Wake up and smell the brimstone

Well worth your 5 minutes and 6 seconds, holidays are great but for Darwin's sake don't let them overtake your headspace like a seizure.

You heard of that?

Dave Z has a lot to say but not too often. If you are looking to listen to what it's not like in the bunch give his audio a try. Maybe for winter vacation I'll go to fat camp. Or I could always go to the house of the padded walls and get a little therapy out of the way. The sleep is coming thick and fast these days, I wish I knew why it was, maybe it's all the snow shoveling? At least I don't have to dodge errant SUVs and plow trucks like my neighbor. So far so good, rollers will be the workout today and remember that it's almost over. Not so much of a limp into the off season as a jump. A standing broad jump, from gym class in 5th grade. better than the running one, whatever that was called, I couldn't do the triple jump, that was for the kids who could dance. Enjoy your coffee, don't worry about the winter, you can't change it. Well you could ride the bus but then you have to pretend not to look around and wonder what the other straphangers are hiding in their coats or in their heads. Better than getting hit by a bus though, too scary on the roads to try that this week. Studded tires will be out by the new year. Time to put out to pasture for the winter break before I get ot suffer on the wheels of the guys who skip cross and are already in the second half of base. Not to be confused with second base, that's better than the second half of base anyday. Dieter has funny video link on his site, I don't want to steal the youtube window, go there and watch it, pretty funny after the first minute or so. txtmsg brkp, check it out, no that wasn't a typo.

Which One?

Who is more guilty, Michael Richards or Mel Gibson? Which one of their outbursts is more offensive, if at all? Both were wrong and Kramer's wasn't funny but what about accounting for taste? Is Gibson's new movie going to flop because of his DUI charge? Are holiday sales of the new Seinfeld dvd going to tank because of his unfunny stand-up and poor reaction to a heckler? I'll still buy the DVD, I think he's funny on the show but not for a second think he could survive a 5 minute set on stage. Words. They both messed up and because of their place as "stars" are under the microscope. The funniest thing was watching him fail, that was funny. The words weren't funny the act was awful, the failure was like a train crash, you just were waiting for him to save it but he is so untalented that it just spirals downward. Kramer is a one trick pony, he tried to be something he wasn't and failed, miserably.

Tonight

The motivation was fading all week, It's harder to get on the bike when it's 10 degrees outside and snowing. I saw this picture and got the fire all over for the last two races and 10 days that are left in my season. I see that nationals is out so make the most of the last two, win or go very well. This picture is from the Boulder Reservoir a week before the USGP, a good day, two strong guys beating up on me until three to go, I got lucky, the beach run suited me.

Gieten

Photographic evidence that not all of Colorado is under a few feet of snow. I like to know the option of riding a bike on dry roads is out there. I can't wait to get out and do 6 hours with no real agenda, no efforts that need doing and no place to get to. The snow from today makes me realize how long and far we have to go to get to spring. to the first taste of blood in the back of my throat in the spring crits and the efforts of getting in the work. In between this fantasy world and now there is still work, two more efforts, one ofr the state crown on the one day and both for the state crown in the series. Gieten it's not, Colorado Cross.

Two more

Get your filthy hands off my desert. I am excited to mix up the road miles with dirt miles come January. Time is what the goal is before April. Great Vietnamese food on Saturday. More snow today, better bones takes his hits, it's time to have silent sports. I feel good about the last two races, the weather is looming maybe for some mud, maybe real cross to close out the season. Two more then the plug is pulled. Ready for winter.

Monday

The ghosts can be put to bed in less than two weeks. Two more and that's it. I feel good, I can see thel ight and it's filled with snow. A photo that shows how bad I was feeling, this is early on, probably the first or second lap. I'm can almost see my breakfast thru my uni about to be liberated. It didn't but it was that hard. Dumb, my fault, you would have thought this was my first cross race. I'm smarter than that most times.

Sunday

I know the season is almost finished, I had good legs a week ago, is the air going out that fast? Could it? I doubt it, one more good week of training and carry thru the season's end. Today was tough, no high end, and a third row start to make it harder. I made the front but it cost me, too much to really get my shit together to have a good race. I think I chased too hard too early to make up for the poor start position. Too sharp that early and I'm gassed, especially on a bad day. Two more, game over.

THX

A weekend's worth of posts all at once. Not much to report, bad legs today, better legs next two weekends and then that's it. Rest, I need it, I want it. I think if I had a camera they probably would have got in their cars or horse and buggy and chased me down but how many times do you see a whole family of Amish playing volleyball? It was odd, they looked at me like I was the extra-ordinary one. They had on the whole Randy Quaid-Woody Harrelson Kingpin get up. I was looking for Buttercup in the barn just off the volleyball court. The bike hasn't felt this good in training for a while, Like Sunday it felt like I was riding without a chain. Just flowing thru the roads and over in my head what's left in the season before the little break and start it all over. I wanted more today but settled for less, pre-Thanksgiving Dinner rides are usually more brief than I would like. The fall refuses to let loose to winter, short finger gloves in late November? Odd. I know it'll all come down before long, maybe in time for the last few cross races. Three left. States is all that's left to do this year. State and Boulder series are all but wrapped up, solid results and done. Skinny ski time, silent sports, touring, and Fruitaaaaah. Maybe get some classic skis, easier and slower than skaters, try to go slow until speed matters in April. Slow winter sports makes for fitness later on. No road ragers today. I wove a pleasant little loop on the mellow holiday roads. Too warm to wear what I did but enough to vent. I think I broke my front wheel on the "A" bike, so much for Ksyriums lasting a full cross season. Broken axle, bummer. It feels like the wheel has a bit of play, broken axle, is my guess.

Watch and Listen

Watch this video with the sound on. It would be nice to have some cross footage in here but we don't suffer for 7 hours in a cross race. Look at the clock in some of the clips, pretty impressive.

Soon is here

Helper monkeys. The season is winding down and I feel the winter break in the middle of my thighs. I need it. But, I can't wait for the work to start in January. The chance to get out there and do the long easy days without any structured intervals or throwing myself at that hill in less than x or y minutes. It all is coming up. Like the way the body reacts to the first superhard effort in the spring. The group ride when you make the split and miss the next. The effort, the burning, the urge to pee, the urge to crawl under a rock. All of these things are coming up. The sharp end I made for cross is dulled by xmas only to re-shaped by April-Fools Day. More fat tires this winter than previous years. Fruita is about as far as the Fort. I hope I feel this good next time the effort is sharp.

RAM

I talk to myself a lot. Not quiet little non-sequetirs but full on conversations, out loud mostly. whether I'm riding or sitting at my desk it all just comes out in a steady stream loosely attached thoughts. Not that I find it distracting, it kind of helps my day move along but it also can be concerning too. It works out, by the end of the day I have most of the things hashed out in my head, only new thoughts come in as I fall asleep. Those are the ones I'd like to put on this page but I try to remember what I thought before I fell asleep in the morning and it's a lost cause. I don't know if the memory is going or I just have more to think about. The disk space is full of more and new stuff, and I wonder what is getting pushed out the back into the dumpster. I still remember phone numbers and locker combinations from high school. What happened to the other stuff? I find the bike is the one time I don't have to think about this stuff. In sunday's race i got think about the race. It was almost underwhelming, I got to look around and enjoy riding the bike in a way that required little else beyond the effort. Rocco made a video of one of the sections of the course from Sunday, looks like Kansas to me, check it out on the teamgreen site. Thanks Rocco!

Mond

It felt good but cold to ride today, good clothes again, the dickhead that almost hit me with his truck made the effort, to pull out in front of me, how nice, he couldn't wait 4 seconds for me to pass. Asshole. Still better than any other way to get to work. High teens, I think, not cold enough to really consider other means of transportation. Bagel and coffee on the way in has kept the furnace going all morning. Redneck factor couldn't put a frozen blanket on my commute. Bikes are good.

Veldriden

Rest weeks play with my head, less than two hours on the bike leading into a double race weekend wasn't the best prep. Saturday was tough, I never opened up, too short of warm-up followed by a little bobble early on gave the leaders the gap I couldn't close. I had some help in the chase but not enough to dent the 15 second gap. The photo shows how bad I felt, suffering, not in a good way. Somehow fighting for third was less motivating than the front end. Last lap gap easily gave me third and the series overall lead for Boulder was preserved. Sunday was a different story, plenty of time for a warm up thanks Jared! dialed the course and got to bunny-hop the single barrier 5 times in practice, four hot laps had me super comfy on the track and ready to roll the corners that were too tight to pedal thru. Long road stretch for the start, proper cross style, field sprint to start the race not finish it. Ideal leadout as I got dropped off right at the front for the dirt, separation happened pretty fast. I think the guys who were on wheels and not getting a clear view of the course were reluctant to push for fear of pinching on a rock or thorn. 5 of us were away at the end of the first lap and that became two when the pace was lifted, (Hot) Karl sat on for three laps before pulling thru for a half lap, going in to the single barrier he went left I stayed to the right and hopped it, he bobbled and that was it, I was gone, 4 laps solo with about 20-30 seconds in hand at the line. No mud, tricky turny bumpy fields instead. Cross is cross, life is good, only three left. Bad and good. Saturday was the opener I needed to go well yesterday. I never felt better in a race as I did on Sunday, golden legs and deep lungs. Bunny hopping was fun when and where I needed it. Other times just pushing thru the course, no mistakes aside from bumping the rear wheel on the plank as I hopped. Guys told me afterwards that I gained 50 feet by hopping onthe first lap, no hesitation if that is the time it makes. Fun, fun, fun. I love Cross.

Therapy

Rollers two days in a row. The work for the last few weeks of the season is getting done the other way. Not outside as I would prefer but rolling. It feels better to battle the urge to climb off. Better than just sitting on the couch and thinking, wow, you know, I should get on the bike for a bit. Alls better than that. Another dry weekend of cross coming up, I missed out on the slop of the PNW, maybe next year. At least it might be cold, that would be nice. Better than the alternative of never getting off the couch. It would be great to have another day like this.

Louisville

Saturday we race at this venue again, I can only hope it gets to be like this, doubtful, but that would really help my motivation.

Pre

I keep thinking how cross races make me feel. I haven't really been over this feeling since I started doing it eight years ago. The hour before the race I get really nervouse and nauseous and have to, well, visit the restroom. Then after I warm up a bit it fades until just before the start when the knot returns. Nothing is as bad as getting close to the venue in the car. That last five minutes is the worst. Then I switch into the pre-race mode but I get so wrapped up in the head games I need to play so I don't throw up. Then after the start the whole thing goes away and I race my bike. At the USGP I felt none of this, probably because I thought I didn't have a shot at the win. I was so relaxed warming up doing hot laps and getting ready for the race. It was oddly placid.

While

Better today, long weekends make me uneasy now, after four years of a four day schedule I feel out of sorts on a long weekend. I need a winter mindset, more than a foot of snow today has me dreaming of the longer tours I need to do this winter and the ending of cross has me wondering what's next. How long should the break be. Is it even worth trying to take one. Then I really wouldn't sleep, I'm not tired now so why would a break make me feel better. Midnight surfing isn't too fun. If it was midnight Surfing then that would make it worth while. The kind with sharks and waves. I feel tired from not doing anything for two days, rest weeks are tougher than hard weeks.

Blues

I think I would rather be cold than crowded on the bus. I felt locked in and oddly claustrophobic. I prefer to ride, no matter the weather. Time to get out on the mtb or whatever it takes to get to work on two wheels. Much better, easier on my constitution. Cold, snow? Better than the feeling I had today.

Lifelogging

I'm reading this article in fast company about memory and a guy who has developed software that allows links with a little camera and shoots a picture every minute to go with the constant audio, the end result is a constant log of nearly or everything you say or do. The counter to it is the idea that forgetting some things is good. Do we want to know every little bit of our day/life. Is the joy of life in getting the memories the way we want them or the way they may have exactly happened? I think it's somewhere in the middle. Keep track and let the minutae go. Find the things that matter and then let go of the things that don't.

Bag

Another one in the bag, I'm over last weekend but I may have to suck it up and get to the PNW for USGP #5 & #6 the point is the fact that I race bikes and if you can get to where the big races are you should. That being said I haven't practiced that this season. The earlier starts of the 35+ races have the family home a lot sooner and easier than waiting around for the 3:15 pm Open start. Last season we had 4 or 5 rough trips home over the ice/snow facotry that is I-70 thru the tunnel. So, I get shit for sandbagging or what ever you want to call it. Read the whole thread, it makes grown men(?) seem like catty little bitches. But is there much difference between going hard for 5th and going hard for 1st? The effort is still there. I have a family, job, responsibilities, why not do the early race and get home at a reasonable hour? Whatever, sour grapes taste like shit. I won yesterday, got the negative thoughts out from last Sunday. I was patient and let the race wind down to two of us, 4 were there early then the pace hurt the rest, smart riding, only one flat on a new course goatheads are always an issue out here. I got lucky that the flat happened in warm up. Clean race, no mistakes, high speed drift on the gravel turns and better off camber stuff than we've seen this season. Small gap late in the race grew enough that I had the time to raise the arms at the line. That's double digits for the year, if you count the one mtb race I got in June. The season's not over.

Who?

Anger becomes the motivator, the longer it festers the longer you have to work it out. I'm over it now, my fault, no one else is on the hook for this one. I got it, swallowed the blame now I just need to process and get it thru to the other side. You are what you eat. Hungry? Goddam, I am. I have it all in front, lingering behind the way it shouldn't, what else is left? Get it out and step on it, put it away. one done now the rest is next. Ready, set, Go.

One Day

The view wasn't obstructed by anything, maybe the dipshit's hangover but it still wasn't obstructed by anything, did I mention that? I saw it coming a nanosecond b4 it did, cross brakes are meant to slow not stop. I slowed, he accelerated out of his parallel parked spot right in front of me, because I had slowed. I would have been a hood ornament. Just a tap to his window and a finger gesture, we both got off light. "Car is the best weapon" what about cars-r-coffins? I still got in my work and now I feel better about the day/week. Top step, this weekend then maybe PNW. Ignorance doesn't hurt the ignorant. It should. Eat up. Season's waning.

Over it

I'm almost over the disappointment of Sunday, I fee like a total pussy about the whole thing, one race, one bad day, just let it go, so I am. You hear that conversation in my head? I know, I feel stupid too. Saturday was it, I worked all season for that one day and I got it. Not a bad way to think. Last night sleep wouldn't come, I laid there for so long almost ready to go downstairs and finish Stidio 60 but I finally got out. The ride today couldn't have felt better, a day off is the worst thing sometimes, self-loathing isn't the best recovery. Early wake for voting day. Liberals vote early, I think I heard that once. Reverend Ted's little "rehab" program didn't work on him. Is there therapy to rehab from yourself? Thank God (pun intended) one of the biggest hatemongers of all Dobson is going to "counsel" him back to the way of the lord. I'm willing to bet he'll still like the meth. What a bunch of hypocrites. See you in hell. Livewrong.

Unreal

Thanks to Jared and Peggy for this first picture. Big races, I got mine. Time to start looking for plane tickets or mapquest, how far is it to Seattle?

morning after

The best part is the work was all worth it, coming together the way Saturday did, Sunday didn't matter, Saturday was my nationals, I tried to get everything I had into Saturday's event. Timing was off on Sunday, I didn't get a good recon of the course and I put myself behind too much to contend Sunday. I tried to do too much and I didn't have the horses to stay where I was so comfortable Saturday. Now, the soreness from my crash and the aches that come with two days of bumpy cross courses are keeping the rest and recovery at the pace I rode yesterday.

USGP#3

I wasn't nervous at all, it all came together in the span of one cross race. A first row call up followed by a clean start and after going around the first turn just before the first stretch of dirt I was sitting in fifth, I thought 'Wow, there's half the race.' On the end of the lap was the sandpit, about 10 meters of deep soft sand, first time thru I went around two guys there to take the lead, not really knowing how well I would do I wanted to at least lead on one lap, that way I had a decent position, I lead the whole second lap, going into the sandpit somehow I missed my grab and suddenly I was standing a meter away from my bike, moving first to fifth, a bit of an effort to catch the lead bunch that was quickly separating from the rest. Ok, I got my mistake out of the way. Now, don't F anything else up. Rolling thru the laps we had a group of five. Two or three really fast out of town guys, who didn't want to be out of the lead, made it easier for me just to follow wheels and not do too much work in the wind. Without letting more than two guys in front of me I started to think of the result, the red zone wasn't ever that far away but I didn't have to go there until the last lap, Will Black attacked hard up the hill, Sitting second wheel I weathered it and made the second last dismount without trouble still sitting second I dealt with another attack from Will and then going into to the last dismount (the sandpit) I ran hard around the outside and got into the pedals and jumped hard to make the road stretch to the finish, getting there in first I put in 20 hard pedal strokes and looked back to see no one. My biggest win ever, against guys who win nationals, me? Now, Portland/Seattle? Do I try to get out there for the USGP stop in PNW? Regardless, it's a great season with a lot of results I can use to get me out next year when the weather sucks. My goals for the day didn't seem realistic after the race separated, the podium was there and I didn't know it until I got out there and tested the legs.

Nickel and Dime

When the sleep comes I have a hard time at first figuring out if the dream really happened or if it was just inside my head. I wake up confused maybe it's more from the sleep I finally got than the fact that my dreams are full color and vivid, involving things I really do/did. The aches and pains returned today as I tried to stretch before my commute. It was rough, I took yesterday off b/c I had a full week of training by Wednesday and I just didn't need the ride yesterday. But, I did, my hips and lower back were PISSED I didn't give them a bike fix for the day. The rest period is going to be tough after cross, three weeks of THAT?! Food intake is up too, the furnace is burning hot, I go to sleep warm and I wake up sweaty. I need a heat sink. The more I ride the better I feel and then I get a link to a new race video and I feel better about the world. Watching the big races with thousands of specatators cheering on the big guns makes me want to go over there and see it myself. Anyone have some frequent flyer miles they'd like to trade? It can't be too tough to get a ticket from Denver to Brussels in January. Test tomorrow and test Sunday.

Light

I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, not that I am looking for cross to end but I am looking at the ski touring I hope to do. Maybe do a little bit more in the long distance stuff. I will do well in that one race I want to do between December and October. Rest today and a few donuts to fill the void a week of training has created. I am tired, I feel that this weekend is the beginning of the end. My rot gut has only added to the knot right in the middle of my stomach when I think about Saturday, maybe this is the one, my one shot at the podium on a higher level. I'm ready, I think.   

Zero

I don't know exactly how cold it was but I did have to stop and put on more clothes to get the rest of the way to work today. I think in the neighborhood of 10, or -10 celsius, something like that. It required a full set of lobster paws, an extra jacket and a balaclava cold enough that without the booties my achilles are still aching. Not the best move, tomorrow back to the big stuff, better to be sweaty and stinky when I get to work than the alternative of achy and chilly. Less work (intervals) which didn't improve the warmth factor but the bagel sandwich I got sure did. Who said hospital food wasn't good. The best $1.45 I spend all week is on my little feast.