Weak Post

This looks like it was a pretty cool trip. Thanks for reading.

Lighten Up

I'm wearing a ball cap as I write this. A red one, with a velcro closure and a Stonyfield Farm logo on the front. Why am I mentioning this? Absolutely no reason. I don't normally wear ball caps around the house though. I rarely wear them outside either. When I do, I don't wear them backwards or all crooked. Cycling caps, that's different. Francine recently wrote a post about cycling caps. Well, sort of. I'm not sure I've ever seen her without one. I can rock the cycling cap too. In fact, at the running race on T-day, I wore my Kelme cap. Backwards. More aero, you know? What I Think's post had links to a few makers of wool cycling caps. These are the coolest. And the warmest. I've only owned one before, I think it was a Giordana, but I'm not sure. It was a Rossin cap, it matched my bike, and it had the wool earflap. Like my Giordana world championship stripes jacket, it mysteriously disappeared one day. I'm not sure about the cap, that could have been lost. The jacket, that vanished from a team mate's bus one day up at Killington. Much later in life, I found out that a junior we had on our team at that time had made himself a life as a thieving scumbag/wannabe pro bike racer. He happened to have dnf'd the previous stage and hung out in the van all day. Hmmm...

Anyway, that's irrelevant. Part of the theme here is to lighten the load. You see, after reading FL's post on hats, I almost pulled a quickdraw on the plastic and ordered up a few woolies for me head. But I didn't. Partly because I knew it would be better to see the goods in person, especially hats priced from $25-50. The other reason was, well, I'm trying not to overconsume. Astute followers of this blog know the "resist marketing" theme comes up from time to time. Did you all catch Strangelife's "acquisitive" post last Friday? I hope you did. If not, go read it.

There were a number of similarly-themed posts up last week, and I think I read somewhere about an organized "boycott Black Friday" movement of some sort somewhere. When I was working in Framingham last week, I sat amongst a bunch of kids whom I do not know. All they talked about all day was what they were going to buy on Friday, and how early in the morning they were going to head out in order to snag this or that. Yikes. I did not buy anything on Friday. Funny thing is, I did get a shipment in the mail, three boxes of shoes. All running shoes. New trail runners, well, I need those. You may remember my Grid Labrynths from the footwear nodcast. They held up well, and I ran in them well past 300 miles, probably more like 450, which is more than double what I usually get out of a pair of shoes. So I needed a new pair. I also tried a different model Saucony trail runner that was on sale, and additionally purchased my first pair of racing shoes, some Grid Fastwitch-2's. With all these shoes piling up, I felt like Imelda Marcos, and almost wrote a blog entry about it... Found out yesterday that would've sucked.

You're excused if you didn't see Slow Your Roll last week. I've cut down on the number of blogs I read too. Not sure what happened with the "long post" from Monday, but traffic, and specifically new visitors, was off the charts. Maybe I'm on to something here. I don't know, as I don't track referrers, so maybe some popular mofo setup a link. I am however, disappointed that nobody took a shot at my fork analogy. Yes, I know that GeWilli at least made a mention, but I'm dissed that there was no one geeky enough to complain that I should have used fork() instead of "fork in the road". Or even forking a project. Yeah, sure, they're almost the same thing as a fork in the road, but geeks are usually such a nit-picky bunch.

Maybe everyone is just all kind, gentle, and full of love. So we've got that going for us. And yes, I know that Bolder used that line earlier in the week. I wonder if he golfs? The cyclocrossers though, do I detect waning enthusiasm, or is it just the blogs I read? From my cheap seat, Gewilli's vision of cross in January might not fly too high. My sensors are picking up signs of burnout. Think about it though, it makes sense. For me, the season started just six weeks ago. I've been motivated to go to at least one race every weekend, although traveling alone is getting old. This is the first time I've ever raced cross without a traveling partner/s.o. who also raced. In fact, I've probably gone to more cross races as a mere supporter than a racer. Can't say I miss stuffing all that shit into one car, dealing with someone else's pre-race anxiety or post-race misery, but I do miss stopping on the way home and wrapping my frozen fingers around a hot mocha and just commiserating. That just doesn't work by yourself. For the racing side of it though, as a few of us have discussed off-blog, you can't beat flying solo (pun-intended). Lighter is better, faster. It may be selfish, but I'm way more focused on racing when I go by myself, and you can't beat the extra room. Not to mention being able to turn up the volume for whatever pleases you...

This weekend will be it for me though, if I even race. My knees weren't too happy after Palmer. As noted in "long post 1," running big miles on Saturday would have been fine with a "normal" cross race, but not for double-duty at the Palmer dismount festival. I've got a 5K on Saturday morning which I plan to run hard. I'll have to evaluate my health and well-being afterwards, as it sounds like Wrentham has four dismounts/lap. Ughh. At least it is close by. As for the rest of you, yeah, if you started in September, ten weeks straight with a bunch of double weekends is enough to burn almost anyone up. Do yourselves a favor, just stop training, relax, ride a bit the day before the race, maybe run a little, and for (insert who/what you worship here) sake, stretch, stretch, massage, and stretch some more. Don't take your youth and health for granted. That's all my love for today, thanks for reading. Still got that ball cap on...

Mixed Up

Loosen up your toe straps a bit; this might be a long one. Before we begin, take a look at your keyboard. Is it all gross and dirty? Then clean it. I just cleaned mine (both of them, both hooked up to KVM's, don't ask). The thing was gross. Really gross. At work, I tend to keep my keyboard clean. Maybe that's because when I get bored and the cafeteria is closed and GeWilli hasn't posted anything new for a few hours, I'll resort to cleaning up my keyboard and cube to pass some time. At home though, I guess it's another story. When I get bored here, I tend to head out to the kitchen and forage around for some more crumb-making materials to get in the keyboard. The crumbs form a matrix with dust, crud, and what appears to be cat hair, even though there hasn't been a cat in here for months. A business card, some upside-down banging, a damp cloth, and maybe some canned air will at least get you and your keyboard to the non-sickening stage. Just do it. Except Feltslave. From what I can tell, Matt's the only mofo crazy enough to read this crap on a Blackberry, and since he either smashes it or loses it every month or so, the keyboard never has time to get dirty. Which brings us nicely to primary topic number one for this post.

Feltslave is also the only person I know who is crazy enough to not only train for more than one sport at a time, but also to travel the world beating the business drum, raise a family of three kids with his wife, build a house for them, coach other people's punk-assed highschoolers in yet a third sport, help run a bike club of ingrates, and write a damn blog when he's got nothing else to do. For our conversation here, we'll focus on training for running and bike racing, because he's just nuts and I cannot even begin to consider how you'd perform his juggling act. Good luck dude...

Despite the mountains of information available about either of these online, I've not found anything about putting the two together. Sure, there's advice for multisport athletes -- that's not the same thing. They're trying to compete in one race that happens to combine more than one athletic discipline. There is a big difference between how you train for that and how you train if you want to be competitive in both running races and bike races. Then there's all the varieties of events within each of these two sports to consider. What's a Solobreak to do?

I know what I'm not going to do: hire someone to try and figure it out for me. Feltslave likes to talk about "coachability." Maybe I'm uncoachable. I've had several informal mentors in cycling, with things invariably getting ugly at some point with all of them. Not real ugly, just someone here is uncoachable ugly. That doesn't mean I didn't respect the advice and learn from it, just that I'm not afraid to question it when it's being applied to me. After all, I'm unique... So are you. Unique. Can you say that? Sure you can. I think that gets to the heart of mixing up running and bike training. Everyone who attempts this is in a unique position with regard to not only their goals, but also their strengths, weaknesses, and most importantly, athletic training history, both recent and distant. I think such a program has to be tailored.

With all this I have a bit of a problem. I really don't know shit about running. Some would say I don't know shit about bike racing either. And yes, you can do something for twenty plus years and still do it wrong the whole time. That's why we have these competitions, to see who is doing it right and who is doing it wrong. But results are all relative. You can be the best rider in races that are full of chumps, and all that makes you is the best chump. However, among my regional chumps, I know what works for me, at least it works well enough for me to outchump the other chumps once in a while. That's enough to convince me that I know what I'm doing, and if it's good enough for me, then it's good enough. Running though, wtf? I got some advice the past few years, and of course, even though I've done running races off and on since 1990 or so, these past few winters were the first time I ran consistently. And I've improved. Now what? I want to keep getting better. I don't want to hurt my performance on the bike either. Actually, I want that to improve too. A lot.

My approach is to just try to be a better athlete overall. You can be a half-decent bike racer without being a good athlete. I know, I've done it. I've never been all that lean, strong, or flexible. Maybe my late forties isn't the ideal time to take care of this, but it's all I've got now. Those things can't hurt. I'm happy to report that for sure I'm more flexible than I've ever been. It's pretty cool. As for the leanness, that seems to be working out well too. I'm into the seventh week of food logging. That's been a learning experience, but I weigh less now than at any point before in the second half of my life. That's way cool. Even my tights aren't tight. The strong part, that has me worried a bit. I can do more pushups and stuff like that than ever before too, but hell, I'm lighter. It's less work.

So far I just seem to be getting faster running without really doing anything special except losing weight and staying flexible. Some of this must be related to just running more consistently, though still way less than regular runners do. I'm recovering from my long and hard runs much, much more quickly than ever before. This has been allowing me to increase the quality of my runs. I want more though. So that's how I got to this post, learning about running through research, but finding that for someone who does high-quality bike training too, the running plans out there are not even close to optimal. I'm trying to optimize... It might help if I better defined my goals... I don't like doing that. I know what they are, but they're my goals, and some things I want to keep to myself.

Now this is a fork in the blog. Not a "stick a fork in it, it's done" fork, a fork in the road fork. Congrats for making it this far. The left fork (not sure why it's the left, it just is) goes down the road to apologizing if this blog sounds a bit too Gewilliesque or something. Choose carefully the blogs you read, especially the ones you read before you write yours. We need a "flu shot," not for influenza, but for blog influence. It's unavoidable, at least for me. If you find your blog reading like some puke's MySpace page, then it may as well be one. Keep it in your voice; in your own write (I'd have waited for December 8 to use that, but I know I'd forget). Keep it real, really you.

Back to the right fork. That's mixing running and riding. Dedicated readers know that Saturday I bagged out on racing at Sterling due to ass pimples, expenses, and last but not least, frigid temps in the early am. There was even more to it than that. I re-evaluated how Sterling didn't fit into my training plans. Having done a hard 5 mile race on Thursday (and doing amazingly well, I might brag), originally I'd thought two days off running would be best, meaning race cross on Saturday and doing a long run on Sunday. However, then there was that much quicker recovery from running I mentioned above. I started to think running on Saturday instead of Sunday would be preferable. This would setup next week a bit better. I'm planning to add some intensity (some might call it speedwork) into my runs. The next two weekends are my last two running races of 2007, and they'll be the first two that I treat as "A" races, meaning I'll push off any bike racing and try to be at my best for them. By shifting my long run to Saturday, I'm now able to take two days before doing speedwork on Tuesday, yet still take a day off before running again on Thursday, and have yet another day off from running before the race next Saturday. Perfect!

Except... Today, Sunday, was the Palmer Cross race and Bike Swap. The Bike Swap is a big deal in the land of Team BOB. Bigger than any race for some of them. I learned the mates were not only getting a dealer's table, but also planning a tailgate BBQ in the parking lot. There was even talk of some cross racing. The pull was too strong. Early Sunday I gathered up some crap I wanted to convert to cash, packed it up with the cross bike and headed west. A bit late though. I got there at 9. The boys were already in the swap meet, at least most of them were. And the master's race was at 10. And my back tire was flat. And it was cold. I went in to registration, and since a second race was only $10, got a number for not only the 45+ but also the 3/4 open which followed it at 11 am. Since I wasn't going to have time to warm up or even preview the course, I'd just ride the masters easy and then see if I could race the 3/4. Or something like that.

All went according to plan. John carted my schwag into the market while I fixed my flat and got dressed, even in time to see part of the course. Oh yeah. Roots. Lots of roots. Deja vu. This course has been in use for years. In fact, lots of cross courses used to be just like this. If you're wondering what cross was like in New England 15-20 years ago, well, Palmer. Time has stood still, practically. The bikes are lighter and the kits more colorful now, but just about everything else is the same. I rushed back to the car to get my fattest 38c front clincher, and aired it up to over 40 psi, then rushed back to the line. I still hadn't seen the first half of the course yet, at least not in the past ten years...

They decide to start the 45+ separately from the 35+, a whopping three minutes back. Good for the front runners (whose idea it was), but not for me. I'm thinking the 35+ leaders will be lapping me in no time. We go off. There's a nice field of 25 riders in the 45+ group, and as usual I'm tailgunning. I remember the first section, over some roots and out into a field. Not bad. Back in the woods, up two short dirt rises, then bam, wall of dirt. Scramble up, about ten steps, back on the bike in more rooty single track. Along the river in a big jeep rut, path turns into a field, another rideable dirt rise, but it's pick a number clusterphuck time, so I dismount. Back on the bike for about fifty feet, course turns right down a rutted embankment, then U-turns into yet another runup, maybe fifteen steps this time. From here the trail opens up a little, and I follow some Cyclonauts locals who know the lines where you can avoid some, but not all, of the roots. Out into the football field, triple hurdle. I like triples. I like the UCI rule about one set of hurdles, but saying it needs to be just a double is dumb. If we're going to get off the bike, let us run for a few meters. Triples, quads, whatever. Back into more single track. WTF? Another hurdle, a real shitty one (lot's of old school style points for this though). Then a pallet bridge? A really shitty one too. Back on the bike for another thirty meters of single track, and now we have the mother run up. Probably over twenty meters. And steep.

OK, let's count -- three big runups, plus the hurdles, then the pallet bridge with hurdles. That's five dismounts in an under seven minute lap. Yes, back in the day, this was typical. And yes, this is one reason I much prefer the new school (pun intended) kinder, gentler, faster, more pedally soccer field cross we usually see today. More importantly, my 14.5 mile run on Saturday is not looking like the best prep for this double-cross Sunday. I hope my calves survive...

At least I'm moving up. I can't really tell how far, but I'm passing people. After three laps, the 35+ leader, and then second place, lap me. I'm not sure after that. One other guy passed me, but I think he was a 45+ who'd had a mechanical. At any rate, the lap cards go from four to two all in one lap for me, and we are done after six laps. The 45+ leaders did not lap me. I was tired but not totally wasted. Not exactly fresh either. As I roll out of the finish area, I spy a free-thinking anarchist in a pink jacket warming up on a trainer. That's right, I finally meet the one and only Colin R, and we shake hands. Not much of a meeting. The 3/4 race was just minutes away, and I dared not upset the homicidal ambience around that trainer with my carefree Team BOB masters mojo. Instead, I slinked back to the Geo and took in some Gatorade, then found old Easton hombie Brian McG to take off my 45+ number, revealing the 3/4 number I'd so cleverly pinned underneath. Then back to the line for round two. I looked for Colin in the front row, but without his pinkie I guess I couldn't recognize him. Did I mention that I can't see shit anyway. Makes for a thrill a minute on these rooty mountain bike courses.

We get the roll off and away we go. Again I'm last, and everyone else has fresh legs. From my vantage point, I see lots of shitty lines being taken. At least I already have some course knowledge. Not sure how many starters, but I pass people consistently the entire race. Out on the course, I hear a familiar voice. Dick Ring, the voice of New England bike racing, is here for the swap meet and he's cheering for me. If you don't know Dick, then you don't know dick. Mr Ring was the New England announcer since before my time, right up until two years ago or so. Before that he was a nationally ranked bike racer and Olympic speed skater. He's at least 70 years old, but on the bike he can still drop at least half the scrubs who read this blog. Dick is pure class, but for some reason he has a soft spot for Team BOB. Not only did he cheer for me, he hung out and broke bread with us at the post race parking lot BBQ. Something to remember.

The race goes ok, but no lap cards at first. Then five to go! WTF? We must have done at least eight laps. I focused on being smooth, as there were lots of places this course could bite you. In fact, I missed the rutted embankment turn like three times before I started remembering it was there. No crashes though, just near misses. Surprisingly, my running legs held up, although I was totally gassed by the end and barely moving on the long run up. Didn't get lapped though, but the results had me 17th, second to last rider scored, with the lappers left off. 45+ results only had the top 5. It's not about the results though; it's the process. "It" is the noun of the night too, apparently. Sorry. If you made it this far, well, I sort of feel bad for you anyway, but I'm very grateful that you took the time out of your busy day to read my words. OK, so tighten your toe straps back up, give me something to read, in your voice, your style, your personality. Sorry about all the mistakes, you don't really think I'm going to proof this, do you? Thanks for reading. I mean, thanks a lot!

This is why I don't prereg

Yeah, 18 degrees. Might be a balmy 30 by the 11 am start of the masters, but do I want to take that chance? Maybe 35 by the noon 2/3 race? Or do I save the $35 entry, the $20 worth of gas, the risk that this little sting I'm sitting on is not just a saddle sore, and simply head out for a 20k run in my nice new shoes? This one's not so tough... Thanks for reading.

Happy Thanksgiving

CX Pic of the Day Notice he's in the drops, and he doesn't have top mounts. Thanks for reading!

The Schaefer Jingle

The most rewarding flavor,
In this man's world,
For people who are having fun,
Schaefer, is the, one beer to have,
When you're having more than one.

Congrats to our winners, both young and old, who knew this one. Did a quick search and it looks Schaefer is now owned by former rival Pabst, and tastes like swill. Downhill, just like so many other great brands of the past.

A school bus just pulled up out front, and it looks like the noisy little maggot who lives next door got let out of school early. So much for a quiet day of telecommuting. I've got a 5 mile road race right here in town tomorrow morning. The course is short, only 4.9 miles tops, so no hope of a PR. I think I'm a bit raced out anyway. My goal will be to once again try to start out easy and finally run a full race of negative splits, but so far I've never pulled it off. The competition could be a bit thin too, with so many Thanksgiving Day races, in which case I may be in the running for an age-group turkey. I think top 3 get them. In that case, I'll need to throw the plan out and run against the competition, not the course.

Most likely I'll race CX at Sterling on Saturday. Bike swap in Palmer on Sunday, but I'm due for a long run that day, so I may pass. I don't have much to sell. I still have a 1991 vintage Campy Chorus brakeset, complete, brand new, in the box, calipers, levers, cables, everything. Email me if you're interested, $150.

Today marks one week for the switch to black coffee. So far so good. I'm saving 140 calories a day, not to mention about $8/month not buying half and half. I think I'm brewing less coffee too, and not making it so strong, which adds to my savings. I've been more than making up for the calories lately though. Went to John Harvard's again last night... Got there late this time, as I had to go to a wake first, and I only had two or three glasses of their harvest brew. It still kicked my ass. I would have skipped this trip, but today is my favorite coworker's last day, and we took her out.




I'd post the other pictures and the movies but she'd hunt me down and kill me. I'm going to miss you Cindy. Thanks for reading, have a great holiday.

Declining Enrollment?

Gee, after reading Gewilli's depressing post, I'd hoped to spin something positive today. Allow me to say something positive then: I love riding my bike. Saturday was very cool. And cool temps too. The UNH CX event at Kingman Farm, well, let's call it the best race that nobody went too ever. I think they got less than 80 riders total. At registration, someone lamented that they needed 104 to break even. What a bummer. It was cold out, but they did not flood the course this year, and they eliminated all the single track from the woods. The layout made up for it with some nice varied looping and a mix of high speed and trickier turns out in the cow pasture. Some thought it was unimaginative, but I liked it a lot. The course was basically all gas all the time. The combined masters field numbered only 14 strong, and off the start the Cronoman, Curley, and Keith Button (Noreast) set the pace. One the first lap, I did exactly what I'd vowed not to do and rode like an idiot, taking bad lines over the bumps to move around people when gaps opened. Most of them repassed me when I overextended, and on lap two Wayne Cunningham, Carl Ring (NHCC), and Andrew Durham (CCB-Evil Empire) formed a second trio about fifteen seconds behind the leaders. I ended up in no man's land another fifteen seconds back from them after two of my BOB team mates piled into each other and planted themselves in the ground on one of the muddy turns. Timmy got by them too, but he there was a gap between he and I too.

We did seven laps. At two to go I drove it hard and closed up to Wayne, who had fallen just off the other two. I should have gone around and kept driving, but I sat on him for a bit. After the hurdles, I think he tried to remount on the rise and faltered. I ran to the top as on every other lap, opening a small gap. I closed to the Ringer but he held me off down the hill and all the way to the line.

After the race I put on a dry kit, including my new woolies, and headed out solo for some exploring on the road bike. Found some nice quiet roads, and just kept riding and riding. After an hour I turned around to retrace my route (had no idea where I was) and found I now had a tailwind. Thoroughly enjoyed this ride even though it was in the 30's and windy. Made good time going back but then must have missed a turn, got lost for a half an hour and made it back to the car just as the handful of elite riders were cleaning up from their race. I logged just under 2.5 hours, making it a 3.5 hour day on the bike. I love riding.

Sunday I wanted to go out riding some more. I had a pot luck party to go to in the afternoon, and needed to try my hand at some cooking in order to contribute. Saturday was a long day in the car too, so I skipped Lowell and just headed over to Norwood for the 4 mile running race. This is a decent sized annual event, about 400 runners, and quite a bit of prize money so the race attracts a strong field. I should have gone riding first though, because for some reason they did not start at 10:30 as advertised; the race was at 11. I ran well, posting 5:56, 6:00, 6:06, and 6:00 splits on the hilly course (not steep, but almost no flats) to take 6th in my age group. By then it was too late to ride, and I just went home to try the recipes Gewilli had given me for hors d'eurves. They came out all right for a first try, but not great. This was not a drinking crowd either, and my jello shots went more or less untouched. And I ate too much. Good thing I love riding my bike... Went out this morning and just rode the cx bike around the pasture for a while until I got a flat, then limped home.

Oh yeah, the declining enrollment thing. Maybe Colin can crunch the numbers and figure out if the number of cross entries is fading like it seems. There were about 650 riders/day back at Gloucester, with another hundred or so at a small race in PA the same day. There was also another UCI race in Ohio that weekend. This past weekend, the NJ race got only about 425, UNH got shit, and I'm not sure about Cheshire. It would be interesting to see how the numbers graph out over the season. This might support or undermine Gewilli's wish for more January racing (maybe he's burning out now and will rethink? Of course he'll rethink. And rethink. And rethink...). Hell Colin, this could even be valuable demographic info to somebody. Maybe you should try to sell it to the marketers serpents of the world. By the way, I love riding my bike. No proofing. Thanks for reading.

American Gothic - CX Style

Not sure how much style is in this photo. Gewilli and his cookies pose with The Cronoman in front of the West Hill Shop. This photo reminded me of something else that happened this weekend. After the running race in Bristol, I was inside the school, doing some stretches in the gym. They had a doctor's scale there. I haven't measured my height in quite a while. So I get on, hold my head up high, and it's barely 70 inches. WTF? I used to be just under six feet. Shrinkage. When I started walking on the cuffs of 34 inseam pants, I thought it was just because Levi's changed their sizing model. Old age sucks. There is some good news though. I found when buying all my new Ibex clothes, I no longer need XL for length or girth, huh-huh. Just easy to find L stuff.

Speaking of old and dry-rotted, check out the front tire that carried me around at Farmington:




Nice huh? The thing was herniated in about 8 places. Bummer too, as the new Mud2s are not quite as wide as these older ones. I ran a skinny Schwalbe CX Comp on the front at Putney, not exactly confidence inspiring, but what the hell. This ain't Rabobank. Thanks for reading.

Stick and a Promise

photos courtesy of Robert Tyszko (NHCC)

Where to begin? I finally bought The Stick. Very nice indeed. After one use, I wished I'd got this a long time ago. I'd held off because someone had told me I could save the $40 by making my own out of PVC pipe. Yeah right. That would not even be close, unless you spent a few hours painstakingly lathing a radius onto the end of each little roller. Just get one; it's great. The foam roller is pretty good too, but this is better and easier.

Somehow, even though I was totally dehydrated, stuck in a fetal pose, and unable to even situp, let alone drive to Nashua Saturday night after the Bristol race, I pulled it together in the wee hours Sunday, got the muscles ready with the help of the Stick, and made it up and all the way to Putney. By the time we got there, I felt fine. Cold, but fine. Rode a whopping three laps of the course warming up, and the cornfield was greasy as hell. After that, I sat in the sun-drenched car, completing my warmup. I think Marro rode about 25 laps before our race started. His entire morning was filled with leg-shaking energy, enough for both of us. But he was fun to be around. No whining.

Down at the start I got a chance to chat with Trooper Matt, and I told him of my close encounter with his coworker earlier in the week. After scolding me for being a friggin' idiot, he said the guys badge number indicates he was either a rookie or damn close to it. We need more like him... Maybe not really, but at least I'm typing this from the comfort of home rather than the county Hilton by the highway. Never did get to tell you about this Ge... Back to our story... Kinnin decides last minute that the 45+ riders will have a separate start 30 seconds after the 35+, with the 55+ and the juniors 30 seconds after us. That's cool for me, but I still end up last off the line. F that, and I storm the outside and take a few spots entering the field, and by the first hurdles I'm only a couple of spots behind Timmy.

As you can see by the photos, I'd ditched the skinsuit in favor of thermal knickers (which are no longer really "tight") and a long sleeve jersey, and knickers + cross = time to get out the MJ Chicago Bulls longstockings. Who says there are no style points in cross? Every time I wear these the flash bulbs start poppin' and Sunday was no exception. Besides Dr. T's fine photos, Miche the ant farmer brought out her camera and its Hubble-sized lens, treating us to numerous photos including an outstanding barrier sequence that starts with this pic. In addition to the attention of the papparazzi, the stockings brought out my cheering section too. As noted over on Gewilli's blog, I got at least one "Go Pippy" which easily takes the cheer of the week award.

Back to the race. Eventually me and Timmy hook up together. You can see this in the pics too. Marro is gone out of sight, but Jimmy O, who had his own close encounter of the gendarme kind on the way to the race, when he nearly got busted for blowing through a Border Patrol checkpoint (this kind of shit can only happen to BOB), was about twenty seconds ahead of us. We worked together to shed anyone we caught, but then Timmy bailed in the back of the cornfield. The muddy ruts over there had improved quite a bit since the morning, but it could still be treacherous. I eased a bit and let Timmy catch on before the long dirt road, and then we gassed it to get across to Jimmy. This taxed Timmy's reserves a bit though, and he soon dropped back by a few seconds, so we never really did get all three of us in the same picture frame, despite Robert's urging.

By now the laps are running down. Lo and behold, Gewilli appears ahead in the cornfield. Jimmy and I catch him just as we hit the dirt road, and I latch on for a nice tow, but apparently his car isn't the only thing that runs on bio-diesel, and I'm forced to rev by the lumbering truck. The three of us hit the run up and I take the scenic route up the left because it's not as steep and that's where I've been following Timmy all day. Ge passes me back by going up the direct route, but IMHO this is also the direct route to an even huger heart rate spike than you get going the "easy" way. After the remount and into the hurdles, the not-so-green giant then just floats over the 40 cm barriers like they're bamboo sticks in the grass or something, but I get around him as we ride through the throng of spectators. We're on the last lap now, so it's all gas, but one more junior catches up from behind anyway. Michelle got a nice picture of me heading to the line with a giant slime wad drooling out of my open mouth. Nice work Miche! I'll take the hi-res version of that one.

Afterwards we hung out for quite a while because the Cronoman was in the money. Gewilli had cookies too. Putney has always been the friendliest race on the calendar. Like nowhere else, this is a place to reunite with old friends, and meet up with new ones like Willow and Maple, two delightful Goldens who were kind enough to help me finish the last of my burritto. My solo efforts to stimulate the economy also continued and I emerged from the shop with a big box of Ibex wool clothing to go with the free hat (in Shift Green!) that came with race entry. The Ibex clothes are awesome. My new wool leg warmers have instantly become my favorite cycling garment. I also got, are you ready for this? Wool shorts! Oh yes, me bum will be nice and toasty this winter. I kept going, scoring tights, glove liners, and some other stuff. I love the West Hill Shop.

The Cronoman got his 4th place bounty and we were on our way. This was by far the most fun I've had at a cross race in years. Saturday night I felt like there was no way I would be fit to walk the next day, let alone ride cross, but somehow I had my race face on. It was very, very nice to have a complaining free day. Just fun. Life is good. Stick time. Thanks for reading.

Race Report - Bristol RI 10 miler

Yeah, afternoon race. On the ocean. Through Colt Park no less. USATF certified course. 1:03:45, huge PR, would have been a 10k PR. I think today I had a sub 38 10k in me. Really. Don't know what happened but I fell apart big time at 7-8.5 miles. Got a terrible double stitch, felt like stopping. Somehow pulled it together and ran the last mile in 6:09 but by then my hopes of a top 10 were gone (I was 11th, 3rd in 40-50 men, I think).

Didn't get the first mile.
2 miles - 12:23, 6:12 pace, then 6:09, 6:34, 6:29, 6:15, 6:31 for 6-8, 6:44, 6:09. 6:23 average.

Serious GI issues after the race. Who the F signed me up for Putney tomorrow? I may just go and pick up my hat. Thanks for reading.

Friday Link, sort of

The new job started in earnest yesterday. What does that mean? It means I was not able to constantly keep tabs on the local blogosphere whilst running painfully slow and inefficient code searches. Instead, I got to waste my day the old-fashioned way - sitting in unproductive meetings. I'm a veteran of this sort of thing from a past life, but for me the last five years have been almost meeting free. No more. I'm going to need to brush up on my "let's get this moving" skills...

So let's get this moving. Dale's blog this week, as usual, stirred up my brain cells, at least the ones that still work. Mr. S always does a damn good job of putting out a thought-provoking message without saying too much. I guess that's part of being an artist. For a few minutes, I considered expanding his topic of shame and disappointment to include embarrassment, but then I thought better of that. I don't want to mess with the fine job he did of revealing just enough of his message to get us thinking, but not much more. The direction he took this was brilliant. The message is never as much or as little as it seems...

I don't know Dale very well. We've raced against each other, but not much, yet he's had a big impact on me. In 2006 he was active in racing. We first met at the WMSR when he put in a stellar time trial. I'd met him out on the road training before, but didn't know him. Being extremely fit and well-coached, he still lacked experience and basically got his ass kicked in the points race on the final night. I was among the five who lapped the field. Score one for solobreak. Yet being knocked out of the top five in the TT by an unknown gave me a little push.

The next time I ran into Dale was in the food market on the morning of the GMSR circuit race. We were both wandering around searching for supplies, and he struck up a conversation with the sketchy dude in the BOB jacket that he sort of recognized. We realized we'd met briefly before, and lived in adjacent towns. He asked me how I did in the prologue the day before, and I replied, well, I wasn't last, but I went backwards the entire time and finished damn close to it. Returning the question, he humbly told me he'd done pretty well, finishing second. Damn. Bigger push.

The discussion turned to climbing. I knew he'd been a triathlete in the past, and a very fit person overall, yet he told me he'd improved his climbing by "losing about 15 pounds." WTF? I could never do that, I thought. I probably weighed about 175 at the time, just a couple of pounds more than I did when I was 30. I'd never been a great climber, but used to be able to at least hold on to the lead group when the going got tough, even managing to win a few "hilly" races. Lately that wasn't working out.

We wished each other luck and headed back to the condos to prepare for the days racing. I'm not sure where he went on to finish on GC, but I got completely shelled on Middlebury Gap and limped home on the queen stage about 45 minutes down to the winner. Since that day, I haven't met up with Dale in person; I guess he's not racing as much this year. His story of an already fit guy losing fifteen friggin' pounds though, that stayed with me. He was pretty skinny, you know, calves that just looked freakishly ripped. I've never been like that, but I'm pretty sure that when I was racing in my early 30s I'd get my body fat percentage down into single digits. Last winter, with the running prep for the half marathon, I did not get fat and came into this season at about 172 pounds. Never went down from there. Up until August, I was satisfied. The "Best Western Incident" and my poor performance at the 40k TT the next day opened my eyes. I may have weighed the same as I did fifteen years ago, but now my BF % is much higher. I needed to do something. 160?

A few pounds came off easily. I had good form at the Bob Beal Stage race as a result, but even then I could tell that I wasn't nearly as lean as the dudes like Dale who win the 45+ category races on difficult courses. How far could I take this? I don't know, because I'd never tried before. My little "medical issue" set me back a bit, but now running season is upon us (at least for me) and I've resumed my quest to see how lean I can get. I'll stop at the end of the month and take a break for the winter, but the goal is to come into next year much fitter than the past few, and maybe even be competitive in the early season races like Jiminy Peak and Turtle Pond. This past week was a bit of a setback, but that's ok. A disappointment, but nothing to be ashamed of... More to come. Thanks for reading.

I feel obligated...

Obliged? I don't know. Readership here is way up for some reason, so I feel like I should post something. I know the last several posts have lacked substance. Some of you might feel all of them always have. That's a hell of a sentence... Sorry. I've avoided writing about running, dieting, job change, and health issues for the last few weeks. There are enough race reports out there already, and I'm just racing for training anyway, so there is not much to say. Eventually something will come up. Maybe I can write about building bikes. There are lots of parts boxes laying about here now...

I have awesome friends. I kid you a lot, but the past few weeks, and the past few days my close friends have been incredible, and I hope that someday I can return some of what you've given me. Today I'm very happy. Life is good because I have great friends to share it with. Thanks for reading.

Monday Connecticut Radio Special

Here's some culture for you. Thanks for tuning in. The Ray Wilie Hubbard version did not allow embedding, but you can find it here. No need to thank me. When I enrich your life, it enriches my life.


EXTRA! - If you're still standing here's more. You have to promise to listen all the way to the end. What can I say, it was a long drive to Farmington.

Friday Link

If you did not already go over and watch the Jack Lalanne video on Zoo's new blog, go do it now. Very cool. This guy was ahead of his time. Thanks for reading.

Which is it?

We have a problem. When I'm just kidding, people think I'm serious. When I'm being serious, people think I'm kidding. Is it really that hard? (very important, say it like you're from Boston. You know you wish you really were. Wicked bad too).

Why the fuck are you reading this? Why does anyone give a shit what I think? Kidding or serious?

Thanks for reading (that's serious). Tool (just kidding). Maybe.