first cat 3 race... success

so another race weekend come and gone. This weekend was a big deal though, since i just got my cat 3 upgrade not too long ago and i knew i was going to be testing my legs against much bigger, faster, more skilled guys now. saturday's race was a difficult uphill/downhill/curvy time trial in bear creek lake park in morrison. the course was about 9.5 mi long and we pre-rode it on friday afternoon so we would know what to expect. last year i placed 3rd in this time trial (probably due the the fact that by this time last year i was almost at my fitness peak... no good) so i had some confidence going into it. i was the first to register on saturday morning, so i had to be the first one off on the course. little did i know that this was going be a very difficult time trial without somebody to follow and without a power meter. i went off, and got caught by herron about 7 miles into the course, then stayed close behind him (because at that point i could gage how hard to go), and finished about 38 seconds behind him, which was good enough for another 6th place finish. not bad.

sunday's race was a criterium in denver's city park. the course was tough, with 3 roundabouts, and one hard right hand turn coming out of a left hand turn that was a different experience every time i went around it. sometimes sketchy, sometimes really smooth, always fast. The b's race was early in the morning, but luckily the weather had warmed up a little bit, so by the time i was racing it was about 45 degrees. i decided to race with fingerless gloves, which turned out to be a HORRIBLE plan because my hands went numb about 10 minutes into the race, and i ended up squirming on the ground in pain after the race while my hands were gaining feeling again. seriously some of the most pain i've ever been in in my whole life. anyways the race went well, with only one crash in the middle of the race from someone unclipping from their pedal to chase down an attack. i ended up finishing 13th due to a fast and hard last lap and me having trouble moving up during the final lap from all of the hard corners and crazy roundabouts. after that i went and got some lunch and hung around for a while, then the 3's race started at around 230. the average speed during the b race was about 22 mph, and the average speed during the 3's race was about 25mph. a 3 mph increase over the course of 45 minutes is hard, especially with all of the attacking that was going on in that race and the constant acceleration involved. with about 2 to go i worked my way up the field from the back to somewhere near the front, then there was a huge acceleration out of the last corner and i moved back a couple spots to finish somewhere around 15th place. not bad for my first 3's race.

i'm not going to durango for the collegiate race that's going on down there because i have job orientation at the cheesecake factory this weekend, and it's going to be an expensive trip. i've also been racing really hard and it's still early in the season so i could use a week off to put on some more base mileage and work some more on technique. here are some pictures from this weekend.

warming up and talking with chris stockburger (former Toyota-United Pro) about some strategy

flying up towards the finish line

chasing andy down

3rd of 3 roundabouts

here we go!

So racing season officially kicked off this past weekend with the collegiate race in New Mexico. After a 9 hour ride in the Jeep (ass) Commander, we got into the Super 8 motel and checked in. Since it was already almost 11 and we had to be up by 7 to race in the morning, i just hit the hay.

We woke up at around 730 on saturday morning to head over to the time trial. We had to ride through our little truck stop town a little ways to registration, which was a complete joke with like 300 people inside a small coffee shop trying to pay and find out start times and all kinds of nonsense. After that, we rode down to the start, and were followed with the team cars that brought trainers and all kinds of stuff. Since we couldn't get our start times at the coffee shop, we all just kind of milled around the starting area until they brought out the start times. Mine was at 12:21:30pm, so i hung around for a half hour or so until11:20ish because i wanted to get at least a 1hr warmup after sitting in the cars for so long the night before. After my warmup, i headed down to the start line and waited until i was up, then i was off! Right away the course was fairly flat, and headed slightly uphill after that. Before the top of that slight uphill, i had already almost caught my :30 man, and i caught him at the crest of the hill. I shifted into my 55x11 and shot down this sweeping downhill right hand turn, topping out near 45mph, then came to the bottom of the hill and started going uphill. I didn't want to shift down into the small ring because i've been having some shifting problems, so i went into my 55x23 and hammered up the uphill part, and just after the top of that hill, i caught my 1:00 man, and could see the turnaround and my 1:30 man just taking the corner. After flying around the turnaround, i started hammering back towards the finish line with my only intent to catch my 1:30 man. he was fast, and knew i was on his tail so he was giving it all he had to stay away, but i overtook him on the last climb, and flew back down to the start line back in the 55x11 going about 40mph on flat road. After finishing, i knew i had to have done well after catching 3 people, and i ended up getting 6th place.

After the TT, i had a little while to cool down and hang around before the TTT. Our start time for the TTT was something like 1:45pm, so i started to warm up again at around 1. We started out pretty strong, each of us taking good pulls. my team was Alex Hauger, Steven Herzfeld, Herron Kennedy, and myself. The order was Herron, Me, Steven, Alex. we all climbed the first hill well, and kept taking constant pulls. There was another CU team in front of us, and when we got to the turnaround, we could see that they were well inside of the 2 minutes they had on us from the start, so we all made it our goal to catch them. After the turnaround, it took at least 2 minutes before we saw the team which was behind us, meaning that we were more than 4 minutes in front of them. On the way back to the finish line, Herron was in front of me and all of a sudden he yelled "CRASH!!" and i looked around him and John, one of the CU riders had crashed going about 30mph when he crossed up wheels from a wind gust. We steered around them and continued on, knowing that if we stopped to help, we'd just be more in the way for the team behind us. We finished the course a little shaken up both from the crash and from having to dodge a few extraneous people on the course and an oncoming team, but still managed to place 1st.

The next day was crit day. Saturday's weather was in the mid 70's all day, and sunday was somewhere in the mid to high 40's. I started where i usually start, on the outside in the front, and from the start was on the front right away. The first couple of laps went slowly as everyone was getting their footing and getting used to the course. After a few laps and a few attacks off the front by Peter O'Donnell, i decided i needed to do my share of the work, and on the uphill, tailwind part of the course, i made a huge effort to try to get away from the pack. I kept driving without looking back, and soon enough, when i did look back, i had pulled 3 riders away from the pack with me. It was me, Conor, and 2 guys from CC. We held off the pack for 20 minutes on the course, and after picking up a few more guys who bridged from the pack, Conor got 1st, i got 4th, and we all got some pretty good prime points for being in the front for so long.

getting ready for the TTT

before the TT

killing the break

driving on the front

all in all a great race weekend with some great results. hopefully i can do just as well this weekend, and i'm going to be racing my first cat 3 race on sunday afternoon, so we'll see how that goes.

new year, new approach to this thing

well i'm not usually a new years resolution kinda guy, so i'm not going to make one this year. however, i am going to try to write more creative nonsense in this blog so someday maybe someone... (trail off)

anyways with today being the first of the year, i have about 2 more weeks to relax and take things easy before i have to get my butt in gear training hard for the season. my first race is on march 1st in new mexico, so i have a month and a half of really hard training to do before that race. last year i peaked way too early (sometime in april, not in mayish where i wanted to) so this year i'm trying to peak later so i can focus more on my ACA races and late season USCF races. i'm also planning on travelling to california a few times during the summer to race once in the manhattan beach grand prix and the USCF national championships. I'm also planning on going to collegiate national track championships in may sometime. this racing season is going to be brutal, but crazy fun! For christmas i got a new bike computer where i can record everything my old one recorded as well as heart rate and some heart rate functions (Calorie expenditure, etc.) so i should be able to train more effectively this year than last. we'll see how that goes. i'm still in winter training mode, riding slow and working on my cadence and different muscle strength in my legs to help round out my pedal stroke to get more power out of each stroke. 'tis all.

ass things

so the other day i was sitting on the john doing some thinking (really, that's the only time i actually think about life. almost everything else is instinct). and i realized that whenever people mention -ass things, i picture the opposite in my head. for example (because i'm guessing you're pretty confused), let's say you're walking down the street with a pal talking about whatever and a dog runs out into the road and almost gets hit. your friend might say "wow, that's one dumb-ass dog," and instantly, i'm thinking about what a dumb ass-dog would look like. here's a little preview below.

here's a little list of things that i've heard and the pictures that ended up in my head when somebody said them. and yes, the pictures in my head do look like 3rd grade microsoft paint drawings.

dumb ass-girl

big ass-truck

long ass-hair

big ass-mountain

and so on and so forth. who said a normal mind is any more interesting than a completely strange mind? not i! and now... back to vacationing.

getting on a team

so this past weekend i went on a ride with some guys from the cycling team up st vrain to peak to peak and down ward. it was a pretty brutal ride, mostly just because of the cold. i really want to do it again this weekend and maybe try to get 100 miles in on sunday morning. the more miles i can get in before winter sets in, the better shape i'll be in when i'm trying to get in race shape in the snow. my next step other than getting stronger faster and lighter this winter is to try to get on a team to race for next season for USCF. I'm planning on doubling up on every race i possibly can next season (racing collegiate and USCF), and i'll be a cat 3 shortly into the season hopefully and by the end of the summer upgrading to cat 2 if i can train enough next semester. i'm looking at Vitamin Cottage, Colavita/Cooking Light, and am going to ask around for what teams are good ones to race for. hopefully i can get some good racing and training advice from these guys. it's almost kinda sad that i'm not even thinking about graduation and instead am worried about bike racing and how fast i can get this winter/next spring. oh well! my new alternate life plan is that if racing doesn't work out or if i go broke trying to make it work out, i'm either going to move to denver, san fransisco, or new york city to be a bike courier for a few years. engineering can wait.

no more boredom

so the basis of this blog was to take the boredom i experienced day to day, find the things that most people would think were normal, and run them through my oh so random brain to make them somewhat funny. since school has taken my life by the balls, i don't really go through much boredom anymore. HOWEVER, my life is about to take a pretty serious turn because i'm turning my back on the systematic "get a job right out of college" plan. my plan is to train really really hard in the spring, race really hard and frequently, then after i graduate, keep racing next summer and training 30+ hours/week and hopefully make it up to cat 2 by the end of the summer, and be looking for a team starting the following spring. people tell me i'm talented at cycling, i love it, and according to a coach i saw this summer, i'm physically built well for the sport. it's scary knowing that i'm not going to the fall career fair on campus tomorrow where i could potentially get a job that'll pay well, pay for a house, food, whatever else i need and instead focus on something where i have a very slim chance of success and won't be making much money. i say screw it though. life isn't about getting a job and making money. it's about living. i'm happiest when i'm on my bike, even when it's already my job. even on nights at work where i can't feel my hands or my feet, there's nothing i would rather be doing. even when i'm high up in the mountains, can barely turn the pedals over and my heart rate is through the roof, there's nowhere else i'd rather be.

the big one

so i had to go back to court today. not so much fun. however, my complete inability to take life seriously (except when i want to, and standing in a courthouse is not one of those times) led me to find a few different things kinda funny in the courtroom.

one thing i tend to do is, when things get really serious, i like to think of ways to totally break up the mood. like, when i was getting yelled at once in band in high school, i remembered i had a little applesauce thing in my backpack and wondered what would happen if i just took it out of my backpack and threw it at my teacher. no explanation, no real reason... just... what would happen? would he have jumped at me and tackled me? just sat there and taken it like a man? today i was sitting in court, and the judge was telling me something about responsibility or something (definately wasn't paying much attention) and i was thinking what would happen if i farted really loud. is that ok to do in the court? do i need to ask permission of the judge? would it go on the record? a whole slew of questions ran through my mind, and i thought just for a second that i should do it. just to mix things up. but then i remembered that "just doing it, just to mix things up" was the reason i was in there in the first place. then another time he was telling me about how i had a lot of potential and i really wanted to say. "yes, and so does a rock on top of a hill. so what." but didn't. probably best. that's about it. court sucks, paying a lawyer sucks, but napping is awesome and so are sandwiches. THE END.