Futile effort?

I'm not really convinced anyone reads blogs anymore, let alone write blogs... but... what the hell, I'll keep going.


The past couple of... months(?) seem to have been pretty uneventful in the way of racing. The last race was the Yfreedom triathlon. First ever road triathlon, pulled fourth in my age group. Not bad considering my swim time was almost one solid minute slower than anyone else in my age group. Still suspicious of their timing... It was pretty fun though, not sure how I managed to do as well in the run as I did. And I pulled 45th overall out of 407 racers, not too bad...


Beyond that little effort, my time has been taken up by training for the upcoming XTerra at the end of August. On a ranch that is "event only". Should be interesting, at least we'll all be at the same disadvantage of not knowing the course. Then, three weeks after that, I'm doing my second road triathlon, the Rose City Tri, in Tyler, TX. This will also be Sonia's first triathlon!


Other than that triathlon business, the mountain bike races I'm looking to do this Fall include the 24 hours of Rocky Hill, the Waco race, and the Rocky Hill marathon race. I'm also throwing around the idea of a trail run half marathon at the Dirty Du in November... sounds painful!


What else is new? My Mom is coming to visit this weekend. I'm building a new, carbon mountain bike. I am going to sell my 29er Orbea Lanza. Work is good, busy as normal. It's hot here (on this note, it's only about 2 degrees higher than normal and now we are under a "Heat Advisory", what are we under all the rest of the summer?). It's shark week. Today, in 1108, Louis the VI was crowned, he was the "fat" one.

Dipping my toe into the XTerra waters

Last weekend was the XTerra triathlon in Waco. Five weeks prior to the race, at the Comfort mountain bike race, Alan, my old coach, talked me into committing to the XTerra race in Waco. Well, after four weeks of struggling to get a grasp of what swimming was, purchasing a wetsuit, and then trying out the wetsuit in my first ever, serious open-water swim two weekends ago, I decided to race the shorter distance in Waco. The race consisted of a 750 meter swim, a 16K mountain bike and a 3.5 mile run.

I'd never gotten ready for a tri before so I didn't really know how to go about it. It was also only the second time I had put on the wetsuit:

Then the announcer said 15 minutes until start, ugh: I had the goals for the race, finish Part 1, then finish Part 2, and then finish Part 3. The race: Part 1: Swim 750 meters is a long swim, at least for me it is. Two weekends ago I struggled my way through 1300 meters but in the race we were swimming in the river and there were other people there. I remember the first time I got kicked, not too bad, doesn't seem to bother me. Then, I remember sort of swimming over someone, also didn't seem to bother me. About three quarters the way through the swim I was getting pretty dang tired, the last 200 meters seem to creep by. Finally I got to the bank and got pulled out of the water and up the slippery bank by some great volunteers: Part 2: The Bike I knew I was behind and I needed to do some work, a lot of work. I knew most of the people in the race were out and gone in front of me as there were very few bikes on the rack in the Transition Area (TA) when I went through. Good thing the course was technical and fun, I did some work and passed lots of people. I wasn't satisfied until I passed three guys in my class that were all pretty close together. Then I passed some more people and then a couple more. I crushed it on the way back into the TA, had a good transition and it was time to do business again.

Part 3: The Run

About a quarter mile into the run we had the great pleasure of running up Jacob's Ladder, a steep staircase with steps ranging in height from 6 to 20+ inches. Did I mention it was steep? After walking/running up that there was only 3.25 miles left of up and down running through singletrack to the finish. I was feeling pretty good but I wasn't seeing anyone, wasn't quite sure how to feel about that but I figured I was somewhere around middle of my age group pack, not too bad I thought. Then, with about a mile to go I saw someone ahead, finally someone to race!! I picked it up a bit on the home stretch and passed four people on my way in. About a quarter mile from the finish we went back onto the pavement to the finish and someone on the sideline said, "Your in third place overall" I didn't think he was serious until I came into the finish line and they announced "Here comes third place overall in the sprint race!"

Whew, I finished! I honestly did not expect to do that well. I felt pretty dang good after the race. It was such a great race. Everyone was so helpful and encouraging throughout the day and the competitors were all so nice, similar to mountain bike racers.

Now, time to practice that swimming...

A delayed report about that

24 hour race is better than no report at all.

On October 23rd - 24th the annual 24 hours of Rocky Hill took place. I had decided about a month before to do the race since my racing travel buddy/support had a test and this race was much closer than Ruston, LA. The team consisted of three of us from last year (Steve, Simon and me) and a new racer, Vanessa. We raced 3 - 4 person Open Coed. Here is the tale:

Friday night before the race was filled with eager anticipation and last minute preparation. Slightly apprehensive about how I would do after racing the weekend before I just took it easy and relaxed most of the evening occasionally checking the weather report. I went to bed pretty early to try to get ahead on the sleep deficit that was inevitable.

Saturday morning I got up pretty early so I could eat a big breakfast, pack, get gas, and then get Starbucks on the way to the race. Looming dark gray clouds filled the sky as I drove west toward Smithville. Worries of muddy singletrack filled my mind as I passed through a pretty good rain storm but soon I was out of the rain to find relatively dry road. Finally, I pulled in to Rocky Hill and found the team. After the obligatory hellos and introductions I got the bike ready to go and then we convinced Vanessa to go first, Thank God! I really didn't want to do the Le Mans around the rocky drive way. The race started at noon and Vanessa threw down a pretty good lap. I was second and I had a little time to make up so I went after it. I pushed it pretty hard on the early climbs and felt it the rest of the lap. About 3/4 the way through the lap the ominous gray clouds decided it was time to pee on Brandon, and everyone else on the course, about the time I hit the only rocky/potentially slippery decent on the course. Since I was trying to haul ass I went down, pretty hard. No big injuries so I got back on and continued mashing pedals. The only victim of the crash was the buckle on my left shoe. Got back and had enough time to drink some water, refill the water bottles, duct-tape my shoe to my foot, and then go out again. The second lap felt pretty good and I set my fastest lap of the day, no crashes.

I got a good break while Simon and Steve took their turns on course. We had about a 1 lap lead when I started my third lap. I didn't go quite as hard on my third and fourth laps since we did have a lead but still had a couple of good night laps. I held under an hour both laps. After my fourth lap our lead continued to grow. I believe we were around 2 laps up when I got done. I was quite tired so I might be wrong. After some food and water I climbed into my car to get some much needed rest. In a blink of an eye it was time to get up again and get ready to ride. I wasn't planning on doing a third night lap so I hadn't charged my light and just prayed it had enough to make it an hour.

Our lead was pretty good so I decided to do and 'easy' lap, I even had time to stop on the course for a much needed bathroom break. Around my time mark I decided to try to beat an hour. Unfortunately, I hit 1:00:32, should've held the pee I guess. Oh well, the legs were starting to feel it a bit on the last lap so I was just focused on finishing without crashing. When I got in we were up around 4 laps so I said I was done no matter what the teammates said. Then I took the best feeling shower ever and just chilled while Simon and Steve finished the race. We were up 5 laps when Steve was out on his last lap so Simon decided to call it so we could pack up camp and get otta there in a reasonable time.

I decided to take off around 11:15 since the awards weren't going to be until 2 and I was struggling to not fall asleep sitting in my chair. A large mocha frappuccino did the trick to get me back to Houston where I could finally pass out.

The race was great, Terra Firma Promo did a great job organizing the race and the Redbarn Timing system worked great!

Results

Piece #2

I was very unmotivated to ride today but I did. The weather is nice so the ride was good once I actually got out there. I was kind of just meandering around through the route I normally do and I did a couple of laps at Memorial. I was surprised because several cars actually gave me the right of way which is nice because typically they wait awkwardly and then I go and they go at the same time and they almost run me over. Some lady on a bike also told me I looked "profesh" so she let me by, I think she mistook me for someone fast. Other than the ride it's a pretty lazy day. Lauren is watching some stupid show about models or something on Lifetime, lame.

Yesterday was a good mountain bike ride and I discovered some crazy trails at Memorial, borderline unrideable but I tried anyways. Maybe it would be a good paydirt effort to get them into shape. While I was out riding Lauren chopped 9 inches of her hair off and she's gonna donate it to Locks of Love.

I'm not sure what else I was going to write, I while ago Lauren and I saw this snail crossing the sidewalk so I took a picture:

and we took a picture of the inside of Seu's mouth: and we volunteered at an animal rescue (Friends for life)and we ended up feeding ferrets, odd little animals:

Bryan

Well, rained again. That pretty much sums up the Bryan experience but I'll put it in a little better perspective. We left Houston on Saturday morning at about 11 after hitting up some book sales, garage sales, the bank, and somewhere else on the way up to Bryan (~100 miles away). Apparently the DOT decided to close down two of the three lanes on 290 which led to some serious backups and waiting in traffic. Once we got going again we noticed some ominously dark looking clouds looming on the horizon to the west and north (near Bryan) but we were hoping to beat the rain there. Approximately 10 minutes after saying, "It looks pretty light up by Bryan", torrential downpours struck. This demotivated me to pre-ride and slowed traffic considerably. We finally got to Bryan about an hour and a half later than I had wanted to but it didn't matter because the course was a real piece of muddy work so I didn't pre-ride anyways. Keeping my fingers crossed, that the rain would stop, I registered and then we headed into town for some food and later, sleep. Lauren somehow talked me into going to the Large Animal Vet Clinic at A&M, creepiest feeling ever!

About dinner time the rain started up again and, as far as I can tell, it didn't stop until about 8:30, 30 minutes before the Cat 1 race. Awesome, I thought as I peered into a couple of the large puddles we had to go through 20 feet after the start line. The course officials had shortened the course considerably after a pre-riding racer was consumed entirely by a large mud hole on the western loop, that's not actually true, but they did cut off that section of trail. The final trail length was 11 miles, "That's not too bad," I thought. Thinking I would catch some of the PSE riders coming up the final stretch before the start finish line, I waited around until I had to go get ready and warm-up. Something struck me then, "11 miles and the pros aren't even back and it's been over an hour," this could get ugly. After a good warm-up I headed to the start line. One of the race officials was saying, "Watch out when you go down the hill by the 'Slippery' sign because there is a large telephone pole at the bottom that you could crash into."

The race started slippery and fast, I got into the single-track in second and was right on the tire of first place until he slid out and off the trail on a wet bridge. Being in first, there was no one around and I didn't know how for ahead I was. Then, a rider that went to A&M caught me and apparently he had taken a mountain biking class out there so he knew every inch of the trail. We were pacing each other and then all of the sudden another rider from our class was on us and he was looking pretty strong. He got into first and I stayed with him for a while then I lost him on a short nasty muddy uphill in which the other guy passed me too. Now I was in third and I was starting to get tired. Having not pre-ridden I didn't know when to attack but this wasn't a big problem as my chain kept binding up which slowed me down quite a bit. I started to catch back up to the two in front of me and then I passed second place after he had flatted. I tried hard but I couldn't catch first. It was a tough race and I ended up in second.

Last hill, it hurt, I think my tongue is sticking out.

MuddyBike bath time, I think I dropped something...

Seu got it

Crazy Afternoon

So this afternoon was pretty dang crazy. Firstly, on the drive home, I was super-close to being in an accident. There was a car in front of me and we were going about 65 and all of the sudden the car front tire blew and the driver decided to slam on the brakes. That's not what you are supposed to do when you blow a tire. But anyway I saw the car at the last second and swerved around them. As I was going around the front of the car it was about 6 inches from my car. Whew!! Then I realized how lucky I was there wasn't a car to my right when I swerved and I'm really glad I didn't rear end them.

After I got home and calmed down a bit Lauren and I went to Memorial Park for some mountain biking. Not know for sure what to think as I've gotten several reviews on a wide range from "don't waste your time" to "you probably won't be able to ride it your first time because it's so technical" I wasn't overly impressed nor severely disappointed. We also showed up and didn't really know where to go so we ended up riding the "Black" loop, the most technical trail. Lauren had previously told me she wouldn't ride that part but since she didn't know I made her.

Lauren also pulled out one of Seu's baby teeth. Sick!

I hope the Dirt Derby is going well. If you ride a bike and you are in Austin or the surrounding area you should definitely go check it out!

The MS150

I'm going to do the MS150 in Minnesota on June 13th and 14th. I've really wanted to do the Texas MS150 but this semester was a little too crazy so I'm going to do the Minnesota version. If you are interested in supporting me a little I have set up a fundraising page:

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=6767717&pg=personal&fr_id=9641

Here is a link to the ride website:

http://bikemnm.nationalmssociety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=BIKE_MNM_150_homepage&gclid=CPGh0LSNvJoCFQhhnAodUG43dA

Thank you all for reading and looking.

Summer Training

So I'm thinking about equipping my singlespeed commuter bike with a fixed gear for training this summer. I'll be riding with Lauren, who doesn't like riding as fast as I do, so I was thinking it'll be a good way to get a good workout while not killing Lauren.

If anyone has insight as to whether this is a good or bad idea, let me know.

I also might need some supplies so if you know any good places to get components or have some you'd be willing to sell, let me know that, too.

On another note, all I have left for classes is one final tomorrow morning. Can't wait to be done with that.

On a different note, the Banff Mountain Film Festival was in Austin on monday night and last night and it was awesome. If you like to do outdoor adventurous activities such as rock climbing, mountain biking, slacklining, high-lining, basejumping, cliff jumping, skydiving, kite skiing, regular skiing, snowboarding and there are probably some things I left out, then you would definitely appreciate these films. For a little background about the festival go here. I definitely recommend it and I definitely will go again.

For a picture, in case you don't know what high-lining is:

The fork problem

Well I guess I just got a plagued fork on my mountain bike. The first time I went night riding with Kyle and the third time I was on the bike I blew the seals out of my fork and I had to take it in to get it replaced or rebuilt under warranty. After that, I rode for a while until last weekend when I went down to Rocky Hill with Dave. 45 miles later I was dead and finally done. It's amazing what those energy gels actually do for you when you are riding a long time. Anyways, I got done and then it came to my realization that my fork was leaking oil so now I have to take it back in and have them rewarranty the fork. It could be worse, I guess I am getting a new fork out of the deal. I hope the new one is good to go.

On a side note: When Dave and I got done riding we noticed a very large cloud of smoke to the east of where we were and wondered what was burning down. Well apparently it was a large portion of Bastrop and the surrounding area. It was pretty crazy and impressive to see. While on the phone with Lauren this conversation took place while trying to explain that Hwy 71 was closed and I couldn't go to the barn with her.

Me: Yeah there's a huge fire and the highway is closed. I bet you can see the smoke.
Lauren: Well I can't really see anything but a big cloud.
Me: You mean the long streaky one coming out of the ground?
Lauren: Yeah
Me: That's smoke from the fire Lauren...
Lauren: Oh, well I guess I can see it then.

That might not be the exact words but they are pretty close.

Well I need to take that bike in to the shop.