Starting last Thursday, it starting raining at a pretty solid clip.  Combined with a flat course, I guessed it would be a grind-it-out type of day.  I woke up early, after a lousy night’s sleep, to head down to work registration for the race.  I was tired, had a mediocre breakfast, and just kind of felt ‘blah’.

The morning started off cold, sunny (!?), and windy.  Race reports came back that the course was long with a few nasty headwinds but otherwise ok.  Oh how they lied.

Owen at OBRA CX

First, Owen did the Junior race.  I can’t tell you how proud I am that he finished 2 laps of that.  Amazing.  Among the 10-12 year old boys, he ended up 9th out of 10.  But for someone who is a month shy of 9 years old riding a 27 pound bike…I don’t know.  Over the barriers, through the mud, through the sand pit and motocross course.  Through those conditions, it takes a lot to finish it out and stay happy doing it.  I need to get him a real CX bike this winter.

My race was the last race of the day.  The sunny skies gave way to dark clouds and then opened up and collectively shat rain all over the course.  It was my intention to start out hard and hang with that top third of the pack.  Some solid riders came down for the race so I knew it would be a pretty fast, all-out race.

Off the start, the pack sorted itself out pretty quickly.  It didn’t take long to get into the mud.  Bikes were bouncing all over the place as the mud had a strong say in what direction you headed in.  Some of the time, it was best to just hold on and try to coax it into the right direction.

Bob Jacobs and I at OBRA CX

By midway though the 1st lap, a group of 6 or 8 representing the middle third of the race was together.  Ok.  Winning this little grupetto would be good.  So I buckled down and got to work.

A few of us took turns at the lead of this group over the next couple laps.  I found myself up front in the rough, windy, and slick back stretch.  Then, heading out of the mud and on pavement to the sand pit, I was suddenly last.

…and then 2 seconds off.  I’d gain it back only to lose it again about 200m later.

Lap 4…5 seconds off.  Lap 5…10 seconds off.

When you’re in a pack, someone is always driving the pace.  And if you’re not, you can try and sit in, take a break from the wind and ‘rest’.  Once you’re on your own though…you have to work for everything yourself.  It wears you down fast, which is why is critical to stay in a group.

Off the back, riding solo

It can get so frustrating.  There they are.  Right there.  30 yards away and I.  Cant.  Get.  Them.

So I spend the last lap or 2 churning away by myself.  I didn’t technically get lapped by Barry Wicks but he was close enough to finishing that I was pulled 1 lap short.  It was a mercy pull but a pull nonetheless.  I’m guessing I could have argued it and asked to keep going but I doubt it would have made a difference in the standings.  Ugh.

So after a forgettable race, Barton park is this coming weekend.  It’s the Cross Crusade finals.  I love Barton park, as I typically do well there.  THis year?  Who knows.

Nearly broke Google looking for a solution and finally picked up some batteries for the hub unit.  I’d read somewhere that the cold temps really suck the life out of the batteries.  They should normally work on above 32F.  And Saris says about 300hr is average for battery life.  I’d just replaced everything in August but I have been riding a consistent 10-12 hours a week since.

Tried it out on the way home when it was warmer and it worked fine.  Got the batteries just in case so I’ll keep an eye on it.  With the weather gradually turning crappier and my broken trainer hopefully on it’s way back to me, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

My knee is 95% healed up by now.  Knee?  What knee?  An ugly crash at Bear Springs caused my knee to get ripped open by the top of the front fork hydraulic cylinder.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-12 internal stitches.  Plus another 11 to close it up.  Like I said, ugly.

BTW, is it a crash if you never fall off the bike?  Something strange happened.  I think the bottom of my right crank arm hit a stump or rock at the perfectly angle to stop me dead cold.  Ok, not me but my bike.  I kept going into the front of the bike, sacrificing my right knee against the fork instead of my bits and pieces against the stem.  I managed to hold on long enough to stop the bike by my own power.  So is it a Crash?  Incident?  Implosion?  I still don’t know how to describe it.  Whatever it was, it sucked.

Anyway, enough has been written about the snow at Bear Springs that I don’t need to pigpile on the topic any more.  I finished right at the top of the bell curve (11th out of 23/24)…as usual.  The new Giant Anthem X2 is as dreamy as I could want.  I’d only make 2 modifications:

1 – I wrapped 1 course of cork handlebar tape around the grips to make them bigger.  My hands cramped up during Hornings because the grips were too small.  The extra layer of tape is a little cushier and much bigger.  Bueno.

2 – I have a longer set of 180mm XT cranks on order.  Yes, the 5 mm makes a difference.

There were other substantial effects from the crash.  I’m just going to say that Rachel wasn’t all that amused.  I’m also only add that I need to rethink my MTB riding style.  I can’t keep getting banged up like this.  Sore?  Yes.  Exhausted?  Certainly.  But physically injured?  Um, not so much.

Moving on.  The crash caused me to move a rest week up a week.  Other than that, things are moving along right on schedule for short-track PIR.  I feel really good so far.

Looks like Tabor is in limbo, which I’m kind of ok with.  I like Tabor but don’t love it.  I feel like you need to train in a very specific way to be consistent at Tabor.

No road races yet.  I think about Monday PIR but haven’t gotten my shit together.  Perhaps next week.  The rest of my (older) teammates have been doing the 40+ races with decent numbers and organization.  At 39, I’ve got a year to go.  Honestly, I’m looking forward to it.

Not sure about the rest of the MTB season yet either.  I’d like to get out to Bend fo Picketts Charge, but I haven’t brought that up with Rach yet.  Same with Test of Endurance.

That’s all for bike-related things right now.  Hopefully I’ll have  PIR report early next week.

First the Good:

Without question, I cannot believe that this hasn’t been pointed out to me before.

Bacon!

2 pounds of sausage wrapped by 2 pounds of interlaced bacon.  Be still my beating heart!!!

I’ve done some relatively over-the-top stuff with pork products over the years:  I grind and stuff my own sausage from time to time, have a bacon fat and lard “bank” in the fridge, and most recently deep-fried Scotch Eggs.  But this…this…I’m speechless.

Then the Bad:

8 babies?  8?  Really?

And lastly…the Ugly:

I’m a public employee.  There are certainly pros and cons to working private versus public.  I’ve tried both and seem to be happier and do better work on the public side.  So many (ok, all) of the perks and bonuses that come along with private work are, frankly, foreign to me.

However, given these times, the public sector is looking pretty good.  I’m certainly not having the issues that private employees do.

Taking this a step further, while no job sector has gone untouched (even certain parts of public, like development-related services), the financial section has particularly taken it raw.  A support group has popped up in NYC, not for the workers…but for their girlfriends who no longer are living the lifestyle they used to.  This article is a pretty decent and slightly funny (in a sad way) read.

In the meantime, I’ve been riding some, brewing some, and trying to chase down some of those mildly irritating household fix-its that have been coming up.  First, an electrical line got a short circuit somewhere during the big that we had in late Dec. after the snowstorm.  It’s an outdoor/basement line.  I’ve chased it down to either the outside walkway lights or the outside outlet.  Haven’t taken it any further than that.  Next, a hose in the hot tub spring a leak.  That took a little time to get a new hose and replace it.  There’s others but I must be mentally blocking them right now.

Got a couple brews in the works right now.  One was a double alt I made around x-mas.  Looks like the yeast pooped out and it failed to finish fermenting.  I’ve gon through various phases with it; begging, pleading, bribing, cursing – but it still won’t finish.  Threw in some champaigne yeast but that hardly budged it.  Right now, it’s in the basement in a 10 gal. keg just sitting there.  I should try to pick up a bunch of yeast from Hopworks to finish it out.  If that doesn’t work, then there’s not much more I can do.  Drink it I guess, but I’m not a fan of sweeter beers.  The second beer I just made Sunday, an ESB, turned out good.  It’s in the basement too, bubbling away.

Have I mentioned that a week in Hawaii is just 12 days away.  I can almost taste the rum punch already.  A second trip this year, possibly to Disneyworld (whatever the FL one is), is being worked out with my side of the family for late August.  Still hammering out the details with the rest of my family.

OK, 2 quick movie reviews.

Face/Off.  With John Travolta and Nick Cage’s corpse

One of John Woo’s better movies, although in my opinion, the last 45 minutes or so got pretty tedious.  I mean, with the gunfights lasting 20+ minutes each and knowing full well that Cage and Travolta wouldn’t actually shoot or otherwise harm each other, the movie tended to drag.

I’m thinking of adding another category to the ratings: Ending, or something where I can quantify ‘how badly (or not) do I want this movie to end’.  Personally, once I reach the 90+ minute mark on the trainer, I need every little bit of help I can get to stay distracted from how uncomfortable my ass is.  A tedious movie is not it.  So not only am I thinking ‘I want to get off this bike’ I’m also thinking ‘I want this craptacular movie to end’.

I need to give this more thought.

On to movie #2

Incredible Hulk.  With Edward Norton, Liv Tyler and Tim Roth

Not very well liked in the box office, this turned out a little better than I thought.  I do, however, have a weakness for comic book movies, especially with today’s movie technology.  There were a few moments of quiet dialog but you’re really watching this movie for the scenes with the Hulk – I think there were 3 or 4 total.  To that effect, the last 20-30 minutes flew by – almost to the point where I got finished and thought ‘wow, that was quick’.  I like that.

I’m hearing and reading of others who are hitting the trainers right around now.  For me at least, I’m in the pre-base or early base or whatever you want to call it where you just ride for a while with a couple intervals of moderate effort.  Nothing big.  Enough to break a sweat but not enough to feel it hours or days later.

Most of the shorter efforts I’ll just pop in a spinervals and go with it.  For the longer ones, I need something different.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Coach Troy, but a hour’s my limit.  Anything over an hour needs a movie or something like that.

So what makes a good movie to ride to?  An action flick is good, sci-fi would be a close second.  With noisy trainers, something with limited amounts of down-time or soft dialog.  A relatively obvious plot would help.  Basically, I’d like to not think about the fact that I’m on a trainer but I don’t want to get too lost or else I’ll end up soft-pedaling.

So here is the inaugural trainer movie review….

Wanted.  With Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy (2008)

Didn’t this go straight to DVD?

Without question, I’m immediately hesitant of any Angelina Jolie flick.  At least quality-wise.  But this had gotten decent reviews on the Oregonian so I thought I’d give it a try.  I was surprised at how decent it was.  Pretty graphic in terms of bullets coming out of people’s heads at slow motion but let’s remember that with the the lesser half of Brangelina here, the movie is squarely aimed at the 16-28 crowd (older guys know better).

Not too much dialog and the plot was fairly easy to follow with what little talking there was.  Consistent action.  Think of it as a Rocky meets Empire Strikes Back where Rocky finds out that he’s Apollo Creed’s illegitimate son, unknowingly kills him with his new left hook, and then needs to hunt down Mickey (who neglected to tell him) at the early bird special at Denny’s.  Yeah, it’s like that.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the 1:45 went by pretty quickly and I never really found myself looking for the clock.  I was entertained, no doubt.  That was a big part of the appeal.

So that’s about it.  I’ve got a bunch of other movies on hold at the library and will review as I get them & ride.  So far, I’ve got a mix of old & new action/sci-fi, martial arts (always a favorite), and James Bond (I’m a little skeptical).

• 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.

• 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.