was fun, luckily i didn't have to deal with crosswinds that certainly would have blown me into the ditch, off the path and into the emergency room. i feel lucky i didn't have to deal with what the ned/boulder guys had the other night. we drove through the early hours of it to get home and it was bad on i-70 but it got worse later on. i got to ride my bike and get out of town before the s*&# came down.

four days until the first day of school. race number one. i am excited to see if my different winter plan worked out. not that i need a good result to know it worked. but, to just validate the program i have followed. the hours and hours on the rollers with the limited amount of outdoor time and no nordic skiing. maybe sunday i'll try to get an epic, 5-6 hours, perhaps i can get a good one and make the race just the hard part. being a pseudo-pro is all about getting the time when you can, arbitrarily picking days to get in the work, and not worrying the days when you get nothing. i still just love to ride the bike. no matter what bike in what weather. i was about 12 when my parents told me i could ride out of sight of the house. after lunch on a saturday in the spring, we always had lunch together on saturdays, i left on the bike. i went on a good ride around the town i grew up in and further towards the other side, away. i guess i was gone all afternoon, i returned at about dinner time and had a lot explaining to do. my folks were pretty worried about where i had been and what i had been doing. a little storytime, i had to account for my whereabouts, i was twelve, and i had a free pass for riding. that sort of started the habit, or is it therapy, or is it passion...whatever it is i never want to stop doing it. enjoy

they cancelled one of my favorite races to watch, the het volk classic which is usually the last saturday in february was cancelled because of snow. the weather leading up to saturday's decision wasn't very good and the parcours was being changed due to icy cobbled sections on certain climbs. the weather for this race is typically belgian, cold, wet, not a great deal of snow but flurries are commonplace. it is one of the first new videos i look for when i need to buy new stuff to watch while on the rollers. the winner is almost always a classics hardman, the race and course doesn't allow a fair weather rider to succeed. museew, bartoli, van petegem, van den broucke, peeters nobody not at home in the cold on the cobbles. it doesn't look like they will reschedule it either, maybe this will be the year they make a video of the second race of this weekend the kuurne-bruxelles-kuurne classic. another similarly hard race, taking place the day after the het volk, one hell of a saturday sunday set of races! less than a week until the first minnr race for colorado. it should be just a good hard ride nothing too seriuos unless you have your priorities messed up. i'm very excited to get in a bunch and go fast!