bad blogger...bad,bad blogger

OK. I haven't posted a race report or..well...anything for almost a week. ooops. Sorry. Been extra busy. I was thinking that after ORAMM I would actually de-stress about racing for a week. Then it hit me that Fools Gold was only 3 weeks away and that is my first attempt at a hundie. Now I'm stressing about that. I'm guessing it's gonna be a 12-14 hour day. That's alright though. A long day on new trails sounds damn good actually.

As far as ORAMM. Here's the condensed version. It was hard. Real hard. Luckily, unlike every other year I've done it...the trails were dry. WOO..freaking..HOO!!!!!!!! I was happy as hell to see that. The roots and rocks on Kitsuma and Heartbreak are hard enough dry. Wet they're a f'n meanace. Anyway..I suffered..I climbed for what felt like forever on Curtis Creek. Here's the funny part though..unlike past years..I never hated it or wondered what the hell I was doing out there. In fact..I had a damn good time for the whole race. I'm looking at this as a sign of progress.

Oh. I know I've said it a 100 times but Carbo Plus rocks!!!! Never felt hungry the whole race. Used mostly the Carbo Plus/Gator-ade combo along with powerbar gels and 3 snickers marathon bars and that was pretty much it. Well..except for the Dr. Thunder at aid station 3..after the 9 Miles of Curtis Creek. At the time..I thought it was the best soda ever. Anyway hope everybody has a great weekend. Later Yall.


Oh.....good luck to everybody at 24 Nationals.

Finally

63 miles,11,000 feet of up, 9 hours....slow as hell yes. I don't care..I f-----g finished and couldn't be happier. That helped erase a ton of self doubt. Besides...I alwasy knew I was slow. More later.

Off the radar

The big group ride in greensboro was a lot of fun. About 50 people showed up and did the ride. The trails were pretty cool. There wasn't hardly any climbing but my God the roots. By the time we were finished I felt like my teeth had been shaken out of my head. I intended it to be a pretty easy day but that went out the window pretty quick. It ended up being like a series of 45minute -hour long tempo intervals. I felt pretty good at the end though and my legs felt great on yesterdays ride.

Gonna be off the radar here for about a week getting ready for ORAMM. Work is still a bit hectic and by the end of the day I'm usually worn out. I'm gonna try to get an extra hour or so of sleep in the mornings. Hopefully that'll keep me from feeling so damn tired on my rides after work. Hope everybody has a great week and weekend. later folks.

Ugh....

...up at 4:30 in the a.m. and cannot get back to sleep. So..I guess another day has started. That's cool. We're headed out to Amanda's mom's house in Winston Salem today. She's going to hang out w/ her mom and friends and I'm going to meet up with a bunch of folks from the MTBR NC forum for The Unofficial Epic Tour of Greensboro's Trails. It was put together by pinkdirt. A greensboro local I'm guessing. It's going to be a 40 mile ride with the vast majority of it being off-road. Sweet! It'll be my last big ride before ORAMM next weekend. I'm already stressing about that race. I really need to do well to wash the aftertaste left over from my Cowbell meltdown out of my mouth. Of course, by well I mean finish in a respectable amount of time.
Ah well. Hope everybody has a great weekend. Good luck to everyone racing and hill climbing.


WOW. I have VH-1 classic on. Apparently Poison is still together and covering The Romantics "What I Like About You". Huh????? Don't get me wrong...I was as big a hair metal fan as anybody back in the 80's and I still pull those songs out from time to time....BUT...ah...nevermind..if those guys can still put out albums and like to play music together and get paid for it..more power to them. Later folks.

Sucked in again

OK. First things first. God bless coffee!!!!!!!

I tried. I really did. I honestly thought that I'd be able to resist the TdF this year. I've been nothing but disgusted with the constant doping reports. The high and mighty attitudes of the governing bodies. All of it had pretty much turned me off on pro road cycling. I thought.

I managed to not watch the prologue. That's not really much of a feat though. Next thing you know, I'm reading about Robbie McEwen's awesome sprint to win stage 1 and the next thing you know I'm flipping channels to VS. like my life depended on it. Damn, that guy is f----ng fast!!!!!!!!!! Then Cancelleras win in the stage on teusday. WOW!!!!! I'm hooked. I can't help it. I just keep my fingers crossed that no major scandals come from this. Sports and "sports entertainment" have just been way to depressing lately. I'm hoping this years race can stand out as what bike racing can and should be. Plus I want it to shove it in the face of the "journalists" who call for a boycott of bike racing because of the doping scandals then fall all over themselves over Barry Bonds and baseball.

Hope everybody is having a great week and getting a lot of hours in bikewise. later folks.

Finally!!!!!

I got a ride in yesterday after 5 days (5!!!!!) off the bike because of an insane time at work. I've been working 14-15 hour days due to a sudden shortage of manpower. Yesterday I shut my cell phone off and left the house before anybody could call. I got in 3.5 hours at Bent Creek and could definitely feel the layoff. The long days didn't help either I'm sure. I'm going out again today so hopefully the legs feel a little better.

That's all for today. Hope everybody is having a good one.

Happy 4th

Happy 4th of July folks. Hope everybody has a good one.

Still here. nothing new going on. Pretty much just one day blending into the next.

Cowbell

Really cool race. They didn't make us run therefore earning my eternal gratitude. The day was super hot. I think the high was around 94. I actually felt really good before the race. Peppy even.

The race got started at 10 and everything was going well. I was holding back a little. I didn't wanna blow up in the heat. About halfway through the lap I heard a banging noise. I looked down and noticed that my bottle cage was flopping around and that there was a nice big hole where part of it used to be connected to my frame. Uh-Oh. I pulled the bottle out and stuck it in my jersey then tried to reposistion the cage. Thats when the other bolt ripped out. Now I had 2 rather large holes in my frame. Both water bottle mounts had come completely out. I stuck the cage in my camel back and rode the rest of the lap. I'm not any kind of expert on frame integrity whatsoever. All I could think of was all the stories I'd heard of people's frames breaking after they'd drilled holes in them to save weight. I kept thinking I could feel the frame flex while I rode. I got back to my pit madder than hell. I was convinced that my racing and riding where done for a few months at least. I packed up and headed home. Went to the bike shop and asked the mechanic about it. He then informed me that I could just put some electrical tape over the wholes to keep the water out and it would be fine. WHAT????? I then spent the next few days kicking myself in the ass. I'm an idiot. later.

Obligatory " more cowbell" refernce here

Off to Charlotte. Good luck to TD, Danielle, Jason the soiled chammy, and everybody else who is racing this weekend.

zzzzzzz

After much heated internal debate I decided against another long monster ride this close to Cowbell. I went out for a 2 hour spin this mornin with a few hard intervals thrown in just to wake the legs up a little. I'll do a few more easy rides this week and then Friday it's off to Charlotte for pre-ride and all that fun stuff. I'm thinking about turning the AC off and the heat up just to get used to the heat. J/K..the girlfriend would kill me.

Later yall.

Trashed and scattered...

..but not in a bad day. Legs are full of that good tired feeling that means yesterdays ride was a good one. Got in a little over 7 hours. Only 8 more days until Cowbell so I should probably start resting a little. Problem is...I'm off Monday also. I'm going to honestly try not to go out and ride all day but no promises. BAH!!!! Who am I kidding? I will and I know it. Oh well.....tis the season. :-)

Checklist

Bike-check
6 bottles of carbo plus/gator ade mix-check
Camelback-check
Helmet,shoes and sweet glasses-check
Tools and other needed items-check
ipod fully charged-check
rain jacket-check
assorted clif bars and clif shots-check
Day off-check
Off the charts level of giddyness about spending the next 6-8 hours riding my bike in the woods-CHECK!!!!!

later folks

Approaching liftoff....

..for the next race of the year. All signs are pointing towards it being really,really hot. I honestly don't mind the heat. When I lived in florida I used to actually enjoy riding in the midday heat. Of course, since moving here I've become a bit more of a hot weather wimp. As long as I stay hydrated and take my freaking electrolyte pills I should be ok though. I'm looking forward to this race for a few different reasons.

1. It's for a really good cause. It benefits The Lance Armstrong Foundation. Anything that helps raise money to cure cancer needs to be supported big time.

2. Lets me put some hard race miles in my legs before ORAMM.

3. I've never ridden the trails at the National Whitewater Center before. Any chance to ride new trails is a good thing to me

4. A chance to put the "lessons" learned from Burn to use.

Good luck to Bonnie and Danielle at Lumberjack this weekend. Also good luck to everybody else who is racing this weekend. Later yall.

P.S. Anybody who feels the urge to give me some hints about what the trails are like for Cowbell feel free.

I need to win the lottery

Work is killing me. We've had 3 people quit over the last week and the workload has almost doubled for everybody. I try not to let this kind of stuff get to me and just accept it as part of life but every now and then I want to scream. OK...maybe not scream but at least throw stuff and curse.

Anyway. Only 12 more days to Cowbell and only 41 more days to ORAMM. ORAMM is my "big race" every year. It's the race that got me on this endurance biking kick and well..it's just a blast. Todd(the promoter) makes it super fun and really,really hard. It's about 65 miles long with around 11,000 feet of vertical gain. If any of you guys and gals happen to be in the WNC area on July 22nd I highly reccomend you sign up and go for it.

Well, time to get to the grind. Hope everybody has a great day.

Still here

Sorry. It's been awhile since the last post. I haven't been feeling well and have been dealing with some bike issues. It's an older bike and it seems that whenever I get one thing fixed something else goes. Ah well. I've still been able to get some good rides in getting ready for Cowbell. I've been focusing on doing tempo intervals. Trying to up my sustainable power.

Other than that it's been work,work,work. Thank God for long summer days.

Hope everybody is having a great week and doing well. Later folks.

No crying in mountainbiking

OK. I'm done whining and beating myself up about Burn. The Cowbell Challenge is only 3.5 weeks away. Time to get back to work.

Burnt

Like I said before. The Burn is an awesome race. Eddie does an awesome job and the course is fun as hell. Depending on how things go at my next 2 races I definitely will plan on doing it next year. I do, however, have to do way better at my next few races. Meaning, I have to pull my head out of my ass and mentally get into the game. I went into this race with the goal of 16-20 laps. I did 6. That's right...6. Not a misprint. I rode my ass off getting ready for this and a few(o.k. ....several) stupid mental mistakes undid everything.

1. Hauling a couple hundred pounds of dumbell plates I was given from my truck to the upstairs spare bedroom and pulling whatever that muscle/tendon is under my right calf.

2.Forgetting to put chamois butter on my shorts and deciding to go ahead and ride the first few hours like that cuz I didn't feel like pulling them off and doing it.

3. Forgetting electrolyte tablets.

4. Not eating during the first few laps.

The first one wasn't to bad. It only bothered me during the run and whenever I had to get off the bike which was only a few times. The second one is another story. I rode 4 hours like that and by the end of that time it felt like my chamois was made of sandpaper. I'm still paying for that one. The 3rd and fourth are the biggies. I'm pretty sure they're why I ended up curled up in my tent with massive cramps and throwing up into a bucket. What's driving me nuts is that they're all stupid mistakes. I knew it was gonna be hot so how the hell did I forget to buy Endurolytes? I know I need to be shoving calories into my mouth pretty much constantly during a race like this so why didn't I? I don't know. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this stuff. We'll see.

Anyway, Mark Hendershot(34 laps) and Namrita (22 laps..I think) won the solo categories. They both looked super strong doing it to.

Hope everybody had/is havinga good weekend. Later.

Blah!!!!!

Horrible weekend. Details to follow.

Oh....my horrible weekend is all on me. Eddie puts on an awesome race.

Edit.....I meant to say details coming soon.

The Final Countdown

Yes it was a horrible 80's song. The title fits though. Only a few more days til the race starts. I'm starting to get the pre-race jitters already and doing my usual second guessing of everything I've done leading up to it. I'm also chomping at the bit to get started.

I got to meet Danielle this past weekend at the 12 Hours of Tsali. Her and her crew are super nice people and I learned a lot just watching them. She also brought me a super cool pair of Optic Nerve glasses. Now I have 2 which means I can set up a pair with clear lenses and I don't have to fumble around with swapping out lenses when I'm tired as hell. Thanks Danielle!!! Also, thanks to Ted,Scott, and Jason for patiently answering my zillion questions about stuff.

Hope everybody has a great day. Later yall.