Number on....

Just finished putting the first number plate on for 2012 and now chill'n with the rest of the team on the porch of our so called cabin on the river. Super excited for go time......... In the meantime here is the pre race press release. The stacked field is going to make it even more fun!

Game face

OK, not for me cause I really don't have one. What can I say, I like to mess around too much on the bike and race day is no different.  Either way the Cohutta 100 is just a few short days away and I am really excited.  It is going to be a fun time for sure and the race is sold out with a lot of familiar names on the start list.  I for some reason have had some good luck here and I hope that it continues this weekend.  The bike set up for the weekend is the Specialized Epic 29er, yes a 29er for me this year??  I will be running the Specialized renegades for tires, scrub rotors, Truvativ cockpit, and I will be doing my first race with the Quarq Power Meter.  Might have to just send that file to bossman without looking at it.  Not real sure I want to know what the power is at the end of 7hrs in the saddle??  Maybe I will post it here?? 

So to finish the prep for the big weekend, I ended up doing a big weekend of rides.  Started on Saturday on  the Tarmac.  Lets just say it was not a motivational ride by any means as I struggled to get my carcass back home.  Not sure what was a miss, but ouch that hurt.  Then I am not sure this is a bad day cause it happened, or a good day that a Pro bar wrapper became my tire tread and made it 40 miles back home???

 I know the picture is a little blurry but you get the idea.  I then decided to get the proper nutrient in my body so I was ready to go again on Sunday:

Come on, there is a water bottle back there, probably empty though!  That is also not Sprecher in the glass.  Timster stopped and picked up a couple growlers of Central Waters Belgian Blond.  One of the better brews that they make.  Next weekend at Iola I highly recommend you hit them up in Amherst.  Also hersheys was the only chocolate I could find in Tim and Sarah's house! I was going to say that is not right, but I probably ate it all the last time I was there:)   Also the last time we were there we had a beer from Mikkeller Brewery in Norway.  It was really expensive at $13 for a 8.5oz bottle.  It was their Brunch Weasel aged in Cognac barrels.  The interesting thing about it, well read the description of the stock beer before putting it in the Cognac barrels to age for 3 months.  Yup, it said what you thought it did.  Right from the Weasels butt.  I knew that they made coffee this way and it is the most expensive coffee that you could buy, but I swore you would never get me to try it.  That is unless you mask it in the beer form.  All I have to say is the beer is awesome, unfortunately we found out that we got 1 of 48 bottles brought into the state of Wisconsin!! As for the weasel, Mark mentioned he was OK with it cause he was going to just tell himself it was a free range weasel and that somehow made it better in his world??? 

So now that I was fueled back up, I was ready for some team action at the Kettles with Big D, Ryan, and Brian.  Was a good time for sure as we just traded leads and attacks on each other for the entire day!  By the end I think we all had a muffin moment and put in a little under 4 hrs, and a little over 40 miles of fun!! Was also a good last shake down on the bike leading into the first race. 

Next up is a 15 hrs drive to the south, east corner of Tennessee. 

All quiet on the bike front

So it is one week till the start of the season and everything seems to be in a nice place of zen.  It has been a long time sincee things were smooth sailing and everyday I woke up excited to ride my bike no matter the workout! Don't get me wrong VO2 workouts still suck, but they are more bareable when you are riding well.  It has also been nice cause I have parked the Tarmac and have been on the Epic 29er for the last week now.  I always find a day of soreness associated with a bike change.  I have tried everything and even have used Scott's Specialized BG fit knowledge on several occasions to make sure everything is dialed.  Everything that we can think of seems dead on , but there is something missing so going into bigger races I do all my rides on the MTB.  Using this plan has become easier this year because of the addition of the Quarq Powermeter to my MTB.  This allows me to still send bossman numbers of what I am doing instead of guessing at a TSS score for every ride.  Although I have noticed a huge difference between your TSS and KJs for the day on the MTB.  Especially when you get on a technical trail.  I really think that formula needs to be re-worked a little!  I can come off a hard mtb ride with several accelerations over 400 watts just completely tanked.  Then if I compare it to one of my road files it is not even close!  Must mean that I am efficient at just setting my pace and leaving it for hours on end and the accelerations are what kill me?  Could also explain why the 100 mile races keep calling my name.  This year I have added even more of them to the schedule and will be less present at the WORS racees, especially the early season ones.  So here is a peak at my schedule for the year:
  

This should keep me busy for the year.  I am still undecided for the PROXct race though.  It is the same weekend as the New Hamshire 100 and I really want to do that one but hard to skip a National race that allows you to sleep in your own bed.  Speaking of sleeping, I found this one the other day while riding.  I guess you never know when you might need a break.  From now on, this is where I will be doing all my intervals, just in case I need a nap!

If anyone knows me though, I do not nap!  I never really even sit down.  The one thing that I do get called out on is that I am always eating!  So my brother in law and his wife decided to help out with some extra calories! 

Yup, that is a 5KG(11lb) tub of Nutella!  So Michelle figured it out and I guess I need to get in something like 88 hrs of race pace workouts to use up all the calories in this thing! So if you have any good Nutella recipes send them my way! 

In other news, Big D has a birthday yesterday.  I think he turned 18 or so?? Acutally I think it was 27, so I started thinking about what was popular in 2001 when I was 27.  Well at the time I was riding a Litespeed Ocoee:

So after thinking about that I started thinking about Scott(oh yeah and McFadden), sorry older men.  I believe at that time Scott was riding a Yeti and McFadden a DBR, but not real sure so here is what Ned was riding in 1992.

Too funny! 

Just another day........

So there has not been much to talk about.  Been riding my bike a lot, having fun with it, and there are good leg days and some bad leg days.  All in all though I still love riding the bike.  Since being back from Prescott the road bike has been getting the love and I have chalked up some good miles on it.  Amazing how the difference in bike can affect the amount of miles.  Even between my cross bike to my Tarmac.  On my cross bike I would go out on a 4 hr ride and put out 60 or 65 miles, but on the Tarmac you can rip out 80 to 85 miles.  It seems to add to my motivation when you see more mileage. All in all I know it is still 4 hrs but it is not very often that someone actually asks you how many hrs you ride,  they always want to know the mileage. 

So with the change in weather and spring coming a lot of people have been getting that racing bug and it is coming quick.  I have my race schedule set for the year and it is heavily weighted with the long distance stuff.  Even skipping Chequamegon again this year.  I really thought I would miss this event, but I don't.  Yeah I miss the after race antics of the team, but the race itself has been my achilles heal for a number of years.  All I ever wanted was to hit the podium once and I have been close on a number of occasions but cant seem to get the job done.  So what takes its place, Marathon National Championships.  This year they are in Bend again and I cannot turn down another oppurtunity to head out there. I love the town and all the trails that surround it!  This year Michelle and I will be spending 2 different 2 week periods out there and one might include some house hunting?  Time will tell. 

Just might be.....

The best use for a Crap Pad!

Home again, Home agian!

But not after a fun trip home.  So Michelle and I rolled out of Press-skit on Friday morning after a good week of riding in the area.  Yup the snow melted and left us with some hard pack, fast, fun trails.  A little hard to piece them together so I made trail lists in the morning, here is our last day there:

It was nice that they used a number system, if not I would of needed more tape!  The grouping of trails pretty much finished the legs off and the ride almost ended up on the top of a picnic table. Tyler and I were descending the 305 and when we came out into a camping area I saw a table.  I rolled up to it and in one move rolled from my bike seat to laying on my back on top of the table.  Cooked!  The problem was, we had to get back over the hill to make it home, which meant over an hour of climbing and about 2 total hrs on the bike left!  So we set there for a bit and contemplated our options, yes one of them was to have Michelle pick us up!  We quickly ruled that one out though!

 So after some table setting we sucked it up and headed for home!  I really think the only thing that got me moving again was a double chocolate PRO bar, all I can say is Cocoa Pebbles!  Mmmm! 

Overall the day was not a waste, we made it to the top of Spruce Mountain, 7,600 and some odd feet in elevation.

Our other favorite trail in the area was the tire eater! Or as the locals called it the Black Canyon Trail.  Over the course of the 2 weeks we rode the entire 79 miles in both directions.  The last day Ryan was there we actually rode it from Meyer down to the Black Canyon Trailhead which turned out to be 6 hrs of saddle time!  Sweet.  The 6 hours were made better with the first hr of the ride all downhill, you have to love it when this is your Garmin profile, at least till you turn around:

With the day planned, Ryan thought he should do some calisthenics before getting going??  Its RK?:

In the end, this turned out to be our longest day, 6 hrs ride time.  6.5 hrs with the flats and chit chat breaks! 

So after everyone left us, it was down to Michelle and I to hit the roads for the trip cross country home.  We were loaded down with bikes and after some texts with Mikey I decided to call it the Peariso Non-Neutral Support Vehicle:

We narrowly missed a take over in New Mexico by an enemy that we could not see.  They had the biggest arrows ever though!

You can tell Michelle was driving at the time by the skew of the roadside barrel!  She is a speed demon in the new car!

After we avoided this attack, I thought we were safe for the trip home!  First Michelle's life was in danger after we left Albuquerque!  We did not find a latte from there all the way till we hit Wichita!!  Not good, then the only stop in Wichita that we found was Starbucks!  Really!!  No one in east New Mexico, the pan handle of Texas, or the pan handle of Oklahoma drinks espresso!! Must have something to do with bull riding and upholding an image?  Or there head has hit the ground so many times that it has knocked their sense of taste all of of whack and folgers tastes the same?  This could also explain chicken fried steak?? 

So things calmed after I found caffeine, that is until we heard that there were MTB trails in Lawrence Kansas and we decided to stop for the night and ride the next morning.  Ooops!  This was Saturday night, can you say final four!  Shows you how much I care.  Anyway, the first half did not go real well and Michelle and I did not want to stand around and witness what could happen if they lost:

Saw some pretty god sidewalk spills while walking the streets that made the stop worth while!  Anthoer thing that made the stop worth while:

So after a ride at the Clinton Lake Trails, we loaded up for the last time and made it back to the house late on Sunday night to complete the road trip!  Next up, Cohutta!