Feelin' Good, Feelin' Motivated

Alright, last weekend, I wasn't feeling too hot. But after a few days of hard rest I'm feeling ready to push my body to the limits this weekend at the Redlands NRC. I did a couple openers today and felt good.

Redlands starts off with a slight uphill TT... but it looks like it'll favor more of a strong time trialist rather than a strong climber. On Saturday is a crit, and Sunday is supposed to be a hard road race. So far this year, the road races haven't been hard enough to create a selection. I'll try my hardest to make it into that final selection. This race looks like it suits me much more than everything else I've done this year, it should be fun.

The big news right now is that our team made it into the Tour of Georgia, the second largest stage race in the country. That's huge for us as only about half of the US Pro teams get invited. I really hope to be selected for the team that's going... it would be such an amazing experience for me. I think I'm going to have to prove that I should be there this weekend at Redlands.

A few teammates and I went to see V for Vendetta last night. Futuristic sci-fi with a 1984ish plot and some badass fight-scenes... I liked it.

Taking a break soon

I'm in the town of Visalia, CA now awaiting the 3 o'clock start of the crit, gettin'/maintaining my buzz at one the local internet cafes. Yesterday my team and I raced a 30K TT. The course was pretty good... a decent hill at the beginning and end with a few rollers in between. I felt like total ass. As Coach Crawford would put it, my CNS is cooked... I need a break. I still have one race left next weekend, Redlands, so I plan on resting super hard all week in hopes of recharging my mind and body enough to ride with motivation and at the level of fitness that I should be at right now.

After three months of being on the road with the team, I came to the realization that it's time for a break. The day after Redlands I'll be flying up to Portland to see a friend of mine from High School, and then I'll head down to Grants Pass, OR to stay with my folks for about a week. Then I'm heading back to my home town Boulder, CO and will be there for possibly a few weeks.

In Oregon, I'll unwind... get my mind off racing and just relax. Once I get to Boulder, I'll wind it up again in hopes of being on top mental and physical form by the end of April. For me, Boulder is the absolute best training environment, and I think it'll be key in bringing me to high mental and physical levels again.

Back to the Beach

I'm back in Oxnard and once again the house is packed. I'm shacked up again in the garage, which is fine with me, I actually like sleeping in there.

I finished out the weekend with a fun crit on Sunday in the Central Valley stage race. The course had a 180 degree turn on the same street... so each lap the entire field came to almost a complete stop, then it was a full on sprint once we made it around the turn. The field stayed pretty much strung out for the entire race, and the pace was high the whole time. It made it very hard to move up though. I finished in the pack, but I felt really good and comfortable during the race, I think I've got some form coming on, and with that a bit more confidence.

I'm hoping to do the San Dimas stage race this weekend, but I didn't register early enough before the race reached it's field limit. My team director is working on it, but I kinda doubt I'll get in. If not, I think there's some local races I might be able to do. Right now though, I just want to keep racing as much as possible.

Fresno baby!!

Lots has happened since my last post… McLane last weekend… windy gutter-fest. I double flatted, so that ended my day.

Since then I’ve been in Fresno for the week where I’m currently racing the Central Valley Classic Stage race. There was originally supposed to be an epic hill climb TT similar to Flagstaff road in Boulder (a little longer) on Friday, but that got cancelled because of a big snowstorm that dumped all over the mountain. Instead we did a 16 mile flat TT. I didn’t post a good time, but Blickem, our TT superstar was eighth. Today was pretty miserable, 120 flat miles in 40 degree rainy weather. I finished. Tomorrow is the crit… hopefully it doesn’t’ rain… that could be a bit hairy.

My parents are coming to visit tonight and watch the crit tomorrow, and we’re gonna have a good ol’ family reunion with my grandma, aunt, and cousins who all live in Fresno.

That’s all I got time for today… no internet at house so I gotta go to the café and only have so much time to surf porn.

Lata!

McLane

It's only a couple of days until the McLane Pacific crit and road race up in Merced, CA. This will be my first NRC of the season. I'm chomping at the bit right now... I need to race... no more training!! This race is supposed to be pretty flat and is known for being sketchy and finishing with a field sprint... not really my ideal race, but it's still a race, and the field will be packed with fast teams and riders.

Afterwards, my team will be having a team camp up in Fresno. The camp will lead up to the next NRC, Central Valley, which looks like it has an uphill TT. I hope to do well in this event... I have no idea how well I'm climbing right now... but I have a feeling I'll do okay. I'm slowly feeling some form come on lately sa I've been begining to do some real intensity in the last couple weeks.

Watching Enter the Dragon right now... Bruce Lee is one bad ass MoFo.

Tickling the VO2

The Tour of California finished about forty miles from my house today, so Wes and I rode there to check it out. I'm finally starting to do some LT (hard) workouts. So on the way, I hammered up the Mulholland Hwy, one of the many canyons that splits off of the Pacific Coast Hwy. The finish of the race was in the town of Thousand Oaks at the Amgen headquarters. I was completely blown away by the number of spectators that showed up for the finish. There were hundreds. It kinda sucked, because I wasn't even able to see the race there were so many people in my way.

I didn't hang out at the race for very long and made my way back to the PCH so that I could hit up one more climb. While I've been living in California, I've been putting this climb off (Deer Creek Road) until I started LT... Today my time finally came. The climb was awesome, incredibly steep for about 12-15 minutes. I pinned it for about 10 minutes, tickling the VO2 a little, but that's all I had since I was around five hours into my ride... and I'm not too used to the lactic acid yet.

When I got to the top I took a picture of myself with the ocean in the background... I figure there's rarely a picture of me up here, so you can print it out and stick it to the ceiling above your bed... or put it in your garage and throw darts at it... it's up to you.

Tomorrow I'll be doing another local crit in Ontario (east LA). There's $1000 purse for pro 1/2, so hopefully I can get my hands on some of that.

It's supposed to rain on Monday and Tuesday... Bummer. I haven't seen rain in probably like 4 or 5 months... I'm actually a little excited, I hope it storms hard!

In my last post I was talking about old friends contacting me... well another friend of mine from Jr. High e-mailed me yesterday... Dan Wold!! Wow, that was a major surprise. I haven't spoken to him in like six or more years. He's actually the one who got me into mountain biking. He and I used to bomb our Trek 820s down some sick, crazy shit!! We beat the shit out of those things.

Daily Routine

Well, since I’ve begun my pseudo road trip/adventure, my lifestyle has changed quite a bit. Yes, I love it, but it is so incredibly different than what I’m used to. My life before was a constantly busy… and I had multiple things (school, girlfriend, social life) in my life other than cycling that were close to equally as important. Now, I eat, sleep, breathe and live cycling… and there’s not a whole lot else but that. Typical day: wake up, drink water, coffee, shit, eat, chamois, ride, shower, eat, stretch/therapy, relax, bed. I’m still trying to adapt to this new lifestyle, but I gotta say, I think I kinda miss being stressed out all the time from school… it took my mind off all the other little stressors associated with racing.

I spoke to a friend of mine from high school the other day that I haven't heard from in a few years. Outa the blue she called me while I was at Valley of the Sun. I love it when old friends make contact after so many years… nostalgia’s a great feeling. We’ve been talking a bit still since then too on this new website I signed up for called myspace.com.

I haven’t spoken to my Boulder hommies in a while… hope all is well and it’s not snowing too much up there.

Everyone should be watching the Tour of California tonight and the next few nights on ESPN2. This is the biggest cycling event in the US that I remember ever occurring… so check it out!!!

Bike racing on TV!!

The final stage of Valley of the Sun went great for my team. We took the majority of the primes and Wes took third. I actually won a $100 prime due to some amazing teamwork. On the final prime lap, three of us were on the front just pinning it and the third guy back (Eneas) let a gap open between Dustin and I so we rode away from the field and took it.

Blickem still held onto his third place in GC... so all in all it was a very succesful first race for the team.

Since the race, I've started my recovery week, so I haven't been doing a whole lot of riding. We met our team mechanic (Eric Jellum) out at the race and were greeted with all of our new GT bikes, including the TT bikes. The bikes are awesome, I can't wait to race on them. Every day since we've gotten back to Oxnard, Jellum's been working from sunrise to sunset getting all the bikes and everything else dialed and ready to race. It's a new concept having someone else work on my bike after being my own mechanic for so many years... it's gonna be nice.

Stage two of the Tour of California is on ESPN tonight... I'm psyched! I tried to go the whole day without hearing the outcome, but that's pretty much impossible when your in a house of seven cyclists. It's a little tough to watch and read the coverage of the race, knowing how close my team was to being in it... suposedly we were on the bubble with another team... but they got it. I heard that the entire Mexican national team dropped out today... hmmmm, now that was a good choice by whoever was selecting teams for that race.

Alright, back to Olympic figure skating.

Racin'!!

I'm back in the hotel room again watching the Olympics... this time with a couple of races in my legs, and a fat burrito in my belly.

The TT yesterday didn't go too well, but I didn't really expect a result without any real TT equipment. My teammate Ryan Blickem got third, 40 seconds down from the winner. Today was the road race, it was a pretty flat course with a small 3% grade climb near the finish. A couple guys got off the front early in the race and opened up a five minute gap with no teams really making an effort to chase it down. By the last lap, their lead was down to only a few minutes, so my team and I got on the front and crushed the pace until we pretty much popped ourselves. We finally caught the break by the finish line, but we were late by a few seconds and one of the two guys in the break ended up taking the win. There were no changes in GC, and Blickem kept his third place position.

Tomorrow's the crit, which looks to be a bit technical, so that should be pretty fun. After that, we'll be driving into the night back to Oxnard.

Waiting patiently

I'm back in Arizona, anticipating the start of the time trial of Valley of the Sun. I start around 3:30, so I'm just sitting around in the hotel room watching tv and surfing the net right now. Not my favorite way to spend the day, it's too bad that we can't just race early and get it over with.

I threw on the aerobars this morning, that's the extent of my TT equipment right now. Hopefully I'll be able to use a TT bike at some point this season. I'm looking forward to racing though, especially the Road Race tomorrow.

It looks like there's a fairly strong field. I think our team has a good chance to do well. We have the defending champion, Ryan Blickem, who will likely be our GC guy. And, Alejandro Acton, our top sprinter, will likely do well in the Road Race and crit.

California Climbing

After a couple days of bad legs, they finally came around today. I did another big ride, up into the mountains of Cali. I think the route I did was actually part of one of the stages of the Tour of California... Only the other direction. There were some spectacular views today, but I didn't carry my camera for lack of jersey pocket space. I climbed for probably about two and a half hours on this road and climbed about 5100 feet. The weather was beautiful, as ussual, mid-70s and sunny. I got incredibly dehydrated because there was nowhere to fill up water the entire time. Luckily I ran into this weekend warrior with his aerobar equipped bike who was carrying a gallon of water in his backpack. He gave me about 16 ounces, which was enough to get me about 40 miles back to the nearest gas station.

My current home is slowly filling up with more and more teammates. Alejandro Acton, the Argentinean sprinter just showed up a couple days ago. He doesn't speak very much English, so I've been trying to brush up on my Spanish. I took 3 semesters of Spanish at CU, but I've never had a real opportunity to actually use it outside the classroom.

In the last week my team has decided to send a crew out to the Valley of the Sun stage race in phoenix, AZ. The race starts on Friday with a time trial. I think Saturday is a road race and Sunday is a crit. This will be a good tune-up for Vuelta Sonora, which will start a week later. Wow, I can't believe that the race season is already starting... Crazy!

Stuff that breaks sucks.

The posts have been scarce lately.... and I have many excuses for that, the main excuse being that my laptop is broken. I woke up a few days ago and it wouldn't start... damn that sucks! Well, I spent an entire day trying to figure out how to fix the darn thing, and I eventually found a somewhat invasive fix that entails pulling the hard-drive out and hooking it up to another computer to get my personal files off. After that, I'll format and reinstall windows. What a bitch! Oh well, I actually kinda enjoy doing that kind of stuff, so alright!

Today I went out with the Hulk (teammate Dan Greenfield) and busted out about four hours of tempo. The ride totaled 6:45 and 126 miles. I'm in the transition phase of training right now, so every other day I'm essentially going long and hard.

Dan and I both ran into some mechanical problems along the way today. He had a couple flats, and my derailleur cable broke when we were in Santa Monica... which was pretty far from Oxnard (where we're staying). We searched around for awhile and decided that a coffee shop would be a good place to ask for directions to the nearest shop. The first person I saw as we approached the coffee shop looked kinda like a cyclist... you know, skinny, strange tan lines, bike t-shirt. We got to talking and I knew I recognized him from somewhere, and then it stuck me that he was David Zabriske from CSC, and it was. I thought that was pretty bizarre that of all the normal people we could have asked for directions in that town we bumped into one of the best American bike racers in the world. After that we found the shop and the guy working was super cool and hooked us up with a free cable and some energy food. After that whole fiasco, we got back on our way and pinned it for the rest of the ride. The roads are amazing here... the climbs are spectacular.

The owner of our team has been out here for the past few days and decided that it was time to purchase the new team vehicle. We got an Audi A6... Damn that car moves!! I've never driven a fast car in my life until this one... even compared to Old Reliable.

Well I hope I fix my computer by tomorrow, I'll try to get some more pics up when I do that.

Happy rides!

California Love

I'm in California now, and I love it! I can't believe that I've spent so much of my life without the ocean.... it's so incredibly beautiful. And what's even better, is that right up next to the ocean there are some pretty large mountains. The house that my team is staying is great... it's about a block from the beach and about five miles from the PCH and the mountains.

The scenery is spectacular here. Today I rode down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway or Hwy 1). The road follows right alongside the coast, it's very pretty, a nice shoulder, and not too much traffic. I turned off the PCH pretty early to head up into the hills... amazing roads!


The first thing I did when I arrived last night was go to the beach and take off my shoes to walk barefoot in the sand and the ocean water.

We tried to get a picture of the sunset, but I think we were about 20 minutes late.
My Beach and my neighborhood.

The ocean and mountains.... What else could you ask for?

Strawberry fields

To the beach!

I went through that whole process of packing up all my bags again tonight. Fortunately, this time around wasn't nearly as painful as when I left Boulder. This time I don't have 75 things to eBay, an extra bike, and a car. I sent my car back with my coach, Rick Crawford, so that I can just travel with the team van and won't be burdened with my own gas guzzler. My teammates and I will be leaving Tucson at 7 am. Our destination: the beach. Our next house is in Oxnard, CA and is right on the beach... I can't wait! I'll be staying there for about two months, with a couple weeks in March somewhere else racing.

Here's a link to a satellite image of where we're staying:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=140+Los+Angeles+Avenue,+Oxnard,+CA&t=k&ll=34.149144,-119.216343&spn=0.002189,0.006738&t=k

Is lying on the beach a good way to recover from a hard ride? I don't know, but I think I'm going to find out. I'm not sure if it'll be quite as warm as it's been in Tucson, but it'll still be way warmer than what I'm used to in Colorado.

Today was officially the last day of my rest week. I spent it off the bike and about four hours of it at the book store trying to find the perfect book. I just finished 1984, which was really good. I have the "Da Vinci Code" right now, but I just haven't felt the desire to read it, even though it’s so incredibly popular. Instead I bought the first book of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series called "Gunslinger". I've always been a science fiction and fantasy dork, and I like Stephen King, so I think it should be good. This kind of book is good for bedtime reading because it puts me to sleep and give me cool dreams. I also bought more of an intellectual read, titled “The Fabric of the Cosmos” by Brian Greene. I figure since I’m not in school for awhile, I’d better keep my mind in shape and read something that’ll make me think and learn a little.
a

Century w/45 miles on dirt + 7 flats = EPIC

The end of my rest week is approaching, and I’m not sure if I‘m quite ready for it to end.
I spent the first few days sleeping, getting caught up on stuff, and watching old people play golf in our back yard. Yeah, we live on a freakin’ golf course!!!


I was starting to feel fully rested by about Wednesday, but then yesterday, I couldn’t resist the temptation to join my teammates for an epic. I’m not sure if I can even call it an epic though, because compared to a lot of the rides that I’ve been doing this year, it’s just like any other day. The thing that did make it epic however, was the 45 miles of dirt/jeep roads that we rode. Now if I were to take the ol’ MTB out there on these roads, it would’ve been a piece of cake. But 120 psi and 700x23 tires, made the downhills sketchy and fun… I got that high speed dirt lovers on the edge of your chamios fix that I’ve been craving from all the asphalt I’ve been on lately. Yes, my MTB friends, as I was shredding those dirt roads on my road bike, I felt a bit nostalgic and was dearly missing my mountain bike.

I guess this “es un muy popular” place to cross the border. My Canadian teammate Dustin en route through a hot smuggling route for illegal immigrants.

Not only did those skinny tires make the descents hairy, they also pinch flatted on just about every rock they hit. I think we totaled about 7 flats between the four of us. Wes took the prize for the most with four, and Dustin was the only one not to pinch a tube. All those flats caused quite the delay and put us pretty behind schedule. So once we finally hit the pavement again, about 50 miles from home, we got into formation and rode in a paceline (TTT style) full-on. I felt like I was back with my collegiate mates killing it during TTT practice. It also showed me how strong the rest of these guys are. We haven’t really gone out and hammered together yet until yesterday, and all three of these guys (Frank Pipp, Wes Hartman, and Dustin MacBurnie) have got some horsepower… that’s pretty damn motivational for me.

Today we put on a clinic for TargeTraining. We basically rode slow with some weekend warriors and talked training and racing, and tried to share our knowledge. We’ll do another one tomorrow… it’ll be fun.

I’m only in Tucson for a few more days, and then I’m off to Oxnard, CA for some more training to get ready for the first race at the end of February in Sonora, Mexico.

Cheers.

Base is done, let's eat pie.

I finished my last day of base today. Like I had planned in my last post, I rode up Mt. Lemon which I consider to be the best ride in Tucson. I was a little off in my estimate of mileage and elevation gain, it’s more like a 25 mile climb and about 5000 feet of elevation gain… still huge. Before I started up the climb, I rode down on the flats for about 2 hours.

From Tucson, Mt. Lemon looms in the distance.

By the time I got to the base of the climb, my water bottle was only half full… big mistake. I got about halfway up the climb and was completely out of water. I was already feeling the dehydration draining my power and boosting my heart rate. The only place to get water was the café at the top of the mountain. I got the café and downed a couple bottles of water. To celebrate successfully making it through the hardest and by far the highest volume month of base in my life, I bought some of the famous pie that the café is well known for. One slice of pie cost $6.50… it was worth every penny. What’s pie without a little joe to wash it down?

Well, after all that pie and coffee I was recharged and ready for more, the only thing about that was that I now had about 25 miles of descending and it was cold up there. I made it down without getting too cold, and felt like I was ripping the descents. The more I ride that decent, the faster I go, and the more fun it gets. The views are spectacular up there too; I actually stopped on the way down to try to get a shot of the best part of the decent. This section of the road skirts across a ridge which drops off on both sides, it's pretty amazing.

Out and Back

Hell yeah, another huge day in the bag. I peddled my bike another 125 miles today for six hours. I was pretty much on the gas the whole time. The music selection of the day: ambient beats, haven’t listened to those in a while. I started it off with some AIR and then changed it up to some Café del Mar. It turned out to be excellent desert riding music. DJ Niko (Gould) may disagree, but he is the Master of Beats and a damn good DJ. I heard his latest album last week and holy shit I’m impressed!! DJ Niko will spin all night and still race your legs off the next day.

Today’s route was another out and back. I rode up Oracle road a little beyond Mammoth and flipped it. I’ve only got one more day of base left tomorrow; I think I’ll finish this phase with the best ride in Tucson, Mt. Lemon. This ride climbs about 6500 feet in about 35 miles. It’s a pretty gradual climb and is incredibly beautiful. The scenery is constantly changing as you climb. I’ll try to bring my camera this time, and get some eye candy up for you. I haven’t been bringing it lately because I’ve only got so much room in my jersey pockets, and I have a tough time stopping when I’ve got it pinned. But since tomorrow’s my final day of base I will try to take some pictures.

Well that’s all for now… time to stretch.

Desert Solitude

The last ride that I wrote about put me into more of a deficit than I had expected and I could barely ride my bike the next day. I still ended up putting in about 4 hours, but 2 or none at all probably would have been the better move. I ended up going out that night with the intention of having dinner and checking out the night life a little, and to come home by midnight at the latest. It didn’t end up working out that way though and I was out until 2 am. With my poor levels and lack of sleep, I decided that a day off was needed. I was able to get caught up with everything off the bike (ebay, packing MTB, etc.)

I rode alone out to kitt peak and back today… it was 128 miles total. I think this is the furthest I’ve ever ridden in my life. On the way home I past about 50 stopped cars on the main road (Ajo road). At the front of this traffic jam there was a bunch of cop cars an ambulance and a helicopter. An 80-something year old man hit a cyclist. His story was that the cyclist just out of nowhere, pulled out onto the road in front of him. I have a feeling that this is a bullcrap, and that the old man swerved into the shoulder. Hopefully the cyclist comes out ok, and the old guy that hit him will have to pay dearly. I had to sit there for a while until the cops let me by so I ended up getting home late and had to ride through Tucson at night… that’s a bit scary… lots of fast cars.

Well, I’m tired and I gotta go to bed so I can do it again tomorrow.

Good night.

Puttin' in the miles

Oh man, am I tired. My volume is incredibly high right now. I’m supposed to do a 36 hour week this week… that means 6 hours a day for six days… I’ve already taken my rest day. I rode alone today and logged in 126 miles. Sometime around hour 5.5 I started thinking about how different my daily life is from your average Joe, Dick, or Jane. While I’m struggling to pin my HR at 145 BPM for 6 hours, the majority of the population probably won’t even touch this during the day. I don’t really think most people understand how much training, hard work and dedication goes into this sport… especially when I get either honked at or buzzed by about 10 cars a day. I think I started losing my mind a little too towards the end when I caught myself pointing out glass in the shoulder even though I wasn’t riding with anyone. Well, I’ve only got four more days of base, then I start my rest week, then I get to begin transition.

I’m already starting to think about my first race coming up. I’m scheduled to do Vuelta Sonora which is at the end of February/beginning of March down in Mexico. This race should be pretty sweet… I think its 6 or 7 days long. It’ll be a good way to kick the season off and to bring on some form. I can’t wait to start racing again!

Tonight, I’d love to be able to sit on the couch and watch mindless television all night, but I just sold my MTB so I gotta make sure that it’s all dialed, and then pack it up.

Time to motivate and try to be productive.

My new job

I’m back. It’s been hard to motivate to write on the blog these last couple weeks, my life has been all about readjustment. I’m finally feeling readjusted enough to share my thoughts. I’m living a completely new lifestyle now, where all that really matters to me is training and racing… I absolutely love it. I don’t really have to think or worry about anything else… except of course the 70+ things I posted on ebay. About those… half of them went up for auction and finished last week and the other half are up for auction right now. I made a butt load of money, but, I also spent a ton of time (my entire rest day) packaging that stuff up and I’ve made a lot of trips to the post office.

I gotta tell you, my life is awesome down here. The weather is beautiful (sunny and mid-70s everyday) and I’m just riding a ton and spending time with my new teammates. The team is awesome, I feel so lucky that I’m on this team. I know for a fact that we’re going to be a very strong presence at all the NRCs this season. A lot of the guys on the team don’t have the experience of a lot of the other pro team, but with the level of management, and coaching that this team has, our success is inevitable. Now that I’m not in school, my training load is massive, 5 to 6 hours a day. I'm usually pretty famished at the end of these rides and head straight for the kitchen with the rest of my riding partners to consume an enormous amount of calories.

Well, that’s all for now, people want to go to bed and I don’t want to keep them up by banging on the keyboard. I’ll try to be a little more consistent with my posts from now on.