TOBYWORKS

Toby Doesn't Work

2011-04-09T14:25:00.004-04:00

Ahhhh yes. The ironic title of this blog has not escaped me.

And it's arisen to my conscious that perhaps I should have named it tobywerks. To give it an Anglo-German twist that might properly reflect my desire to describe the fact that I'd like to showcase the product of the "Tobyworks" process. Instead of a misnomer that leads the reader into the poor misconception that I actually do work.

e.g.: "Wow, look that is the coolest flag designed by the Tobywerks."
Not: "Man, if he never posts why's he braggin' that, 'Toby works'?"

It's supposed to be a conjunction...dang, nevermind.

Either way, it's kind of inaccurate when I haven't posted for 4 months.

Perhaps the title should be: "Toby's Blog. Where he'll post about something mildly interesting from time to time."

Nice.

Done.

Video Update

2010-12-15T21:58:00.002-05:00

Hey. As an addition to my complaint about Chandler's dumb ass race tactics. Here's video proof of his encounter with a brightly painted stump.

NBX Cat 3 Bar Cam Bonus Footage from colin reuter on Vimeo.

nice

Back 'er up

2010-12-14T21:43:00.006-05:00

Hey here's a couple of round ups from races.

Lowell way back: Front row start next to stars and stripes. (Thanks sandbaging/being fast!) I was holding my own with the front group, whom I arguably had no business being with, for the first lap. And was working too hard. But I felt like I could hang for a while. But then I decided to take an alternate line coming onto the track around the ball field. And it was a horrible line, I hit a post went way or course, had to dodge the tape to get back on track, and lost the lead group. So I was in the chase.
On the next lap a couple of juniors hit it way too hard for a sixty minute race.
My race settled into a battle between Matt Myette, Chris Hamlin and me.
I had raced against Chris last weekend and Paradise cross and was hoping I could prevail again.

Sure enough Chris led for too long, and on the last lap when he decided to pull over and let someone else take a turn, it was all systems go, and Matt hung on to my wheel as we opened enough of a cushion. Through the last few turns I had no choice but to try and hit it hard and hope to toast Matt. It was enough and he let me hold on to a 9th place finish. Bummer I made such a bone head move in the beginning. But we had a good race and you have to take chances some wheres.

Day two at NBX was pretty vanilla. The highlights were that: the first lap wasn't as hard as it was on Saturday; Chandler didn't crash in front of me; I mached any attacks; I followed Nate Morse for a while, but once Adam St. Germain started catching up I took off for the win. Yeah, great, a win...man I need to upgrade.

Ice weasels.
Not only did I get heckled for racing the 3's the past two weekends, I got heckled for warming up period, warming up on a trainer. and not drinking beer before the race.
I broke my seatpost on lap three or so, by not finding my pedals as I rode down the fly over. The next two laps were ridding sans saddle. Which is way trickier than you may think. For sitting and for balance, plus remounting is really hard.
Thank you thank you goes out to Matt for rustling me up a bike with egg beaters on it. So awesome man, thanks! I don't think I could have done eight more laps without a saddle.

Since I rode for three laps without a saddle and rode the rest of the race on a new/random bike and still ended up 4th, I think it's safe to say I didn't take enough beer feeds...or carrot or cabbage feeds. sigh...

NBX Cross Race Report, day 1

2010-12-06T22:14:00.003-05:00

Man it was cold this weekend. And really windy down there in Warwick(really East Gloucester). Nice and sunny on Saturday and lets start there.

I took my place next to the juniors as usual. Yeah, yeah and Ryan, and Chandler. Word around the heated bath-house was how flat the course was. "It's a grass crit!" "Hope you brought your road bike!" "You good at road racing?" "Total power course!" True, it definitely was not a very interesting course. But there was no riding the beach, so that made it interesting.

I think the most interesting part was the way the start worked out. We started on the pavement and had ages of room before we entered grass, tape and a couple of turns. But still it was so wide that the group/mass didn't break up, and there was lots of looking around to see what was going on and scoping moves.
I was up in the front and had to play some defense as we came into the first hairpin, where things got a little sticky. I rode around second into the back stretch before the sand and fricken Nate Morse had a date with the ground as he tried to make the sketchiest passes in the loose gravel. Seriously, just settled down! There's a huge train of people wheel to wheel. No one's going any where here.

The juniors led us around wicked hard, and I thought to me self, "This is hard. There's no way any of these guys can keep this up, if I'm having to work this hard..." But still as Curtis dangled out the front, I asked Chandler, "Can he really keep that up and stay out there?" The answer was decidedly NO.

So we made it around the course up the ride up, and almost to the carousel when Chandler got the boneheaded idea to pass Nate on the inside of an S turn. Seriously! Seriously...not only was that a retarded place to pass.(wait 'till we come out of a turn, or it's straight!) BUT THERE ARE STUMPS PAINTED BRIGHT ORANGE!!! Seriously Chandler? Seriously...

Yeah. So. Needless to say Chandler stacked it up on the bright orange stump and I had no choice but to pin his leg into his frame and fall down. The good news was that Ryan White fell with us, and that seemed to break his spirits for the day. A few people avoided our melee and got by. Namely Adam St Germain.

My stem was tweaked, and I had to stop at the barriers to (kind of) correct it. At that point I was feeling pretty dejected, and thought the race was riding away. But anything can happen, so I gave it a go. I passed by Chandler and give him a consolatory pat on the back, and then put my head down. I was surprised and pleased to see Kris Dobie rocking the Putney kit right in front of me. Plus the target Donny Green was not too far down the road.

On the last lap I saw Donny slip out on the turn going into the barriers and that was all I needed to put on the gas and pull him in. But to tell you the truth it's almost scary being behind that kid. For someone who rides his bike all day as a messenger, his lack of handling skills is staggering. On the pavement before the bathhouse, I watched as he went off the pavement (on a wide open two lane road) and nearly flipped over the guard rail. I did not want to be the caboose on his train...wait is that dirty?

So I passed him, and almost caught St Germain, ARg so close! 2nd!

BayState Cyclcross Days 1&2 Race Report

2010-11-28T17:52:00.004-05:00

Here's how not to do well at a Cross race: Eat and drink lots for three days leading up to the race; do a hard stair and plyo workout on Thrusday; Get 5.5 hours of sleep the night before the race; wake up early and drive 3.5 hours to said race.
I just felt crappy on Saturday. In that "can't chase the pit from my stomache" kind of way.

But I lined up any way, and was sad to see Austin Pferd(Horse) pull up to the line. (Despite having already seen and chatted with him) And of course, once the gun(whistle) went off he was gone as if there was a $100 first lap preem. The sad thing was that there wasn't, but that Austin stayed out front for the rest of the day. I yelled at the juniors to not let him go, and then tried to bridge up to his wheel. Which I did for a half lap until it was clear that I didn't have the legs to crank out the watts to stay with him for five more laps. So I tosseled around aimlessly by myself until the juniors caught back up to me/I felt sorry for myself for starting to hard.

Oh then Donny Green came blasting through us like a bat out of hell. He was putting down some serious power output and took the juniors with him. So I dangled in no man's land keeping an eye over my should and settling into a rhythm(finally). And like Buser says,"Any thing can happen."

Sure enough on the last lap I blasted by Nate Morse who had seen Land Aho! Plus I almost made it up to Synjen, if only there was another lap! Gods you toy with me! Footnote: Don't give Synjen a push to get him back in the race after he falls no mater how ill/gentelmanly you feel.
A surprising fourth for feeling so damn crappy.

Okay Day 2
I was feeling MUCH! better after some sleep and some awesome Nu Thanksgiving that Sarah, Bear and I put together. AKA a roast chicken (who likes Turkey any way) plus all the fixens for less than thirty bucks and 90 minutes of cooking! Boo yah. Oh yeah, we had gravy....and really dry stuffing, but isn't that de rigeuer?

Again, the morning races were not on time which allowed only a lap or two of pre-riding on a very slippery and technical course. Am I the only one who has a hard time on day two figuring out where the course goes/making a mental map of it? Even on the last lap I wasn't completely sure where I was going next.

Oh hey, Ryan White...sweet, oh hey, Matt Mitchell...sweet, oh hey Chandler Delinks...sweet, plus the juniors, and Austin Pferd again. (even though yesterday Austin said he was gonna take it easier after winning and not go crazy at the start) Looks like Day 2 is gonna be a little more stacked.

Burning through the muddy start I worked to the outside to the chagrin of an Embro rider. But hey, rubbing is racing. And as promised Austin didn't play cannonball from the get go. Now with the hairpin/stairs at the end of the track it was crucial to avoid the bottleneck. After that things settled in quickly into a decent train out front. The juniors and a couple of suspects from yesterday were in the mix.

Nate Morse was feeling like a champ again and decided to pull for a while. I tried to get in front and take a turn as I thought the chase group was closing in on us. But he wouldn't let me through.

After that here are the highlights:
I saw Mitchell and Pferd(Horse) standing outside the tape on the hairpin after the slippery tech back section. I guess they crashed out. Giving me a mixed feeling of relief and regret that two good competitors dropped out.

Morse made a bobble/fall and I passed him never to see him again.
Synjen stayed on my butt and I was worried he was going to hang there and then put down major watts on the flats.

A guy in black and red (Glen Gollrad?)seemed to be gaining and made me nervous.

But what happened was that Synjen couldn't hang with my unprecedented show of power out of the corners and Gollrad was flummoxed by my speed.
No...but seriously. I just put my head down and tried to keep it coming and I ended up out front with a comfortable lead.

Thanks go out to Pip, Buser, Baker <--Double time in the corner! Matt, and Nick for cheering me on. Thanks guys!
Cary and Colin you don't get props for the cheer/heckle combo.

Paradise Cross Frenzy Race Report

2010-11-17T21:55:00.003-05:00

I did not feel super sharp when I woke up on Saturday. I nearly made the decision to stay home and not risk getting more sick. But then I decided to man up and get my race on.

Absolutely awesome day with sunny skies, no real wind (for a change), and temps warming to the upper 50's. My pops came with me for the short ride up to Windsor from West West.

The field in front of both the Bike Shop and Brewery was jam packed with caution tape. It was hard to figure out where the hell the course went, even while watching riders, even after racing a zillion laps, "Wait, which right hand hair-pin is this!"

As we milled around the start I reintroduced my self to Alec Donahue. I refreshed his memory by saying that we battled at Ice Weasels last year. And he incorrectly responded by saying, "Oh yeah cool. Then it'll be a battle today too!" Yum, yeah for like the first lap.

And lo and behold after hald a lap I ended up behind him after the junior in second place slid out and nearly took me with him. I rode the next lap and a half behind him, but it because apparent pretty quickly that I needed to settle down and race my own race. After racing MMRC and Canton I realized that I can't go anaerobic for 60 min. Perhaps close to 35, maybe 40, but not 60.

So I eased off (or I should say, just rode, and didn't sprint every time the course unkinked) and let a few people pass me. Notably, Shawn Milne was the first to fly. Ahem, pro bike racer, ahem. I guess you do get a Wiki page when you win UCI races and the GC at Fitchburg.

Then two UVM kits and an NCC kit passed me. I noted that Chris Hamlin in the second UVM speedsuit was breathing wicked hard, and I hoped he was diving into his red zone early. "Stick to your plan and you'll catch him Tob."

Right, so I settled down into 7th, and was happy to see I was still in the money. I was running with Sheldon Miller untill he stacked it wicked hard in the upper fast barriers. I thought he would be back up and on the chase quickly, but he lost a chunk of time due to a bent derailleur hanger.

So I was flying solo for a couple of laps until I pulled up to Makunda and Chris. I pulled up so quickly it seemed like these two were dropping anchor. So I cruised through and thought I'd start pulling away. But they didn't seem to be so quickly deterred and after a lap of leading and not going any where I let someone else have a turn. Bah, boring part where we were all together for a bunch of laps. Actually it was pretty fun to be in a good race. I kept riding too close in the tight turns and would hit the wheel in front of me, stopping me and opening a gap which I had to shut back down. But I was noticing that Makunda hadn't been doing any of the pulling, perhaps saving legs for the last lap?;

I tried to pass on the hairpin before the barriers, but Makunda had the same idea, and I stayed in third. But I had good speed through the barriers and managed to move up a spot there. I followed Chris down to the end of the field and around the slow/tight left hand 180 and juiced it as we came into the last good open stretch. From there I tried to sprint everything and not eat it as I was pushing the limits on each curve. I prayed for my chain not to drop again on the barriers (did I mention that happened a couple of laps previous) and held off Chris and Makunda in a good sprint for fourth. We were closing in on 3rd too, only if we had another lap.

Turned out to be a great race. I was happy with my pacing. Happy I didn't fall, and happy to have a solid race for fourth. Race within a race right? Just got to get that front derailleur fixed.

CSI Northampton, Days 1 and 2

2010-11-16T21:42:00.003-05:00

Hey bout time I mentioned these races.

In a nut shell it went down like this:
Day 1: Started on the 5th row (thank you CrossResults points from the last two years) and got to staging just as they called my name... Phew, almost missed it. Some junior next to me on the line, kept babbling on and told me it was a bad time to adjust my tire pressure...dude seriously shut it and take out your notebook.

Because the gun went off and I took my left side line and barely missed a huge pile-up. I broke through the tape and smashed a white pole while avoiding the carnage. I ducked back under the tape and found lots of room before the first chicane again down the left line. And then more room on the left after the chicane on the pavement. Already towards the top 15 through the run-up, and I tried to keep passing through the technical upper-deck. It blows my mind that during the first half lap people won't use the whole course to move up and pass, but just stay in a line through the corners.
As we started making our way around the fast lower deck I somehow managed to make it up to the lead group. I hung at the back there for a while but then managed to move up after a few people, ahem, stacked it in the sand and the group got smaller. Then it got down to four. I found myself at the front, which was were I wanted to be coming in to two more. Then it would be time for someone else to take the lead until I threw down on the last lap.....but sadly that plan went to shit when I dropped my chain right before the ride-up. Could there have been a worse place? This ment I had to stop, put my chain on, run the ride-up and then play chase. I made a solid effort, but couldn't come back from the hole I dug. Fourth was still good, albeit frustrating, and I managed to hold Ryan White at bay.

Sunday was a little more simple.

Third row start, using Saturday's points. Lined up on the left, and moved up to third wheel coming off the pavement past the finish line. Synjen was in front of me and when Austin Pferd/Horse broke away he made no effort to attack, and by the time I tried to cover Austin's move it was too late to catch up. But never the less I spent the next 45 minutes trying. Granted later in the race I was more concerned with Ryan White not catching me again. Pretty much a big TT out there. Yeah, thanks for that Austin. 2nd place: I'll take it...cash money!

Canton Cup Race Report aka It's Slower to BunnyHop Barriers

2010-11-01T20:22:00.003-04:00

Hey I'm just gonna stretch over here before we get staged. Oh what's that...there is no staging...it's classic, "First to the line gets front row."? Awesome... Good news was, there was plenty of pavement so there were only two rows of racers. Bad news was, some fool decided to salmon down to the start with about a minute before the whistle and literally pull in right in front of me. Dude. Seriously? Butttt.....To his credit he did scootch over a bit...a bit.

Any way.

Whistle blows and I try and grab a line on the outside right and move up some places, only to get squeezed in on the second turn.

I quickly settled into a group with some guys I recognized from the MRCC race and felt good about hanging in the middle of this pack.
Now, the saving grace of the Canton course is the three barriers, run-up and bunny-hop log. There's a couple other very short interesting technical sections, but it's mostly an open course. AKA 'Toby's gonna get spanked' course.
So of course I was gonna try and take advantage of the technical sections and do things like bunny-hop the low barriers, and pass people who dismounted to get over the 'log' (branch).
But, the tricky thing about the low barriers was that you could carry plenty of speed into them, but had to make a hard right hand turn directly after them.

Any way. What ever it was, I decided that on the second lap, in the middle of a pack of 10, I would clear the second barrier while landing with my wheel sideways and proceed to eat it into a bush while going ass over teakettle (read endo).

Sooooo that was the end of riding with that group. I kept going...kind of. And it turned out that Matt Mitchell fell on a loose corner and also lost the group. So we rode 'together' for the rest of the race. Him dusting me on the power/open sections, and me feebly regaining ground on the tech stuff...just like last time! And of course the first time I did actually make it up to him, he generously pulled over to let me take a long pull around the running track, only to pass and dust me once we got over the high/fast barriers. Awesome. Glad I agreed to that.

From there I time trialed it in for a 17th/29.

And the morale of the story is that it's only faster to bunnyhop barriers if you don't end up on your ass while doing so. GTK

MRC Race Report

2010-10-23T22:32:00.004-04:00

Hey, we'll it's been a week since the Minuteman Race Club Cross race out in Lancaster. So it might still be a little early for me to put up a race report, but here's a brief summery:

Since I registered day of, I got lucky number 47 and lined up in the back. But there was room to grab a line going up the outside on the right. I put a big move down and ended up near the top ten or so heading into the first turn...yippie! Good start!

It all went by pretty quickly, but I got in with a good line of guys and tried to close down gaps in the technical stuff and suck a wheel during those long open stretches that anhaliate me. I was bumping on the wheel of Matt Mitchell and got a pass in the back tech before the 'litter box'. From there I was feeling solid (aside from the quad twinges) and was pulling away from Mr. Mitchell and realing in Mr. Smith, whom I had a hankering to catch. But then we got about half way in to three to go and things went south. I had no response on the straights and found it harder to accelerate out of the turns.

I can think of a handful of excuses but the short of it is that I had a solid 45 minutes in my legs and then I dropped three places. It was a bit frustrating, but it's still the first cross race I jumped into and we've got more to figure it out in. Still 9th is okay! Yippee.

The End Of Tri Season

2010-09-28T21:41:00.002-04:00

Hey. Tri season's over.

I wrapped things up at Syracuse a week and a half ago, and it was a pretty good cap to the season. Here's a quick recap of that race:

Cold(ish) swim. 62 degrees. I tried to push it hard the whole way but still came out of the water in 33 minutes. Sigh.

The first 11 miles or so of the bike were up hill. Like 1500 feet of climbing to the highest point on of the race. I tried to keep the pace higher than I would normally, knowing that the rest of the course was an elevation loss. I kept the juice on for the rest of the foggy, rainy bike and pulled out a 2:18. Decent for so much early climbing.

I've been fighting some (more) running related injuries, and knew it was gonna hurt on the run. Hence, pushing it an extra notch on the bike. First few miles were downhill and I was going faster than I wanted to. But hey, it was downhill right? Things got tough down about the Applebees, and that part that looked flat when I drove it seemed pitched when I ran it. I suffered through the last few miles, willing myself to run smoothly. I crossed the line in 4:21:30 and hit the med-tent for some saline. Nice.

Despite more injuries perseason than ever. I've had my strongest season of results yet. Three wins, a jug of syrup, a wetsuit, a bike pump, $50 to Wheelworks, a plaque, a trophy, a handful of medals.

Time to lube my rusty Cross chain and get more racing done, yah? Yah.

W Is My New Favorite Letter

2010-08-11T21:22:00.001-04:00

Yes yes, we're a little late here in posting this.
But that doesn't negate my wins baby!

Way back in June I raced the Holliston Lions Triathlon.
The swim was one of the roughest I can remember. For a short little sprint, it was mayham. The pond was shallow with a bunch of reeds and the RD decided to make the swim into an out and back instead of the planned triangle. Standing on the shore it looked like a pretty short 1/4 mile out to the last buoy. The swim times seem to concur. The crazy thing about the out and back was the inevitable head-on with someone crossing the line. Ah the joys and fun.

The bike actually had a bit of elevation change...well you know...for a sprint. Traffic and passing on the three laps of the bike and I worked my way into the lead. That was a cool feeling, looking over the transition area and seeing all the racks empty.

The run started with a steep pitch out of transition and the first four minutes or so were pretty much all up. I guess in hindsight that makes the 6:15 first mile unerstandable, but it still took a couple of miles to smooth into a groove. I looked back during the second mile and could see Mr. McCall not far enough back. I turned it over for the third mile and felt super smooth. Then brought it home and was happy to grab a top podium spot. Yee haa!

The following weekend we were up in VT for the 4th. I ended up awake with the sun and decided to jump into the Saxtons River 5k. The last minute decision helped to negate any prerace jitters and I went out to have some fun. I was gonna try and take it easy for the first half mile or so, but got a little nervous when I saw a couple of guys going out strong from the gun. So I changed course and chased them down. I ran with the leader for a few paces and then decided to see how I could do on the day. Meh, 17:48. Sub six's...I'll take it!

ummm... I so need to finish this, I sooo started it like two weeks ago.

The Falmouth Sprint was on the 18th and it's a great course. Richie Havens' swims are always fun, but kind of funky on distance, and there's usually a current and waves and that made for a fun swim. I actually started to pull away from other swimmers in the second half of the swim, that's a change. The bike has a great sections along the coast with some technical sections that are were a blast to ride. I got the word from a couple of specators that there was one rider ahead of me, but was somewhat disconcerted when I couldn't see him.
Coming out of T2 a volenteer at the transition exit told me I was 45 down. So when I could finally see Mr. Bothelo I was super pleased to have a split of only 25 seconds. I caught him and tried to have a chat, but he wasn't up for it. So asta lasagna I kept on cruising. Results post a run time of 18:12, but my mile parle 5:30, and that makes me happy. I grabbed Bear at the finish at we got in the Falmouth paper and the Cape Cod Times. Nice.

Okay that's if for those three.

Pedal Stroke

2010-07-14T15:01:00.002-04:00

The other day I had a little moment of brilliance while doing some sets on the trainer. I was starting to feel the fatigue and my watts started slipping. As things got tough I thought about a smooth pedal stroke. Instead of thinking about driving my foot straight down like a powerful piston I focused on pulling through the bottom of the stroke. And low and behold my watts started to climb again.

I've done lots of pedal stroke drills before and think I have an acceptably efficient stroke. But it was cool to see it happen right in front of me. Magic!

PSA

2010-06-16T07:55:00.004-04:00

If you've got anything that needs doing the next day. Then I'd recommend staying away from the fried pickle/jalapeno platter at Redbones.

Rev3 Quassy Race Report

2010-06-09T14:36:00.003-04:00

Well the rumors are true. Quassy is hard.

The swim is up hill, the bike is up hill and the run is uphill...oh and T1!

No but seriously.

I was having a good day up until I got out of the water and looked at my watch. I was feeling good and positive in the water. But I'm amazed that when, for some reason, I race a Half I can only seem to do 1:45 per hundred. How's that happen? I was not working that slow. Perhaps it's the sighting, or the people cutting across you?

Any way up the hill to the bike racks. I was pleased that there were still plenty of ponies keeping my steed company.

The advantage to being a crap swimmer and pretty good on the bike is that you're not lonely once you head out on the road. That's probably my favorite part right now; doing my thing, staying in my zone and passing people on the hills. Albeit some times it's a pretty slow overtake. Plus with such a hilly course you got to have little chats. Like when you hear someone say, "This is the last hill right?" on the first hill.

Then I don't know where this one guy came from but he rolled up to a bunch of us on this steep section about mile eight and was yelling at everyone for drafting. "You're drafting! You're drafting! That's so illegal!" Dude, it's the beginning of a race, we all just got slinkied into this hill, we're going 10 mph on an up hill and there's just not a lot of room or need to pass. Just ride your own race.

Eventually things did string out and I was playing a little leap frog with Ryan Whitehead, although truth be told, I was mostly 20 meters behind him unless it got technical. But then he dropped his chain/his bike wouldn't shift and I didn't see him for the rest of the bike.

Sometimes I fear a turn-around on a course because you see where the competition is. But this time it was nice to be able to count the AG's ahead of me and see that some Pros weren't too far up the road.

The long steady hills on a Tri course aren't really such a bother. Generally you're limited by your zone, be it RPE, watts, or BPM, and you know if you go too high you'll pay for it later. But the constant undulation is a harder game to play. Attack the little hills and while you're HR/RPE isn't high you're making watts and lactate. But then it's down the other side and your HR drops off again and your legs turn to bricks.

Very scenic bike course though. With some nice views, farming country and some ripper descents. I think I hit 48 mph coming back into town. YES!

Awesome coming into T2 and only seeing 5 AG bikes racked. But knowing that my run has been hampered this spring my thoughts went immediately to keeping people at bay.
The first couple of miles went as planned, if not better than planed, but they were also down hill. As usual it took a few for my legs to come around off the bike, but they never really matured into zippy fresh run legs.
I had to stop and pee after mile three. First time I've had to do that. I loosely tried to go while running, but it wasn't gonna happen. I'm sure I only lost like 15 seconds, and I got to take my mind of the run while I contemplated the dense shade of my urine. Akin to not hydrated.

From there it was shady and hilly and lonely. At the mile 5.5 turn around a couple of Pro women passed me and then I saw the hounds. This was one of the turn arounds I fear. But what was I to do? I just kept chugging along drenching myself with water at the aid stations and ticking one mile off after the next.

It took until the second turn around at 11.5 for Mr. Whitehead to pass me back and for Frank Sarosdy to over take me. The latter wasn't very friendly post race, the former was really nice, we had a chat.
To add insult to injury the last mile has just a brutal hill and I watched those guys slip away with nothing to respond with. But the good news is that some guy was gaining on me and I kept him at bay! Even though I think he started 3+ min behind me and would overtake me on the results board.

Such a hard day of racing, but good mental conditioning. And relative to the rest of the field and the course it was a good result.

Memphis In May Race Report

2010-06-01T16:17:00.003-04:00

In May, Memphis is hot. Sunny, humid and 90 hot.
Sweating while setting up transition hot.
77.8 degree water hot. Making for an additionally hot swim because it's wetsuit legal.

I roughly calculated my 'wave' or AG to start about 50 minutes after the first AGer at 7:15. With the TT start one person entered the water every 3 seconds. So, lets see; That's 20 a minute. 200 every 10 minutes. My number was in the 1000's, which is 5 sets of 200 right? Or five sets of 10 minutes right?

Well for whatever reason my math didn't pan out and I jumped in with the girls starting in the 1100 block. But not to fear! Since it was an individual, or TT start my time started when my chip hit the mat.

But starting so far back still meant swimming, biking and running past a lot of people.
I didn't find a real sweet rhythm in the water, but still made it out in pretty good order all things considered.

In and out of T1 without trying to sprint my way through.
Oh and as an interesting note. Since we had to start the race from the transition area, the transition area never closed. It was really weird to see people milling about and still tinkering with stuff as athletes were coming out of the water. Additionally when the Pros went off at 10:30, people were still finishing, others hanging about and others taking apart transition set-ups. Very odd.

Once on the bike I had to adjust to using HR and RPE instead of Watts and did my best to find a good mix of pushing the tempo, but not going overboard in the HR department. The course was mainly flat but did have a little undulation. The dozen or so 90 degree turns started to become annoying, especially while having to navigate traffic.

I should have stocked the bike better for the heat, but figured my solo bottle would be enough, and I could refuel at the water stops. But it turns out the RD decided one poorly staffed bottle stop would suffice. Plus, it just came out of the blue. Bam! Water! Bam! Nothing!
Let me just say that, yes I should have loaded up with more water, and yes I should have known where the water stop was. I did know there was only one, but when it came I was surprised that was it. When you have a constant stream of a thousand bikers for two plus hours going at least two abreast, having only one guy to grab a bottle from is not a sufficient water stop on sunny 90 degree day. (As an additional aside, the pros didn't even get a water stop, as Matt Gloekler describes here. Ouch)

So after I grabbed a bottle took a couple sips and poured the rest over me I was rest with the last few oz of drink on my down tube.

Shortly before the 'water stop' I was passed by a guy I pretty much started with by passed while he was fumbling to get his shoes on. He was pushing it on a decline, while I was happy to spin it out at 30 mph for a minute. It gave me something new to watch for a while, as he bobbed and weaved ahead of me doing the 'legal draft' around the slower folk. I did the weave here and there but man, this guy was trying to grab every draft off of everyone he passed.
I did catch back up to him and he was nice enough to give me a sip of his water before I over took him. John Hanna, you're a good guy. Also he saw me after the race and we had a nice chat for a minute.

Once I was out of T2 I was astonished to see a pair of guys wearing MickeyDees kits. Hey that's me behind the golden arches! Looks like that guy should maybe look to Bgood for next year's sponsorship....I'm just saying.

With recent ITB issues in my mind I just plopped along for the first couple miles trying to keep things consistent and hopefully throw down some negative splits. And I'll just tell you right now, that's what happened. It was hot and a 7 min/mile def felt like work. It did feel good to hit the turn around and kick things up. There was carnage all over the course and the med/'cooling' tent was pretty busy.

My 2:06 wasn't record breaking but it's a good way to kick off the season considering the conditions and the previous few weeks.

Rev3 ho!

Pricey Yogurt

2010-04-14T14:29:00.005-04:00

When I first saw siggi's yogurt and it's accompanying $2.50 price tag, my first thought was, "Who would pay $2.50 for a thing of yogurt." Then my second thought was,"Man, I gotta try that yogurt."
But alas my frugality restricted me.

Nevertheless, like the true American that I am, (And Welldini, for that matter) I had a hard time passing by the siggi's on sale in the dairy isle. I think I saved a whole thirty cents but thought of it as research. And as a special treat. And as a reward, for what I'm not sure. But I'm pretty good at coming up with excuses to justify moments of dietary weakness.

But on to the yogurt, or skyr as the Icelandics like to call it.
I didn't realize 'til I got home that the nutrition facts are totally awesome. No fat. Very little sugar, 10 g's. And 16, yes, 16 grams of protein per 6oz cup. Compare that to a Stonyfield Peach with 22g sugar and only 6g protein.

I'm a big proponent of getting protein from natural sources instead of shakes and bars. And this stuff def fits the bill. Granted if you're gonna eat it on a regular basis your food bill has to not be a big concern. But the dollar to gram of protein ratio between Stonyfield and siggi's is about the same.
Also, on the inside of the label Siggi explains that skyr is yogurt with the water strained away, making if dense and equivalent to three cups of 'regular' yogurt.

Plus with yogurt you get Live Cultures. And siggi's Blueberry only has 5 ingredients (plain has three). One of the ingredients being agave nectar and no cane sugar.

The yogurt itself eats more like a mousse than the watery slime we're used to. The down side of so few sugars: it's not sweet. Instead there's a subtle hint of blueberry flavor that's pleasantly lead out by a sharp tang.

It's good stuff and I'd recommend giving it a go. Especially if you've do something worthy of a reward.

Slippery When Wet...And Frozen

2010-03-01T16:12:00.003-05:00

More than a couple of times this winter I've heard people tell me that they don't like to ride outside in the colder months because it's too cold, and the roads are dirty and icy.

I agree that the roads are dirty. And there's a lot of salt out there. But when the roads are dry it's not that bad.

And yes it is cold. No two ways about that. Except to gear up and put in two warmers.

But the icy thing I wasn't buying. We had a good deal of snow in December and January with a pretty eventful February. And sure, right after it snows the roads have snow on them. Even once they're plowed the sides/shoulders are ruddy. But I wouldn't really say icy. Of course there is the occasional spot where tons of snow run off congregates in the road and makes a big icy/snowy patch. But that's rare and so blatant it's easy to spot, to slow down for and to avoid unscathed.

However, as of yesterday I have a new perspective and icy road scenario.

Over the past week with a slew of storms passing over the northeast, outdoor riding has been a non-issue. If it was pouring the roads were soaked. And I can do cold, but not wet, and certainly not cold and wet.
We got a break from the rain on Saturday morning and roads were looking dry, which looked good for my 150 minute spin on Sunday. But alas, sure enough drizzle fell from the heavens and the roads once again turned from light gray to dark.

But ever the optimist, I awoke on Sunday hoping that the partly 30% chance of rain would mean a damp but not sopping tarmac and the possibility of further drying.
And I was in luck. At 7 there was no precipitation and I could see the pavement lightening in spots.

I checked the temp to dress accordingly and took note of the 30 degree temp. Humm, below freezing, I thought to myself. Humm, the roads are sill damp from that rain yesterday. Humm, the roads don't look frozen.
If had been my usually lacidasical self I would have gotten back in bed, snuggled with all the peoples, woken at 10, had some breakie and then gotten on the saddle. But I had a Boog to watch later in the day and wanted to beat any possible incoming rain clouds.

Once on the bike I did the tried and true "break test" (thanks dad!) to check the condition of the roads. All skid and no slide, the roads looked good.
I started out as I usually do on my favorite quite lead road, Cross Lane. I was still taking it easy a little easy on the corners as I was warming up. I crossed 128 and came into a little residential area that frequently has water on the road and felt my bike twitch a little as my tires hit the painted lines of a crosswalk. I should have made note of this and slowed up a bit. But instead, made note of it and kept on going.

Next up is the funky little triangle area where Groce meets Standley. And this is where the shaded corner was covered with ice. It's also the place were I slid onto my hip.
Fortunately I wasn't going very fast, there wasn't any traffic and my warm winter clothes added extra scuff protection. It's been awhile since I've fallen on the road and I was due. Hopefully It'll be awhile before I go down again.
Here's a shot one day after.

Bike's mostly okay. A couple of scrapes on the saddle and the bar tape. And my clothing is mostly okay, again a couple of scrapes. The mount for the powertap broke and short of holding it in my hand there was no way to read it while biking. I had to pop back home to switch chest straps to have some HR for the rest of my ride. Why can't polar and powertap get along?

Experience is the best education yah? Next time I'll have to avoid the side roads when it's wet and frozen.

Treadmills Should Have Spittons

2010-02-17T10:56:00.003-05:00

I wouldn't call it an attractive habit. But it's a fact of life for running and biking. Not a problem when you're outside.
God I'm so used to spitting at will when I'm outside, when I come inside and do a hard treadmill workout I don't know what to do with myself.

What I did end up doing is grabbing some paper towels and dropping some saliva in there every once in a while. Once that got really nasty the bottle holder served as a free target. I was looking for a plastic cup, but there was nothing around.
Just to be clear I did make sure the treadmill got a serious wipe down once I was done. Gross right?

Left Overs

2010-01-21T14:58:00.003-05:00

I think a good rule for leftovers is if you don't remember when you cooked it, you probably shouldn't eat it. Even if it doesn't smell bad.

It should be noted that I did not heed this advice with that chicken I just found in the fridge. Yum.

Train from Nong Khai

2010-01-16T14:19:00.001-05:00

It's a long trip to Bangkok

Winter UP

2010-01-14T16:57:00.003-05:00

So we're stuck here in the Northeast and the time for over indulgence and playing Wii golf has come to an end. Wouldn't it be sweet if you could Wii and bike on your trainer? I tried to Halo and spin once. But my hands got too sweaty to control with any finesse and I got annihilated.

But training in the cold doesn't have to suck. Nor does it mean you have to be stuck staring at your kid sister's poster of KB you're too lazy/obsessed with to take down....I mean that inspiring Tri picture you put up.

Here are a couple of my secrets.

Wind proof. Part of what sucks about winter training is wearing a ton of layers and being all uncomfortable. I got a couple different shirts of varying thickness from Zoot with wind panels on the chest and they're really great for keeping my core warm. Plus they're not bulky like jackets can be.

Also on the run when it's cold a peter heater is key. Need I say more?

And clearly on the bike if you're not blocking the wind you're just asking for trouble. I guess you can keep layering up and you'll stay warm/the wind wont suck all the heat off your body. But you can go lighter when you wind block.

When I bike I don't have super heavy duty insulated booties. But I've found that a couple of warmers on the toes do wonders.

Uh, that's all I got. The pool is still warm...ish.

Any suggestions?

Ice Weasels Bar Cam

2009-12-14T20:51:00.005-05:00

Here's the first lap and a half of the Ice Weasels Commeth avec comentaire.

Race report is here.

I hope to put together a highlight reel of the rest of the race.

Ice Weasels from Toby on Vimeo.

I know I say this every time....but, keep in mind the quality just isn't so hot. Perhaps it's the iMovie? Reminds me of the early days of Colin's seatcam. Clearly something can change. I mean look at the text...even that is blury and that was sooo not blury when it was typed in iMovie. Sigh...

Update:

Maybe my brain with it's pea-sized knowledge of computer processes will think that I can upload the video in youtube and have it look better...ummm nope. But here it is any way

You tell me.

Ice Weassels Race Report

2009-12-13T09:42:00.008-05:00

What a great day for a race! Low thirties, windy and sunny!
Here in MHD we had a lot of rain last week and while I was aware that it snowed in other parts of New England I was still surprised to a see a very snowy course at White Barn Farm.

Did I mention it was cold? I watched the single speeds rip through for a few minutes and decided I had to put more clothes on slash but on my bike gear and warm up.

But what to wear, that to wear. For ski racing I had the formula pretty well figure out; peter heater, long underwear and Uni. And that was usually in 20 degree weather. It wasn't that cold. But usually the cold feels colder when you're biking. Plus it was windy and it wasn't a real high HR course because of all the technical sections. So I was thinking about going with the heavier tights.

But after jumping on a trainer in front of the barn, sweating in the sun and taking stock of what everyone else was wearing (Go peer pressure!) I decided that shorts and leg warmers would be enough for the race. Good call.

Colin heckled me for for having a Clif-Shot taped to my stem Tri style for a 60 minute race in 30 degree weather. (who's laughing now Colin! ha!... [although frozen gel in considerably harder to squeeze out I learned])

I got a Pro tip from Jon Shea to run the field at the start of the race and pass a lot of people. This sounded like a great idea at the time and a great idea when I was standing to the side of the back row at the start. (Plus Colin looked prepared to do the same, peer influence!) But it quickly fizzled into a stupid idea when I realized that there was no way for me to put my bike down in the sugar soft snow and then work into one of the traveling lanes.
...So, I just ran into the traveling lane, put my bike down and had a miserable remount stacking up the field behind me, making friends no doubt. Stupid Triathlete.

Any who it did get me pretty far up the field!

The next lap consisted of trying to pass in the corners and rip past people on the barriers. Pro tip: Bunny-hop the barriers. Wayyyyyyy faster.

When I procrastonated signing up last week I saw that prize money only went 5 deep. [Correction, 8 deep] Sigh. It'll be fun to race though. So, imagine my surprise when I was tailgunning the lead group. I continued to make questionable passes and curse myself for not changing my rear shifter after last race's debacle. I had to hit it again for it to work, and then it'd shift up one gear if I was lucky...so not Pro. I even have an extra shifter. Stupid.

So when I came to the long starting straightaway I barely managed to stay in contact on the first lap, but tagged back in when the group accordioned into the 180 before the descent. Onto the old rail trail and a hard right into the run-up. For being only a five foot run-up it was pretty damn gnarley. It was icy, and you carried a lot of speed coming through the hard 90 right hand turn.

I put a move on a couple people on the remount and the subsequent 180. Dodged a fallen Geekhouse ride and grabbed a wheel into the first of the short barriers. Hopped it and passed two riders there. I caught the tape on the next corner and nearly lost the progress gained on the barrier. Ripped it through the berm and caught up to Kurt Perham on the next barrier (give you a hint...he ran it.) Tailed him into the double barriers and passed him on the remount, boo yah!

Being only the second quick lap of an hour long race I was totally worried that I was giving to much too soon. But didn't feel too anaerobic so kept it going. I did the rest of the second lap wondering whether I was going to get caught and looking over my shoulder.
Then it was time to come back into the barriers and I caught up to Alec Donahue who, you guessed it, was running the barriers.

I followed him for the next couple of laps, but carried enough speed into the barriers that I overtook him without thinking much about the up coming power/straight section.
Actually I thought I could put enough time on him in the barriers and the rest of the technical stuff that he wouldn't be able to catch me down the straights.
And this may have been the case if I didn't wipeout hard after the second barrier. I still got back up in the lead, which kind of gives you an idea of how much time I had gained. But it was a hard fall, and my face was scuffed and my knees and fingertips hurt.

Right as planned I led through the rest of the technical snow stuff and then got dusted by Donahue once it opened up. It wasn't even funny. Four weeks of detraining and a season of long endurance work doesn't make for much of a power producer.
But I manged to bridge back up for the last time on the next set of barriers. I held on for a few laps then overtook Donahue for the last time without being able to put distance between us before the straight.

Then it was game over. I tried to hook back on but couldn't do so quickly enough and resigned to second place.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I did a bit of stupid racing in there. I had no right to pass Donahue the second time and if I was smart I would have just sat behind him until the last lap and then put time on him over the low barriers. Up until that point it would have been him dusting me and me trying to catch back up in the tech section. Alas, twas not to be.

Great course, fun venue and ripper crowd.

Couple pics courtesy of DoubleHop and I'll be hopefully editing up handlebar cam footage soon. There are a couple of good crashes and plenty of bunnyhopping!

Cross Course at Wells House

2009-12-04T15:42:00.004-05:00

So for the past couple years I've been building a little cross loop at my parents' house in VT.

I'm using a base of roads and trails that were built a ages ago (like the driveway, and the main road). Then I'm building in some new single track and trying to work a path through the fields. The hard part about the fields is that they're mowing fields. So the grass isn't super smooth and buttery like a lawn. It's actually really bumpy and slow.

Perhaps if I work out the best line and design for a route, I can till and mow the route with a lawnmower next year to smooth it out.

This is the first round of video from the loop. I started pretty recovered so am going a little too fast to get decent quality.

Since i shot this I've added a nice single track section out on the far side of the run/walk up. And that adds in a lot more dirt road.
I've also got a second set of barriers to put out.
With any luck I'll get some new video tomorrow and post some comments about the loop as I'm going around it.

Wells House Cross Course from Toby on Vimeo.

Post Breaking Crash

2009-11-25T17:24:00.004-05:00

On Monday I went up to Bradley-Palmer and Willowdale to follow up on my assumption that they'd have good cross bike riding.

B-P is mostly carriage trails. Nevertheless it's still great fast riding. Willowdale has it's fair share of jeep/carriage trails but people have worked in a network of singletrack. The majority of which is root and rock free for a clean ride.

So I was rolling along, crushing it. Then I blew into this opening with a skinny sitting to the left. Sure, I can hit that...for about half of it. Then I go dropping to the right and manage to hit the back of my seat and somehow crack my seatpost. Which, is pretty surprising, because i wasn't really going that fast and the fall wasn't really that hard. But you can watch it for yourself.

Again this video is in diminished quality. Is my camera just that bad, or am I uploading it wrong? Any hints?

Seat Post Breaking Crash from Toby on Vimeo.

First Cross Race Bar-Cam Video

2009-11-24T21:32:00.004-05:00

Okay...So, I don't know why the quality is so crappy. I doesn't look this bad in imovie when I'm working on it nor when I watch this video in quicktime. But when I upload my stuff the quality goes from not so great to extra crappy.

Plus this was the first time running the bar-cam, it was twisting around a lot and was really shaky. So the video is really hard to watch. But. If you can stomach it I pass a lot of people and would have moved up farther after the first lap if I didn't stop to mess with my shifter that wasn't (still isn't) working correctly. It works most of the time. Then the ratchets won't catch to shift up and I have to hit the hood and that seems to get 'er going again.

So give it a shot. The first minute or so is fun in all the traffic. After that I don't blame you if you have to turn it off because you feel sick or can't see what's going on...or get annoyed because the camera keeps pointing to the right. (I'm working out the kinks)

Enjoy

Boston Road Club Cross at Shedd Park in Lowell from Toby on Vimeo.

In terms of a race report:

It was great to get back out on a cross course after a long season of Tri training and racing. What a different sport cross is! Fast and hard and intense!

I didn't rush to get a good position at the start so I could a) get good footage b) not stress about getting on the line first and take my time and c) take the pressure off of trying to go balls out for the whole race.

The latter so did not happen and after an exciting huge start and a stacked up first hairpin that spread things out I kept trying to pass people and track down the lead group. It was a mess through the spiral of death and I couldn't be bothered to try and pass anyone on the bitch of a run-up. But I was more than happy to make sketchy passes before and into turns once things flattened out and the descending started.

Towards the end of the first lap I was sitting in the the chase or second "pack" and hoping things would only get better. I suffered through the run-up again, remounted and I tried to shift but found that my STI didn't want to engage despite a liberal amount of encouragement (physical and verbal). So I rode for a short while in single speed mode then said screw it and pulled over to mess with the shifter, cable and rear derailleur. But without any luck. Turns out with a little banging the ratchets catch again and things work okay. Time for a new shifter yah?

So after my little pit stop I was even farther down in the pack, but that just gave me more people to pass. And riding aggressively and passing is definitely awesome fun.

From that point on I don't remember too many more note worthy moments.
I didn't recognize any of my opponents. (Although I did think that I was passing Tommy T at one point, but it was him) I bridged up to and through a couple of packs and was working on a final move when I ran out of course. I cranked it towards the finish and out sprinted a kid I'm pretty sure I was lapping, but didn't have the foresight to push it hard before the last turn in order to be withing striking distance of the other two-man sprint within my field of view.

Neither Crossresults.com nor Bikereg.com seem to have complete results for our race so if anyone in the blogosphere knows where they might be I'd love to see how I did. Thanks.

Squirrel

2009-11-02T11:53:00.003-05:00

I hit a squirrel.

Nothing like coming back from a blog hiatus with such breaking and important news.

I was in the middle of a threshold set starting down a small hill. When a little gray blur popped out of the brush and; Bam, bam. Both wheels. Which makes me think if he wasn't able to move out of the way of the second wheel then he's not likely making it anywhere else soon.

I've wondered for a long time what it would be like to hit a squirrel/chipmunk (they're pretty much the same for all intense and purposes right?) while ridding. And now I know. Just a couple of quick blips under the wheels. No guts, no losing control and ending up in the ditch. It was pretty fricken awesome I must say. If I wasn't in the middle of a set I would have def turned around to survey the carnage.

Poor guy.

What A Great Day

2009-10-05T21:10:00.003-04:00

The weather was brutal on Saturday for my threshold run in the wild and the rain and for the first day of cross racing in Gloucester. The all day ran made for an insanely muddy course. I heard reports from years past that Gloucester can be a grass crit...but I've never raced it so what do I know: That I was bummed to not be duking it out in the mud-fest.

It cleared up on Sunday and the course dried out a lot. I've got some footage of starts and some lap footage I'll try and put up now.

I caught the start of the Elite Woman's and then had to take off for my own training ride...on the roads...sigh. But before I left the house I tracked down a portable radio I got for Christmas a couple of years ago. I swapped out the battery and low and behold the thing works. You konw what that means right?
Sunday afternoon ride in the fall with a radio? That's ride. It was a Pats ride!

Granted the reception kept fading in and out until I started to closer towards Boston, and it was hard to really focus on the game a lot of the time. But I got the jist and could pay attention during my cool down, which coincided with the exciting last couple of minutes of play.

Plus Evelyn was in her first race and did really well. And the day was capped off with a killer roast with veggies.

Boog's First Race from Toby on Vimeo.

Pretty awesome day.

Wednesday Night Cross

2009-09-24T07:41:00.002-04:00

Well, this is a week late, but last Wednesday we headed over to Bradley Palmer for ECV's weekly cross practice.

It was great to pull up and see a strong showing and a wide range of abilities.
The practice loop is a bit small, only a few minutes at best. They manage to put in a couple of technical turns, an off camber section and one forced dismount (barriers).

In typical cross fashion there was a good friendly vibe emanating from the workout.
I think that the general structure to the evening goes like this:

Any time before 5:30, ride laps and get aerobic work or a warm-up done.
Meet up at 5:30 and work on some technical aspect of cross. We worked on a couple of techniques for dismounting and going over barriers. I picked up that last week they worked on starting techniques.
Take a little unorganized break.
Partner up and do some Madisons on a re-routed part of the course. We did 5 Madisons.
Take another unorganized break.
Practice some starts.
Head back to the car in the dusk and try fruitlessly to avoid the EEE mosquitoes.

Explicitly focusing on and discussing skills and drills was a pretty good way to spend a practice and to hone some talent. But it made for a far less aerobic workout than the 'one on, one off' style of the West Hill Wednesday night practice. And arguably when you go 'round and 'round, lap after lap your gonna get sharper at dismounts and sprinting out of corners and elbowing etc without going slow and breaking it down. A mixture of the two perhaps?

On another note thank you to the two people that gave up tubes for me. I showed up completely unprepared and owe a couple of six packs to Tim and the nice lady I madisoned with. Maybe I'll see them at Gloucester.

Autumn

2009-09-15T21:16:00.002-04:00

It's defiantly not summer any more.

Well, clearly.

It's not like I need to announce that in the middle of September.

Labor day has come and gone. Schools are filled back up. Trees are already changing and shedding. And it's getting cold....

It always comes as a surprise to me once September hits. But alas. It's time to dig out the armwarmers and the leg warmers and the long fingered gloves, sigh, and the toe booties and the vests... and I shudder at the thought of having to do a swim bike brick. (10 min T1 with a wardrobe change? I think so.)

But it's the way it goes yah? And it's all in the name of Clearwater baby.

More Music

2009-08-28T17:56:00.001-04:00

Gets ya going,

And this is good too

Timberman Race Report

2009-08-28T16:51:00.005-04:00

Okay. So in retrospect Sunday turned out to be a pretty good day. Overall my goal was achieved; a spot to Clearwater. I had a good bike an as expected swim and I learned a lot on the run.

The water was warm during the swim and in between dodging passed swimmers and tapping toes (Sorry Mr. Schweihs) I started to get toasty. Wet suit stripping is fun but it is always nuts. A quick, but not too quick, transition put me on my bike and a straw sip away from some refreshment.

For such a challenging bike course I had a pretty enjoyable ride. I was worried that the turns at the bottom of every downhill were going to zap away potential speed but managing to stay aero and fast made for fun bike riding. Although I shutter to think what would be if I was another inch closer to the cones on the last turn onto route 11. Also I made it up to 52 mph on hill down on 107...I thought that was pretty good. Yah?

Starting in the 10th wave makes for an interesting disposition on the bike. You're passing tons and tons of people and feel pretty studly. But it makes it that much more difficult to settle into your plan and hold a straight line. If nothing else it abolishes any monotony. But you have absolutely no idea of where anyone in your wave is, and you get held up on the technical sections. But climbing the 'monstah' with all those people and rolling down 106 with a huge line of bikers in front your is pretty cool.

I tried to cool off with and drink a bottle of water at each aid station but realized a little too late that I needed to reload with more liquids. With twenty five minutes to go I choked down my last salt pill with my last squelch of Gatorade. At the top of the final hill I almost asked a guy with two full bottles for a sup of his water. Maybe I should've.

After another quick, but not too quick, T-2 my plan was to keep it reserved for the first couple of miles and maintain consistent splits for the rest. I managed to achieve the former but quickly realized that my legs were in no shape to attain the latter and my times consistently slipped over the last 10 miles. And, by the way, did anyone else have an insanely long mile 6 to 7 split? I can't tell if I just was really slow through the turn around chutes and over the grass or if it was marked wrong.

Despite pulling out my D Game on the run I managed to offer up a 1:30 half. Fortunately the heat repressed everyone and I still can't believe I didn't get passed. I kept waiting for it, especially towards the end.

You ever watch The Biggest Loser when they have the option to eat a whole plate of their favorite food that's sitting in front of them if they just give up? Me either. But those cold cups of Gatorade (not so much the warm ones, each aid station was a crap shoot, dagg) were like a little temptress offering up her goods. "You can go forth unto this heat and land of suffer or stop here under this tree. Take a seat and soak up this cold sweet nectar laid here before you as a gift from Kuahana, watch your compatriots suffer and give unto the relaxation my darling." Must...not...stop...

Dude, I just could not turn my legs over faster. I was all, "Okay I crested that hill, lets get smooth and turn it over on this slight downhill here. That sounds good. Okay...you're doing it, picking it up, high tempo, nice....feeling good...keep it up...uh oh...waiiiiit a sec...that lady's catching back up to me. Crap. Go faster, by any means!!!"

Didn't cramp though! (Thank you salt) Even though I was sure my quad twinges on the bike were going to take me into the hurt box. Lucky...

So any way. I want to give a couple of props to the Works crew for cheering me on and for the post race bevvies. It was great to have a strong showing.
And a big Thank You to the Fam, Sarah and Boog for supporting me through the weekend. Now it's on to the future! Tally Ho!

Bradley-Palmer and Willowdale Recon

2009-08-28T15:21:00.002-04:00

I know, I know. I should be putting up my Timberman post. Sooooon.

I decided to skip the repetition of pounding pavement in MHD and head to one of the nearby trail running locations. A couple of weeks ago a did a jaunt in the rocky disjointed mess of trails known as Lynn Woods. I kind of know my way around there from several outings and still don't really enjoy the place. The maps are insufficient, trails are seldomly marked and tons of unofficial trails add to the mess. But as an alternate opinion some people think that there's some good ridding there. Plus there is a cool 'mural'. On a brief continued note of positivity I might enjoy the place better if I knew the trails more. But I still think the ones I've been on don't flow that well.

'Nuff about Lynn.

In my quest to find some trail running on the north shore I found these two websites. I was leaning towards Manchester because of proximity but decided I wasn't really up to another stop and go Frost workout. Dogdown sounds like a pretty sweet spot. But sounds equally heavy on the guesswork unless you stop in Gloucester for a map. I guess there's nothing wrong with getting on a trail blind and trying one intersection or another. But I find that you end up doing loops, on crappy trails and often have to retrace your steps. Which is fine for an adventure, but not for a workout.

So I pointed towards Willowdale and Bradley-Palmer. They're technically two separate parks but are only separated by a road. They're also connected to Georgetown-Rowley if you're interested.
Any way the ample amount of trails plus maps to follow make this trio appealing.

I got maps at the 'Park Headquarters' in B-P by the Willowdale estate. (There's an outside map box) And then started running on the B-P trails. Which were fair but not very lengthy and inconsistent. Plus they frequently open into fields where the trail just kind of seeps into the grass.
But what's really cool about the area is the obsticals setup for Hunter-Jumper (Cross-Country?). Big fence like obstacles that barricade most of the wide field-trails and dot the open fields. Looks like an awesome place to ride...if you have a horse.

I worked my way up to the Willowdale trials and found them much more enjoyable. I tried to follow most of GAC's 10k directions which I only read once, briefly, and did a pretty good job of running the course. If you try it be heads up around intersection 15. I think this is where the trail turns left and it goes up a semi-washed out jeep trail that's also is intersected by a bandit single-track trail and going right takes you to the edge/end of the park and a dirt road.
Also, up near Marini's field it gets a little screwy. I jumped onto a spot of single track on the left as I came into the field. Which was a ripper of a trail by the way. But presumably the 10k trail goes straight up into the field.

The trails up on the Willowdale section are pretty well marked with the intersection markers. Some have disappeared, but there are some additional markers for the Bay Circuit Trail and others. Most of the trails are on the flat side of thigns, are bridal baths/jeep trails and are smooth. There is also some clean single track here and there. Overall it actually looked like a really excellent location to bring your Cross bike. B-P would also be good to ride through although neither one is particularly technical if you bring your MTB.

That said, I hope to return, explore more and see if there's some tricky stuff nestled in the woods...or bring a horse, that would just be so awesome.

Timberman Footage

2009-08-25T15:06:00.003-04:00

I've got to get a race report up here soon. Tonight perhaps?

Until then I've got some quick footage of my riding out and running of T's 1 and 2.

Timberman Clips from Toby on Vimeo.

My Take On the FINA Suit Ban

2009-08-10T09:18:00.002-04:00

Again, I'm tagging up some not exactly headline news here...
As I'm sure you've heard FINA will ban (well, restrict really) polyurethane swimsuits as of January 1st 2010.

Personally I think it's a great idea. I know technology plays a huge role in many sports. And often times it elevates and improves sports. Sometimes not. But with the advent of the LZR and other suits, world records were getting demolished left and right.

With the exceptions of running and swimming most sports use a tool to create the game. A ball, a bike, a glorified/modified stick (cue, club, pole), a car (?), a pair of skis, a deck of cards...wait... And in most of those sports the technologies are kept in check and check and check to create a somewhat level playing field. And in some cases it's not so clear.

But isn't swimming really a sport that's about how fast a person can move through the water? Although it would be ludicrous and social unacceptable, shouldn't swimmers compete in the nude? Right. Not gonna happen. But if it could then it would really be about how quickly one can do the butterfly, yes no?

Congrats Jarrod

2009-08-10T08:40:00.002-04:00

This isn't exactly late braking news.

Nevertheless, Jarrod Shoemaker put down an absolutely phenomenal run in Hamburg to win his first ITU World Championship Series race.

After staying right in the mix for the swim and being up at the front for the bike Shoemaker put the hammer down after about 3k on the run and just took off from the field.

Watch the full Tri here. Shoemaker takes off at about the 1:32 mark. Highlights are here.

Such a nasty run. Nicely done Jarrod.

RadioShack

2009-07-23T19:13:00.003-04:00

Maybe next year when Lance and Co. are riding for RadioShack they won't have problems like dysfunctional radios? One can only hope.

Chiang Mai Pool Report

2009-07-21T16:21:00.008-04:00

Did I ever tell you about the time that I looked for pools in Chiang Mai, Thailand?

There are actually a bunch of links that list some (most of the) pools around town. Like here, here, here and here. And if you search for pools the most common one that pops up is the Center of the Universe. Presumably because it's the only one that has a link and it seems the most together. It actually looks pretty nice, but it's one of the more expensive ones (200 baht
[$6USD] per entry with out a membership card and is a bit out of downtown...kind of.

But I never made it to the COTU. So I'll talk about the pools that I did find.

As preface I was really surprised at how many pools there were in Chiang Mai. It is a town 150,00, but nevertheless I held my expectations pretty low.

The pool at the 700 year sports complex was the most impressive pool that I saw. The whole complex was built for the SE Asia Games in the early 90's.

Quite a complex too. It has a big stadium, at least one other pitch for soccer, many tennis courts, a shooting range, a race track for remote control cars and two large gymnasiums for volley ball, badminton, basketball and presumably for Takro Lot Huang (just called Takro(?), a game like volley ball played on a badminton net, with the kicking rules or soccer [no hands]) Images for Takro here, here, here and here.

There is also...get this... a VeloDrome!!! No kidding! When I pulled up to its gate I was pretty blow away and pumped. I hoped I could find people who used it and ride some laps on it. But after talking around (and after looking at it's disrepair) it became pretty aparent that the loop isn't used that often. However, Mr. Vogel told me that there was a coach trying to get a kids cycling program together and they might use the Velodrome.

But back to the pool... 50 meter, 8 lane, outdoor pool. A few diving platforms and two springboards. There are also a couple of lanes across the far end of the diving pool if you don't feel like suffering down 50 meters.
In the same building as the pool there are showers etc and a weight room.
If I remember correctly the fee without a membership is 60 baht. I think a year membership is a few hundred baht.
Here are some pics:
Since it's so warm in Chiang Mai most (all?) of the pools are outdoors and generally uncovered. Such a nice change from swimming in a dark dingy box.

The only other 50 meter pool that I found (I think there are others) was at Chaing Mai University. It's in the middle of the campus and is a shorter ride from down town than the 700 year complex. It was pretty quite there the two times I stopped by. You need to get an ID card from the University. That costs 300 baht, and you'll also need a passport photo. I think you can get it made up at the gymnasium (letter F on the campus map). Then I think there is an additional day fee.
Here are a couple pics:
The pool where I actually spent the most time was at the Physical Eduction University. This pool is covered...so it's semi-open air. And that made it really cold. I was there during the 'cool season' and since none of the pools are heated the cool evenings and lack of sunlight on the pool made for some very chilly water. The pool is here(ish). It's between the stadium and the tennis courts and has a kind of dark blue roof.
There are funny signs when you're coming into the pool that say it's for locals and University members only. But everyone was really friendly to me and more than happy to take my 30 baht entrance fee.

I think that this is the largest lap pool with the closet proximity to the old moat surrounded downtown 'touristy' area.
In the same complex as the pool is a stadium with a track around it, tennis courts (not sure they're open to the public), a funky weight room (30 baht), Takro courts, a shooting range, at least one gymnasium, a quarterpipe and features for bikes/skateboards, a nice looking new indoor sports center with treadmills and stuff, outdoor circuit stations, and a road that goes around the stadium that is packed with people jogging and walking in the evenings. It was amazing to see how many people were out exercising.

The pool is 6 lanes and 25 meters. It was never very busy when I was there in the afternoon. I think it's open like 3:30 to 6 or so. Here are some pics:

The next 25 meter pool that I checked with close proximity to DT was at the Maharaja Hospital complex. You can see the pool here. I'm pretty sure that this pool is open most of the year to visitors. But when I was there it was closed because there was some kind of children's competition going on for like a month. It's three lanes and 25 meters. Sorry no pics. It's also kind of hidden away, but with a little searching you can find it. It's at the western end of the hospital area and has tennis courts around it.

Down in the oddly suburban mini-town of ChiangMaiLand is another clean pool with a pretty cheap entry fee (90 baht?...I can't quite remember). But be weary of going here in the afternoon as I found that there are tons of kids and even though there are lane 'lines'/tiles on the bottom of the pool it usually geared towards the lounging crowd.
Here's a pic:
I did check out the pool at the Anodard Hotel. Here is a picture of the pool. As I recall there are some limited swim times. But it is open to non-hotel guests. The one time that I stopped by to check it out it was swamped with people laying on the deck and playing in the water. Doing laps wasn't really an option. Plus it's like an 18 or 20 meter pool.

I did talk to a cyclist who liked to go to the Chaing Mair Lotus (PSK) Hotel and do laps there. Apparently it's a 48 (or so) meter pool on the top of the building. And it often isn't crowded. He also said that it's better than going to the roof top pool at the Orchid (right next door). But, I can't speak to either one.

In writing this entry I discovered Wikimaps which is an excellent tool to find locations and pools in the area. (Look for the blue patches!)
For example, I had a hard time using a street address to find the PongPot pool. But it's easy to find on Wiki.

Also take a look at the three pools at the schools on the eastern end of town, here.
The Lana sports center also has a pool.

Any way. If you're in Chiang Mai and want to keep your feel for the water alive never fear. There are pools aplenty.
If you want to work on your slighting and open water swimming though the options are pretty limited. You could swim at the reservoir here. I've seen Thai's splashing in the water there. but Personal I'd stay away from any open water source. And with so many great pools in town why bother?

Hope this comes in handy to someone out there.

Toby

Music

2009-07-15T14:34:00.002-04:00

Here are a couple of songs that I'm liking right now.

White Rabbits "Percussion Gun" Music Video from White Rabbits on Vimeo.

The latter is kind of a crappy video I admit. But I think the song is kind of catchy.

Old Colony YMCA Race Report

2009-07-13T19:46:00.005-04:00

Old Colony went really well on Sunday. I'll give that part away right now.

But before Sunday came Saturday. And what a day Saturday was. Sunny, 70's, slight breeze. When you're in MHD on such a day there's really only one thing to do right? Exactly; Fill a cooler with snacks and bevvies, go to Devereux, lather up with your arms with an insubstantial amount of sunscreen and then gently move your hands over your chest and forehead thinking that the residual ointment on your hands will actually be affective, fall into a light sleep after ten minutes of 'reading' (skimming words), wake up after an hour, hit the cooler, lounge on the beach blanket, people watch, look at your book and think of reading, cooler some more, talk and laugh, pickup said book-flip to current page-immediately replace book to starting position, wish you had a ball to throw, drinks from the cooler, call it a day at the beach, go home burnt.

Any idea what three hours at the beach, plus sun, less a shirt, less actual application of sunscreen equals? No surprises here huh?

The first sign that my sunburn was kinda bad, well besides from the red and hot skin, was when my HR strap felt like it was made out of burlap. I persevered and made it through my afternoon pickups trying my best to keep the fluids coming hot and heavy.

But wait the pre-race foolishness doesn't stop there! Sarah's had Wilco tickets for like five billion months. I think she camped out for three days to ensure entrance to LeLacheur Park in the mighty Mill City (There really are a lot of mills there. Well, old mill buildings any way. She really didn't camp out. Just pumped to see Wilco.) And the good news is that after Mooseman I changed course and wasn't partaking in RI 70.3, which meant I could make the show.

Pretty excellent show. Plus with all Gen Admin tickets we could nestle through the crowd on the protected ball field to get within lougie distance of Jeff Tweedy. Sarah got pretty excited and nearly fainted like the girl in front of us about five minutes after she and her BF burnt through their doubbie. Truth be told Sarah didn't almost faint but the other girl really did! And when she came to she got really mad (embarrassed) at her BF who preceded to limp her out of the crowd. Snickers and chuckels from surrounding concert goers ensued.

The bummer part was that it rained and Wilco wrapped things up a couple of songs early. The upside was that I got to bed a few minutes earlier. Not much of an upside when you still hit the pillow at midnight...

And then wake up at five! Race time!

First and foremost Sarah was a trooper for coming with me. An early start, plus a soggy Triathon site, no purchasable food and an RD that barked at her would put anyone through the paces.

Registration, number marking, transition, change, warm-up run, wetsuit, warm-up swim (warm water again), national anthem, wait for start, watch 40+ wave start (WTF with that any way? I'm really not sure why they have the arguably slower group go first. I like to think seniority and respect...note: I complained about this last year too) then swim!

Old Colony is a pretty fun course because of all the loops you do. I'm a big fan of courses that are spectator friendly. Not only to give the spectators more cheering time and face time with the loved one buzzing by, but the athletes get more encouragement and 'Hi! This is hard!' time.
Two lap swim, four lap bike and a lap of the run that's a reverse of the bike loop.

I had a tricky time grabbing some toes to swim behind and was only slightly disheartened when a blue capped woman poured by me on lap two. Sigh... Nevertheless not a miserable swim and that equals a good swim! ...wow way to be positive huh?

T1.

Bike. Fast bike. Passing lots of people fast. And passing cars...not as fast...it was busy out there.

Felt really consistent even though on the last lap I started to question the longevity of quads. I kept going fast. And surely I thought to myself that I must be laying down the fastest bike split. So imagine my awe when Mr. McWalters passed by and then promptly pulled in front of me. Awesome. Lo! Do not dispair! With out much surprise he swam faster than me, I caught him on the bike and he thought, "Hey! What the!" when I passed him.
In an effort to dispel my annoyance with Mr McWalters' sitting right in front of me, I stood on my pedals for a ten second stint to pop back in the lead as we came to the 'technical' section of the bike. (Two kind of sharp right hand turns in the last half mile...with lots of traffic i.e. lapped bikers)

I happily stayed front side as we worked into T2. I was looking forward to being the first bike in the racks. But-What the! There were like six bikes/athletes racking in T-ville...looks like my slow swim time had foiled me again. Never fear! My power run will vanquish any evil doers! Lo, if I can hold the curse of the six minute mile at bay.
I passed a couple of athletes in Transition. Boo yah to fast T's!
And had serious concerns that Mr. McWalters was going to jump on my tail, hang tough and possible crush me. Not that I had any evidence to support my fears. I didn't even know the guy. He was just right there as I was went through T2...way to be positive again huh?
Plus I forgot to pull the laces on my Zoot Ultra TT's (again) and was sure that I would get caught in the one second it would take me to stop, bend over and pull the draw strings. I didn't.

Good run. Great first mile in 5:37. Catching people. Passing people. Missing the first water stop. Sucking down a Gu. Missing the second water stop because the water table was on the wrong side of the road and there were tons of bikers and cars and if I tried to cross the road I would have surely gotten hit. (As an aside, I saw the water stop and yelled, "Water!". And they yelled back, "Hey! You're on the wrong side of the road." We were running on the left side of the counterclockwise loop.) No big though. Where was I? Oh, missing water. Running with sticky GU taste in my mouth for another mile. Grabbing water at mile three. Missing the lap button on my watch at the mile marker. More water, more missing the lap button. Looking for water at mile four. Finding that water station three hundred yards from the mile five and the water station there. Sweet. Looking over my shoulder for the first time and seeing some guy not far enough behind me. Picking up my pace for the first time. Being thankful that I was at mile 5.5 when I looked over my shoulder. Running a little scarred for the last mile. Thinking, "man this is a long .2 miles." Running more. Thinking,"Man this is a long .2 miles" again. Not getting passed. Finishing First. yah!
I guess I should note that there was a relay team that crossed the line in front of me. Surely it doesn't count. But I was a little concerned when I was on the bike and saw a runner already on the pavement. That is until I realized it must be a team, because surely there couldn't have been an individual five minutes ahead of me right? There wasn't.

Results are here.
For shwag I scored a great pair of Rudy Project Ekynox SX. (Purely sub par to Oakleys though...) Arguably/sadly? the best race loot yet.
I've bequeathed the shades to Sarah. She's happy.

TDF

2009-07-08T20:36:00.002-04:00

It's now tour time....and party time...

But there's so many god forsaken adds.

Lucky for me I have DVR!!!

Unlucky for me I missed the last twenty K of Monday's stage because it stopped recording after three hours...awesome.

But overall it's making for the pretty pleasurable viewing experience. I'd recommend the upgrade if you can.

That's all.

toby

Tri Tip: Flip Turns

2009-06-22T15:30:00.004-04:00

Now I'm not the best swimmer by far. I learned to swim as a kid, but really started to do lap swimming when I was at Skidmore at took a Swim for Fitness class. I've been progressing slowly but surely and think that one of my mile stones is being able to do flip turns.

Technically they're not the most complicated things in the world. But I think that they require a certain level of comfort with the water. For Triathletes with non-swimming backgrounds, being able to swim without the constant fear of drowning can be a large hurdle. The more relaxed you can be in the water the more you can focus on technique and expending energy in the form of propulsion.

Consistency helps a lot with comfort in the water. As well as just experience and repetition. Eventually you'll start to figure out how to move in and through the water and swimming might even start to feel good. (I'm almost there!)

When I first started to try flip turns I was primarily hampered by a lack of oxygen, which led to freaking out and total disintegration of comfort.

I've figured out that the breathing through the flip was difficult because it was inconstant with how I was breathing when I would do a non-flip turn. In the latter I would take my last stroke, then grab the edge of the pool with my approaching hand, take a breath, pull my legs towards the edge, duck my head/upper body back into the water and push off into my streamline. I would never have to worry about my breath in the last few strokes before the turn because I would always get to breathe during the about-face.

But when doing a flip you obviously can't breath while in the middle of your somersault.
And if you add up the time in the last couple of strokes before the flip,during the flip and in the streamline before your first stoke it seems to be way longer than the time between three stokes (if you're bi-lateral breathing...and you should be). I've never actually clocked the aforementioned amount of time. But I've struggled enough to know that if I don't think about taking a breath before I come into a flip my streamline is going to be pretty short and I'll be burning for air.

So. How to remedy the first problem of flip turns? Well, the solution that I've come up with is to make sure that I take a breath after I pass the flags at the end of the pool. Usually I'll see the flags on a stoke and then take two, sometimes three, more strokes, breathe and will have enough O2 until I come out the other side of the flip. Play with it and see if that helps.

Now hopefully if you're a little more comfortable with the breathing aspect of flip turns then the actual execution won't be that difficult.
For me I took five or ten minutes during a couple of practices to mess around in the shallow end to see if I could make my flips work. This is what I would suggest doing:

Walk out from the wall ten feet or so, enough to allow for a few strokes. Turn around. Push forward with your feet to generate some momentum and then take a few strokes. When you get just past the T, where the stripe in the tile ends, keep your recovering hand (the one moving forward to take the next stroke) out in front of you, and press down with your head then chest as if executing a somersault. Focus on looking up towards the ceiling and the lights, as this will help you rotate. And when you flip upside down breath out through your nose and mouth. The latter will keep the water out and the comfort in. Once you've completed your somersault stop there. Just try that a few times to get a feeling for moving forward and flipping. Make sure that you recover enough between each try so that searching for oxygen isn't an issue while you're figuring out the movements.
Now as for that part about keeping a hand out in front of you: I like to keep one or both hands out in front of me as I think it helps to give me something to pull against and assist my flip. I'm sure it's not Pro and others will argue against it. But it really helped me to rotate around and has now started to dissipate as I'm more comfortable with my flip turns.

Once you've tried just somersaulting a few times your next step is pushing off the wall. The T on the floor gives you an indicator that the wall is approaching and about when you need to flip. I usually find my self going just past the T and flipping with my legs pretty bent for a good push off the wall. Often times my outstretched hand could be in contact with the wall when I start to flip. But err on the side of caution allowing for a bit more room, especially if you're afraid of bonking your heals.

Flip keeping your feet about shoulder width and your knees fairly bent. When you're about upside down, push off the wall and engage a twist to right your self out. You're going to use the stability of the wall to help you rotate your twist. Twisting without the wall is possible but a tougher. Also, you'll probably find that you prefer twisting to one side or the other, but try both to see which works.
Again, while flipping think about looking for the lights on the ceiling as you're pressing your chest and head forwards at the start of the flip. And while you're flipping make sure to breath out for the duration of the flip.

Work through it a few times and it'll come. I'm sure of it. Plus when you're cruising and land a really quick tight flip it's an awesome feeling.

Awesome...

2009-06-18T08:08:00.001-04:00

Today

Chance
Rain
Hi 60 °F

Tonight

Rain

Lo 57 °F

Friday

Rain
Likely
Hi 64 °F

Friday
Night

Slight Chc
Rain
Lo 59 °F

Saturday

Chance
Rain
Hi 64 °F

Saturday
Night

Chance
Rain
Lo 59 °F

Sunday

Chance
Rain
Hi 67 °F

Sunday
Night

Chance
Rain
Lo 58 °F

Monday

Chance
Rain
Hi 70 °F

Riding With Headphones

2009-06-15T21:14:00.003-04:00

....Or earbuds. Because rocking these while riding would just be silly. Although the acoustics would be boss.

So here's my stance.

Ride with them. Rock your favorite tunes, turn it up, play it loud, get pumped and have an amped workout. ...But ride safe.
For the most part when I'm riding I'm going straight forward hugging the side of the road. If a car's gonna hit me it's gonna happen because someone's not paying attention not because I'm being a hazard (i.e. riding in the middle of the road). And if they're coming from behind me it's not gonna make much of a difference if I can hear them or not.

However, I think that if you have a tendency to meander around the road or aren't very comfortable on your mighty stead then take heed and stow the buds for a couple of weeks or for the empty road through the countryside.

The best thing that I can say about riding with earbuds is that it almost makes me a safer rider when maneuvering around potholes, manhole covers etc. Wait, wait. Because I've noticed that I look behind me for cars way more often when wearing buds as opposed to not wearing them. And I know, it's because I can't hear the cars behind me, but it's really good practice to force yourself to look back when you're gonna stray from the edge of the road. Think about that.

So in my humble opinion of you're comfortable on your bike and are going to be doing your thing, riding strong on the edge of the road, then rock the tunes. Listening for cars is fine. But more often than not what are you really listening for? I can definitely hear car horns through my buds (even though they have excellent sound attenuation).

So thoughts comments? I have a hard time believing that everyone is going to think like me on this one.

See...

2009-06-15T18:42:00.003-04:00

Remember last summer when I wrote a little note about eating snickers and cokes while you're ridding. Well Chris Horner and Co. do it too:

Click here. (I tried to embed it, but it played automatically and that was really annoying.)

Not that everything good for the goose is always good for the gander, but next time you'll think twice before scoffing at my mid ride Lays.

Training Tool

2009-06-15T15:22:00.003-04:00

It's inevitable that training's gonna get boring some times. Even when you try and keep it fresh and fun and different...it's gonna happen. Music helps. But sometimes you've over played that "Push It Hard" playlist or can't handle another lap of that Boom Boom Pow.

What's an athlete to do?

Especially when I have an OD to do I've found that podcasts are the way to go. Sometimes thought provoking, frequently funny, occasionally sleepy (try and skip the latter), but they always seem to help the hours slip away.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

Radiolab has great topics and hosts mixed with an impressive medley of sound effects. They cover some pretty cool stuff so exercising or not check them out.

This American Life is a new standard. They've covered a lot of ground and have been around for a few years. Occasionally it's hit of miss, but usually Ira keeps you engaged.

The only other podcast that I listen to with any regularity is Wait Wait Don't Tell Me the weekly NPR news quiz show. Keeps you up to date with the week's news (kind of) but it's mainly good for some laughs.

Now as a disclaimer I don't recommended listening to any of the aforementioned shows while doing any kind of hard exercise (listen to something that'll keep you rocking), if you're trying to listen to beeps from your watch/computer/cylcolmeter (for intervals, zones etc) or if you're doing exercise that requires counting (such as laps, repeats etc).
I should probably say that you shouldn't listen to your headphones while ridding but I don't subscribe to that line of thought, but that's for another post.

Also, if you have any favorite podcasts please fill me in. Thanks.

Easton Parts

2009-06-12T15:19:00.003-04:00

Hey crew.

I'm pretty confident that the half dozen people that check into this site have complete bikes and don't need new parts or don't have bikes and don't need new parts.
But I'm gonna throw this out there just the same.

I have a seatpost and a fork that need a new home.

The seatpost is a new "in box" (it's actually a bag, nevertheless it hasn't been opened), Easton EC70, 31.6mm diameter, 350 mm length. It's good for MTB or road, is wicked light at 215 grams. Plus Easton's CNT's will keep your cottontail more cushed than that aluminum post your curently ridding.

The fork is an Easton EC90 SLX 700 cc. It's lightly used, never crashed and shows nary a wear. It's touted as one of the lightest forks available, with a weight in under 325 grams. It's got a 1 1/8" steerer tube (standard on most road bikes). Looks sick in slick black. Retails for over $400. I belive the steerer is cut, but there's still ten inches left.

Prices are negotioable for both. I'm asking 90 for the seatpost and 190 for the Fork.

Drop a line if you're at all interested tobyworks@gmail.com.

thanks

toby

Mooseman Race Report

2009-06-09T09:51:00.003-04:00

Well in a sentence I put together a good race on Sunday. I set a new PR, didn't cramp, didn't blow up, beat my goal time, drafted for most of the swim, had a negative bike split, didn't get caught on the run (Tim Snow doesn't really count: I had just passed him on the bike...plus he's just a running machine.) didn't have any GI issues....pretty good day all around.

On to race details.
Transition set-up was uneventful. I noticed that I would be dodging a tree conveniently located in the middle of our lane. I grumbled at the guy next to me who put his stuff on the right side of his bike and was crowding me, but it's the way it goes and no harm done. (I think the SuperSprint in Melbroune is the only race that I can remember where they MADE you put your transition gear to the left of your bike.)

I didn't heed the opinion of the other Triathletes staying at our "Inn" (Aka ugly blocky house with a couple of rooms to rent out). They were suggesting that Newfound lake was warm enough not to wear a neoprene swim cap. I think they just didn't have one and so were talking them selves into it.
Ever the weenie when it comes to being cold I opted to wear mine the the ~60 degree water. After five minutes or so of battle-swimming I thought I might be on the quick track to overheating...but 60 degrees? That's cold right? Felt cold. Didn't overheat.

The rest of my swim was concerned with trying to find some toes to follow. Craig suggested that whenever someone was starting to swim past me I swim right next to them. You know. Catch a draft. Which I understand when you're behind them. But aprarently there's a draft when you're next to them. But all I seemed to catch was a hand in the face or a palm full of neoprenene. I gotta work on this technique.
Spending all my time trying to look for toes around me made the swim wizz by. An awesome contrast to getting to the first big buoy and looking at your watch then thinking, "Oh man this is gonna take forever."

Upon emerging from the water I felt small twinges of cramps emerging in my legs and thought I was in for a gruesome slog of a ride run brick. I mean who has leg cramps after half an hour of swimming?
The wetsuit stripping was a bit of a mess. I had a hand full of swim caps and goggles that I was trying to pull through the arm my Zenith. But the kids manning the stripping station did a good job of pull off the arms and legs of my suit. Thanks!

After donning the glasses and lid I grabbed my velo and weaved past transitioners and the Tree that inconviently happened to be flanked by some bloke that had an unluckly number placing him tree side. I adeptly threaded that needle and cross-hopped on my pony up up and away.

It's always exciting passing people. And it's always exciting going fast. But holding back is the name of the game. So after leapfrogging a fast swimming 35+ Quebequoiser for way longer than I wanted (15 minutes or so) I settled into my HR and a groove.
When I started to pull up to Kropelnicki and a close following Pat Wheeler I was a bit concerned I was hitting it too hard. I know what Jesse can do but I was right on plan and so kept trucking along.
Oh and then I pulled up to Tim Snow about a lap later and was just hoping that he was dogging the bike to throw down a nasty run. (He was)

The death of my HRM last week led me to borrow my sister's watch which does pulse and overall time but no splits. Making the third leg not only a run but a math test as I tried to calculate my pace.
Tim and I had a chat as he stolled by. He told me to watch out for the carnage ahead and to keep steady.

After mile two I started to settle into a managable pace. The three turn arounds are great for checking out where the competition sits. It's a bit tough to know who's who on the second lap, but it gives you someting to keep your mind busy.

I was happy to post a new PR and happy to smash my goal time. I'll be even happier if I have another great day on August 23rd.

The Old Stomping Grounds.

2009-06-01T17:51:00.004-04:00

It only took four years but now I know the where to bike around Saratoga. There's actually a lot of it and I'm sure there's still more to explore. But the roads up around the springs are pretty awesome and picturesque. To the east of town are rolling hills through working dairy farms (I must have held my breath through at least five on Saturday), horse farms (mostly for racing I think), around the lake, past the Historical Park (which has a fun one way loop bt-dubs), the boathouse (I showed up there for 5:30's Freshman year and have the grades to show it). North and west of town are some hillier rides but some nice sights: the T House, a 55+ mph hill, ...wait two actually, and if you go up over the latter there's nice ridding around Sacandaga, and there's a ripper climb to Lake Desolation,
But Saturday I rode down by the lake and my favorite stretch of pretty road. In prep for Mooseman I was reacquainting myself to the aero helmet and gave the locals something to gawk at.

Off the bike I bricked it around town. There's actually a decent amount of running through the streets and on a few trails in the Spa Park. The springs are pretty ill, but are worth a taste. Naturally effervescent but best avoided on a run.

For quieter, softer and longer running there is an awesome network of trails behind the Skidmore Stables. Technically maintained by mountain bikers they're awesome to run on. You can connect to them through the trails at North Woods on Skidmore's campus, but it's a little tricky and you'll have to run the powerline trail to get to the network. The North Woods trails are also decent and there's some single track but you'll start to reloop before too long.

For more hiking/running there are some trails in and around Moreau State Park. But the trials aren't...or weren't...well maintained nor well marked, so bon chance. Plus they're on a ridge and steep. There's also supposed to an old quarry for swimming in that area, but I never found it.

Skidmore has the only lap pool that I know of and it's decent. But you could open water swim in Saratoga Lake, in a small part of Moreau Lake. That's all I know of.

So if you're in Spa City and are looking for a spot I hope this helps.

Toby

Oh It's Just So Funny

2009-05-18T20:10:00.003-04:00

I'm sure like a bajillion people have this little number embedded in their blogs somewhere. But it's just too good.

Not to mention that Clif is one of my and WW-MS's sponsors. And they have some of the best tasting energy nutrition out there. Try the Maple Nut, Iced Gingerbread and the White Chocolate Macademia. Kimmy says the last one is just like eating a cookie and she really like the Cool Mint
Chocolate. (Banana Nut Bread and Oatmeal Raisin Walnut are also good) Humm kind of a nut theme huh?

IM AUS

2009-05-18T16:42:00.006-04:00

Here are a couple of shots from IM Aus.

Hughie having a good ol' time.

Paddie the American quasi-Aussie bloke.

Note the big ass tube of Vegemite. Gross.

Hughie in the hurt box.

Hughie on the seawall.

Spectating at the hill.

Swim start.

Training Weekend

2009-05-18T15:11:00.009-04:00

Well it was another good training weekend. I guess this is only my fifth year on the team and third training weekend. Missed one year to Asia and I'm not too sorry about that because apparently the lodgings were unheated cabins at it rained all weekend. But, on the bright side every year from now on you'll get to hear people complain about what a miserable weekend it was!

I was lucky to catch a ride up in Sherman's '98 2-door Civic. Only 52k. Tape deck. (And tapes) Crank windows. 5 speed. And a bike rack of the same vintage. Except in those pictures you'll see two straps coming down from the top and one attaching bellow the bumper. Sherman didn't have the latter. Well, he might have had it, but it sure wasn't working. After being the bologna in a three bike sandwich I'm amazed that my new P3 didn't come away with more paint missing. And yes, more, not some paint missing. More paint missing.

We grabbed Matt and his two tons of cargo; Temperpidic pillow, ab wheel, yoga mat, foam roller, three bags of clothes etc. And then we were on the road.
Sherman has a bum ITB so Matt and I drove. I on the way up, Matt back. Which was actually a good thing because we got to avoid Sherman's self proclaimed NASCAR inspired Caracasian bred driving style. It's surprisingly aggressive for such a venerable gentleman. (Is that still being ageist Sherman?)

It was so nice to have company and conversation for the three hour drive. We managed to cover a lot of topics; chiefly ageism and gender gaps as well as the efficiency of our carpooling. Sherman was touting our minimized carbon output and ever the Wells I was touting the minimized monetary output.

Once we got to Echo Lake Sherman and Matt had planed to met Sunny, Tom, Jen, and Beth for a 5:30 swim. Unfortunately it was my day off an so couldn't join them in their 50 degree paddle. Sherman got a few minutes in before the rest of the crew pulled up and all tolled logged an impressive 3o minutes in the water.

The Franconia Inn served as our base camp again. It's very cozy and hospitable. We got an all you can eat breakfast both mornings and an impressive (although way too long) 4 course meal on Saturday night. Heated pool, hot tub, real fire place, bar, comfy rooms, big porch, there's even a bike shop on the premesis.

On Saturday we mounted up and headed for the four notches. Of the 5000' of climbing we did the Cank is by far the longest climb. A short part of Crawford is probablly the steepest and coming down from Kinsman is the sharpest drop. This year I only topped out at just under 51 mph. A strong headwind and the P3 kept me from the 58 I hit last year.
It was breezy all day on Saturday but once we got over Crawford there was an amzing tailwind down 302 to route 3 and then on 3 for a while. However the last uphill section of 3 was blessed with a substantial headwind. Enough to almost stop me as I was grinding out of the saddle at a moderate grade.
I passed the girls doing 68 miles shortly before they had a crash resulting in this:

It actually looks worse than it is. Sara's face was pretty scraped up but it's pretty much just soft tissue damage. No stitches even! Read her report here.

After passing that crew I realized I didn't take the shorter way home then went by Echo Lake, crossed 93 and got blown sideways, dropped 800 feet in two miles (part of it at 11%+), got blown sideways at 45 mph+ (my speed quickly diminished after said gust) and made it back to the inn and my burrito. Kim had some and then went for a jog. Tough choice on that one Kimmy, but good on ya.

This year Sunday was a bit mellow. I think spirits were hampered by some morning rain. I had planned to brave Echo but couldn't be bothered. Instead I did a ballistic run around Wells rd (aptly named I might say) into Franconia and back to the Inn.

On the way home Matt displayed his ability to eat and drive and I made it back to M-Head in time to do some laps, eat a delicious dinner and watch the Celtics not even show up to Game 7. Seriously guys not you too? Two game 7 losses in a week at home in Boston is too much. What's Bean Town to do? Cheer for the Revs? They're not even doing that well....yet. Oh yeah...right.

Walden's Still Pretty Cold

2009-05-08T17:33:00.001-04:00

But bearable!

I had a really great swim there yesterday. I took my new Zoot Synergy wetsuit out for a spin. What I love about the Synergy and the Zenith is how stretchy and flexible the neoprene is. It allows for a ton of movement in the shoulders but what's even better is that it makes them easier to put on.
You can grab a whole bunch of rubber and pull it up the leg. By far the easiest suits I've ever put on.
Since it was drizzling and gray and pretty cool yesterday I put my suit on while sitting in the comfort of my dry front seat. Well, I got the bottom third of my suit on. After that it was a little hard to maneuver.

Putting your face below the surface is by far the worst part of swimming in water that's optimistically in the high 50's. Feet, not so bad. Hands naw. Face...oh man you just gotta do it.
And once you get in you just have to go. Blaze through the cold and after a couple minutes you'll be alright.
Of course I don't think I'd be talking with so much confidence if I didn't have my Zoot neoprene cap. I picked mine up at Wheelworks for Mooseman last year. And it's become pretty invaluable. They look totally goofy and old school. But it's amazing how well it seems to work. Of course I don't know how cold it would feel if I wasn't wearing it.

I also swam at Walden last Saturday and there was a Tri club of 12 or so doing some open water race drills. For the brief couple of minutes I was on the beach I saw them run/swim to a few friends standing chest deep in the water and then run back out. Practicing starts and exits I suppose?
When I was getting out I saw they had formed two sides of a lane/gauntlet into which a couple of swimmers would enter. As they swam through they jovialy got spalshed, batted and pushed around. Practicing starts and triathlon commotion I suppose?

As a final note: The second hardest thing about swimming in such cool water is getting out. There's an amazing amount of dizziness. Cold water in the inner ear I suppose? It's fun/scarry.

PSA

2009-05-04T14:26:00.000-04:00

Don't walk for long distances in your bike shoes avec cleats.

Burnt Out

2009-05-03T09:16:00.000-04:00

Back in February Victoria Australia was hit with devastating bushfires.

The fires were long gone when I took a ride up into the recently ravaged hills. But the damage was ever present when I rolled up. Pretty tragic too. Aprently the worst natural disaster in Aussie history. (Or something like that. That might not be entirely true.)

Here are some Shots of it.Here is a little bit of new growth showing through.
You can find some good deals out there now. It's a pretty tragic.

My Crank Fell Off...Again...

2009-05-03T07:52:00.000-04:00

...And now it's broken. 63 miles into my 80 mile ride yesterday my left crank just popped off.

Now, the last three times that it came off it was more of a slow wobble and I noticed it before it was dangling from my cleat. Not yesterday.
It just seemed to drop off. It probably was getting a little wiggly and I didn't notice, but it happened much quicker this time.
I'm guessing this is because the threads are worn off. Which means the left crank won't attach to the 'drive spindle'. (These are SRAM Red cranks...sigh)

The last three times this happened I saw that my tool had a large 10 mil Allen key. But was pretty disappointed that it didn't have an 8 mil. I mean what's up with that?
But since then I've discovered that if you take off the big 10 mil part there's an 8 mil hidden beneath it! Genius! Well, kind of.
So, yesterday, I was pretty jazzed about whipping out my 8 mil, tossing the cranking on and being on my merry way.

But when I pushed the crank snug and started tightening the nut it kept turning and turning and turning. At first I thought the nut wasn't catching and tried to firm the crank down on the spindle. But then I realized that the nut would get a bit tight and then slip. Over and over again. Sure sign that something in there was stripped.
I hoped the problem was some junk in the spindle so I wiped my pinky inside to check. But besides from a little bit of grease the only thing I found was a coil of the treading that come out around my finger. Not a good sign.
After that I tried standing on the crank to get some of the deeper threads to catch. No such luck.
It was becoming aparent that this crank was jacked.

Being out in Stow, calling someone to come get me wasn't really an option. So I resigned myself to single right leg drills on the flats/downs and walking the ups until I could find a busy road and hitch back towards Walden and the High School.

I did make it to 117 without too much trouble. Albiet a lot of cursing. And I did catch a ride with a very talkative 20 something carpenter named Branden without too much waiting. Thanks Branden. But my ride only got me to nine acre crossing. Alas, I had some more single leg peddling and walking ahead of me.
When I was walking I tried to thumb a ride the rest of the way. One nice guy stopped but he had an SUV with two kids and little room in the back, plus he wasn't really going my way. Other than that nothing doing.

But I did finally make it back to my car and I like to think that my right leg has a better pedal stroke because of the whole ordeal. Silver lining?

The other good news...well kind of...wait it's not good news at all it's just convient. Is that I have to disasemble my BMC because the BB shell is coming loose from the carbon. Then the frame has to go back to BMC and with any luck I'll be getting a freshie. So, at the same time my crank set can head back to SRAM with similar results...with any luck...
Guess I'll be riding the cross bike avec slicks for a few. Boo Yah.

F1

2009-05-01T16:22:00.000-04:00

I went to the Formula One race while I was in Melbourne. The cars are very very cool. Technologically impressive. The wings, the down force, the KERS, the Redbull nose, the noise.

Unlike the American Lemans series that Jesse and I checked out at Lime Rock Park there's no way I (or any spectator really) was getting any where near these cars. Did get to check out some other cars that would race periodically between or before the F1 cars would practice. Still cool, but not of the same caliber.The bummer thing about watching car racing is that you stand in one spot and watch cars do the same thing around the same corner of track. Pretty much all the cars go through the corner in the same fasion so after half an hour the excitment wains. Plus they're going so fricken fast your head tic tocs back and forth worse than a tennis match. They're really loud.

But still really cool

Mechanincs and Rain

2009-05-01T16:12:00.000-04:00

There's no better feeling then getting on a bike that's just come back from the shop and is working smoothly. No noise. No skipping chain. No slow shifts. Breaks recoil correctly. Ahh it just feels suburb. So thanks Daq and Kevin for smoothing things out this past weekend for me.

On a more somber note. Riding in the rain is the worst. I can think of few thinks that are as uncomfortable as riding in the rain. Perhaps canoeing in the rain edges out riding (But it has to be a cold rain. Biking in a warm rain is still little fun.) Swimming in the rain is good. Running in the rain is good. Fishing in the rain is good. Planting veggies in the rain is fine. Biking in the rain....not so fine. So, that's how I feel about that. Plus it is inevitable that the day after you clean your bike or put on a new chain you're going to get rained on....and everything will be wicked dirty again. Sigh...

On a more positive note. I stopped by the October bikes 'factory' yesterday. Wicked cool. Andrew has a sweet little setup some very cool machining tools. Plus he's got his factory team riding in some pretty kits.

Perspective

2009-04-27T20:22:00.000-04:00

So the same guy that talked up the 7 sisters trail race, told me what an amazing race it is, and how it's a must do, is the same guy that talked me out of it yesterday morning.
Of course he has actually done the race.
And I'm glad I've talked to him. His major point is that it's a brutal race and that the recovery time is lengthy.
Generally I think I'm not susceptible to repercussions of serious physical challenges and I like to downplay the severity of the challenge. Which is pretty silly.
So, for now I'm gonna prep and focus on the challenges of Half Ironman's.

Later I'll focus on hill races. Sooooon...

My Favorite Trail

2009-04-23T22:13:00.000-04:00

I'm gonna race 7 sisters trail race next week. I'm been trying to do some plyos and eccentric work so that I don't annihilate my legs. The locales of my travels did present the opportunity to do any good trail nor hill running.

Until now!!!
Boo yah

I hit up Blue Hills yesterday. The Skyline trail is a ripper of a trail and I would recommend it to any one who is ever near Milton. Probably one of my favorite trails of all time. It could do with a little more gentle inclines. It's surprisingly up and down. But some amazing sections and really good views of the city and the south shore.

Hughie and I once ran the whole kit in one shot. Epic run. Started raining for the last quarter. Needless to say the DOMS got the better of us for a couple days after that one.

The trails in the Fells can get pretty sweet and aren't as aggresive if you're looking for some great running around the Bean. Particularly if you hit the sections east of Woodland Rd.

Nice

Jet Lagged

2009-04-17T16:42:00.000-04:00

Ugh,

My heart rate:RPE ratio during my run this morning was unusually high. This means one of two things. I feel super great and I can sustain a higher workload and feel good during it. Or I'm exhausted and need to push a higher heart rate to do the same amount of work.

I'm puttin my money on the latter.

I didn't sleep much on the 16 hour flight from Hong Kong to NYC. Plus I'm on a different time zone, didn't sleep much when I was in BKK on my one day layover from the Melbs. Did the classic wake up at 3 in the morning bright eyed and ready to go.

Dispite the cool(er) weather it's great to be back though

toby

Shipping Up To Boston

2009-04-13T19:41:00.000-04:00

Alas!

In five hours I'll be boarding my flight out of BKK in persuit of the Nordic hinterlands of the northeast. For the record it's 85 sunny and humid out right now. Nor have I seen a thermometer reading below 60 for the past 3 months. Feel sorry for me yet? I didn't think so.

I'm gonna have some back blogging to do. Like a race report for the St. Kilda Gatordae sprint race I did in the Melbs. And for the cheering I did at IM Australia. And for he double metric century I did through the bushfire ravaged hills of Victoria. And I have to tell about my crank falling off twice in one ride that coincieded with 3 puctures, only two patches, a hitchike to town, a new patchkit, a few more K's, rain, another hitchhike to another town and more rain. And I tried Bikram yoga. It's hot and sweaty and for whatever reason this outfit thought it wise to carpet the floor of their studio. It was like working out in a moldy sauna. Sweet.

Soon. Sooooooon. I'll get to those posts soooon.

I'm gonna grab a last couple of bites of delicious Thai caloric loving!

toby

Trat

2009-03-11T09:37:00.000-04:00

I'm in Trat, Thailand and it's nice.

Yesterday I cranked out 70k's in the evening after I arrived and was treated to a downpour while I was on the bike. It was so nice and cool. I saw a rainbow too.

It's rather warm during the day. There is a breeze throughout the afternoon and today it showered again cooling things off a tad. My room is only 100 Bhat a night. Killer. And there are street stalls with Fried. Killer.

I made it to a waterfall and had a swim today. Nice way to break-up the ride. But the pools had like tons of fish in them. They were harmless, but very weird to feel a fish pump up to you while swimming. I think creepy is the word.
I also found out that my sun-screen is not water-proof and have the sun burn on my arms to prove it. Sweet.

I tried to take a glamour shot of my bike at the waterfall but the picture isn't that well focused. Still kind of cute though right?

Just One Of Those Days

2009-03-06T02:58:00.001-05:00

It was just one of those days were you get on the bike and think...."Oh this is just so not happening today."
You know: legs felt totally flat from the beginning.
Maybe it was the plyos that I stepped up a notch last night.
Maybe it was that one beer I had. (Yes, big bottle...)
Maybe it was not enough water throughout the day yesterday.
Maybe it was the "Fried Noodle" that was mostly veggies and sauce. (I got two orders of it)
Maybe it was the hours and hours of biking I've already done this week starting to build up.

Whatever it was, I willed my way through it in an effort to see how much of a century I could choke down. After the 15k, 20 minute decent (which was preceded by a 15k 60 minute climb [did I mention these already? hum]) a Pepsi and a ten minute break my legs felt okay going back up the other side. (15k, 60 min)

But then my left cleat started making some seriously strong clicking sound. It's done this a couple of time since I washed my shoes the other day. No big, I stopped and whacked my shoe on the pavement a couple of times and off I went.

But then I was getting into the decent (15k, 20 min) and i felt this quick sting on my left calf and heard some kind of sharp noise (I've been ridding listening to the pizzle, so I didn't hear quite what it was). But it didn't feel or sound good. I thought, "What the hell was that." I slowed, pulled over, and after a few seconds realized that my rear tire was getting soft. No big, I'll just swap the tube and pump it up using my handy little Toffeli pump. (My CO2 cartridges were confiscated by the Hong Kong Security Admin. thank you Hong Kong [note that JFK didn't find/take the CO2]) I've only used this pump like once because I'm a big fan of the CO2 and there's a reason I don't use this little guy. It takes like a gajillion pumps, gets wicked hot and has a miserable seal around the valve. Sweet. But I eventually got a sufficient amoutn of air in the tube as well as a second degree burn on my left hand and kept going.

But then when I got back into the decent I heard this horrible squealing from my rear wheel when I braked. Not dis-similar to that of a canti brake that is mis-alligned. So I stopped and fiddled with the cable and how the caliper was centered. Not any better. I stopped again, fiddled some more not much better, but screw it, it's just a bit annoying. So now I'm thinking, "Okay use mostly front brake" yeah that's harder than it seems. So I came ripping into a hairpin, layed it hard on the brakes and got some good rear wheel shimmy going. I slowed down to futz with the brake a little more, looking back at the caliper, then looking up and seeing that the road has a serious left hand turn to it and I was so going into the ditch. I jammed on the brakes but still went down with enough speed to hear that sickening crack of my handlebars rotating forward in the stem. Two cracks actually. The good news is that I went into the ditch on the uphill side of the road and not the gorge on the downhill side. And the more good news is that since I slowed to check on my breaks it really wasn't that bad of a crash. But still that moment when I looked up and thought, "Oh shit" then went right into the ditch was pretty classic.

So broke out the tool, adjusted the bars and limped on back home feeling worse for the wear.

I'm out of LPB tonight and'll be taking a day or two off.
Lucky.

Well Wouldn't You Know It

2009-02-28T05:56:00.000-05:00

You never know when the battery on your camera is going to crap out.

I was minding my own. Dropping off laundry at the cheapest place I've seen (7000 kip per kilo). Where inside the house I get invited to sit down with Ban and his guest for a little birthday celebration.
What it really looks like at first is a bunch of dudes sitting around (on the floor), singing Lao karoke, drinking a bunch of BeerLao and eating some food that's on a cirular ratan 'coffee table'.
But at second glance it's a bunch of dudes sitting around singing, drinking, eating and celebrating Ban's birthday.

I mean how can I say no when I'm being invited in to eat and drink. And these guys were on the last bottle of a case of big BeerLao bottles, and half way through my stay one of their ladies brought in another case. And by case I mean plastic milk carton looking thing with 12 big bottles of beer.

After about 15 minutes or so of listening to Lao karoke I was looking for the exit and made a break, I rustled everyone together for a group pic and sure enough my battery was dead. Oh well, the memory will remain. But when I go to leave I see that one of the guys took off with my flip-flops.

So I settle back in on the floor for a couple more glass fulls of BeerLao, some exclent grilled Buffalo, sauteed veggies and 'hot-pot' chicken broth/chicken chunks thing complete with feet.
But then some more people started to come including the ladies and one of the youngens was sent out for some "Spy' wine coolers for the hens. Classic.
Guys sitting around drinking beer, eating and singing. And the ladies gossiping around over on the couches. Sounds pretty universal to me.

toby

Goyea Deeow

2009-02-28T03:22:00.000-05:00

Thailand had/has street food everywhere. On every street there seems to be someone with a cart full of ingrediants and a wok set over a burner blasting on ultra-high. They whip up fried-rice, pad-thai, sauteed veggies, cheaply, quickly and semi-healthaly. (They use a lot of oil. One might say too much oil.)

But here in Laos, there aren't as many street vendors (street markets aside). And in neither spot are there "Stir-friers". But. What they do have is noodle soup. They have it like it's nobody's business.

I rode around the other night on my bike looking for some stir-fried. But instead found like 10 soup places in a matter of 45 minutes.

Granted it is pretty, well, really good. Fresh noddles. Fresh greens. Roasted garlic. Good chicken broth. (I think it's usually chicken, but sometimes I'm not so sure what kind of stock it is) And some meat on top of it. Garnished with a big chunk of lime, some scallions and a bit of lemongrass stalk cut up. And then you toss in some oily chili paste, a bit of soy-sauce, sugar, maybe some fish sauce if you're really feeling Lao. Basically condiments aboud at these places.

Oh, as an aside. I had Goyea Deeow at this one spot the other day they also gave out some peanut sauce (think satay sauce) and a bowl full of raw veggies to dip in the sauce. Wholy crap talk about good. The place was in an alley and totally funky. And for some reason, even though the satay sauce came from a plastic tup sitting on the rickety bench that served as a table, it was warm...that was very peculier.

Any way.
Some places give you a pretty good handful of noodles. But I had to have three bowls after my ride today to even get close to being full. It's hard to imagine having one bowl and thinking, "Dang. I'm full up. Won't need to eat again till dinner time, six hours from now."

Even though it's really good, and I love noodles like tweens love Uggs, I just can't eat it every meal. I think once a day will suffice, and the search for cheap stir-fry will continue.

Oh blog

2009-02-28T03:13:00.000-05:00

How I neglect you.

I'd like to say that it's due to the spotty internet here in LPB. Or due to the high cost of internet: 6000 kip an hour!!!! (that's like 75 cents....) Or due to all the training, sleeping and eating I've been doing. (there are still a bunch of hours in the day)

Actually I'm having a pretty good week of running and biking up here in Laos. The weather is perfect. But yesterday and today the air quality has plumeted. It's the time of year when there's a lot of burning going on and no rain to flush out the skies. But there looks like there is a chance of some precipt in the next couple of days.

Had a pretty sweet 110 k's on the bike this morning. Waved to a bajillion kids and yelled "Sawbadee". I thought that the main (only?) road out of town and down to Vientiane would be loaded with cars, busses and trucks. But it was acually pretty quite.

I'll upload some pics once I get to a comp that'll read my camera....In Thailand perhaps?

Wholy mind trip

2009-02-22T08:14:00.000-05:00

So after three days of traveling, six buses, six tuk-tuks and a song-taw I made it to laos. Tuk-tuks are miserable inventions too I might add. They seem cute and foreign and authentic the first time you see them, but the drivers are always hassling you and they're overpriced to boot.

But what really mixed me up was not really knowing what the exchange rate for the Laos Kip was. I was just getting comfortable with the Baht at a 30/1 ratio. Everything is divisible my 3 (or so) and that math was going pretty well.
I think I checked yesterday online to find out what the Kip:Dollar conversion was but I must have forgotten.
I thought I recalled something like 6000:1 from three years ago when I was here. So I was going with that.
Still a multiple of three so I thought I could work with that.

I finally made it to the tourista area from the bus station and before that from the Friendship Bridge, which sounds more glamorous than it is by the way. Then I spent like an hour and a half wandering around looking for a cheapish guesthouse. Most of them were either full or started at like 150,000 kip.

I happened to walk by a closed money exchange shop and the exchange is 8380:1 or so. 8000! Nothing is divisible by 8! So all evening I've been struggling to figure out how much things cost in both dollars and baht. Man it's a struggle I tell you.

Oh lord stuck in Loie again

2009-02-21T05:56:00.001-05:00

So it turns out it's really hard to order Isan (that's the region) Thai food without an English menu, only being able to speak limited Thai and with Thai staff that speak no English. And there's a table full of middle-aged Thai guys getting drunk at 3 on a Saturday afternoon that only know how to say, "Oh, Hello!.....Oh!" and then a whole bunch of Thai gibberish.

I went down the street and settled for a shiska-bob and some rice. The latter was actually really hard to get. There were like 20 food stalls on this closed street and most of them didn't have rice (hard to belive I know) and the one that I found that did was very confused when I only wanted rice from them. Fried rice? Pepper rice? Rice with chicken? Mai! Mai! Just rice. I did finally get it though. Stupid Farang.

Oh, and the training.

2009-02-12T01:12:00.000-05:00

So I'll have to do more of a formal page on the swimming pools here in Chiang Mai. But the short of it is that there are plenty of them. Two 50 meter pools that I've found. One of which is at the 700 year sports complex, which was built for the S.E. Asia games held here in the early '90s. But there are at least 6 other pools that I know of. Four of which I've seen.

Currently I'm swimming at the pool at the Physical Education College's sport complex. (which is only a couple minutes away by bike or run) The pool is pretty nice, clean, but wicked cold. None of the pools are heated, and this one happens to have a big open air roof over it, so it gets very little sun. But it's only 30 baht, despite the sign that says for members and Thai people only. I'm neither.

And there are plenty of lovely (steep) hills to ride through. Since Chiang Mai is a pretty big town there is a fair amount of traffic 'till you get deeper into the country. But never the less the roads are in good condition and there's flatter farm land to roll through that breaks up the hill ridding.

(this is a shot of the traffic waiting at a light to cross the 'superhighway')

So far good running has proven to be the toughest thing to find. Running through the city is abysmal. Way too many street crossing and traffic etc. The best bet close to town is to do loops around the big stadium that also happens to be at the Phys Ed grounds. Boring yes. But the smell of squid grilling keeps you from staying in one place.

To be fair I've that on the edge of town by Doi Suthep there are trails to run on. I know there's a lot of mtb biking the comes down the mountain. But w/o a motorbike the trails are neither easy to find nor very accessible.

Who wants a sunburn?

2009-02-12T00:47:00.001-05:00

Yes you do! Yeah! Oh, who's gonna get sunburn? Come and get it! Here boy!

I've been pretty good abut buttering up with the sunscreen. But it was cloudy yesterday morning. I was only gonna ride for like 90 minutes. Plus I've got a pretty good base for a white boy right?

Well. Yeah. Except that I didn't ride in the morning, the clouds lifted about half way into my ride. (can't you get burnt through overcast skies anyway?) My ride ended up being 120 minutes. And then I ran for another 30 min in the direct sun.

Plus I made the wise decision to wear my tri kit....which I haven't really worn yet since being here. Here's the result:

Sweet.

Roti Mataba!

2009-02-12T00:34:00.000-05:00

Wow this stuff is good. I don't know about you. But I've never really seen 'roti' before. Much less roti packed with curried chicken. It's basically fried dough or sorts. The sweet stuff is all over the place. And by all over the place I mean at all the street food vendor locales plus there are guys pushing carts around ready to make an instant roti.

Roti is a pretty thin dough that gets oil fried on a big shallow pan. The sweet stuff usually has banana in it, sometimes with the addition of an egg, and then is covered with condensed milk and chocolate sauce, or no chocolate and sugar. (just dough with milk and sugar seemed to be a popular option with the Thais too)

Don't get me wrong. This stuff is amazing. It probably scores abut a two on the health factor. (that would be the banana rising it from a 1) And since it's not deep fried it seems to be not so bad for you. But if I said that I'd be lying.

Well Mataba is the Roti dough filled with amazing Muslim curried chicken. I had to have two. Again, not the highest scoring of health foods. But can i say that my three hour a.m. bike ride negated the oil? I'd like to.

Thailand Here I Am

2009-01-30T23:45:00.000-05:00

So. Thailand.

I'm in Chiang Mai and things are looking up. In a nut shell my visit to Phuket was a disaster. It's really expensive. Really hot. Really busy roads. I made it down there for a few days and realized that there's no way i would be able to afford things there and that it was going to be too difficult to get around the island to meet up with the other Triathletes.

So I spent two long days on busses going up to Bangkok and then on to Chiang Mai the next day. A total of 24 hours on busses. But there were plenty of stops and plenty to look at.

Chiang Mai is much cooler. I've found two sweet looking pools. One is at the Univeristy. And the other is at the 700 Year Sports Complex. It was built for the SE Asia games in the early 90's. both are 50 meter. And neither one had many lane lines when I was there...which i thought was a little odd. Another down side is that they are both a ways from DT where all the guesthouses are.

Oh, and my respiratory infection is dying down. So I'm going to head out on the bike this afternoon as it cools down and head up Doi Suthep. It's a road that heads up the mountains that flank Chiang Mai. It leads to some Wats and a royal palace. Gonna put my new Pro Machine to the test.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Up or Down

2008-11-10T19:21:00.000-05:00

I raced Ascutney on Saturday. I raced Putney on Sunday.

I killed it on Saturday. I got shelled on Sunday.

Ascutney was a tough little bugger. My gearing is not set up for going up hills so there was a plenty of grinding over crests at like 10 rpm. For so much up there didn't seem to be much down. But there was a pretty good amount of mud. And the muddy/grassy switch backs before the pit were a pretty fun challenge. The sandy parking lot was hard to negotiate with any speed.

The first few minutes were pretty fun. After the barriers there wasn't a lot of room to mount before you hit a swale and a rise. I was lucky to be ridding a practice lap with a nice guy who mentioned the possibility of waiting 'till after the rise to mount. At the time, my arrogant self thought he was a little loose and I was sure to crush him. But when we came into the barriers four strong with a pack there wasn't a lot of room for me to mount comfortably. So I ran to the top of the rise. Hopped on and never looked back.
Well, in actuality I looked back a lot. I led for the rest of race but kept making sure I wasn't letting the gap shorten up. Peter Vollers was kind enough to call me a sandbagger before I had even finished the first lap. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the race. I kept thinking,"Why am I even out here. This looks bad. I look like an ass. This is stupid." The last three laps felt like a slow tempo workout. Stupid.

I didn't stand much of a chance at any kind of decent finish on Sunday. The good news was that cash went ten deep. And guess how many of us there were on the start line? Yup. Ten.

I started my race off in winning fashion by taking a bonehead line into a tight hairpin and abruptly taking a spot at the back of the pack. Sweet.

Once I could see that there was a gap between the lead pack of six or so and the three of us making up the chase I made the bonehead decision of thinking that we could catch up to them with a little bit of sweat and hard work. Yeah we'll work as a team for a lap and make it back on right? What happens in that situation is that you pull harder than you should on the first last, letting two guys suck your wheel, only to let them blow by you after the run up. Sweet.

I did manage to not run over Colin when he decided to lay down in the mud behind the shop. Sweet.

I caught up to a nice guy named Matt (nice after the race) and was severely disappointed when I didn't ride away from him after passing him. So what did I do? I let him sit on my wheel for four laps before letting him take one. When it came to the last lap I got tired of playing games and hit in through the technical stuff up top. My accelerations matched my shoulder checks and I've never run up that hill so fast. 6th place hurt. Thanks Matt. After a lousy first couple of laps it was nice to have a race.

If you want to watch me take a stupid line and hit a wheel and fall click here.

And a big thanks to everyone that was cheering me on. Baker, Buzer, Pip, Rob, Daq, Kevin, Boog, Sarah, Kirstin, Linnea, Jim at the rest. Thank You.

It's pretty much the Toby Wells show 'till the end

2008-11-06T17:18:00.000-05:00

Northampton Cyclocross 2/3 Men Laps 6&7 from colin reuter on Vimeo.

Had to post it. Plus it's some exciting racing esp. at the end.

Gonna Race?

2008-11-06T16:50:00.001-05:00

Looks like mother nature's gearing us up for some nice racing conditions this weekend.

Should be fun.

That was just Totally Crazy

2008-11-03T21:33:00.000-05:00

Man! Those two races are kind of a blur! Saturday in particular. But talk about some really fun races.

As you can tell by my previous post, I was setting my expectations pretty low for Saturday. I was gonna be happy with moving up 20 spots. And, I've got to say this is not an ungrounded expectation. I've heard many Wednesday night horror stories of starting 94th at Gloucester and "not having any fun" racing because there's "no way you can win". And that all you're doing is fighting to move up a couple of spots.

All I have to say to that is hog wash.

My starting position was pretty much what I expected. First the guys with points got called up. (And a couple of random Verge and BikeReg guys WTF?) Then ten at a time numbers started. I kept checking my number to see if my set would be next, or even close to next. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope....dang, this is rough. I didn't get a good look back to really see how may riders were behind me, I was way to nervous that the whistle would go at any second.

The one saving grace was that I knew I did not want to get jambed on the inside of the first corner. So I lined up on the very left and when the whistle blew, I booked it down that left line. After the officials I popped onto a little dirt strip with no one in front of me kicked it hard and then hit the brakes harder. I felt like I passed 40 people there alone. Two turns later I was making bee lines towards the apex and dropping numbers like the Biggest Loser family style.

I knew gaining spots early was the only way to be competitive and I really don't know how I got so far up. I'm still stunned.
But before too long I could see the chase pack, and what appeared to be Colin's International jersey. And that was a very good sign. I knew I must be doing something right if I could make it up to a first row guy. Turns out the only reason that I did catch up to him is that Mr. MTB himself ate it on some pine needles and jacked up his rear shifter.

After that things get a little blury. I was pysched to see that Colin got some footage up and hoped that it would clear up the rest of the race. But then I was bummed to watch him drop his bike in the pit and the screen go dark. Sad.

I think most of my forgetfulness is due to the metal toughness of cross....as lame as it sounds. Not only are you in the hurt box coming out of every turn and for the first two then last two laps, but you have to watch every line and constantly maneuver your bike, plus you have to worry about who's behind you, who's ahead of you, when you might be able to make a break and when you should make a break and how you can avoid that train wreck and happened half a second in front of you, oh and now that you totally ate it through that sand pit what are you going to do now?

The most memorable parts are:
Yelling out to Buzer and Baker "Look at me! and I started in like 70th!" half a lap into the race. (Thanks for the cheering guys. It definitely helped)
Catching a nice draft off of Colin's wheel only to be ditched when he hit the pits, after that I was very much not liking by strung out between two packs just chilling in no man's land, not catching the group ahead, but not being able to quite fend of that pursuing group.
Sucking onto Cort Cramer's wheel with a few other guys. I sat here for maybe a lap or two, and started to think "Man my legs are actually starting to feel okay. I think I might be able to hit it out of a few corners now."
And in doing so gained a smalled lead which I quickly stuffed as I crapily rode the sand pit and ended up flopping over.
Back into the group it is. But at least I could give those legs a second to freshen up before I had to hit real hard on the last lap.
I hit the barriers full tilt and ended up leading these guys onto the starting pavement where I put it down.
On that last lap it looked like a couple of guys might be dropping back fast and that made it all the more exciting. I asked Colin to pull for a little bit heading down that long stretch before the sand, which in hind sight was not the coolest thing to do. But thought we might "work together" to stay out in front of the chase a little. I don't remember at which point I got back ahead of Colin, but was prepared for a sprint at the end until I felt his tire hit mine at the top of the ride up. I felt pretty bad about this, because it was just one of those unlucky brushes.
Never the less, it was enough for him to drop off by a second or so and for me to get around Hunter Pronovost for sixth. 6th!
I'll take it. Just like Suckbrook, this was hard. My lungs haven't hurt like that since...well Suckerbrook, but before that since like some ski race in the 90's. Dang.

On to Sunday shall we?
I took a nice warm-up lap with Pat Goguen (great guy). And part of another one with Colin Murphy, who I thought was Greg Burbridge (he's not by the way), and who was also very quick to stop talking to me/ridding with me, when he found out that I was 6th on Saturday (compared to his 13th.) I think his words were, "6th, well in that case I guess I'm not ridding with you any more." And he dropped back. I thought for a second he was kidding....guess not. Sorry man, didn't mean to call you Greg, my bad.

Any who. 6th on Sat got me some points for Sunday so I was pretty pumped about getting called up to the third row. (left side again) I tried to ride with no expectations again. But did have confidence that I could ride with these guys. I don't know quite how I got there, but at some point in the second lap I found myself in third thinking that life was pretty cool. Yeah that was 'till I tired to ride the fricken sand pit. It was even shorted than Saturday. I did it no problem at all during warmup. Again, I was almost out of it when I just layed down on my side. From there I just submitted to ridding in the chase group. I was hating life sitting on the back of that thing getting slinky'd around thinking,"This is so not where I want to be." And thinking of Jerrod Shoemaker during the Olympics getting toyed with as he hung on for life at the back of the bike field.

We were a big ass group. I think like ten or eleven at one point. I looked at the 5 sets of wheels ahead of me and thought "Man, that's a lot of points right there. I have to move up." And things did start to thin out. Then we'd gain a couple more people, namely Ryan Rumsey. He and his red bikeman kit jumped in and kicked it up a notch for a while. But then someone ditched it on the ride-up. We lost Pat in a serious bail on the barriers.
And, as an aside I want to extend a little apology to Pat. Several of us were going full tilt into the barriers and I was on Pat's left. He must have hit my bike with a foot, or hit the barriers then my bike, or something. But I remember coming in fast on the outside, him losing it, and some point hitting my bike. Again, another unlucky little bit, I feel bad about. Sorry Pat.

Going into the last lap I think it was whittled down to four of us. We stayed pretty tight 'till Ryan ate it wicked hard in the barriers. Again we were all coming in pell-mell (boggle) for the barriers and Ryan pretty much decided to have a late season tag sale. Poor bloke. I remember working hard to miss his head too. Man there was so a lot carnage out there all over the place, it was nuts.
That left me and Colin alone to work for 4th. (Although I belive series leader James Tosca was with us, but I thought he got mixed up with Ryan) Right after the barriers I made the stupid decision to get in front and try and keep the lead. After a little acceleration I realized that I wasn't going to be able to pull away there, that I made a bad move and so I sat up for a few seconds 'till we rounded the last corner for the final sprint.
What a long sprint too. I hit it hard and thought I might have enough lenghts on Colin but ran out of gears and got beat by half a wheel. (I wish the officals had a shot of that) Such an awesome sprint, Thanks Col, that was fun.
I think it's time to fix that front derailer so i can use my big ring. And get a bottom bracket that doesn't wiggle.
I'm ready for some more 'Cross. Bring it!

Saturday results are here and here
Sunday results are here and here

Wholy back of the line Batman!

2008-10-31T07:45:00.000-04:00

I signed up for Saturday's race in Noho a while ago. But only this week decided to sign up for Sunday's race. And only last night 3 hours before the deadline, with no day of reg, did I click the submit application button. The list of riders for the 'B' race looks like this.

If you're looking for my name, it's down around 100th place. I don't have any Verge series points that I know of. So it should be an exciting day of "how far up the field can I move." In some ways I'm kind of looking forward to this. It takes the pressure off, and my main goal is to finish in the top half. Just gonna go out there throw so elbows in the carnage and have some fun.

Back row here I come baby!!!

MRC race report

2008-10-26T12:33:00.000-04:00

I like 9. Wasn't expecting it thought.

For my first race up in the A's I was expecting to start in the back ten tenths of the pack and see what I could do to work my way up. But I guess due to pre-registering a few weeks ago, and some decent results on x-results, I got a really good starting position. 9th! I was enjoying being up in the top five for the first lap. Even though I was thinking to my self, "Man, this is hard. Can these guys really keep this up for another 50 minutes." And, "Nah they're just going this hard to get the first lap preem and then it'll settle down. Then I'll be in good shape to continue on and hammer my way around the course, picking up speed as the race goes on."

That kind of happened. Once the second lap started, there were a couple of hot shots that made breaks in the straights to get up near the lead, and couple other people dropping back after having won the preem...ahem. And then Brad Sheehan happened. We had a misunderstanding and we ended up getting tangled together. Such is racing I guess.

Just to be clear he ended up jambing one drop into my rear wheel and the other around my top tube. We eventually untangled, and things looked good enough with my rear wheel. Meanwhile a good five or six people whizzed by. It would have been more, but I think this slowed up a lot of the trailing pack. The kicker is that that once Brad gets off ahead of me he promptly eats on the second turn we come to. I did my best to avoid him, but couldn't manage to complete miss his head. Sorry Brad.

I continued to put my head down and crank away for the rest of the race. I caught a rider or two, and got dusted on a couple on straight sections. The course was pretty fun. But even by the end of the race I couldn't set up well for the barriers/corner/run-up. That was tricky. The head wind was not fun. I was pretty glad to see Aaron Millet roll a tubular in front of me on the second to last lap. Chalk another one up for clinchers baby!

I finished 12th. (not too bad considering)

Results are here.

Thank you Zoot

2008-10-26T11:44:00.000-04:00

So the weather has turned and it's making for some chilly rides. I mostly get out in the afternoon when it can be kind of warm but cools off quickly. Everyday it's a challenge to put on just the right amount of clothing and not be too hot on the climbs and freezing for the descents.

Back in August I got a sponsor package from Zoot sports. And I was a little surprised to see a good collection of cool weather gear mixed in with the awesome tri shorts, the wicked light and fast racing flats and other warm weather gear that's made training much more comfortable. But right now it's the running tights, and jackets that are reigning the closet. Zoot's got the jackets figured out, with the right amount of warmth, wind protection, fit and style. Plus on the biking jacket I like the doubled up stash pockets in the back, and the wind proof front, and the yellow piping. That one's my fav right now.....mmmmm yellow piping.

It's always a satisfying feeling when I come back in from a ride and I'm neither too not nor too cold. And I gotta say my new Zoot wardrobe is making it pretty easy.

So, while I'm on the topic, I thought I might just say how fricken awesome my new Zenith is. It's so nice to be in a snug wetsuit while still being able to move my shoulders freely. I put it on and feel like a little torpedo, but the proof is in the pudding: dropped swim splits. Such a killer suit.

I've been feeling pretty lucky to have received such a sweet package from Zoot. So thanks again Zoot. From the shoes to the wettie, the run shorts to the cycling vest, it's all awesome.

Man, flat tires suck

2008-10-23T22:14:00.000-04:00

Especially when it's 6:05, it's getting daharker out, and it's like 38 degrees. Oh, and you don't have a spare tube, because last Friday you were out on your cross bike and got a flat when you were out on some jeep trail way far away from where you're staying in a town you've never been to. So you have to walk home for over an hour, before getting a lift. And when you go to replace that tube you realize that the only freshie you have is in your road bike saddle bag. No biggie right? I'll totally replace that tube right away. And I don't get road flats that often....yeah just my luck.

Well the good thing was that I was on 142 between Bratt and Vernon. Where there would be a lot traffic heading into town. The weird thing was that most of the cars that passed me while I was hitching were white plates. Like a lot of whiters. Turns out they were all here to change the fuel in the plant while Yankee is "shut down". There shift must have ended at six. I got a ride from a nice guy named Chris from CT. Thanks Chris.

No roots here

2008-10-20T22:43:00.000-04:00

It was a lot better than the legendary pain fest I've heard of. But don't get me wrong, my root canal today was no fun. It really didn't hurt to much, even though it's been 14 hours and I still can't open my jaw all the way. On the plus side I'll be getting a new gold crown that'll match the one I currently have on the left side of my jaw. Second molar from the back, both sides. Boo yah!

On the negative side I'm fresh out of fourteen hundred bones. Yeah. I know. For one hour of work. And they said that the "surgeon" who did mine does about 6 a day. And this place has 5 surgeons on staff. That's a lot of root canals. That's a lot of money.

totally not exercise related.

Cross Practice

2008-10-19T22:07:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures from weekly cross practice at West Hill

You'll notice that these photos highlight my beautiful Craft jersey I love so much.

Photos courtesy or Ben Coven.

I'm trying to refine the one handed mount. With this slick move I should be able to shave off hundredths of seconds. Or never be able to have children. Either or.

Uncle Sam..../(am I a Sandbagger?)

2008-10-09T22:29:00.000-04:00

I was glad I almost didn't get lost on my way to Prospect park in Troy. I did my usual direction prep of half-heartedly studying a google.map for a week prior to my departure. And as usual it only kind of worked out for me. (It turns out that Prospect park is not directly [read, visible] off of route 7 as you come down into Troy) But as luck would have it I pulled out from a stop sign behind a suburban toting two 'cross bikes on the back. Lucky!

Nycross and Capital Bike Racing put together a pretty cool little cross course. A couple of the highlights were: the spiral of death (a very tight in and out spiral), a spot with a pretty view of Albany (oxymoron?), a nice grassy/muddy run up, a large amount of technical turns, and the slippery downhill off camber grassy S-turn (there was massive amount of carnage here). Plus the major open sections were limited in length and usually had some type of techical element to spice things up (like a dirty uphill, or sloped grass).

After I bundeled up and got in a good enough warm-up I headed to the start 15 minutes early. This time I was resolute to get in the first row, have the holeshot and see how the race would go if I could get the best lines for the first lap or two. It went pretty well.
It was pretty uneventful.
But, it went well.

I was second going into the spiral of death/technical aspects and could see I would be taking better lines than the leader. I glanced back before the first straight away and decided to make a move and keep the persuing hounds at bay. I hamered for the next half lap or so. Next thing I know, I look back and there's no one on my tail. I open up a bit more of a gap, maybe to 10-15 seconds of so and just sit there.
I guess I figured i was going hard enough that I didn't need to kill my self and work for a bigger gap (what would that have gotten me), and then if I did get caught I would still have something in the tank to battle with.
But man, it makes for a fricken boring race. The middle 1/3 lull kicked in and my neck got sore looking back to make sure no one was moving up. I did have to punch it a little hard on the last half of the last lap when 2nd and 3rd looked like they wanted blood. And I only ended up winning by 4 seconds.
Sorry it's not more of a spirited race report. But it wasn't a very spirited race. I was thinking I should have raced the A race. (to be clear I raced the 'B' [3/4]) But on my cool down I rode past a guy unloading three identical, very clean, Redlines from his car and felt pretty sure that I rode the right race for this week.
Well, we'll see in Wrentham.

Results are Here
I won a light for my bike. Which is something I've wanted so that's cool. Plus it costs more than the $17 I would have won if I was in the 'A' race. Well, it did cost more in '05 when it was made. And dispite the fact that the Graphic Designer chose to go with a Scott Howard double instead of shelling the dough for a cleanly shaven pro Cyclist, I think it'll work well.

Oh yeah, 5 Star.

2008-09-28T12:15:00.000-04:00

My last race of the '08 Triathlon season was FIRM's 5 star triathlon in Douglas, MA. If this sprint went really well I'd continue on and do Firm-Man the following week in Naragansett. But, I'd have to feel pretty sharp for my plans to change.

Rainy Boog camping the night before didn't offer the best night's sleep. But it was nice to see dry, albeit cloudy, skies when I got up at seven for the very civilized nine o'clock race start. The swim course looked awesomely short, the bike course had a couple steep pitches that took me by surprise, (mainly because I didn't pre-drive the whole course) and the run was up on the way out and down on the way back.
After doing a slew of Olympic distances races I was kind of taken aback at how short the swim and the run was. And with the run being an out and back it was nice to go by people on the home stretch (as opposed to be slogging along by my lonesome).

I hit the swim hard and tried to get out of the water as fast as humanly possible. Which turns out is a minute slower than the lead swimmer... A minute slower over a 5:25 swim course. 20% slower... That's just not a good.
But it turned out that there was only one person ahead of me and I reeled him in on the bike. I could see him on the straight stretches and was scanning transition for him as I made my way to the rack. Just at the last second I saw him....sitting down....tying his shoes. In an effort to heckle I asked a volunteer girl,"Is that guy tying his shoes?"
Needless to say my transition was significantly faster and it was a good thing he gained a minute during the swim because he let that bird fly like a homing pigeon on the eve of the Battle of Valmy.
But I didn't stay ahead of young buck for very long. He and his safety-pinned race number caught up to me just before the end of the first mile, and he stepped it up on the steepest pitch and opened a little gap.
Probably the best part of the day was right before we reached the turn around when a small dog came bombing out of the bushes and proceeded to nip and bark at the buck's sock clad heals. (yeah he was wearing socks too) Oh that made me laugh. The dog, not the socks. The dog was on it for a while. A good 10/15 seconds.
Uh, I finished second.
I got some more HEED (mandarin orange this time)
And I got another medal with the spinney part in the middle.
Tri season is over and it's already time to think about what's going to happen next year.

That was Hard

2008-09-22T21:23:00.000-04:00

It's kind of a running joke at work. But I think Donny Precourt started it, and Geo made it thrive. But we all tend to say it when the going gets....well tricky at least. Tricky'll qualify for a "This is hard". i.e. being forty up on shaky staging and trying to hammer in that last nail that's down the rake just a little too far.
Any way I digress from the hard Cross race.

But first, the less hard Cyclocross race.

When I was looking at Cross races to do this past weekend the Velo-Cross course looked promising. A few forced dismounts, some questionable ridding parts, lots of turns in the woods, not a ton of wide open tarmac. Sounds like fun. Plus you get to start and finish on the Velodome. Which, by the way I had no idea how this was going to work. I had imagined a wooden semi-indoor setup with big banked walls that went all kinds of high up. Were we going to do a loop on the parkay and then slip out through some tunnel in the middle of the infield? Oh the illusions. I was only slightly disappointed (and brought back down to earth) when I arrive to see a paved oval with moderately banked turns that was more of a pit in the ground than a collusium of cycling colossus. But it was still cool.
The course was cool too. Barriers on the infield (sans tunnel...sad), around the "dome" on to a rideable uphill burm, woods road, a fun downhill that was fast and then jam/lockup the breaks and let everyone for miles around know that your front brake squeals bad.... it just won't go away...into a tight rideable hairpin, down over fun bridge, some more hairpins through the woods, gravely field like section with some more turns, including this stupid turn with some barrels that pretty much required coming to a complete stop to go around...stupid turn...forced dismount up a little knoll and back to the infield....

On to the race.
I thought I was being all slick and in the know getting to the start 15 min early, putting my bike on the line and finishing my stretching from there. And it worked out 'till the gun went off and I then realized that people go REALLY hard off the start. Like stupid hard as if the race is going to be won on the first lap....so my being on the start was all for not and I got caught in some mega mayhem. But honestly that's where the raceing is pretty fun. Passing people, running around, into and over people, making the move, putting down the hammer out of a turn. I got my fair share of that on Saturday.
I picked my way through the field and saw that some buck was pretty far off the front and seemed like 2nd would be the place to shoot for. Turns out young buck went out like a jack rabbit and started to implode on him self. (as well as dropping a chain a few times going over the barriers) Once I caught him he tried to jump on my wheel, but I made him pull for a few more seconds of misery before spitting him out the back. I think I caught him with three laps to go. I cranked one to unsure the lead. Let up a little on the 2nd, and cooled down on the third/last/bell lap. That was fun. Plus I won 50 bucks. That was fun too.

Sunday was a different story.
I'm new to this whole USACycling thing and think having to petition/ask to move through the ranks is annoying and a nuisance. I mean I am glad that sandbaggers are made to move up. But if you want to race up a level shouldn't you be able to? What I'm getting at is that my entrance to the cat 3 race was a little questionable....I'll leave it at that.
Any who. the course at Suckerbrook seemed like a roadie's little playground. Only two forced dismounts and lots of wideopen flattish terrain. Some turns, but nothing to make or brake you. There was a sandpit, but that was just an opportunity to trash your bike and get lots of grit in your overly lubricated chain.
Plus it was hot....and hard.

So my plan du jour was to not get on the start line first, shoot for DFL and see how far up the field I could work my self. (turns out it's pretty far, albeit I don't think I was every DFL, it was too exciting when everyone goes off so fast) But it did seem to make sense that getting out ahead of the mayhem may make it extra hard for a lap or two, but then you can cruise without getting caught up in the slinky turns and falls etc. I ended up ridding with a decent sized group of guys that I'm gonna call the chase, or 'B' pack. There seemed to be 5 guys up front who were opening things up a bit. Two really together and then a couple more stringers. Interestingly for me, my friend Positive Self Thought was not affable, and so I tried to figure out what spot I had a realistic shot a securing, (which I will learn is a mistake) I'm pretty sure I was looking to hold a reign onto 6th place, but wait it gets intersting (sort of).

Or course 6th would have been more attainable if I hadn't slided/skided out twice. Each time I was just starting to pull away from the 'B' group but alas got back up and found my self chewing the tread of some inferior rider. (I think the lesson here is that it pays to be just a little reserved in the sketchy corners...that or I need to spend my time on a Mtn bike/work on my technical skills...which I thought might be a strong suit) Any who,
I was battling it up for sixth, when, on the bell lap, fourth and fifth place were dropping fast. My legs were getting pretty tired and my brain was all kinds of confused. It's seldom in a triathlon that I have to think about tactics or when I can use the last of my fuel or make a move to gain a spot. I was kind of just thinking, "Okay, last lap, lets bring it on in. We'll just kind of cruise behind this joe for a while and then maybe make a move at the end. Huh. Wait. No. I need to go hard this whole lap and try and pass him. Dude, go, Go!"

We passed fourth and fifth during this kind of sketchy woods section on the back stretch. At this point I was seventh and sucking wheel right behind this dude from Claremont Cycles (or something) who happened to finish behind me on Saturday, and what's up with that? So we were bombing along in all kinds of flailing manner. I made the stupid mistake of thinking these two dudes were so toasted that they wouldn't even be able to hold our wheels. (they did) I also made the stupid mistake of not passing the dude ahead of me when I could have. I like to believe that if I had I would have stayed ahead due to the decel and accel out of turns, but who knows. Any way Claremont dude was pulling away and over my shoulder I was feeling comfortable about my lead into the last 300 yards. Until Bucky Behind me came at me fast and I had to put in a sprint that would have made Robbie McEwen proud. I haven't been that close to puking in a long time. Dude, I felt ill. I was in fifth but, seriously not liking life.
Such a fun change from Tris. Read; bye bye two hours of racing by your self.
Fifth is cool, plus being top three and in the money might have been kind of awkward.

Trying to figure out how the top two were a minute up on us. I think being out of the fray from the start was key. But then again, no one would have yelled "Whoa! Rider down and out!" when I ate it on the off-camber hairpin. That was hard.

Couple a Races, No Race, Chili

2008-09-07T19:55:00.000-04:00

Oh man I was so excited to give a go at the Half-Iron and call it a Tri season. But Hanna had her way and the Narragansett emergency personal lost their nerves and said they couldn't provide enough support. Yeah they said this on Friday....Friday. After a smidge of rain last night it was a beautiful day today. But alas the race got rescheduled. Man that sucked.
I'm debating whether or not to do race it in two weeks. I'm pretty ready to put the goggles away for awhile. But I do really want to do a Half. But there are other races that I want to do. (Cyclocross, Crew, Duathlons, Half and Full marathons)
The kicker is that Kim Webster was trying to get me to do the Pumpkinman Half because of prize money. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have been in the running for the cash, but at least I would have raced today.

I signed up for Hyannis 2, but wasn't going to race it. Friday evening I had half a mind to rush down and race on Saturday morning. And I'm glad I didn't. Rich Havens had to cancel that race too, at the last minute. Which is kind of blessing in disguise for me: I get a free pass for a Time Out Productions race next year.

My conselation prize to no race this weekend was a beaufitul ride today. Again I can't believe how steep (and long) it is heading out of Williamsville up into West Dover. From Dover I went up 100 to 30 and into Londonderry, then down 103 to 121 and through Windham back to 30 through Newfane to Indian Love Call. Except for 30 North from Jamaica to Rawsonville there was very little traffic today. Even when I was on 30 south from Townshend. It was a nice change.

Cranberry Country Race Report

2008-08-25T21:20:00.000-04:00

Oh man it just wasn't there yesterday.

I know I'm not a good swimmer. But coming out of the water behind the rest of the Elite men (and the Elite women) pretty much set the mood for the race. I was feeling good in the mix for the first couple of buoys...okay for the first buoy...but then i was swimming next to Kim....and then right behind Kim....and then next to and behind the last little pack of women swimmers. And then just poking along by myself....sweet.
Looking back on the rest of the race it all seemed pretty automatic and uneventful. Flawless T1. (I was worried my new wetsuit would be hard to get off) I plunked along on the bike and picked off a couple of people, but it pretty much felt like a solo time trial. Those races with laps seem more exciting now. Flawless T2. (After watching UCI transitions I got a couple new ideas which worked okay)
I did have a runner about 20 seconds up but nothing was happening in the spunky legs department. I sucombed to the curse of the six minute miles and let the mile markers pass me by. My pre-race idea of body-glide-ed insoles led to slippery soles and lots of tiny little blisters from holes in my insoles. Which kind of sucked while I was running, but they look kind of cool.
So my crap day on the course ended my in 13th (1 second out of 12th...doh!) Guess these days happen. Onward and Upward.

Shwag: Finishers medal......sweet
Results are here

Banish Bad Goggles

2008-08-14T21:50:00.000-04:00

Oh man I fell victim to TYR's back cover advertising campaign and bought myself a pair of Nest Pro Metallized goggles. And yeah, they pretty much rock.
Purportedly they're designed to look like Beijing's Bird Nest, but I'm not so sure. But they are really comfortable and do look fairly bad ass. I wouldn't think that bad ass could come in "Lunar Metallic" but it does. One of the nice touches is that the hard plastic of the frame is set far away from your eye sockets. Plus it's got a thin profile. Oh so comfortable.

I also got a new pair of Aqua Sphere Kaiman's. Up till now my favorite goggle. So comfy and pretty good peripheral vision. The vision through the Nest Pro's took a view laps to get used to. But that could also be because I've been swimming in some r to the o the the u to the g to the h goggles (which brand shall remain nameless [it starts with an s and ends in o]) which really hurt my eyes. They have a narrow field of vision and when I pull them off I have to be really gentle because it feels like I've had a couple of soup spoons zip tied to my head. (with the rings to prove it) They did get me through a couple of races though and I was glad for the dark lenses on sunny race days.
But seriously there's just no comparison to the Nest of the Kaiman. (plus they don't leak)

So don't swim in pain! Good goggles are out there!

The other side

2008-08-11T20:57:00.000-04:00

So I woke up early on Sunday morning and headed over to check out the Salem Witch City sprint Tri. I got there just as the leaders were jumping on their bikes. I was hoping that there might be some depth in the field to watch some fast transitions and some exciting racing. Nothing too tight out of T1 and then Dean Philips crushed the bike and basically jogged to a win.

But the real excitement was watching all the triathletes try and mount their bikes coming out of T1. Oh man!!! I didn't realize how entertaining it is to watch people "run" in their bike shoes. Clack, clack, clack clack. One lady totally wiped out taking a turn out of transition on to the exit alley. Watching this whole spectacle solidified my belief that shoes on the bike is the way to go.
Plus it seems that in the excitment of the race people forget how to get on a bike. Forget doing it every day. That's all for not when you're running down the transition exit, cross that mat and are trying to get those pedals moving. There were pile ups, helmets on backwards, stalling and falling and a couple of sweet Cyclocross mounts too!

It was nice to have another weekend off from racing and I'm getting pretty antsy for Cranberry County. Humor aside, it was great to see all those people getting out there and tackling the Tri.

Wildlife

2008-08-07T18:39:00.000-04:00

So when I'm working out, there are like a zillion blog entries that i think I'm gonna get home and post up: Equipment I like/don't like; trails/roads/swimming spots that are sweet; Triathlon tips; Training dos and don'ts; how bad "The Happening" was etc. But most of the time they're lame ideas or I just don't get to it.

But I do want to comment on some of the cool wildlife that I've seen over the past couple of weeks.
I was running up on the Retreat Trails here in Bratt through a wooded section that was free of undergrowth when I saw a decent sized animal running in the same direction as me. It wasn't moving too fast and I tried to breath quite, run quite, and get closer to it. I must have been within thirty feet of the Bobcat before it heard me, took a look at me and tore off through the woods. It was pretty cool looking. Pointy ears and stuff. I was pretty surprised at how long I was running behind it before it heard me. (you know like 15 seconds, but it kind of seemed long)

Monday up on the Retreat Trails I saw a big old owl. Pretty sure I have no idea what kind of owl it was. It flew across a side trail seemly away from something in the tree of departure (like another owl perhaps). It was chilling twenty feet up in this big pine. I had a great view, but it was defiantly checking me out too (and hootin'/screechin' ). He looked like he was on his haunches ready to swoop down on me. He was cool to watch but I was in no mood to get dive bombed and took off.

Up at Marblehad last weekend I saw some crabs hunkered down on the sandy parts of the ocean floor. I also saw a Flouned flopping around after the sand turned to rocks and "sea moss". That was an interesting sighting. If he wasn't "swimming" I totally wouldn't have seen him amongst the rocks. Wide and flat, and I could see his jacked up eyes. I thought that was pretty cool (the Flounder, not his eyes).

I was ridding through Guilford...well I guess I was technically in Leyden....but I turned to head up this steep hill when I saw this little gray creature ambling across the road. At first glance it held the resemblance of a scorpion. Upon stopping and further review it was a little crayfish. I couldn't figure out where he was coming from. There was no notable water source on the uphill side of the road where it he was coming from. But he was moving at a pretty decent clip downhill towards the ponds....little guy.
That same ride I also saw a big ass snapping turtle on the edge of the road (clearly coming out of a road-side pond). This guy was chilling there mouth wide open with his hinds still in the tall grasses. Def wasn't stopping to check him out.

That's the stuff of note for now. Also saw tons of cows, dogs, chipmunks, some cats, roadkill (namely 'coons, possums, and skunks, oh and chippies too, oh and occasionally a cat here in this category too), some horses, chickens, anglers, birds and I saw a shoe when I was swimming in the west river.

Mass State Tri Race Report

2008-07-29T17:05:00.000-04:00

Oh man. I so want to take a couple of weeks off from racing. But at the same time. I walked down my stairs yesterday, saw my Tri bike with the race number still on it and thought,"Oh that was fun, I so want to get out there and rock again."
Reality being, if I don't give it a rest for a couple of weeks the only thing I'll be rocking is the outer core of this hole I'm in.... as in past the mantel, core, earth, rock....nevermind

I'm pretty glad the rain subsided right as I was waking up at 5. Held off all morning until the skies opened back up in the afternoon. Wasn't even as humid as I was expecting it to get. I have to say that so far I haven't had a race with bad weather. (Well Putney was really rainy, but it was a mountain bike race after all)
As i was setting up my transition area, and putting my bike in the very cool white wheel holders Max Performance supplies, I chuckled to my self as the two people next to me had garbage bags covering their transition layout. I mean seriously? If it's going to rain your crap's gonna get wet any way... Keep it simple

Another week, another late Tri start. Plus another heart stopping rendition of the National Anthem sung by a vocally challenged 7 year old girl. Plus this time we had to watch all the sprint race waves head out ahead of us. Thirty minutes after the scheduled race start we were in the water, off and away.
Going out and pushing it harder through the swim seemed to feel pretty good this time around. Things were going well in the water (I was tracking much better this week) until I ran into backstroke guy again. Frickin' Ass. He wasn't as annoying when he was going straight doing the crawl. But then he'd flip over (I could tell because I caught glimpses of his feet and was thinking,"man that is such a weird movement. not a natural looking kick, oh, wait, is he...who the hell backstrokes? Oh man it's this jerk again...how'd I end up near him two weeks in a row....I need to start swimming faster...") he'd flip over and start backstroking right across my newly aligned straight as an arrow path. But after a couple minutes of that he'd roll back over and swim straight. Straight toward the same buoy I was headed to. Ending up swimming way too close to me. Oh, but then he'd flip back over and swim into me...Dude, seriously?

Any way, out of the water. On to the bike (past the transition setups still covered with G-bags). Over the bumpy pavement for the first few miles. Past Pat Cronin (Wheelworks Swim coordinator). Up the mile long hill. Down and around the weird side road turn around (which was actually kind of cool, because you could see how many goobs were ahead of you. And I'm taking fast goobs that could beat you. Not the innumerable goobs that were doing the sprint race and not the ones that I lapped my second time around, those are a different bread of goob.) Past Nick Normandain. Past speedo boy (yeah he was wearing soccer shorts again, someone buy him a Tri kit). Along the down hill. Passed by Nick, kind of. Around the right hand turn that I didn't think Nick was going to take so I hit the breaks in anticipation of him going straight through the interesection. (he turned right) Saw mom. Hauling along the awesome flat section. Past third place. Up the hill. Weird turn around with a look at the leaders. Downhill. Ripping fast into T-2. I always half ask my self if I really am going too fast into transition and I'm gonna jump off the bike into some funky half stumble/fall/run thing. But come on, seriously? that's not gonna happen.

Way too long of a run with the bike in transition as we had to run the length of transition area twice to make the entries/exits even. It was really fun whipping my bike around and tossing the rear wheel into the white bike racks. Def different than just hooking the brakes on the rack.

I saw the parents on my way out of T-2 and gave a little wave. I didn't want a repeat of the running disaster at Old Colony, and so tried to hold it back for the first mile. Which more or less worked. But I quickly settled into the chasm of the 6-minute mile curse. (or slightly under: 5:58ish) Yeah, that's okay, but we all know it's no 5:30. Stupid running legs. I did pass a TeamPsycho member, and that's always fun. I was closing in on the guy up in the lead too (Murry McCutcheon)....until we reached the first (of two) little turn arounds. Guess I was too close for comfort and he kicked it up. I had no response and was pretty happy to hold on for second. Sure would feel nice if those legs felt like they could pop and be snappy. Of course if your legs feel good you're not going hard enough right?

Overall it did feel like a really good effort. I couldn't have left a whole lot more out on the course. I might of been able to push out some seconds on the run if I was fighting for it. But I'm pretty happy with the times. Fastest bike split, second fastest run behind old Murry, and not insanely far behind out of the water, which is all I can ask for there.

Results are: Here

Hardware: None (they opt not to give medals and award shwag instead)
Shwag: Fuel belt for first place in the Elite division (this is my third fuel belt won as well as my third fuel belt that will go unused. Sweet. At least this time it's not a size small, that one was way too small for any normal sized athlete. And athletes don't run big)
I also won a big bottle of Hammer Gel (apple cinnamon) and a water bottle during their pre-selected raffle. Add the water bottle in the registration packet and it's a two bottle day, which is totally awesome because my overall laziness bites hard when I forget to washout and dry my waterbottles. The results being a fresh lining of nasty black spots in each sun baked nutrient rich mold breading heaven aka the inside of my waterbottles. And you know that crap is not only pretty gross it's wicked hard to clean off. I must have ten bottles from this season alone that are on the 'Do Not Use' shelf. Any one got any good method of cleaning them?

Shirt: Boring. Undoubtedly destined for the rag pile.

Just Chillin' with my new Friends

2008-07-28T21:04:00.001-04:00

Maybe I should take out my garbage...

Saggin'

2008-07-28T21:03:00.001-04:00

My Transition Area

2008-07-28T20:40:00.000-04:00

Clean and Simple

ps: I didn't take the gel

Appleman Race Report

2008-07-25T19:54:00.000-04:00

Yeah....I took a wrong turn.

In no small thanks to Frank, I've had it in my mind that I could/would win Appleman this year. That was part of the reason I did this race. Marc Saucier is the race director and he's also a Wheelworks Multisport member. Frank: "How cool would it be for Marc if a Wheelworks racer won Appleman. Toby, you'll totally win and destroy the field, this is your race..."

Yeah, well maybe if I had stayed on the course.

The swim was in a very 'pondy' pond. Like mucky floor, reeds and stuff, brown water, pond like smell. It pretty much rocked. I definitely didn't have that floating smooth feeling that I had at the start of Mooseman. Nor did I find that groove that I found at Mooseman. For whatever reason I've really been drawing to the left during my swim lately. I think the prescription is some more open water swim training to figure out how to go straight. Any who, I would take half a dozen strokes and look up to find the big orange buoy off to my right. Okay that's cool no big, turn to the right a little. Half a dozen more, off to the right again. What the frig! It pretty much went on like that for the long 13 minutes that it took me to struggle through the water. Quite possible I could have been in the low 12's, dang maybe even sub 10 minute, if I could just fricken swim straight.
The crazy thing is a couple of races ago I thought I was doing a really good job at staying straight when every one else was way of course. I worked with Hank a little last week to work out the left arm kink in my stoke (just one of many kinks I might add). So perhaps I'm just overpowering it too much on the left side and not compensating. ....maybe....

Yup, on to the bike. Wait, T1. Nothing too special here. Except that I heard that sound again when I mounted my bike Cyclocross style (no, this time that sound was not me mashing my nuts). I thought it was me coming down too hard and knocking the saddle a little loose and knocking the pitch out...Except that I could tell that the nose never moved up nor down. I realized after the race that the paper race number (oh and my number is another tangent, which I'll get to after this one) that the taped on number was squished down against the frame. It wasn't squished down when I put it on...hum maybe that crack sound is the seat dropping down....sweet. That would mean my seat's been getting lower and lower for the past 5 races. Double sweet. Plus I have no idea what the proper height is. Triple sweet. And when I went in to see Ed Sassler at Wheelworks (the man who fit me on the bike, and scheduled me for an appointment at 1pm on Sunday to put me on a new non-impotence inducing saddle) oh! yeah he was out at Hyafitchmouthportbergvilleport......I don't know where he was, but the point is he wasn't at the shop. Quadruple sweet!
I think I got the height figure out today. The bolts holding the seat post up were def loose. So take a spin tomorrow, see how it goes, and get old Ed to work things out next weekend.
Oh, the race number. Yeah, so as if Frank telling me I would totally win wasn't enough Wendy Fiske was kind enough to give me race number 1. Just another dimension to add to the head game before the gun went off. (Which, by the way took way too long to go off. I like Bhudist monks as much as the next guy. But hearing them chant just might be the last thing I'd like to stand around and listen too when a race is already 15 minutes late. Well, that and the National Anthem, 'sung' by some local 12 year old brownie scout. That was pretty rough too.)

Aaaaany way. Back to taking a wrong turn. So I jumped on my seat, lowered my seat post, got my feet on my shoes cleanly and started hammering away. I knew the course a little bit from last year and knew that early on the bike we took a left hand turn and stared to cruise down hill a bit. We were coned to the left half of the road and I came upon a volunteer waving a flag across from a road to the left. "Man," I thought," this is kind of a butchered corner. You think they could have put down a little bit of asphalt....Wow this whole road has all kinds of pot holes... Huh, where do I go now, do I take a right han....Oh can't go right.... 'up can't go strai....crap, this is so a dead-end street. Shit..."
I hit my watch when I turned around and it took me 22 seconds to get back up to course. Double that, and add some for stopping to turn around, and not having carried speed passed that turn and I'm rounding it up to a minute that I lost.

Cranked along for the rest of the bike feeing pretty good popping over the hills. Pretty nice course out there. Rolling. No head winds. I was expecting some mean up hills after all the down we seemed to go over but it never really came. I gobbled up a couple of those good swimmers that break early. Including this little teen-aged swimmer Philip Lavely who was rocking it topless with a pair of nylon soccer shorts over his jammers. I ripped by him on an up hill and had to work very hard to not compliment him on his shorts.

Smooth in and out of T2. Only two people ahead of me now. That feels better than the 10 or so after my wrong turn. A couple of reports put me approximately a minute out of second. Nick Normandin feel by the way side about a mile into the run. It was slightly up hill for the first mile, then we had a steep long down to a nice flat section of pavement. On this latter section I started to feel good and got grooving. Then it got nasty: A sharp left took us into a field. A hot, sunny, very muggy, grass field. I could catch glimpses of Chris Ramsey's red jersey, but was slowing down through the field, right when he was getting out of it and speeding up. Of course speeding up meant entering the woods and spending the next half mile running on a trail that was mostly uphill. The woods were a nice little change of pace. Once out of the woods it was down another long steep hill. I nice flat section back around the pondy pond. Across the sand (sand at the end of a race always sucks) and over the line. I had the fastest run split, which was a little surprising as I was under the curse of the 6 minute mile....again. Third fastest bike split (stupid wrong turn) by only 30 seconds. And I came in 2nd overall. Would've been cool to represent the race number, but maybe next time.

Results are posted: Here
Hardware: Another 1st place finishers medal (?) Just like last weekend's Old Colony medal
Schwag: A gift certificate for All Three Sports. Which, I think I've already lost or put in the wash...

OH MY FRICKEN GOD!!!

2008-07-25T18:21:00.000-04:00

Fricken water aerobics!!! Wow, this is the second time in three weeks that I've gotten closed out of a pool becuase of water aerobics. The first was down in Vernon and there was a whole lane open and seperated by a lane maker that wasn't being used....but nooooooo I couldn't use it becuase the pool was 'closed'. With like 10 people doing aquaerobics in the other 6 lanes of the pool. But I couldn't use the lane becuase the pool was 'closed' and that's the way it works.

Now I just got closed out the craponial because some funky thirty something, glasses in the pool wearing, lady was rolling her hands around in the air like she belonged in the mud pit at a phish concert. Her two little groupies were jaming along with her to the tune of an irish jig, I kid you not. Three people need three lanes of the damned pool? I think not. But I couldn't swim down in the open lane because they need their "peaceful, quite time" her words not mine.

I wanna say that maybe they should aquasize for more than 50 minutes a couple times a week so they'll actually loose a couple of lbs, then they could do real exercise like the rest of us, instead of their current half assed physical activity. But I know I shouldn't say that, and I could never understand what it's like to have my body be fighting me every day and all that, and it's good for them to be doing something. They should just do that something in only part of the stupid pool.

so there

I like the Podium

2008-07-14T19:52:00.000-04:00

It was good to get back to the Olympic distance at the Old Colony YMCA race and it was a bit of a reality check. My last two Tri's were short sprints with short runs. My runs felt really good and I was hoping that I would be able to a) tweak some more power out of my biking legs for upcoming races and b) attack the next couple of weeks with some fresh legs after a recovery week. However I ended up posting the fastest bike split and coming apart on the run, not running sub 6's like planned.

Part of my misery on the run must no doubt be due to working three hot days on a roof and another ripping off Clapboards and doing some LPG work with my new buddy Jim. Being a recovery week it turned out that I spent more time recovering from work and not being bothered with recovery/tech specific workouts.
Also the choice pre-race dinner of Swordfish, mussels and grilled buttery potatoes is definitely not the chosen meal of champions. However, I somehow remember eating the exact same meal the night before a race last year with similar ill consequences. Humm.....what? Pretty sure I've learned my lesson now. I'm sticking to pasta and meatballs. (Why is it that races are always on Sunday instead of Saturday? Way to kill the weekend.)

See how I'm really setting my self up for a killer race here?

Never the less the alarm went off and Sarah, Evelyn and I busted down to Middleborough in good time. The swim looked awesome and pretty short for a 1 mile swim until I found out that it was a two looper with an exit out of the water between laps. Which was actually pretty cool to do, except that it's a little tough getting back in the water and thinking "Shit I got to do that again....man....stupid swimming" Plus they started the 39 and unders in a second wave 3 minutes back from the 40+ crowd. Why, who knows. Maybe to give us the added challenge of swimming through throngs of geriatrics. I mean if it was like 10 minutes or something maybe, but just three minutes. Dang, start them second right? This week it was much harder to see where any green caps were (my wave) which was a little disappointing. Plus my stomach was slooshy and soft for most of the paddle. (thank you very much Mussels) But I managed to finally feel a little bit smooth on the second lap and pull out an okay swim for myself.

Old Colony was a pretty well put together race but they could pull together the transition area a little bit. It was ambiguous where you came in from the swim, came in from the bike and where the run entered and exited. And the transition area was wide open. Which is kind of nice because you can sneak in and get your gear before the race is over. But it always adds an air of Amatureness.

I tried not to rush T1, made it smooth and ran out to the road over the 50 yards of pine wood chips that the race directors were kind enough not to cover up with any type of mobile carpeting. Later in the day I realized that a couple of the hot spots on my feet were in fact splinters.

This past week I did manage to practice my shoe-putting-on-while-riding-the-bike technique and it paid off. (Once I brushed off the sawdust and wood chips) This was a 4 lap pretty flat bike and I was coming in pretty excited to see how I could throw down. And perhaps I got a little excited about it. I was rolling on the first lap in an "I can keep this up for an hour" mode. Which more or less turned out to be true, except for feeling slower on the latter two laps, and thinking "huh, there wasn't a hill here on the first lap". I hit my second Gu a little later than planned which helped neither my run nor the chunks of Swordfish still banging away somewhere between my small intestine and colon. I was pretty happy averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 mph, but it's still a far cry from an ideal ride of 27 mph. Any way, it was on to the run. (It should also be noted that there were like a bajjilion people on the bike, due to the laps. Which, while fun and fast feeling when you just completely blow by people, makes for tough passing and tough cornering.)

OH, have I yet to mention how crazy uncomfortable my saddle is? Like after half a lap (read 8 minutes) I thought my lower genital region was anesthetized. I was praying for any kind of hill to get me out of the saddle for a minute, which only came on a couple of slight downhills, the course was that flat. Not to mention this saddle seems to do something funky with my upper/inner hamstring area. Not exactly straining it, but setting in some discomfort.....

And that's what I felt when I got off the bike. I couldn't believe how tight that area of my hammy was. I kind of hobbled out of T2 and tried to get my legs moving on the dirt road that lead out to the rest of the run. My first mile on the run was a promising 5:45. But having lost just a little bit of steam on every consecutive lap of the bike didn't bode well for what was to come on the run. I could see three people ahead of me and It was time to do some reeling. Mile one: No one yet, but they're right there and I'll be damned if they get too far away. Mile two: okay, huh, not really getting any closer. Mile three: yup caught this guy, but he's in the 40-45 group and def slowing up, that guy in the black and yellow is so not coming to me. Mile four: okay lets just see if we can hunker down and not lose any spots. About 800 yards after mile four: okay so those two guys just came rolling by me with no hope of me catching a ride, try not to drop any more spots. (one of the guys was Brian Dolt, whom I used to do some swim training with, and whom I had caught on the first lap of the bike) Shortly before this point I could feel my self slipping (and watch my splits slipping too! YEE!). Maybe if I drink some more water that'll help? I usually don't drink much, but maybe it'll get me through. Or maybe it'll give me a vicious cramp and make the last mile and a half that much more burtal as if my failing legs and negative mind weren't enough. I held on for the last two miles and ended up running them in a pretty impressive 8:30 (or so) pace. When do I ever run at an 8:30 pace? Probably the most nasty part of the race was coming into the rather long access road to the finish and expecting to run back across the wood chips into the finish chute, but oh no!!! Take a right instead and run on a busted old dirt road for another quarter mile! That was just mean.

Glad to be done I was hoping that a couple of the people in front of me were teams or of the 40+ ilk. But not feeling so psyched about my overall performance (run in particular) headed to the lake for a little cool off.
Much to my chagrin I squeaked out a Third place finish about four minutes back from the leader and 2 back from Brian. If it wasn't for the wheels coming unhinged on those last two miles things my read a little different, but four podium finishes in four races isn't so bad right?

Thanks for coming down and watching Ben, Sarah and Evelyn. It helps a lot to hear some cheers. Especially when I'm out on the sand and headed back into the murky Tispaquin for round two, ready, fight!

Results should be posted here: Old Colony YMCA
Hardware: '1st place' (?) finishers Medal with a cool little twirly piece in the middle
Shwag: Tub of HEED drink mix (Ben said to go safe with Lemon-Lime, maybe if I do well next week I'll go for the Mandarin.)

Lube it up!

2008-07-09T21:22:00.000-04:00

So I accidentally forget to put on chamois cream before a couple of rides recently. Yeah, I know, bad idea.

I was out the door and just about on the pavement when I remembered, but said, "Screw it. It won't be that bad." Um, it's that bad. I know there's a reason that a put on chamois cream every day. I guess a reminder every once in a while isn't so bad. Even with really nice bike shorts the cream's pretty important.

Back in the day during roller skiing practice we'd through vasoline under the armpits to fight body chaffing. And that actually worked pretty well. Works pretty well on the groins too.

But since doing Tris I've started using Body Glide which is my overall favorite. A couple of years ago they changed the packaging and I swear they changed the formula and i don't like it as much but it still seems to be the most versatile and consistent product to date. Plus it's pretty cheap. 8 bucks for a stick and it lasts for many a swipe. And while vasoline works fairly well it's a little to sticky and sloppy.
I recently bought a tube of Chamois Butt'r. Works okay, but doesn't seem to hold up really well in all day situations or through the swim portion of Tri's. However the big plus is the tube format. You can squeeze a whole butt load of this stuff into your hand (and then your loins) and the quantity factor def seems to count for something. (I'm not sure about the larger dose in practice, but squeezing half a cup of goop into your draws sure makes you feel like you're going to have a smooth ride!)
Taking a hard stick of Body Glide and trying to rub it all over your goodies just isn't as pleasurable. In fact isn't not very pleasurable at all, and much less so when you're doing it in a parking lot before a race, with people around.
Any who, the other product I've used recently with even less success is Assos's Chamois Cream. I tried to blob it on but found that it didn't have much tenacity and wore out quickly. On the up side the witch hazel is tingly and cooling, and that's nice. Plus it reports healing properties and a whole list of stuff but I don't really buy it. I tried to rub it all over my chamois before my ride like they kind of suggest, but still with lack luster results. They suggest using this product to keep your chamois supple after your wash your shorts. But this stuff's also too expensive for that. In my book 20 bucks is too steep for keeping your chamois soft when you're not wearing your bibs and then having to come riding side saddle. I think I'll mix in some Gold Bond with my Body Glide and save a couple of bucks.

Ahhh, that's a win!

2008-07-06T20:05:00.000-04:00

I raced the Give Peace A Tri race yesterday. For its third year, it's a well run local triathlon over near Keene, NH. It's capped at 200 participant, but could most likely pull in more. Clean swim in Surry mountain lake, pretty flat short 8 mile bike and a senic '3 mile' run with one little pop of a hill.
I got in the water a little late for my warm up and barley got back to the swim start when the horn went off. That was a little crazy and poorly timed (since when do these races start on time?) I remember last year's swim being a short 1/4 mile around one maybe two buoys. But I think they got a couple more markers and stretched the swim out this year. This was the first swim where I could really tell how many people were ahead of me and about how far up they were, that was kind of cool. Despite the hectic start I managed to get in a groove as best I could.
I came out of the water 5th and had a smooth T1 'till I jumped on the bike and heading up the steep hill out of transition couldn't get my foot on my right shoe. I like thinking that putting my shoes on while I'm biking is a faster way to go. But the last couple of races it's been a little tricky sliding my feet in or finding the top of my shoe as I jump on the bike. It's definitely the way to go with long transition areas or longer races. But with short races and short transition areas shoes before bike might be the way to go.
I passed the good swimmers quickly on the bike and then focused in on the leader Don Mills. For most of the bike I could see him but could do little to pull him and his road bike in. Turns out he's a roadie that's moving over to Tri's and it shows after he threw down that ride without so much as aero bars.
In and out of T2 with a couple of seconds gained on Mills. For the first half of the run he was right there in front of me, oh so close, but I didn't seem to be gaining any time on him. Then we hit a little dirt road stretch with the pop of a hill and I started closing the gap. I ran behind him for a while waiting to see how he would hold up. I put in a small attack with a little more than a mile to go but with nothing doing. I poured it on 400 yards before the last turn and the downhill stretch into the finish. Mills hung tough for about 300 yards and then finally started to lose some steps. That allowed little relief through the home stretch and I had to keep checking my shoulder.
Battling it out and coming up with a Win was/is a really good feeling . It finally makes triathlon feel like a real race and not just a time trial. Pretty exciting I gotta say.
Results haven't been posted yet. (In fact they didn't even have them to post after the race, which was a little lame. They got to work on that) But I finished in about 41 minutes. Which is about 3 minutes faster than my time for last year, and 2 minutes faster than the winning time from last year. Plus it seemed to me that the swim was def longer this year.
Also the '3 mile' run is a little dubious in length. I put down a surprising 16:48 last year. Which is possible but fast. But this year my watch looked back with a 15:20. Almost a minute and a half faster than last year! I'll take that. But that would mean 5 minute miles, and I'm just not sure that I'm pulling those off yet.
All and all a really fun race (winning is definitely fun!) with lots of good cheering support (Thanks Mom, Dad, Miche, Sarah, Ben, Liz and that over friendly guy you all made friends with). It makes it a lot more fun to have people out there to race for.
Of note is the TEAM WELLS relay team: Michelle's first Aquaman experience started with a smooth swim and a nasty fast bike. Then my Mom pulled out a ripping 5k race (under 30 min!). Great job guys, it was great to watch you race!
Oh, I almost forgot to add that I made the paper! Check it out here: Keene Sentinel Article
Results will be posted here: Give Peace a Tri
Schwag: A gift certificate for two to lunch at a bistro in Keene (that was for first place)
A stainless water bottle (that was for first in my AG)