Need a McCoffee?

Michelle brought home a stack of coupons (PRONOUNCED COO-PONS!!!) that someone dropped off at her work for McDonalds Cafe dealie. They make mochas, cappucinnos(sp?) and such. The coupons are: buy a mocha or whatever and get a free sammich. The stuff's pretty good, but the coupons only last till 9/25 and only work at the 84th and Grover Micki-Ds. So if anyone wants one, let me know. Cause I'm not eating that much Mc-Cholesterol over the next 5 days.

We should ride bikes this weekend

I know some folks are running in the Corporate Cup 10K on Sunday, which is entertaining but ultimately features far fewer crashes than the cycling version.

But I'm not. Mike's not (right?).

So let's ride bikes. Let's pick a time and place and try to avoid the downtown horde. It's gonna be slow -- I'll be on the Bianchi. Ugh.

EDIT: This is the 300th post here. Shomer Shabbos!

Shabbos+1: The Fall Century

Bike Masters has a planned Fall Century Ride ride this Sunday. While I'd like to go the full distance, time will permit about four hours. So join me for a spirited metric century or for the Bike Master's group's full American standard.

Plan to Meet
Where: Bike Masters
When: Sunday, September 14th at 7:45 AM

Alternative: meet earlier (7:00 AM) for coffee at Crane's on 76th and Cass and then catch up to the Bike Master's ride.

Crazy Idea.

I'm one of the officials for the NE State Road race tomorrow.  I had this crazy idea of riding my bike down to Branched Oak tonight, camping for cheap overnight, doing the race duties, then riding home after the race is over.  The reason for this, and ultimately the reason it's not happening, is the Husker football game in Lincoln at 11:30am.  I don't know if I've experienced traveling on the interstate on a game day, but I've heard lots of horror stories.  Granted, I'll be at Branched Oak by 8am, but I've heard people will be migrating toward Lincoln all morning also.  

The reason I'm not going to ride down is the journey home.  The race, and the game, will probably end around 2-3pm.  So that means, even though I'm riding along highways, there'll be a ton of traffic out there also trying to avoid the I-80 congestion.  I'm comfy riding in city traffic with drivers getting to work, but I'm not comfy riding on a highway (no matter how wide the shoulder is) with cars traveling at 50-60 mph containing possibly intoxicated operators.  So for safety's sake, I'm joining the car crowd.  Another reason to not like the Huskers - but that's just my own opinion.

Solo sloggin.

So since I've been under the weather, or under the allergens, whichever, I didn't want to hammer it with the organized group rides on Wednesday.  I decided to leave from work at 4:30 and ride as much as I could before it got dark.  With clouds on the horizon, that time would be about 8:10 or so.  I researched some routes and couldn't decide between a gravel ride or a road ride.  Granted, it would take me a while to get to the gravel roads, so it'd be half and half any way.  I decided to stick to the pavement.  I figured I could ride the Wed night Trek Store group ride in reverse, but that would only be about 2-ish hours.  I was going to make my choice once I got to Ft. Calhoun either to turn home or keep going.  I got there in about an hour.  So off to Blair I went.

I couldn't remember how far Blair was from Ft. Calhoun, but a friendly sign let me know only 9 miles.  Good enough.  Then I started thinking, if I'm keeping a 20mph average (which I wasn't anyway but dreaming I was) that would only give me maybe 3 hours for the ride.  Oh well, I could always tack on that jolly cimb just North of Blair.  

That 9 miles started to wear on me.  So by the time I got to the official turn around spot of the ride, I was ready to head home anyway.  My route home was hwy 133.  I hadn't been on this road for quite some time and the last time was probably on an un-busy weekend morning.  At this point, it was 5:30pm and all the live-in-Blair-work-in-Omaha crowd was all coming at me.  Since there were few cars going my direction to disrupt the air being pushed by the oncoming cars, I got a slight headwind. This, along with the mighty hills of hwy 133 plus the fact that I was running out of steam,  really took it's toll on me.  By the time I was to the Keystone trailhead, I was more cooked than when I had gone on tough group rides.  I guess shooting for the 20mph average on a solo ride was not the wisest choice.

What I had forgotten about training was the hurty leg period.  This is the time of year where the meat of training begins.  After you've taken some time off of the intensity of the racing season, you've maybe picked up some cross training, and ride when the weather permits over the winter.  If you can stand to labor through hours in the gym of weight training and hop on the trainer consistently for 3-hour rides to nowhere, you'll be way ahead of everyone else.  Then, from late February to early April you're cramming all the toughest rides in that you can so you'll be ready for the race season.  This includes centuries done with fast guys to work on sustained hard efforts, really intense intervals to open up your high-end aerobic system, and the start of racing if it's around.  This is the hurty leg period.  You're always tired, on the verge of getting sick, and your legs are in a constant state of soreness - hurty legs.

The problem is, I'm at that point right now, and I have quite a few months to go for the next road race season, unless I want to hop into some cross races.  Which is entirely possible with my new all-rounder bike.  But, we'll see about that.

Well that hurt a little.

Brady and I met up for a Labor day ride. After a quick cup of joe, we headed downtown then on to the Bellevue Blvd loop. We were hoping to save money by crossing the river at the South Omaha Bridge, but it is still under construction. So we rode through Bellevue with a destination of Glennwood, IA. After we made polite conversation with the bridge trolls(ok, that was mean, they were nice old ladies), we started to hit it hard on the highway in Iowa. We had a cross wind so we took turns on the front. Brady must have been feeling great because his pulls were always a little longer and a little faster than mine. His strength also became apparent on that climb toward Glennwood. I tried to keep pace, but I fell off a couple times. Then, either he'd sit up, or I'd recover a little only for me to pull through and go red-lining again. Not smart.

We crested the climb and maintained a quickish pace into Glennwood. I realized, at 1.5 hours into the ride, that I had only drank about half a bottle's worth of water. Oops. I didn't feel dehydrated. In fact, aside from running out of oomph on the climb, I was feeling pretty good. At the Glennwood convenient store stop, I downed a coke, a Nutrigrain bar, and some of Brady's Nut Roll then we were off. Word of warning to anyone doing the Glennwood loop; the road heading South West out of town is under construction. The bridge is gone, and the side road that we usually take to get to Pacific Junction, was heavily quartered off. Brady and I cyclocrossed our way around all the construction and were off again. I was all for taking it easy with the tailwind, but Brady was feeling his steel-cut oats apparently. We eventually got back to the Bellevue Bridge after some really hard work. We bipped over to the Keystone trail via 370 to 25th st. Another word of warning: they recently redid that bridge on 25th st which is good, but they completely blocked any sort direct path to the trail. So you have to stop, get off your bike, hop a guardrail, then get on the trail. I feel like emailing someone about this because it's horribly inconvenient to cyclists to have the route blocked, but more importantly it also takes away an entry point for emergency and maintenance vehicles onto the trail. Not cool.

Anyway, after the ride, I was feeling the effects of not hydrating properly. My legs started cramping up...BAD. I took a mini-nap and when I got up and walked down the stairs, I almost fell over. My muscles actually seemed to seize up. And this was even after drinking a tall glass of chocolate milk and eating cottage cheese and apple sauce. I guess since I hadn't really worked my legs in 4 days, they weren't ready for the hammer session. Oh well.

With regard to the cold I had, I'm questioning if it was a cold or some really bad allergies. On Friday, it felt like a real cold since I could barely wake up in the morning and slept most of the day after leaving work early. But now I'm sneezing a bunch and experiencing Bryan's symptoms of needing to blow my nose a bunch. So maybe I am growing into some allergies? I sure hope not, but it's entirely possible. I think I will lay off the intensity for a while anyway just to see if this stuff will go away.

Ugh...I hab a code...

It's not that bad, but I'm definitely not riding much anytime soon. Which is great timing considering a 3-day weekend is on deck. I'm on call Saturday morning so that will give me some lounge around the house time. But Sunday and Monday would be nice to put in some miles. We'll see how I feel. If this cold goes like others I've had recently, I'll be in bed for a few days.

Bob had mentioned that, for Saturday, he would like to start an early AM, like 5:30 or 6, ride that would loop somewhere, then meet up with the Bike Masters group ride. Then Bryan started to give me instructions for a ride he was doing, but I cut him short by saying I was on call. So, sorry guys. I would love to be a part of some great rides this weekend, but it looks like I'll be in bed most of the time. Hope you guys have fun!

Aaaaah, Shabbos + 1 defined.

Start time 6:30am on a Sunday when the town's not yet awake. Streets are bare so riding around is nice and quiet. Pace is easy; hills are taken at talking speed. As in, you can still muster a conversation when going up a rather steep grade. And that's what Shabbos + 1 is all about, conversation while on the bike. Or off the bike. Sometimes the goal of the ride is to get to a coffee shop, sit down and chat for half hour- fourty five minutes, then mosey on home. When you get home, you still wish you could be out there riding the rest of the day like you just were. Good conversation, easy pace, riding bikes, loving life, good times. That's Shabbos + 1 defined.

Shabbos, Shabbos +1

Shabbos: The aforementioned Mountain Goat ride at Bike Masters. 8:30, kind of quick, but without stopping every 20 minutes with the rest of the group.

Shabbos +1: 6:30 at Crane, with a relaxed pace to get the gunk out from the Mountain Goat ride.

OK? OK.

I've made a huge mistake.

That's what I kept telling myself when I discovered that the Bianchi I bought off of Craigslist from a nice guy was just not cutting it. The frame was a little big - top tube on my race machine is 56cm and this was 58. And it's a little heavy - like 10 pounds heavier than my race machine. Now, combine the weight with the "comfortable steel ride" (read: flexy) and I had a good bike for all day slow rides, not any sort of spirited group rides. I wanted a bike that could do most everything. The first fastish ride where the bike really failed me was a gravel road ride. I figured the flex wouldn't matter as much since gravel gives more than pavement. Well I show up to this ride out of shape anyway and it became very clear right away that the title of this post was quite true.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago and I was in the shop and re-re-re-browsing the bike selection. I studied this one bike very carefully and decided it would make a good all arounder. It's geometry, very much UNlike the Bianchi, was similar to my road race machine. So I asked one of the employees to check to see if I would qualify for the 12 month same as cash Trek card. I've made some progress on my credit debt, so I know my FICO score was coming up. Well I qualified and decided to pull the trigger.

I dinked around with it and put road bars, bar-end shifters, cyclo-cross v-brakes, standard road gearing on and had a good all-rounder bike. I could slap on some very large tires (44C is what I've tried so far) and do some great gravel road rides. Or, like tonights Wednesday night road ride, just run it with some stiff efficient tires/wheels and hang with the group. Which is exactly what I did tonight.

I showed up to the group ride on my Gary Fisher Wingra fully expecting to fall off after the 2nd or 3rd fast section. I stayed comfortably competitive the whole ride. We had a strong group, but were missing some of the really fast guys, such as Shim, Kent (who just happened to get 18th at the Leadville 100 mtb race recently), Steve Jarrett, and a couple other usual suspects. But we had a steady strong group which I could actually hang with. It felt great to be up there again. And when I stomped on my pedals, UNlike my Bianchi, the bike transferred my power to the pavement.

So needless to say, after feeling great the whole ride, I'm floating on a cloud of good-judgement/excitement. I haven't actually weighed the bike, but I figure it's around 20-22 pounds. If I would swap out the current setup with my bestest lightest stuff, I think I could get it down to 19 pounds. Now if I wanted to fork over more mullah, I could change out the cromoly fork for a carbon one and have a truly competitive race machine. I'd probably go with a fork that had disc brake mounts and be able to run full discs for my winter time commutes/rides when rim brakes get kinda scary.

This weekend I'm planning on practicing biking with my new toy on the ride mentioned at the end of this post. Rundown: Shabbos (that means Saturday), 8:30am, leave from Bike Masters, ride up to Ft. Calhoun then back with some good hills and a spirited tempo. Show up for some pain and a little fun. Sunday is still up in the air and then Monday is my b-day. Wish I could take the day off and celebrate, but it's also d-day at my work since it's the first day of classes and I'm in high demand. No hang-overs for me.

Edit: Oh yeah, I should add to this already long post with a weekend report.
Saturday's Tranquility Tire Tantrum mtb race: This was only my 3rd off-road ride in like 3 months, so I wasn't expecting much. The gun went off and I was left in the dust (literally since the trail was bone dry) at first. I kept my steady pace and followed some very experienced wheels (Thanks Samsam and Showen!) so I wouldn't blow myself up too soon. It proved to be a wise tactic as by my 3rd and final lap, I was ready to be done. I had a good cushion ahead and behind me till Samsam made a rally the last half of the lap. I gave it everything I had and just held him off by maybe 20 seconds. Talking to the first 2 across the line, they thought I might have made 3rd. WHAT?!?! That would have been crazy, but alas, there was another guy who was ahead of me by a mere 4 minutes. The top 2 beat me by 8 minutes. Sheesh, guess I need to ride my mtb more.
Sundays Omaha Corporate Cycling Challenge: The plan was to go fast from the gun and we did. It was Bob, Brady, Shim, me and 10 or so other guys who kept a steady 23mph average pace all the way out to Ft. Calhoun. After that turnaround point, Bob, Brady and I toned it down and had a more Shabbos + 1 like ride home. All around a great weekend of riding.

On a more serious note, I got a text from Sean K saying he would have joined, but his Grandmother had just passed away. Sean, I'm sorry for your loss and my thoughts are with you.

Places/times for this weekend.

I will be racing the Single speed category at the Tranquility Tire Tantrum this Saturday. Hopefully I will not die. This will be my 3rd off-road ride in 6 months and I forgot how easy it is to start running into trees when you're tired, but still riding. I like trees and all, I just don't want to have any high-speed hugging sessions with them during the race.

On Sunday, for the Corporate Cycling Challenge, I say us guys who are going to attempt an up-tempo ride should meet near the front of the pack before the start. All the usual suspects will be there including Shim, uh... other fast guys... yeah. I can't think of who else will attend right off hand, but you will probably see some familiar faces if you are within the top 50 people at the line-up. Which I highly recommend. Otherwise, if you start at the back, it'll be a half hour before you actually get out of downtown. Either that or you'll be crashed. Or both. So see ya'll at the line for some pain train fun!

Just plugging away.

Not much new. I've been riding when I can, keeping up kinda with my schedule. Or not.

On Sunday, instead of a long ride, I did a short run. A little run called the Raven's Nest 5K. This is a trail run with many hills, sand pits, and much pain. Last year I did this run and placed 15th overall. Being it was my first running race ever, I was ecstatic. I ran it in 26:26. I have no idea what a fastish paved 5K is like, but the hills and such made it really interesting. This year, however, I was considerably slower. My time was 40 seconds longer and, being that most runners who also did the race last year had faster times, the course was shorter. Last year I hung with the main fast group for quite a while. This year, I was off the pace almost right away. I could just feel that my aerobic system is untrained. Ugh. But that's what I'm working on. So hopefully next year's race will be better.

I did a mountain bike ride on Friday after not touching that bike for a few months. It was a blast, but it too beats you up compared to just road riding. I'll be doing the Traquility mtb race this next weekend, so that should be fun. Then the next day is the Omaha Corporate Cycling Challenge. 42 miles with just a wee group of a couple thousand people. Should be fun. Can't decide if I want to hammer it with the fasties at the front, or wade around with the rec riders. Any input from my fellow bloggers as to how we should handle this? Spirited ride, or mellow Shabbos-ie tempo?

My B.O. is like the Borg

I sweat a lot. I wear some sort of bandana thing under my helmet. Otherwise I'd be crying on every ride above 70 degrees from sweat drenching my eyes.
Now where my sweatiness really becomes a problem, is under my armpits. As some of you may know, but don't readily admit in front of me, I get funky. Not the good kind of James Brown funky(RIP), but the bad kind of "I need to back away from this person" kind. Only a few of my really good friends have felt comfortable enough to tell me, "Jeez Mike, you stink." This usually happened during really long drives in a car where there was no escape.

I think I was the first kid in grade school to develop "body odors." I distinctly (HA!) remember a time in 5th grade where the teacher talked solemnly to us about growing up and how we "change." Little had I known, but I guess some of my fellow classmates told our teacher that I was stinky. So she very fairly told all of us that we need to talk to our parents about body odor. So that was the beginning for me.

I started off by using the strongest stuff available since I eventually figured out that not many others smelled as bad as me. On to the Extra strength antiperspirant deodorant. This stuff instantly made me smell like, well, whatever fragrance was labeled. Shower Mist, Cool Rain, Morning Dewdrops, etc were some of my choices of masking agent. At first, everything was fine. Eventually though, the bacteria under my pits "assimilated" the product I was using and within an hour of application, I was funky again. So I switched to the ever growing brands available. I had good luck with Old Spice for a while. Month or 2 later, YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIMILATED. Then I figured out that the too strong antiperspirant was possibly making my Borglike funk bacteria into superspores. They could handle anything I threw at them since they had beaten down the best.

This led me to switch to non-antiperspirant deodorant. At first it was difficult. I had to go into hiding and/or not exert myself at all. The hot and humid summers here in Nebraska were always a death sentence for me. But then the super mega B.O. lost a worthy adversary, so it got weaker. I also switched to the wonderful smelling - hippie made Tom's Natural of Maine Woodspice deodorant. I loved the non-fake smell of Woodspice since it made me smell like trees instead of Jr. High.

Alas, my armpit bacteria assimilated the hippie goodness of this new product also. So, I thought about going a completely different route. I used Gold Bond's Extra strength Triple Action Medicated powder. Whew! This stuff did the trick. I put it on before my commute into work, and even though it was a balmy 70 degrees with high humidity, my armpits remained under Gold Bonds control. I HAD DEFEATED THE B.O.rg!!

That is until recently. Now, like before, I apply the good smelly stuff, and within an hour or 2, I'm back to bad smelly again. I may try to switch to non-extra strength to see if I can weaken the B.O.rg's stranglehold on my "pit's of despair," but I'm not holding my breath. Others will just have to hold their nose.


Shabbos ride anyone?

Ah, Shabbos +1 goodness.

Rolled out with Bryan and Bob this morning at 6:30am. Bob decided to run the single speed with a 52x20, so I joined his fun by keeping it in my 53x19 most of the ride. It's interesting how I felt fresh aerobically the whole ride by overgearing it. The only time I was breathing hard was on the climbs, but that happens anytime you stand to grind up a hill. I almost want a single speed again, however, I don't need anymore bikes and doing it on the cheap will result in a heavy bike that I don't want to ride. I've learned from my Bianchi commuter experience and will never travel down that road again. By the way, anyone want to purchase a couple year old, nicely maintained Bianchi Castro Valley, size 58? It's an awesome commuter, but not built for speed and nimbleness. It's made to handle all types of weather to get to work, which is exactly how I've been using it. I've made some mods, of course. It's got a shorter stem since the bike's biggish for me; which is the main reason I'm selling it. Okay, okay, okay, enough of my spamming.

I went for a run Friday afternoon and I'm comfortable with being prepared for the Raven's Nest 5K race next weekend. I'm not expecting big things, but I'm not going to keel over and die either, so that's a plus. This week of training was drastically different from last week. But I am now recovered and ready to steadily increase the time on the bike instead of going full bore. 10 hours is much more realistic than 15 at this point of my fitness.

One funny thing about riding more recently is that I've seen Spence a couple times on the trail. After our easy (but just enough of a workout) ride this morning, I saw the Spence pain train heading out on the trail as I was going home. Spence of course motioned to me that I should turn around and join them. I apologized and said I was just finishing up. Don't know how much they could have understood, being we were traveling in opposite directions rather quickly. So now I know that he hits the trail somewhere between 9am and 10am on the weekends. With the temp already upper 80's at 9am, I was glad to be done with the ride, and I pittied them for just heading out. Especially with how hard they were about to go. But eventually, I will be joining the pain train so I too can put the hurt on others. So look out! (In 6 months, that is...)

Great idea? Bad idea.

Ever since my first week back on the training bus (which included a 90 mile ride, 2 fast paced, long group rides, and a couple "recovery" rides), I think my body went into full recovery mode this week. I remember reading a couple places (ok, basically every training book out there) that you're only supposed to increase your training volume by 10%-15%. Well let's run the numbers. An average week for me, pre-training: Commute every day, 6 miles, 30 minutes tops; A couple group rides, 40-ish miles, 2-3 hours. So I was averaging at most 100 miles a week with a time of 8 hours. If I was lucky. So then I decide, "Hey, how about a week of 260 miles and 15 hours.!" Now, I'm no mathemetician (apparently not an english major either), but that training week had to be at least a little more than a 10%-15% increase.

I always wondered what would happen if you jumped leaps and bounds in the volume of your training. I had always been careful when I first got into racing, but still wondered. Well now I know. Every day this week around 3pm I would get crazy sleepy. Like no motivation to do anything. The nights I went straight home, that was it. I lounged on the couch all evening. I guess that's why it's damaging to your training if you increase volume by a bunch. Your body can't take it, so it takes it out of you.

New plan: after I recover this week, I'm going to ease back into it. Unfortunately, that probably means no competitive group rides for me. My body just can't take the intensity yet. I need to treat my training as if I've just come off the October recovery period after the racing season. So that means steady paced rides, low intensity, and GRADUAL increases in volume. I'll be up for some Shabbos (+1) rides, but only if they're fun/easy group rides.

Speaking of which. Shabbos ride anyone? 6:30am at Crane? 2, maybe 3 hours of easy riding? Anyone? Anyone?

Still sleepy, feeling better.

I realized yesterday, when the radar looked like some evil storms were heading our way from Blair, that I should do a quick run instead of a ride where I could be stranded way out there. Also, I'm doing the Raven's Nest 5k on August 10th, so I should probably be in some sort of running shape by then. I rode home from work, changed into the running gear, then headed out. Of course the evil looking clouds that had been on the radar turned out to be nothing, but I needed the run anyway.

I ran a couple times 2 weeks ago and only once last week so I didn't know how I was going to feel. Those runs were no so great. I have been putting in time on the bike so I should be more aerobically fit. Which is exactly what happened. I could just run without struggling. It was great that I didn't have to suck wind just to make a mile. I think I'm getting my lungs back from cycling. That was the only reason I got 15th overall at Raven's nest last year. I had been training on the bike most of the season. This year, not so much. But now I have a plan, and am sorta sticking to it. I will be more fit. Oh yes, I will.

O' Brother where Art Thou?

Two funny things in one article!!
from : The World Herald
It's an article about an attorney in Nebraska suing to block a casino in Iowa:

"... Bruning on Friday defended his lawsuit. He said the geographical oddity of Carter Lake - sandwiched between downtown Omaha and Omaha's Eppley Airfield - makes his case more complicated than simple state boundaries."

Not that that's too funny other than the phrase "geographical oddity" being lifted from 'O Brother where art thou'.

The real funny part was this line about the actions of the Ponca Tribe to get some tribal land approved for development:

"Bruning and Miller contend that the tribe deceived the government to get the land placed into trust."

Those Indians! Always tricking the government!

Anyway - what's that got to do with anything? Nothing. Other than the Coen's made the Big Lebowski and tomorrow is shabbos +1. Let me know if anyone is up for anything. I know it's late notice, but I'll check later and see. Ok. Thanks. Buy.

I have been in the pain cave...

And I hope to muster up a flashlight.

I rode to the Bike Masters Wed night Group ride and felt pretty good. I recovered well from the 90 mile ride on Sunday. Funny thing, my legs never felt sore after that ride. The only thing was the back of my neck. It's still hurting right now. I guess I built up some good neck muscles when I was putting in many hours a week on the bike. And since, for the past year, I've basically only been commuting the whopping 6 mile round trip most days and occasionally getting a 3-ish hour ride in, those various long distance muscles have faded. Guess I gotta build them back up.

So the ride: The group looked to be pretty solid, but the legendary fasties weren't there. No Spence, Brackenbury, Ellis, or various others. So I had some high hopes for myself. At first Bryan and I pushed the pace a bit up some climbs. That felt good. Then we kept the pace high for a majority of the ride out. I started to fall off after a failed sprint with no goal. Bryan took that one even though we didn't know where we were sprinting to. I just gave up after a few seconds while he kept going = he won. After that, about 45 minutes into the group ride, I was pretty toasted. There weren't any bad hills after that, but we still had to turn around and ride into the 15-20mph headwind. All the way back. Then I had to ride home into that same headwind. Ugh.

After we turned around the group was together. For about a mile. Then Bryan picks up the pace and was pretty much just gone. The rest of us crawled home in various groups trying to rotate and work together to share some of the wind burden. Eventually, when we hit some good climbs, I was off on my own. I just couldn't stay with anyone anymore. So I putzed back to the shop and eventually JP caught up with me. He's got some wicked clunky sound going on with his bike so we checked it over at the shop. My bike is noisy too, but I just haven't really cleaned or relubed any part of it for most of the year. Oops.

After I refilled the bottles it was time for the slog home into the headwind. I had motivation along Fort St with traffic, but as soon as I hit the trail, I could barely maintain 13mph, even when I was shielded from the wind. I stopped by Chipotle for some awesome recovery food and called it a night. Again, I'm not sore today, other than the neck muscles. So that's a good sign. I just need to train those otherwise unused muscles to take multiple riding days again. Then I have to work on my upper end aerobic engine by doing group rides and steady climb intervals. Then, over the winter, I will hit the gym, do some gravel road rides, and rebuild my strength again. So I have about 6 months to muster up a flashlight for this pain cave. Better get musterin'.

An Epicly Epic ride.

Well it was epic for my current fitness level. I guess I shouldn't even say that. My body just isn't used to the miles. My aerobic system was ok, my muscles made it till about the last 10 miles or so. But today if feels like someone took away my neck muscles. I can barely hold up my head. See I've been riding my Bianchi just for commuting for a couple months now. It has way more of an upright position than my lightweight racey Lemond. But I needed all the help I could get to last the 90 hilly miles on tap. So by then end of the ride, after my neck muscles got more of a workout than they ever had, I was more than a little sore. Harlan, the finish town, had a nice massage tent setup. So I got a good working over for 15 minutes with a focus on my neck. So that was nice. But today, I'm still feeling it. Time for some vitamin I - as in Ibuprofin.

So the ride itself was quite fun. Bryan rode 10 miles from his place to get to mine, then we headed downtown after dropping off a couple bags of change-of-clothes at my parents place. We ventured over the 480 bridge pretty uneventfully. The shoulder was just one bike width, so we single filed it, but there was barely any traffic at 6:30am on Sunday. The shoulder was also very rocky/glassy. But we made it across without incident. After moseying through downtown Council Bluffs, we headed North on the very fun Old Lincoln Highway towards Missouri Valley to join the first day of RAGBRAI. This road is not as hilly as I remember. We were taking it rather easy so maybe that was the reason. There were plenty of hills, though, once we got onto the RAGBRAI course. We met up with Matt Pavlovich with a great group of friends that had their own little motif going. It was the running of the bulls deal where one bigger guy was painted red and had these huge bull horns attached to his helmet. The rest of the people in the group wore white garments and had red saches on. They were basically imitating this. Quite hilarious. Also along the ride were many different bike-boom-boxes. Some were little seatpacks, others were full-on trailers, but everyone got to listen to music ranging from C & C Music Factory to Johnny Cash. Again, good times. The many different costumes and bikes kept the otherwise boring Iowa backdrop interesting. There were many a cornfield we passed while riding up and down hills. There was only a couple flat sections. It was funny because as soon as there was about a mile or so of flatness, pace lines would pick up and motor through. But these broke down with any hills since congestion of slower riders made it dangerous.

It was quite an experience, but I'm not sure I'd want to do the whole week of RAGBRAI. I'd have to be trained for it, that's for sure, but after about the 4th or 5th day, I think I'd be pretty tired of pork chops and goofy dressed people. Not that those things are bad, but moderation is always good.

So that lovely/painful 90 mile ride started a new training schedule. This next month is just a break in period so I'm only doing 10-14 hour weeks. That's not hard to do when you start a week with a 5 hour ride. Today is an off day, minus the commute, then Tuesday and Thursday I'll do an hour easy each, Wedsnesday will be a couple hours on the Wed night group ride, Friday will be another off day, then Saturday will be 2-3 hours of whatever. I'm not really assigning intensity yet. I'll go hard when I feel like it, but mainly I just need to build up my aerobic base and get my body used to riding lots again. Also, riding more will hopefully get me back down into the 150s lb range. I'm publishing my training log here. I'll update it hopefully after most rides. This published log will keep me motivated and accountable to all who read it. So if you check on it and there's a few days missing, remind me to either keep training, or to update my rides.

Sunday is the beginning of the end.

I'm tired of wasting away. My quads and calves are thinning down and my waistline is growing. I'm kinda scared about the 80-90 mile ride this Sunday because I haven't ridden that long for at least 6 months. The longest ride in recent memory was riding over to Lake Manawa, doing TT intervals a couple times, then riding home. The total riding time was about 3.5 hours and I was a big wet spaghetti noodle the rest of the day. So this Sunday will be interesting. I hope Bryan will be patient as I can some drifting off the back on a few hills in my future.

But that will be it. That ride will mark the start to a new life for me. Michelle is driving now so I have no commitments after work. I can put in some good training after work to eventually get back to my former...um...form. I am mapping out a training regiment that will involve upping my aerobic rides for the last part of the summer so I can handle 90 mile rides easy. Then, over the winter, I will work on strength and dropping weight. I'm not sure if I can be in tip top shape by the beginning of next race season, but I think I'll be close fairly competitive form.

I thought about the money situation and realized it's possible to make money while racing. You just have to plan better to save money on traveling, eating, etc. and/or finish in the top 5. If I get back to my former strength (or maybe even stronger) I know I can be up there. I've learned from Bryan that you don't have to spend money on the latest and greatest stuff to get strong. It's the training that matters, not the equipment. Granted, when it comes to TT's, aero stuff always helps, but I can hopefully borrow equipment to shave away seconds. I just have to train so my motor isn't holding me back.

So this is it. I am making a declaration that next summer will be my return to racing. I really miss it. I miss the feeling of putting others in the hurt lockers when on an attack. I miss the weekends spent putting in 4-6 hour rides so the intense long races don't hurt that much. I really miss riding my bike.

If anyone wants to go on easy or hard training rides, let me know. There'll only be a couple times a year where I'll have to work late for a month, but other than that, I should be on the road most days by 5pm. It will be fun.