Something Totally Lame

The Coolest Baby Shower Give-Away?

2010-11-19T14:08:00.000-05:00

Cezanne and I had an amazing time at our baby shower last Sunday. To be honest, we weren't very comfortable with the attention and gift opening in front of everyone gathered, but we realize how much support we have and that is a real blessing.

I don't want to discount any part of the event because it was all so great, but my favorite parts were being surprised by my brother Jason flying in from Chicago, the slide show that my sister in law Jen created and hanging with Cezanne's Dad and Grandparents the next morning for breakfast since we don't get to see them much.

I have to give credit to my friend Pete who seems to always have a unique view or idea. In the picture above, you'll see his contribution to the baby shower since he couldn't be there (we got his and his wife's contribution to the baby a few days prior at home). Pete recently started his own business, Salazon Chocolate Company (http://www.salazonchoc.com/index.html), making salted chocolate bars. They are amazingly good. We stock up on them the few times a month we visit our local Whole Foods, but they're also available online at The Vegan Store, http://www.veganstore.com/.

I haven't been to a Starbucks in over a month, but I was due today since we had a brief coffee meet and greet here in the Pentagon and after I ordered I saw that they brought back their "salted" hot chocolate drink. I guess they are taking their cues from Salazon...

Last Post on Austin - Rammer

2010-10-30T17:48:00.000-04:00

Slow and steady wins the race.

Rammer, in LiveStrong black and yellow, on the left in the above picture, proved that saying right during our Austin ride. Doug (Rammer) was in my company back in the good ol' days attending USNA and I think it's probably been 12 years since I've seen him.

We all started out the ride a little harder than we probably should have. Rammer hung tough, but at some point in the first 20-30 miles he decided to ride his own reasonable pace. He caught up with us while we were chatting and refueling at the mile 38 power stop. If I remember correctly, his stop was quicker than ours and he was on his way. We eventually passed him once back on the road...and then somehow passed him again, probably an hour or an hour and a half later... Hmmm, there is something to that saying.

Team Toon Town did a good job fund raising. We had 7 people on the team and raised about $7,000. Rammer raised the most at almost $3,300, just shy of raising more than all 6 other members combined!

I'm hoping all of us can get together again next year for the same or similar ride (Levi's Gran Fondo on October 1, 2011 in Santa Rosa, CA?) and add more friends into the mix.

More from Austin

2010-10-29T15:51:00.000-04:00

Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop is an intersting place. Is it just that it is a really cool bike shop owned by Lance Armstrong or is it Lance Armstrong's bike shop, so it's cool? Maybe it's both. I haven't visited a bunch of bike shops in my time nor have a visited some of the most highly regarded bike shops in the U.S., like "Above Category" in Mill Valley, CA (http://www.abovecategorycycling.com/). However, I'll say that it was the coolest shop I've been too. Folks that don't like Lance or who've been to a lot more shops, would probably disagree.

Obviously, the store is Trek centric and the basement, home to the fit studio and training center, was no different.

One thing worth noting about the shop, the same as most things in life, is that your perception of a place or events depend on a lot of things. We visited during a fun trip with friends for a great cause, on a day with beautiful weather, which was made nicer by finding the perfect jersey for our small team (and my favorite jersey yet) and even nicer by enjoying an espresso drink from Juan Pelota Cafe (part of Mellow Johnny's), outside with said weather and said newly purchased jersey in hand.

I love coffee and espresso (no, I don't have a problem, I just need a cup or two in the morning and I'm set), but I'll admit I don't know much about it. One thing I do know is that the espresso maker Juan Pelota Cafe has is a very nice, highly respected, "La Marzocco." (http://www.lamarzocco.com/) You want the home or professional lite version of their espresso machine? It'll set you back $6,400. Yikes, that kind of money can only be spent on bike stuff...

Which is what this bike might set you back (plus another $2,000 probably). I had a little bike envy when I saw this white Trek Madone. To be honest though, I'd take the Cervelo S3 over this...that's for you Toon, good choice.

And finally I get to the jersey and what I pinned on my back. I really think I'd be riding if I wasn't a cancer survivor, but who knows. That's kind of why I started and was lucky enough to get the riding itch while living in Monterey, CA, a perfect place for riding. I did the old yellow "survivor" sign, but more importantly this year and when I did one of these rides back in 2008, I wore a sign for the mother-in-law that I never got to meet. That's something that I think about a lot. I wish I could have and hoping I will in the very distant future.

Austin LiveStrong Ride 2010

2010-10-26T14:54:00.000-04:00

Just finished a great weekend in Austin riding the 90-mile (87.19 miles by my computer) LiveStrong Challenge ride. Pictured above from left to right: JW, Toon (Mike), me, and Frank. JW spear-headed the effort, coming in from Seattle, and we were really happy that Toon (our USNA brother) came down from Chicago. In addition, Dan and Frank drove all the way from Norfolk/Virginia Beach to be there (23 hours straight through to get there). JW, Toon and I have done a few of these LiveStrong Rides (I know I'm missing some of the ones JW has done on this own): 2006 Southern California: me, JW and Toon; 2007 Austin: me and JW; 2008 San Jose: me; 2009 Austin: JW; 2010 Austin: me, JW and Toon.

All the costs associated with the travel (airline tickets, lodging, rental car, and airline bike fees) and all the anxiety that goes with traveling with a nice bike is quickly outweighed by seeing great friends, riding for a common and awesome purpose, seeing the combined effort and enthusiasm of the event organizers and volunteers, meeting knew people along the way, and selfishly, finishing a decently long ride.

JW (http://jwbender.blogspot.com/), fortunately, took some great shots before, during and after the ride. The pictures in this post are courtesy of him and just a few of the dozens he took.

Many cyclists are familiar with the "Fat Cyclist." We were riding along during the first part of the ride and I noticed somebody riding with us. I quickly noticed that he was the Fat Cyclist! So, we talked for a bit and he was happy to mix it in with us, calling us the "Mellow Johnny's train." Contrary to what you might think, he wasn't fat, but has apparently lost about 30-40 pounds cycling. He's most famous for his blog (http://fatcyclist.com/). I won't recount the details here, but fighting cancer is extremely important to him, so I thanked him for riding with us and all he does to raise funds to fight cancer.

He was doing the 65-mile ride option, so he could get back to the finish before the "Team Fatty" cyclists who did the 90-mile option. We rode for probably an hour or so with him until we stopped at the 38-mile power stop (refueling point), which also served as the splitting point between the 90 and 65-mile rides.

As far as the "Mellow Johnny's train" comment goes, he was right. For the first 10-15 minutes we started out at an easy pace (the opposite of my prediction), but the pace was quickly ratcheted up, mainly by Dan. I know JW and Frank were in there pulling a ton, but it seemed like Dan did a lot of the work for the first hour and 40 minutes. We picked up a lot of riders who wanted to get in on our fast-moving train. After the Fat Cyclist commented a few times on the Mellow Johnny's train, I had to confide in him that we didn't work at Mellow Johnny's (Lance Armstrong's Austin Bike Shop). He said, "I really thought you guys all worked there!"

For those that know me, I'm not a cocky person in the least, but I think we were the best dressed group out there. Those green Mellow Johnny's jerseys did the trick.

I'm so glad to have gone. The only thing that would have made it better is if Cezanne and Michelle (Toon's wife) could have made it.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the professional photos, particularly the one of me, Toon and JW coming across the finish line together and I'm looking forward to doing this ride or another LiveStrong Ride next year...depending on what the new little one on the way has to say about it.

The ride details: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/54367456

We finished with an average of 18.8 mph. That's pretty good for 90 miles and 5,300 feet of climbing and in no small part due to the work of Dan, JW and Frank. Toon is trying to downplay how well he did, but he did some monster pulls and finished strong.

I felt pretty good on the ride for the first 40 miles, but my left knee started killing me during the last 45 miles. It came to the point that whenever I was doing anything other than lightly spinning the pedals, I would have to almost one-legged pedal, using my right leg exclusively and only using my left leg to pull up on the pedal (sharp pain when pushing down). I've never had that happen before. I'll have to see how it heals up and if there are any lingering issues. I adjusted my seat higher by about 2-3mm (yes, that's it) about a week before the ride and I'm not sure if that had something to do with it.

Hoping to post some pics of Mellow Johnny's bike shop in the next post and maybe some video of the ride that JW and Dan took.

JW, thanks for pulling Toon and me from the Fire Station Power Stop to the end!

Columbus Day Ride: Chester Gap

2010-10-12T10:29:00.000-04:00

Cezanne had to work yesterday, so I headed out to Marshall, Virginia for "the team's" Columbus Day ride. There were only 5 NCVC riders that showed, but it was a good time. We did the "Chester Gap" ride which is a 50 mile ride, with the highlight being a decent climb to cap off the first half of the ride. By decent, I mean brutal at points. It was steady along the main road and then once we turned onto Chester Gap, there were pitches up to 18%.

Above two photos are from the first part of the ride, heading out from Marshall towards Front Royal. We were on beautiful back roads with little traffic.

After the Chester Gap climb (which you can see on the elevation profile of the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/52640782) it was a long and fast descent into Front Royal. We stopped at the "Daily Grind" coffee shop for a quick break before the last 20 mile push back to Marshall.

Harry pulled us almost the entire way back and then proceeded to ride everyone off his wheel without a whole lot of trouble.

"What you think about is some little boy or little girl is never going to have Brendan Looney as his or her father."

2010-10-07T11:21:00.000-04:00

Every day we get an email with a series of news clips about the Navy and other related subjects. At the end there is a section for blogs. I read the below blog by Patrick Stevens today and thought the coaches' comments were really telling on how Brendan Looney lived.

http://d1scourse.typepad.com/blog/2010/10/brendan-looneys-former-coaches-mourn-the-loss-of-the-best-of-the-best.html#tp

The section I thought most impactful:

"I told my wife that I don't have any bravado over this; we've got to move on, have to come to work after this, and that's all going to happen," Meade said. "But I'm never getting over this. It's not about me. The reason I'm never going to get over it --- and I'll think of him every day until I die --- is it's always difficult when somebody dies like this so early in life. What you think about is some little boy or little girl is never going to have Brendan Looney as his or her father. And he would be good. He'd be a better father than me. Those are the types of things, the immediate-impact things, you think about that make it so difficult."

Who Wants a Free Pair of Giro Monaco Gloves (large)...Worn Once

2010-09-28T13:47:00.000-04:00

My black "made by Assos" gloves (black gloves in the photos) are starting to get a little worse for the wear. Translation: they don't smell so great even after washing them.

So, I looked for a pair on sale and decided on the Giro Monaco gloves (white & black gloves in photos). They are actually really nice fitting gloves, with high quality, tacky leather palms. Problem is, the leather didn't get along so great with the palms of my hands on my long ride this weekend, so that's that.

I'm Back, Kind Of

2010-08-25T18:20:00.000-04:00

After 7 months of crazy hours working on Capitol Hill and a winter, spring and part of the summer spent training for a half-ironman, I'm back, hairy chest and all.

Photo credit: www.teamtraveller.com from the Page Valley Road Race 2010.

Cezanne's B-day and Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T09:41:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday was Cezanne's birthday, but I can't say how old she is...

We went to "Siroc" for dinner and had some great food. I highly recommend it. It was really good, but not too expensive, I think around $80 for both, including one drink and a split dessert.

I ordered a "Gimlet" which is basically vodka (or gin) and lime juice with a little mint. When I got it, it tasted like straight vodka, with a hint of mint. After sipping on it for a bit I told the waitress I was a light-weight and asked for some more lime juice.

Cezanne loves to be "cozy" as she says, so last Saturday I got her some Ugg slippers and she loves them. Good thing she made it easy by suggesting slippers.

My brother Jason is in Djibouti in Africa, so we made a sign for him for our Thanksgiving Day photo. Not a bad photo given that we used the timer on the camera.

Here is a shot of the gang without the sign. We had a great time and had great food.

I ran 8.6 miles on Friday and did an easy (but wound up being painful) 36 mile ride on Sunday. My legs are thrashed from the run, especially my hip flexors and nagging left hamstring. I'm not sure what I did to it. I might go out and try to do an easy 25 miles on the bike today. Last night my throat started hurting...looks like the beginnings of a cold.

Pretty boring post, but I had to throw something up here, since it's been a while.

Luv Cycles t-shirts

2009-11-01T14:54:00.000-05:00

My High School friend Mike started a cycling clothing and info company: luvcycles.com

I wanted to get the kelly green shirt with yellow heart, but my brother already got that one, so I opted for the gray. The material is perfect.

I went for an 8.7 mile run today, really slowly, and wound up at a 9:02 minute mile pace. That's the farthest I can ever remember running. It was raining (hence no bike ride) and about 50 degrees, but it was actually pretty nice. My heart/lungs felt great (since I was going so slow), but the upper quads (I guess the hip flexors) were the only things bothering me.

I've been doing a 4 mile run twice a week just trying to slowly build up and get some miles in my legs and previously did a max of a 6 mile run. This is all in preparation for the half-ironman in June. I know my cycling schedule/racing next year is going to be hurting because of the running...and eventually the swimming.

Here is the slow run info: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/17722486

Some sad DC sightings

2009-10-13T08:25:00.000-04:00

Last night on my run on Wisconsin Ave NW through Tenleytown and Frienship Heights I saw a guy dragging a cardboard box from the corner of a building. About 10 strides later I saw the make shift home he was making out of carboard boxes.

This morning I didn't ride outside, but I got on the indoor trainer for an hour. As I was stopped at the red light waiting to turn onto Wisconsin Ave a homeless guy (seemed homeless as best I could tell) walked joyfully in front my car through the crosswalk. He looked at me and I smiled. He started loudly, but nicely shouting something and pointing at the left side of my car. I thought he was trying to tell me my headlight was out or something, but then I began to understand what he was saying. He was saying, "Military stickers!" "Military stickers!" and pointing at the DoD stickers on my car which help me gain access to military bases.

After he said it about 3 times he turned square to the car and saluted. I saluted back (I don't wear a uniform for my current assignment) and he continued crossing. I instantly became keenly aware of my wallet sitting in the back right pocket of my pants. I usually never have cash, but I did this time. By the time the thought passed through my mind he was happily on his way and I was able to see the back of the jacket he was wearing.

The jacket had a huge Marine Corps emblem and said "Marine Corps" on it. As he finished crossing the street I saw him move off to right edge of the sidewalk towards the newspaper receptacles, thinking he might be grabbing one of the free papers. A few seconds later a cyclist passed and after letting him pass, the guy again went on his way.

Last night and this morning has caused me to take some pause to be thankful for what I have. I know it will only last a few hours and the grind and the day's events will soon wash the memory and life will seem difficult again.

I don't pretend to know much about it, but I know homelessness is not an easy condition to deal with. There is no easy solution, there is not necessarily an amount of money you can throw at it to eradicate it. What is even more sad is that a large portion of the homeless population are veterans. I'm sure a large portion are Vietnam vets who never got the care and support they needed when they returned home. PTSD is probably also a major factor and although it is a known and the military is using the latest treatment available, there are probably some that still believe it carries a stigma and don't seek treatment and then there are probably those medical providers who also overlook it.

On a side note, for fiscal year 2010 the Department of Veterans Affairs was appropriated (by the House of Representatives, waiting on the Senate) a full $3.2 billion for homeless veterans program, $949 million MORE than they were given in 2009. One of their major programs is Project CHALENG (Community Homelessness Assessment, Local Education and Networking Groups), which was launched in 1994. This program partners the VA with local community-based programs for a more wholistic approach to homelessness. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, “the most effective programs for homeless and at-risk veterans are community-based, nonprofit, ‘veterans helping veterans’ groups.”

I digress.

The Work Goes On

2009-10-12T11:45:00.000-04:00

There is a loud clatter of keyboards banging, interrupted occassionally by somewhat frantic and animated calls from the boss requesting more and more information (one of the topics to be revealed later).

The guy next to me has already professed that he want to break something today. He has done some yelling and banging, during some calls (on mute) and immediately following those calls.

Really a quite typical day for the office, but today is extra special. We're all Federal employees and today is a Federal Holiday. Granted it's "just" Columbus Day, but nevertheless illustrates a commonality across all Federal holidays...they are NOT holidays in this office.

I would be willing to bet a lot of money that of the 534 "other" offices, we are the only one that is fully abuzz as if it was a regular work day, with the FULL staff here. Sure some of the other offices probably have staff in as needed or maybe working from home, but nothing like this.

The only respite today offers is that the 7am-9pm that I've been working lately will not happen today, the hours are more loose, but the tension while we're here is not.

I'm not sure why it surprises me anymore. There is a pension towards the opposite of what a holiday should be. It consists of the "holiday check" or the "holiday get them" or the "just because it's a holiday" mentality which causes a flurry of phone calls and emails to ensure the staff is at work. This pension towards creating work and placing more emphasis on the holidays reminds me of when I was young and it was inevitable that the worst arguments between my parents would occur on the Holidays.

So, as it goes, it was inevitable that there would be extra work today, as there was around July 4th, as there will be on Veteran's day.

However, it's difficult to complain when thinking about those on deployment and those service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Almost forgot to mention the important information we were all rushing around to get so that we could craft a press release: info on Christopher Columbus of course!

Early Early Morning Ride

2009-09-02T09:27:00.000-04:00

I got out the door around 4:55am this morning. Ugh.

Something had to give...and it wound up being my Wednesday mornings. I'm having a blast riding 45-50 milers on Sunday, but my cycling fitness is steadily declining, in part from my lack of riding and in part because of my starting to run during the week.

I figure if I can get up early Tuesday and Thursday for a run, then I can get up early Wednesday for a ride. I don't like the cycle of: get up before 5am, run or bike, go to work, work twelve and a half hours, go home, eat dinner, go to bed and repeat tomorrow. But, what else can I do? It's going to get worse when Congress is back in session and I won't be able to leave work at 7:30pm...with my departure guaranteed to usually be between 8-9pm.

Getting up early today was helped because Cezanne had to get up at 4:30am today for work. I set everything up for the ride last night, including driving home along the streets where I was going to ride and confirming that Tilden St. NW (where I wanted to do some short/steep hill repeats) was well lit. Tilden St. comes out of Rock Creek Park and has a bike lane plus another 8-10 feet between the bike lane and curb, so it makes riding a little safer and easy to move out of the bike lane, closer to the curb when I hear a car coming from behind.

I only rode a little less than 11 miles this morning in the hour that I was out there...I know, that is a horribly slow ride, but it was early and I got in over 2,000 feet of climbing in that 11 miles.

The above pic is my view climbing up Tilden at around 5:15am this morning. It's a little blurry because it was taken with the iPhone, it was basically at night, and most importantly, I was blazing fast up the hill at around 7 mph... The pic does do a good job at showing the amount of room to bike and the level of street lighting.

Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/12408648

Click on the "elevation" tab, it's pretty funny to look at, perfect sawtooths. I climbed the short hill 11 times.

This is Mr. Bono in the back seat of the Prius on our way to Annapolis last Saturday to have dinner with my Mom for her birthday. The bed sheet we put on the back seat was falling down a bit. He's a handsome devil.

Last Sunday I did a group ride that started out with 6 and ended up with 4, not because they were dropped, but they had other things to get back to. I wound up going with Sig, Chris Chapel and Brian Laubscher, 3 really good dudes (on and off the bike). It was a ton of fun, but I don't know how long I can keep up the facade that I can keep riding with these guys with my current riding amount. If it were this past February through April, it wouldn't be much of a problem and while I would still be the weakest of the 4, I would be a lot stronger than I am right now. I just don't want to be "that guy" that can't pull (literally) my weight in trading pulls throughout the ride.

I wound up averaging just under 20 mph for the ride, which I think would have been around 20 mph if I had any legs on Anglers hill or at the lead-in to the final sprint of the ride.

Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/12198575

Here is Siggy's blog about his sweet new wheels and the Sunday ride: http://sigberto.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-secret-weapon.html

He's got a photo of the group coming down Clara Barton Parkway. You can just make out my bright yellow shoes at the bottom of the photo.

Cezanne is right, I need an editor

2009-08-25T15:36:00.001-04:00

I wrote that last blog a little fast, and with that, the mistakes came.

Cezanne said I need an editor and she's right. I guess slowing down and re-reading the post before I publish could also work too.

My saddle broke on the left side, not the right. My bib shorts were snagging obviously on the left, not the right. Correction made.

I also think I wasn't making sense when I was talking about someone at the Bicycle Pro Shop telling me that Specialized Saddles eventually break. I think instead of writing "someone at," I wrote "some of" the Bicycle Pro Shop...

Above pic is of my older bro Jason and his twins on their trip to D.C. He was back from Djibouti, Africa for a short trip. Can't wait for him to get back for good! Cezanne was there too and went to the museums with them. Yup, she's the best! Unfortunately I couldn't go because of work. I just took the metro down a stop to meet them, hung out for 10 minutes, then went back to work.

My Specialized Toupe broke

2009-08-23T14:18:00.001-04:00

I was wondering why my bib shorts have been snagging on the right side the last few weeks. This is why. I noticed today that my fat butt has weakened the plastic on the right side of my specialized toupe saddle.

I liked this saddle. I've had it for a while, but favored my semi-custom cedesius saddle until the Jeff Cup crash bent the titanium rails on that saddle. It's interesting because some of the Bicycle Pro Shop in Georgetown said that the specialized toupe would eventually fail, it's just what it does. It did!

This saddle hasn't been in any crashes and I'm not too fat...

What to do now. A year or two ago I did Competitive Cyclist's saddle demo program, so I'll look back at that blog post to see which one was my favorite. I think it was the Selle Italia SLR Gel Flow. I'm also going to try to bend back the cedesius, but not sure if the carbon is compromised by the Jeff Cup crash. I do like the specialized toupe, so maybe I'll look into getting another one, but a white one instead of black.

Great group ride today with NCVC. I think I burned the one match I have the days on Anglers hill. It was tough with my heart rate around 184-186 on the way up, but I was hanging kind of close to the front, but definitely couldn't hang with the first 3-4 guys crushing it.

Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/11770464

Recovery? Do these work?

2009-08-21T08:56:00.001-04:00

I've found myself in this weird routine of running once or twice during the week and riding once or twice on the weekend. The running is more of a pounding on my legs than I remember and biking once a week for 50 miles is well, interesting. I think one ride, relatively tough/long, once a week does little to retain your fitness and a lot to keep you fatigued. It's this mix of...I used to ride over 150-200 miles/week, so sure I can ride 50 miles, but I'm only doing it once a week, so my legs are kind of fried afterward from getting their weekly shock to the system.

With my legs being sore after the runs and my looking to next year where I'm going to some how be a competitive bike racer while training for a half-ironman (don't see how that is going to happen, I mean the being competitive at bike racing when I'm also swimming and running), I explored the option of getting some recovery tights. Cezanne kind of laughed and said she could get me some cheap hospital ones that would probably be better than anything I bought. Maybe she could have, but you know how it goes for cyclist, nothing that is cheap is good???

So last night they came in the mail. I had heard that it would take about 10 minutes the first time to get the recovery tights on. It took me 9 minutes, but I wasn't rushing. Since they have graduated compression, getting them on around your feet/ankles is the hardest part. I was a little hesitant because I didn't want to rip them, but they held up.

So, I was strutting around the house last night in these tights with Cezanne laughing at me (just a little bit). I decided to wear them to bed, just to see if I could sleep in them. I was up at 3am and restless which is not out of the ordinary for me, but my left foot was in pain. The material was really digging into the soft tissue on the outside of my left foot towards the heel. I got out of bed and it was painful to walk. I think this is the opposite of the desired outcome! The rest of my legs felt good though. I still have some tenderness in that area, so I have to figure out what happened and why the material was pinching down so hard. This was something I really wasn't interested in investigating at 3am, I just wanted to take them off.

I did a great group ride last Sunday, led by my teammates Siggy and Nate H. We had about 8-10 folks, which is a good size. It was fun and felt good, but I was definitely hurting on some of the hills and later portions. Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/11308512

Similar ride this Sunday, looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak in an early Saturday morning ride too before heading to work.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

2009-08-07T08:01:00.000-04:00

My long bike rides have been taking place on Sunday. This is part function that Sunday is the only day I don't work and although I only work from about 10-3pm on Saturdays I wind up pretty drained (probably the accumulation of fatigue from the week) from the 13-14 hour work days Monday through Friday.

Last Saturday was no different and I was looking forward to Sunday since the Sunday before that I was able to get in a 47 mile ride. Rain was in the forecast for the afternoon, so I got ready to leave around 9:30am. As I got outside, it started pouring rain. I turned back around and put my feet up on the couch.

I checked the weather and the thunderstorms looked like they would be around for a while and more were forecasted for later in the day, so I knew it was going to be a day inside on the trainer. With this in mind, I was no rush to hop on the trainer, so like any normal cyclist, I laid around the house in my cycling spandex. The only thing worse would be to lay around in just the bib shorts with no jersey. It's scientifically proven that that outfit combo is the least attractive of any ever worn.

Poor bike, all ready to go and all you'll see is the trainer. I do think it's time for at least a new rear tire. The Sunday when I did the 47 mile ride some of the roads were a little wet and when I got out of the saddle on some of the climbs, the tire would lose traction and slip with each pedal stroke.

I'm not really doing any sort of specific training now on the bike, just trying to maintain a little bit of cycling fitness. I have been running during the week. I did my first 5 mile run in a really long time last Tuesday. I take my bike computer with me so I can get the mileage, heart rate and pace data. The Garmin 705 is chunky to carry, but it's not too bad. The run is here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/10487293. It was a pretty slow run, but all of mine are. I'm just trying to get my legs used to it again. This Tuesday I signed up to do a Half-Ironman next June... My younger brother Jon did it this year and he convinced me to sign up. Should be interesting.

My right achilles tendon has been overly sore after that 5 mile run, so this morning I found a running route that is less hilly and hopefully I can train my legs on it as I'm starting out. The route I was running took me along Massachusetts Ave, which goes by the Vice President's House and the way back up is a constant 4-6% gradient, which wasn't working well with my achilles tendon I guess.

I'm hoping to get a ride in this weekend before work on Saturday and then a long one on Sunday. We'll see.

Finally went for a long ride

2009-07-26T19:32:00.000-04:00

I'm working 6 days a week now, 13-14 hours per day Monday-Friday and only about 5 hours on Saturday. I've been trying to ride both Saturday and Sunday and run twice during the week, but sometimes I don't get in both rides on the weekend. I was tired from the week I guess when I got home on Saturday, after work and a haircut (had to get it cut before my promotion ceremony next week) I didn't have a ride in me.

Cezanne and I watched the last hour and a half of the Mont Ventoux stage in the Tour de France (yeah, she's the best) and then watched a movie.

Today I was able to get in a 47 mile ride out to Berryville Rd before my Mom drove out and visited from Annapolis. I felt alright, but kept the pace pretty easy the whole time so I would be certain it wouldn't be painful to finish the ride given I haven't ridden much lately and when I do it's usually between 20-30 miles. The only thing is that I was a little dehydrated by the end and should have stopped half-way through to refill my water bottles.

I took the above pics out on Berryville Rd. It's beautiful out there. The below pic is of my "arm coolers." It was 85 degrees today and is late July in Washington D.C. so it wasn't a cool day. I mainly use these for sun protection, they are SPF 30 and allegedly they are supposed to keep you cooler than your own skin, but that's up for debate.

Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/9842836

New Rock Creek Park Loop World Record

2009-07-20T11:42:00.000-04:00

Or so I thought...

It's not exactly a "World" record, or a National record, or State or City or Neighborhood or Street or Apartment building record. It's my own personal record time on a loop I like in Rock Creek Park (RCP), and I thought I set my new record last Sunday.

This year has been interesting, from what I think was really good cycling form and being part of a cycling team and riding with some great people to falling off the face of the cycling earth.

Although I've identified the testosterone problem, my temporary assignment to Capitol Hill has relegated all of my riding to just the weekend and given that sometimes we have other things to do on the weekends, sometimes no cycling at all. I'm ashamed to admit (to fellow cyclists) that I've actually started running during the week because it's the only way to get a cardio workout in given the 7am to 8or9pm work schedule (which means I'm not home or able to work out from about 6:30am to about 8:30pm on average). I've not only started running because it is more convenient than cycling, but my younger bro has challenged me to do a half-ironman triathlon next year. If it weren't for the swimming and running it would be right up my alley. Nevertheless, it's a good challenge.

Back to my attempt at the "World" (Chris) Record. I used to usually only ride in RCP during the week because I would typically ride around rush hour and the area I bike in RCP is pretty light on traffic. I've found that it's too convenient to pass up on the weekends and again, you just don't have to deal with many cars. The loop starts at the bottom of the hill near the intersection of Broad Branch Rd NW and Ridge Rd NW. From Ridge Rd you go right onto Ross Dr NW and then at the stop sign make a right then another right onto Beach Dr NW. On the weekend, Beach Dr NW is blocked coming onto Broad Branch Rd NW, so you have to take the little paved path back to the start.

This weekend I decided to give the loop a hard go, even though my legs didn't feel all that great and I had been biking once, twice or no times over the preceeding weekends and running during the week. I turned in a 10:33. I was surprised. I thought I had beat my old record of 10:45, which I would have if that had been my record. Looking back at my data, my record was 10:29 back in early April. Ugh! Well, still surprising I came that close after my lack of riding for the past few months. I did another loop in 10:37 which I was happy with too. During the 10:33 lap my heart rate averaged 172 bpm and topped out at 180 bpm. I didn't wear a heart rate monitor on the ride I did a 10:29, but in March I rode a 10:54 with an average heart rate of 158 bpm. That's kind of interesting.

So, I had a good ride and it made me miss riding.

Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/9178619

New Giro Helmets at the TdF

2009-07-11T15:10:00.001-04:00

Giro debuted some new helmets in Stage 7 of the Tour de France. Not cool. The actually look goofy and old school. Is it a joke? Maybe they have some other advantage. Weight? Cooling airflow? Incredibly strong?

I think Lance figured they looked goofy and switched back to his Giro Ionos model for Stage 8. How's that for an endorsement? The Ionos is a sweet helmet.

Here is Lance and Levi on Stage 8, Lance switched back to the Ionos, Levi with the new model:

http://tour-de-france.velonews.com/photo/94947

Here is Astana with the new helmets on Stage 7, including Lance. Garmin was also in the new helmets.

http://velonews.com/photo/94888

And here is a single shot of Alberto in the new helmet:

http://velonews.com/photo/94876

And no, I haven't designed anything better, just my opinion that the Ionos is a better looking helmet, that's it.

My New Office/Jersey and pics of the lab report

2009-06-23T15:01:00.000-04:00

Above pic is part of my view from my new work desk. The best view are the pics of Cezanne and I. I have to put up a couple of cycling pics too. Nothing like some good pics of guys in tight spandex.

I don't know why I look surprised in this pic, I took it. You get a good shot of my receding hairline and impeccable sense of style. Actually, the style part is shown below.

I have some of my titanium dioxide sunscreen on my lips in the above pic. It turns everything it touches a pale pinkish/white. I guess I have to accept that rather than my skin itching for a week when I use "regular" sunscreen.

I got this Assos jersey last week, half price from Competitive Cyclist. It's Assos' bottom of the line jersey, but still retails for $170. I have a few Assos items and love them all. This medium jersey is a perfect fit. The material is a little thin, so you can easily see the bib straps, but I'll take it. My goal at some point is to purchase the Assos top of the line bib shorts...but I'll wait until the winter sale (hopefully there is one) since they retail for $360.

Below is part of the blood work I got done showing the low testosterone level (noted by the "L" next to the number) and the normal range for males. I hope I'm still a male! I think I said this in my last post, but the range is so wide because testosterone decreases as men age and maybe there's a lot of variability in the population. Right now, 151 is about 25% of the testosterone level I should have.

Also, just so my fellow cyclists didn't think I was pulling their chain about my hematocrit level, I posted that pic below. What is interesting, besides the high value, is that the range they have goes to 52%, when the World Anti-Doping Agency (or maybe it's the UCI), sets a 50% limit for cyclists (or maybe every athlete).

Like I said in my previous post, I've seen my values before around 42 and 47. Hematocrit is apparently affected by a ton of factors...genetics, altitude, training fatigue... The one explanation I have is that my blood was drawn a week or 2 after coming back from a week long vacation in Utah at Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Maybe the little bit of altitude training cause a small jump when I got back down to sea level. I honestly have no idea if that's how it's supposed to work, I'm totally guessing. Even so, I don't think Zion and Bryce are located at a very high elevation.

Additional pics of the jersey below.

Diagnosis: Low Testosterone

2009-06-19T21:50:00.000-04:00

My younger brother Jon (on the right) did the Eagleman Half-Ironman Triathlon this past Sunday. I made the trip over to Cambridge, MD to see him do the event, really cool. They had a great set-up, it was a great day, and Jon completed his FIRST half-ironman triathlon. That's us above after the event.

Above pic is Jonnie in the last 200 yards of the 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run adventure.

Cezanne's new Prius! Doing our part to stimulate the economy and not stimulate the environment.

Bono is taking a nap, a pup after my own heart.

Cezanne's family: Bro Ryan, Step-Mom Sarah, Dad Dave, her and me. This was us during her Grandma's 80th birthday weekend about an hour north of Pittsburgh.

Now, onto the subject of this post. I have my testosterone levels checked about twice a year or more often if I feel it necessary, given how I'm feeling. My body doesn't produce much of the stuff given my bilateral testicular cancer, so I have to supplement my body with it by rubbing gel on my shoulders and stomach every morning. Males need testosterone to maintain normal energy levels, libido and longer term: deep voice and lean muscle amongst a bunch of other things. Malaise or depression is also a symptom of low testosterone.

So, my level was 151 from the blood that was drawn on May 27th. Normal range for males is 280 - 800. Testosterone fades as you age...but right now I don't even have the testosterone of an 80 year-old man (I'm guessing). When I look back on the past few months, I remember I had been complaining of being overly tired to my wife Cezanne. When the Endocrinologist asked how I was feeling I said more tired than usual, but gave the excuse that I had just got back from a week long vacation of hiking, biking, etc. When I think back to the cycling season, there was a point when my performance and desire to compete dropped off, possibly coinciding with my testosterone level.

I talked with the Doc today and I'll get my blood drawn tomorrow to verify the reading. During my cancer treatments, they took a baseline testosterone level (before the surgery that left my body without the ability to produce the necessary levels normally). That reading was 610. Since being on the replacement testosterone my levels have fluctuated, but we've normally been able to keep the levels between 500-700. It's tough though because after a while it seems like the same dose isn't providing the same level. Maybe external factors play a part. I don't think it's an issue with how I've recently been putting it on. My wife says I'm the "model" patient because I put it on at basically the same time every day and never miss a dose.

Maybe the tiredness and loss of desire to compete are in my head and the reading I take tomorrow will be normal, but it would definitely help explain things a bit. Working 13 hours a day at the new job isn't helping the tiredness either.

I also got a CBC (complete blood count) taken and on the bright side, my Hematocrit (HCT) level was 49.1. Nice! I'm almost illegal by anti-doping standards, which is anything over 50. I've seen mine before at around 43 and 47.

Besides all this, things are going well. The new job hasn't been too crazy yet, but I typically work 7am-8pm Monday through Friday. Most permanent employees come in the office work Saturdays too and some even come in on Sundays depending on the workload. Capitol Hill is an interesting place and it's got it's own set of strange rules and language that I'm starting to learn.

I got up at 4am one Tuesday morning, so I could ride the trainer from 4-5am before getting ready for work, but I didn't enjoy that. Riding the trainer at the end of a 13 hour day, on a full stomach wasn't fun either. So, my riding has been limited to the weekends which isn't too great for getting/staying in racing shape and for that matter, neither does my low testosterone level and general feeling of fatigue.

I signed up for a 3 stage/2 day race this weekend that I was really looking forward to, but I'm not going to be able to do it. I've signed up for 2 more races this year, both in July and I hope I get to do them. I'm kind of writing this season off and hope to be able to dedicate more time to riding next year. It's a bummer because I think this year started with a lot of promise.

These long work hours will last until the end of December, then I hope to resume some good winter training. But, I actually don't know where Cezanne and I will be living! I took this temporary assignment and thought I'd be going back to the job I had before (since I was scheduled to be in that position from November 2008 to November 2011), but someone was ordered into my position. So, I'll have to negotiate with my detailer for a new set of orders. We are hoping we'll stay in D.C. for at least the next 2 years.

Cezanne and I just had our 2-year anniversary on June 17th. We're going out to a nice dinner this weekend. She's been absolutely awesome while I've been working these hours. She's typically up helping me get out the door in the morning and then making dinner for when I get home. She's a sweetheart and doing most everything lately!

Long blog post...but I haven't had much time to write lately. I don't have the energy right now to go back and check for grammar errors, so oh well!

My new favorite photo angle

2009-06-05T08:32:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I did my 2nd 13-hour day in a row. Basic working hours for me are 7am-8pm. Most difficult thing right now is learning the Congressional language and what all the different procedural measures mean.

The above pic is of me at my desk watching the TV we have in the office, which is usually on the House proceedings. There were a few votes yesterday that the Legislative staff was briefing the Congressman on.

I'm still trying to figure out when I'm going to be able to workout and ride my bike when I'm getting up at 5am and going home in time to eat a late dinner and go to bed. I haven't done anything in the way of riding or the gym this week, at all.

JW asked why I was wearing a suit to work. Those are the rules for Legislative Fellows, no uniform, civilian clothes the entire time.

I'm thinking about Toon right now and his wedding to Michelle this weekend. Cezanne and I are really bummed that we couldn't make it. If we would have kept our original plans and airline tickets, we would be in Michigan right now. We'll just have to make other plans to see them when this "deployment" is over.

First 12+ hour day at the new job

2009-06-02T21:35:00.001-04:00

That's me on the Metro on the way home today. First day with the Congressman in the office tomorrow. Not a good day to be late...but, I have to pick up my parking pass and that office doesn't open up until 7:30am.

The rest of June is supposed to be really busy, July too.

Luck

2009-05-10T06:47:00.000-04:00

Found this yesterday on a walk with Cezanne and our dog Bono.

I'm off for a week vacation with high school buds, RVing, Camping, and hiking in Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.

Happy Birthday to me

2009-05-07T22:11:00.001-04:00

It would be nice if my birthday gift every year was to ride with a pro cyclist. Better yet would be an annual ride with Lance. I haven't posted this picture on my blog yet, but I know I've circulated it.

Thanks to Bob Cullinan from www.cycleto.com for the pic from the 2008 San Jose LiveStrong Ride. I'll have to post this picture once or twice a year to remind myself of this incredible experience.

Yesterday was my birthday, but Cezanne and I are celebrating it tonight. Having her as my wife is gift enough, but she decided to renew my "Bicycling" subscription as well as get me a massage for this Saturday. It's been a long time.

It was supposed to be sunny all afternoon yesterday. Turned out it wasn't. I still made it out for a ride in Rock Creek Park. It was decent. The rain stopped, so I just had to deal with the spray coming of the tires.

The deer were out in full force yesterday. There were packs of them all over. I stopped less than 10 feet from one and it just sat there staring at me. I thought for a minute it was either going to run away or come after me... I snapped the above pic, but it doesn't do it justice. By the time I pulled up my vest, got into my pocket, took my phone out of the plastic sandwich bag...the deer had made it's way across the street.

The Manayunk Wall. Cezanne used to live in Manayunk and is familiar with the "wall" as they call it. I think it's part of the Philly week races and the cyclists do the wall several times. Last time we were in Philly she saw this cool piece of art and she decided to get it (while I was driving from the Ephrata RR to Philly).

JW previously posted a video link to a guy doing a one-handed wheelie up the Manayunk wall:

http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2009/04/you-wish-you-were-this-cool-i-wish-i.html

Jeff Cup to Bunny Hop: Good to Awful

2009-05-03T16:32:00.001-04:00

So the bike racing season goes for me: Good to Awful.

I don't know what I'm doing. I've gone from being in the top 6 or 7 heading into the last 50 feet of Jeff Cup (before 2 guys crashed a few feet in front of me and ended my top 10 finish) to getting dropped and lapped at Bunny Hop, a self proclaimed "good crit for beginners." Pathetic really.

I'm actually chuckling to myself right now (and shaking my head). Things have been off since last Thursday, starting with tired legs, but I was still able to post respectable top third finishes in the Tour de Ephrata RR and TT (not so much in the crit).

Maybe crits aren't my thing, but still, I usually have no problem hanging in and giving it a go even. It was raining pretty heavily today and I can honestly say that I cornered like I was 8 and it was my 5th ride on a bike. I consistently lost ground at every turn and it eventually became a TT on every straight-away to try and catch up to the main group. In the end it wasn't doable.

I didn't use my bike computer for the race. I'm sure it would have been fine, but I didn't want to chance getting any water into the Garmin 705 head unit with the heavy rain. Maybe in retrospect I just wasn't too excited for this race and that manifested itself in more ways than not using my computer.

I wasn't too upset at the end and managed a smile for Cezanne. She, of course, was being a really supportive wife and out there in the rain cheering me on...and watching me drift further and further back. She also put up with my slight grumpiness on the drive over to the crit. This has been the closest race to our place, but leave it to downtown DC to always have stuff closed off! We had to detour, u-turn, backtrack because the police had shut down what seemed like random streets.

So, I'm not sure where this leaves me and racing. I'm scheduled to race next Saturday (May 9) at the Fort Ritchie Criterium. After that I leave for a week long trip to go RVing, camping and hiking with my best highschool buds out in Zion National Park and Grand Canyon National Park. I'm out of town Memorial Day weekend as well as the weekend of June 6/7 (Toon's wedding!!!), so it's possible that after the race on May 9, I might not race until the Tour of Washington County on June 20-21, which is a stage race like Ephrata.

The possibility exists to do a the Fulton Road Race in Lancaster County, PA on May 30, but not sure about that weekend yet.

So I'm thinking I should try to bury myself with a tough week of training this week (if I can muster it) and not worry about a result in the Fort Ritchie Crit and then use this next week's trip as a rest week and start things from there.

Including the 2 crits I did in San Diego last year, the 3 Tradezone practice races at the beginning of this year, today was my 10th mass start, so I could put in for my upgrade to Cat 4. I'm still undecided if I'll put it in soon or after the last race of the season and then just start fresh as a Cat 4 next year.

On Saturday Cezanne and I visited 2 Embassies in DC as part of the Passport to DC event. The 2 closest Embassies to our place were Iraq and Nepal, so we decided to walk to both. The line to get into the Iraqi Embassy was so long we went to Nepal first. Above is my gorgeous wife outside of the Nepal Embassy.

We learned that Nepal is bordered by India on 3 sides and China on the other. They served some curried potatoes with some sort of dry rice cereal. It was good!

We worked our way back around to the Iraq Embassy and the line was about half the size. Above pic is of the line.

Yup, this is the Embassy. We went through a metal detector and on in. They had some old artifacts and a brochure with the history of Iraq and a ton of photos of the Iraqi troops working with US troops.

Out back they did a little Iraqi dancing and they had Iraqi food. The dancing and food was surprisingly like Greek dancing and food.

On the way home we walked a different way than we had ever been and approached the National Cathedral from a different angle.

More Ephrata pics...and "I got dropped"

2009-05-01T21:58:00.000-04:00

Found some more photos from the Tour de Ephrata. The links are to the website, the photographer doesn't allow downloading.

TT

http://mlkimages.smugmug.com/gallery/7892276_jdpFp#521856145_3CaMn

http://mlkimages.smugmug.com/gallery/7892276_jdpFp#521851311_Nq3J7

Road Race

http://mlkimages.smugmug.com/gallery/7892264_jqmLT#520933573_hgHrA

http://mlkimages.smugmug.com/gallery/7892264_jqmLT#520996584_4tB7e

I also got my picture posted on the "you got dropped" blog. It's a blog where the owner puts photos of riders who got dropped in racing from the previous weekend. I thought it would be funny if I sent in my own photo, so I did.

http://yougotdropped.blogspot.com/2009/04/back-to-action-or-back-to-non-action.html

My legs are starting to feel a little more recovered. It was weird how dead they felt this week and going into the Tour de Ephrata race. This week's training has been real easy, on purpose. I did easy spins on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, then did a little bit more of an effort today, but nothing tough.

I was riding in Rock Creek Park today and saw my teammate David Kirkpatrick. He banged a u-turn and we wound up riding a few laps together. It was a good time and nice to have someone to talk to. My cornering was sucking (it was a bit wet and I was being a wimp), but I got some good advice from Dave.

Tomorrow I'll just do an easy 30-45 minute spin to loosen the legs up before the crit on Sunday.

Tour de Ephrata 2009 Cat 4/5 Full Report

2009-04-27T20:50:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Jim Wilson for this photo above (and the last photo in this posting). Not only does he provide great images at http://images.jameswilson.com/ but he also has a blog with a great write-up of the scene around the weekend, especially the area of the road race: http://blog.jamesrwilson.com/

All the links to each Garmin race file are at the end of this posting. They show the actual course ridden on a google map, elevation, heart rate, speed, and lap data. Now to the post.

Plan much? That is what I should be asking myself right now.

Logistically, this weekend was a disaster. I feel bad for Cezanne because I was pretty darn grumpy on Sunday night unpacking all my race stuff and putting my cycling gear away.

I don’t ever want to get up at 4:30am on a Saturday and 4:40am on a Sunday and put my body through 3 bike races.

I did the Tour de Ephrata Category 4/5 Stage Race this weekend.

This was my first foray into competing in more than one race on a weekend. I was nervous going in about how my legs would feel on the 2nd and 3rd stage, but tried not to think about it too much. My results are in my post below, but I’ll recap: Road Race – 19th, TT – 18th, Crit – 40th. That equates to 28th overall on points.

Last week on Tuesday I had one of the best interval workouts I’ve ever had (on the trainer). It was really hard, but I felt strong. I think I spun the legs easy for 30-45 minutes on Wednesday then set out on Thursday to do an hour and a half medium effort ride. My legs were completely flat. I tooled around somewhere between a recovery ride and a medium effort ride. My legs felt like they had no snap and that feeling wasn’t encouraging for the weekend.

Cezanne left for Philly (visiting old nursing school friends) on Friday afternoon and after I got home from work I headed from DC to Annapolis to my Mom’s to drop of our dog, Bono, have dinner and sleep on the pull-out sofa.

I woke up at 4:30am on Saturday and got out of the house around 5:40-5:50am. My Mom was nice enough to get up with me and help with breakfast. I got to Lititz, PA (seriously, funny name, French I think…), the site of the Road Race, around 7:50am. I proceeded to wait in the line to pick up our race numbers (photo above) from 7:55-8:35am. Man, that was rough. So after I got all my gear on and headed out for a 5-10 minute warm-up and rode the last kilometer of the course. Our 9:02am start time was delayed (probably to allow for the long lines), so we all sat around at the start line for a bit.

We got underway and the pace was relatively easy at first. I was somewhere towards the back, as I usually am (I know, I know, it’s not the place to be). The pace picked up and I could really feel it in my legs. I was already fighting. The first incident was on the steepest and longest climb of the course. You can see it on the elevation tab of the Garmin race file. Somebody dropped their chain and took about 3-5 people with them.

I was able to go around and the mad chase to get back on ensued. I worked with Grayson (can’t remember the last name) from Bike Rack to get back on, but it wasn’t easy. Looking at the heart rate tab I see that I hit 192 bpm on that chase (it’s the biggest blip on the chart). I usually only approach that in a full on, worked-up, sprint. That’s a new high for me.

I eventually latched back on, but honestly, the rest of the race I was teetering on the verge of being dropped. The course was actually really nice in a beautiful area. There were a ton of turns for a road race and a decent amount of rollers. Wound up being just over 700 feet of climbing per 13-mile lap. Nothing too crazy, but not pancake flat. The only criticism I have is that about half of the turns had gravel on them. That’s just not fun, they should have swept them. Other than that and the long lines to pick up numbers, it was a really nice setup, complete with regular restrooms and timely results reporting. I guess it was timely, this is the only race where I’ve ever checked the results at the venue!

Above photo credited to Linc Brookes: http://linc.zenfolio.com/ Like Jim Wilson, a father of some of our Juniors. We're all lucky to have so many quality photographers at these events!

As the race went on, my plan developed into staying with the lead group if I could, then wait for people to fade in the run-in to the finish line and gain just a few spots that way. Things were going as planned until I was caught behind another crash of 3 guys at the 1k to go sign. At that point there was no getting back on the train, so I rolled into the finish in 19th spot. That is a better result than my legs felt.

After that I cooled down, waved to an Amish boy outside his house and briefly chatted with an Amish guy (probably mid 20s) who had his scooter (non-motorized of course) out and was watching the races. As a side note, we actually passed a horse and buggy during the Road Race, it was kind of cool. I saw a few more on the way to Philly that afternoon (photo taken below as I was driving up on one). Above photo is of another race at the start/finish. I chilled for a bit after the RR and ate a couple of hotdogs as I watched the other races.

A note about the centerline rule: The motorcycle official patrolling behind the main group was really getting on people about the centerline rule. I’m not sure if he booted anybody for it, but if someone stayed out there for more than 2-3 seconds, he would call them out and bring them to the back of the pack where they would have to “start over” in their quest to get to the front. I have to say that I don’t disagree with this. I know it’s a pain and there isn’t much room to maneuver and get ahead, but he also doesn’t want someone getting killed by an oncoming car.

I hung out with Cezanne once I got to Philadelphia. We went to 3 different spots (a restaurant and 2 houses) and eventually got to bed around 10:30pm. I woke up wide awake at 3:08am. I fell asleep again at some point…probably just as my 4:40am alarm went off. I forget when Cezanne and I left Philly, but we had a 70-mile drive ahead of us to get to the Time Trial start.

I’m glad we drove separately at that point because I was getting a little nervous/frustrated because my gas light was on for the last 10 miles of the trip and we were getting there after 7am, for a 7:22am start time. Can’t remember when we got there, but I just remember it was after 7 and hectic getting ready. I rolled up to the start house around 7:17am, with just the minute and a half warm-up from the bike over to the start house (photo above, white tent in the distance).

I used my road bike (don’t have a TT bike), but I put on clip-on aero bars and a TT friendly seat. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have used the clip-on aero bars and then wouldn’t need the aero seat. They probably added an extra pound and my knees hit the elbow pads when I was climbing out of the saddle, which I did a lot of in the 2nd half of the TT. My left leg tends to get numb and not produce much power if I’m in a leaned over or aero position for a while (protruding disk in my lower back), so it's sort of a welcome change to get out of that position.

My plan for the TT was to keep my heart rate around 168-170 bpm. No real reason other than I thought that is what I could probably hold for it and that has been about my race average this year. I kept it pretty close to that on the first half (the flat and rolling section) and then the last uphill half I was closer to averaging 175 I think. That last half is tough, especially the last third! The first big hill is really steep (photo above, credit to Linc Brookes). I was in my lowest gear 39-25 and was out of the saddle. After that, you get a quick break and think the pain is over, then road heads uphill again. The next section isn’t as steep (I thought), but it didn’t matter, the first steep section softened you up enough to make it feel like the first section all over again.

Linc Brookes was taking photos on that steep first section. You can see my 30 second man behind me in the pic above. I caught him about mile 4-5 out of 8 I think.

There is a short flat part before the finish line. I forgot to stop my computer until about a minute after I finished, not a big deal. I turned in a time of 28’10” which was good enough for 18th. I’m not sure if I could have done better if I would have had a solid warm-up. My average heart rate wound up being exactly 170 bpm.

Above pic is of my cool down...sweet tan lines. Also, I don't have 2 sets of our team kit yet, so I hand washed the kit on Saturday night in the bathroom sink and at the time of the TT it was sitting in the car drying, so I could wear it in the crit. For the TT I wore last year's jersey (a hand-me down) and Garmin shorts.

Cezanne took the above photo. It's of the area near the TT.

Above photo is one Cezanne took of the TT parking lot.

On to the Crit!!! I was not super excited about the Crit. The lack of sleep and the sluggish legs were all coming to a head. I decided to stick it out and finish the stage race (barring any serious crash or getting yanked).

Guess what? I actually got in a decent warm-up for the Crit! After Cezanne and I had some food, I hopped on the trainer for about 25 minutes. So, I got my worst result in the one race I got to warm-up for! It wasn’t that, I just think it was the cumulative effect of the past 2 stages, my sluggish legs going into the weekend and my extremely poor position at the back of the group during the Crit.

The Crit course was actually pretty nice. It was wide except for turn 2, which was the only turn which was a little bit tricky. There was a nice downhill to an uphill before the turn, then a little more of an uphill crest after the turn. This was the first race of the season where I got dropped from the lead group for lack of fitness. I know my positioning had a lot to do with it, but that’s how I usually ride, so that kind of cancels itself out.

Above photo credited to Jim Wilson. Thank you again! The photo shows the stragglers and dropped riders.

I think about half-way through is when I popped. On the heart rate tab of that file you can see the difference in the first and 2nd half of the crit. We eventually established a group of about 10-15 (I think) dropped riders. I was spent and I did zero work to keep us from getting lapped, so I did absolutely nothing to try to gain any spots when we came to the finish line. Wound up 40th out of 43. Not good.

Over the course of the Tour de Ephrata, there was some attrition, probably a little bit due to crashes and a little bit from people not wanting to continue. Our 4/5 field went from 59 in the Road Race, to 49 in the TT, to 43 in the Crit.

Garmin race files below, complete with maps of the stages. The Road Race and Crit have laps, so you can click the "splits" button in the upper right of the page to see that data. Halfway down on the page are the tabs for the heart rate, elevation and speed data. Most interesting is probably the elevation data for the TT.

Road Race: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/4340573

Time Trial: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/4340564

Crit: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/4340552

Tour de Ephrata Results

2009-04-26T20:12:00.000-04:00

My first time racing more than once in a weekend. I had one of my strongest interval workouts this past Tuesday, but my legs felt awful on my Thursday ride, nothing in them. So I knew this weekend was going to be interesting.

Road Race: 19th (of 59) Toughest race on my legs so far. Made the selection down to the last 22, but I got stuck behind a crash of 3 guys at 1km and after coming to a stop, I couldn't bridge back up. Realistically may have been able to finish just a few spots higher.

Pain Mountain TT: 18th (of 49) That hill is no joke. Definitely my fault, but got ZERO warm-up for this (and the Road Race too), so I'm halfway happy with that. I should have gotten up at 4am instead of 4:40am. BTW, line to register at the Road Race took 40 minutes. That = no warmup.

Criterium: 40th (of 43, ouch!) First race of the year where I got dropped, sucked, but I didn't quit.

More detailed race report coming in the next post, I'm beat and have to get some sleep.

Note to self: don't make sleeping arrangements so that making it to a bike race involves getting up at 4:30am on Saturday and 4:40am on Sunday.

Tan lines trying to make a comeback

2009-04-23T08:35:00.000-04:00

First off, one of JW's recent posts with a pic of his food reminded me that I've been delinquent in posting pics of my meals. So, here is last night's dinner. I/we usually have brown rice with this meal, but I just wasn't too hungry last night. Cezanne was working the late shift, so I was left to fend for myself... (Important note on this is that JW doesn't normally post pictures of his food, he did it because I do. I don't want anyone to start to think that JW is lame like me).

The sun and racing and hanging out after the race this past Saturday had the above result on my left leg (more so than my right). I took this pic on Saturday, so it's not that red still.

Since we left San Diego last year in mid-October the tan lines have been fighting a losing battle, but despite months of not experiencing the sun's rays, they never totally went away. I guess they held on to the hope of their return this summer in the 99 degree, 99% humidity summer that is the east coast.

So far I haven't experienced the pleasure of riding in weather like that...it's been Monterey and San Diego, California for the most part. Actually, the 100-mile LiveStrong Rides in Costa Mesa, CA, San Jose, CA, and Austin, TX weren't a picnic weather wise.

I'll get a little taste of it this weekend at the Tour de Ephrata where the temps are supposed to be mid 80s, whoa! :) I'm not looking forward to getting up before 5am on Saturday to make the drive up and then getting up on Sunday in time to make the 70-mile drive (from Philly) for the 7am time trial, but oh well, it should be fun.

I got in a good interval workout on the trainer on Tuesday. I followed the "train right" criterium training DVD. I initially got dressed for a ride outside despite the dark clouds and impending thunderstorms, got outside and felt it had quickly gotten a lot cooler and started to sprinkle, then went back in and threw on some arm warmers. I came back outside, determined to ride hills in Rock Creek Park, got halfway down our street and the pounding rain and lightning begrudgingly turned me around.

Last comment is that blogger isn't putting spaces between some of my paragraphs, even though I put a space in originally, than edit it and put 2 spaces between each paragraph...still doesn't work.

Syn-Fit Criterium

2009-04-20T11:16:00.001-04:00

I didn't race very smart on Saturday, but I got a cool new pic out of it (above). Jim Wilson is really active with NCVC and works a lot with the Juniors. He also takes great pictures of the races and allows you to download the hi-resolution original. Above one is courtesy of his website. I think this photo is from the beginning of the race. I think the 3rd guy back is yawning at the pace I was setting.

Syn-Fit is raced on a .85 mile loop with only 2 turns and it's basically flat. Overall a safe course on smooth roads, but no section to make a selection.

I had my highest average heartrate in this race (172 bpm) out of the 3 practice and 2 regular races I've done this year. Jeff Cup was 168 bpm, but for an hour and 18 minutes. Syn-Fit lasted about 37 minutes.

I don't know what I was doing and I can't really remember the exact details, but I think I was mixing it up off the front and/or leading the pack during laps 2, 3 and 4. That was stupid (I admit when I'm stupid). I'm guessing at my fitness level, I don't have many matches to burn and I blew through too many in those first 4 laps. Looking back at my data, I can see a period of 4-5 minutes where my heart rate was over 180 bpm in the first 8-10 minutes of the race.

What was I doing?

It's my own fault, but I got about 15 minutes of warm-up for the race. I hopped out on the course at 9:10am for a 9:30am start. Stupid, again. I have yet to get to a race and get settled in time for an appropriate warm-up.

There was a bad crash somewhere between lap 6-8. It happened on a straight and open stretch of road. I don't know what happened, but I was able to slow down enough (stopped) to avoid the half dozen people that went down.

The chase on after that sucked. It took a good 2 or 3 laps. I think you can see this on the heart rate tab of my race file. If you look inbetween minutes 20-26, you can see 2 humps, the first being the bridge up to a rider and then subsequently recovering behind him (and heart rate dropping), then the second effort to go around that rider and make it back to the pack. That was probably the one smart thing I did during the race.

After my fun (read: horrible) experience with the Jeff Cup bunch (only about 15-20 people) sprint finish I had made up my mind not to contest the sprint in this race. I probably couldn't have anyway given the way I needlessly expended energy early on, but that was my mindset: no bunch sprint for me today (read: wimp). I don't think that mindset will last very long, hopefully.

I made one late attempt at a break during the 2nd to last lap. That was my (1) expend my remaining energy trying to break away for the win (.000052% chance of success) or (2) get swallowed up half a lap later and not contest the bunch sprint (99.999948% chance of happening) tactic. And the results are that I'm not Fabian Cancellara (big surprise there!). If only I had an aero frame....hmmm, that would have bought me about 6 more meters of break away.

My teammate and buddy Brian (below pic with Cezanne and I) said after the race that when I jumped on the 2nd to last lap he tried to jump on my wheel, but I jumped too hard for him to latch on. I wish I would have known because it would have been great if we both got in a last lap break away. I jumped so no one would latch on, but I probably went to hard and expended too much effort which made holding off the pack that much harder. You can see in the heart rate data that the blip towards the end started off at 187 bpm, that was my initial effort to get a gap and then you can see the trickle down.

Makes me wonder if I tried that move, but had "sit in" all race and not spent that 4-5 minutes in the beginning in the red or had to chase on. Reality is that I probably would have been able to stay away for a bit longer at the end, but ultimately not change the outcome.

It was definitely fun to come through the start/finish on the bell lap with a gap. The previous few laps I was at the back of the pack waving and smiling at Cezanne as we went through and then I came through the very next time in pain with a small gap, kind of funny.

I latched back on the back of the group after I was absorbed and then drifted off the back as everyone rounded the last turn. I drifted off enough to see a junior nail the outside curb of that turn, almost taking out Brian for the second time that race.

The lap data for the race is here.

There was a lot of traffic on the way back home. The Syn-Fit Crit was out near Dulles Airport. To top it off I got stuck behind a garbage truck in Georgetown on 33rd St. It was painstakingly slow, but in reality, these guys were very efficient. They didn't waste a single step. I found myself not being frustrated in the least for being held up.

I tried to take a nap on Saturday afternoon since Orthodox Easter service started at 11:30pm that night and we were driving to Annapolis for it. Most things I do are lame (title of the blog as I've mentioned before) and my normal bed time is definitely one of them. So, the 11:30pm start time is about an hour and a half later than the time I usually turn in given my usual 5:40am rise time during the week.

After having some of the left-over pizza we had the night before with Wick and Kyle for lunch, I tried to turn in from about 3:30pm-6pm. I think I may have gotten a little bit of sleep, mainly from 5:30-6pm and I woke up feeling totally drained and unrested. So, it was the nap I wish I didn't take.

We got to Church in Annapolis right on time and met my Dad and my brother Stephen and his girlfriend Natalie. We didn't stay for the full service, but longer than most. We left the Church at 1am and headed to my Dad's for a late night snack.

We got to bed around 2am and the plan was to sleep in until 10am... So, we were up around 7:30am and out of bed around 8-8:15am. We had showered, walked Bono, walked downtown to Hard Bean, had some coffee and a small breakfast and were back on my Dad's porch watching the world go by when the 10am alarm went off on my phone.

Bono was enjoying the porch too and watching people coming and going from downtown Annapolis (pic below).

Another view off the porch below. You can barely make out the Naval Academy behind and to the right of the hotel.

Easter lunch/dinner was great. We had the whole family there except for Jason who is in Djibouti in Africa. He was missed, but we'll get him next time! The food (leg of lamb, spanakopita, feta cheese, kalamata olives, bread, and baklava) were great. I was disgustingly stuffed afterwards, but that didn't stop me from playing uncle.

Jon and Jen's kids (those old enough to play) all went up stairs to jump on the spare bed and asked me to come with them. They jumped around and wrestled and hid in the closet. They like to "pile on" each other and the wrestling and kicking that comes with that makes me uncomfortable, although I'm sure it is tame compared to what I and my 4 brothers used to do. I have stitches (2 sets) to prove it. So, in an attempt to not let it escalate, it became "pile on uncle Chris" time.

After that we headed to the playground for a bit, then headed back to my Dad's where we all got ready to go. Overall a great weekend and the funnest racing I've done so far.

I'm "stupid" according to "anonymous" comment

2009-04-16T10:12:00.000-04:00

This past February I wrote a blog post stating that I wasn't a big fan of the new Oakleys being sported by George Hincapie and Lance Armstrong (originally debuting on George and Thor at the 2008 Tour de France). I further stated that I had a pair of Oakley Radars and "love" them.

My finishing comment on that post was, "Who knows, maybe they'll grown on me...and I'll have a pair in a few months."

No, a new pair didn't magically show up at my door, something better and much more mature happened. You'll have to wait for it though.

Two days after that post, Velonews released an article on the new Oakley sunglasses, the "Jawbone." I subsequently wrote another blog post on the glasses because Velonews stated this in their article: "Hushovd, Hincapie, Armstrong and the rest of Oakley’s heavy hitters are set to formally release Jawbone to the public on Stage 6 of the Tour of California, February 20, which is the individual time trial." I wrote this post about a week before the Tour of California started.

I immediately thought it was a little odd to debut them at the ITT, since IN MY OPINION "these don't seem like TT sunglasses to me," which is what I posted in that blog entry. Maybe I should have clarified that with: there might not be sunglasses specifically made for TTs, but some obviously lend themselves (functionally) to TTs. Do you want to keep your head in a certain position for aerodynamics, just to look down at your computer and have it obscured by the bottom rim of your Jawbones? I don't think so.

Bottom line is that Oakley can do whatever they want to do and a TT debut probably made more sense because you have people milling around in the same area instead of spread out all over a 100 mile point to point route. That doesn't change my opinion about the functionality of the glasses.

So, this was the "anonymous" comment I got yesterday (April 15th) on my February 8th blog post: "Anonymous said...
there's no such thing as "tt" sunglasses stupid. have you designed something better??"

Wow, that was it, sweet!

So, number one, I'm stupid, and number two, have I designed something better? On number one, I may be stupid sometimes, but not at all on this topic (more to follow). On number two, give me about 7 minutes and I'll sketch something on the back of an envelope that's better.

Why are you angry anonymous? Why so immature? Did you design the Jawbones? I'm humbled that "anonymous" would seek out to comment on my opinion about these sunglasses and in general about the concept of TT sunglasses. Is it that when you "Google" Oakley Jawbone, my blog is about the 4th or 5th website listed? No, most likely it is because I am an absolute titan in the bicycling industry, countless stage wins, multiple national TT championships, million dollar sponsorships...and my opinion matters. I'm sure Lance and George are monitoring the situation and after I commented that I wasn't a huge fan, it was only a matter of time before they stopped wearing them.

Wait, that's not it at all, I'm a 31 year-old CAT 5 with 3 races under my belt. But guess what? Lance and George agree with me, "these don't seem like TT sunglasses." How do I know that?

Just look at the photos of the Tour of California. Both Lance and George chose specifically NOT to wear the Jawbone in the Stage 6 ITT, nor did they wear them in the Prologue. Hmmm...strange, I guess to them they just don't seem like TT sunglasses...EXACTLY what I said. For the TTs, they chose glasses more suited to a TT. In Lance's case, it looks like he wore Radars with the "Range" (the largest) lenses for both Tour of California TTs. He didn't wear those "specific" sunglasses on any other stage. So, those were his "TT specific" sunglasses. Fact. Big George wore the Radars as well for the TTs, I think with the "Path" lenses.

Big George loves the Jawbone, according to Velonews, he said: “the baddest racing glasses Oakley has made.” That is his opinion, a very valid one, but he still didn't wear them in the Tour of California TTs. Who knows, maybe he will in the future, but I can still have an opinion, which for the time is backed up by the 2 biggest names in American cycling.

There are no hard and fast rules for this, just opinions. For instance, a lot of riders use the Oakley Radars and Giro Havics for both road racing and their TT because they feel like they work fine in either discipline. Nothing wrong with that. Others, like most people who aren't sponsored, have one set of sunglasses that they use for ANY type of cycling and it's not a hindrance.

I seem to remember that Lance used to wear the Oakley Zero JUST for TTs. Another set of "TT specific" sunglasses for him. I could be wrong, but I don't think he ever wore them in a race when he wasn't riding a TT. That makes them pretty specific to him, but who is he?

So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I had fun looking back at all the photos from the Tour of California to fact check this blog post. There are some links below to the pics.

Lance and George in the TTs, specifically not wearing their Oakley Jawbones (courtesy of Cyclingnews.com and Velonews.com):

Lance during TofC Stage 6 TT

Big George during TofC Stage 6 TT

Lance during the TofC Prologue

Big George during the TofC Prologue

Lance and George on other Stages, wearing the glasses they prefer for road racing, the Jawbone (courtesy of Velonews.com):

Lance Stage 4

Lance Stage 8

George Stage 7

I want to thank anonymous for giving me a topic for my blog, I hope you're doing okay today. I was on the verge of taking more pictures of my food and posting them and I think everyone, but me, can agree that that posting would have been a step in the wrong direction. Don't worry, that won't stop me in the future though...

In closing I want to say that the internet is a place where people feel emboldened to say what they want, get fired up, and insult people, like calling them stupid. In my former life, I was on a small show called "Oprah." My now ex-wife and I were one of 3 final couples that Oprah was going to give a Million Dollar Dream wedding to. During the show they did video clips of all the couples and during ours it mentioned my bilateral testicular cancer and our inability to have children "naturally" (without IVF). After the show people could make comments on the Oprah website for that show and what they said was awful and disturbing.

People were insulting me saying that I was no good because I couldn't impregnate my fiancee, nice. People made discriminatory comments because an African American couple won, like, "of course they won, that's who Oprah wanted to win!" It's weird that the audience, full of mostly white women, chose the winners and Oprah didn't have any say in it... I know, I was there.

So, people feel tough online, their true colors tend to come out, and they are typically wrong and/or misinformed or maybe they're trying to make up for their own multiple shortcomings by attacking others.

Soggy, Foggy and cold hill repeats

2009-04-13T09:34:00.000-04:00

I found the following statement on Cyclingnews.com's write-up of Paris-Roubaix kind of amusing. It is in reference to Thor Hushovd crashing while he and Tom Boonen had a small lead on the remaining 4-5 people in the "winning" break-away:

"Hushovd's mistake cost him an excellent chance at victory, as he is undoubtedly the stronger sprinter of the two."

Really? I kept re-reading it to check if they were talking about Hushovd and Pozzato, but I don't think they were. Not a big deal, but in my humble opinion, Hushovd is not "undoubtedly" the stronger sprinter between him and Boonen. I don't even think he's the STRONGER sprinter of the two, but they're both pretty darn good. It just depends on the conditions and luck and either one of them could win a sprint. And they're both no Mark Cavendish...

That was a long lead-in to my new socks! Cezanne loves the argyle, I like them because they're a little different. They'd probably (definitely) look better with white or black shoes, but these are what I got!

Earlier in the week my teammate Brian emailed a couple of us asking if we wanted to go out to Skyline Drive this Saturday and do hill repeats along the first 4-5 miles of Skyline Drive. I was game. I kept checking the forecast as the week progressed. Side note: Cezanne likes to make fun of me because I check the weather so much on the iPhone. She likes to say something like: "did the weather forecast change in the last 10 minutes?" I deserve it and she does it in good fun. I just usually/always like to get a last minute update of the temp before I go riding.

So, all week the forecast was rain and high 40s. Towards the end of the week the forecast was rain Friday night and Saturday morning, then clearing. More promising... So, what kind of weather did we get? 47 degrees and raining.

The above pic is on the drive out to Skyline Drive (in Front Royal, VA), about 75 miles from home. It was absolutely pouring. The "this is going to be fun" thoughts ran through my mind, but didn't really prepare me for all the day's adventures.

Fog.

We got out to Skyline about 30-40 minutes behind schedule, so by the time we started riding it was probably 10am, not 9am...

The further we went up Skyline the worse the fog got. I wish the picture did it justice, but I should have taken another when we reached the visitor's center. You can barely make the car out in front of the one you can see clearly above and it got worse.

In packing up all my stuff last night, for some reason I decided to throw my rear light in the bag. I don't think I've ever put it on during the day. I usually throw it on if I'm riding in the evening and know I'll be wrapping up around sunset. I don't have any issues with the nerd factor of having a light, I'd rather be alive.

It actually came in handy...sort of. We parked about 4.5 miles into the park at the visitors center and got bundled up. For some reason (probably the rain and fog), it felt colder than 47 degrees. I'm glad I brought extra stuff I thought I wouldn't need (extra jacket, beanie, shoe covers). The ride down the hill was miserable, cold and wet and couldn't see very far in front of us. I was on the brakes a ton on the way down.

We got to the bottom and turned around for the ascent. Ahhh, that's better. We warmed up pretty quickly on the ascent and that made everything bearable. The fog was sitting above mile 2, so mile 0-2 had good visibility, just still cold and wet.

We made it to the top and were feeling good. Basically, the ascent gets you nice and warm which makes the cold descent bearable. Just as we pulled right into the visitors center to turn around, the park ranger blasted his sirens for a second. He was right behind us. He asked us if we had front lights on the bikes and we said no. He made a smart comment like, "do you think that's a smart idea?" Listen buddy, yes, having a front light would be the absolute safest given the fog conditions, but at the same time, I'm more likely to get hit from behind, not from a car that decides they not only want to cross the yellow line, they want to go two-thirds of the way into the other lane where I'm riding.

We didn't give an attitude and basically the law is if you're riding in fog, you have to have both, so that's why I said the rear light I brough and was using "sort of" came in handy. It got us 80% of the way to being the safest, but not all the way.

So, after mulling it over a bit, we had to decide what to do. It boiled down to 2 options: (1) go find another hill not in a state/national park to ride on or (2) go to Kmart and get cheap front headlights. What really complicated things was that Cezanne and I had this plan for her to drive out and meet us for lunch after the ride... Uh-oh. Brian was talking up this BBQ place (The Apple House) and it sounded good to us, although I think the last time I had BBQ was in San Diego about 2 years ago when my brother Jason visited and we went to Kansas City BBQ (famous for a part of Top Gun being filmed there).

Bike rides typically don't end right on time. There are a lot of different factors like weather, flats, speed, expected speed, who else is riding, cops telling you to go get a front light if you wanted to ride... So, I got an update on Cezanne and she was about 20 miles from the restaurant, and we were at Kmart. We decided to get the lights and ride. I told Cezanne it would be another 1.5 hours of riding (about 30 minutes per trip up and down the hill). Of course, I was only taking into account the ascent time. Cezanne defaulted to thinking it would probably be about 2 hours then and I agreed. That would put us ready to eat at 2pm. We were ready closer to 3pm... Sorry Cezanne! I felt awful and Cezanne was a good sport. She gave it to me a little bit when we got home and I totally agree with her.

She knew it wasn't going to be a solid meet-up time, but she wasn't expecting to drive an hour and 15 minutes just to wait around for 3 hours. I should have cut the 2nd ride short, only doing 2 ascents, but that's difficult when it's not just you that's out riding.

So, both rides combined for 33 miles and just over 5,000 ft of climbing. That's a lot of climbing for just 33 miles. The climb is actually really nice, not too steep, not too shallow and pretty constant gradient. Each climb wound up being about 4 miles and 1,200 ft of climbing with a gradient of 5.7%.

The first ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/3457799

The second ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/3457789

All in all it wound up being a good ride despite the weather and the stopping and going and buying a light and making poor Cezanne find a way to pass 3 hours in a small town where she had never been before. I'll make sure that doesn't happen again!

Good ride in Rock Creek Park

2009-04-09T10:57:00.000-04:00

This is a fuzzy picture that I took a few days ago, but I wanted to get one of Bono sleeping while I was on the trainer. It's pretty noisy with the trainer, the fan, and the TV (louder than normal because of the trainer and fan), but he manages to nap away.

I rode my Rock Creek Park loop ride for the first time in a while last night. Sunset keeps getting later which is nice. I'm "on duty" this week (Wednesday to Wednesday), which consists of monitoring message traffic and calls on the "duty" blackberry and checking in with our Chief of Staff in the morning and before I leave the building for the day. We only have it once a year, so that aspect of it is nice. The downside is that I have to bring the blackberry with me on my rides.

I've never used a blackberry, but I have to say that my initial reaction is that I like the user interface of the iPhone much better (might just be because I'm used to it) and the typing on the iPhone is leaps and bounds better than the blackberry.

The fact that I left work later than I wanted to, started the ride later than I wanted to and had to stop in the middle of the ride for about 5-10 minutes to forward some "duty" messages on the blackberry, equated to a shorter ride, but not too bad. I would have liked to do 6-7 laps, but got in 5, 2 warm-up, 2 hard, and a cool-down.

I forgot to put on my heart-rate monitor and realized this about 4 minutes from home, but didn't want to waste time turning around. I starting storing it in a different (warmer) closet than my cycling stuff (in a cold closet) because I'm a wimp and don't like putting on a freezing heart-rate monitor. I would have liked to compare the HR data to some of my other park rides, but oh well.

Overall a good ride and feels really good to get off the trainer. My previous fastest lap on the loop was 10:54. This time out I did the first "hard" loop in 10:52, then the next one in 10:29. 23 seconds faster isn't bad. Real improvement? I guess I would know if I had a power meter...

Splits are here: http://connect.garmin.com/splits/3119923

Lap 1 is getting there, Lap 7 is because I crossed the lap point and turned around to go home and it created another lap when I crossed back over the lap point (based on GPS position where I initially pressed lap the first time). Lap 8 is getting home.

Ride overview is here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/3119923

I signed up for the Tour de Ephrata, April 25-26. Saturday is a 26-mile road race. Sunday morning is an 8-mile, 1st half rolling, 2nd half climbing TT followed by a criterium around 11am.

It's kind of far to travel for a race (over 130 miles), but Cezanne will be in Philadelphia that weekend , which is about 65 miles away, and it will be good to get some more racing miles in my legs.

The weekend: long ride and cherry blossoms, nice!

2009-04-06T09:23:00.000-04:00

On Sunday Cezanne and I headed down to see the Cherry Blossoms around downtown DC. We thought we'd see them this time in case we had other things to do next year. Sometimes we fall victim to only seeing a city's sites when visitors are in town, so we wanted to do it without any external prompting.

A side note to this story is that we ran out of Peets coffee on Friday morning. That's bad, very bad. Our local Giant carries it, but they were all out when I stopped by on Friday night, so I picked up some other stuff which wound up being really bad. No Peets (or other good coffee) = grumpy Chris. Some more Peets is currently on the way to us from Berkeley, but we were able to pic a small supply up at Harris Teeter after my road guarding duties at the Tysons Corner crit.

So, with no good coffee at home we hit Dean & Deluca in Georgetown on the way to see the Cherry Blossoms. From there we found some closed roads and eventually got directed across the Arlington Memorial bridge. We wound up parking near the Iwo Jima memorial and making the 25 minute walk over to the Cherry Blossoms. Given that we wanted to leave in the car at 11am to get to Tysons, that gave us 5 minutes with the Cherry Blossoms and the 25 minute walk back.

We took the above pic on the Arlington Memorial bridge. I'm doing my best Euro impression with my bright green "Italia" track jacket. I'm fresh from a new haircut from my buddy "Yash" who is an elderly Turkish man who KNOWS he is an awesome hair artist and isn't shy about telling you.

Above is the "must post" typical Cherry Blossom pic. Look Mom, I was there!

Now that's what I'm talking about! Got my big Cali glasses on and the bright green track jacket has given way (due mainly to my sweating on the walk over) to the DZ Captain America t-shirt courtesy of JW!

Thanks to Alan's gallery on Picasa, I was able to find a couple of Jeff Cup pics of myself. I think the above pic is of the final push to the line on the last lap, probably about 200-300 meters from the line. I'm on the right of the pic with my bright yellow shoes, green bar tape (which I've subsequently switched to white) and graphite color helmet (which is now out of commission with 3 large cracks and a bunch of smaller ones).

So, this pic was probably taken about 20-30 seconds before I wrecked horribly. You can see one of the guys that crashed right in front of me in the pic. He was taken to the hospital first. He had a lot of scrapes and bleeding. He's the guy to the left of me (when looking at the pic) in the ABRT/Latitude kit and orange sunglasses. I don't know who the other guy was who crashed with him right in front of me.

Above is a little better pic. You can see how well my shoes and handlebars go with my kit. It's quite nice... I'm not sure at what point in the race this pic was taken. I think it's near the start/finish during the 2nd lap. I guess we were lazy and let a small gap create before closing it.

It's no secret that I didn't race Walkersville or Tysons this weekend. I was really looking forward to them, but in the end I just didn't want to risk bumping my head again this soon after my "grade 2" concussion. Just not worth it. My next race is Syn-Fit on April 18th.

Walkersville actually had a ton of crashes with one person from our team being life-flighted to the Baltimore shock trauma center. He's doing okay now. I don't think the Tysons CAT 5 race had any crashes, but the CAT 4 had 2 bad ones, one in the first 3rd of the race causing a long delay and then the second accident in the sprint about 150 meters from the finish, which caused a delay to the start of the next race. Both involved ambulance trips to the hospital.

To take out my frustration of not racing I decided to do a long solo ride on Saturday. With respect to training for CAT 5 racing...probably not the most specific training I could do. Read that with sarcasm. Most CAT 5 races consist of an all out 30 minutes (not 30 miles, minutes) of racing, preceeded hopefully by 30-45 minutes of warmup and then some cool down after. 79 miles and 4.5 hours of riding probably isn't the ideal training I could be doing.

I headed out to the familiar Berryville Rd. (above pic), then instead of heading back I headed out to Poolesville to ride once around the Poolesville RR course (that my team NCVC puts on). I took a wrong turn on the course and wound up going down a rabbit hole. You can see it on the map of the Garmin file: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2940908 Should be a nice loop out in Poolesville, but you can see where I headed due south then doubled back. Most of my ride was rolling, but I got in a good 5,200 feet of climbing.

I also made a 2nd wrong turn and missed a right turn which basically extended the loop North on the Northwest side of the loop and took me to a main road. I'm actually really glad I made that mistake. I was running out of water and happened upon downtown Poolesville and a gas station with Gatorade. There is nothing immediately around the course or in the first 15-20 miles on the way home.

The Poolesville Road Race is unique because it features a 1.5 mile (or so) section of packed dirt/gravel (above pic) which apparently is ripe with flat tires and expunged water bottles on race day.

I found it to be okay, but I wasn't doing it at race speed and being solo I could easily ride on the section hard-packed by vehicle tires. There is one spot (didn't take a pic of it) where there is a nasty pot-holed area on the left just before a bridge. Not sure if I'll have to keep that in mind because I don't think I'm racing Poolesville this year. It's the day before Reston, but I'm still deciding.

Don't know why, but I felt compelled to get a picture of the hay bale (bail?) and puddle.

So, that was the weekend. Hopefully I'll have a good week of training. My legs are still tired from Saturday's ride, mainly since I haven't ridden that far since last July. What I find supremely hilarious is that I had an average heartrate on this weekend's ride of 146 bpm for 4.5 hours and last Wednesday I did a half-a$$ed 1 hour indoor interval workout where my average hearrate was 141 bpm. There's just something lacking on the indoor trainer; that, coupled with the fact that as I mentioned, it was a half-hearted effort that I really wasn't into.

JW, you're in good company with the broken chain this weekend: http://www.velonews.com/photo/90206

New Setup

2009-04-02T21:23:00.001-04:00

I got the bike back from the shop today. They did a "safety" inspection for me. I had already done mine, looking over every inch of the bike including the steerer tube. So, hopefully it's all set to go.

I decided to change out my carbon bars, kind of because I've had carbon bars break on me before, and kind of because I didn't like the bend in the drops and because the drop was 147mm. I put on the white FSA compact wing pro bars. I had these previously, but the size 42cm, was too skinny. These 44cm ones are perfect. I really like the drop bend and it's a lot more comfortable to have my fingers on the brake levers when I'm in the drops.

I don't have the white FSA stem (that matches the bars exactly) on anymore though. With the change in bars I had to increase the reach by using a 120mm stem instead of the 110mm one I had on. I bought this stem off of JW last year and up until about a month ago, I thought it was lost in the move.

I think I went into this on a previous post, but it's a little annoying that all the different manufacturers have different ways of measuring things. I'm convinced Specialized can't measure reach on handlebars. Mine were listed at 79mm. The new FSA bars I just put on were listed at 80mm. I measured the FSA...got 80mm, I measured the Specialized the same way...100mm...idiotic.

Before I switched out the bars I measured from the front of my saddle to a point on top of the brake hood to get an idea of what the real change in reach would be since I knew my front of saddle to middle of bars would increase by 10mm with the longer stem.

The net result of putting on a 10mm longer stem and a bar that was listed at 1mm more reach than my old bars was an actual decrease of 10mm (1cm) of reach to the hoods. It works though. The guy doing my retul fit said I was just a tad too bent over from the optimal angle, so a little less reach is not a bad thing.

I'm just rambling and I'm sure all these measurements and nitpicking might seem lame (hence the name of the blog) or not a big deal, but I guess it's a combination of a me thing and a cycling thing.

Gotta see if this low-grade headache I've had since, hmmmm....last Sunday gets any better tomorrow. If not, I'm off to see the Doc.

Jeff Cup - Crashed out...

2009-03-30T12:18:00.000-04:00

This definitely isn't how I wanted to look after Jeff Cup. Sorry for the nudie magazine pic...

These are actually the least of my concerns when it came to this crash. My head hit the pavement at over 30 mph. I instantly knew that my head had absorbed most of the force of the impact with the pavement.

I'd be lying if I said I was excited about my next race. My last 2 races it's been 2 crashes, both with the guy right in front of me crashing and me unable to avoid it. I'm definitely risk averse when it comes to cycling, so that what makes this so disappointing. This is CAT 5 racing, we're not going for a Gold medal.

I had reduced my expectations for Jeff Cup, but in the back of my head was hoping that I would have a decent result. I have been under the weather since Thursday night. The first lap was tough and wound up being the fastest. The downhills were a little crazy for me. I tended to just hang at the back going down them and losing a little ground which was easily made up almost by coasting up the following hill or giving a few quick strong kicks to get back up to the group. I think the group thinned over each lap, but I'm not sure how many of the 50 were left at the end, maybe half?

My goal was to not work until the end and just see how it went. Every single break came back with seemingly little work from the group. There was a brief chance about 2/3 of the way through the last lap to get into a little break. One guy got a gap and I quickly bridged up to him, but I just stayed on his wheel, I guess hesitating because in my mind we were just going to expend ourselves so we had nothing left for the final. In this case, it would probably have meant no crash for me...so I'll have to rethink my strategy in the future.

As far as the crash goes...I think I was in about 5th place about 50 meters from the line and 2 guys right in front of me went down hard and I had no choice but to go into them. I basically went flying forward off my bike and tucked and rolled, landing first on my head, then my upper right back, then my right hip. I wasn't going to win, but definitely would have been top 10. I think I went just a tad early and was slightly fading when the crash happened.

My Garmin computer's last speed reading was 31.2 mph, so that's the speed I think the crash happened at. I didn't lose consciousness, but I knew my head hit hard. For about the first 45 minutes after the crash I couldn't stand up without feeling dizzy and like I was going to vomit.

That feeling eventually subsided and the ER visit wound up being really quick. They felt there was no need for a head CT scan to look for swelling since my symptoms were all getting better. They did advise that any increase in headache or vomiting was a signal to go to the ER.

Here is the race file. A lot more climbing that I thought it was going to be. There were no long, hard climbs, but some steep kickers and some false flats. Wound up being about 2,200 ft climbed in 30 miles. My heartrate got up to the mid 180s on some of the hills of each of the laps then I think topped out at 188 in the final push to the line. There was a definite lull halfway through the last lap, with folks saving themselves for the final.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2840531

Here are the lap splits:

http://connect.garmin.com/splits/2840531

Above is a pic on our way home from Jeff Cup. It wound up being a beautiful day, actually got a little sunburn. The storm clouds were in the sky on the way home though, making for some nice scenery.

After the crash I saw that my helmet had cracked. On closer inspection I saw that there were 2 big cracks and multiple small cracks. The helmet did it's job really well and couldn't be more thankful.

Above is a pic of the other major crack at the back of my helmet. I've had this same helmet since I bought my first road bike back in April of 2005. Time for a new one. I'm going to stick with Giro and hopefully go with the Ionos model. Thanks for protecting my noggin Giro!

The bike went flying during crash, tumbling over itself repeatedly. I really wasn't expecting it to be intact, but there actually aren't many visible signs of the crash. The tops of the shifter hoods, the bent right hood (pic above) and my saddle (pic below) got it the worst.

The unfortunate thing about carbon fiber is that you typically can't accurately determine the extent of damage and you typically find out when it actually breaks on you.

The Zipp wheels actually look okay too.

I'll go over the entire frame and Zipp wheels with a little more detail, basically an inch-by-inch inspection to look for anything suspicious. Since the saddle got it so bad I'll have to check out the seat-post (I'm glad it's aluminum). At a minimum I'm going to replace the handlebars with an aluminum pair. I would imagine the ones I have on there now (Specialized carbon S-Works) got a good beating in the crash. Besides, at 250 grams, there won't be any weight penalty from switching to aluminum which generally weigh in at 250-260 grams.

I might try to bend the metal of my saddle back into place, but not sure how that will effect the carbon fiber shell. My brother Jon is going to put my Specialized Toupe in the mail today or tomorrow, so that'll be my new seat. I let him borrow it, but he wound up never needing it.

So, next weekend there is the Walkersville road race on Saturday and the Tyson's Corner crit on Sunday. The Walkersville race is a combined 4/5 .

JW mentioned that I need to upgrade as soon as I get the 10 mass starts to avoid the craziness and inexperience of CAT 5 racing. I definitely agree, but a recent recap of the CAT 4 Jeff Cup race from a teammate had this closing thought:

"Please everyone continue to practice cornering and riding in a
straight line. Terrifying might begin to describe the current general
standard of Cat 4 bike handling."

I might try the Dave Zabriskie route. He often says that the reason he became a good Time Trialist is the fact that he never wanted to get caught up in the crazy finishes, so he would TT away from the field at the end of the race, so he wouldn't have to worry about anyone else.

I noticed in our race that there were a few guys to watch out for with respect to their bike handling skills (I don't think they were involved in the end crash that took me out). On the climbs this one guy would get out of the saddle and then just randomly swing about 4-5 feet in one direction without checking over his shoulder. I think that's idiotic. Others would kind of wildly throw their bikes around when out of the saddle. It might "feel" cool to them, but it's not.

Bottom line is that I'm really thankful that this crash didn't leave things worse. Right now my head feels decent and the parts that are sore are: my jaw (mainly the right side), my right hip, my right elbow, my neck (the muscles), and my right palm. I have a small cut on my left eyebrow where my sunglasses dug into my head.

For me, this sort of thing makes me realize how lucky I am to be healthy and to have a beautiful and loving wife who would do anything for me. She was such a trooper through all of this and I just feel so bad that once she saw the crash and didn't see me come through the finish line, I knew she had this horrible pit in her stomach.

This has also given me a view into why some people probably switch from road racing to triathlons. I don't want to sound like a wimp, but I'm not too keen on having my brain bounce around inside my skull again, especially when it's not from something dumb I've done.

Zipp test complete

2009-03-27T21:08:00.001-04:00

First off, thanks again to JW for the help in getting this wheelset last year.

I haven't ridden on them since last September and there's the chance that I'll be using them this Sunday at Jeff Cup. The only reason I'm on the fence is because of the chance of rain. If it's raining, I won't be riding them, if it's dry I will. If the roads are wet, but not raining...not sure.

It's supposed to rain Saturday night and be windy on Sunday. Hopefully the weather will stay that way and the wind will dry the roads out. The CAT 5 race is at 12:30pm.

So, today I just wanted to make sure they were all set to go on Sunday. To be honest, I was a little nervous about the integrity of the wheels after the cross-country trip last October. I brought them in with us at night in the hotel rooms, but not every night. So, there were times when the temps would get down in the 20s at night and then the sun would make it really hot in the car during the day. I guess that would have less of an effect on the carbon and more on the glue holding the tire to the rim...

I was a tad bit nervous that the tire would roll, but today's ride helped put my worries at ease so I wouldn't be hesitant if I use them this Sunday.

I kind of feel like a tool riding Zipps on a training ride and an easy one at that. I was passed by a group of 3 guys riding up a short and steep hill today and I really wanted to chase them down, but I stuck to the plan of keeping the pace moderate. What made it tough keeping the pace easy was the fact that I was riding with the Zipps. They make you want to push it and explore just how fast and long you can go.

Think I might be going to bed soon...feel like I'm catching the bad cold that I've been trying not to get from Cezanne this week.

Tuesday riding

2009-03-25T08:53:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, for some reason, has been designated as my toughest riding day of the week. Actually, my philosophy is that riding hard on Tuesday gives you Wednesday as an easy spin day, Thursday as a medium effort day before racing on the weekend.

I'm not sure if that's a good way to train, but I don't know any better. Last Tuesday I crushed myself with repeated hill sprints around a new loop I'm riding in Rock Creek Park. My legs haven't felt that sore in a while. Usually they can get pretty tired, but not really too sore. I think it was the heavy sprinting and big ring, low cadence climbing.

Last night I was able to get out for an hour and a half ride before sunset. I chose the same Rock Creek Park loop/course, but instead of crushing myself, I set out for a medium effort ride in some sort of attempt to do a taper before Jeff Cup this weekend. It feels a little silly to me to be tapering for a 30-mile road race, but that's what is making me feel more comfortable, so I'm going with it.

You can see the ride here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2745298

and the splits here: http://connect.garmin.com/splits/2745298

Laps 1 and 8 are going to and coming from the loop. I did one relatively hard effort (lap 5), but didn't crush it like last week. What's interesting is that effort gave me my fastest time on the loop yet and I think it's because last week I was sort of doing intervals and tried to destroy myself on the first part of the loop going up the main hill of the loop and then do some other sprints up the smaller hills on the loop and kind of used the back side as recovery before the next loop and sprints started. Yesterday I just moderated my effort around the whole loop and surprise surprise, a faster time. I guess it's not rocket science.

Last week's splits (with less warmup): http://connect.garmin.com/splits/2606661

The elevation profile of the ride is interesting. It shows the climbing loop, but at constantly adjusting baseline elevation for each lap. I guess it may have something to do with the changing pressure the closer it gets to sunset. I honestly forget how the 705 calculates the elevation (if it's GPS, barometric altimeter, or both).

To see the elevation, click on the ride link: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2745298, then click on the "elevation" tab towards the bottom of the page.

On the way home last night I saw 3 deer (pic above). They were just half a block from Connecticut Ave, a pretty busy area. Good news is that no squirrels tried to jump out into the road and kill me yesterday.

I'm off to drop my bike off at the "Bicycle Pro Shop" in Georgetown for a tune-up...hasn't had one since I got the new frame last June... Poor bike, I feel like a dead-beat Dad.

By the way, in reference to my post about the Milan-San Remo results, cyclingnews.com eventually posted the corrected results (with no explanation of course). In other race results news, yesterday it took cyclingnews.com a few hours after the Castilla y Leon Time Trial ended to post more than the top 5 results. Lame! Almost as lame as this blog!

Milan-San Remo Results

2009-03-21T13:42:00.000-04:00

I think the results are being reported incorrectly. George Hincapie dropped Cavendish off with about 400m to go and they're reporting Hincapie finished 8 minutes back...really? I swear I saw 2 Garmin-Slipstream guys in the final group with 1km to go and they show Julian Dean finishing 3:39 back and the next Garmin guy back at 8 minutes. The guys I thought were Garmin may have been Rabobank, but I don't think they were.

The youtube video they have isn't the best quality, but I think I'm seeing the riders correctly.

What's the deal?

First bike crash

2009-03-18T21:42:00.001-04:00

I have these couple of race photos courtesy of Amy Jones (www.amyjones.zenfolio.com).

This past weekend was great, had Wick and Kyle up the night before the last Trade Zone crit of the year. Since I knew there was a chance they would be racing the 4/5 race (on the wait list), I sabotaged them with bellies full of heavy banana pancakes. It didn't really dampen their performance, but it made them have upset stomachs.

The weather was not great for the race. Low 40s and drizzling. The 2nd turn of the first lap of the race was not great. That's where I experienced my first bike crash. The guy whose wheel I was on bit it right in front of me and I had no option. I tried to lay it down smoothly and disperse the impact across my back. Right after I felt okay, just my left elbow hurt a bit. I grabbed both bikes (my handlebars where tangled in his rear spokes) and carried them to the grass to get them out of the way of the race. The guy who crashed in front of me somehow face planted and was checking to make sure he had all his teeth. He wound up being okay. Here is a photo of him: http://amyjones.zenfolio.com/p777069899/h1c370df2#h131ca863

After detangling the bikes and straightening out my handlebars, I was able to hop on to the group on the next lap around and it was kind of like it never happened.

This race seemed to be easier than the race last week. I didn't do so hot with stopping my computer from recording my cool down laps, but once I take those out of the equation, I could get a sense for the comparison to last week.

I actually took out the first lap of both races too being that I crashed in the first lap and the stats don't really tell the story of the race. Average speed this week was 24 mph (over the laps I counted as "race" laps) and last week it was 24.5mph. Average heart rate this week was 166.8 bpm (again, with taking out the first lap and "cool down" laps) and last week it was 169.1 bpm (with no break-away attempts).

I hope this means that I'm getting a little better form, but who knows.

I felt the race was easy so I took a flyer (photo above passing a lapped rider) around lap 8 or 9 of 15 and I think I remained out in front for 2 and a half laps. Nobody came with me and Wick (and apparently one of my NCVC teammates) "blocked" on the front of the group, so I could get a little distance. I tried to break away again with 2 laps left, but wound up pulling the field (1st photo of this post) up until the last 3/4 of a lap. Not great tactically, but good training.

If you go to my race data (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2560915) and click on the "heart rate" tab, you can see my 2 attacks of the race, both times with my heart rate shooting up over 180, then trickling down...and down :) until I got reabsorbed. You can also "see" my crash which is the area right after the first heart rate spike. Garmin keeps recording the heart rate, even when you've stopped, but it doesn't factor it in to the average; hence why there is over 53 minutes of heart rate data for 46 minutes of riding (recording some extra before the race too).

As far as the results from the crash, I think my rear derailleur is bent a bit. On my last couple of rides I've been getting a little phantom shifting. I think it's sitting a little too far inward towards the hub. As far as I go, the thing that hurt the most initially was my left elbow (hit the ground) and behind my left knee (don't know what part, but the bike hit it). Since then, the soreness has crept up...left glute (where the biggest road rash is), neck (presumably from stiffening and holding my head off the ground as I crashed), right lat and right shin.

Nothing major and all of it, but the minor scrapes, is mostly gone.

I found my new favorite ride in the D.C. area on Tuesday. I had just enough daylight to get it in on Tuesday and wound up riding for about an hour and 15 mins and 22 miles. One of my teammates sent out an email saying they would be in the park doing hill sprints on a loop consisting of Ridge, Ross and Beach, so even though I was going later, I decided to give the route a try.

The loops start only 2 miles from our apartment and the loop itself is about 3.6 miles. It's perfect if I want to stay close to home and want to measure the remaining daylight against the 11 minute (for me) loops. It's also great because the car traffic is at a minimum, but unfortunately the squirrel traffic is high. Also not perfect is that after I destroyed myself around the loop a few times, my cooldown on the way home starts with a 10% wall and is uphill the whole 2 miles.

Ride info here:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2606661

Next time it would be great to warm up around the loop twice instead of once and then hit the loop hard more than 4 times. Just couldn't do it this time with the lack of sunlight.

Above is a pic from my iPhone when I was out on the loop yesterday doing an easy 45 minutes to cool down from Tuesday's hard workout. You can't really tell, but it's a good little drop off down the cliff to Beach Drive.

It's supposed to rain today, but I'll try to get in another hard workout today, hopefully outside on this course or inside on the trainer. I'll go hard again on Saturday and not sure about next week as I prepare for Jeff Cup, a 30-mile road race on Sunday, March 29th. I might not do a hard workout next week or maybe just on Tuesday and do medium efforts the rest of the week.

Fitness Assessment

2009-03-13T20:13:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back at work I received an email that certified trainers were coming over to the building to complete fitness assessments, which will ultimately give you your "body age." What peaked my interest was that they were going to do a VO2 max reading, so I emailed back and got a spot.

What was interesting is that it said that this was a test done at rest. I've never done a VO2 max test, but know that typically for cyclists, it's done on a bicycle with slowly increasing resistance over time until physical exhaustion/failure. So, that reading below may be a little off, but oh well.

The body age I got from the tests was below my "real" age of 31, but not as low as in the photo above.

For the past few years I've had some issues with my systolic pressure (the upper number) of my blood pressure reading. It's typically in the mid 120s to 130s, but on Thursday afternoon it was 140 which is basically "high blood pressure." The day before it was 122. The trainer suggested looking at the DASH diet. I will, but my diet is pretty darn good, I think.
My VO2 max wound up being 56.8. According to the chart, over 56 is elite, but somehow the program put me in the "excellent" category. You have to remember that all of these are comparing me to the "average" population, so my cycling has put me above average, but no where near top cyclists. For reference, I think Lance's VO2 max is in the mid 80's.
The strength test was interesting. It was basically a bicep curl, but you stood on a scale and you pulled up on the pulley with the handle and pulled as hard as you could for 5 seconds. I was kind of proud of the strength one to be honest given my twice a week 20-30 minute gym workout.
Flexibility speaks for itself. I don't consider myself extremely flexible, but I think my cycling has caused me to focus more on stretching my hamstrings.
Body fat, hmmm. I was a little surprised it was this low. I don't know why, but I was thinking it would be more like 7-8%. For guys, 3% is the essential fat your body needs to function. 5% is pretty darn good and I feel healthy, not too skinny. I definitely don't starve myself, I just eat smart and exercise.
All the tests took only about 40 minutes. The result was a "body age" of 22 years old. Not bad at 31. I think the second recommendation is absolutely hilarious...increase my VO2 max from 56.8 to 57 and I could decrease my body age by a year. Really, that small of a change and you get a whole year?

I agree with the first recommendation about my systolic blood pressure. It's part genetic for me along with my cholesterol which is slightly high (not tested here).

So, all in all it was fun to get the fitness assessment done and interesting to see the results.

My cycling training has basically been crap this week. I was drained from this weekend and have been tired all week. I tried to do intervals on Wednesday, but they weren't so hot. I wound up riding the hill I planned, but not really doing intervals up it: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2485988

I didn't have time on Thursday to do anything on my trainer because we went to go see "Road to Roubaix." Discussing that is for another time, but overall decent movie, but I wish it showed more footage from the races and what it's REALLY like in the trenches and on the cobbles.

I did 30 minutes easy on the trainer tonight just to loosen my legs up. Tomorrow we have a team CAT 4/5 "mandatory" ride followed by getting the team kits ready for distribution to the team.

I'm not sure how the practice race is going to go on Sunday. We'll see!

Fun weekend of riding

2009-03-09T20:37:00.001-04:00

I had a good week of riding, getting on the bike (trainer mostly) every day except Friday. On Saturday I rode 48 relatively chill miles: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2432720

I started out on the Saturday 7am hammerfest ride, but saw one of my teammates pull off and stop. He was pretty sick (maybe food poisoning or virus). I felt pretty good, but was actually looking for an excuse to take it easier than keeping up (trying to keep up) with the fast guys, since I was racing the next day. I don't think I have the experience and hard miles in my legs to do well in tough rides on back to back days. We'll see this season!

I did the same ride last Saturday, but I drove to the start instead of riding to the start. It was tough, but short at 34 miles. Riding up Beach Drive through Rock Creek Park to the start and back afterward added 14 miles. Take a look at the map on the above link and you'll see the winding (flat) route through Rock Creek Park. What's cool is that on the way back about 75% of that route is closed to cars so there was no traffic except for runners and other cyclists enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.

I woke up feeling sick on Sunday morning. I felt "off" the night before and it got worse in the morning. I couldn't finish my oatmeal and my stomach was bothering me. I had this fear that I quickly got what my teammate had the day before. Probably unlikely?

What was cool is that my Mom came out to watch the race! It was her first one and it was great that the weather was nice. I warmed up and felt decent then about missed the 9:30am start when I went to use the bathroom at 9:25am.

I was able to set up my Garmin to automatically record a lap each time I crossed the start/finish line so I could compare laps. It is a cool function. There are a few different options, but I set it up so that the "lap point" is wherever I initially hit "start" to start recording data. It worked perfectly.

The main stats from the race were: 20.32 miles, 50:19, 24.2 mph average, 168 bpm heartrate average, 185 max. As you could imagine, the last lap was the fastest at 26.9 mph and my heartrate average 178 for that 3 minute and 2 second lap.

Here is the link to the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2432754 Once you open up the link click on the tabs below to see the different data values and then the "splits" tab in the upper right to see all the laps.

Overall the race went well. I did better than I thought based on how I felt in the morning and riding 48 miles the day before. I was actually contemplating not racing because of my stomach, but I'm really glad I did. I didn't put in a solo attack like last time, but I was able to hang a lot closer to the front in the last quarter mile or so rush to the line in the last lap. I kind of faded at the end in the previous race. I'm not sure what place I finished in, probably in the top 20 or 25.

I'm hoping to go in a break or solo next week, the last practice race before a race break over the 3/22 weekend and then the start of the season at Jeff Cup on 3/29.

This is a short video of our race: http://www.vimeo.com/3527528 You can kind of see me at around 20-25 seconds over on the far right side of the frame. I've got a red & white jersey on with white and black Garmin shorts and charcoal helmet. One of my teammates (not in a team jersey) crashed at the end and the video shows it. He was in the white jersey. I don't know who was at fault, but it looks like the pink guy went a little too far to his right and came back onto the course into the guy in the white jersery (Mike).

After the race I had Cezanne drop me off in a predetermined spot that I picked out, so I could ride my bike to Annapolis. It worked out perfectly. It was about 20 miles and took me a little over an hour. Cezanne and I had lunch with my Mom and then we left to head back to Alexandria for my Retul fitting. Busy day. Here is the Annapolis ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2433180

It was beautiful. The temperature was perfect and the country roads through Davidsonville were great roads with infrequent traffic. The above pic is of those Davidonsville roads from when I rode there in the fall. I didn't stop this time to take a pic. They are great roads, just need to be smart about looking back and checking for the occassional car, especially going around a sharp right hand turn.

I didn't get any pics from the Retul fitting, but I have to say I was a little bit underwhelmed. I was the 7th of 8 fittings that day, so I'm sure the guy was a little worn out. The "zin" tool wasn't working, but he promised to get it working then contact everyone to do it free of charge. The zin uses the system to give pinpoint measurements of all the major points on the bike so you can replicate your position if you get a new bike or change equipment. The zin part was the least important though. The important part was the marking devices on my wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee, ankle and ball of my foot that recorded all my angles through 15 second pedaling capture periods. The 3D movement and relationship of all those markings provides the basis for analysis.

The end result is that my saddle was raised about 4-5mm and then brought forward a bit to compensate for the fact that as you move the seatpost up the saddle moves back slightly relative to the bottom bracket. Mom, I hope you're reading this, it probably makes zero sense :)

That was the only adjustment! Which isn't a bad thing. It kind of confirmed some stuff for me. I thought that I might need to stretch out and lean forward more (maybe a longer stem or less spacers), but he said that my hip angle was good and actually just a few degrees more leaned over than the middle of the optimal range, but I was still in the optimal range.

He showed me on the computer readout how my knee angle changed (into the optimal range) when he raised the saddle and he also showed how my knee had less lateral movement as well when we raised the saddle. He said that that was a natural thing because now that the leg extension was in the optimum range, my knee wasn't looking for more room (which it found laterally by slightly kicking out) at the top of my pedal stroke.

He's going to be emailing everyone all their angles and readouts from the fitting at some point this week.

Overall I think it was a good thing, a slight adjustment and verification that I was doing things about right.

Long post, wish I had more pictures!

Bono's booties

2009-03-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

Ever since the day Bono faked injury (acting like he had hurt paws/joints) we've been giving him a bit of a hard time for not being a tough doggie.

We figured out his paws were cold from walking in the snow (my feet definitely would be) and he wasn't injured. He had a condition known as frozen paw...well, that's what I call it.

So we got him some booties from PetSmart. The first time we didn't strap them on tight enough and they came flying off as he galloped down the stairs.

The recent round of snow gave us a second change to try them out. One cool feature is the reflective material. It's great because it alerts people taking photos with the flash on of his presence. Ha ha, I crack myself up and I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one laughing.

So if he's out at night the car's lights will hopefully catch the reflective material, which is a good feature.

Below is a video of him playing around in the snow. He runs a little funny in the booties. I guess he changes his gait a bit. He hops a little more. You can hear Cezanne laugh a bit in the video.

Off to Africa...

2009-02-28T11:39:00.001-05:00

No, I'm not going to visit my brother in Djibouti, but the stuff in the picture will soon be on it's way to Africa. I think to Cameroon.

One of the guys on the team (National Capital Velo Club/NCVC) sent out an email earlier this week that he was back for a week from his work in Africa and wanted to bring some bike parts back to help the less fortunate.

I recently made a half-hearted (more like a quarter-hearted) attempt to sell my white FSA handlebars. They're just too narrow even though they're 42cm. They actually measure 40cm (center to center) around the hoods and 42cm (c-c) at the end of the drops. It just seemed like there was no room for your hands.

So I sent an email to our team email listing posting them for sale...not a single hit.

A few days later I got the email about bike parts for Africa and thought it was the perfect match. I also threw in some cycling clothes that I hadn't worn for >2 years or so. Good feeling.

Today was the first time I've done the Saturday 7am "hammerfest." It's know as the toughest local ride. It wound up only being about 35 miles, but it was tough. My bud Brian from the team suggested it and said that it would be intense.

We started easily enough, just kind of strolling along and at about 15 minutes into the ride the pace skyrocketed and the drop occured. It was a really good workout and the goal is to hang a little longer each week. The group split and I was in the second half, but still getting a really good workout, which is the idea. My left cleat started coming loose and when I finally stopped to see what was going on I was down a screw. I tightened the remaining 3 and it was fine for the rest of the ride.

Being my first time on this ride I wasn't really sure of the route. There were a lot of turns and zig-zags, but it's a fun route that you can really only do as a group given that you're on major roads for some portions.

Some guy almost took me out because he swerved to avoid a rough patch in the road, that in my opinion wasn't worth swerving for. I hate that.

The Garmin ride info is here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2287074

The first "practice" race of the season

2009-02-23T21:37:00.000-05:00

Luckily, this didn't happen during the race. That's a nail in my tire if you can't see it. This happened a little over a month ago on the day I decided to go for a ride when it was 19 degrees, feels like 10 degrees. First flat from a nail.

This past Sunday I participated in the "C" race at the Trade Zone pre-season training races in Upper Marlboro, MD. The C race is a CAT 4/5 combo. The weather was 40 degrees and light rain. The rain actually let up during our race, which was nice.

The only sketchy thing in the race was one corner that apparently had oil on it and then the race volunteers covered it with sand. My tire slipped bad on one lap, but was fine the rest of the time. Unfortunately there was one accident there, but I don't think anything serious.

I finished towards the back of the main group as it crossed the line, but felt good about it. I took a flyer on one of the laps in the middle. It was fun. I stayed away for just a little bit less than a lap. My own teammate bridged up to me and brought everyone else. I was toast regardless, so maybe he just sped it up by about 10 seconds.

Kyle Jones' (JW's friend) wife took some great photos of the race and got a good one of me on my breakaway near the start/finish: http://amyjones.zenfolio.com/p934464377/eda60b4

I told Cezanne and my Mom that I look a little "stocky" in the photo and I think they wanted to smack me. That's just the way I look to me. Today I checked my weight, down about 2 pounds to 164 (I'm 5'11"). That's pretty good as far as I'm concerned. I'm typically somewhere between 160-170. I wouldn't mind getting down to 160 and staying there.

Cezanne said that I've been spending too much time looking at professional cyclists on the Versus coverage and she didn't want me to get as skinny as Dave Zabriskie (or grow a mustache like he used to have): http://www.velonews.com/photo/73486

Below is the link to the race data from Garmin 705. Next time I need to set it up to automatically create a lap each time I pass the start/finish. That's a pretty cool feature. I pressed the "lap" button a few minutes into my cooldown after the race, but that shouldn't have skewed the data lower much at all.

I did take JW's advice (from last year) and I didn't look down to see what my heart rate was. I just went with the flow and it worked. I averaged about 170 bpm for 52 minutes (you can see that if you click the "lap" tab). I'm not sure what that means though. I guess if I wanted to do an hour time trial I could aim to keep my heart rate at 170?

Here's the link: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2224177

I signed up for this same race on March 8th and 15th, so I'm looking forward to getting back out there as well as comparing the data.

DZ and JW are the man! the men?

2009-02-20T19:58:00.000-05:00

Either way, they are awesome.

JW recently posted a pic of Dave Zabriskie's (DZ) new t-shirt, his "Captain America" t-shirt. DZ has a thing for comic book heroes and some action hero figurines (he has a beautiful wife and they just had a baby boy, in case you were wondering). Captain America is one of them. It's a natural fit then that his domination and being "Captain" of the U.S. National Time Trial championships the past 3 years earns him the right to wear the unique star and stripes associated with Captain America on his time trial suit.

JW's post is here: http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-dave-z-t-shirt.html

This post (really just the picture) is my response.

Just today I commented on JW's post that I was jealous he had that shirt. I'm jealous because I'm a big DZ fan. JW replied back to me in an email: "You jealous of my DZ shirt? Just get your own!"

I had one thing on my mind as I left work today...get home and watch the decisive stage in the Tour of California, the 15-mile time trial in Solvang. So I was eager to switch from text updates from cyclingnews.com (couldn't get the Amgen website video working at work) to the video coverage on Versus.

When I got home, there was an unexpected package waiting for me from JW. It looked to be in the shape of a DVD. I immediately thought it was a cycling video, but not really sure what or why...

Well, it wasn't a DVD, it was a DZ! I was jealous no longer. JW told me to just get my own and less than a few hours later I had my own, courtesy of JW, all the way from California! Awesome. Thanks so much man, I'm diggin' it.

So today, as the picture indicates, I was able to watch DZ as I wore DZ. Notice the Captain America star on his TT suit.

The Trainer Set-up

2009-02-19T14:12:00.000-05:00

I've been relying on the cyclingnews.com and velonews.com "live coverage" of the Tour of California. These are text updates of the action which occur every 1-4 minutes depending on what's going on. These are good options for updates while you're at work.

Versus has the TV coverage and it's not been that great. The first 2 stages had really bad video, either not at all, tons of static, or relatively decent. This isn't Versus fault, just a product of the weather and the difficulty in covering an event where you can't rely on fixed video cameras. Besides that, Versus cut off their coverage of the TofCA about 10 minutes before the finish of the stage where Thor Hushovd won. They went to Hockey instead...nice.

Yesterday I decided to check out the "Tour Tracker" on amgentourofcalifornia.com to see what kind of text coverage they provide. Much to my surprise, they provide video coverage of the ENTIRE stage. That might be boring for non-cyclists, but it wasn't for me. They even had picture in picture.

Yesterday I did about an hour on the trainer and was able to watch the TofCA while I rode. It was nice.

Below is a screen shot of the coverage with the picture in picture. Very nice. Same video that Versus and everyone else uses.

TofCA anticipation...Cycling articles need editing...

2009-02-14T13:08:00.000-05:00

Cezanne and I had such a great time last year at the Tour of California. It was a nice mixture of cycling and doing vacation stuff together. I wish we could have kept our travel plans out to the tour this year, but we have more important stuff going on...

Dave Zabriskie is pictured above warming up for the prologue. The prologue is a little short for him to really shine, but maybe Farrar or Hushovd can pull it through this year. Unfortunately it's supposed to be rainy this year....for the whole tour!

Christian Van de Velde above.

I was reading some cycling articles yesterday and was kind of surprised that the reporters were getting some stuff wrong. One velonews article (which actually since has been corrected) was running through the list of folks who could do well in the prologue and was hyping up the race (big names list) and they listing Bradley Wiggins...who is not racing the TofCA. Right after they had a link to the rosters, saying "just check out the rosters!" Of course Wiggo (Bradley Wiggins) wasn't on the TofCA roster. No worries, I nitpick :)

The other was in a cyclingnews article about how Jonathan Vaughters was disappointed in the recent Team Time Trial (TTT) done by his Garmin boys at the Tour Mediterraneen. They went on to state that Garmin's next TTT test will come at the opening stage of the Giro de Italia and their "second appointment will be the Tour de France opening stage - a technical 15km route in Monaco." That's an Individual Time Trial, not a Team Time Trial. No worries, I nitpick, again :)

Above is Cezanne and I with Thomas Voeckler (I think that's how you spell his first name). Cezanne knows a little French, so she loves to say, "oh, I love Toma!" anytime I mention a race report with him in it.

Anyway, can't wait for the TofCA to start, should be great with a lot of heavy hitters vying for the podium. I'm hoping Floyd Landis can surprise although I already picked my podium with Wick...Leipheimer, Zabriskie, Cancellera is what I think I put down. I think Tuft, Van de Velde, Landis, Armstrong, Basso, Michael Rogers and some others I'm forgetting have a legit shot.

Palomar...from sunshine to snow

2009-02-12T07:04:00.001-05:00

Toon and I rode Palomar mountain last September before I left San Diego. My only regret is that I didn't get to ride it more often.

I did a blog post about it: http://cgbrianas.blogspot.com/2008/09/palomar-ride-with-toon.html

The above pic is of Toon reaching the top last September.

The below pic is Tom Danielson's (from twitter) view reaching the top a few days ago.

Could be a wet and cold and long Tour of California if this keeps up. I can't wait for the race, it's going to be awesome. A lot of riders are coming in on form.

Eat until you feel disgusting/1st latte

2009-02-10T20:46:00.000-05:00

It's been so long since I posted a pic of food. Actually, it's probably been only a few days.

Do you ever eat and then feel disgusting afterwards? It's not a disgusting feeling because you feel bad about yourself, it's a disgusting because you ate so much and you ate stuff you usually don't.

I had that feeling today and the above pic was the culprit...sausage and roasted peppers over pasta. That pic was taken at my desk at work. It might be hard to tell, but that's a lot of food and I ate ALL of it, except for 3 pieces of pasta.

I didn't have my normal afternoon snack and I was burping sausage and peppers all through my interval workout on the indoor trainer, good stuff.

Cezanne and I are creatures of habit when it comes to our meals, but I changed it up with todays lunch and last night's dinner because I happen to be at Dean & Deluca yesterday. Cezanne's Dad got me a very early Birthday present, a beginner's espresso maker. It's perfect, because I don't really know what I'm doing, so I can experiment.

I was picking up some espresso beans and getting them ground when I had the bright idea of picking up some food for dinner. I got the sausage and peppers for myself and chicken salad for Cezanne. The sausage and peppers lasted for 2 meals with me providing the pasta and some extra pasta sauce.

Even after my trainer ride tonight I wasn't that hungry for dinner.

The above pic is of the first latte I ever made! Hopefully they'll get better and better.

The Oakley Jawbone

2009-02-08T16:49:00.000-05:00

Velonews just posted an article on the subject of my last post. They didn't go so far to say that they weren't fans though. They said the "Jawbone" will be debuted at Stage 6 of the Tour of California (the Solvang TT). These don't really seem like TT sunglasses to me.

The article: http://www.velonews.com/article/87432/the-scoop-on-the-new-shades-being-sported-by-armstrong-and

Looks like "anonymous," who commented on my last post, was right!

The new Oakleys...not a fan.

2009-02-06T06:57:00.000-05:00

As this blog post might suggest, I'm not a huge fan of the new Oakleys being sported around. I first saw them at last year's Tour de France on Thor Hushovd and George Hincapie. I'm not even sure what model they are and I couldn't find them on Oakley's website.

Sorry, no pictures in this post, just links to the pics.

Lance recently started wearing them instead of his Oakley Radars (I have a pair of Radars and love them):
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2009/feb09/california09/index.php?id=/photos/2009/features/astana-pretoc-feb09/Armstrong_SantaRosa

You can see a couple of pictures of Thor wearing them through these links: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour082/DV356611

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour082/bettiniphoto_0028586_1_full

Here's big George Hincapie in them (not sure before/after which race): http://www.velonews.com/photo/79686

While I'm on a roll, I don't really like these sunglasses either: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour0818/DV363483

However, I am a fan of the Oakley Radars and Giro Havics. They just look better.

Radar: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour085/DV358342

Havic: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour0816/bettiniphoto_0029406_1_full

Next blog post should have some ride data or some pics of "what I normally eat in a day." My fans (all 2 or 3 of them) have been clamoring (this is a blatant lie) for more pictures of my food. I don't want to disappoint.

Fuel for the ride

2009-01-31T16:52:00.000-05:00

Cezanne makes fun of me because I like to take pictures of our food. This was breakfast this morning (along with 2 cups of Peets coffee). Cezanne only gets one pancake even though I'm always trying to force more food on her.

These were banana/blueberry/blackberry buckwheat pancakes with strawberries on top.

I had to take a pic from this angle, pretty thick. They kept me full on my 3-hour ride today.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/1967608

I used the "lap" function on my Garmin 705 for the first time today. I wanted to do a sort of 20 minute TT to see how I would feel. I started it after riding for an hour and 40 minutes. I wound up going for about 23 minutes, 91 cadence average, and my average heart rate was only 164 bpm. As a comparison, my heart rate last September for the Mission Bay TT portion of the triathlon averaged 175 bpm for 27 minutes.

For my "trial TT" today I averaged 19.8 mph which I don't think is too bad considering there were just over 1,400 feet of climbing in that 7 miles.

I recently downloaded a program for Apple computers called "Ascent." It's basically a biking training data repository program with a little more functionality than Garmin Connect. It gives you time in HR Zones (power too if you have that), the grade at any point of the ride, the steepest gradient during the ride, your average VAM (climbing rate), as well as all the usual min, max, average stuff (speed, heart rate, cadence).

My average VAM during my trial TT today was 1200 meters per hour. That is pretty aweful when you compare it to Lance's TT up the Alpe d Huez in 2004. He had a VAM of 1790. Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France on the Alpe d Huez this year doing a VAM of 1650 and the favorites behind him had a VAM of 1550. Got all this data from a bicycling.com article. I'm a nerd.

JW, this is for you.

2009-01-28T19:34:00.001-05:00

JW, we have very similar taste. I crafted this little photoshop beauty (I mean, we were on the red carpet together...) back in 2005.

I really like your post: http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2009/01/kate.htm l

I'll see your Prague picture and raise you

2009-01-24T14:28:00.000-05:00

One of the funniest blog postings I've ever read is JW's post where he responded to my "Cervelo R3 around my neck" post with a hilariously similar picture. Check it out here:

http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2008/05/chris-this-is-for-you.html

I don't have anything that funny, but I do have a response to one of his recent posts with a picture of a church in Prague, taken while he was on vacation (or holiday if you're from the UK). His post is here:

http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2009/01/random-prague-vacation-pic-to-appeal-to.html

My response pic is below, followed by raising him one pic of "Prague at night." These are pics I took while on vacation in 2005 before seeing the first few stages of the Tour de France.

The weather, the weather!

2009-01-19T17:29:00.001-05:00

I used to live in La Jolla, now I live in Washington D.C. That's the end of the story when we're talking about weather.

Sure, you get spring and fall here, which are great times of the year, but you also get really hot and humid summers and wet winters. I think the winters would be a little better if D.C. didn't find itself on the freezing rain/sleet/wintry mix side of the house more often than the white fluffy stuff.

This past Friday was the coldest day in D.C. since 1996 or 1997. I forget which year, but that's obviously over a decade. You can see from the pic below that the forecast for Friday wasn't too good. It's tough to see, but the darker number to the right is the low. It called for 8 degrees on Thursday night/Friday morning.

When I woke up it was 4 degrees. I haven't been in weather that cold since SERE school, 8 years ago, the 2nd weekend in January on the Maine/Canada border in 3 feet of snow, no food for at least 3 days...but that's a story for another blog. I actually got a ride in on Friday. When I went it was 21 degrees and weather.com was saying that it "feels like" 11 degrees.

And then there is the weather where I USED TO LIVE! On the iPhone you have the option of flipping through different weather locales with the flick of your finger. So, I check Washington D.C., then flick to La Jolla. I guess it may be cruel and unusual punishment.

Below is the pic of the La Jolla weather I flicked to. Oh man, that hurts. Is that January weather?

I finally bought a torque wrench for my bike. Not having a torque wrench meant that I couldn't do simple things on my bike like adjusting or replacing my handlebars and left me wondering if I was tightening my seatpost too tight. Turns out I was on my Madone and I put a crease in my Easton EC90 zero setback seatpost and now the carbon is compromised, so that nice little piece of >$200 carbon is useless.

I've been wanting to put my Specialized S-Works handlebars back on for a while now, but didn't want my bike to be at the shop for more than a quick visit. My white FSA handlebars are great, but the 42cm feel like 40cm, so they felt too small for me. I did like the reach and drop though, but felt like my stem needed to be 10mm longer.

I'm finding that handlebars, probably like a lot of things are very different depending on the company even though the measurements are roughly the same. 42cm Bontrager feels like 42cm Specialized. 42cm FSA feels like 40cm based on those other bars (not sure about other FSA bars, but mine are wing pro compact). The reach is 80mm and my Specialized reach is 79mm...However, just by looking at them it looks like the Specialized bars have further reach and I confirmed this by measuring from front of the saddle to the top of the hoods on both handlebar set-ups and the Specialized was 16mm further away from the front of the saddle.

Maybe that's a little anal.

My Monday ride was interesting.

Having encountered the same puddle of water on my Sunday ride, I decided to ride on the bike path and endure deeper water, but for a shorter period of time. On the road the cars seemed to spread the water out and drag it down the road which makes for more riding in wet conditions that spray up on my white Assos jacket!

The water froze up a bit which made it a little more of an adventure (pic below).

I think you can see a little snow on my bike computer in the below pic. I started to get a little nervous and having done the same ride the day before I was "following history" on my Garmin, so I toggled over to the page which gives you turn by turn directions...distance and estimated times to those turns. Pretty cool.

If you click on and enlarge the below pic you can see some snow on my saddle, on the road and some falling. This is where I stopped for a little #1 break. I just kneeled down behind this tree and pretended like I was adjusting my shoes...which had booties over them making them impossible to adjust...

And then the snow really started coming down hard (below pic). This actually turned out to be a really nice ride. It was my first ride in the snow, so I just treated it like riding in the rain and taking it easy on the downhills and curves.

Street View of Alpe d' Huez

2009-01-14T20:28:00.000-05:00

There is no other climb in all of cycling as famous as the Alpe d' Huez. It's not the steepest or longest, but it is "the climb."

There are probably thousands of pictures of it and videos of cyclists going up it, but I found it a lot of fun to do my own virtual ride up it using Google's "Street View."

Google hasn't street mapped many places in Europe, but luckily they decided to drive up the Alpe d' Huez. Maybe they are cycling fans...

Below is a snapshot of what one of the 21 switchbacks looks like with snow capped mountains in the background. A great thing about street view is that you can look 360 degrees from every point along the route.

Nice Temps, Nice Ride

2009-01-03T20:06:00.000-05:00

I skipped the 8am group ride for a later solo ride. I decided banana blueberry pancakes and 2 cups of Peets coffee as well as 39 degree temps instead of 29 degree temps were all worth the wait until 11am.

My plan for this ride was to do an easy ride and not push my legs. I think I need to do more of that this winter. My legs are feeling a little heavy. This is my new favorite ride out this way.

I first went on this ride with the NCVC Cat4/5 group a few Saturdays ago. That's the group I didn't go with this morning. It was doable, but I didn't feel like dealing with the cold and knew that I wouldn't ride the exact pace I wanted.

The ride wound up being 47 miles and the temperature got up past the mid 40s.

Below is a pic (click on the pics to enlarge them) of the first part of Berryville Road. It's a fun, quiet road that is a little rough, but worth it.

This is the biggest house with the most property on Berryville Road. I stopped to get this pic and eat some of my Clif Blocks.

A screen shot of the ride is below. You can also see it at: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/1689761

Northwest of DC is definitely the best place to ride around DC, I'm convinced/sold.

If I'm riding a new route, one thing I like to do is see if Google Maps has a "street view" for that area. Street view is priceless for previewing a route and looking at what kind of road it is and what the shoulder is like.

Google hasn't gotten over to Europe with their cameras to record too much for street view, but they happened to street view the Alpe d' Huez climb. Lucky cycling fans! That's for the next blog post.

Below is the street view scene of the beginning of Berryville Rd. Surprisingly similar to my pic above.

And below is the street view of that huge house.

All in all, a relaxing and quality ride today. Hopefully the weather will be nice tomorrow to get out for an easy spin.

Holiday Fun

2008-12-29T20:02:00.000-05:00

Santa was good this year!

Cezanne got me some surprises and some stuff I knew she was getting me. Actually, I knew she was getting stuff from www.competitivecyclist.com for me, but I just didn't know what.

I'm actually surprised I had the willpower not to check my competitive cyclist account and look at the last order, because then I would see exactly what was ordered! Cezanne used my account for 2 reasons. The first is that you can "save items," so I had about 8-10 saved items that she could easily move into the "cart." The second is that competitive cyclist automatically gives me a 10% discount on all items at check-out. This is something they do for all active duty military. Awesome. Thank you!

Below is our little set-up at our apartment in D.C. Yup, that's our Christmas tree to the right, all lit up!

Below is handsome Mr. Bono!

And it was over to Jon and Jen's in Annapolis on Christmas morning for some present opening and food! Jon makes some killer scones. He gives credit to his time as the Superintendent's Supply Aide and getting the recipe from the Sup's cooks.

The kids had tons of gifts! If I were Jon and Jen, I might have tried to keep some wrapped and saved them for next year! That's Santa Papa Jimmy (my Dad) on the right of the picture.

After all the ruckus the one common calming (say that 3 times fast) thing is a movie. This quickly settles the kids down.

I got my new favorite t-shirt for Christmas. This was one of the surprises (because it wasn't a saved items). It's an "Alpe d' Huez" t-shirt by Twin Six and it's awesome. Thanks babes!

Meghan is playing with her toy camera and Cezanne is showing off her cute dimple! Oh, and she's showing off one of the new sweaters I got her.

And below is Nathan loving up on Bono. We went to Annapolis again a few days after Christmas and Bono was a big hit with the kids. Meghan and Nathan loved hugging him and Bono was a good sport. Cezanne is also showing off her bling in this pic!

And last, but not least, the Holidays offer a time to reunite with friends. We had a great highschool crew reunion of about 10 of us. We started out at Turtle's house. He was in from Los Angeles. He's below in the beard.

From there we swung by Kyma on our way to Ram's Head. It was my first time in Kyma and the owner is a friend. When the owner, Nick, saw Screech (a lot of nicknames here) and I, he called us over and ordered us a round a what we wanted (we picked Yuengling) and then unfortunately ordered each of us a shot of Yagermeister... ugh...

So, it was my first shot in probably at least 4 years and I'm glad it was Yager over a lot of other stuff.

So, that was some Holiday and Christmas fun. Next up is New Years. Of course, we're driving in to Annapolis for that one, but it's going to be pretty chill.

I'm thinking of riding my bike back from Annapolis the day after New Years. I think I have a good/safe route mapped. It's about 57 miles. Our place is only 35 miles from Annapolis, but I have to bob and weave and come in to DC from the north instead of from the east because of the roads. We'll see.

Navy Bowl Game

2008-12-21T20:25:00.000-05:00

Navy lost to Wake Forest, but it was still a good time.

I took the metro down to RFK and met up with my brother Jonnie and his son Carter. Jonnie was able to get us tickets to the "Brigade of Midshipmen" tailgater which was in the D.C. Armory (pic below). It was REALLY nice, complete with DJ, live band, eggs, sausage, danishes, bagels, waffles, french toast, roast beef being sliced to order...

Jonnie and I were joking a little bit about our concert going experiences at RFK and we were figuring out where we usually parked for them. We saw a few Grateful Dead concerts there while in Highschool as well as one Dave Matthews Band concert which we were guessing was in 2000.

I was able to briefly meet up with Squeak, Todd Benke ('98), Josh Greene and Eilis. I got to hang out most of the game with Nate (Rodenbarger). His Dad had a box, so Jonnie, Carter and I spent the first quarter watching from our seats (pic below) and then the rest of the game in the box. Thanks CAPT Syd!

As an extra bonus that day I saw my ex-wife :) She and her cousin were walking by where we were tailgating. It was awkward, but cordial and nice to catch up with what her cousin was up to.

Indoor Trainer = Lame/Outside Riding = Bundle up

2008-12-17T19:56:00.000-05:00

Tonight feels nice. I'm full (but not stuffed) from dinner, I'm blogging, Bono is taking a nap, and Cezanne is wrapping presents and is excited about Christmas!

Winter in DC and actually, winter in San Diego, requires riding indoors. Riding indoors in San Diego is exclusively a factor of the length of the days (sunset drops all the way to 4:45pm) and riding indoors in DC is a combination of the length of the days (mainly) and a little bit because of the cold.

I used to be better about riding indoors. It seemed I was doing it a lot during early primary season out in San Diego. I used to watch the Presidential Primary debates and usually rode on the trainer for about 1.5 hours.

Now I can barely muster an hour. It's more psychological than anything I think. Below is a pic of our new place and me on the trainer! I still have the bright neon shoes!

Below is another angle! I have the towel there to wipe off the sweat. One change from San Diego on the trainer is that I have a fan blowing on me while I'm on the trainer now. It keeps the sweat to a minimum.

Riding in the winter in DC is serious business. Serious because of how the cold cuts through you. It's Assos clothing to the rescue. Below is the main winter outfit I've been sporting. Cezanne thought I look funny so she took a picture of me getting ready to brave the 30 degree weather.

I only wore the balaclava for the first 10 minutes of the ride, then it became too hot, even though it was about 29-30 degrees out and the wind was gusting over 20 mph. I also wear winter shoe covers which I hadn't gotten on by this point.

You can see the shinier wind-blocking material on the front of the blue winter tights that ends just below the knees. The jacket has it too, on the front of the arms and the front of the chest/abdomen, but it's harder to see.

So, the winter will go on, the temps will only get colder, and my goofy, bright, tight winter outfit will continue to be worn.

Army-Navy

2008-12-07T20:06:00.000-05:00

There's something special about the Army-Navy football game, even if you aren't a fan of either one of the teams. Too bad it's been a little lopsided lately.

Cezanne, Ryan (my brother-in-law) and I went to the game yesterday. We all decided to go simple and just make a day trip about it. That was the easiest way since we wanted to leave our dogs at home and not worry about having someone look after them.

We drove up and met Ryan near the house Cezanne owns in Philadelphia. We took the train then subway down to the stadium. Security was a little tight given the President was there.

Cezanne and Ryan below.

Cezanne and I below. I really need to work on getting some Navy cold-weather gear so I can show my team spirit!

The stadium below. If you click on the picture and enlarge it you can see the Military Academy cadets on the left and the Naval Academy Midshipmen on the right. Ah, the memories.

Below is the President switching sides at halftime. He is walking with the Naval Academy Superintendent and Defense Secretary Gates.

No stop to Philly would be complete without a Philly Cheesesteak. I'm not an expert and I don't want to start a cheesesteak war (although I'm sure there is one waging), but below is a pic of the best place to get one. Cezanne, Ryan and I stopped by after we got back to the cars. It's only about a mile and a half from her rental property.

It snowed on our way home, the first I've seen it this year. It made for slow traveling back, but we made it in one piece and Bono held it with no problem.

A beautiful day and a Thanksgiving pic

2008-12-03T21:01:00.001-05:00

Few people know about my love of coffee like my wife Cezanne. I often mention to her that I can't wait to get to bed because it means I'm so much closer to that exquisite morning cup of coffee. This will eventually end up in my going to bed at 7pm...6pm...3pm...right after breakfast (when I'm retired).

What makes the best cup? Peets brand and fresh ground. We don't have a grinder these days, so typically the closest we get to fresh ground is the first day the bag is open. It is interesting to note the difference between that first cup and cups from the same bag 2 days or more later. It's just so much better that first day. TOMORROW IS THAT DAY!

Instead of getting Peets (Major Dickason's) from the local Giant grocery store I decided to order Peet's Holiday Blend since it was really good last year. It arrived in the mail today, a whole 2 pounds of it.

I also have what Cezanne calls, "a fear of weak coffee," so I typically add a little extra grounds beyond which is the normal "dosing."

Thanksgiving was really special this year. We got the whole gang together, Mom, Dad, all five of their sons, their wives, their children. It was such an enjoyable time.

I spent most of my time in the kid's room making sure they played nice and enforced the ever important "sharing" concept. They know that one well!

Thanksgiving Pancakes/Lars and the Real Girl

2008-11-27T08:44:00.000-05:00

I guess the idea of getting stuffed off of pancakes before a huge Thanksgiving dinner doesn't rank up there on the "good ideas" list...but...

That was the breakfast I just had. Cezanne only had one pancake although I always try to convince her to have half of one of mine and when she says no, I just eat it all. We used to get the "buckwheat" pancake mix from WholeFoods, but we recently tried the whole grain mix from Trader Joes (I know, you're on the edge of your seat...). They're really good!

This time around we put banana, strawberries and blueberries in them. Excellent.

No breakfast would be complete without a cup of Peet's coffee. The first pot after opening up a fresh bag always tastes the best so today's pot really hit the spot. Major Dickason's is the kind we get out here since there are no Peet's stores where we could get "Arabian Mocha Java." Most of the grocery stores have French Roast, House Blend and Major Dickason's. I did order a couple of pounds of the "Holiday Blend" from Peet's and it should get here next Wednesday.

Cezanne and I are excited for Thanksgiving. We are all going over to my brother Greg's (near BWI). There will be about 12 adults and all of Jon and Jen's little ones (4 of them!). We recently dropped off an oversized chair at Greg's and saw my Dad for the first time in over a year!

We dropped the chair off because it was a match with the sofa we had the moving company drop off at Greg's. That sofa didn't fit into the apartment we are renting! It wouldn't make it through the door no matter how hard the the movers tried to "bend" it...

So, they took it back and the next week they delivered it to Greg's at no additional charge to us! I've had that sofa since my days in Jacksonville. It was my first real furniture purchase after I bought my house in Jacksonville. In some ways it doesn't feel like that was 7 years ago, in some ways it does.

We recently restarted our Netflix subscription since we got settled with a new address. We started watching "Lars and the Real Girl" last night, but didn't make it through the movie. Usually it's Cezanne falling asleep, but this time it was me. So, we finished the movie this morning. It's a great movie. It is weird, about a guy (Ryan Gosling) who is anti-social, but orders a realistic doll and pretends she is real. The whole town goes along with it and it winds up being a little touching, but definitely not sappy. It has an independent feel. 2 thumbs up.

My other most recommended film/documentary is "Long Way Round." It's the best film I saw last year. It's a documentary of Ewan McGregor and his buddy driving their motorcycles around the world. It comes in 3 DVDs with several episodes on each one. The episodes are each about 40-50 minutes, so they are quick watches. I didn't think Cezanne would be particularly thrilled with the choice, but she actually really liked it. We found ourselves getting excited for each new episode.

Below you can see Bono chilling on Thanksgiving morning and a scene from "Lars and the Real Girl." She's in a wheel chair since she couldn't walk...

And you can see we still have a little organizing and cleaning up left to do in the apartment.

Cezanne's Birthday!

2008-11-23T09:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Cezanne's Birthday.

It started out with banana and blueberry pancakes (same as today).

The first part of the day was a little rough for me. I was going to my first Cat 4/5 ride and skills clinic (I call it) at Hains Point in D.C. First off, every road I tried to turn down was blockaded and when there was an open road, it was quickly closed off by a cop turning in front of traffic and turning everyone around.

So, it took me over 45 minutes to go 6 miles and there really was no traffic, just detours. I showed up late and the ride was just getting underway. Hains Point is on the Potomac, just across the way from Reagan Airport. It was 28 degrees F with winds gusting to 35 mph. Not fun. I've been fine on rides in the mid 30s, but this was a whole new experience.

It wasn't too bad when we had a tailwind and were actually riding. We stopped a few times and the leader explained wind, drafting, echelons... then we rode a little more then stopped to do bike handling drills, like picking up standing water bottles off the ground and putting them back down while riding...I left before the ride/clinic was done. I left partly because I was shivering and partly because although I respect people wanting to learn and get better at tactics, etc, I just want to ride at this point and that's not what we were doing.

The day got better from there! Cezanne's brother came down from Hagerstown with his Great Dane and we all went to the dog park. Then we enjoyed Chipotle for lunch, relaxed, then Cezanne and I went out to dinner for her birthday!

We went to 1789 Restaurant in Georgetown and it was awesome. They have a dress code, so I had to wear a suit. I can clean up when I need to. It was a great night!

Long time no post...where to begin

2008-11-17T20:16:00.000-05:00

One of the toughest things about writing a blog entry after not writing one for a while is knowing what to post, especially when so much has changed.

I'm writing this entry mainly to satisfy my Mom (one of my 3 readers) who says she doesn't want that creepy mustache picture to be the first blog entry anymore. It's also for you JW!

The story of the cross-country trip will have to wait for another time, but Cezanne and I are mostly settled into our new apartment in Northwest DC (near the National Cathedral). The finishing touch will be our new sofa to be delivered this Saturday (the one we moved from San Diego couldn't/wouldn't/didn't fit through the door.)

I've been on 2 Sunday rides with the National Capital Velo Club (NCVC) which have been fun. It's a quick 2.5 mile ride down Wisconsin Ave. to Georgetown where they start the ride. The feel is a little different out on the East Coast. "LT Andy Baldwin" from "The Bachelor" fame was riding with the group the first time I went.

I was riding the metro to work, but thanks to experiments by Cezanne my 1 hour plus commute by metro will now be turning into an 18-22 minute drive. I love it. That's not bad for commuting in D.C. I hope it continues!

So we've been to a couple of Navy Football games already and we'll be going to Army-Navy. The below pic is from the Navy-Temple football game. I thought it was a cool sunset.

The rest of the pics on this post are of the apartment we are renting. We decided to go with NW DC because we liked the neighborhood and the apartment the most. I'll post pics once is fully moved in to.

Bono is chilling below.

Cezanne hard at work before the movers arrived...

The bay window...

So that's it for now, a mini update and the "mustache" is no longer the first post!

A cool beard becomes a creepy mustache...

2008-10-29T16:15:00.000-04:00

So, I'm sitting here with something on my face that Cezanne hates. She can barely look at me without shaking her head.

One of the great things about going on leave or not having to be at work for a while is the freedom to not shave and then once the beard starts itching too much, to do something goofy with the hair.

Usually I shave the beard into a goatee (spelling?). I'll be honest, I think it looks halfway decent. I've never shaved it into a mustache though and I think there was really good reason for that. The pictures will tell that story.

Above is about 2 weeks worth of growth. It started getting itchy, so I wanted to shave it today. I shaved most of it...

And above speaks for itself. Definitely creepy. Cezanne told me not to go to any playgrounds while I have this facial hair. I agree, but I'll go everywhere else and be proud of it, kind of. It's probably coming off tomorrow morning.

Of course, the creepy grin doesn't help the creepy mustache.

I'll be putting up a post of the cross country trip this weekend hopefully. We got a lot of good photos and have a lot of great memories.

SDBC "A" Ride

2008-10-11T18:43:00.000-04:00

Today I rode with the SDBC "A" Ride instead of going with the "Bs."

I was 3rd around stud loop and 1st in the sprint to the Solana Beach sign.

It was a good time. Wound up averaging exactly 20 mph for the 46 miles, about 1-1.3 mph faster than the B ride usual averages. I guess the A ride was a little smaller than normal today. Someone said there is a time trial tomorrow.

I was running late as usual, but I got to UC Cyclery just as the As were rolling so I hitched on. Cezanne helped get my water bottles ready. It's funny, I did 46 relatively hard miles on a bowl of Kashi GoLean cereal and a big cup of coffee...probably not enough fuel.

Above is the beautiful view rolling south along the Coast Highway between Encinitas and Cardiff. This picture was taken this past Tuesday. It was really windy today, coming from the northwest, so it was quick coming down this area.

A guy in a UC Cyclery kit basically pulled us along around 32-35 mph for this entire stretch (probably 3 miles) until the sprint. He pulled off and looked back to see who was going to pass him gunning for the sprint.

After the sprint some guy said I got a 2 bike length gap on him and he couldn't close it down. So, I've got decent form going into the cross country road trip and driving 10 hours a day :)

Above is a pic of Bono's new bad habit. He's taken up smoking cigars!

Bono loves sticks and he happened to find a pretty thick one. It's currently sitting outside our front door for him to pick up when we go outside. He looks for it EVERY time we go outside.

The movers came yesterday, so our place is pretty barren, except for some clothes, the laptop I'm typing on, Bono, Cezanne, my bike and not a whole lot else.

Before lunch Cezanne and I enjoyed some time chilling on the patio (the patio furniture is staying for our tenant). It is chilly today, but really sunny. The above pic is of Bono out there chilling with us. He loves sunbathing!

32nd in the bike...I'm bummed

2008-10-07T23:02:00.000-04:00

The splits for the Mission Bay Triathlon were posted today.

The official time for my bike was 27:02 which was the 32nd fastest. I blame it on the equipment! :) The winning bike time was 23:18 with the 2nd fastest bike almost 2 minutes back at 25:04.

I wish I would have done a little better, but actually, despite the title of this blog, I'm not that bummed about it (okay, I was REALLY bummed for about 5 minutes, just ask Cezanne). Doing the relay gave me a chance to hang with Mike and Ricardo before leaving San Diego and an opportunity to do something fun.

This above pic is of Ricardo telling me about one of the other relay teams near us in the transition area. They were probably late teens and were really fired up! Ricardo said they were yelling at each other and firing each other up and once they handed the timing chip off to the runner the swimmer ran next to him through the transition area yelling at him for motivation.

Our team didn't quite do that...

Last SDBC (San Diego Bicycle Club) ride, for a while.

2008-10-05T19:16:00.001-04:00

It's always nice to get compliments.

Over the past few months I've been getting more and more during my SDBC Saturday "B" group rides. It's been a fun few months doing that ride. I know it's not the "A" ride, but I don't care.

I've been having fun being off the front and in the mix on the race around stud loop and in the sprints before stopping at Java Depot.

I really haven't made any friends doing this ride, but I mainly keep to myself, so it's not a huge surprise. I have made a couple of acquaintances, guys that I talk to on the ride because we usually find ourselves in the same spots in the group at certain points in the ride.

I did what I think is my last SDBC ride 3 Saturdays ago. Over the past 2 months I think I've been in the best cycling form of my life. In our little "B" group sprint I was consistently coming in 2nd. I guess I was "getting noticed" a little bit because one day early in the ride one of the "B" ride matriarchs (a lady who races and is probably 5-10 years older than me) asked if I was going to win the sprint for her that day. Is that flirting? Anyway, I didn't win (but came in 2nd). And yes, I had to relay that story to Cezanne. She got a kick out of it.

So, long story short, in my last SDBC ride I lead the group up the climb before stud loop, was in the lead group around stud loop, bridged solo about 1/4 mile up to a lone breakaway on the winding El Camino Del Norte stretch, rested for a minute, then passed the lone breakaway and finished that stretch (which is a mini-race/sprint) in first. Then I was able to win the main sprint before Java Depot with enough room to look back 3 times to see if anyone was close. Finally!

Good times. Now I have to keep it going over the Washington D.C. winter and see what happens next year.

Above is a photo of what it looks like on Saturday around 10:30am outside of Java Depot in Solana Beach. Yeah, bikes occassionally fall over or someone knocks them over.

Cezanne and I have a storage unit since our place is about 450-500 sq ft. One of the big projects before we move was to go through everything in the storage unit and separate it into these groups: (1) give to Goodwill (2) throw away (3) shred and (4) keep.

We found my old P3 flight helmet which Cezanne put on. I couldn't resist taking a pic. I haven't worn that thing in over 5 years. We put the helmet in the "shred" category, but it broke the shredder (hahahaaaaahhaa! funny joke!)

Oh yeah!!!!!!! Look at that aero triathlon bike! :) That's a joke because most of the frame is square, not aero at all! But, I had to set it up to be as aerodynamic as possible, which meant (besides putting the Zipp 404 wheel set on) that I had to be as aero as possible. So I slapped some clip-on TT bars on, put my triathlon saddle on, and adjusted the seatpost up about 1/2 an inch and moved the seat forward from where my normal one usually is.

I'll have another blog post on the Mission Bay Triathlon when we get the full results, but I wanted to post this pic and say that I did a "relay" for this triathlon with Mike Francis doing the 500 meter swim, me doing the 15k bike and Ricardo Roman doing the 5k run. It was a "sprint" triathlon, the shortest they have, but I hate swimming and am not a big fan of running, so relay it was.

It was a ton of fun. We came in 4th out of the Male relays and 36th overall out of about 1500 participants. But to be fair, we did the relay, so we could go all out in our event and not worry about the other 2. We finished in 58:10. The individual results (for each leg) are supposed to be out by Wednesday.

Being the geek that I am I looked at last year's fastest bike time. It was 26:38 and by one of the male relays. The top 2 Elite male finishers did the bike in 27:45 and 27:46 to give them the 2nd and 3rd fastest bike of last year's triathlon. I did the ride this morning in 27:43, so we'll see how good that is.

I wound up averaging 22.3 mph and a 175 bpm heartrate for the ride, which I think is pretty good (especially with no warm-up). I had to ease off after the first third because there was a point about 10 minutes in when I realized that if I kept up the same intensity, I was going to eventually throw up (before the finish line). Nice. So I had to ease off a little.

More details and overall bike ranking to come on Wednesday hopefully.

Cezanne's Baptism

2008-10-01T00:00:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the big day, Cezanne's Baptism!

It's one of the many things we wanted to get done before we left San Diego. We found a really good priest in Father Andrew and that was a big reason for Cezanne feeling welcome in the Greek Orthodox Church. Leaving a great Church is part of the sadness of us leaving San Diego...along with the weather...the beautiful coast...the convenience of our place...the BIKE LANES!!!!

The ceremony started around 6pm. My favorite part is when Cezanne had to "spit on Satan" 3 times and denounce Satan 3 times. Usually in the Greek Orthodox Church, it's the babies who are baptized, so the Godparent has to "spit on Satan" on behalf of the baby. I've had that pleasure!

Above shows Father Andrew anointing Cezanne with the sign of the Cross and Cezanne's Godmother, Irene, looking on.

Above shows all of us, Brad (Irene's husband), me, Cezanne, Irene, and Father Andrew.

Cezanne didn't want me to post the pictures of her in her bathing suit, one piece by order of Father Andrew :) and getting the holy water poured over her. It was "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" all over again, except the kiddie pool was replaced with a rubbermaid basin.

So, it was a really beautiful and meaningful day.

The art of finding the perfect spot for #2

2008-09-26T22:29:00.000-04:00

Bono has been around for close to 7 years. They've been 7 great years. I guess he is middle-aged if you do the doggie to human conversion of 7 x 7 = 49 years old.

He has done a lot of pooping in that 7 years, basically all of which I willingly and purposely pick up (with special double ply bags from PetSmart).

However, instead of finding where he wants to go quickly, he decides to pace back and forth, back and forth for 6, 7, 8 round trips...smelling many spots, sometimes giving the squat pump fake, sometimes stopping and just staring at me.

He does this along the ridge on the side of our condo complex. He usually does it when I'm in a rush.

So here is a series of pictures of his pacing. Don't all get excited at once!

Below he finds the spot! The pictures end here :)

CT Scan Shenanigans

2008-09-18T23:22:00.001-04:00

I have to get a CT scan every year or so to see if the testicular cancer is trying to make a comeback and sneak up on me. Typically the worst part is drinking the Barium Suspension shake crap (that's a technical term) before the scan.

The scan was scheduled for 7:30am, so nothing except water after midnight, the first Barium shake at 6am and the second at 6:30am. I can usually chug the first half of the bottle before my body realizes what it's drinking.

The Barium helps the gastrointestinal show up on the CT scan. Besides the Barium they also to Iodine contrast through an IV. This leads me to the "shenanigans." The guy who started prepping me for the scan was busy, so he told the "new girl" to get my IV going.

After one try with no success (I didn't mind that too much), she got the IV started on the second try. That's where the good news ended. She couldn't twist off the tube you see below. She tried and tried, but had to leave to get someone else. There was no danger, just made for a funny photo.

For those that haven't had a CT Scan, they are fairly quick (at least the chest/abdomen/pelvis ones I've had are). The Iodine IV contrast is a little weird. Once they start it, it gives you a warm sensation all over your body and a metallic taste in your mouth.

The CT scan day was a great one though. After the scan Cezanne and I went to the Hash House for breakfast...awesome as usual. The size of the pancakes NEVER cease to amaze me. From there we met with our Priest, Father Andrew, about Cezanne's baptism. We got it scheduled for Monday, September 29th.

It is going to be classic "my big fat Greek wedding" complete with the little pool and dunking in the water! I love it!

Shorter days...

2008-09-17T11:14:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since my last blog update. I know the masses have been on the edge of their seats. Well, let's say that probably about 3 readers have been laid back in their seats, not paying much attention.

It's been busy lately getting ready for the move to D.C. I owe a couple of blogs from my trip back to Annapolis and a funny CT scan episode. The trip to Annapolis was great. Got to spend a lot of time with family and get in some good and beautiful rides.

I had the difficult schedule of (1) dropping off my Mom at work at the Naval Academy, (2) stopping by Hard Bean for a latte (and sometimes a scone), (3) eating a relaxing breakfast while watching TV at my Mom's, (4) going on a "before it gets too hot" bike ride, (5) having lunch, (6) heading over to Jon and Jen's (bro and sister-in-law's) to hang out and play with the kids and get my kid fix and (7) have a nice dinner with family!

The days don't get much better than that.

Now to the subject of this post. Sunset yesterday was at 6:53pm, with today's at 6:52pm. I guess summer is winding down. Pretty soon with the shift to daily savings time it will be worse. Over the winter here in San Diego there is a period where sunset is around 4:50pm. That's no fun.

So yesterday I got in a nice ride on my usual route and got home around 6:55pm. Near the Torrey Pines and La Jolla Village Drive interesection I snapped the below pic.

It is a reminder of the shorter days and less time for riding.

I was following a guy on a Cervelo P3 yesterday. It was a nice rig complete with Zipp 606 clinchers. I passed him coming down Torrey Pines hill. I thought he might use the aero to his advantage, but I also figured the TT bike is a little harder to handle going 35-40mph with the odd tree root bump in the bike path.

He later told me that he takes it easy on the downhills unless it's a race since he already has 2 titanium plates in his spine. Good idea.

Palomar Ride with Toon

2008-09-02T22:09:00.000-04:00

Toon (Mike Toribio) and I hit up Palomar Mountain for a ride this past Monday. We thought since it was Labor Day we should labor up a huge climb. I know, that was so cheesy, that's why I said it.

I call Palomar the Alpe d' Huez of California. I don't know how accurate that is though. It's about 7 miles at about 7% with about 13-15 switchbacks. That's a lot of "abouts."

We decided to set out early and meet at 7am at a spot about 20 miles from the ride. I promptly set my alarm for 5:15am, made sure it was set for the "weekend" and went to sleep. Turns out Monday is not on the weekend, who knew? I was up at 4:40am for a bathroom break and fell back asleep only to be woken up by Cezanne at 6:35am saying it looked a little light outside.

Ooops. Chaos ensued. A quick text message to Toon and Cezanne (being the little trooper she is) helped me get everything ready, including mixing my drink bottles with Accelerade.

Here is the ride below. We went clockwise from the red marker, a 2 mile warm-up before the climb.

This is the climb, all squiggly.

We actually had fun this time instead of crushing ourselves on it. This was Toon's 4th or so ride after coming back from deployment and he did awesome!

Here he is in his USNA get up, hydrating at the bottom of the climb. The Madone...freshly tuned up.

We were encouraged when we saw a lot of cloud cover, until we got within about 5 miles of the start of the ride. Here is a hot, long, steep stretch.

Beautiful curves. There were a ton of motorcycle riders out as we expected. No issues at all, we didn't get buzzed close once.

Here's Toon crushing it up the last couple of meters. He always has to be first. He sprinted when I took the camera out. Slimy tactic! Just kidding.

Now on to some sad news. Cezanne and I have been cleaning out the storage unit lately in preparation for the move to D.C. and every time I go I have to stare at what's become of my mountain bike. Sad. It still has mud on it from 4 years ago. Not joking. Back tire is flat, front one really soft, no seatpost, I don't know if it even shifts.

One of these days I'll get her cleaned up and riding again. Something about hopping on a 30+ pound bike isn't too appealing when you're riding at half that weight. But then again, I used to love mountain biking.

Spam and canned meat, the art of shopping for a large family?

2008-08-20T23:36:00.000-04:00

This picture doesn't even do the full story justice. I think these "cans o' meat" represent about a third of the total cans o' meat that this family (looked like Mom and Grandma) had in their shopping cart.

I made Cezanne take the picture. I'm such a wimp. I don't think I've ever had Spam and I'm not sure what else this family had in these surely tasty little cans. I also counted more than 10 cartons of 18 eggs. That's close to 200 eggs!!!

Who are they feeding?

Cezanne and I have started to shop at the Commissary a little more. We kind of trade off between Trader Joes and the Commissary. You can actually get good quality, healthy stuff at the exchange.

For some reason I like to take pictures of food. Not sure why. But I prefer the below meal (steak, brown rice, and salad) to canned meat. Who knows, someday I may become a can o' meat man. What I won't become is a Vodka a Ramen noodles man.

Cezanne and I were walking to a restaurant in Venice Beach a few weeks ago (before the Coldplay concert) and we overheard a guy say something about not having much money and that he was heading to pick up a bottle of vodka and some ramen noodles. I think the ramen noodles are something like 25 cents each. Interesting combo.

In preparation for renting our condo and to enjoy for the next 2 months, we finally had our laminate wood flooring installed. We got it from Lumber Liquidators and had "Henry" install it. Cezanne saw him installing it at another place and he did a great job, his price was reasonable, so we hired him. He did a really good job.

We moved a lot of stuff out of the condo to make it easier for him. It's all in my 4Runner and it's staying in there. The place looks so nice with less clutter, so we are reluctant to bring it back in. Meanwhile my 4Runner is doubling as a storage unit.

After I was out the front door getting ready to leave for my Tuesday bike ride I decided it was a little chilly and that I need my arm warmers. I was in full Slipstream get-up, so I asked Cezanne to grab them (no walking inside with my cycling shoes on).

She came back out wearing them. She's almost as nutty as me. I think it's a good look! And check out that bling!

Cezanne is at a work function/dinner tonight at the Melting Pot, hence my blogging. What am I going to do now? Eat ice cream and watch the Olympics. Luckily track and field just came on, replacing the 10 meter platform diving. I was getting ready to jump out the window.

I'm letting the ice cream sit out for about 15 minutes this time though. I let it sit 5 minutes last time and could only manage tiny scoops, but suceeded in flinging one of those scoops across the kitchen as it suddenly became loose as well as tearing one side of the carton all the way down. Trying to avoid that this time.

They finally delivered my yacht

2008-08-11T23:18:00.000-04:00

First off, just want to point out that Cervelo has added a new frame to their "aero" road frame line-up, the S3. Pretty sweet. When I saw them during the Olympics I thought it was just an SLC-SL with a white paint job. It basically is, but apparently with a little more aero AND vertically compliant seatstays and chainstays. Nice.

Check it out: http://www.cervelo.com/bikes.aspx?bike=S32009

Back to the subject of this posting. A while back I came across an extra $10 million just hanging around under the sofa cushions, so I ordered a yacht...over the internet, sight unseen.

It finally arrived in San Diego last week. They threw in a helicopter for free. Any SH-60 bubba's out there want to be my personal pilot?

Clearly I was joking about happening upon all that money. I just want to point that out (and the fact that there is not a single dollar bill in my wallet right now) so any crazy person who happens upon this blog doesn't come to knock me off for my money!

The pic below is a little off-kilter. I was driving down La Jolla Shores Drive this past Saturday (after a fun club ride) to meet Cezanne and her friend Deb for lunch and I caught a glimpse of a couple of gliders from the "glider port." I could only get my phone out in time to get a pic of one of them.

It was an absolutely beautiful day... a little humid for my SoCal blood, but I can't complain, at all.

I can't complain because I've had it good in the weather department for the past 5 years; besides the wild fires last October. Monterey/Carmel for just over 2 years and San Diego for 3 years, it really doesn't get a whole lot better than that.

Like most things, it has come to an end. Washington D.C. here we come. Home of hot and humid summers with winters full of cold rain, freezing rain and sleet. The cross-country drive will be starting October 15th, with stops (planned) in Oklahoma to see Cezanne's Dad, Michigan to see Mike & Cathy Cisek and their daughter Norah (partly because we kept saying we were going to plan a trip out and never did and mainly because they are the best peeps!), then Meadville, Pennsylvania (WHAT!!!/WHERE???) to meet Cezanne's Grandparents (on her Dad's side) for the first time.

Her "Pap-pap" is an old Greek man and a WWII paratrooper vet. They own a KFC, so I'm looking forward to eating that for the first time in at least 7 years.

The above pic is a little further down La Jolla Shores Drive. I've almost wrecked before coming down this road. The tight turn kind of sneaks up on you.

I've been a little down about cycling lately. I know I've only been doing it recreationally (is that a word?) for 3 years and stepped it up a little this past year, but I was a little bummed about not doing better in the 2 beginner races I did this year.

I've been on a couple of training rides these past few weeks where I felt really lackluster and unmotivated. There were points where I didn't have a lot of pep in my cycling and felt like I couldn't push any harder/dig any deeper even though I wasn't really anywhere near my limit.

It may have to do with my loading up on swimming and running for the Annapolis Triathlon and my body probably isn't happy with the change and with the extra physical activity. Come to find out just last week that Anne Arundel County did not approve the Annapolis Tri's permit for the bike route of the triathlon! Crazy!

So, there is no bike and they are planning on possibly doing an aquathlon (swim then run). The Annapolis Tri folks said they submitted the necessary paperwork this past February, got the tentative "looks good, go ahead" only to get it disapproved a month before the event. I was actually almost happy to stop running and swimming, but my bro Jonnie wants to still do the aquathlon...so I'm still running and swimming.

That is frustrating. They had the inaugural Annapolis Tri start downtown in Annapolis and with staging there and at the Navy Stadium, but residents complained and they moved it out to Sandy Point state park for this year. Lame. I also heard that people complained about it being on a Sunday while they were trying to get to church...well, if you move it to Saturday, what about the people going to temple?

But anyway, the club ride this past Saturday lifted my spirits and re-peaked my love for cycling. It's nothing special, a 46-mile "B" club ride, but it was a ton of fun. I'm typically at the front of the B-ride, mixing it up with the strong folks. Given my feelings lately and a little less riding volume, I thought this would be more of a "hang back" ride and get used to it again.

This wasn't the case. There is this guy who is always punishing people with his legs and putting the hammer down on these rides (in a nice way, he's not a jerk at all). He is older, probably 45, with thighs twice the size of mine. He is a racer, I'm just not sure what Category.

Anyway, I got on his wheel at about 29mph winding up into the final big sprint before the stop at Java Depot. He seems to always find the right path. Long blog longer...I followed him, he held me off, but I was able to take second in the sprint and didn't get out of the saddle (I was trying to pull a Cancelara). Although not a huge deal, it made me feel good. Sometimes that's all you need.

Well, I'll end this long blog with a pic of Bono, peering up at me. By the way, that is Cezanne's hand, I don't have a ring with Diamonds around it, although I REALLY want one! :)

The Best Pup

2008-08-03T23:46:00.001-04:00

One of the good things about getting a new phone that connects to your computer is that you're a lot more likely to take pictures with it.

My little Bono is the best pup going (had to put in a "dog" blog post after JW's), so I tend to take a lot of pictures of him. Don't let him fool you, he always looks sad, but he has a good life.

I think he was hiding from the vacuum cleaner in this pic. I guess I didn't help by chasing him around with it when he was a puppy (he's now 7).

We had some guests over today (hence the vacuuming) and Bono was as needy as ever. I was sitting indian style on the floor and he came over and sat right in my lap. He proceeded to put all his weight on me and lay across me. It lasted for a good 5-10 mintues before I had to tell him to get up.

Sometimes he curls up into a ball. He loves "rides" in the car, so when we mentioned our pending "ride" cross country this October, he got all excited.

It's fun for about the first hour, but then by the second hour it gets a little annoying when you don't want the windows down (at 70 mph) and he is just standing patiently with his nose at the window and looking at you waiting for you to roll down the window (more like trying to will the window down).

The Jerk and Gas Mileage

2008-07-26T13:55:00.000-04:00

I haven't seen a lot of classic movies, but today as I'm doing laundry and cleaning up the house (I mean as I use my manly tools and build stuff) I have "The Jerk" with Steve Martin on in the background. It's got my style humor. I like the "cat juggling" part.

My bro chilling in Kuwait. He'll be on his way home soon!

Pay no attention to the dust visible in the below pic, but for the first time in a long time I got over 300 miles on a tank of gas in my 1997 Toyota 4Runner. I think it had something to do with Cezanne and my trip up to Los Angeles to see Coldplay. We were getting up there early, so I set the cruise control between 65-70 mph. I know, totally lame, but it saved a little money on gas.

San Jose LiveStrong Ride Part 2 - the Ride

2008-07-20T20:11:00.000-04:00

I have to say that it is REALLY nice to stay at a hotel 1 block from the start of an early and long ride. When I did my first 100-mile LiveStrong Ride in Southern California I think I stayed about 5 - 10 miles away, which wasn't bad at all. Last year in Austin we stayed about 40 miles away.

That really couldn't be avoided since the ride was out in the hill country west of Austin (not much around). It just meant an hour less sleep and more variability in your arrival time.

Everything the day of the ride went well, unlike yesterday! The only thing that was off was the fact that the hotel kitchen was out of bananas, so we didn't get one with breakfast. Out of bananas! Come on! I knew it wouldn't be a problem since the Power Stops (the refueling stations) typically have bananas, oranges, PB&Js, PowerBars, Gatorade...

We started the ride around 7:30am. I was in the front of the corral that held all the 100-mile riders. They played the National Anthem and Lance spoke at the beginning.

I have to record the ride on my computer as 2 separate rides. I knew it was going to take me over 4.5 hours and that is the most my Garmin 705 will record for a single ride (not ideal for people recreational cyclists who sometimes ride centuries).

The first pic below is the first 56 miles of the ride as viewed on www.garminconnect.com after being downloaded from my bike computer. The second pic is the last 39 miles of the ride.

The below pic is a view of my ride up Metcalf Road (zoomed in on garminconnect). It was the toughest climb I've done. It was around mile 70 of the ride. The gradient averaged 12% for about 2 miles. The highest gradient I saw on my computer was 14%. Overall it was pretty steady, but it did ease up to 9% in a few spots.

I never thought I would use 9% gradients to sit down and recover. I think I averaged between 5-6 mph up the climb. Nothing to write home about, but (patting myself on the back as I write this) nobody passed me and I passed riders and a bunch of people walking their bikes.

There was only one scary part of the ride and it was towards the beginning. I was riding right behind Lance's group and it was really cool to see him and get a police escort for the first 20 miles (understatement). A by-product of riding behind Lance is that you want to keep up with Lance. Put together a large group of riders, most of them eager to follow Lance, but with probably 1/3 of his bike handling skills (me definitely included), and combine that with a very steep and short wooded descent with a >90 degree turn, and you get scary!

In the middle of the pic below is the tight turn.
Here is a close-up of the turn. I guess the GPS was off, because the red line is not exactly how I rode it, but that's what it felt like at the time. I got pushed towards the center double line (complete with the bumpy reflectors, which are fun), the tightest part of the turn and it felt like I couldn't pull hard enough on my brakes. I thought I was going to hit the guy in front of me. I locked up my rear wheel for a second or two and luckily came out without hitting anyone or wrecking. Whew!

There were some short steep climbs over the first part of the course. The below pic is the profile of the first 56 miles. It wasn't flat... I don't know which climb it was on, but one of those 2 big spikes is where my heart rate went up to 187 bpm to stay with Lance's group.

I told myself to start off slow this year, so I could finish strong, but when you're riding 3 riders behind Lance Armstrong, all bets are off, including my plan to stop at the 2nd refueling station, and the 3rd... Man I had to pee, but you know, it was Lance!

Here is the profile of the last 39 miles. The Metcalf Rd climb is the HUGE, STEEP climb below. There weren't as many climbs in the second part, but they were tougher, and I had more miles in my legs, so they were even tougher. What I didn't expect was that second climb after Metcalf you can see in the profile. It got steeper as it went up. It's no coincidence that the profile below looks like the devil's horns.

A little out of order now, but that's how it goes. Below is the pic of me setting up my jersey.

Here is me hunched over displaying my 147!

Here is the start. Lance's group was lined up under the LiveStrong sign straight ahead.

Lance gave a little speech at the beginning. There were 3,000 participants and we raised over $1.5 Million for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

I think the coolest part of this next pic are my shoes and socks, but it was meant to show that I created the LiveStrong course online and downloaded it to my Garmin 705 (and is showing turn by turn directions).

Unfortunately, as is typically the case, it didn't work so hot. It kept telling me to turn in the wrong places and when I didn't it would have to "recalculate" to route and then tell me another wrong turn after about 3 minutes of re-computing.

It works best when you can follow a route that you've previously ridden and still have on your Garmin. When working correctly, it gives you alerts (audible) for your next turn, tells you how far and the time until the next turn. Pretty cool.

The coolest part of the ride was when I got enough nerve to ride up next to Lance and start talking to him. I started out telling him I just wanted to say hi and let him know I was a Testicular Cancer survivor. The guy riding next to him said, "well get on in here!" He moved back and I moved over right next to Lance and there we went!

I can't tell you how surreal the experience still is to me, to be bumping elbows and chatting with Lance Armstrong for ten minutes. He was really nice. We talked about cancer, IVF, NIH/NCI cancer studies, the route of last year's LiveStrong Ride in Austin, Lance visiting the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq (and being "sanded" in), this year's Tour de France and other stuff that I can't remember right now.

I stopped chatting with him when his group turned off onto the 65-mile route. I still can't believe how cool it was. I was tempted to just follow him on the 65-mile route, but I had someone special waiting for me along the 100-mile route...

Cezanne ran the 5k (3.1 miles) after all the riders left. She did really well and had a lot of fun. We picked out 2 Power Stops before hand where she would meet me. After the run she got everything set at the hotel, checked out and then headed off to meet me.

She has become a pro at meeting me during these long LiveStrong Rides. She was tested on the backroads of the hill country of Texas last year and she nailed it, so this must have been simple for her.

I was in the first group to get to the Power Stop #5 and there was my baby, waving her "fan" sign. It worked out perfectly. This was when I ended ride 1 and started ride 2 on my Garmin.

If I look a little pale and pink it's because of the new sunscreen I'm using. I became allergic to "normal" sunscreen (I think the oxybenzone in it), so I have to use sunscreens with only zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. They have the fun side effect of making you look like you are on the verge of death. But, I don't itch for weeks after using it, so I'll take it!

This is Cezanne's "fan" sign! She totally tried to copy the picture I took of myself when I was in France for the 2005 Tour.

Man, I can't believe that was 3 years and a couple of weeks ago! Facial hair!!!!!!

This is the Power Stop on top of the climb up Metcalf Road, where Cezanne was waiting for me again.

There was a nice little downhill to the Power Stop after the steep climb up Metcalf. It's July in California, so the hills are brown. Come Feb/Mar they should be nice and green.

My "I conquered" (or limped up at 5.5 mph) Metcalf Road pose.

And then boom, I'm done and getting handed a "survivor" rose!

After the finish line! It was such an unbelievable ride. One because I got to chat with Lance and two because I felt really strong and did my best century to date.

I posted the general ride info on my last post, but here it is again: 94.71 miles, 5 hours 4 minutes 11 seconds of riding time, average speed of 18.8mph, 5,350ft of climbing, average heart rate of 155bpm.

San Jose LiveStrong Ride Part 1

2008-07-15T23:00:00.000-04:00

Saturday was pretty much a mess.

We decided to try to get some sleep and pack in the morning. It was a rushed morning of me cleaning my bike, swapping cassettes (twice) and packing the bike in it's traveling case.

Bender convinced me to do the LiveStrong Ride on my Zipp 404s. I thought the best way to go would be to ride the Zipps and bring the "everyday training wheels (Bontrager Race X Lite)" in case I got a flat on the Zipps. I was going to have a support car of sorts thanks to Cezanne and the small SUV we rented.

Long story short, I removed the cassette from my Bontrager rear wheel, put it on the Zipp, packed the bike, packed the Zipps, could not fit the Bontragers, removed the cassette off the Zipps, put it on the Bontragers and packed the Bontragers. We planned to leave for the airport at 10:15 am and I started all these shenanigans at 10:00am.

I always get strange looks at the airport with the huge bike case. Some kids (with their parents) asked what was in it and I told them it was a person because we didn't want to pay for the extra seat. They didn't really laugh and in hindsight, it might have scared the kids. Oops.

I hate to travel with the bike because I'm fearful of it getting busted up. We took the extra step of putting a "Fragile" sticker on top of the case and wrote "keep upright" on it.

We usually pick up the case at the "oversized baggage" claim. Cezanne and I almost lost it when the we saw the case come up out on the ramp of the normal baggage carousel and then crash down into the side railing (like normal, just louder with more force it seemed). We were pissed. That's not how "fragile" things are handled and it definitely wasn't upright!

We always open it up just to take a look at things, but we couldn't! There are 2 places to put a lock on the case and both of those metal places were bent! We couldn't unlatch it because the metal was bent over the latch, on both of them! How does that happen?

The head baggage guy finally came over and he brought a hammer and screwdriver and bent the metal back and said sorry. That was that. We were pissed.

Funny thing is that I saw a girl that I went to highschool with! She was on vacation with her kids. Her hubby is a Navy guy and they are currently down in Kingsville where he is the XO of one of the Training Squadrons.

We got to the rental car place and got all set up and headed out to see where the hotel was. Easy. We went to go get some lunch before checking in (we were a little early and didn't try to check in). We got to the hotel and started unloading the rental when all of a sudden Cezanne says, "Chris! Where is our green bag?!?!"

We couldn't find the bag we checked which had all of our clothes including my cycling clothes. Not a good feeling. We surmised that we must have been so worried about getting the bike case into the rental that we left our bag in our rental spot! Luckily we called and when the lady went to check for it, she found it and we went and picked it up. Whew!

So, we finally got it together and went to Santana Row and had dinner at Thea's Mediterranean Bistro. It was really good. Pic of Santana Row below.

We didn't see this until later, but I guess they REALLY man-handled the case. You can see the metal is bent in here. The white pvc pipe goes in the middle (you can see the little rubber nubs on either side to the right of the pic) so the case can't get crushed. I guess they need some towards the sides too. The best part is that when checking this case in Southwest makes you sign a waiver that holds them accountable if the case is lost, but not if there is any damage. Something wrong with that picture.

Here's another view of the bend. What did they do? Jump up and down on it? I think the "fragile" sticker makes people treat it in the opposite manner.

We got some goodies in our check-in bags from the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Like they have every year, you can fill out different cards to attach to your jersey. I wore the Survivor and In Memory of Brenda (Cezanne's Mom) cards. Cezanne ran the 5k and she wore the "Mom" one.

It's really nice that they have these for people to wear. I had about 4 or 5 people tell me congratulations for being a survivor.

The ride on Sunday was the best ride of my life, for a few reasons. All that info is coming in the next blog but here is the low-down on the ride stats: 94.71 miles, 5 hours 4 minutes 11 seconds of riding time, average speed of 18.8mph, 5,350ft of climbing, average heart rate of 155bpm.

Final Preps for 100-mile LiveStrong Ride

2008-07-12T02:30:00.000-04:00

Sleep. Which I should be, but I'm not getting right now. Cezanne snapped this pic of me in my LiveStrong shirt and bracelet. I'm living strong through osmosis...or something.

Nice farmer's tan line!

New white stem to match the white frame.

Of course I'm up late before our trip. Just finished mapping the second half of the LiveStrong ride on www.allsportgps.com and uploaded it to my Garmin 705. Looks like both routes are working. I had to break it into 2 since the Garmin will only record 4.5 hours a data in the mode where it records continuously and I can't do 100-miles in that time, so I broke it down into 2 rides.

Should be fun!

New Argyle Kit, first ride on the 404s

2008-07-04T00:17:00.000-04:00

Team Garmin-Chipotle presented by H30 (formerly Team Slipstream-Chipotle presented by H30) debuted their new team kits for the Tour de France today. I like them, but they just don't have the same pop and brightness and outrageousness as the first half of 2008 version. The new ones retained some of the argyle and still has the Chipotle Burrito in the back pocket.

The kit is actually my favorite cycling clothes. The shorts are awesome and comfortable and who can argue with the socks?

The bike looks pretty good with the Zipp 404 wheels on them. The Zipps are awesome. They take the bike to a new level. It felt like I could sustain a higher top speed than normal.

I was a little pissed before the ride though. I was having issues with my brakes. I had to switch out the brake pads for carbon specific ones, which wasn't bad, but ever since I had the bike built a couple of months ago the brake levers seem to be slightly off.

I'm not sure what the lever is called, but before you take your wheel off, you have to turn a black lever up which opens up the brake arms wider so the tire can fit through. When I did that for the front ones it just wasn't doing it, the cable just turned. The frustrating part is that I should know how to fix this stuff and I don't.

I had a similar situation with the rear brake. The lever worked fine it's just that I couldn't put the lever back down. If I did then both pads would be engaged on the braking surface and I wouldn't go anywhere. I just wanted to go ride, so I just went with the lever up. It wasn't unsafe since the pads were a good distance from the surface when the lever was up.

The braking was actually better than I thought. Maybe it was the Swisstop pads.

The other issue was the cassette. Ugh. It was loud. I couldn't get the chain noise down. I tried adjusting the barrel adjuster, but it seemed different on every cassette ring. I stopped by B&L on my way home in Solana Beach. The first guy had to call over the "seasoned" mechanic and about 20 minutes later my bike was shifting better than ever, but the cassette was still noisy.

He tried a Dura-Ace cassette and the noise was magically reduced to practically nothing (probably the normal amount). So, even though SRAM is compatible with Shimano, I think there are just probably slight differences. So, I think I'm going to return the SRAM Red Cassette and get a Dura-Ace or Ultegra Cassette.

BESIDES those issues, the ride was awesome.

Sad day...Molly is in doggie heaven

2008-07-03T23:44:00.000-04:00

Molly turned 13 years old about 2 weeks ago. So in dog years she was just over 91 years old. She was a feisty one and usually bossed Bono around a little bit. She was less and less bossy over these past couple of months.

She gave us a scare over New Years and we thought she was in such bad shape that we were going to have to help her go in peace, but she rebounded. Her symptoms came back recently and she progressively got worse. She had trouble walking and squatting to pee and seemed to be very uncomfortable (once she was laying down she didn't want to get up, once she was up she didn't want to lay down).

Molly close up!

We tease Bono for being needy and selfish, but we think he is actually sad. He's usually hanging around us a little more, but ever since we came home he's been stuck on his bed.

Cezanne and I know that Molly is now up in doggie heaven.