Fitness

This weekend was good for gaining some much needed fitness. Conditions for Boulder Roubaix couldn't have been much better. The road was potholed as expected, but there were some lines that were decent enough. The race stayed together for the first few laps which made it a little tougher to find good lines going from the feed zone to the finish. I put in a small effort to get to the front and pick my own lines, but it didn't amount to much.



Once the real move made it up the road it was pretty well represented and the remaining group wasn't doing too much racing. I put in a feeble attempt to bridge, but did little more than dangle. My lack of volume reared its ugly head as I got progressively slower with each passing lap. I finished and that's about all I can say.

The race at the Air Force Academy was a good one to watch from the feed zone after 3 laps. My legs decided they had enough after popping off the back on the 2nd lap and chasing back for the third climb up the hill. I got back to the group, rode through, popped, and limped back to the car. Kevin rode well as usual . . . it was amusing to see Mike Carter roll around solo to finish a good 30 seconds ahead of the next finisher.

The program is set for the week including a nice long, slow recovery ride tomorrow. Ah to be a cycling tourist again . . .

What a Storm

I woke up Friday morning expecting the worst. All predictions pointed to up to a foot of snow. I peeked out the window (knowing there was nothing because of the birds chirping) and saw . . . absolutely no snow on the ground. The only accumulation was the petals that have fallen off of my plum tree in the side yard. Joy oh joy, I'd get to race the Boulder Roubaix after all!

This weekend is a good one for training/racing. Roubaix will be tough and from what I hear the Air Force Academy course used previously for Worlds is a crusher. My teammate Kevin is smart enough to skip tomorrow's race which promises potholed roads and dust a plenty.

The good news is that the lack of snow should allow me to pick up my new grill (photos to follow) at the Home Depot and join the rest of America in summer backyard grillling.

There's Always Next Week

Sometimes things go right and riding feels good, natural, efficient and sometimes you have to rely on a good optimistic outlook and remember that there's always next week.

The time trial yesterday didn't really go as planned and my lackluster performance showed with a time slower than any of my efforts from last season. There really aren't any excuses to be made, fortunately the series out at Cherry Creek is without real consequence or significance. I'll look at the ride as a source of motivation and a reason to regain my focus on training over the next days, weeks, months . . . The beauty of having a coach and a good one at that is being able to make adjustments on the fly. Mike is making changes and revising the program to work around the fact that I won't be able to make it to Tour of the Gila this year.

It was good to see some of my Tokyo Joe's teammates out and about. Mike P., Alex, and Duane were doing the TT thing. I saw Leonard in a car, he'll have to comment on that one on his own. Everything seems to be coming together nicely with sponsors for the season. We'll be well equipped in addition to being well fed.

KHTT (aka CCTT)

So now that winter is finally over and spring is here . . .

The time trial series out at Cherry Creek starts this evening. As usual the weather promises wind for the late afternoon/early evening time period, I'm sure with gusts picking up right around my start time. The goal for this year is really not to get passed by Mike Carter. I'm pretty sure I can accomplish it since he starts in front of me for once.

Winter has been excessively cruel this year. It has lingered, dragged on, sapped both motivation and will to ride. I feel like I haven't had much by way of real training over the last few weeks since getting back from Hawaii. Getting on the trainer feels like a chore and riding in wind like yesterday afternoon is mentally punishing.

The CCTT is a good test of fitness since the course doesn't really change year to year and I know what I was able to do last year. There haven't been any changes to equipment other than the motor. We'll see what happens.

A Day in the Life . . .

What follows is a tale told by Dempsey. This is your chance to find out what goes through the head of a 2-year old flat- coated retriever:



The day starts out with a trip somewhere, they usually don't tell me where, they just throw me in the car and assume I want to go. Some days I get to go to races. I like races because I can bark and I see people go by and every once in a while I can try to bite someone when they aren't looking.



Today we go to the store. I think they are making my dinner. I don't really care what they are making, I'm going to try to get some. I think this part of the chicken is for me.



I know this guy is crazy, but i'm pretty sure he's trying to romance this chicken.



Most of the time is seems like somebody is always leaving me behind to go to work or to ride or something. Can't every trip out of the house include me? If they just let me run . . .

Really?

There are some things you simply can't make up. For example:



I have absolutely no clue what sort of marketing tactic this is. It is unique, I'll give it that. Next time I am in need of an auto service center I probably won't be giving A-1 a call. In other rediculous news, the weather has taken it's end of the week, entering the weekend turn for the worse.



As you can see there are no longer mountains to the west, just a gray mass that promises to bring snow, rain and cold.



The forecast for Saturday is now a high of 32 and some sort of moisture. Great weather for a Colorado spring "classic" . . . to those of you racing the Boulder Roubaix, good luck, drink plenty of hot chocolate after the race when you are cleaning mud out of your sealed bearings. I have often been accused of being a fair weather cyclist . . . call me crazy, but I don't get paid to ride my bike and if I end up sick as a dog (Dempsey does have conjunctivitus by the way) and miss work for my real job, I don't get paid!

Where Does the Time Go?

As many others have found out before me, blogging on a consistent basis is much harder than you would think. It isn't that my life isn't the wild roller coaster ride it appears to be . . . it's just remembering things and pretending to have to time to write them down and add pictures.

Picking up where we left off, Sunday's plan was to get out and race at Colorado School of Mines instead of hitting the infamous Koppenberg. In the interest of showcasing one of my team sponsors Haber Vision (www.habervision.com - if you are interested in glasses, let me know and I'll give you the referral code which helps you and helps the team), Dempsey decided it was time to start wearing glasses.



You can see in this next picture that we do infact have a team and both of us showed up to race. Kevin has the skills and experience to get where he needs to be pretty much anytime, anywhere when it comes to racing. I knew this one was going to split up quickly and unfortunately I found myself on the wrong side of the split. One of the fast kids and a few of the fast old guys, Kevin and my coach Mike Carter included got away and lapped most of the field.



The remainder of the race was a good opportunity to try to shake off a winter's worth of trainer handling skills. While I am not the world's worst bike handler, I certainly haven't won any awards. There was a lot that I could get away with as a Cat 3, but I know the importance of not wasting efforts in P/1/2 races.

Passover started this week so my diet of fruits and matzo will result in significant weight loss. The only real treat for Passover is chicken soup with matzo balls which might come in handy anyways with the "wintery" mix forecast for the remainder of the week, including Saturday which is Boulder Roubaix . . .