2009 Blue Hills Classic Race Report 35+

Any of you who saw me race today know very well that I have little to report other than sitting in the field and clenching my teeth to get over the hill six times without getting popped. Today was a relative success, compared against last weekend, when I could not get out of my own way in the Quabbin Pro Race. I have done solo 3-1/2 hour training rides this past week, that were faster than my speed at Quabbin. Long story short, I'm coming off of a huge disappointment from the week before, and expectations for today were not high. Last year this race was only four laps and raced in the cold rain. In 2008, your hero was off the front for about a lap, then dropped, then swarmed and passed by the 35 field.. ditto for the 45 field. Past experience was not a positive experience at Blue Hills. Today we did 2 extra laps! Understandably, I went to today's race with mixed feelings about my chances of doing well. With about 1k to go, I positioned myself aggressively- top 8-12 guys. McMark was on my wheel as I was hugging the yellow line, observing those around me, trying to be ready to react to something. Next thing you know, Mark has sprinted around me, away from us and up the road- instant 5 second gap. There's a 35mph speed limit sign that marks about 2 minutes to go and I can't remember if we were past it yet. I got out of the saddle and followed whichever wheels I could tag onto, making it up the lower half of the climb in the top 10. But that final part of the climb appeared and I was hurting- I had buried myself a little too much, a little too soon. By the time I was up the hill and on the flat approach to the finish, I was pedaling squares and being swarmed on both sides. In the last 100 meters, I passed about 5 guys but was also passed by about 15 guys, ending up right smack in the center of the results- 26th out of 51 finishers. 25 beat me to line, 25 did not. You can't get any more mediocre than that! But all things considered, I'm satisfied. No flats, no crashes, no broken chains, no getting dropped. The hill was a lot easier this year than last, and I have data to prove it. I weigh about 3 kilos less this year, and it has definitely helped me. Here's a comparision between Blue Hills 2008 and Blue Hills 2009:
The dashed line represents 2008, where overall watts were much higher because I was either off the front or off the back- riding alone for the most part. The solid line shows you 2009's peaks for Blue Hills. The charts intersect at the 3:45 duration. Keep in mind that there's a 3kg difference between the two sets of data.
Here's the power distributions for 2008 and 2009. Can you tell which is which?Seems I did three times as much coasting today (0-10 watts) as I did one year ago..

Thanks for reading.

2009 Blue Hills Classic Results

You also get a good look at the mess I make of my car when I race. Good thing I drive a van. Here's the 35+:

The 45+:
Cat 5:
Cat 4:

Ninigret Crit No 1

Having a warranty service call at a school project in New London- ideal to set up the appt for Wed afternoon, because afterwards, I can go straight to Ninigret for the first smack-down of 2009. I'm not alone in getting there early- lots of guys showed up at 5:00 and took off to get a nice 60 minute spin/warm-up before hand. I timed my arrival such that I ended up doing a nice little loop with Dave K, Mike M and Mike C- what could be better? Funny- first half of the ride I can't get the new Ergomo to work- I try everything- no watts, speed or rpms. Then 15 minutes into it I remember that the Ergomo doesn't automatically connect to the data like the Powertap you have to plug in the wire yourself, dummy! Phew! For a few minutes there, I though that my $650 investment had gone up in smoke.. We got back around 6 and I decided to change out of my short sleeve Under Armor and into my long sleeve thermal Under Armor. Temps were 55 at first, but now they were dropping and I was sweaty. More warm-up on the race course while the B's raced- which seemed to really screw up their event- 'A' riders were all over the place, getting in their way.. We lined up at 6:30 with a pretty good sized field- about 40-45 guys. Maybe more. I worked really really hard in the first 15-20 minutes. At the front for some duration pretty much every lap, and for many laps in succession. Primes are being given, but I'm not ever really feeling strong enough to go for any. Then about 1/4 way through our race, right after a prime sprint, about 15 guys roll away and leave about 30 of us behind. The gap is small- if I hadn't buried myself the lap before, I could have jumped across.. but timing was not on my side. This 5 second gap grew and grew and grew until it was basically about 1/2 a lap and they surfed the field until the end. This contained the usual Mark M, Tobi S, Bill Y, Adam S, Gary A and others- didn't get a real good look at all of them from behind as they hit the throttle. There was a crash in the breakaway group in turn No 2 and bodies were scattered all over. I heard that a collarbone was broken, don't know who.. The break was whittled down to 8-10 guys after this (see the deep valley in the HR chart, as we all coasted through to avoid hitting the casualties). I'm happy to go to the front and take some pulls, do some work, maybe get close to the break, whatever. This is a training race. On one lap I decided I'm going to turn myself inside out for about 1 minute and see if I can drag some of the stronger guys with me. My team mate Mike S. is the only one who can follow, and by the time I ease up, I can't even follow his wheel, I'm so cooked (see the peak in the HR chart). Then three other guys blow past me and I try to latch on, but the field was onto us by the time I caught my breath. We picked up quite a bit of time on the break- [that lap], but we weren't really organized and the host team had a lot of guys in the field- maybe they were blocking- I couldn't tell. Later on.. with 5 laps to go I resolved to freshen myself up for the finish and avoid those 1 minute intervals which I so love to do while racing. Sat in and let the HR drop to the low 160s (you can see it in the chart) Last lap, an NBX rider went for it a little past the finish- opened a nice gap. 4-5 guys were in pursuit of him on the back stretch and I followed these wheels after making it through the crunch that was the 2nd to last corner. As it turned out, I had the freshest legs of the front 5 because I accelerated past the pursuers right before that final dog leg corner, passing them on the right and accelerating up to the NBX whose last match burned out about 200 meters before the line. I got myself a field sprint by a few bike lengths, thanks to a good recovery and a well-timed acceleration. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's one of those things that you NEED after falling apart in a road race and finishing one hour down on everyone. Confidence is built a little bit at a time.. I also took a nice prime. Does your mouth water just thinking about the taste? Thanks for reading.

Cramping 101

If you race for 90 minutes with severe muscle cramps (racing is probably incorrect- more like "getting your ass back to the car..") such that you can actually see your muscles deform and change shape, and if there is residual pain in all of these muscles in the days which follow, what does it mean? Is this an indication of serious muscle fiber tears? Have I ripped myself up? It sure feels like it. I could easily Google this, but I'd rather hear what readers think about the damage caused by muscle cramps. Maybe if Sunday's race wasn't point to point, maybe if it was 5 laps around a 12 mile course, then maybe I wouldn't have finished, but maybe the damage to my leg muscles would have been limited. (??)

(Final) Stage 8 sprint crash Tour of Turkey 2009

Out of all the carnage of that final 4 km, one of Turkey's finest pro road racers- Mirac Kal- took 9th place. The Turkish National Team's best placed rider in General Classification was Ugur Marmara, at 69th (1 hour 17 minutes back from winner) which isn't bad for a 29 hour, 1200km, 8 day stage race. Heck I lost an hour to the winner of yesterday's 63 mile Quabbin Road Race. Puts things in persepective..
Here's a link to the Cycling News report on the final stage and overall GC

2009 Quabbin Reservoir Road Race

Above is the published profile of the 63 mile race course. Below is my bike computer's interpretation of the profile. Which one do you think I looked at when I decided to race this event? The chart below shows only altitude and heart rate.
All kidding aside, many things about my race were absolutely awful. Fortunately, I also have the luxury of finding the good concealed within the bad and the ugly. This week I increased my training volume way too much, by a factor of 2.35.. and today's lousy performance was not a surprise. The cramping surprised me, and the difficulty of this course surprised me (see above). Let me also add that "Mapmyride" indicates only 3035 vertical feet of climbing. My Polar and my Ergomo beg to differ. Polar recorded 4419 feet of climbing and Ergomo 5066. I hear that District Championships used to do TWO laps of this?? 126 miles?? Good grief that would suck.

17.15 pounds

After 2-1/2 years of riding my LOOK 486, I finally weighed it today. It includes pedals and two cages. I'm impressed with old bike. Looking at BMC frames lately.

Critical Workout

I did a solid ride after work- over three hours. Got home at 9:15. I love doing the backroads at night with headlight and blinky. Feels kind of hard core.. Now that I'm a 'bachelor' for the nest many weeks, I can train with impunity, well into darkness, and not worry about what time I'm expected home. and now that the crap weather of the past few days has passed, it's time to really put my head down and do the proper ratio of work and rest to force the kind of adaptations that I'm after. It might interest some of my five readers to know that I am not using a coach any longer, not since last August. We keep in touch, but I've been the captain for the past 8 months. So here's tonight's ride- and I'll bet it's not too different from the Quabbin Reservoir Road Race route on Sunday.

Plan B

The incessant precipitation this week has required me to train indoors- no commuting to work and no Ninigret Crit last night. It's been weird adjusting to training without power data! Monday I did an easy one hour crotch numbing spin on the rollers. Why not the windtrainer? because I want to get a mileage reading and for this to happen with my Polar HRM, the front wheel needs to be in motion! Yes the true colors of my OCD shine through. No worries. Better men have done worse.. So Tuesday I decide to add a little bit 'o intensity, but with a HRM on rollers, I need to be in the 53x13 just to get my heart rate up to 160. So I'm trying to adapt to the situation.. I decide- let's hit it HARD for 1-2 minutes and wind up the heart rate to 160, then soft pedal it back down to 140 and repeat. This is a JOKE! Training by heart rate is effing medieval IMHO. Heart rate takes forever to catch up to the effort on the pedals. It's like Rain Man.. who would answer questions posed to him two hours ago or whatever, you know what I mean.
So on Friday I expect for my new ERGOMO Pro system to arrive with matching carbon cranks. I got them for a song, from an Ebay seller who accepts returns within 7 days- no strings. I know I threw the dice big time on this one, but the features of the Ergomo computer were too good to ignore, and the price was a no brainer. Plus I was tired of racing on a rear wheels that others have accurately described as an "anchor". Now the very light and hardly ever used Easton Tempest 2 rear wheel can finally populate my race bike instead of hanging in the garage.
Last night- I'm hoping to ride the bike home and it begins to pour.. at 3:00 pm I call the YMCA- the 5:45 SPIN class is full, so I add myself to the wait list. I don't wait for a phone call, I just GO, and as luck would have it, there was one no-show. I did a solid one hour of SPIN averaged 218 watts and 160 bpm. Today I'm feeling it. Saturday I will be doing a loooong easy ride to try out the Ergomo. Sunday we're racing the Quabbin Reservior Pro race. It's going to be a nice hot race. Thinking back to the last Pro-Am road race I did- the 2006 Topsfield race. That year my fighting weight was a lean 165 pounds, and I was using my current LOOK 486 bike, without Powertap- I had the matched pair of Eastons on there. My approach for Sunday is to just make the best of it and enjoy the ride. No pressure on myself to perform. I'll save that for the A races (criteriums) coming up later on this summer. We have a couple of guys on our team who are capable of winning on Sunday and it's going to be exciting..

2009 Rick Newhouse Criterium

In the 35+ race, I won the Best Prime Ever, by attacking before the 2nd to last corner and holding off a pursuing Eric Marro. More on the contents of this mysterious brown bag they call the "Men's Vitality Prime" later.. This could rate as the highlight of my day at that point but there is more to tell. Our humble team scored The Big Slick. A very in-form Matt Kressy took 2nd in the 35+ (by winning the field sprint) and then took a commanding win in the Pro-Am race which followed. I'm in NY today but I'll post some pics of the results later on. The other highlight of my day was attacking the 'field' before the final corner and almost making it to the line for 11th- but one guy stuck to my wheel and easily came around my dead legs just before the line. I was suffering in the Pro-Am race which followed- we had our man in the break and the attacks to bridge across wore me out enough that I cracked with 8 to go. Still a great day!

Brown

Holy smokes everyone on Thayer Street is in stripper mode.
It's a sea of pasty white skin..

Karma

I just shipped a pair of Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL wheels to a guy in Japan, using a cardboard box that originally came here from Taiwan with 1/2 dozen Specialized floor pumps in it.

Next: Rick Newhouse Criterium

Looks like some decent weather for racing on Saturday. I'm in for the 35+ and the Pro-Am which follows it. Training has been low volume but high quality these past many weeks. More than anything I want to have a great time and not crash. Last year I raced on a slow leak on the rear tire and was lucky to crack top ten with it. Maybe this year I'll have better luck. You know me- I'm not 'skilled' enough to avoid an unpredictable flat tire! Hehe..

Good luck to all you Battenkillers. Bike shops are licking their chops in anticipation of all the equipment failures that will be checked in next week for repair.

Gaaaah!!

I just agreed to sell my 12,000+ mile Powertap wheel! Need to find a nice matched pair of wheels to replace them with- preferably Zipp 404s! Who's selling? Has anyone ever heard of 50mm "Blackwell Research" carbon wheels? There's a matched pair on Ebay I think I can get for $1250 or so.. I think it's far eastern stuff rebadged here in the states, but what isn't these days???

DeJaVu

It will appear that I have an OCD relative to average speed and time, but this is wacky.. On Feb 14th I did my favorite hilly 40 mile loop. I always hit the lap timer at the mid way point- which is at the top of a hill. On that cold day in February, I hit the mid way point at 1:04:55 and completed the ride in 2:08:30-ish. Here's the Polar chart from Feb 14th.
Yesterday I needed a lot of motivation to suit up and throw a leg over the bike, and so what better way to fool yourself into going out and thrashing yourself for two hours, than to go for a new personal best on a known route? It's been two months since the last test, and I'm SURE to do way better than in February, you would think. Long story short, I matched my last time to within 5 seconds- both at the half way time check and at the end. If you said you'd give me $1000 to do this, I'd fail, but somehow yesterday's ride was the identical twin of the ride on 2/14. The watts we pretty much the same too- a little less than before, but I can attribute this to losing some body mass over the past few weeks. So why isn't my speed UP! I can't explain it other than maybe standing in the freezing rain for 8 hours on Saturday did a number on my legs.. (no riding at all for me Saturday) and that for the past month+, I have barely cracked 100 miles per week. Volume is way down as compared to the death marches I did every weekend in January and February. Intensity is up, but volume is down. The wind was definitely a factor- it seemed to be gusting to 25 mph and constantly shifting. At any rate, this was the good solid workout that I was after- more TSS than if I went up to Wells anyway! I wonder how that went..

2009 Chris Hinds Criterium

Here are the pictures I took while trying to do a good job announcing primes, attending to the lap cards, and delivering primes to shivering blue-lipped finishers. Well I should qualify that, Sheldon Charles did the lion's share of the work and I was like, manager and stuff. We made a good team! So in between all of the stuff going on in the race, I tried my best to get some pics here and there- mostly from the Pro and 35+ races:

Here are the rest, but not Women's results, sorry. That was the last race and wasn't posted in time for me to shoot.




More later, gotta run!

1. I will post results when I get home.
2. I did not race in the freezing rain.
3. Someone broke their collarbone.
4. It's still raining and miserable.

No rest

"Sleeping" from 12:30 AM until 6:00 AM with three or more interruptions does not constitute quality rest. For whatever reason, I occasionally have these fits of sweating profusely while I sleep, then wake up soaking wet and shivering cold,, and there ends up being a pile of wet t-shirts next to the bed because I changed into a new dry one three times. Falling back asleep in a damp bed sucks too, and all of this sounds like the perfect way to invite bacteria, infection, pneumonia, whatever.. The cause of this is a mystery. It comes and it goes. Recently the right side of my throat is swollen and sore again, as it was last week on both sides and went away only with antibiotics. Lately our son has a fever and my wife has pain in her right kidney. WTF?? I am really f--king starting to hate New England and it's miserable spring weather.. It was almost more fun to ride when the temps were in the teens and 20s- at least it was dry and the temperature swings weren't such that you got sick every other week. It is STILL not as warm here as it was in San Diego two months ago. We met a few people out there who were astonished to discover we were from the Land of Peter Griffin. "Oooohh! I've always wanted to see Rhode Island!".. I wanted to punch them in the mouth. Is that bad? Diggity.

2009 45th Presidential Tour of Turkey 12-19 April

You have to see this prize list. It's any pro's wet dream. $4500+ Euros for winning a stage. What's that about $7500 dollars? Really makes you think about those $300 masters purses being split up 8 ways. Link to the 45th Presidential Tour of Turkey. I wonder how many pros are going to play it smart and vacation on the South coast after the race is over.. Dopers beware: I remember in 2007, Kashekin was located in Belek (where we also vacationed just a few weeks later) and he was given a random drug test at his hotel. Busted.

2009 Michael Schott Memorial 35+

Full Results are up on Bikereg
Okay this sort of turns my crank.. I just checked the results and it appears that the other 14 guys who "did not finish" get to remain anonymous. When did quitting become more honorable than finishing (or trying your best to finish?) Lame.

Another podium for Millwork One Racing: Matt Kressy is 2nd in the field sprint out of a full field in Marblehead. Needless to say the team is proud and honored to have Matt fighting to win races for us and we all share his good result even though we're just riding his coat tails. I had an unlucky day: a pre-race nature break combined with tinkering with new, untested equipment cost me the start and had me chasing a charging field solo for one lap before I sat up and waited for the them to come around so I could jump in. Then my rear hub started squealing like a pig whenever I coasted for more than 5 seconds. Worse things could have happened I guess and it was a good day overall for the team. I'm glad to have had an easy time motorpacing in the field- but once you're down a lap there's little reason to turn yourself inside out, especially with a potentially deadly mechanical issue.

Below I give you the series of photos showing the finishing sprint of the 35+ field. (courtesy of David Rizzo- see his slideshow above) It's evident in the last few pictures that I crossed the line a half hearted 18th, knowing that there was no free lap. In fairness- I did indeed turn myself inside out for the first lap while most people were sucking wheel and soft pedaling.. Oh well.. Wouldn't have mattered anyway.. The mechanical issue made it impossible for me to leave it all out there.

Coming up for air.. and coffee lessens the pain of exercise

What a schmuck I've been.. On 3/20 (day after my birthday) I inherited a nasty infection whose primary symptoms were fatigue, muscle aches and a throat that was in too much pain to swallow anything other than Kozy Shack (speculating.. didnt eat any) So I was sick Friday, Sat, Sun, Monday (skipped work) Tuesday, Wed, Thurs, Fri.. and then Saturday I'd had enough of trying to beat this thing unassisted. Dear wife called our doctor and said doctore called in a scrip for some meds at the 24 hour CVS. This was Sat night. Took the antibiotics before bed and in the morning, I am a new f--cking man. Astonishing how I came to life on Sunday. Pain and exhaustion gone. Head clear. Muscles ready for action. I did a workout on the trainer- not a strong one, just some zone 2/3. Then last night (Monday) I was feeling even better, and did this:
20:00 WU
5:00 FT (275)
5:00 RI
3:00 FT+10% (305)
3:00 RI
3:00 FT+10% (288)
3:00 RI
3:00 FT+10% (290)
10:00 RI
5:00 FT (266)
10:00 CD
Not an easy workout, no matter how long you rest between intervals.. This is less than 48 hours since popping the pills. I don't like taking antibiotics, but this seems to have developed into a secondary bacterial infection. Saturday I was on the verge of going to the ER and Monday I'm pounding out interval after interval.. So relieved to be past it.
Now for something completely different: Caffeine is a performance enhancer. A few of you may have spied me before the start of Wells Ave or Ninigret, nursing a medium DD hot coffee with cream and 2 sugars. Apparently I was onto something, even though a lot of people would make a face and ask "how do you drink that before a race??". So here is proof that swilling coffee before the start line is not going to hurt you [at worst, assuming you have a strong stomach], and contrarily, will help you to dig a little deeper during performance:
coffeelessensthepainofexercise

Spain vs Turkey World Cup Qualifier Saturday

Here's a pretty cool NIKE commercial from Turkey, featuring the Turkish National Soccer Team- intended to stoke sales in advance of Saturday's qualifier against Spain. Below: Gratuitous soccer related body painting- the best kind of painting if you ask me..Okay now that you are standing at attention, there is a World Cup 2010 Qualifier between Spain and Turkey this Saturday.. These images are from the time when Turkey played in the 2002 semi finals and ended up with the bronze. I can assure you that the Turkish fans are more like the Brasilian fans than the two head-scarf-girls pictured here, but the implication back in 2002 was that "this is why Turkey lost to Brasil". Funny stuff..

Playing host..

..to a virus since my birthday last Thursday.. Sick.. sicker.. sickest was how Sat, Sun and Monday felt.. I'm on the other end of the curve now.. thank G-d. I'm sick, but well enough that I could come to work yesterday for 1/2 day, and actually arrive on-time today.. It won't astonish anyone that I rode the windtrainer Monday night for an hour, or that I did some intervals last night which caused the veins in my forehead to bulge un-naturally. This kind of treatment accelerates my recovery- I'm sure of it. Keeps me on top of it mentally. Few more days and I will be out there with my new [to me] Mavic Cosmic Carbone wheels, putting the hurt on someone who has trouble holding my wheel. Okay now I'm just thinking wishfully.. and realizing that hey- this sport is not just about testing our own limits- it's also and mostly about testing the limits of others. It's when you don't have to be at your limit in order to drop someone or put them into the red zone which makes the price of it, worth paying. Fast as all hell wheelsets help too!

My mother asked me..

..what I want for my birthday.. and of course I replied "Duuuuhhhh...nuthin'... Duuuuuhhhh".. when in reality there are so many friggin toys and gizmos and performance thingies like pedals and shoes that I have my eye on.. that I need or want.. So today is my b-day and I am officially into my 39th year. (this means I just "turned 38" in the 'American' sense of age) Been trying to buy a pair of Mavic Cosmic Carbone wheels from a very talented friend who I'll refer to only as TS.. We already made a deal on the price- it's just been a matter of hooking up with him off of I-95 on one of my many drives to Boston.. Anyway, how do you tell your mother to call so and so and pay for a pair of carbon race wheels for you?? Man.. the last time anyone bought me anything in terms of a bike or a bike part, was when my dad bought me a brand new CyclePro bmx bike for my 13th birthday. It was called "Macho II"- more or less a POS entry level tank.. which was later replaced with a used PK Ripper with the resin "Zee-rims"- better for the rough landings of my "table-top" jumps and other shenanigans..
So here I sit, wheel-less until tomorrow, and nothing on it's way to me from Mom either. I've half a mind to go to Providence Bike and buy that Orbea road bike or that Santa Cruz mountain bike I've had my eye on.. (Pause mom just called to wish me happy birthday- is asking me again- what do I want- should I send a link for a pair of Conti race tires or a Dura Ace cassette??)
I'll leave you with this pearl of wisdom which Solobreak shared with me recently:
"Perfect health is just the slowest possible form of death."
The raw truthfulness of it makes my skin crawl.

FT+ ?%

After I leave my place of employment, it takes me 17 minutes to get the the Cranston bike path off of Park Ave. By this time I'm usually warmed up and feeling ready to work. The bike path takes about 25-30 minutes to reach the end- perfect for a block of 1:00 intervals. (the path is empty- it's okay to go a little fast in March) With the occasional intersection, you have to use some discretion about how long to work and how long to rest. My rule is that these "FT +10%" efforts should be more than 1:00 but less than 2:00. For recovery, I go with 1:00 maximum. The variability makes it more challenging. Once I'm at the end of the bike path, after doing 12 of these 320w intervals, I get onto route 117 and take 10:00 of recovery, and then I do it all over again, all the way to the top of the hill that's about a mile before you reach route 102. That's another 10 intervals down, and I double up on the very last one, doing a solid 2:00 of puke-tastic effort. I recover for a few minutes and do 20:00 of tempo all the way home, in the twilight of dusk. T'was a cold ride to work today, but it looks fantastic outside right now. Rain tomorrow?

2009 Ebay Purchase No 1

I have been buying and selling on Ebay since 1999. This sort of makes me a veteran (or a master, if you like). I have 100% positive feedback and a score of 668. I am a Powerseller, meaning I average over $1000 in sales per month.. It is my hope that one day I will populate my Ebay store with enough inventory to actually make a living from it, but I'm realistic.. For now, selling a few high end kid's bikes per month is a fun hobby that helps pay for some racing expenses for me and my team. What was I going to write about? I drift so easily off topic.. Yes I bought a pair of Shimano Dura Ace chains for a ridiculously low price and with free shipping. Let's just say that I can barely buy a single Ultegra chain from REI for the cost of these two Dura Ace chains, especially after applying the sweet 10% off coupon which Ebay is in the habit of e-mailing to me regularly.
In other news.. For those of you looking for a Campagnolo Record headset or Italian threaded Record bottom bracket, please check out my Ebay store: http://stores.ebay.com/WeeBike. The listings end tomorrow night I believe.. I am also selling my other road bike- the 57 cm carbon EPX with Rolf Vector Pro wheels and Chorus drivetrain. Here's a picture.
If you are in the market for a high end LikeaBike children's bike, please transact at my other site: http://www.weebike.com/, where I make a few more dollars by avoiding Ebay fees. The Paypal buttons are found in the sidebar for each of the bike models. If you have a 2-5 year old child and want to borrow a demo bike for a week before making a buying decision, let me know and I'll bring one to the races for you. Many thanks.

"The coin has dropped"

Sorry Matt S, I'm a dingus for not doing any due diligence. The Spinelli connection is now understood. And all the while I was saying to myself "who is that skinny dude with the Jamaican colors?".

2009 Bike Commute No 1

Tried out my new Novarra backpack yesterday and I'm pretty happy with it. Previously I was using a messenger bag, but it's not good for the times when I really need to train after work- too much swinging around and instability. This thing hugs you and has straps across the chest and midriff which make it feel nice and tight- like a parasite has latched onto your back. Sounds awful, but it's what you want when you need to do some hard work on the commute home, especially out of the saddle type stuff. So yesterday I braved the cold and rode to work and rode it home.. Nothing to get excited about, but it felt like an eternity since the last bike commute back in November. Oddly, even after wolfing down a nutty powerbar and an orange at 3:30, I felt famished on the ride home- like enough to stop and grab a Snickers bar.. but I resisted the temptation. I think the body was stepping up metabolism or something, maybe something to do with doing two rides in one day? I think it goes a long way towards getting lean- riding twice in one day that is.. (just ask G-Diddy, who believes his bodyfat percentage is in the single digits) I wonder if there is a way to measure muscle percentage. What's a healthy value for this, I wonder.. I drove in to work this morning, but all my bike stuff is in the car, so I'm riding home tonight and very much looking forward to it.. There will be timed intervals involved..
Thanks for reading.

Wells Ave No 1

I don't want my scores of blogosphere fans to bite their nails all night so I will dispense with today's result- your hero was 5th in a knife fight of a field sprint, in which finishers 3 and 4 nearly wobbled into eachother from fatigue and closed the door on my acceleration. I was in the sweet spot of the train but as luck would have it, my line was was not clear all the way to the line. Fine and dandy. That's racing. Interestingly, avg speed was about 2 mph higher than last year's Wells Ave opener of March 23. Power? I won't bore you with numbers but I am ahead of schedule in all CP durations, especially the magical Normalized Power value for 60 minutes. It's good. Bad news that we had guys on our team become involved in two crashes. They are going to be okay but $5000 bikes don't heal without throwing big wads of cash at them!

How does this happen?

And this is from only one side of my chain. I wouldn't have discovered this without cleaning the muck and filth off of it last night. I was halfway commited to go to Charge Pond or Plainville today, but that would risk iminent equipment failure and injury. No bike shops are open in time for me to fix this situation and make the start line. Next chain will be a 2008 Dura Ace- they're about $35 on Ebay these days.

Power=work/time

Monday no workout. Tuesday no workout. Instead both days included minimal sleep and stress overload. Wednesday night I tried to get back on track with some 10 and 20 minute FT intervals after a looong warm up (30 minutes). The first 10:00 FT was fine and dandy. Then recovery, then into a 20:00 FT.. but it wasn't in me. I ended up doing about 5-6 minutes before I decided to just spin it out for the rest of the hour. Last night was a different story:
20:00 WU
5:00 FT
5:00 RI
3:00 FT+10%
3:00 RI
Repeat 3 more times
10:00 RI
5:00 FT
5:00 CD
Explanation? Work was halfway enjoyable for a change, wife is coming around from her cold, and some other tidbits of good news managed to give me wings. It is pretty scary how factors outside of training and preparation can affect form. In fact it got me to thinking- is it possible that anti-depressant pills such as Prozac and others can enhance an athlete's performance? Let's face it-it's harder to focus on intense training and harder to perform in a race when you are under depression, stress and anxiety. It would not astonish me to discover that this is an idea which is already being abused.

Thank you Chipotle!

I know that some have a low opinion of "fast food".. So I stopped eating the burritos wrapped in a tortilla and I switched to the "burrito bowl", which is a lot fewer calories, fewer carbs. The bowl is simply a couple of scoops of rice, some meat, peppers and onions, hot sauce, sour cream and grated cheese. So satisfying.. While at the AToC the other week, we won a whole bunch of free Chipotle food coupons at the Chipotle tent. And dear wife's Blackberry has GPS and can find all Chipotle's in our vicinity- there are a few out there! Our favorite was the one in Encinitas. So yeah.. couple or 3 times a week, I indulge in a Chipotle burrito bowl. I encourage you to try one with the green chili sauce- medium hotness. Such good quality food for only about $6-7, IMHO.. All their ingredients are promoted as hormone free, organically raised, vegetarian fed etc.. good things. and I am in love with their minimalist decor. The raw edges of veneer core plywood exposed, foregoing the application of edgetape or solid wood nosings- which add lots of time and cost, but little else.. The minimalist menu.. simple, easy to understand.. really makes the menu at TGIF or Chilis or Applebees or (pick one) look like a French whore. Okay enough about that subject..
So Saturday I weigh myself pre-ride.. and for the first time in a very long time, I am under 170.. pre-ride.. where before I would set out weighing 172 and get home weighing 168. I'm firmly into the good side of 170. Success!
No riding for the past two days and I'm grumpy.. but to my credit, I have been getting up at 4:30 am to get to Boston appts at 7:00.. That, and dear wife has bronchitis and laryngitis, so I'm playing nurse maid for the past few days. Monday was a deliberate rest day. Last night, not so much.. but I was fatigued from the two early and long days in Boston and stressed about wife being sick, so.. let it be.
I'm eying Plainville and Wells Ave this weekend to have a little fun, but we'll see. If it's under 40 degrees either day, I'll be more inclined to do a couple of long rides. Playing it by ear.. Thanks for reading.

Dearest in Christ.

Must-contain-maniacal-laughter.. I populate one of my other blogs (www.scamlisting.blogspot.com) with about 4-5 of these Nigerian advance fee fraud e-mails, every day. (Yes it is purely for the Google Adsense dollars, but at least I am truthful- and believe it or not, people have thanked me for it) This is the first time I am seeing a person so twisted that they exploit and lie about terminal illness and religion in one neat little package. The scammers are getting more bold and more creative as the economy goes down in a death spiral. This one is original, I'll give it that. I encourage you to write to these cretins and have fun with a little bit of scam baiting.  From: From Charles and Elizabeth. charlestoure_001@yahoo.com Subject: Dearest in Christ. To: sarawak_cardiology@yahoo.com Date: Thursday, March 5, 2009, 8:21 AM From  :Mrs Grace Tapia Email :grace.tapia@ymail.com Address:N11-Olof Salem Street        P.O. Box 59022,Safat 13060 Kuwait. Dearest in Christ. With Due Respect And Humanity, I was compelled to write to you under a humanitarian ground. My name is Mrs Grace Tapia,from Kuwait.  I am married to late Dr Ramsey Tapia  ,who worked with an oil company in Ivory Coast for Thirty-two years  before he died in the year 2005. He died after a brief illness that lasted only four days Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of (US$5.8 M)(Five Million,Eight hundred Thousand United States Dollar) in a General Trust Account with a prime bank in Abidjan . Presently,this money is still with the bank. And Recently, My Doctor told me that I would not last for the next six months due to my cancer problem (cancer of the lever). Presently this money is still in the Bank.  Having  known my condition I  am in need of a HONEST Hearted Individual Christian or Church that i will utilize this fund the way I am going to instruct herein. I want somebody that will use this fund according to the desire of my late.husband to help Lessprivilaged people, orphanages,widows and propagating the word of God. I took this decision because I dont have any child that will inherit this fund, And I dont want in a way where this money will be used in an un Godly way. This is why I am taking this decision to hand you over this Fund. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going.I want you to always remember me in your daily prayers because of my up coming Cancer Surgery. Write back to me as soon as possible because any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another person for this same purpose, Hoping to read from you soon. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Bank in Abidjan. I will also issue you an authorisation letter that will prove you the present beneficiary of this fund. May God bless and keep us as we seek to serve him. Yours in Christ Mrs Grace Tapia

Hell

It's 60 degrees colder here than in San Diego and I'm back at work with another head cold. G-d help me to refrain from clawing my own eyes out and/or jumping off a ledge.

Airport security

They threw our son's 8 oz container of sealed vanilla milk in the trash (along with our three small bottles of Coke, which we figured would happen) A one liter bottle of water is $5.05

Only in Cali..

Will you have a female spin instructor who is over 60 and kicking your ass.. We are guest members of the Escondido YMCA this week and let me tell ya, this place makes the Kent County Y look like a pile of Puke, and it makes the best Bally's you ever saw look like a rinky dink P.O.S. Last night's spin class was FULL. After 5 days off the bike it was just the thing- I felt rested and strong. Tonight's class I held something back so that I could drill it hard tomorrow. Now I need to choose which class to do- there are 6 or 7 to choose from throughout the day, all with different instructors. In fact, the entire fitness schedule is up on a pair of 52" plasma screens- kind of like you would find in an airport. Impeccable. Exemplary.

T minus 12 hours

At about 4:00 am we will be putting shoes on our feet, grabbing our carry-on bags and skooting over to TF Green for our 6:30 am connection to Newark.. in none other than a Dash-8 400.. Yuk. I'm having trouble believing that I passed on taking my road bike on this trip. What was I thinking? Maybe I can rent a bike if the urge to ride is just.. unstoppable.

San Diego Time

We're at TF Green airport at 4:30 AM Saturday to catch a 6:30 flight to Newark, then a 6 hour flight to San Diego which has us landing about 9:30 AM. TIme enough to get checked into the hotel and on the road to Saturday's finish of the ToC? Mebbe. We are definitely spending Sunday in Escondido for the finish of the final stage.
I will not be bringing a bike with me on this trip- we're hoping to find a local YMCA where we can work out and join the spin classes. I will probably go a little insane about not being able to ride, especially if it's sunny and warm, but the thought of carefully packing a bike and paying $100 each way to check it, and potentially have the airline lose it [like the last time], isn't so attractive. In other news, I got my new Powertap sharkfin to replace the one which was repaired twice. No love from The PT folks on this- I payed the full $60 price for this part. Oh well. They did not have a lot of sympathy for the fact that my heart rate strap has never worked properly. I guess I should have reported the problem within the first year of using it, some time before clocking 12000 miles on the thing. I am so tempted to buy a pair of used ZIPP 404's with PT.. Tubular.. I can use this tank-like DT hoop as a training wheel and race on the good stuff. Before you begin to throw rotten tomoatoes for suggesting ZIPP with PT, consider that the very best data comes from racing. Being that this stuff interests me and engages me immensely, it makes sense for me where it might seem silly to others.
The last time I was in San Diego for the 2007 ToC stage in Long Beach. Mark Mc and I coincidentally raced the masters crit which was held right before the pros raced on the nearly identical course. I did not finish due to a crash. No, due to the officials not realizing there had been a crash- they pulled my group of 10 guys in complete ignorance- we were chasing after coming to a complete stop to avoid the crash.. which was caused by someone hitting one of those infamous reflective pucks at 33 mph. For the 1/2 race that I did complete, we averaged 28+ mph, in February. I think Mark got 3rd or 4th. I wonder who I which New Englanders I might bump into this time out in Escondido??

Bad Ass Mofo

Finally, my three year old idea to use a label maker on a race bike is catching on.. at least at Rock Racing:

Wanna Race?

From left: Murat, Bill D, Matt K, Joe B and Ralf G.This was not a repeat of last weekend where I trained more miles than the Tour Of Cali peloton raced in the past two days.. Instead I did my favorite hilly 40 mile loop- and twice! Saturday I went out in the afternoon with the intention of trashing myself from start to finish. I'm after a key piece of data and the only way to get it is to just drill it for over an hour. My previous attempt on this route was January 10th and my time was 2:19:39. This time, I took off 11 minutes (2:08:38) and added over 20w to both avg and norm power. This is especially encouraging when you consider that I'm about 3kg lighter than Jan 10th.. Our team's annual spring ride/meeting was Sunday and we repeated the same route, but at a pace where we could talk to eachother.. and besides the legs kept reminding me of Saturday's effort.

Rest Day

I was dog meat at last night's spin class. A hard weekend, followed by two days off the bike in favor of upper body and core work- legs are not feeling the love.

Monday-Tuesday.. Wednesday

Nautilus-Pilates.. SPIN Class tonight.

No Rest for the Weary

As much as I wanted to sleep-in late on Sunday morning, I knew that this would have been incompatible with my goals. A shorter and less intense ride was needed to keep the legs feeling loose and so I ventured north on 116 to meet some of the other RI locals at the infamous Gazebo between routes 6 and 6A. Timing my departure perfectly, I got there with a few minutes to spare in just under 40 minutes. Lucky for me, the ten of us meandered back towards the roads I know and love, and where route 14 crossed 117, I said my farewells and headed back east towards home. It was a wet and warm ride punctuated with some stiff winds and even some rain towards the end. All the snow runoff made for a messy ride though. The bike is in very sad shape.. Here's the data which you have come to expect: I adjusted the Polar pickup on the fork so it holds the signal better. I also repaired the Powertap- the two were off by only about 1/4 mile of distance. Thanks for reading.

First Century of 2009 in 5:12:30

Funny thing about today's ride. The Powertap quit working at the 4:20 mark (he-he) The question is, how long ago did the wire snap? Since I look down at it pretty often it was a minute at the most.. You might recall my very ugly but effective repair job I did two months ago. Well it's the first place I looked when I noticed the speed and watts readouts went blank. The purple wire was separated again. Your quick thinking hero had a back up plan, of course. His Polar heart rate monitor was busy recording speed, distance, heart rate, elevation and so forth, so he immediately hit the lap button to at least get good data for the rest of the ride. The Powertap was kaput, but it was reading 4:20 and 84 miles ridden- that's 19.4 miles per hour. Being so ticklishly close to the century mark, I decided then and there that I must do at least another 16 miles or else regret it until I die. Expecting to do the same average speed for the rest of the ride home, I did all kinds of math in my head in terms of how much longer I would need to ride. (One sucky thing about the Polar 720i- it refuses to give you the mileage of a ride, while you're recording data) With the Polar now recording a new lap for me, it seemed like a sure bet that one more hour would cinch the century, no problem. In fact, I got to my neighborhood a little bit early and just kept riding- went up Seven Mile Hill Road and back down it, adding 1:07 to the 4:20 I clocked on the PT. Surely this meant that my total would be around 105 miles or so. Unfortunately, I doubt if I'll ever know the true mileage- it turns out that the Polar was losing signal all throughout the ride and it only recorded 80 miles at the 4:20 point, where the Powertap recorded 84 (these two are usually dead nuts even) Oh well. I just wanted to know one thing- the exact duration of my 100 miles. Well it's anybody's guess, but I'm going with a conservative 19.2 mph average (the first 4:20 was 19.4) and going with 5 hours and 12.5 minutes to complete the first 100 miles. (16 miles in 52:30 makes sense) Sounds like a safe bet. Of this, I rode solo for one hour to meet the group, I rode 2:30 with the group, and then I rode 2 hours solo to get home. Please use the comments section to congratulate me and heap praise upon me for my accomplishment.
Overall ride time: 5 hours 28 minutes
Overall distance: 105 miles
Average speed: 19.2 mph

Above, the Powertap data is more reliable than the Polar, at least until wires break. The purple speed graph below shows a lot of 'zero' speed, when in reality we stopped only twice to pee, once for food and I stopped once to check out the PT.

Never forget your hard hat!

One of my jobsites has a good way of deterring visitors from forgetting to bring their own hard hats.. Below, we spy the 80 ton crane that I have to rent in order to hoist Premium grade woodwork in through the window of a Penthouse on Beacon Street. Why does the name of a local racing team come to mind? Interestingly, I have a team of carpenters working on all levels of this 11 story building, for the past year, and one of them is a former racer who was probably better known as "Big Dig". He has an open invitation to join my team, as his employer and mine are both owned by the same person, but I understand completely when the "life requirements" of a 20-something make it necessary to hang the bike up for a while. Been there, Derek. Your place is reserved, whenever you're ready.

Successful Resting

Let me reiterate, it's a "rest week", not a "rest weekend"..
This week: A grand total of 3 hours logged in four sessons on the trainer, none exceeding 130 watts average. I've been good. I'll do another hour tonight with a few 60 second spin-ups to 140 rpm in a small gear. The legs always feel "funny" after a rest week, and gently reminding them that they will be required to do very hard work after said rest, is probably a good idea.
It will be a good weekend to pound out a couple of solid 4 hours rides, and I will refrain from doing them with a hangover this time!

Frederiek Nolf found dead in hotel room at Tour of Qatar

Exerpt from VN article:
"The Topsport Vlaanderen team quit the tour Thursday morning and race organizers were making arrangements to return riders and staff to Belgium. Other riders on the team have also withdrawn from the Etoile de Bessèges in southern France, said team director Walter Planckaert.
According to Merckx Thursday's fifth stage — from the Camel Race Track to the Doha Foundation — will be shortened to 40 kilometers and neutralized in remembrance of the young Belgian.
"Out of respect for Frederiek Nolf, the riders will form a cortege throughout the stage," said Merckx."

Catching up with last week

I didn't post much last week because of a nasty sinus infection which developed on Sunday, the day after my epic 87 mile ride (talking about 10 days ago here) In spite of my head feeling like a drum, I went to YMCA and did my weightlifting Sunday night. Monday I was kaput- could barely get out of bed- I called in sick.. this didn't stop me from going to my spin class at 6:00 though. I felt horrible in the beginning, but at the end I was better. Tuesday I dragged myself to work and put in a double shift until 11:00 pm, leaving the office only for lunch and to do the Pilates class at 6:30. Feeling a little better at this point. Wednesday was awful in terms of what I went through at work. People generally need to exploit weakness (if/when they can find one) in order to get the best of me.. and a handful of different people decided to throw me under the bus on Monday while I was out sick and still answering calls and e-mails with my Blackberry. This made for a highly stressful and depressing week overall, but all the more reason to stick to the training program- I did indeed go to the SPIN class at the Y on Wed after work. Thursday I rested- no bike, no workouts or Pilates or anything. Just rest. In fact, I went to bed at 8:00 and slept until 7:00 am. I really needed that. Friday was business as usual, though thoughts of a different career path were very strong and at the end of the day, I was almost surprised that I wasn't packing my things into a cardboard box. Friday night I did a highly challenging 75 minute ride which averaged 225 watts- I drilled a large number of 1-3 minute intervals with 1-2 minutes of rest in between. Much of the week's frustrations were driven into the pedals I think. Saturday an easier indoor ride with three FT intervals of 5:00 a piece- not leg breaking, but it felt hard after the previous workout. Saturday night your hero went out drinking and shooting pool with good friend and former co-worker Kaan Duru. We went to Snookers where I easily won all but two games in a three hour period. I used to play for money. My cue stick was purchased when I was 16, about 22 years ago. I'm a little better than average right now because I hardly ever play, but with a little practice, I'd have no fear of entering a local 9 ball tournament.. So Saturday night I pretty much had a good time and drowned my sorrows with six Sam Adams Light beers and a Mojito for good measure. In bed at 1:30 with a spinning head, meant that I was in rare form Sunday morning for the LBL ride, which you've already read all about. Sunday night I did not go and lift weights- too tired and cramped up. I did my Nautilus last night though, and wow, I looked in the mirror after all that lifting and couldn't help noticing the torso taking on a very distinctive V shape. That fires me up. This morning I did a 20 minute recovery spin and tonight there's Pilates, so.. yeah the beat goes on. This is a rest week so I will be reigning myself in on the SPIN class and the intervals. I'll save myself for a nice long hard ride on Saturday when it's predicted to be over 40 degrees out. Thanks for reading.

Sunday's LBL ArcenCiel Ride

The ArcenCiel team has an annual ride that's called the "LBL" and I was fortunate to be a part of it this Sunday. Your hero had a terrible day of cramping and low energy, but the good people in today's ride got me to the end of the 66 miles with lots of generous pacing, pushing and encouragement. I think the total TSS of Friday and Saturday was more than I realized, and that the six or so beers I uncharacteristically consumed late into Friday night did me no favors. (It was a very rare guy's night out- and such nights are not to be wasted on sobriety) Anyway, it was a hilly and scenic ride where I had no idea where we were most of the time, and I never knew when the next hill would appear, or how far it was to the top. This is never an advantage. The first hill where I cramped hard was in CT- actually on the Stonington RR course, heading up to the winery in reverse. I was doing A-ok up until about 2/3 the way up, then I fell apart very hard and very suddenly when the cramps attacked. Then we hit a steep pitch not long afterward where I was cramped so badly I thought the legs were going to just lock up and send me to the ground. The profile chart below shows two similar hills in succession- these are the ones which hurt me, and ironically on the really big hump afterwards I was able to hold it together without too much difficulty. Humor me as I make my excuses- it's the fourth week of a strong and gradual build-up of TSS- to wit, I've gone from 50 to 70 in the span of 31 days. (Same period last year I went from 43 to 53) Check it:
The next chart tells the story in detail. I also pasted in the values of todays CP60- which gives a very encouraging 255 watts of normalized power. On this date last year, my best Norm CP60 was 243 watts, and I was 7-8 pounds heavier too. Need to look for the positive in today's poor performance, and there it is. Even on an off day, at the end of a challenging 4 weeks, the data proves that I'm way ahead of the curve relative to 2008.Thanks for reading. Here's the profile of today's ride: