Meh

Well, it's been two weeks and there honestly isn't much at all to wrote home/to my loyal fans/to the internets about.

The week before

Man, I can't even remember what I did during the week. Oh, right, I just looked at my workout history, now I remember.

PIR

So Tuesday (7/10) I did PIR and it was kind of boring really. It was a really long race again and I got in the break again. Bedford, Hoefer and Austin represented Team O in the break and then there was Benno, two Rapha guys, Corey Stayton and a river city guy. I guess I don't know everyone's names yet. Anyways, it was a little boring since the break was easily staying away (at least easily for me), but it was good because I got to work a little bit on the timing of my sprint. I am not sure if I have the sprinting power of all the other guys in the break, but I at least had a chance to work on positioning. Ended up 6th which was good for me.

Tabor

The next day I got in a Mt Tabor race while I still could since it was the last of the year. I managed to get a prime, but got dropped hard on the final lap after Bedford attacked so fiercely on the final lap.

Camping

Then I finally picked up my new road bike on Friday and set out towards Timothy Lake. I took a bus out to Estacada and biked from there. The scenery was pretty good and with the help of some random people from OBRA chat I found a way that was mostly paved.

While camping I honestly didn't enjoy myself as much as some other happy campers did. I dunno, I guess my tolerance levels for adrenaline are just so high that I don't get a kick out of seeing Mt Hood. And furthermore, I spend time outside in nature for better or worse (read in freezing rain and beautiful northwest summer sun) almost every single day. Descending at 45mph on single lane paved logging roads however does get me excited. And on top of that, more than half of the original people that expressed interest in going bailed out. I slept up there Friday and Saturday nights and didn't do any exercise on Saturday (a 3 mile hike doesn't really count). Sunday I biked back almost all of the way into a headwind, but got done with the ride in good time.

I may even have regretted going camping that specific weekend since there were some big money crits such as Boise and Redmond that I could've gone to.

Cascade

No PIR this week, but Thursday I finally picked up my TT Bike. It felt really fast and easy to hammer away on that thing.

Cascade Lakes

So I couldn't find a ride over so I rented a Zipcar and drove out to the Cascade Lakes Stage. I have decided that this stage doesn't really suit me since I'm not a pure hillclimber. There was an early break right after the downhill ended of course and that break eventually grew to 4 riders after the feed zone. Once we got onto the long straightaway, I had a bit of an argument with Rocky since him and Kaler Marshal were attempting to breakaway, but seemed to be arguing about breaking away more than actually riding. I bridged up and said "c'mon let's go" but Rocky thought I was chasing him down. After discussing this post race it did make sense that since it was just two of us teammates in the race that I should only bridge by sitting on a bridge if he's in a break. Fine, my mistake.

Anyways, I attacked again after having a chat with Rocky about this and was joined by two other willing compatriots. At this point, we were the 4th break up the road. We caught 2 other guys and then three more so we were 8. And then pretty much all of the people we caught suddenly didn't want to work with us. I was so pissed and eventually we got caught. So at this point, all that mattered was to try to be as close to the front as possible before the big climb. I was maybe 30th wheel going into it which was sort of ok. I was getting popped and was always just so close to the back end of the first pack, but just couldn't bridge up. I ended up 21st. Meh.

Afterwards

After the race I did not have a very good post-race diet and ate way too many blueberries and not enough grainy carbs (rice, bread) so I felt quite ill. It was also my 4th week of hard workouts so I was strained a bit. I was making quite a fool of myself over at the Serna's house being all sick and finding any flat surface to lie down at - couch, floor, bed, bench at the burrito place.

Skyliner TT

Finally, a full TT setup. TT Frame, integrated TT bars, Disc, Skinsuit, TT Helmet. Well, guess I was missing shoe covers. Anyways, I did considerably better than last year's TT where I missed my start time by over a minute. This year, the course was slightly different, but my time was 28:37 compared to last year's 31:29. It's hard to say where exactly I improved, but it's still probably a tough course for me since there is a lot of climbing and that is where the majority of the time spent on the course occurs. I ended up 40th in the TT which I wasn't happy about.

Crit

My biggest fear in the crit was wrecking my nice new road bike. Fortunately that didn't happen and Rocky got 13th. It's a tough course to read. Actually, I made a mistake again of being unaware of how many laps were left. It wasn't until 3 laps to go that I finally spotted the lap board and at that point it was probably too late to move up. Corner 3 wasn't as hectic as any of the other laps on the final lap and people didn't sprint for 50th so all was fine.

Awbrey Butte

Again a tough race for me to do well in due to Archie Briggs. Rocky went from the gun, but got dropped at the feed zone. The 4 other guys stayed away until Archie Briggs on the final lap. I counter-attacked right before the riser before the roundabout on Mt. Washington and got a good gap on the field. Unfortunately nobody had the power to bridge and work with me and the break up the road was quite powerful. I could see the pack closing in on me just before the Tumalo Reservoir descent, so I decided to maintain my break and make it a little easier going into the hill with a gap.

The rest of the race I mostly sat in except that I was in survival mode going into the feed zone climb and Archie Briggs and moved up as far to the front as possible. Ultimately I really screwed myself over in this race by not eating enough. I even had enough food with me 3 power bars and 2 gels but I only ate 1 of each. Shame on me. I got dropped the last time up Archie Briggs and pedaled in with other popped guys to finish 59th on the day and 31st GC.

"Meh" pretty much sums up my weekend of racing. Good news is I didn't get in a crash like last year. But I've got a lot to work on still. I feel like I need a better TT fit, need to force myself to eat properly, not have so many blueberries and peanut butter and be more persuasive to fellow breakmates. Oh and I need to figure out a way to thwart stupid three-time winner Randy in next year's Fantasy Tour de France.

Quiet Before the Storm

I've been kinda quiet on this blog lately. However, I've been focusing on my training. I've had a big January and February of training and will still be hitting it hard this March.

Weightlifting:

I've been in the weightroom every week at least twice a week. I made quite a bit of progress over last year's peak lifts. This year I peaked in the squat at 325 pounds and leg pressed 777.5. I even maxed out the leg curl machine!

325 pounds in the squat.

777.5 pounds leg pressed.

Maxed out the leg curl machine at 265 pounds.

So was I the strongest guy in the weightroom? Heck No! Maybe 2nd strongest...

I believe this is over 1,000 pounds.

Riding:

I've been riding a lot as well. Actually it depends on who you compare me to when I say I ride a lot. Compared to the normal person, yes I ride a ton. However, I regularly see my racing buddies post these 90, 100 mile rides on Strava. I've only done two 80+ mile rides this year. I have been doing intervals though. We'll see what happens in the race.

Another factor with biking a lot is keeping good care of the bike. I haven't done a direct financial comparison to last year's riding. I have had two rear derailuer hanger failures where one caused the rear derailuer to snap in half. And I recently broke a spoke which led Veloshop to conclude that the wheel's rim was shot anyways, but at least that's not my carbon fiber wheel breaking.

I have definitely been better about cleaning my bike this year. Getting the shaft from Portland Plaza and being forced to use the bike locker across the street may have been a good thing after all. The locker is in a covered parking garage, so it is dry and it is always lit up and snobby rich people probably wouldn't be yelling at me as much when I lube my chain without a cardboard mat or something. I've got a solid routine for taking all my biking clothes and some post-ride food which I then consume while cleaning my bike afterwards.

Eating:

And it's that time of year again where I'm focused on what I'm eating. You won't find me consuming beer, but you will find me eating tons of Dave's Killer Bread. I discovered that I can buy 4 (imperfect) loaves for about $10 over at the Dave's Killer Breadquarters out in Milwaukie which makes for a nice bike ride about once every two weeks.

However, I think last year I was doing a little better about eating enough greens and veggies. I feel like I ate more mega-salads back then. But on the plus side, this year I'm doing better about eating enough during and after my rides. I'm taking Emergen-C and Zinc a few times a week and so far it seems to be holding off any illnesses. People have also always been asking me "are you vegan, are you vegan? huh? huh?" Well, not quite. I have eliminated dairy from my diet and am trying hard to also kick my lunchmeat habit, but the salmon most definitely is going to stay in my sandwiches and elsewhere.

This is actually just one serving of spinach.

Sleeping:

I have really realized that this is actually a super-important aspect of training. Not getting enough sleep seriously affects me. However, it seems to affect me mentally the most. I can really notice it at work because I'll be agitated and working slower than normal and then with people I'll become antisocial or just not have anything useful to say. It's a little more subtle when racing because your blood is already gushing through your system keeping you awake, but not enough sleep can mess with my head so that I don't have a good game plan going in and then it may do other weird things such as complicating my assessment of available energy to expel for a certain duration. Anyways, 8 hours is the absolute minimum on weekdays and 9 is the minimum on weekends, but I frequently miss both. Room for improvement and reason to rush writing this blog post so I can get to bed.

Life:

Another thing I ought to write about is Life. And this is Life as defined by Daniel Harm in his equation about training progress as follows:

(Training + Recovery + Nutrition) / Life = Progress.

As a bike racer, I don't have a "life" as most normal people may think of. I don't go out to bars, I don't watch tv or many movies and if I'm hanging out with friends its to serve a purpose in addition to just hanging out. As opposed to last year where I was pretty much a complete loner since moving to Portland and then throughout the racing season, this year I've added some Life to the equation but in ways that'll not only benefit me, but my new friends as well.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

The most important of these Life items I've done is joining a home community through my church. Every Thursday we get together to discuss the Sunday sermon and eat dinner. It's so awesome to be sharing the journey of walking with Christ with other people and the fact that there is food there makes it logistically easier as well. There are some times when I want to hangout too late though, like at this Ugly Christmas Sweater party I stayed until after 11pm cutting into my sleep. Sometimes even just 20 minutes of hanging out with good friends in person is all that is needed to have more than 0 Life but not conflict with recovery.

First Race (for me) Next Sunday

And so racing is about to begin. I decided not to go do the FHR or Eatonville but instead do the first Banana Belt as my first race. And the way I'm feeling is a bit tired, slightly nervous and well I was feeling excited, but I need to get over a little sleep debt I have to get back to that point of being excited. Come this Sunday it's the first time I get to see how well I perform against others and doing good at that is worthy of a whole 'nother blog post in itself. Now off to bed to sleep.