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!