Last Post for a whiiiiiiiile

Weeell, I'm about to go on a little month long hiatus from a bunch of stuff: biking, racing, training, and blogging to name a few. Why you ask? Cause as of 6AM tomorrow morning, I'm gonna be hopping a plane off to Wyoming for a National Outdoor Leadership School course in outdoor education. I'll also get certified in Wilderness First Responder--a medical certification that's one step below an EMT cert, but deals with what to do in the wilderness, rather than in civilization. It's a 30 day backpacking expedition where we'll be out in the field totally out of contact with civilization for literally like 28-30 days.

Now some of you guys might think I'm crazy to be leaving for a month right in the prime of the racing season, but there's lots of stuff in the world to do. Lots of amazing things. For example, I'll be hiking in these mountains...




and I'll actually be walking through this pass...


So, while I know it's kinda goofy to have worked the whole season to build my race fitness to the point where it is now, then head off for a month and not use it at all, I think it'll be worth it.

When I get back from the course, it'll be just about the second week of superweek, and I plan on doing a bunch of those races with my old team mate, Anthony Carfang. He's the guy who got me into racing, and it'll be awesome to race with him again.
Since I had a pleasent meeting with Luke Seemann (www.chicagobikeracing.com) at a race a couple weeks ago, I know at least one person reads my blog, so for Luke, and anyone else following this, I'll be back in a month!

Spring Prarie Road Race

Well, the road race didn't go amazing for me today... Since I'd just sold beer the night before, I was really sore, and couldn't get my heart rate up to anywhere near where it usually is. Also, I miscalculated the amount of water I needed for the 65 miles, and by the 6th/10 laps, I began an unfortunate spiral into dehydration, that got me dropped on the last lap. At least I was able to hang in long enough to come in 28th/49 starters. Bleh--next time will be better.

Summer's awesome, and the 50 race mark!

Summer's great! All there is to do, is the occasional beer vending job to pay the bills, hang out with friends, and ride my bike!
I did the Turin ride for the first time last night. Even though I've been racing for about a year now, I've only done maybe one or two official group rides, and definitely nothing as agressive as this one. Sure was a good time. I guess I didn't realize it'd be so much like a race (which was a totally awesome thing by the way). The only problem I had with it, was I kept wanting to take some pulls or throw some attacks off the front, but I sorta had no clue where we were going, so I'd go with other people's moves, instead of putting out my own. I guess that's what next time's for, eh?
Also, I came in halfway through the ride, cause I was late. Apparently, 1 hour is not enough time to get from Bridgeport to Evanston. But back to what I said at the start of the post about this being summer, and me having all the time in the world, that's not a problem at all! I'll just leave a half an hour earlier next time.

On another pretty cool note, I was checking over my race resume, and factoring in everything including matteson training crits, I just hit the 50 race mark! (I suppose if you wanna get thecnical and only look at officially sanctioned races I'd only be at 45, but whatever) Looking back at my brief "amature career", I'd say I'm pretty happy with how things went. Sure, I don't have the progress of someone like my superhuman collegiate team mate Ryan Freund, who's only been racing a year, and now nearly lapping the field in 1/2's races...
But I've got a few wins, a handful of podium placings, a steady progression up the category ranks, and my pulse still races whenever I think about the last 200 meters of a race. So like I said--nothing exactly amazing, but I'm pretty happy with it. Perhaps I should take advantage of all my free time now and start doing more than my average 8-10 hours per week of training... Who knows what could happen?

I love Matteson!

Praying for no rain, I made the drive down to matteson this evening to do the weekly practice crit. I was feeling pretty good, and wanted to get some solid attack practice in, as well as a solid workout. The numbers racing today were lower than usual, due to the chance of rain, and in the A's group (their 1/2/3's group) we had about 20ish guys.

All in all, it was an awesome day. I probably threw 10-15 attacks at the field, and in two out of the three races we did, I was able to get into the winning break. In the first two races, I kept getting bad luck in the sprints--the first time, there was confusion with the laps to go counter and I thought there was another lap, so I didn't contest the sprint. The second time things were looking real good until the second to last turn where a lower cat rider was cooling down after his race and got in the way, causing half the field, including me, to brake and get out of contention for the sprint. Ain't no big though, the important thing was everyone stayed up. The last race went real good. A Mack rider and South Chi rider were up the road and I bridged to them. The three of us stayed away, and I took them in the sprint for 1st.

Overall, it was just an awesome training day. I got in a ton of attack practice, did a solid 40 intense miles, and raced with some awesome guys. I think that's a big reason why I like Matteson so much. The attitude there is just real positive and fun, and everyone there is super friendly. If you ain't been down there, totally check it out!

Chiropractic Crit and Wonder Lake crit

So today's my birthday! It's also the one year anniversary of my freaking broken collarbone injury. Last year I was doing a race on my birthday out in montana, and not only did I get dropped on a hardcore 3 mile 2000 ft climb, right before the finish, someone acted stupid and totally crashed me out and broke my collarbone. But it's alright--I've strategically planned a way to prevent this from happening again this year. Recovery Day!!

Well I had two races this past weekend. One was pretty sweet, and one was... less than sweet.

Chiropractic Crit:

I went and drove up to wisconsin for this race. The course was awesome--smooth, tucked in a little residential community, and very tough. It was a .8 mile loop that was broken into thirds. One third was a flat into a headwind, one third was a little ringed 35 second climb, and one third was a down hill. Figuring I wanted me some training, I went and registered for the 3's and the 1/2/3's.
The 3's race started easy enough, I was near the front for the first 25 minutes, and things were going good. Then, bam-- All of a sudden, I ain'ts got me no more matches, and I totally blow up, getting myself droooooopped. Talk about an ego blow. Then, to make matters worse, I remember they don't give refunds, so I go and line up with the 1/2/3's. This time I only made it 10 minutes before I got ridden away from. D-d-d-dang. Them Wisconsin riders are stroong.
After dissecting my epic loss, I think I can blame it on one thing. I aint no good at hill repeats. I don't practice them, and it shows. Time for some trips to lemont! Also, weighing 79 kilos don't help much either.

Wonder Lake Crit:

So I wanna start out by saying, Shame on all you chicago guys who didn't come out to this race!

This town did an awesome job hosting a bike race! They had community support, volunteers, even boy scout troops helping! Plus the whole town just sorta camped out next to the course the whole day and made for awesome spectators who cheered for anyone they saw, regardless of teams, or even whether you were warming up instead of racing!
The course wasn't super complicated, just a 4 corner with a sliiiight hill on the backside that followed a kinda narrow turn. After the day before's debacal, I was happy to see a flat course to try to redeem myself on. When I lined up with the 3's, I was kinda surprised- there were only 13 guys in our field!! Come ON! Then it also sunk in, that out of those 13 guys, 5ish belonged to Burham Racing, 4ish were from South Chicago Wheelman, and the remaining 4 were an unrepresented rabble of me, Tyler from triple X, another guy from the southwest collegiate conference, I think his name was mike? and a WDT guy. From this point on, to simplify things, I'm gonna refer to those not racing for South Chi or Burnham as "Team Awesome".
So I knew that Burnham and South Chi would try to put someone into the break. I didn't think it would happen on the second lap. But it did. The second time up the slight hill in the back, a burnham guy attacked and a south chi guy followed. By the time I stopped being foolish and realized that they definitely would be able to stay away, they had a 20 second gap, and with the help of their team mates, it was growing. I tried a couple bridging attempts, but every move was swiftly countered by Burnham. After a couple more laps, Team Awesome realized that we needed to work together if we wanted anything better than sprinting for 3rd, so we mobilized, and started doing organized pulls. Our work started to pay off, and by the time we got to 5 laps to go, we were really close to catching the break. With 4 to go, the South Chi guy in the break cracked, and floated back to the field. With him back, I was expecting some help from the rest of the South Chi team to bring back the Burnham guy, but to no avail. Also, right then, the Burnham guys were looking mighty strong, especially Julian, who had just soloed to win the O'Fallon race the day before. So even if we did catch the guy in the break, they had another real strong guy and fresh guy who could go up the road just as easily.
So with 3 laps to go, Team Awesome figured sprinting for second was alright. The sprint was pretty sweet--see, I'm kinda like a locomotive in the sense that, I don't have the most explosive force, and my acceleration ain't amazing, but once I get up to speed, I can hold some pretty decent power for 10-15 seconds. Which is why at 300 yards, I was behind everyone, and when I crossed the finish line, I was 3rd in the field sprint, 4th overall. Unfortunately, that was one spot, and about 3 feet out of winning 70 bucks. Oooh well.
On a side note, Burnham did win the race (and awesome job guys, you totally earned it!), but Team Awesome took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the field sprint! Not too shabby!

Following the race, I decided to take advantage of the amazing weather, and great scenery and hills, and go riding. The hills and strong winds helped make for a pretty solid ride, and by the end of the day, I did another 75 miles.

late nights and building bikes

So I've been rather busy the past few days. I went and knocked out that ride up to sheboygan. There was a 10-15mph headwind the whole way up there, so I only averaged 19 mph over the 160 miles. Kept the average watts at about 230 though, so I'm calling it a good day in the saddle. I chose not to do the return trip, and opted instead for riding the road course from the UW-milwaukee collegiate road race. The one out in greenbush. It's one of my favorite courses, and there's plenty of spots to hit up some solid hill repeats that we can't do in chicago.

If you're wondering why I'm up at 4AM, well I went for a midnight training ride tonight, and was sorta pretty pumped up after the ride, and it just so happened that my rival shifters FINALLY came back from warrenty. So I went and rebuilt my bike. And another one. And before you know it... bam. 4am.

On a side note, while I was building bikes, I was watching infomercials. Specifically the one advirtising a Spinning Bike.


The ad was all about selling people a spinning bike for their very own home, where they could watch dvds featuring spinning classes, and even had some retired pro saying, "This is the closest thing you can do to riding outside!"
Now I'm just kind of curious, right now its summer. Pretty much anywhere in the US is going to be experiencing pretty nice weather. So why the hell would you want an exercise program that tries to simulate an outdoor experience?? Spend the $1000 bucks on a real bike!

packin

well im getting ready to head to sheboygan, wisconsin tomorrow. I'm gonna start riding at like 8am I think, and hopefully this'll get me there by 4ish. It's 150ish miles, and since im gonna try to do it kinda fast, I think a 7.5 hour goal (of riding time) is pretty reasonable.
I got my family bringing my stuff for the weekend, so I kinda feel like there's a SAG wagon behind me.
It should be a blast though. I haven't had a really epic ride since spring break in georgia when I rode over 6 mountains, 19,000 feet of climbing, and 120 miles one day. Going from chicago to sheboygan doesn't exactly compare to that, but it should still be a pretty solid day in the saddle.
Good luck too everyone going out to race in iowa this weekend by the way!

finally went riding!

well, I finally woke up feeling alright today, and decided to take advantage of the amaaaazing weather, and go for a ride down in Lemont and do some hill repeats. Well, I only did 20ish miles and started feeling terrrrrrible. It was mega lame. Instead of going out for my planned 3-4 hours, I called it quits at an hour and a half. Looking at the powertap file after the ride, my numbers sucked too. Baaaaasically, being sick freaking sucks. Hopefully by this weekend, I'll be 100%. Otherwise things are gonna suck.

Building back me endourance!

So after all this crit racing, combined with very little riding from being sick, and finals, I'm gonna assume my endourance has taken a massive hit. I was also thinking about all the awesome races in iowa that I was going to miss, that everyone seems to like so much. What can I do to remedy this?

Well sorta as a family tradition, my family always goes up to this place near sheboygan every memorial day-Camp Anokijig. It's the reason I won't be doing the memorial day races, and I'm pretty excited for heading up there and seeing old friends and what not. I was google mappin the distance today, and it works out to about 150 miles from chicago. Two years ago, pretty much at the start of my cycling obsession, I rode up there in two days. I was slow, and out of shape, and the first 100 mile leg practically killed me.

But now, I've got maaaanny more miles in my legs. And I got to thinking, it's only a 1 1/2 century ride, right? If I do the whole thing at tempo, that should do wonders to my endourance! And then, I got to thinking again... if it's only 1 1/2 centuries, then why not do the same thing back?! So while everyone else is off in Iowa having an awesome race weekend, this guy's going to add 15-20 tempo hours to his legs. And most importanatly, that'll be 15-20 hours at tempo pace that's NOT IN CHICAGO!! Training won't be booring!

What I'm working for

So, this is a lil example of one of my summer goals. I wants me a TAN!!

I thought school was over

So, No matteson racing today.

Word, I'm still down with something, so I'll take it easy today.

On another note, I counted it out, and over the finals week, I studied/worked for 67 total hours. And I just found out yesterday I ain't even done! Apparently I've got some revisions to make to my thesis before I can get me grade for that class. Hmmm, perhaps this will help me tip the 70 hour mark!

I had to go and overdo it

This weekend I was suppose to race a couple crits. Monsters, and Wheels on Willie.

Well, essentially, to sum a long story up, midway into my second race at monsters (the 1/2/3 race) I started getting a lil bit woozy and decided it would be wise to pull out. It was a good decision I think, because it's now two days later, and I still am a freakin slug on the couch, doing nothing but sleeping, eating, and coughing. Boy do I feel crappy. I'm gonna blame this on myself totally running myself down during finals week--a condition not uncommon with several other racing/student friends of mine...

As a side note, in the 3's field at monsters, sort of a combination of a pretty sketchey field, and my not feeling all that great, made me quite a nervous racer. When the pace started picking up, people kept swarming around the front for good positioning, and in the last lap, the front guys even crashed themselves out... I settled for 15th/50, but at least i stayed up.

I'm thinking about really wanting to go down to matteson tomorrow, but if I'm still under the weather, it might be a dumb idea. I suppose relapsing would suck, but the fact remains that if I don't ride tuesday, then it'll be 4 days since I've touched me bike... Ohhh well, at least it's finally summer!

Almost....

Getting there guys. I've gotten to the home stretch now. Essentially, I'm a mere 10-25 page report away from finishing. Don't worry, I've got like 6 pages of diagrams I can include... Those diagrams were the fruits of yesterday's labors.

On a side note, all this working has started to catch up to me. I am NOT getting sick. Once you think you might be coming down with something, you're pretty much giving into it. Buuut, I distinctly feel less good than I should. At least I got 9 hours of sleep last night. Racing tomorrow, whether I'm sick or not!

What's so sweet about tomorrow's race? Well, it's Monsters of the Midway--a smallish local race that's ran through ABR instead of USCF, so I can't get those sacred category upgrade points, but me and this race've got history!
Two years ago in 2007, Monsters of the Midway was my first race ever bike race-- a moment that marks the moment I committed to a life of intense physical suffering, and fell in love with spandex! I didn't really understand racing then, and missed the break, failed at bridging the gap, but managed to get first in the field sprint. Last year, I was doing pretty well and had a solid positioning for the field sprint, but with a lap to go I almost got crashed out, and my rear brake started rubbing, knocking me back to a midpack finish.
Well this time, things are gonna be different! Because, like I said, I'm NOT sick. If by this time, I do actually have any followers, (doubtful, but I can be optimistic!) see you tomorrow, and good luck!

I'm a dufus

OH MY GOD. I'm freaking sick of work.

When it comes to me and school, I've got this little system. It's called extreme procrastination. I sort of find ways to sneakily push as much stuff as I can til the end of the semester, then do everything in one big huff.
What's that? Everybody procrastinates? Weellll, I believe I take it to a slightly higher level. See, I only had one final this semester (awesome!), however, I left myself with so many things to do from throughout the semester, that I've literally been camping in the library since monday morning when I first got here, essentially working non-stop (I get food delivered to me), and I'm still not gonna be done before midway through tomorrow!
Sure, sure--I go home to shower and change and what not, but all my hangin out, all my sleepin, and sure as hell all my work gets done here. It's actually kinda cool. There's this little stairwell I pull a beanbag and a blanket under when I go to sleep. I kinda feel like the library troll... Now I didn't make this website, but it's a pretty accurate depiction of how I feel by now.
http://www.librarytroll.net/

Another added benefit, is that there's no food in the library. And if there's no food, then I can't eat it. That's right, I'm down like 3 lbs this week!

But seriously, even though it's got it's "perks," this has got to end. I just can't STANDS it no more. To everyone done with school, and happily riding your bike and what not... I thouroughally envy you.

In parting, I'll hook you up with a sweet graph I made of the average flow duration percentages of the blackberry creek! Wooo!

Finals point two

well its not so much that there's anything interesting that's happened in the last 12 or so hours--actually absolutely nothing interesting has happened. I blame it on the fact that I've been in the library now for about 12 hours straight today. And, I isn't done neither... Damn, I had this plan to train tomorrow, but as it is, there probably won't be that much time to do it. On the plus side, after tomorrow, there ain't gonna be nuthin holding me back from some hard core 110%

Finals

Well, I decided to jump on the band wagon and start blogging about bike racing. What better time to do it, then when I'm in the library suppose to be studying for finals?

On that note, I pulled me an all nighter monday, rocked a test tuesday morning, and proceeded to hit up Matteson training crit tuesday night as a reward. I'd never raced on no sleep before, and put simply--don't ever do it. The numbers were alright, and finally a race where no one crashes me out, buuuut that much effort to the body without resting the night before really takes the juice outta ya. I'm pretty dead, and still need to do work.

Monsters is this Saturday, and Sunday's got Wheels "off" Willie. They moved it to the capital in Madison and I'm puuuuuuuumped! It's the same course we do in collegiate racing and is pretty much the fastest course I've ever raced. The cat 3's go first, and directly following that, the 1/2/3's start up. I'm thinking I'll probably do both, and just try to hang on for dear life in the 2nd race. It'll just be like I got a really, really solid warmup for the 1/2/3 race. Matter of fact, I bet it'll make me stronger.