Bier en modder

Thinking of Val Kilmer. Go back before Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Back before The Island of Dr. Moreau. Keep going past his mid-90’s peak of Heat, Batman Forever, True Romance and The Doors. And step over Top Gun and Real Genius. It brings you to Top Secret!

There was a character in it, Latrine, who was part of the French Resistance. Latrine always burst into the scene severely wounded from one thing or another, covered in bloody bandages. Someone yelled out “Latrine!”.

This is what my week felt like.

Cut the back yard Sunday. We’ve got an old apple tree in the back yard which used to be very nicely pruned before we bought the place. We don’t know enough about pruning so we’ve let it go a bit too long. Being tall I need to crouch down real low to get around it. It’s a rare landscaping day in the backyard when I don’t drop an f-bomb about that tree.

So this week I’m picking up the dropped fruit and stood up too fast. I took a sharp 2″ thick branch point that was pruned years ago right in the back, just below the scapula. Dropped me like a rock. I don’t recall seeing that branch before but there it was. The aftermath is that there’s pretty sharp pain when I pull back…like on handlebars for example.

Yesterday I’m at home in the kitchen after work putting stuff away and getting ready to prep dinner (oven-fried chicken). Got the recipe book out of the cabinet and I’m leaning over my backpack. Again, I stood up fast…right into the cabinet door. Within a few seconds I feel blood dripping through my hair and down my head. WTF. 5 minutes later I get the bleeding to stop but there’s a nasty 1 inch gash on the top of my head covering a big lump.

Still hurts like hell.

I swear I’m more of a menace to myself than anything else in this world.

What else…

In between maiming myself, I see that the ‘cross forum is slowly starting to warm up. There’s discussion of modifying the schedule. I haven’t chimed in yet but I’d rather see the races a little earlier in the day. With a 2:30 or 3 pm race, I figure to get done by 4 and home by 5-ish. Doesn’t give much time to help with dinner and the kids. Plus the A race is a couple hours removed from the kiddie cross, which both my kids really like. I’m not sure how the logistics of having them participate will work out yet.

Been getting adding VO2 interval work in to my workouts. Did 5×5′ this morning through the cemetery. It’s just about 6 minutes top to bottom so the length works out just fine. First few were ok. Last 2 started to get very, very uncomfortable.

As I was coasting down to start one of the last couple reps, a glorious revelation came over me. Cross is almost here. It’s tough to fathom with temperatures flirting with triple digits this week, but it’s coming. And putting it very bluntly, you can’t go fast unless you put this sort of time in.

I’ve transgressed through the 5 stages of interval training over the past month or so:

1. Denial - “I feel fine. All I need to do is straight lactate threshold work. I don’t need to go anaerobic during a race”
2. Anger - “This is bullshit. I f-ing hate intervals. They suck. They’re uncomfortable. F.U. I don’t need ‘cross.”
3. Bargaining - “How about I start easy. Maybe one interval this week. Add one more next week. I’ll be at peak form in no time at all…like January. Do you think anyone will notice if I sandbag in the B’s?”
4. Depression - “Is it rest week yet? I need a break. I’m so tired.”
5. Acceptance - “It’s time to get ready. Pain and suffering are what this race is all about. I am going to be ready for whatever this season throws at me”

Yep. It’s close. You can feel it.

Seems like we’re heading into the thick of summer here. The lawns are all drying out. The garlic is harvested. Tomatoes are just shifting from dark to pale green. And the Oregon Brewers Festival was last weekend.

Also, August is just around the corner. Shit…August? Really? Like every other year, I wonder where the hell my summer went. What *have* I been doing? Riding? Check. Camping? Check. BBQs? Check.

While I’m trying to enjoy the moment, I’ve tried to make time to look ahead. The garden is planned out for the fall and winter. Plantings have already started for the fall stuff like cauliflower, spinach, lettuce & carrots. The winter stuff is going in over the next couple weeks. The new hot tub has been deep-cleaned and is full and ready for the cooler late summer and fall evenings that, realistically, aren’t all that far away.

Cycling, well, more specifically ‘cross, got me thinking about the fall way further in advance than I have in year’s past. I’m very thankful for it. I remember very clearly the past couple fall’s where I’d be starting at some empty raised beds, wishing for something – anything – to pick and eat. Or shaking my head at the teeny little seedlings that weren’t planted soon enough going dormant in the alternating crisp/wet October weather. I’m ready for it this year which feels good.

The catalyst for all of that was that I’ve been thinking about and approaching the fall race season with far more respect, planning, and discipline than I ever have. The races will be longer. The field will be much faster. I figure if I repeat last year’s training effort, it’ll be good for somewhere in the middle of the A35+ group. Unfortunately I want more than that. I simply don’t have enough miles on my legs over my short 2 year career to just show up and do well. So while I’ve put in fairly solid tempo at first and gradually added lactate work over the past few months, I feel it’s been rewarding work.

A big part of it was splurging on the used power tap wheel this spring. You can pooh-pooh them all you want but when you start seeing numbers go up and see yourself respond to training with more strength and endurance…well, I’m just saying it’s a huge carrot to stick in front of yourself as you ride. I like to consider myself somewhat of a nerd (engineer) and a motivated athlete so interpreting the data has been pretty easy. Needless to say, I’ve been drinking the Power Tap Kool-Aid.

With that, I’m ready to make a strong run at OUCH this weekend. I’m also feeling more charged up for the next phase which starts after this week’s rest week. No matter how you sugar-coat it, setting out on a ride to do anaerobic or VO2 max work – whether it’s 85°F & sunny out –50°F and raining – or pitch black and you’re indoors on a trainer - is suckalicious. It’s ugly but oh so very necessary. I’ve been talking about it for a couple weeks now but. Just. Haven’t. Done it.

Summer, at least for me, is starting to hit full-stride.  Spent the past couple weeks doing an all-out sprint to finish some projects that have been ginormous albatrosses around my neck; chicken coop, new (used) hot tub install, cleaning the landfill I call a garage, and rental house stuff.  We have a bunch of weekend fun stuff planned starting last weekend that I wanted to go into with a clear head.

Started running last week.  20 minutes to start and then hit the gym for some maintenance lifting.  That took a few days to wear off.  It felt strange.  I’ve played ultimate for years and then ran marathons, the last being in ‘02.  I used to run, well, sprint actually, for a full weekend.  Haven’t run for any length of time on purpose since.  It was mildly uncomfortable then and it’s slightly more so now.  Ah, the joys of being in your 20’s.

One other exciting tidbit is that I joined up with Presto Velo last week.  I’m excited as I’d something I’ve been looking to do for about a year or so, although I admit it was a pretty passive search.  Last fall I went on a group ride with Ironclad but that went nowhere.  This spring I’d throw out a few e-mails, talk to a few people, and then let it go.

Part of me felt that, given my current lifestyle (dad…full time job…other things, hobbies, etc going on) that I’d have a hard time making team rides and perhaps racing enough to justify it.  I wonder if that was subconsciously holding me back.  I’m obviously not the only person in this situation but trying to fit racing into my life is still a work in progress.  I guess it always will be.  I find I need to be extremely creative in how and where I squeeze training in to stay competitive.

I guess the breaking point was that as much as I like riding alone, I missed the team aspect of sports.  In the back of my mind I wasn’t looking forward to going through another ‘cross season solo.  I like teammates that you can help, work with, learn from, motivate, and support in races, and vice versa.  I’m really looking forward to that.

I’ve only started racing competitively over the past couple years and I’ve ridden by myself in that time.  I’ve been feeling that it was time to expand my community a bit.  But having joined this sport in my mid 30’s, I’ve found cycling to be, well, not entirely accessible to new riders.  This isn’t anyone’s fault and I don’t think anyone has to do anything about it.  Part of it is my personality (slightly introverted) but also that it just is what it is.  Granted, Cat 4/5 riders in their mid 30’s who also race ‘cross aren’t exactly an endangered species either.  However, I’ve noticed that riders generally tend to stick with and around their team.  This isn’t surprising nor should it be.  For someone on the outside looking in, I resigned myself to it after a while.

Anyway, I’m real happy about it.  New team kits just got ordered from Castelli.  Should be in hopefully by September.  I’m also very excited to represent a team, particularly this fall in ‘cross, but also next year in mtb and road.

Lastly, training is proceeding on schedule as I’ve been getting solid work in lately, particularly in the 2 hour rides I take on the way into work.  It’s hard work but it feels good.  I need to give a little love to the bike this week: derailleur tuning, general lubing & tuning, stuff like that.  Everything seems on track for my next race (OUCH) in early August.

Plugging through the week.  It finally looks and feels like summer.  90’s this weekend and I’m sure people will all be bitching about that.

Rach is heading out of town a long weekend to Breitenbush for a weekend of naked hot tubbing, hiking, yoga, and whatever else it is you do down there.  I’m home with the kids so I’ll be busting out the trainer for some super-early morning rides to keep a little fresh.  I can’t flippin’ believe I’m getting on the trainer in June.  I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Rides are progressing along just nicely.  I’m slowly moving away from strict base work and adding some threshold work.  I’m planning on having a solid 50-60 minutes of LT work twice a week by the time late September rolls around.  I just really started getting these intervals in and I’d forgotten how mildly uncomfortable they can be.

I added strength & core work in starting this week.  I worked fairly hard over the winter to make some strength gains and I mildly regret not carrying it through the spring.  I did the first one yesterday and this morning my legs were noticeably heavy.  This will go away after a couple more.

Running starts in mid-July.  I don’t even really want to think about it right now.

I added a timer to the side for Alpenrose.  21 weeks to go.  Everything feels right on schedule.  My motivation is pretty high.  Confidence?  Well, it goes up and down.  There are times when I feel I’m on the right path to have a successful season.  Then there are other times when I feel I’m going to get my lunch money taken in the A 35+ races.

It’s about your mojo.  I think either you have it or you don’t.  There’s not that much in between.  I’m getting it.  It isn’t there yet but I feel it’s out there.

It’s now May and perhaps, just perhaps, La Nina will let go and give us something resembling spring.

So what’s new…

I’ll most likely be taking May off from racing.  First, my right hand is a long ways from being 100%.  I’m getting it worked on now but I know from the riding I have done that a lot of pressure, like from a sprint, is not possible yet.  Second, we’ve got some work around the house to do that will keep me busy for most, if not all, the weekends in May.  I’d love to be able to sneak out for something like Bear Springs but odds are that I’ll have to pass.

Off-road racing isn’t all that much of an option anyway as my eggbeaters are on their way back to Crank Bros. in CA.  I’ve had them a year and a half so they snuck in under the 2 year warranty.  I’m a little concerned because I don’t thrash them that much and certainly don’t use them on a day to day basis.  I may look into different options for cross.  I hear Time pedals/clips work ok.  We’ll see.

Even though I’m not racing, a smart person would be banking miles for TOE 50.  A smarter person would also be getting their ass to Alpenrose during the week for Track Development.  More on that later.

It’s rags to riches with beer lately.  A slew of brewing in April, a few 2-a-days, have me with a pretty exciting inventory of beer for the summer; ipa, imperial ipa, imperial red, stout, porter, pilsner, and a low-gravity bitter.  More beer, combined with the new nitro creamer tap I picked up last month, will make for a hopalicious summer.

The bitter just finished fermenting under the Pacman yeast from Rogue.  Ideally I’d be repitching this yeast once or twice more because yeast is pretty expensive.  I need to think if I have time to brew.  Not every beer is suitable for the nitro tap so I need to pick a decent style or two.  An ESB and a nut brown ale are sounding good right now.

After the Mudslinger crash, my dad noted “You’re not having that great a start to your season, are you?”.  No.  No I am not.  After May, I do hope that I enter short track season fairly healthy, relatively rested, and motivated for cross training in the heat of the summer.  I have the feeling I’ll be needing to put a little extra time to stay competitive up in Master A’s.  I haven’t set a goal for cross yet except ‘go faster’.  Duh.

With the exception of commuting on a fixie, I still haven’t touched my bikes since Hillsboro.  I’m actually quite happy for that.  I needed a break and I still just don’t feel like getting on a bike yet.  All 3 bikes are quietly hibernating in the basement, protected from the harsh UV rays we get during the winter here.

I’m trying to stay reasonably fit by going to 24Hr 3 times a week during lunch.  I spent about 3 months last winter weight training and really felt the benefits during cross.  I felt I had much more power and control through tough sections.  Yes, I gained about 5 to 7 pounds during that time and I’ve already added a couple more so far this winter, but on my 6′5″ frame it’s hard to tell.  I’m only 205.  If I want to get faster I can either drop weight or gain strength.  I chose the latter.  I already feel skinny enough.  Maybe I should set a goal for heaviest ‘A’ racer.

24Hr (downtown) is a nice enough place.  Clean.  Plenty of equipment.  The people, other members and staff, are nice enough.  We’re going through the crowded January ‘New Years Resolution’ phase that generally lasts a little into February.  I get a deal through work which makes it easy to join and quit month by month if need be.  The big bonus for me is the sauna.  I love saunas.  I like hot tubs but I really love saunas.

I’ll be motivated to ride soon enough.  I still haven’t made a firm plan for the year.  That’ll come soon enough.  I’m not sure how much I’ll do during the first half of the year but I plan to be fully ready for Master A’s by October.  Until then I’m thinking of more brewing, maybe some disc golf here and there, a few more ski days, and whatever else seems like fun.

I didn’t race this weekend. Yeah, I know it sounds a little lame (ok, really lame) but I had way too many things that had been put on hold start cascading down by the end of November; homework, house projects, family time, etc. I didn’t even make it out to watch either. Wah, wah, wah - cry me a river.
I used to be able to put life on hold when I played highly competitive ultimate. Take Friday off, fly to a tournament, play, party, call in sick Monday to rest up, train for a couple hours each weeknight with double practices over the weekend. Ah, the life of an active, unmarried 20-something. I just can’t do that any more. More importantly, I don’t want to do that anymore either. Owen and I had fun this weekend doing errands and projects and other fun stuff. I’ll take that any day. In some ways it makes me somewhat happy that there’s a Masters division to race in.
The party was last night. Rach got a babysitter and she and I went. I remembered that it was somewhere near the Hawthorne bridge and was called Audio-something. Driving there, I just thought I’d turn west off MLK and look for people. Once I got close I thought, ‘what’s that sound’ and rolled down the window. From there, it was pretty easy to follow the drums. The drum corps was LOUD. I think I started hearing them about 3 blocks away…over the rain and through closed windows.
Having only been racing for a couple years and not being on a team, I don’t know too many people. We didn’t mingle that much. I was ok with that as Rach and I got a chance to talk. It felt like a slightly more civilized ultimate party - people smelled better, there was less beer and hardly anyone was stoned. Sometimes that’s a good thing.
Didn’t win anything in the raffle although I was heavily lusting after the wheelsets.
The awards were fun. I won the Master B’s and picked up a bag full of schwag; new Bell helmet, couple tires, Cross Crusade shirt, arm warmers, and a couple other little goodies thrown in. Oh yeah, and the Chris King headset. Sweet.
Technically I tied with Johnny Vergis but I’m guessing that I won the tiebreaker based on the Hillsboro results. Bummer about his leg. I got a chance to chat with him for a couple minutes later about the injury and his lost skiing season. I hope it heals up to full strength.
The minute I got home, Owen came out of his room and asked what I won. I opened the bag and we went through it all. As I went through the stuff one by one, he asked ‘can I have it?’ on everything. I may give him the jersey and a couple other little things. He also asked if he could take the medal into school for show and tell. How on earth do you say no to something like that? So I left it out on the table for him this morning to take.
I’ll be up in the Master A’s next year. Yes, I’m already thinking about it. I wish I’d made the time to do one Master A race this year to get some sort of gauge for training next year. It will be significantly faster but to what extent, I’m unsure. In just about every race this year, I finished and felt that I raced at about 95-98%. I didn’t have all that much more left to give. I’m having a little hard time grasping how much faster I can get to stay competitive next year, especially in the magnitude of 30-45s/lap faster.
I need to relax. It’s flippin’ December 3rd and I felt this way last year. I’ve got a short list of things to work on which I’ll think about and address later.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Huge thanks to Tyrone Long who stuck around in the far end of the course and took the photos.

Final (tenative) results showing the top 19 riders. Please note that the best 5 results were scored. In 2 instances it affected the placement - I moved up 2 spots to a tie for first with Johnny V, and Ben Johnson moved up 1 over Chris Tauscher into the 7 spot.

Just got the OBRA preview schedule for ‘08 in the mail a few days ago.  Some stuff looks intriguing but without more specific details, it’s hard to start setting a schedule yet.

I raced a decent amount this past year, more than some but probably less than most: a few road races, couple PIR’s, the Tabor series, one MTB race, one short track, and 5 Cross races.  It kept me in shape and motivated during the year while not feeling burned out by July like last year.  I did Elkhorn in June of ‘06 and never really recovered until after cross was over.  For a new rider, it was too much, too soon.  I wasn’t all that interested in repeating that again.

For ‘08, I’d like to do about the same with a few changes.  I’m an opportunistic-type of racer, meaning if I see an opening or free weekend, I’ll take whatever I can get.  Here’s my tentative schedule & goals for next year.

Overall

• Find a team
• Move up a road cat.  Am I a 4 or still a 5?  How am I not a 4 yet?  I need to follow up with Kenji or somebody else at OBRA on this.
• A top 10 finish in MasterA’s.

Road

I wouldn’t mind doing a couple of the Banana Belt’s this year with one caveat - not if I’m still a 5.  There’s way too many brand new riders out that early in the season.  There’s a reason they dub cat 5’s as ‘The Crashers’.

I need to think, and decide relatively soon, if I want to do the Mt Hood SR (5/13).  I’d like to but judging on how I did at Elkhorn, I will need to get more longer rides in.

Hell of the Cascades (7/6).  Any race title with ‘Hell’ and ‘Cascades’ has my interest.

Mt Tabor series.  5 minutes from home.  25 minute race.  How can I not do these races.

MTB

3 MTB races, moving up from Sport to Expert.   I don’t know which ones yet though.  There are very few relatively close to town so I’ll need to wait for more details.

A couple short tracks.  It’s a bummer that it overlaps the Tabor series and also that it takes roughly 4 hours to get there from SoPo during rush hour.

Track

I keep telling myself each year that I’ll go and give it a try.  But each year rolls on by and other stuff takes priority.  Maybe I’ll surprise myself this year.  Probably not though.

Cross

Move up to Master A.  5 to 6 races, typically skipping the Halloween one and one other.  I may, repeat may, go back east for a USGP or other big race if there’s one held in New England.

The Kruger’s Kermesse series looks interesting too as a good tune up.  I didn’t head out this year as my bike wasn’t in yet but maybe next year if the timing works out.

That’s all I can think of so far.  I’m sure this will change as more details come out and the exact schedule is finalized.