Spare Time

Big D always makes fun of me cause I cannot sit still and am always working on something!  I think he gets a kick out of it and sometimes just calls to see what random thing I am working on.  The last couple months my random project was an outside kitchen on my patio.  I finished it up yesterday so now it will probably snow next week!  Mother Nature is not kind!  Either way the final result just in time for the get fat season:

The end is here

Of my season that is!!  It feels really good to pull the plug and put it into neautral for a bit!  Especially with the struggles as of late.  Tons of things not working out as planned and some health things that have been plagueing me.  either way I really enjoy racing/riding my bike and would miss my bike family if I didn't go!  Especially the team, half the fun of racing is hanging out and making fun of each other every week!! 

So let me go back some, but now that I drug my feet on blogging you get the abreviated version.  Nationals were fun and I had a great start.  Settled in with Dave Wiens and was riding in the top 15.  Body issues decided to come up and got me off my bike for just a bit, back on after losing spots and chased for the next 20 miles.  Had a group of 5 or 6 not 45 seconds up, but could not close the gap, rolled in for 25th.  Not what I had in mind, but I know I had better fitness and still had a blast!  Bend rocks! Yes I did look at some houses out there!  Sorry Tyler!

Chequamegon! The team rocked it!  Mike in 5th was a great result for the weekend and there is a great shot of him leading things out!  Ryan and Scott also had great races with the talent in the field.  On the girls side of things Di came in 4th, Sarah 6th, and Lisa 9th!  Nice work!  It also sounds like I missed some fun post race antics!  Bummer!

Now onto Bear Paw.  I took the whole week off after Nationals and have been pretty chilled.  I was debating on racing or not and with the rain, that sealed it for me, I was a definite in!  Love racing in the mud! I got a pretty good start and was comfortable heading up the first hill! Surprised after the only thing I rode all week was the couch!  It was also awesome to see Scott make the lead group and not sure what happened behind us, but everyone was gone??  Either way, I kept things smooth and just had some fun.  I lost my brakes right away the first lap and the only way I was slowing down was by putting my feet out or crashing!  First lap it was mainly crashing and I have the bruises to prove it today!  So I lost the group pretty much right away but rode with Scott after I picked myself off the ground a couple times.  Then on the start of the 3rd lap Timster told me Big D and Ben were only 30 seconds up so up the climb I put the hammer down. I caught them as Big D was having a pity party on the big rock we had to go around.  I told him to grab his tissue box, dry his eyes, and lets ride some bikes :)  Too much fun.  As soon as I got to them the fun started.  We kept gabbing and having fun!  Then as we came out of the last singletrack section they said they were calling the race one lap short!  Oops, I was giving Ben 15 seconds or so in case he bobbled in the singletrack and he was happy to have that!! I yelled at him to get back here, but he was not listening to me.  Why not??  I caught up to him in one of the right hand corners and actually had the inside line, but also had tons of speed and a big risk of taking us both out if I tried it so I put my foot down to slow and that was enough for him to get the final gap!   I ended up 7th on the day.  Big D rolled in 8th and Scott gets the ride of the day and finished 10th.  Ryan slip and slid the Renegades for a finish!  Lisa had a good day and came in 3rd.  Michelle crashed again on here same leg with the PCL tear and Sarah stopped to help.  She is doing OK today so hopefully just a scare.  Myles ended up flatting out.

Next up, after completely rebuilding bikes is Sheboygan.  Then some beer drinking to usher out the 2011 Season! 

Entropy balance

This is for the geek in all of us.  Back in my Chem Eng studies we learned that energy is never created nor destroyed.  So then the overall entropy of the universe never changes and ΔS_universe = ΔS_surroundings + ΔS _system So what am I getting at, who knows?  I am just thinking that I have done everything in my power to make my ΔS _system work as it is supposed to on Saturday and give me the output required to perform at my ability.  I have done nothing but focus on this race for the last 2 weeks. the bike is dialed,  I think my legs have come back around, and despite a little bit of allergies from the forrest fire smoke out here I am ready to rip!!  So my goal is to try and get in the top 10.  Not sure if that is possible, but I will fail trying.  The field continues to grow and the depth of talent gets deeper each day!  My excitement level grows each day as well and I cannot wait to rip the trails here in Bend one more time!  Right now I am thinking that the T.I.T.S(Time In The Saddle) will be around 3:30. Seems short to me for a  marathon race!!  I would prefer to see the time be more in the 5 to 6 hr range, but I guess no one ever asked me:( 

This is where ΔS_surroundings comes into play!! Bend rocks.  I understand why they have so many high level athletes coming out of here.  The vibe of the city makes you want to be outside and be active!  The trails are also some of the best I have ever ridden and they make me not want to stop riding!  So even though I am missing Chequamegon this weekend and the companionship of my teammates, my surroundings are good. 

As for my teammates, I hope they all have a great ride at Chequamegon and make it to Rosie's Field in one piece!  That leadout for me will not be missed!! 

My inner child!

Or in my case my inner adult!  My inner child is always visible and shared with others around me, it is the adult aspect of me that does not come out very often!  Luckily for me, Michelle puts up with it!  Once again my inner child took over decision making and I am out in Bend riding bikes while she is at home getting ready for her brother's wedding and a slew of other grown up things.  Not sure if it counts that I am here for the Marathon National Championships??  In my childish mind, all signs point to it being OK?  I am so glad that she supports me in this "so called" dream of wanting to ride bikes fast! 

So now the next timing issue with this trip.  This Friday will be our 11 year anniversary as well? Luckily again she knows I will make it up to her and fully supports my inner, or have we decided now that it is my outer childs urge to travel around and ride bicycles?   Either way I am here to do the best I can and I feel as if the legs are coming around.  They should! I having no responsibility besides riding and recovery! 

So a little about the trip!  It started out in Portland with Bossman and I doing some urban assault on the city! 

It is not too bad of a gig cause there is gelato and espresso on every corner in Portland!  While out I also made a new friend!

With all this work, the hunger settled in and it was time for some snacking!

Mmmm, I'll take one of everything!! 

So after terrorizing Portland, I headed my way to bend for some sweet singletrack riding!  The first couple days I tore around on the Nationals Course.  It seems OK, not what I would say is the best course, but I have seen worse, Idaho anyone!!   Here is a nice look of the course profile!  Cant go wrong with 25 miles up and 25 miles down!

I then watched some of the Cascades 24 hr race and watched as people became delusional!! Man, I will never do another one of those races unless it is just to have fun and if I oversleep my turn, oh well! 

Today was the first set back to the trip.  I woke with a thick smoke haze from all the fires happening around here!  It is so dry that I am afraid to nick a pedal on a rock thinking that it might spark and burn the whole place down!!  Luckily though the winds picked up and the smoke was gone by mid morning.  Today I did an out and back loop.  It was a nice ride with 20 miles of climbing and 20 miles of descending!  You starting to get the idea!  You can take shuttles if you want to start at the top, but I actually like the climb!!  Lots more time to look around!  At least when you are not bleeding out your eyes at race pace!  Today was pretty chill up the Mrazek trail with some nice views of Mt Bachelor once you get to the top! 

Now I am back at the condo in recovery mode!  It is easy to relax when this is the view you get every night from your patio!

Say ya to Da UP eh!

So this past weekend was one of my favorite races ever!  The Copper Harbor Fat Tire Fest!  The race is on some real mountain bike trails that keeps you challenged and smiling ear to ear the whole day and this year did not dissapoint. 

First up after the 5 hr trip north was a spin with Sarah, Tim, and Michelle while we waited for everyone else to arrive!  We decided to head out of town and just keep going off the end of 41 to Horseshoe Bay.  This was Tim's first real venture offroad and we all laughed as he came down the path that leads down to the water.  The whole time, oh my, Oh no, oh I will walk that... as the rest of us laughed!  Tim is alwasy good for some entertainment! 

On Saturday it was Super D.  I woke up not real motivated so I did not bother changing the Renegades and rocked them, or should I say slid them all the way down the hill.  It worked out OK and I had a blast on the new flow trail!  Tons of fun rocketing down this new trail full of berms, bridges, and just fun full out speed down the trail!  In the end I ended up 4th and TSP got his revenge by 8 seconds this year!  He is now 7 seconds in the good on me after I beat him by only 1 sec last year!

Michelle, Di, and Lisa(Not Krayer) rocked the Super D as well.  Sarah, Scott, and Mark bailed on Super D to get a loop of the course in.  Di ended up taking hte win and Michelle was 3rd.  Here is Michelle coming in hot for Super D!!  Sweet! 

After riding Super D, TSP and I decided to do a lap of the course! What a blast.  I really liked the changes to the course this year cause it used all the fun stuff!!  At the end of the day we had 3.5 hrs in, sounds like a good race warm up to me!! 

Then Sunday was the XC race. We woke up to rain coming in sideways off from the cold, Lake Superior waters!  Motivation crushed!  Made me think of the end of summer!  Blah!  So race morning I knew I was going to have fun for the day with Brian Matter and Tyler coming up to ride with me.  We made the deal to chill and just ride!  That is the whole point of this race, to make it not seem like a race.  Brian and I hit the bottom of the climb and were sitting in about 30th.  We looked up the road and Ben Koenig was already about 30 seconds up.  We looked at each other and basically said, whatever not too motivated to chase.  We set a nice pace up Brockway and still entered into the flow trail 2nd and 3rd wheel.  By the time we hit the bottom Ben had almost a minute on a chase group of myself, Brian, Tyler, TSP, Tom Carpenter, and the young stud Peter Karinen.  We then started up Garden Brook and by the time we rounded around near the tennis courts we had brought the gap down to about 30 seconds and had Brian, Tyler, TSP, and myself left in the group and already traded 2 cookie recipes!!  Yeah,we were talking A LOT!!  Then when we rounded the bottom of the descent off from Say Hello and started the climb back to the golf course, there was Ben standing off from a bridge in the middle of a bunnch of ferns. We stopped to make sure he was OK and that is when he told us he broke his handle bars!  Bummer, cause he missed the descent down the red trail!!

After we found out he was OK we countinued to climb back to the top of the red climb.  At the top of the red climb Tyler continued on, while Brian and I stopped to work on tire pressure issues, low for me, high for him.  That is when TSP went by asking what we were up to?? "Holding hands" was the response Brian gave him!  TSP's response was, remember you paid money to race your bikes!  Oh yeah, forgot! 

We adjusted pressure and we were off in search of Tyler.  We caught him toward the bottom of the Red trail and came around for lap 2, a group of 4.  After a quick hand up from Timster, we were off.  At the start of the 2nd lap, it was a good thing I knew what was happening, cause the lap person tried to send us the wrong way! 

The 2nd lap went off without a hitch and everyone was happy to just let me set the pace as we chatted and had fun on the trails.  We did loose TSP on the 2nd climb upto the golf course due to him breaking his "Wreck" Top Fuel on the rear chainstay. 

We all made it down the Red Trail the 2nd time together and for some reason Brian let a gap open exiting the Ma Maki trail onto Manganese Road.  I turned around and smiled, then punched it.  I failed to realize that I had a 39 on the front and Brian a 42, cause he came up on me as I was all spun out!  Luckily he let up just enough to let me get on his wheel, but we went fast enough to not allow Tyler back on, sorry Tyler!  I followed Brian's wheel around the pond and knew the finish well.  I jumped as we rounded the building and was dissapointed that Brian didn't sprint me for the win!  He said he was looking for a banner, but I feel like he let me have it.  Guess we will never know!   Either way we had so much fun up there and I had fun riding and trading stories with Brian, Tyler, and TSP. 

Here are some more pics of the weekend!

After the race, it was travel home, clean bikes, pack, and more travel!  I am now sitting in Portland and will be traveling to Bend later today after some urban assault with Bossman this aftternoon. So stay tuned, more adventueres to come!!   

Whatever!!

Who cares what the masses say!  Riding bikes is cool!  3 x 20s this morning while the fog was lifting off the country roads!  Sweet!  I did it all on my skinny wheel bike too, it was complaining that it missed me!  Plus bossman wanted numbers!  I am waiting on one of these!

But in the meantime, when numbers are required I have to ride this. I must admit though, it is still a REALLY nice option!