Bier en modder

With the end of cross season, the onslaught of both the holidays and over a foot of snow, I’ve been a little busy and scattered.  Doing what?  Let’s see;

• last-minute shopping – because UPS and the USPS were running behind, and I’d be a certified turd if my wife didn’t have something to open, not to mention I’d be sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future,
• a little brewing – double Altbier,
• work – I didn’t really take any time off, saving it up for Hawaii (February) and something in the summer,
• scrambling around trying to keep 4 chickens from becoming poultry popsicles,
• most of the driving and car maintenance – Rachel is from Portland…I’m from the northeast.  That’s all we need to add about that,
• rooting out a tripping breaker at home,
• planning next year’s bike season,
• reading, playing Civ 4…

What was that?  Next year’s season?  Yes.  I’ve been thinking off and on about this past year and how things never really seemed to come together like I’d hoped.  Looking over the few cycling training books I have from the library, I’ve come to the sobering conclusion that I was likely overtrained during most of the cross season.  Well over 60% of the symptoms listed fit fairly well.  After reviewing my training files, it was September that did it for me.  I thought, at the time, that it was manageable but that month clearly stands out in terms of training load.

So I’m rethinking my process.  Ordinarily, I’d check out until late winter/early spring.  Basically nothing but weight training.  This year I am going to make a more concerted effort towards base building over the winter.  I don’t want to have a sense of urgency when September and October rolls around.  I’m certain I tried to stack a heavy load on a fairly weak base.

Anyway, I’ve got 20 or so races planned; 8 or so cross, 8 – 10 mtb/short track, and the rest filling in with PIR, Tabor, or whatever else seems good at the time.  I’d like to enjoy this year more as opposed to feeling slightly frustrated.

So I started this week, getting some easy rides in on the trainer.  Personally, I don’t mind the trainer that much.  It’s in the garage where I can set up the laptop to ride to a Spinerval or any of the tv series I have from the library.  Not very exciting but it seems like you can get a little more efficient workout inside than out.  Talk to me in a month or so and see how I feel.

Otherwise, New Year’s coming up.  We’ve got a family thing over our house with bowling that night.  Rach has an old friend from U of O coming up from teh Bay Area with her family.  Should be fun.  I’m going to roast a turkey for the next day.  I’ve got that double Alt that I’m just willing to finish fermenting so I can keg it up soon.  Very exciting.  And lastly, college b-ball season is just getting started.  My favorite.

That’s about it for now.

With a long lag here on posts, there’s a short bullet list of stuff that went on.  I’ll try to get to them in detail in time, but here’s a taste:

• Raccoon attack.  A raccoon squeezed it’s way through our coop fencing 3:30 Saturday morning and took out Cheddar, arguably my favorite of the 5.  It was going after Sunny when the racket woke us up.  We chased them off.  It came back Sunday morning at 6, this time with a friend.  All the chickens were up by then making noise and we ran out there fast.  Regrettably, I was unable to take out any of the raccoons.  For those of you who have run around your yard naked at 6 am chasing raccoons with a pitchfork, you know how frustrating it can be.  Really.
• Sausage Fest (aka any beer festival in Portland on a Friday or Saturday).  Seriously.  If you’re a woman who is in the market for a single male who likes beer, and you can throw around a few key terms like ‘balance’, ‘oakiness’, or even ‘diacetyl’, you should run, not walk, to the next beer festival.  You’ll have your pick of the litter.  Good God, there were like 5 women in the whole place compared to the 500 men.  I stopped by there Friday after work and finished up my taster tickets from the day before.  Note to self – never ever go on Friday.
• USGP.  The result may have not been all that great, but I finished more uplifted and optimistic about next year than I have the previous races.  With my cold having firmly settled in my chest and nose, this race could have easily been held on the top of South Sister as far as my respiratory system goes.  Lets put it this way, I was breathing heavy from the 20 yard ride between the staging area and the start chute during call-ups.  More details later.
• Latrine! redux.  Yes, another holiday season accident statistic.  This time with a saw and a very stubborn christmas tree trunk.  I hit a knot with the saw and it jumped over to my left thumb.  You know, there’s that split second after you cut yourself very badly where you can see how deep and how big the cut it.  It’s the ‘oh shit, that’s fucked up’ moment.  Then the blood rushes in.  I should have went and gotten stitches.
• Amtrak.  Who said rail is dead?  I tried getting tickets up to the UConn – Gonzaga game in a few weekends but all the trains were sold out.  Now I have to drive to Seattle which I’m not terribly excited about.
• Beer.  Still waiting on the Kolsch to finish fermenting.  It’s been about 10 days.  I need to test it tonight.

I’ll try to get back to a few of these later.  Work and home have been busy during the holidays.

I’m continually fascinated by people who answer the cellphone while they’re on the shitter.  It just blows me away.  Hey, can I put you down for a sec, I’ve got a double-wiper here.

If I were on the other end, I’d be a little irritated.  I mean, your mind is clearly not on the conversation I’m having with you.  There’s very, very few situations – basically life or death – where I’d interrupt my few minutes of solitude to talk with someone.  a) it’s just not that important and b) that’s what voice mail is for.

Still getting over the cold.  Just a stuffed and runny nose right now.  It shouldn’t in any way affect my aerobic capacity tomorrow, right?.  Who knows, I may immerse myself in a vat of Vicks Vapo-Rub.

What’s that?  No, I’m not holding my breath, I just needed to pinch one off here.  (I can have a lot of fun with this).

I caved in and went over to the Holiday Ale Fest yesterday for a couple tasters.  Made the mistake of having Hair of the Dog Jim early on.  With a cold, only the strong flavors were showing up.  Felt like I had a mouthful of oak chips and chewing tobacco in my mouth for the next hour.  I like the beer but it needs to be the last one you order for the day.  I immediately regretted getting it.

I’m sick.  Head cold with ridiculously raw sinuses.  Started Tuesday and got pretty bad that night and the next morning.  Slept like absolute crap.  Took a long sauna Wednesday during lunch which helped incredibly.

For simple colds, you can suck down green tea and echinacea until you pee green but over the past couple years, I’ve found nothing beats a sauna to speed up recovery.  From what I’ve read, the sauna is burning it out, not unlike what your body does when it gives itself a fever.  Plus it feels good to just flush your system out.  Whatever it is, it works.

I’m hoping to be at least back to 90% by Saturday.  I’m optimistic of that if I head in for another long sweat today.  My fitness is down a bit but I’ve spent the season learning Form = Fitness x Rest.  I was in better shape than last year but was always tired.  I’ve spent a little time on the bike since Hillsboro trying not to lose too much.  We’ll see how it goes.

Looks like the course will be on the drier side than last year.  No chance of rain until Sunday and that’s a ‘maybe’ as of today.  Should be cool too.  I’m ok with cool, even cold.  Cold is good for me.

One of the many bummers about the cold is that the Holiday Ale Fest is downtown this week and weekend.  Lots of good stuff there.  I had thoughts of going over after work each night for a quick taste or two before heading home.  I’ll think about that later in the day.

Not much bike stuff here.  No racing lately.  Just enough training to push myself but not overload.  I’ll go fairly hard today and tomorrow and then back off until Saturday.  I’m only going to race Saturday since Rachel has stuff planned on Sunday.  I may go out and watch.  We’ll see.

After the race, it’ll be time to break down the bike and put it away for the winter.  I’m strongly thinking about having Jacob Rathe clean it.  I’ve heard nothing but good things about the work he’s done.

Also sort of up in the air about a new bike next year.  Not ‘if’ but ‘which one’…road or mtb.  I’m about 90/10 towards the mtb based on a) my existing mtb is running like a beat up 1988 Dodge K car.  Not good.  b) I can probably squeeze one last good year out of the Lemond.  And c) Presto has a lot of off-road riders.  I’d like to race more with them.

Based on that, we had a meeting last week to look & hear about the new rides.  More than a few of us were looking hard at the Anthem X2.  All XT.  4″ of travel.  Solidly made.  I’m having a hard time thinking that I need any more ‘bike’ than that as it’s a steep jump to XTR or SRAM X.0 and better brakes & shocks.

Anyway, there’s tons of fun stuff going on.

First is the delightful Kolsch I made Sunday.  First brew in the new fermenter which is very exciting.  It’ll take a couple brews to work out how best to use it.  For now though, it’s a champ.

The beer itself should come out great.  I hit all the target temperatures, didn’t abuse it during transfers, stayed clean through the cooling, and pitched plenty of yeast.  I even dumped the cold break.

For now, it’s set in the garage with the temp. controller on 56-58°F.  My work is largely done so it’s all up to the yeast.  I’m trying a forced ferment in the basement on about 200 mL to quickly find the final gravity.  I’ll use that to determine when the main ferment is done.

For the most part, my brewing techniques haven’t changed much.  It’s been about 9 months since I brewed last and since then I’ve read a few of the newer books on the subject and also picked up the new fermenter.  I’m trying out a few new things here to see if they make the process any easier or more predictable.   But basically, the bottom line is if any of these changes will produce a better beer.  We’ll see in a few weeks, maybe by the holidays.

Next is a bunch of basketball.  Owen and I are going to a couple games coming up.  First is the Blazers next Friday.  He got a free ticket from the Summer Reading Program through the library so I just needed to pay for mine.  The seats aren’t great but it’ll still be fun.  If we’re too far up, we’ve got the Jumbotron to watch although Greg Oden’s head should be easy enough to see without it.  All I can think of is So I Married an Axe Murderer.  HEAD!  MOVE!

The one I’m really excited about is the one in Seattle: UConn / Gonzaga.  Both will likely stay ranked in the top 5 assuming UConn can run the dreaded Buffalo and Stony Brook gauntlet and the Zags can get through Indiana, WSU and Arizona.  Owen and I will take the train up and back.  Should be a really fun day.