That's it

Blog = over.

I'll still keep reading yours. 

Catching Up

Fresh off a second place in Wausau, WI in the 24 hour co-ed category, I stepped off the plane in Flagstaff and thought “Why the f*ck would anyone tolerate the weather in the Midwest?”  It was 68 degrees at 6pm with 20% humidity.  It was the first time in 10 days that my clothes didn’t feel attached to my body.

I had already answered my own question though.  I could still live there because the Midwest has thousands of lakes and rivers to play in, and there are pockets of singletrack that are just plain fun as shit.  Nice, right?  Fun as shit is the best way to describe 9 mile swamp/forest in Wausau.  It’s tight, dark, muddy, slippery, and super fast if you stay off your brakes. 

Getting back in the swing of things at work was a bit choppy due to child-like employees who abuse each other when I’m gone.  It’s like having 30 children, and you leave to go grocery shopping, only to come home and there are tears, shouting, and somebody’s feelings are hurt.  Children, please.  Just shut the fu*k up and do your jobs.  Once I got that all dialed back into place it was time for a lil’ surprise from the Spartan Training Center in Sedona.

Friday morning.  Bag Toss.  Sounds basic, right?  Trainer stands 2 feet across from me with a 75 pound bag of sand and throws it to me.  I catch, and throw it back.  Here’s the tricky part.  Left, right, up, left, left, down in front, right, right….I have no idea where the bag is being tossed.  So I have to get my feet under it, catch that dead weight, and throw it back to the trainer who is set in one spot.  It’s a workout for him….but it’s a nightmare for me.  At one point in the final set I stood, with the bag in my arms, for a good 10 seconds physically unable to move.  I called the trainer a fucker and chucked it, only to have him toss it back at my head with a laugh.   That was a hard over the shoulder sandbag catch that almost took me to the floor.  Fucker!  7 sets of one minute each + a minute rest in between.  I’m done and out of there in 15 minutes.  Once the outrageous adrenaline high wore off, the red tide pain train crept in.  Then it steamrolled in and could not be stopped.  Saturday morning I could not bend over.  Sunday morning I could not bed over.  Monday I was able to just get my socks on for work and I went back to Spartan for a circuit.  Mentally I let go of the tight muscles in my back and I was able to complete it even though it included pulling a sled across gravel, sprints, and tractor tire flips.  Legs, arms, shoulders and abs - ruined. 

C-Dub wanted to ride yesterday and I wanted to catch up with my brother from another mother, but I was still feeling the red tide in my whole body.  Fuck it.  I went on the ride, and as always it went from an easy pace to a monster climb on new singletrack to the base of the ski resort.  Jesus H Christ, we were climbing from 5p – 7p straight.  I got to the top and just felt overwhelming relief to be done standing over my pedals.  Time to go downhill…home.  Unfortunately, I went into the red because I didn’t want to walk any of the pitches, and that meant I engulfed L’s dinner without a word, said “I’m out” - brushed my teeth and crashed into my mattress.  She was beat from Spartan too, and neither of us heard a noise until fucking Ke$ha blared out of the CD player at 5am.  Thanks Lyza, for that Lil’ treat.

I wouldn’t want it any other way though.  The pain train, the work crisis, and all the while laughing my ass off because life is so g-damn fun thanks to good friends, family, and my baby girl.  Sometimes it takes a vacation to make me appreciate what I have in this life.        

Teammates

Six of us showed up for a lil' King of the Mountain race last night.  The roads were soaked from about two hours of rain, so the warmup out to Snowbowl Road was wet, grimy, nasty, and did I mention wet?  I was soaked through my shoes, but it was warm so I didn't really mind.  We made the turn on to a mostly dry SB Road, and it was on.  Two chicks, and four dudes - all of us after PR's. 

I was already sufferin' a bit from the day before, but I was mentally in the game.  We gapped the chix over the course of the first mile, and then I got dropped one by one by the other three dudes.  I was OK with that, because I spin a low gear on the steeps, and so long as I kept them within sight, I was mentally fine.  The false flats arrived after 4 miles of steep shit, and I shifted down and went off to catch some wheels.  C-Dub.  I caught him and he called me a fucker as soon as I went by.  I had to laugh.  Next was MG, but I never made it to him.  I ran out of road.  No excuses.  PJ was another two minutes up the road.  The chix were about a mile and a half back.  Mid pack Chris - once again.

I was worked, and I would have never ever ever pushed myself that hard if I had been riding solo.  When I ride with others in a competitive setting, it's a combination of pride, self respect, and knowing that I left it all out there that keeps me going at the limit.  I was still a full 2.5 minutes off my personal best, but I was also six minutes faster than when I did the climb last month.  That tells me that it's there if I need it, but it's not exactly 'on demand'.

Normally a beer after that kind of effort, but not last night.  A shot of espresso just so I had the energy to fold laundry, and clean up the kitchen.  As soon as they were done, I was done. 

Crunchin time

Due to life, my only time to ride this past weekend was Sunday at 8:30pm.  So, niterider - check.  And off I go into the woods.  Lately, well it hasn't been lately.  I haven't ridden at night since last fall.  Those cold-ass night rides don't do much for encouraging a repeat.  Midsummer rides at night - they give me a million reasons to rinse and repeat. 

Night riding is like skiing/snowboarding....it doesn't take long at all to get used to it again after a layoff.  I had a blast out there and even had the pleasure of riding up on an older gent sifting through his SUV cargo who, startled, said "it's a little late isn't it?"...to which I replied "It's never to late to ride".  I could have been douchy, or called him a fucker because he was being a fucker, but what I said just slipped out, and off I went into the darkness.  It was a light rain the whole ride, and by light I mean about a handfull of drops every half a minute or so.  Traction was divine, and I have to say that I'm feelin' ready to roll in Wausau in a couple of weeks. 

King o' the Mountain race on Tuesday night.  6 miles.  2,000 feet.  First one up gets bragging rights, and gets to force everybody to turn around whereaver they are in their climb and follow all the way back down.  Love me some R3 racing right now.     

Chix sports

What the hell and how is it Friday?  My daughter’s birthday is a week from today, and it is a sliding glass door in the face reminder that the last 10 years of my life have absolutely flown by.  We went to Target on Tuesday to pick up bathrooms supplies for a few of our condos at work, and while we were there we managed to locate a copy of FIFA 2011 and a sweet new sk8r girl helmet.  She’s wayyyy into the women’s world cup, and I have to say that I am too.  So it’s been FIFA games errrry’ night all week.  Love me some Lyza Bee.

Speaking of chix, there are only three women’s sports worth watching:  Soccer, tennis, and mountain biking.  Ladies - you can keep your versions of basketball, road cycling, and track/field.

I had a good week of short but sweet rides despite Lyza’s camp schedule and my work schedule.  Sun, Mon, Wed all featured 1-2 hours of greatness on dust abated trails thanks to steady monsoon rains.  Tuesday was an experience that I’m enjoying more and more:

I gathered an “across the board” group of R3 riders at my lil’ local 1.3 mile circuit course.  Cat III to Cat VI ultra beginners.  We paired up into 5 teams, and rode a 10 mile time trial with the point being that the stronger rider in each pair would work with the newbie.  I was paired up with a chick named Julie – always liked that name for a girl, and while she has been on many long, slow group rides, she had never ridden wheel to wheel, or drafted a wheel, or pushed her heart rate above 85% and held it there.  It took a lap for me to find her max, and we backed it off from there and traded pulls for 27 minutes.  Crosswind?  Yup.. She had to half wheel me and she was nervous about it.  I promised I wouldn’t swipe her front wheel and by lap 3 she was tucked in and saving energy.  The corners were tough for her too as she didn’t trust her tires to hold through the apex of a turn at 20+ mph.  We crossed the line in last place out of all of the pairs but not by much, and Julie was knackered, but smiling big time.  So we ended up with 5 newbie riders going home completely stoked for our next lil’ circuit race, and 5 experienced riders taking pride in their work and toasting with beers as the sun wound down.  Winning all around, I must say.  I would much rather grow our team that way, than just taking on experienced riders who think a wee bit too much of themselves.

BTW I still can’t stand triathletes.       

Irondouche Part 2

So we post a team ride yesterday on facebook.  45 miles, moderate pace, all welcome.  Mr. Flagstaff Ironman responds with a 'I may come, but I would have to turn around early.  I'm not scheduled to go that far".

Scheduled.  Who's your coach bro, 'cause either that fucker needs to be fired or you need to retire.  Dude, shut the fuck up.  Either you can go, or you can't, do we need to know that you are obviously on an elite level training plan that the rest of us are surely missing out on? 

Next thing I know he'll pull up with a 'run bike swim' license plate frame.  I think I puked in my mouth writing that. 

Irondouche

It sure was great to see Teejay VanGarderen take a flyer off the front today.  A friend of mine in Flagstaff knows Teejay from his time in Montana and swears up and down that the guy is humble, cool, and deserves everything he's getting.  Sure, he's way too young to podium, but that's the coolest part - he'll be around for a while as Leipheimer, Horner, and Hincapie are sure to be done in the very near future. 

So yeah, I caught some of the stage to Super Besse this morning after getting out for a sweet lil' ride myself.  One could say I'm "training" for the Wausau race coming up but that is so not the case.  I'm riding because I love it, and today was one of those days where my bike was just an extension of my body which was an extension of my brain.  I thought left, right, up and over, quick shot of brakes, and accelerate - and it flowed through me and into the steel, the tires and into the dirt.  I knackered a pedal on a rock once, but other than that it was a 99.9%'er on a loop that usually causes either brain, or physical failure in one way or another.

"Training"?  I'm done with that word, and everything that it stands for.  My dab into endurance riding peaked this fall, and I realized soon after that all I was really doing was experimenting with my chronic pain limits, and running from something.  All endurance racers are running from something.  So now that all of that shit is over, it's back to haulin' ass for the fun of it, and rediscovering my acute pain limits.  Love the pain train, but I wanna' floor the bitch and then get off it in under two hours - - - and crack a beer at the train station.

OK, so I read this dude's story of how he finished a 140.6 (had to slip that in instead of writing 'Ironman') in Texas a coupla' months back.  He's on my cycling team, but I've never met him.  What does that say?  Anway...He finished, in 15 hours.  15 hours.  He walked the entire marathon, and he still got a hard on when the announcer said "--- -------, from Flagstaff - you are an IRONMAN" at the finish line.... in the dark.  OK, and I'm pre-apologizing for being an asshole, but is there really anything great, much less is there even a need to swim like an infnat for more than an hour, ride a $5,000 time trial bike at a pedestrian 16mph, and walk 26 miles?  I guess you get the David Duchovney award for enduring with a bunch of other wealthy white people in a controlled environment.  Oh and guess what, he also was injured on the play.  Seems he overtaxed his achilles.  Really?  I mean he obviously trained so hard for this, I'm shocked?!    

Ironman jumped the shark a while ago.  I think it actually jumped the shark when TIMEX put the name on a line of watches you can buy for under $20.  Kinda like, anyone can wear one/be one, if you've got plenty of time.