Pictures

These are some of the pictures I've been trying to download for the past few weeks. I finally solved the picture problem on my blogger and now I can post pictures.

Fall Break at LMC

I was thinking that my blog was getting a little tired without any pictures, so I decided to spice it up a bit with something else. Here for you, my training from October 2006:

DAY: WORKOUT
8th: 2 laps Poto: 2:44 total
9th: 5 hours road
10th: 3 hours road
11th: 3 hours indoors (rain)
12th: rest day
13th: rest (sick, migraine)
14th: 3 hours Stony w/6 mile X.C. loop t.t. in 28:54
15th: 3 laps PLRA 45:52, 43:12, 41:59
16th: 5 hours road
17th: 3 hours easy road
18th: 2 1/2 hours Stony/dirt roads
19th: 3 hours road
20th: 3 hours road
21st: 3 hours Stony w/6 mile X.C. t.t. in 27:48
22nd: recovery day
23rd: 3 hours, middle 1/2 hour hard big ring mashing
24th: 1 hour easy, immune system down
25th: 3 laps PLRA 40:22, ~41 (sabotaged by stupid ass hunter) 39:42
26th: 2 hours indoors (rain)
27th: 1 hour easy indoors (rain)
28th: 1 hour indoors (rain)
29th: 3 laps PLRA 40:49, 39:56 hard, 43:25
30th: 3:15 road
31st: 2 hours easy

Conference finals at Clemson

This weekend we headed down to South Carolina for the conference finals. It went fairly well. Clemson had some sweet trails that made for some really fun racing. The trails were a lot like trails back home in southern Michigan, so I felt very comfortable on the race courses.

First day was the short track. While there was a nice little loop marked out, there was no really good place to start, so we were all crammed into this little twenty-foot-wide area of fire road for the start. I was in the second row. I started hard, but I felt like I couldn't ride in the gear I wanted to once everyone got a little spread out - I wanted to make some moves around people, but just wasn't strong enough to push the necessary gears and get up front. So I sat in and really got slowed down when the course turned into the single track. Rumor has it I'm not such a good bike handler, but these dudes were going slow through the tight stuff. So while I was stuck in the pack the leaders broke away. Eventually I got out and rode off. I got around some people and finished 7th. It wasn't really an exciting race from my perspective.

Anyway, when I was doing my cool down, my chain fell off my chain rings so I put it back on. When I did, I spun the crank with my hand and found that the crank arms were spinning only half as freely as they should. I had replaced my bottom bracket a few days earlier and apparently I over-tightened it. Hmm... so later I took apart the crank assembly, relubed it, and put it back together. Now my bike was working like it should.

On Sunday I was feeling excellent. There was no residue in my legs from the short course race. Again, the start was poorly designed. Essentially there was about 200 meters of fireroad before turning sharply right into a single track wide enough for only one bike. I was lined up next to Mike (for the last time ever) who on the start immediately cut across the field, cutting me and several people off. I had to slow down because of this and got buried pretty quickly. Then when I saw an open spot I started sprinting out of the saddle, sawing on the bars. Well, when my bike rocked to one direction, I felt someones front wheel hit my rear tire. The rider fell and caused several people to crash, like when you see one of those peleton crashes in a big road race.

Oh well. So I was off, buried in the pack again. I was the last Lees McRae person on the team, maybe in 25th place. On the first lap, I had to go really slow because of the people I was stuck behind. The course offered few chances for passing, so when there was one I took it. Still, the first lap was all very slow. So one by one I picked off dying racers. Eventually I sifted through all the slow guys and got to the fast guys. I would catch up to my team mates, work with them for a while, then move on. By the 3rd lap, I was riding alone with this dude from Brevard College. He allegedly went to junior worlds for x.c. or something. Anyway, he was pretty tough. On the last big climb of the third of five laps, I attacked. He was gone. But then maybe a quarter way into the fourth lap, he was back again. As the Hermitman would say, dang. So I pretended like I was tired and let him go by. He was riding well and didn't seem to mind pulling me along. I let him do it for most of lap four and most of lap five. But by the final lap I could see that he was starting to get sloppy. So when the opportunity arose, I surged by him to make sure I would get to the last climb first. I did, and he was toast. As I was powering up the climb, I saw Mike who was leading the race. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough race left to catch him and finished 2nd about 10 seconds down.

The race was a lot of fun and ranked high on my list of memorable races. Even though I didn't know what, I knew something was wrong on Saturday during the short track, because I was feeling really sharp the day before on my training ride. I probably didn't notice my bottom bracket at that time because I was running higher tired pressure than normal which caused me to roll faster despite friction at the cranks.

I can feel my fitness improving rapidly. My recovery is excellent and I think my good form is because of all the hard training I did in September. It was so hard that when the week of our home race came around, I was feeling over-trained. But now I feel good. In the coming weeks, I will taper my training volume and include shorter and faster repetitions which should further improve my form and bring me to a great fitness peak.

Two races left: Division 1 Collegiate National Championships and the Iceman Cometh Challenge, for which my entry goes in the mail tomorrow. It's hammer time.

No race at Vanderbilt

The team administrators decided to cancel the race at Vanderbilt in favor of training and working on our home course to prepare it for nationals. We have decided to have a hard training session on our short track course and our cross country trail. The training format should be similar to a race, and it will surely not be easy for on this small campus exists an incredible concentration of talent. Even though we have not yet had competition from other teams, racing here is to me as hard as racing in Michigan because of the immense talent pool.


My next race will now be the conference championships. This race is very important because it will be my last test before I go to nationals, one of two key races remaining for this season, and so I will want to have a solid performance.

Lees-McRae home race

The Lees-McRae home race saw balmy temperatures dipping down below 40 degrees. Summer is dying fast. Saturday morning I left my room for the short track event a little late and a little under-dressed for my warm up. I was cold on the start line and without good blood flow in my legs. I was slow off the line but made my way to the front fairly quickly. Soon Stewy came by and surged up to the leaders. Unfortunately my legs felt like cold wood and I wasn't able to go with him. He eventually went on to win while I was racing in no mans land never really feeling like I was part of the action. I finished 4th.

On Sunday I wised up a bit and wore leg warmers, a hat, and cool weather gloves to the start line. I was feeling good on the warm up. I drilled the start of the race, quickly separating the field. Just as I was approaching red zone, Scott came by and kept pushing. I stayed on his wheel and right before the course went into the woods, I missed the trail head and had to skid to a halt before getting back on to the trail. Soon enough I was back in the action, but Scott was gone. At some point Mike Anderson pulled away as well. I worked with team mate Eric Thompson (Junior National ST champ) for most of the race before pulling away on a climb. I rode the last lap alone and finished 3rd.

The course was very difficult with many challenging granny gear climbs and also very technical slow speed descents. I had difficulties with some of the descents, but overall I think the course suits me very well. It was nice to have a preview of nationals, which will be on this very course only 5 minutes away from my dorm room.

This weekend I was a little worn out from an extremely hard training block that occurred between the ETSU race and the weekend of our home race, so I am looking forward to next week's race at Vanderbilt where I will be fresher.

I have pictures from the short track, but for some reason I can't upload pictures on to blogger with this internet configuration. Sorry.