Happy Birthday to Brandon!

Wow, Brandon’s birthday again. My how time flies… It seems like just yesterday we were in high school and shooting pool until 4 in the morning. Those days are looong gone (for me, anyway).

Brandon is the Pittn’est Pit Bull of a rider I’ve ever ridden with. That dude will NOT give up or back down. I remember one ride to the scout camp up Payson Canyon. He and I were side by side the whole way, big chainring. From the sound of the breathing, I was feeling a bit better than he. Ohhh, breathing doesn’t mean squat when you’re going up against Brandon! The pace quickened in the inverse proportion to the distance we had left. Once the line was in sight, it was a full bore, all-out sprint. Side by side for what seemed like forever, he started to creep by me. First a millimeter, then two. How could that be!?! He sounds like he’s going to EXPLODE! Danged if he didn’t beat me to the finish, proving that willingness to suffer is key in getting the win. I thought I was suffering, until I heard Brandon say that he was literally seeing stars! How do you beat someone like that? Better bring your ‘A’ game…

Happy Birthday, man.

Training camp is coming…

The idea has been kicking around for a while, and it looks like it’s going to happen now. We’re going to have a 3-day mini training camp for the CAT4 racers on our team. We have the services of a USCF Elite Cycling Coach to guide our efforts, along with several volunteers from the team to do TT starts, timing duties, food preparation, etc. It should be cool, I’m really looking forward to it! I hope the turnout is good, you never know how many people will be interested enough to dedicate 3 days to training on road bikes in February. I’m in!! Stay tuned - reports will be forthcoming (Feb. 11-13).

Heartbeats

I hope the old saying about having a certain number of heartbeats allocated to you before you die doesn’t have any truth to it - or else I just knocked about a year off my life today. Middle of January, 4+ hour ride, nearly 37,000 heartbeats.

It was a great ride with about a dozen guys from the team. We rode to Golden and then up towards Boulder. Lots of hills. Cold temps (mid 30’s), but clear and dry. Some strong winds at times.

I felt really good, and pushed myself every chance I got. I pushed a little too hard when I stood up to sprint going 40mph downhill in a crosswind and induced some MAJOR speed wobble. Whoa!! That probably accounted for 5,000 heartbeats right there… I got it under control, but it was touch and go there for a few seconds. Lesson learned, hold ‘er steady in the crosswind.

Here’s a few stats from the ride:

Duration 4:14:30

Energy Expenditure 1855 kcal
Number of Heart Beats 36938 beats
Average Heart Rate 145 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate 178 bpm

Average Speed 16.9 mph
Maximum Speed 43.2 mph
Distance 71.5 miles

Average Cadence 84 rpm
Maximum Cadence 112 rpm
Ascent 3565 ft

CCTT

It may only be January, but it’s time to think about racing. I just sent in my entry for a 7-week time trial series (10 miles) that starts in April. This event is so popular that you have to send in the form on the first day registrations are accepted to have any real hope of getting in. There are 440 slots available, and they go quick! We had a teammate with excellent organizational skills that took it upon himself to collect our entries and $, and send them all in together. Well done, Michael! That means we’ll have around 30 riders starting in a contiguous block at 20 second intervals. Should be quite a sight!

Maybe we can sneak in a little team time trial on the backside of the course…

Happy Birthday to Liz!

What can I say, better with each passing year (like fine wine, so I’m told).

This year I got Liz a pink iPod mini for her birthday. She’s usually not too gadgetically (nice word) inclined, but I think she’ll really like this once we get it up and running. It’ll be good for taking on walks and for playing through the stereo in the van on longer trips.

I’ve known Liz for 14 years, 1 month, and 13 days. I put my math cap on. In 8 more years, we’ll reach a point of convergence and I will have known her for longer than not. I still remember the day I first saw her, looking F-I-N-E in that tucked-in green and white striped shirt and jeans. She was super nice when we were introduced (at work, it was my first day). Busy – there were a hundred different things going on that were competing for her attention, but nice. I was immediately intimidated. Little did she know she was meeting her future husband! Wow, life sure is crazy like that. It’s been a true pleasure spending the years with her. Sign me up for another…

Happy Birthday, Honey.

Joined a team

I recently joined a cycling team to race with this year. The name of the team is S.E.A.R. (South East Area Riders - or Racers, haven’t quite figured that out yet). Anyway, the size of the club is approaching 100 members so it is quite strong and well established. It dwarfs any other organization I’ve trained and raced with. They’ve had as many as 60 people show up for a group ride - in the winter. Granted, it was a nice day…

Within the group, there’s around 20 CAT4 racers, and another 30 that are in the CAT4/35+ classification. Then we have a sprinkling of CAT3 and master’s racers, as well as some women’s 3’s and 4’s. If numbers mean anything, we should definitely be a factor in the races this year.

Our title sponsor is D.R. Horton (specifically the Continental Series) - they build very nice homes in Colorado.

Sadly, new homes for team members wasn’t on offer this year. Maybe when one of us beats Lance in the Tour… Kidding aside, it’s cool to have such a big name backing our team and seeing their commercials on TV. Hopefully, we can get them good exposure and results in the races.

The dreaded RESOLUTIONS

One of my resolutions for the past several years has been to get organized. Yeah, yeah, big deal. It is a big deal to me. It is kind of strange, though. In some aspects of my life, I cannot stand chaos. Yet in others, I thrive on it. I showed early signs of that trend as a little tyke when I’d beg my mom or older sisters to toss a braided rug into the air, making it land in a heap. You see, that was the chaos. A crumpled heap of rug. But within that pile existed possibilities - roads, and more importantly tunnels, perfect for driving my Matchbox cars through. Sounds so simple… Pity the fool that didn’t throw the rug just right! I would demand that it be done again, and again, and again, until I was satisfied with the outcome. I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to make order out of chaos. Just like with the rug. It’s a losing proposition…

After several years of concentrating on organization, I’ve become the most disorganized organized person I know. Goes back to the whole order/chaos thing, I guess. I can tell you right where to find the stupid phone bill from June of 1999, but have most of my precious digital photos scattered here and there - with unreliable, untested, unkept backups to revert to if I should ever lose/delete them. Gotta get my priorities straight.

This year, I’m changing tactics. The new battle cry - SIMPLIFY. I figure if I cut out a lot of the junk, I stand a much better chance of being able to organize what’s left over. See, if I can reduce the size of that rug down to something like a washcloth, it’ll be sooo much easier to control. Right!? Yeah…

First Post

I wanted to try blogging as a way of keeping track of my riding/racing and life experiences this year. Training has been going very well. I’m leaner than ever, and ready to rock!

Our team did a New Year’s ride today (annual tradition) that included climbing Lookout Mountain. My time to the top was 25:00, not too bad considering it’s Jan 1. I’ll be looking to trim a few minutes in the coming months, though. The ride ended up being 60 miles and was a great way to spend the day.

The theme of my blog is ‘the scene begins’. If you read the quote at the top of the page, you’ll see that it’s from a song by The Josh Joplin Group. It’s a good tune about basically being the star in your own movie - life. I thought that was appropriate for the approach I wanted to take.

Action!