Rum Village Crit

I was surprised by how nervous I was before the race, but once it started I felt a little better.

Highlights:

The race was delayed a while because some juniors riding in the field did not have their gears blocked out. One of these guys was in front of me, and he somehow neglected to clip in with either foot when the gun went off. I'm saying "Go go go" at him, and squeak around on the inside to just barely latch onto the back of the pack.

After a few laps I start to realize that it is going to be impossible to attack or respond on the inside, although it's possible to slowly work up in the pack. After watching a couple flyers go, I work my way to the outside and zip off myself.

There were two guys out there, each on his own. I passed the first guy saying, "Let's go! Grab a wheel! Let's do it!" etcetera. He did in fact latch on, but I didn't have a ton of gas left. Twenty seconds later I flicked my elbow and moved over, he couldn't pull through. He had spent too much time off the front solo to contribute. We were sucked back into the field, which later caught the other guy off the front.

A couple of times passing Sara, I'd try to ask her questions like how many people were in a break up ahead or what the gap was across to them. She never figured out what I was saying, so I stopped doing that. Kinda funny. Next time we will work out some system for that, which might be more fun for her.

The pace slowed considerably midway through, and it really felt like there must be some well-represented breakaway going on. I asked a couple other guys in the pack if anyone was up the road and nobody knew. Weird how that happens--I kept seeing people attack and lost track of who got pulled back and who didn't.

For the last prime lap, a guy with a huge beard took a big flyer. I wanted to go but I was boxed in. Eventually I worked my way free, stood up, and hammered like hell to catch him but he had too much space on me.

That was the effort that cooked me, and I flew backwards through the pack. I meant to catch back onto the back, but it was past before I was ready. I shouldn't have waited for the last guy! Dumb mistake.

I rolled around for another lap after getting gapped off, then told the officials I was pulling out. Didn't want to get in the way of a field sprint, which is eventually what happened to some other poor sap. Apparently there was a crash in the final laps and someone cracked a collarbone. Glad I pulled out when I did.

My Cat6 brother T3 was always really bummed whenever he had to quit a race, because in triathlons and other sports he never quit. But now I'm starting to realize that I would feel a lot worse if I had finished with the pack and never made an effort hard enough to make me quit. I stretched myself too thin and I'm glad I did.

I'll have pics and toobs up shortly.

Vino is no longer gangster.

Reports today indicate that Vino and his Astana team are withdrawing from the Tour amid blood doping positive results.

Glad I didn't get that sweet Astana jersey, I guess. Too bad for BMC--seems like every team they sponsor gets hit with doping charges.

Running is for suckers.

Today I thought I might spice up the training by rocking a two-mile run in solidarity (and competition, I must admit) with a friend of mine from college who is trying to get back in shape for ultimate frisbee.

My goal was to beat his best time ever, 16 minutes and 45 seconds. I set my Forerunner 305 GPS watch to beep at me if I dipped below 7 mph or over 8.5 mph. I tried to set it to automatically count laps every time I passed the finish line, but I messed up the settings.

At any rate, I ended up doing eight laps of Notre Dame's outdoor track in 15:40! Hoo!

That sucked! My heart and lungs were feeling OK, but the pounding on my legs hurt my various tendons and knees more than I'm used to. I was left feeling like I could have gone a little faster if I could keep some stability in my joints.

That said, I think I'll try to make a weekly habit of this little test. First, though, I think I'm going to go buy a pair of serious running shoes.

Getting stoked

I shaved my legs yesterday and went down to check out the Rum Village course. Super smooth, no corners, .9 miles per lap. Reminds me of Opus in layout, but more like the Capitol Crit in elevation change.

After reading The Wah Report's article on echinacea's effects on natural EPO production, I headed on out to Target and picked up a couple bottles. I'll give it a shot and back the hell off if anything starts feeling a little weird.

I've been trying to think up some good workouts, but I think I will just ride the course for the prescribed 40 minutes plus 3 laps over and over, emphasizing different parts of the course each time. That way I will have a good feeling for where I am in the race and my capabilities for riding on a solo breakaway on the course.

Going for it

I decided to suck it up and race in the Indiana State Criterium Championships next weekend. I'll get a one-day license and fly the Cat 6 jolly roger off the back of the race--when you're by yourself, people can see your sponsors much more easily!

Vino is still GANSTER.

Today the Man in Aqua ordered his crew to the front and took his revenge on Moreau for his attacks on Stage 9.

Badass.

Bummer

Vino is pretty much cooked.

After crashing hard in Stage 5, Vinokourov has been losing time on nearly every mountain stage. Today he lost almost two minutes. While talking to reporters he started weeping realizing that, five and a half minutes behind his main rivals, his Tour is effectively over.

Kloden is going to want to be the team leader now and he's got a right to. The sprightly German sits at 8th place on the GC, only a minute and fifteen back from Valverde. Klodi's performance has been more consistent than Vino's over the years.

Still, I hope the DS at least lets Vino keep Kashechkin for the remainder of the Tour. Kash Money goes way back with Vino and he has the horsepower to help launch some of Vino's trademark blistering attacks.

I can't say Vino's Tour is over. Anything can happen, especially when that kind of aggression is involved. It reminds me of when Basso had an awful start to the 2006 Giro. Vino is still my pick to win it--that's a Tuffy Guarantee!

Training for hot weather

A while back, my Cat6 teammate (at the time) Tuffy revealed that he had been escaping the summer heat and Minneapolis traffic by training at night.

Seemed like a great idea at the time, providing you can afford all the lighting you need. But I wrote something like, "But maybe you won't train your body's cooling systems enough to handle real summer racing conditions?"

Tuffy said something like "You're joking, right?" and so I figured I was wrong. I didn't think about it much more until I was reading the book High-Performance Cycling and came across the chapter "Training in Extreme Conditions" by Bridge and Febbraio.

It turns out that training in extreme heat for several days before your event actually does stimulate adaptations in your body's cooling systems, as well as encouraging cooling behaviors like frequent drinking.

Training at night is still a good idea, but if you've got an event you know will be crazy-hot, you might want to set aside two weeks of heat training too.

Besides, how else are you going to get those killer tanlines?

Another awesome business idea

I need to patent this idea pronto:

A restaurant that serves fair food!

You know, all the food you can only find at the state fair. I'm talkin lemon shake-ups, elephant ears, funnel cakes, deep-fried candy bars, corn dogs, cheese curds, pickle-on-a-stick, etc.

Goldmine, I tell ya. Anyone wanna help me get venture capital?

xkcd

xkcd.com is a great comic, especially if you are a nerd.

In this one the author gives coordinates. "A place and a time, neither too far away."

Specifically they are:
42.39561 -71.13051
2007 09 23 14 38 00

I was curious so I looked it up. As you may notice, the time coordinate is still in the future. I wonder what will happen?

If I were in or near Boston, I would totally be there.

Growing hops and olives.

I like beer a lot. I like olives a lot.

I've decided to start a garden at my new house, starting with some nice tall fragrant hops. I've seen kits for making your own beer, but they always want you to buy the raw ingredients from them. Somehow that doesn't seem legit--I don't feel a big difference between buying my beer from someone else and buying my grains from someone else.

So I'm going to try to get a good season of hops, maybe add barley and wheat next year, and within a couple years I will have a nice beer garden! Get it? Beer garden!

I'll also grow tomatoes.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that olives can successfully survive a South Bend winter. It would be so awesome to make my own spiced olives. There aren't too many other fruits that are similar to olives, either. Maybe eggplant?

Finally, an herb garden--the legal kind! I'm talkin' basil, green olives, cilantro, and chives.

Maybe I will add peas, spinach, beets, jalapenos, and carrots later, but I'm less stoked about those.

MapMyRide.com

Yet another bike ride mapping site. I hope this one finally hits the tipping point and takes off. Looks like they have some good sponsors lined up and some incentives for contributing.

I'm not yet convinced that this site is better than Sanoodi.com. But I am still just starting to learn its features so I could be missing a lot.

The most important thing, though, is that more people seem to be using it. At least more people seem to be using it around the Midwest. Really, that's the most important criterion anyway.

Sites like these have a huge potential to get more people out on their bikes. A good route is at least half of what constitutes the experience of a good ride. It's difficult to find good routes when you first move to a new area or when you first start riding your bike. You just never know what a route is going to be like until you try it or someone else tells about it.

Onward the velorution!