good work all around, early am ride without too much work and then a good solid block towards copper and home again. real strong effort the legs feel it now, plenty loaded to throw myself at the hills tonight. then a wonderful drive with my honey to edwards to see dusty! one of my oldest most cherished friends. sushi for dinner with the four of us (his sweetie georgia too) that rocked! sato's does it right. we got to hear about idaho and their recent road trip and how life goes when too many celebrities invade your town and make lines at the coffee shop intolerable b/c so-and-so needs something special that their rich, white entitled you-know-what thinks they deserve from the rest of us. too long between visits with him, sitting there at dinner finishing each others thoughts made shaubie remark how she had forgotten how similar the two of us were. when life throws you a good friend it's worth keeping up the effort to stay in touch with them. soon we will go to idaho and visit and in the meantime maybe they can make it here for the firecracker in july, i encourage everybody to make it out for that one! life is too short to not do the things you want and challenge yourself in whatever forum you need challenging in.

after last nights world championships i may take a pass on the whole thing for a while. i guess i have become spoiled on the whole group thing riding with roadies as opposed to riding with people who don't know how to ride well. getting up out of the saddle when in a group that is keeping a pretty tight line is bad. your bike sways too much to really be safe and goes backwards a touch as well. so i may try to get in my work in other ways, a group can be so helpful to build fitness but perhaps i just need a structured day instead of tuesday night worlds. two amazing days with b, monday was a ton of fun as we had a few good walks in the woods saw lots of squirrels and birds and number one chased them all. he is so amazing, he watches jackson look at the animals and howling whenever jackson was more animated and thrilled the whole time yelling his "words" at number one. great to see such a happy one. tuesday was cool we hung out at the park in the morning for coffee time and let number one play in the water and be free for a bit. no hassles from the man for him being off leash. he layed down in the ice cold river and just smiled, little b got a special kick out his dog sitting in the water and periodically chasing sticks. a pm walk in the woods to cap off the day before i went and did my work on the bike. i think the hammer gel i had on the ride was bad as i got home with a nasty upset stomach, no fireworks just rot-gut. good dinner to settle the stomach, pasta with garlic and olive oil. a good night. the other night i made a little snack of horizon yogurt with granola and banana, amazing! i want to eat this everyday. hug someone you love today.

i saw something wierd to start off my day; a woman walking a giant saint bernard through town dressed as though she were going to a preppy dress-up party. this wasn't too odd until i began to tie it into my old idea for a sitcom. a group of little people who run a dogwalking business in a big city. just think of the visual; small people walking giant and not-so-giant dogs and the troubles that befall them. oh well, old story idea. warm thoughts to all who get the time to waste reading my drivel. thanks for tuning in.

taking the plunge to admit my age wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. we got to the race pretty early and the rain and fog reminded me of east coast mtb races. showing up and the moist air and fog conceal a lot of the surrounding hillsides and scenery. not really knowing what you were in for that day. yesterday was a lot like that, my first race with the old guys, it wasn't as hard as i thought, but it was fast. good course to try out the 35+ field, nice long hill for about half of each lap. long in that it took up half the lap, not that the hill itself was long. as a team we had a plan to just watch the first 15 minutes and cover any moves of consequence. then later on we were to try to make a move stick. 6 of us got away with two of us in the break. going for a prime that i won we split the break into three. and that was about it. we stayed away the whole race from there, 30 minutes off the front. i pulled really well on the hill, that was where i decided to make my contribution to the break. each time up it i went to the front and did my work. the guy has won every 35+ race this season was with me in the break and he started to take shorter pulls with about 10 minutes left, not much i could do, he attacked at the start of the final lap and went after him and that was about it, i caught him but was too winded to do anything. i made a mess of the last lap, didn't let the other guy chase him and sat on. i think my mistake was to show how well i went up the hill, where the finish line was. oh well, it was fun to be in a break, and third place isn't too bad for a spring race where i was questioning whether or not i'd get dropped!

the meeting yesterday was nonexistent. i went down there and it was no where to be found. i looked around quite extensively and found nothing, i later found out that it was at town hall, not county commons. oh well, i got in a bit of a ride and that's what i needed more than the class itself. the weather got worse as the day rolled on and i worried about another hypothermic day on the bike. i ogt lucky and escaped with a brief commute followed by an hour + on the rollers. good legs and a good ride for a rough week. sunday will be good, hopefully two races. 35+ and pro 1-2, double days, it's been a few years since i did that. summit county got the shaft last night. 12-20 inches, hah! we got maybe 1, i was all psyched to get on the mtb to go to work through a foot of fresh snow, but at 5am the roads were barely wet and icy, fixy was the call, all night i had dreams of borken collarbones, i even got the phantom pains. timmy you are not alone! timmyp.typepad.com the dreams can haunt even as an adult. the control with the fixy was amazing, no slippage at all, icy bridges and slick iced over hills were no trouble. i barely used the sissy brake! arriving at work as intact as i left home was a welcome surprise, the dreams were wrong for one more day. i'm trying to change brian's diet a little bit. he was enjoying the frequent treats of last week with much enthusiasm but this week it's been all good stuff, as the acne on a 35 year old man's face would show maybe i was going a bit overboard on the donuts, this week it's clearing up and i feel better, no rot-gut, no new zits, a cleaner system. great dinner last night to go along with eating better just more good food is key. leftover sauce from the other day with really good parm sliced and melted on top. same dinner as the night before but really tasty, kind of a staple i think from now on. just make the sauce and leave it in the fridge a few days and finish off the week with baked ziti. what could be better? pasta, sauce and cheese every night of the week. mmmmmm dairy. ride your bike today

yesterday was supposed to be good work but it instead was a few intervals followed by a cold, wet ride home. no sympathy though, it was snowing as we left, i didn't get caught out, but it just snowed more and more. i got most of the work done but i still needed a bit more time just not hypothermic. maybe today the stars will align and allow me to get it done. even my shoes were loaded with water, all sloshy. i felt dedicated and a bit stupid while riding, thankfully tim was with me, without company it would have really sucked! it took a good bit of washing to get all the grime and ice off. now the brakes work. today is good, i have a meeting in frisco, i think. i may ride there (guilty pleasure) afterall it is earth day can't a brother ride his bike to a meeting 9 miles away. maybe i'll call it part of my lunch. that is if i really do have a meeting. which is yet to be determined.

no blog for a few days, not laziness as much as just plain exhaustion, we are supposed to recover on days off from the work week, i'm not so lucky, i know it's my own doing but it still sucks to return to work more tired than when you left three days before. sunday was really hard, carter lake is tough without bad conditions and the wind just made it ten times harder, i survived, but others were not as lucky. the wind wanted to pull the bike right out from under you. leaning into the gust and pushing the front end into the ground to keep from going off the road into the ditch. these weren't simple crosswinds or if you consider 50 mph winds simple we had them! we had a few really good walks, the woodpeckers were out and the squirrels were yelling at jackson. little b had a blast, he was happy to see all of the little greeneries showing up and his big brother running around with a stick.

the more you eat the better you should feel right? i eat well and i eat right, for the most part. no quadrupeds no fatty foods, well except the donuts i eat a few times a month. but i need the calories, and food is expensive! donuts are a good source of much-needed calories, right? well i'm about to give up, and go full on healthy. no more crap. i feel a bit lethargic after eating a lot and after a donut i get this empty feeling inside. maybe it makes brian happy, or maybe it's really brian who gives me the empty feeling, he's getting my donut and depriving me the satisfaction of eating it. yesterday, i had a wonderful donut and was very excited as it was still hot while i was eating it. the donut was pretty much a deep-fried apple pie. warm apple filling inside a light pastry crust with cinnamon sugar coating. not exactly high-culture but at 5.30 in the morning it sure is nice to get in the backdoor of daylight donuts and see the boys and have all of those wonderful treats before me. afterwards though i guess brian got a good meal and i got the shaft. well maybe i shouldn't eschew donuts just yet, perhaps a bimonthly visit, meet my caloric needs in the middle with my health-conscious needs. homer would go full throttle, a donut diet, interspersed with krusty burgers, and ham, and bacon, and hot dogs, and.......

i can't figure it out. i ride well and do the work and i feel less tired than when i don't ride. sunday i woke up fighting to open my eyes after no ride saturday, and then on the days since i wake and feel like a spring chicken. mmmmmm spring chicken. the equation just befuddles me. today i was on the bike before 5 to get in some miles before work. a bit cold today, i heard about 20 or so, but with the schedule this week if i want to get in my time i'll need to get up early. kind of fell off the wagon last night. big pizza, but i wasn't super hungry for it, i only had two pieces. the great salad didn't hurt either. shaubie is still a bit queasy on salad, after the flu/food poisoning we both got on my birthday she hasn't been too keen on salad. oil and vinegar dressing coming back up isn't too good. she puked it up pretty quick after eating it so stomach acid and vinegar together probably hurt a bit.

the blue bird laughed at me as i went by breathing too hard. he was just getting some dinner, i was doing something else entirely. the wind was pretty bad it made a medium to hard ride harder. with carter lake six days out i need to get more accustomed to work. too long since the last race. the squirrels were getting a kick out of me too, they figured another idiot human out trying to prove something instead of getting his dinner out of a tree. with the bike path clear all the way to copper i have a good stretch of path without much traffic at all. new tires on the road bike made for a smooth ride on the already good surface of the path. it feels good to train, following a pattern to get the most out of my old bones. this will be a good year, i can feel it.

no ride today, after the cancellation of the race i just didn't feel the need to suffer in the wet weather. tomorrow is different. five hours no matter what the weather. after realizing the logic for cancelling i felt less dissapointed and accepted the fact that the race needs to happen for years to come, not one epic and then never again. carter lake will be hard enough, the motivation is there, almost as big as roubaix but lessened a touch. a good day off regardless, the legs needed a break. just kind of gummy, too much rest late in the week and then a day on the fixy wasn't really enough to open up, today would have been tough. an 85 mile cross race certainly would have been good.

i went old school today, i got up and it looked nastier than normal and i believed the weather report for once. the fixy was great, i rode in without a problem and had fun, little bit of music and and squinting (couldn't find the right glasses today) got me to work without a crash, not so sure about tomorrow, we'll see. plenty sloppy overall, soaked through the rainy weather rideclothes to the dry weather stuff underneath. riding the fixy in the snow/rain all day for errands and a lunch run made it clear again how much i like this bike, sometimes it seems to pedal itself. i understand why the northern midwest guys ride these all winter on their group rides, nothing to worry about and easy to fix and maintain. no gears, no shifters, nothing to think about other than the right pedal technique. check out www.carsrcoffins.com they do it right. no mandates on riding fixed, but suggested, even simpler than a single speed, i never realized that was possible, or practical.

if this weather keeps up i may switch to the fixy 100%, not that i worry about my drivetrain but that i need it to work for two years. washing the bike a lot can help but maybe hanging it up for a while would be better. the older belgians would ride a fixy, the new school guys would just ride what they had and not worry about wear and tear. i fit somewhere in between, wanting to go old but hanging onto the new. the guys in minneapolis go with the old but i like the feel of my road bike, the fixy is cool for an hour or two but for 3+ i want the road machine. i guess i'm a sissy. the bugs are there, whether it's brian eating my dinner for me or the other little nasties lingering in my stomach that are hanging out getting their cut. i wish i could get rid of all of the bugs, not that i'm an arachniphobe or bugaphobe but it would just be simpler if my food was mine, not theirs. whether it's the tapeworms i know about (brian) or the other hangers-on i need to clean the system of the feeders off my food. i like to know they are there however, like i'm never alone. out riding in the rain solo, i'm never really alone. i like that. without the ipod i talk to them, i wonder if they resent the ipod being along on the rides? are they jealous i listen instead of talk? are they sick of me talking to them? i guess parasites are indifferent to what is said to them. i bet they like to listen to neutral milk hotel and maybe arco but what about fugazi and minor threat? too hard perhaps, i would imagine parasites into the mellow music, fitting their speed of life.

scenes from the circus i never went to, having only gone to the circus once that i remember i think about the other circusi. just riding down the street can be a circus. warming up for cross nats in san fran a few years ago was like riding through the big top. along the waterfront the people and scenes looking across to alcatraz was surreal. me in my colored suit hardly stood out compared to the other characters going about their day. like the time i was warming up for a race in new york and i saw a jamaican riding a fixy with a fishing pole going home after catching dinner. the bike can take you to such wonderful places. the jamican guy had dreads done to his butt and a smile as big as the fish he was carrying. he looked so happy riding around on his old viner fixy. i wanted to tlak to him about what he did and why he chose to ride that instead of the standard big box store cheapo mtb you see mexican commuters riding in the west. he had the form on the bike with a grace about him and certain smoothness to his pedal stroke that defied just being a guy on a bike going from a to b. when i lived outside philly we had thursday night mtb races on the belmont plateau in west philly, not the best neighborhood. will smith sings of it in his jam "summertime" a group of about 30-50 racers would show from all over and set a course of about 2 miles around (not a ton of trails but we used it all) and decided what each category would do expert 9, sport 8, beginner 7. the race would start and the group would go off. local shops would send representitives with random prizes, a tube in a ripped box or a tire that hadn't sold, an old set of grips that were a take off. while racing the "locals" would offer to sell us their wares, not that they were threatening us they just found our thursday evening practice very curious. offering various stimulants, the last thing i needed while looking at my heart rate monitor readings, they had it all to sell, right there on the singletrack. i always waved a polite no, not wanting to make any enemies, figuring that drug dealers in west philly are probably carrying a gun, or two. again a wonderful place to see other parts of the world you wouldn't normally see, thanks to the bike...

the sky went gray as soon as i was home 15 minutes, 4 and a half hours in the saddle and i made it home 15 minutes before it all turned to thundersnow. good work to heeney and back, lars absolutely rocks, fast and smooth. the faces were the same on the path. that grimace as though just biting a lemon, riding the bike path isn't that hard. i saw the one legged guy riding the unicycle while eating a hot dog. the usual bike path scene. rolling out i was happy to start with a group, knowing the long days are better with friends. by the time we were going home the last 15 mile it was just lars and me. really good work, i love long days. they make me happy

the days get longer at the end tonight. i feel indifferent towards the change right now. i like riding to work at 5.30 am with a bit of daylight, i don't really need the light at the end of the day as i am home and eating dinner at that hour. little b is going to sleep as the sun is setting and now it will be brighter at the time he should be napping out for the night. i really wish someone could explain why we do this? we have long since abandoned the agrarian way of life and that is only reason i remember being given for the time change. why do arizona and indiana have no change, what is their motivation? an odd relic from the past, 21st century following the 19th century? help.

ok, now i'm tired. flat lake loop yesterday with a good spot of work on the windy sections, pretty much four days in a row of solid work. maybe that will make up for the lack of long days coming into roubaix next weekend. sunday this week i'll do 5 hours but maybe too little, too late. carter lake is the big one though, reasonable to have form in two weeks time for that and improve on my result from last year. i'd give anything to have it be reversed, carter and then roubaix. oh well, i'll suffer through them both and have good crit form for may. it's sad, two road races and then all crits for three months. when i got home last night dinner was nearly ready, great meal of chicken with spinach and pasta and amazing giampietro's bread, so good i ate almost the whole loaf and two bowls of pasta, life is good! returning home tired from training and not from life is a beautiful thing. bummer the boy isn't feeling better, i think i got him a milk in the middle of the night but i may have dreamt it. foggy for sure.

i got threatened with being "written up" if i stored my bicycle inside one more time while at work. i don't really get it, i work at a fitness facility and as far as i know i'm the only bicycle commuter. what the f*#%??? why do i have put my bike outside and expose it to the weather for my ten hour shift? the place is big enough and there are enough places to store bicycles out of the way. even for three or four people who wanted to ride in to work. that was one of the reasons i was given, if they let me do it, they have to let everyone do it. fuck that! as the only year around bicycle commuter i feel that i have earned a spot in an out of the way closet somewhere to put my bike, away from everyone, instead of the crappy ill-designed racks out front that eat nice bikes. maybe, wait, here's an idea, i'll sell all of my bikes and buy a ford excursion and drive that to work instead and take up four spaces in the parking lot, maybe then that will make all of the drivers feel better when they too can pull into the lot and park next to my ford excursion, no suburban here, a big ol' ford the biggest automoblie this side of a greyhound bus. do you think i'll get written up for parking like an asshole?