Winter Training and Scheduling

Not much exciting has been going on. A lot of indoor training work outs. I have been working on my 2010 race schedule. I figured this year going in with a clear cut schedule of where I'm going to race and what races I want to peak for is going to help my training a lot. There's still wiggle room on some of the training races. I'm sure there will be races that will pop up that I didn't plan on racing but I will just be in the mood or I'll find out about it during the season. There will also be races that I can't make whether it be prior commitments or just overworked. It appears that march through July will be spent mainly on the road bike, then in August I will switch over my focus to mountain bike for the power series in september and then after that I will transition over to cyclocross.

The other news is I get a bike fitting this week, it was much needed because I was going by feel and now I'm properly tuned into the bike. I can already feel the difference in the amount of power I can put down. The bad news on this is I went to move the fit from my road bike to my mountain bike and it clearly was to small for me. The seatpost was an inch over the max seatpost point. So it looks like to race on a hardtail I'll be buying a new frame. Though I'll probably hold back on this until later in the season as the my full suspension bike fits into the new fit.

Well that's it for now I'm sure the updates will be coming soon.

Couple Products

Well Sara left for Colorado this morning, so while I bide my time waiting for my trip out to see her in a month I'm going to have a good amount of free time on my hands. It's truly an awesome opportunity for her and I'm so happy for her but on the same token I'm going to miss her. But if you want to hit up a ride with me let me know. It will help me keep my mind occupied.

I did want to bring up two products that I feel need mentioning. They both are great products that I have found no faults and have worked flawlessly. The first is RoadID's. I got myself and Sara one as a Christmas presents this year. It's a great present not only for them but for your piece of mind. Knowing that your loved one will get proper medical attention and you will be notified will save you a lot of grief when your loved one is out on the trail. And since Sara will be in a new state it makes me feel better that there's still a connection to home when she's out riding. You can tell a lot of though went into the design with a watch-like clasp, which a 5 dollar bill can be folded and slid into so if you ever have to buy extra water, food so you can make it home after a bonk or a bribe for a farmer so you can borrow their tools to get your bike working again. I picked the red band for both of us, as it would be most visible, but a nice neutral color like black and you could wear the id all the time, so your always protected. A product I think every cyclist should wear if not for their own safety but for the piece of mind of their loved ones.

The second product is DZ Nuts. This is a Chamois cream which is made by David Zabriske of Team Garmin Transitions. Mid summer during the heaviest of my training and riding I developed a saddle sore. No other products or anything I did stopped it. I switched over to DZ nuts and in a week it had subsided. It's European styled so it has the cooling effect of Vapor Rub, but after some getting used to you won't want to put anything else on your nether regions. Since I switched I haven't had another saddle sore. Another selling point is everything is made from natural materials.I highly recommend this product, as it's made by one of my favorite riders, but also because it works. With news stories coming out that there will be a womens version, embrocation and leg shaving cream I'll be looking forward to check out the new products. Remember David Z only wants the best and so do I. Make sure you check out the video section on the website

Well it's official.

I will taking over the presidency of the Cleveland Area Mountain Bike Association (CAMBA) on January 1st. So make sure to come down the the CAMBA Poker run to celebrate the new year and my first day as president. Click here for the details.

Boughton Farm Cyclocross

This last Sunday was the last race of the Team Lake Effect Cyclocross series. It was held at Boughton Farm in Copley on a flat and muddy course. I had though Willoughby was the hardest thing I've done. I know have changed my mind and put this race as the hardest.

Sara and I arrived shortly before 11 to get ready for the race. We got our stuff together and finished putting on our leg warmers and shoes in the car. When we arrived the temp was well below freezing and the sun was behind the clouds. After we signed in we headed out for our warm-up lap.

Not even a third into our warm-up lap my rear derailluer binds with mud and is pulled towards the wheel. I stop look down and start trying to right the wrong. I can clearly see the hanger is bent. I tell Sara to go finish her lap and I run back to the car to find a pair of pliers to right the wrong. I spend about 10-15 minutes with a crescent wrench trying to straighten it out. In the end I don't even get it close but enough to get it shifting and away from my spokes.

During Sara's race I set up her awesome trainer, it's rim resistance unit makes it perfect for cross and mountain biking because you don't have to switch wheels. I know I'll be picking one up soon. I spent about 30 minutes warming up on the trainer getting ready for the race. I really prefer this method to warming up riding around. I was able to control my efforts more and warm up right to the moment the race started.

I lined up towards the back in the skinny start area and the race soon started. I felt really good off the start, passing a couple people, up until the start of the single track where there was a bottleneck. I'll tell you what, getting into the single track is a lot harder in a cross race. No offense but I've never had that much problem in a mountain bike race. We mountain bike racers are more aware of it and plan for it while roadies seem to not think about it and when the bottle neck happens stand around not sure what to do. I was stuck behind a person who had gotten totally off his bike and ran the whole first section holding me and everyone else up.

Out of the single track I was still part of the large chase group, a little behind the leaders. I was still feeling good and still slowly picking off people. Until the first mud section hit, until the mud started to pile up on my bike. I had to stop and clear out the mud and the leaves from my tires to even get my bike to move. This stop let my legs get cold and the pack get away from me. From there on stopping and cleaning out the mud was a ritual I would do each lap atleast two to three times, Even pulling off my front tire once to get the mud out. At that point I rode my race, and focusing on trying to enjoy myself in these miserable conditions. I started carrying my bike over the mud sections to try and curtail the mud buildup in vain. Really didn't work but it didn't get my feet wet which made them freeze.

I finished the race a lap down in 20th place and went straight to the car to take off my shoes and warm my feet which had started to turn a deep shade of purple. Sara was kind enough to come and help in the warm process by warming my feet in a towel.

I was happy to finish my first season after a lot of races. I will probably do a race or two of the winter cyclocross series and I'll keep training. I'm happy to be down though, and I'm sure my dwindling bank account will be happy too.

Thanks for Bike Authority, Camba, Rudy Project, Ritchey Products, and Cranks Brothers for making this a great season.

Back to Basics

Base miles have always been a favorite part of the season for me. It seems like a grueling concept, after not doing anything all winter you go out while it's still cold and ride your bike for as long as you can. For me it gives me a chance to try new roads and to see new scenery. During the season I have already found my routes and go on certain routes that tailor what I need work on. Base miles, however, are also my time to venture out and find new routes to ride.

Today, Sara and I ventured out on a adventure to find new roads. I had replaced the cross tires on my cyclocross bike with a road tire to see how it would work over the winter. It's a set up I had thought about when I bought the bike and I think it will prove fruitful over the winter. I also decided to retire my road bike for the season and use it's wheelset for my back up cross wheels, and after Christmas I'll spring for an upgrade of Easton EA90's for my road bike. For now I'll make the second set my pit wheels and when the season ends I'll put some road tires back on. That way I'll have the road tires for the winter but when the snow's out I can swap out the wheels and run cross tires in the snow.

So back to the ride. Sara and I decided to do a ride today, since we haven't done a long ride for quite some time, and I had always wanted to show her my favorite crappy roads of portage county ride. We hit some favorites Lynn Road, and Sunnybrook road. But added a little double track around Mogadore Reservoir which led to us finding some singletrack, which I did on 700c x23 tires pumped to 100 PSI with no problem. We spend some time admiring the reservoir and taking some photos. It was one of the rides that allured me to get into road biking. No destination, and just enjoying the ride. The pace was brisk but not pushing it. I smiled the entire time. Afterwards, we came back, ate an entire pizza and large antipasto salad and then chilled. I still can't belive how lucky I am to find some like Sara, who enjoys doing stuff like this. I'm sure it would have been an an enjoyable ride solo, but this ride was made even more special by her.

Pigskin Classic 5k/ Kirtland Park Cross

This weekend was a crazy but fun weekend. I swear I was in Cleveland more than Akron. Saturday I competed in my first 5k. I know a lot of the cyclist who follow my blog, I know I kid myself thinking people follow my blog, have given my some crap about getting into running. I gotta be truthful I like running. It's not better, sorry Sara, and it's not worse. It's just different. I like challenges, that's my nature. Truthfully, I got into cycling not because it was fun, though it is. I did it because it was hard. Watching tv is fun, but it's not something I tend to do on a regular basis. I want to be outside pushing myself to my limit and then past that. I was to get better at what I do. It will just give me something so I don't get burnt out.

Sara and I drove up from Akron in the morning and arrived at the race. I was amazed by the amount of people that attended. There were 500+ men there. Sara and I warmed up before the race and met up with some of her Grunt Girl team mates. I'm really glad she got on the team as all the girls are really nice women. Before the race, Sara moved up to the front as she wanted to actually compete and the other Grunt girls and I lined up about mid pack. I thought I'd be around them and run a steady pace. The race started I took the first turn and wanted to go. So I went, pushing myself to run a little faster than I had on my other training runs. While running, a girl turned around and told the guy I was running next to "I'll see you later." I turned to him and told him, we could be the guys with girlfriends who are faster than us. I soon dropped him too. The course ended by going around the block. I had secretly wished to do a sub 25 minute 5k. Didn't think it was possible, since the fastest I had run that distance was 28 minutes. When I turned the corner, I saw the clock and it read 23 minutes. I ended up coming in at 24:11 with a 7:55 minute/mile pace. Didn't think that would happen.

Kirtland Cross

Sunday was the Kirtland Park Cross race. Sarah and I arrived at 10:30, well before the noon start. So we were able to walk to course, then do a slow ride to pick out lines, a faster ride to see if the lines would work. Then I took Robert Sroka on a lap to help him out on the lines as well. After signing up we still had almost a half hour to warm up some more. By the time the race started I had a good grasp of the course.

Sara's race was first and she kicked ass. She ended up 13th overall and the first woman by a large margin. She looked strong and was riding really well. I would like to think I've helped her to become a better cross racer, by teaching her some of the skills and showing her lines and how to pace herself, but in truth she's a beast and will kick most people in whatever she puts her mind to.

My race started next, I lined up on the second row. This led to a not so good start for me as the bottle neck lost me some positions. I had planned to be to the inside of the climb on the non-preferred line, to my dismay I got stuck on the preferred line and got bottlenecked and had to walk up the hill. From there on I started picking off positions on the climbs and descents. The first lap I passed someone going down a hill by continuing to pedal. I flew up the climbs but then lost positions on the long flat. It was a great course with lots of climbing and technical descents. The highlight had to be the amphitheater, thanks Robert and Johnny P for putting that in the course.

I ended up finishing in 21st, one place behind my top 20 I had hoped. Over all I had fun. Big Props to Robert Sroka, for his 2nd in B's, Johnny 8th in A's and Sara for her 13th.

Thanks Camba, Bike Authority, Rudy Project, Ritchey products, Kenda and Crank Brothers for helping me race.

This is going to be a quick one as I have to leave for work soon, but I have been running a lot more often now. To all my cycling friends don't worry, I won't be hanging up the bike for good or switching over to running. For me it's going to be a nice compliment to my biking. I doubt it will make me a faster rider, but it will give me something to do to break up being on the bike and still being active. That way I can end the season and not be as burnt out as I was this year.

Last week end I did my first practice 5k, ended up with a around and 8:30 pace and completed it in 28 minutes. Not to shabby for my first attempt and not even pushing that hard. Sara was impressed by this, which made me more confident. So yesterday I had planned to ride the Kent cyclocross course which I had missed because of work last week. After work I'm driving home about to get my gear and head over when I get a text from Sara asking if I wanted to ride the course with her. Perfect! I'm throwing on my gear and she calls and asks if afterward I wanted to do a trail run, I say to myself why not and throw my shoes into a bag and I head off.

We are on a time constraint because we have to be in Hudson by 4:30 for the trail run and I left my house at 3:20 to bike over to Kent. I do my best time trial effort with a headwind and a large bag to bike the 7 miles as quick I can. I show up and we do two quick rides around the course, which after the Cross my Heart course was a blast. I will definitely be at this one next year. The two run ups were a blast and the spiral was fun and tricky. After riding back to here car I did 9.5 miles. We load our bikes to the back and we head towards the valley.

After meeting up with some of her Grunt Girl Teammates we make it to Pine Hill trail head at about 5. We run a good paced three miles until we get to the badly rooted part of the trail. It's well past sunset now and our lights aren't bright enough so we turn around and run as far as we can until our lights don't give us enough light to see the routes and decided to walk back out to the cars instead of hurting ourselves. We probably did 3.5 miles of demanding trails running.

Back at the cars, her teammate Andrea asks me if I plan to do the 5k that Sara is entering this weekend. She said my pace was fine and that I'm ready. After some badgering we leave and me and Sara decide I should do it this weekend. So now I'm doing a 5k Saturday and then the Kirtland Park CX race on Sunday. Should be a fun interesting weekend. Check back monday for a recap of my races.