Coming up next...

Things have been a little crazy for me the past couple of weeks. Long days at work followed by lazy evenings at home have ended with me not riding as much as I would like. So after a few days off last week to rest and recharge and one XL pizza (evidently one shouldn't ride hard for two hours and then not eat for nine hours) I am back to feeling human again. Which means intervals.

For those of you who have never trained for an endurance event, intervals are a group of workouts where you ride (insert run, swim, row, etc.) at a set intensity for a length of time, then spin at an easy to moderate pace for another length of time, before repeating it all over again. Intervals have been found to be the key to increasing endurance and speed, two areas I wouldn't mind improving.

But intervals are not fun. Some varieties, if performed correctly, will leave the participant dizzy and on the verge of loosing said XL pizza. All of this is for a good cause though.

This coming Sunday is my next OMBC race. Supposedly there is a fair bit of climbing which I get to look forward to. We'll see.

Later this week I will post a quick review of my new saddle. I am not sure which way the review will swing as every time I ride it my opinion changes.

Kenda DInO- Brown County

Last Sunday I raced the Kenda DInO Series Brown County race- a 17 mile romp through one of the Mid-West's most spectacular areas of single track. With 1600 ft of climbing. My Cat 2 wave started off kinda slow up a brutish mile long paved climb. Being much faster on the road, I gunned it as soon as I got a clear shot and took two juniors with me all the way to the trail head. After leading for about a mile, but riders pulled around me and kept on trucking. Luckily both where outside my age group. Two more racers past me on the first lap, but I managed to bring both back (one flatted and one cramped). After recovering for most of the first lap (note to self... do not gun it right away if you don't have to), I got back into a good rhythm and really flew on the second lap and final three mile descent to the finish line. Here are my stats for the race.

Just for kicks here is a photo from last weeks EI TT. This week I bettered my time by over a minute for the 5.1 mile course.

Back in Action

Hey everyone. Just posting a quick one. Raced this past weekend at Brown County as part of the DInO series. Placed 1st in my age grouping, 3rd in my start wave, and 18th in Cat 2 overall out of 98 finishers. Not bad at all. Also, each Thursday Jess, Chris, and I head down to England Idlewild (EI) for a local dirt time trial series. Last week I had the second fastest lap and the 6 fastest average speed over the three laps I completed. This week i took over a minute off of my time. I can't wait to see the results. I will post with a better race report soon.

Also check out this short film by the guys and gals at Rapha. If you aren't motivated to ride yet, this may do the trick. Enjoy.


Rapha Continental – The Movie from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Rain, rain, go away!

The trails have been solidly wet for the past two weeks. The city is within half an inch of its all time monthly rain record. We are expecting more rain over the next two days.

What this means for me. I almost headed to Chattanooga, TN. Yup. I almost made the decision to drive 6+ hours to reach dry dirt in order to ride/train on my race bike. The only reason I won't be heading out tomorrow night... they are expecting horrible thunderstorms for the next two days. This leaves me with two options.

Drive 4 hours to Cleveland to ride inside at Ray's. Or take care of some chores and errands and train in the rain on the road. Tough choice. It sucks being a responsible adult.

So I will let everyone read this over the next day and leave comments as to what I should do. I am not saying that I am going to listen to you all... but it could be interesting.

Oh... and here is a long promised photo from the first race of the season. Yes... this guy really liked my socks. He took/posted three photos of them through out the day. I will try and get some good photos from my next race.

OMBC #1: Simonton Windows Challenge at Mount wood

Mountwood Park is located about 3 hours east of Cincinnati in West Virginia. This should have been enough of a warning for me. West Virginia = mountains. And being east of us... we had downpours yesterday = they had downpours last night. That pretty much sums up this race. But not really.

The sport course was 17.5 miles long with 2000 ft of climbing. The high temperature for the day (during the race) was 87 degrees. Yes there was some mud spots and some long loose climbs, but for the most part the trails were just tacky.

My start wave had about 50 riders in it so we really took off from the gun to try and make it to the single track first. A group of 4 got away about a mile in and I bridged up a minute or two after they got some distance. The rest of the race was pretty crazy. I made some pretty crucial mistakes like falling off of a ladder ride into deep mud, sliding out in way too many turns, getting stuck behind caught riders for too long, and, the biggest mistake, not taking two water bottles. I took one. One small one. And didn't take on more at the first aid station. Dumb. Because when it is 87 out and there are no leaves on the trees, you bake. Literally. We all looked like roasted pigs at the finish line. Stark white under our jerseys... bright red wherever we were exposed. So I was out of fluids by the halfway point with only one aid station where they would hand me a Dixie cup. Awesome.

I wound up in a group that contained 3rd, 4th, and 5th in our Sport 19-20 group. 3rd (not me sadly) put in a nice acceleration with about 2 miles to go that neither of us remaining guys could handle. So we let him ride off and I tagged on the back of the second racer for about a mile and a half of soggy, steep single track. We finally hit the pavement with about a half mile to go and I flipped my remote lockouts (amazing!) and gunned it with everything I had left. I looked back twice and he just couldn't match it. I wound up with 4th place and a nice 29er tire.

I'll post some photos once they are up on the website. Now off for a post race shower and BED!