Bier en modder

Time for what is turning into monthly updates.  I hope to return to a more regular posting frequency soon.  Tax season is almost over and I’m just getting settled into a reasonable training routine.  And honestly, there only so many posts you can put up over the winter/early season about cycling that don’t say

2.5 hours on trainer in L2/Endurance

or

3 x 30′ x 5′ in L3/Tempo.

Not unlike those workouts, it gets a little stale after a while.  It’s not that I didn’t need it though.  I ended last year in what felt like a spectacular flame-out.  After reviewing my training workouts for last year, I quickly realized that around August and September I tried heaping a ton of threshold and VO2 work on…nothing.  I did token base work but nothing that a 38 year old (relatively) novice cyclist should try to load 12+ weeks of high intensity intervals and racing on.

Looking back, I believe I technically peaked at the Larch Mt Hillclimb in early August with an average power of 375w for 1:10.  Everything went to shit after that and I never got that close to that number for extended periods of time the rest of the year.

This year I’ve started earlier and much, much slower and more gradual.  If I want to make it to early December in one piece, this is how it has to be.  I still feel new at this.

3+ months into this year, I still don’t feel fast but very, very fit.  It was after another solid 3 week block of tempo work that I went out for the first test: Hornings.

Hornings is notoriously a mud bog.  Spring rains + clay = mud. That’s just the way it goes around here.  But the weather turned silly-good at the tail end of the week.  Maybe there’s hope.

For the Cat 1’s, it was 4 – 5 mile laps.  I tried this race last year with disastrous results.  This year, however, felt different.  I was ready with a new full suspension ride and ridiculously aggressive tires  – Mullet style…business up front (20 year old Panaracer Dart), party out back (new Conti 26×1.5″ CrossCountry).  Good times.

At the start, I wanted to keep in mind that I’d done zero high intensity training thus far this year.  Nada.  Getting into a pissing match on the first lap trying to hold position or pass people wouldn’t be good.  I want to ride the full race.

So off we go…and straight up the entrance road for the longest stretch of both smooth trail and climbing for the day.  My first lap mantra?  Be cool.

Up we went for about 5 min. to the top where we started a quick downhill through the woods and…disc golf course?  It had a bit of a cross course feel to it; lots of quick, sharp turns and short up and downs.  Active riding.  We came out of the woods to a climb through the parking lot, the figure 8 crossover and up some more the the back stretch to where the bad mud was last year.  It was surprisingly dry(er).  Ridable by some, but not all.

Blast through the river crossing, by (but not through) the start area to a new section of loose singletrack up the side of a hill.  I tried riding it once and gave up.  It was faster and took less energy to run it.  Plus it felt good to get off the bike.  Continue snaking through the trees on singletrack for another 5 minutes, back to the start and up the hill again.

So that’s your 5 mile loop.  You were either going up hard or down fast.  There wasn’t any in between.  Kind of relentless actually, but in a good way.  It took my body one lap to get revved up and used to going anaerobic up the little hills.  After that I settled in and felt like I got faster each lap.  I missed getting lapped by Carl Decker with maybe 20 yards to spare.  This earned me another 35 minute lap.  Yay.

Decker screamed through the 4 laps in about 1:45 or so – 25 minute laps.  I finished around 2:20 – 35 minute laps – and 6th out of 11 Cat 1/35-45’s.  I had David Diviney in view for some of that last stretch of singletrack but I just didn’t have another match to burn to try and catch up.  Still – not getting lapped by Carl Decker on a fast course and getting within striking range of someone as fast as Diviney is pretty good.

So I’ve got an off week this week then it’s time to start bringing threshold work in.  For races, Bear Springs is at the end of the month.  I’ll skip Spring Thaw and probably Musdlinger.  Pickets is a possibility.  TOE 50 is almost a lock.  I’m not sure about anything after that with the exception of Tabor and PIR STXC.  I’m still a little road race-phobic primarily because of the lousy condition my road bike is in.  New Giant next year.

In the meantime, I will continue to slog through my taxes…right up to the deadline.  I hate taxes.  I don’t mind paying them – I mean, shit has to get paid for – I just hate doing them.

It’s my 11 year anniversary since moving out here.  Loaded up the Civic, pointed the car west and just drove until I got here.  Considering I’d never been out here and that (looking back now) I relied heavily on my parents, it was a big move.  A lot of things popped up after I moved that could have easily derailed me and sent me back east.  I’m obviously glad I stayed so I try to recignize it each year.

Feels like a month of Sundays since I was here last.  Vacation.  Joining Crackbook.  Birthdays.  Family Illnesses.  Tax season.  A little stress from Rachel’s work (mortgage industry…which currently is in shambles).  And the general chaos that goes with a 5 and 8 year old.

Spent a week in Hawaii in mid February.  We made a concerted effort not to ‘do’ anything.  Our daily schedule was as follows:

• get up whenever,
• drink coffee on the veranda,
• go the beach to read/ swim/ snorkel/ make sand castles,
• have lunch,
• make a pitcher of rum punch/mojitos,
• go to the pool until dinner,
• eat dinner
• read a bit until bedtime

That was basically about it.  Pretty rough.  The post-vacation bump didn’t last that long as we got back to the grind fairly quickly.

Rachel is an appraiser and is finding herself between a rock and a hard place in terms of doing work.  I think it was Greenspan who coined the term “Irrational Exuberance”.  I believe a new term is afflicting mortgage brokers and underwriters – “Irrational Retardedness”.  Seriously.  Everyone is losing it.

The homeowners are pissed becasue their house isn’t appreciating at the 20% it was 2 years ago.  In many areas, the value is down.  The lenders are stressed because the low interest rates has everyone going in for a refi.  The underwriters are freaking out because the loans their lenders approved are getting more and more difficult to sell.  And the appraisers are panicking because the underwriters keep coming back for more information, particularly nearby supporting house sales (which there aren’t any).

It’ll all settle out eventually but basically they good times from the early 00’s are so over.

Rach and I have 3 grandparents left; one for me, and two for her.  Once of hers, on her Dad’s side, fell and broke her hip a few years back and has been deteriorating since.  We learned after we got back from Hawaii that her kidneys are failing.  So a couple weeks ago we brought the kids by essentially for one last visit.  That wasn’t very pleasant.  Then my grandmother, on my mom’s side, is also aging.  She’s had some heart problems pop up over the past couple months which has my mom up there as a psuedo live-in nurse.  At 65, my mom’s no spring chicken.  I can tell it’s wearing her down pretty hard.

It’s tax time too.  With her self-employed business and our new rental house, I’m up to my ass in receipts, bills, statements, and records.

It’s all relatively under control but I realize now that I’m always doing ’something’ from the minute I get up to when I go to bed.  I think if all of this happened last fall during cross season, I’d have cracked.

Luckily, training hasn’t really ramped up hard yet.   I’m just about to start mid-base work next week.  Up until now, I’ve been keeping a fairly steady 6-8 hour a week pace of endurance/tempo work.  ‘Solid’ is a good way to describe how I feel now.  ‘Fast’ is not.  I’m in no shape to go fast right now but I’m in great shape to start training to go fast.  I’m more optimistic about the start of this season than last.

Hornings is coming up fairly soon.  Last year I raced that a day after I had a 24 hour stomach bug.  I don’t ever, ever, ever, ever want to do that again.  Plus it was a slopfest.  I could have possibly enjoyed it but I was incredibly tired and irritable.  Probably the stomach bug talking though.

Anyway, then there’s mudslinger, bear springs trap, and chainbreaker, which I’ll pass on.  A race on Mother’s Day?  Really?  Mmmm, I think I like being married better than racing.

Hopefully with cycling ramping up and perhaps other things settling down, I can return to more normal postings.  We’ll see.

It’s not often I do this, but today’s NY Times had some fantastic stuff in it.  Kind of the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly-type of stuff.

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.

Nothing earth-shattering here.  Indoor rides are humming along.  Hour here.  Couple hours there.  It all adds up.  I’m keeping things in the 6-8 hours a week range right now.  That’ll last until mid February when I get back from Hawaii.  Doesn’t seem to make a ton of sense to start increasing time or intensity when I’m going to be taking a full week off.  I’ll also order the new MTB when I get back too.  Exciting.

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. Continue Reading »

Not a ton of posting lately.  A mix of ‘I’m too busy’ and ‘I have nothing going on’.  The 2008-9 Holiday Cocktail Season is over.  I’d like to say that with the snow days, it went exceptionally well.  Moving on though…

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….

Continue Reading »

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.