burn 24 hour. training and stuff

so the burn 24 hour race is coming up this weekend. i am excited about it and will be racing again in the solo category. last year i got 21 laps and came in 12th place. this year i plan to get at least 24 laps (more laps is ok too) and finish in the top 7. top 7 is an arbitrary number i just decided top 5 was maybe a bit toooo overzealous and top 10 was not a big enough goal. so anyways... i've been studying the 2008 results and have figured out i just need to do 55 minute laps. if i can do every lap under an hour then i'll get at least 24 laps. maybe even 25 or 26. that would be excellent.

while searching 2008 burn results/pictures/etc darcy found this awesome photo from last year:



so hopefully this year i'll get some good pictures and have a good write-up in one week. wish me luck. i'll need it

serc #5/Kenda Cup East ducktown, tn 6th place. yawn

so we got a late start driving from boone since i hadn't really packed or anything before work. thankfully the car ride to maryville, TN was pleasant and i was wearing my goofy SWIFTWICK socks so circulation in my legs/feet was like never before. after decorating for my mother-in-laws 50th birthday i got to bed early at 1am.

nws.noaa.gov told me there was a 80% chance of rain and thunderstorms. darcy and her folks decided to hang out in maryville instead of attending the ocoee white water center/tanasi trail venue and cheering for me. they did however ring the cowbell at random at home all morning. i rolled in, got signed in, got my number, paid parking fee, changed, talked with drew and fennell, and finally started warming up at 9:20am. what time does our race start?!? 9:30!! at least i'm a slow sport xc-2 racer so i had 5 groups start before me. schweet. 9:50am start. after an excellent lukewarm-up i made my way to the start line.



we had a neutral rollout across the narrow bridge and up the gravel/sidewalk then the moto pulled out of the way and i was sitting 2nd. nobody seemed to want to come around so i mosied my way into the singletrack. at this point three guys decided my pace was too slow and my legs agreed so i dropped to 5th, then a couple other guys came by and i'm sitting like 8th or so. climbing the singletrack to the first fireroad is quite fun even with rivers of water gushing through. i tried to follow jeff welch's advice and ride through the middle of the trail to keep my tires clean. it worked. i used a conti 2.2 mtn king front and conti 2.2 race king rear and they worked (almost) flawlessly. if only their wet/mossy/deadly bridge traction was a bit better...




so more singletrack climbing and a bit more singletrack climbing interspersed with fireroad rollers and i'm turning onto the super fun downhill to the river, then its highway sidewalk to the start/finish. i did my best donovan carroll impression and timetrialed up to some guys in my category. we rode together through the previously neutral (still was in their minds, did they get the memo?) and i began looking for our domestique john fennell for my feed. even with slowing down and taking big gulps i entered the singletrack climb, looked back, and nobody was there. they probably flatted, because i know i didn't drop them.

so its mucky gushy singletrack climbing, fireroad climb, singletrack super mud tech (i cleared it both times) and i passed some other xc-2 guys and managed to hang onto nick waite's wheel for a bit on downhill gravel. i think my extra mass helped... after he took off i entered the superfun last downhill trail, passed two women expert xc-1 folks, then cautiously crossed the first bridge... my momentum briefly equalled zero and with my weight shifting left, my right pedal unclipped i ejected myself down an embankment to a creek below. after remembering wasting precious seconds i scrambled back up only to see the two women look at each other and question why they let me pass... i hopped back on the bike, caught a singlespeeder with no brakes (his method of dragging his right foot sent lots of projectiles into the middle of the trail. at least afterwards he apologized-something about trying to let me pass, but not being able to stop), passed him on the gravel, and went back into DC impression timetrialing. if only i had my aerobars.



so i worked pretty damn hard, passed some people (other categories i think), drafted a pro guys wheel, nearly caught another rider....oops..... its an expert woman (or the 5th place guy??) so i sat up and coasted across the line. one hour twenty minutes. two laps. ~18 miles. covered in mud. super fun time. i find domestique fennell and he tells me drew was in 2nd or 3rd at worst. he was trying to tell me this during the race but our race radios didn't work. something about too much mud/rain...

so i'm spinning around, sipping recovery drink, and drew comes by, zips up his jersey, puts his hands to the air and holds up two fingers signifying his finish. okay, maybe he just coasted across the line, jersey unzipped, not knowing what place he was in. fennell asked me how i thought i did and i said either 4th or 8th. something like that. turns out i guessed right. after two hours of waiting, taking a dip in the ocoee, changing, getting rained on, drinking PBR, results confirmed i was as mediocre as i expected. at least i think... yep RESULTS HERE i know i wasn't top 5 and 6th looked like my number (names weren't on the results sheet) so i handed mr. 2nd place my boone bike jacket for his trip to the podium, and headed to my car. aahhh. cross country racing.

trying to ketchup. training ride

so it has been brought to my attention that my blogging is basically sucking as bad as my bike riding. well, its not as bad as jacob florence's blog. the worst blog in all of the internets... but basically noah is up on me by:



where r = number of days off noah has this month / number of blog posts -and- t = number of times jacob florence has used the word belgium since last september. it is quite a delicate operation, but working this out reveals that noah has roughly 24357843325837 x e^3.14159... more blog posts than i do. tisk tisk.

so in an effort to catch up (get it? ketchup. like in my favorite movie) i'm posting lots of kool pictures from tonight's training ride:

sam, katherine, and my shoulder

more

someslowguy himself

sam and snow

mountains. sugar, beech, and the sun

someslowguy and the remains of appalachian ski mountain

my workout consisted of cruising to the top of russ cornett/poplar grove intersection with sam. he peeled off to head back to boone after taking a big mtb ride/fall yesterday. it was nice to start off with someone, and obviously we ran into katherine for a bit. after we headed our separate ways i cruised up shulls mill doing some 2minute on/off efforts until i reached the brp. i went up towards the manor house and put in another 1min effort there. recovering on the long descent to 321/flat-top i determined i would do 30sec on/off intervals up flat-top and that settled into 8x 30sec/30sec recov until i snapped the shot at app ski mtn. i topped out on deck hill, then ripped down the fun side into town. said hello to robert jameson, andy steele, and tyler c and spun it out back to the bike shop. after a dinner of a turkey sandwich and M&M's i found my camera cable and some motivation to type. so here i am. back in action. on the bike AND the blog.

hobby park XC racing. podium kind of. cooper river 10k

any questions??:

someslowguy racing:

zippity do-da:

so i did my first cross country race since may 2008 and had decent results. after getting the whole shot and entering the woods in 3rd or 4th place i just kinda went along, passed a guy that lost it in a corner, and rode on my own to a 3rd place finish.
beginning the sprint to the finish:

this was my best finish since i've started bike racing so i was stoked and waited around for results to get posted and awards only to get a maxxis ust tire and a handshake.

no podium picture, not even a podium!?! i was a bit disappointed by this, but nonetheless its a step toward upgrading to cat1-expert. so its another result for boone velo. i'll try to keep em coming. at least i got in a great race with the boys:


the bike race was march 22nd and i've just been slack about getting a blog post going. this past weekend darcy and i made the trip down to charleson, SC for the cooper river bridge run 10k. it was quite exciting although we forgot to take a camera so i'll be waiting for julie howe to put pictures on facebook. then i'll steal some and put them up here. darcy and i ran together BUT i used a secret method of delaying my chip on my shoe from crossing the line and then finishing with that foot forward to gain a whole second on her. 58:04 and 58:05.

yum hot dogs

what else can you say??

short track #4 report

darcy and i made the trip early to charlotte for #4. it was quite the time. mrs. grimes:


had a great time although she was sick and couldn't really breathe. she raced her 2nd bike racer EVER and she finished 4th. she told me she considered quitting, so factoring that in, i feel like she was a winner after all.

my race started blah blah blah and then some loser comes flying up not announcing his pass while i have one hand on my bars drinking and we're about to enter the singletrack. READ THIS: super narrow two lines converging into one through concrete parking lot bumper stopper things. so this guy comes in elbows out and basically attempts to put me into a tree. i was not having it so i let him take the 7th wheel and i rode his wheel through the singletrack and once we come out on the grassy climb he rubs wheels with someone else and i say 'watch that guy he is sketchy he almost knocked me off my bike already too.' so that must make him mad as the pace gets super lifted and i found myself again

in NO-MAN's LAND!!!

so i blah blah blah and lap after lap after lap i just sort of mosey along and sometimes forget that i'm bike racing because i never saw anyone behind me or in front of me. occasionally a 40+ racer would come along but for the most part i'd suck their wheel through the dirt/pavement and pass them into the singletrack.

with "two to go two to go two to go" i managed to catch back up with loser elbow orange superfly guy and rode his wheel through the start/finish and he looked down in the parking lot just before single -AND- i decide to be a master tactician and pass while he was looking at his toes or something. i basically kept telling myself i'm racing i'm racing i'm racing don't slow down and kept it in the big ring through the single. he closed in a bit on the dirt road flat section and then i stand and kill the grassy climb, look back, he's there. stand some more. pavement 20 feet. 10 feet. sit up turn around and give him the look:



oops. got my pictures mixed up. anyways thats basically the main idea. i look back. a little attitude, and cross the line. tour de france battle for yellow... charlotte short track men's sport race battle for 7th place. same thing. so that was it. i settled for 7th. three weeks 7th, 6th, 7th. schweet

unfortunately Noah and Fawley's race was another hour wait and our fan club needed to eat so we headed to jason's deli. i have lost motivation to go back this weekend. i think sam, shaw and sapp are the only reasons i have to go back down there. after my first long pisgah ride in months, i have focused my crosshairs on wilson creek rather than pavement and dirt roads. i'm going back into base 1 phase and i'm just going to kick it for a while. blog posts will be scarce and entirely random. holla kool

winter short track #3 race recap.

so sunday marked an important day for my wife, and fellow mountain bike racer, darcy. she raced her first ever mountain bike race at the charlotte winter short track #3. someslowguy was super proud of her as he ran around the course with camera in hand documenting the action. photos will follow soon... he could tell darcy wasn't super happy on the first two laps. riding in 6th place. the determination on her face and the desire to move up in the peleton was clear. a couple more laps and she dropped two riders like flies:

the pace was high and the top 3 riders seemed like they were, well:

but she continued and never let up. thankfully she DID stop racing after her last lap. she was quite worried she'd ignore the race announcer's "you're done. you're done!!!" she settled for 4th, and seemed very happy to have finished her first bike race. after it was all said and done she cooled down and someslowguy tracked her down for the congratulations and hugs and then sped off to warm up for his race.

this week was a bit warmer than last and the trail conditions were nearly perfect, slick in spots, but perfect tacky, just dried out enough soil and warmer temps combined to offer the sport men's 19-39 field a day filled with fun and adventure. off the line and down the sidewalk someslowguy had already stirred up emotions after commenting on austin joyner 'some giordana clif-bar mother... that thinks he can keep warming up then just roll up to the line. get in the back like the rest of 'em.' the boy's neighbor turned out to be next to someslowguy as they rolled down the sidewalk off the start and elbows began to fly!!!

after passing an appstate guy (dustin i think), someslowguy came out of the woods sitting in 6th place or so. climbing the grassy hill he heard a crashing mangling tangle of bike and body, glanced over his shoulder and only slightly comprehended the mess that was happening. this allowed a small gap to form behind, and well, a gap was forming in front. he realized this was no-man's land. don't let anyone catch up, and try to work and find the leaders' group.

as the laps ticked by, two 40+ leader's caught up and he drafted them going into the woods. he let them race their own thing. following them through the woods and using their pace to judge his own, someslowguy settled into a good rhythm. a guy in a 29er crew vest must have taken a spill. he stood up and caught after the gravel road/grassy hill section. someslowguy tucked in behind and then grabbed some gears and went around just before the singletrack. this process took place for a few laps, until the 29er crew vest wearer was off the back, no where to be seen. lapped traffic and the occasional 40+ challenger were all that someslowguy had to contend with and with 'one to go one to go one to go' he made sure to stay in the big ring. feeling well trained and well rested he silently thanked the maximizer (max shute) and laid it all out.

into the single. through the berms. stand up. power. no brakes. who needs to slow down?? pump it through the jumps, creek bed, and turns. stand up and give it on the climb. up and over the rock. check over the shoulder. the 29er crew vest wearer is back there. quite a ways... no time to think. drop him. stand. burn. lactic acid. chatter bumps. locked out fork. forearms?!? efficiency. grassy hill climb. a racer in front of him to be caught... sprinting. passing. crossing the line. oh, it was just a lapped rider. oh well. it could've been 5th place...

someslowguy was happy to have finished 6th. he moved up a spot from the previous week, and he knew he couldn't have given any more to the racecourse. he was congratulated by his mountain bike racer wife, he sipped on some recovery drink, and chomped away at pasta. off to jason's deli for lunch with friends and then zoom zoom zoom back home for a super bowl party. all in all the weekend was perfect. bike racing. sunny weather. and smiles. the end.

charlotte short track #2 - race report

hello loyal blog readers

so today marked my first bike race in months. its also my first race under a new team: BOONE VELO. charlotte short track. event #2 of 5 in the series. last night darcy, lindsey and i rolled out to rock hill, SC. we stayed at darsey lingle's house. thanks again!!! so we got to the race course this morning around 10am and i got registered, got my number plate installed, and i got changed. darcy, lindsey, and darsey (my cheering section) found a table to hang out at and i got to warming up. i got two laps on the course and tried to get my heart rate way up high and get my legs to burn and then i spun around until they called our class to the line. we sat around long enough to make another trip to the boys room... a trip that i could have used. and then its all about racing:

riders ready.

go.

the punk kid in front of me (the same one that won sport mens 19-29 serc last may) missed clipping into his pedal and by the time we got moving some other guy was trying to elbow me into the fence at the end of the sidewalk. bull-schniekies!! so a hard right and its sprinting for position entering the woods. i got in about 7th place and we're cruising through and i'm thinking gosh i have to work on my warm-up since i never seemed 'warmed up' and then there's a little crash involving philicia marion. yes, this IS the MEN's sport 19-39 race and well, maybe.... you never know...

and so anyways... i don't really remember what happened, but after the crash i got into 4th or 5th position. we make our way through the wooded section, up the rock step-up, and then onto the gravel and up the grassy hill toward the sidewalk and start/finish area.

lap 1. the pain has already started... so cruising down the sidewalk, through the parking area and i'm sitting in like, 4th. we enter the woods and i'm feeling good and the lap goes by and i'm going through the start finish again. lap 2. more pain. so this time through the parking lot the three guys in front of me all sort of sit up and i dart to the right to miss a rear wheel and there's still enough space before the singletrack. shift two gears. stand. i'm in the lead. what?!?

the guys behind me say:

'who is this guy? do you know him?'

i reply

'i'm just some slow guy.'
'people who wear skinsuits aren't slow'
'oh, no. i just forgot my shorts and had to borrow this.'
laughter abides.
heads down.

i lead through the singletrack. through the berms. through the old creek crossing that is now dry. along the newly fresh bench cut. over a rickety sideways wooden bridge. BIG RING. i stand, climb. cross the rock step-up. gravel road time. ouch. it hurts.

so i'm still in my big ring. legs are on fire. my pedals don't want to turn. the three guys i've been riding with come around me and i can't stick anyone's wheel. i look back and there's no one. we gapped them?!? maybe my pace was too high. oh well. so through the start/finish and i hear 'these riders have been racing for 15 minutes...' and i'm like, there is no way to keep it red-lined for 30 more minutes. i watch the group of three roll away. i kept about a 10 second gap for a few laps and then some Kenda-KMC girl (not philicia. another one) showed up in my rear view mirror and i worked to stay in front. after another lap or so she came around on the gravel and i fell into 5th or so.

i held 5th position for a while and soon we all caught lapped traffic. i decided to pass todd wells and JHK just before entering the woods to leave some work for the Kenda-KMC lady:

that made things a bit more interesting and passing other riders in the woods was quite fun. a columbian fellow from greenville came around while we were on the gravel again and i was in my middle ring. what? my big ring stopped working.

somewhere in all of this another guy (or two, although i think he had a flat and we lapped him but he got counted on OUR same lap) managed to pass me and i finished up in 8th place. RESULTS HERE

it was a fun race. i got a crappy start, made my way to the lead group. THEN to the FRONT. then slowly faded back to 8th. i think if i would have sat in 4th instead of going around the guys that maybe i could have finished in the top 5. or at least top 7... before the race i told myself i wanted a top 5 but i would be happy with top 10 and well, i got it. BOONE VELO represent. we got some noodles from NOTHING BUT NOODLES (title sponsor) and then headed back to rock hill, SC for some peanut butter sandwiches and coffee.

after all the racing was said and done we stopped at the trail for darcy and lindsey to do some laps and decide if they wanted to race next week. Darcy's lap times were impressive and she wants to do her first MTB race. updates to follow. wish us luck.

trainer riding. the big red S & stan's. quick days

today went by quickly. first thing 10:00am, dirk brown walks in and sam and i look at each other and call/email shaw to let him know we're in the process of getting dirked (wikipedia explanation here). 11:29am rolls around and dirk leaves. i start checking out my to-do list and putting UPC labels on things and doing other exciting tasks and soon its 1:30pm and i'm eating yummy yummy yummy chick-fil-a grilled chicken sandwich and waffle fries. yum fried food. you have to have it once in a while...

okay, so now its 4:00pm. official stick-boy time. come back to work. eat some free treats (pecan bars and red velvet cake) and sip some coffee. now its 6:00pm. closing the doors and now its time to ride the trainer:

that's me, to the left side of the photo...

so i do
5min warmup
10min just below LT
3x 1min power interval 1min recov
5min zone 3
3x 1min power interval 1min recov
5min cool-down

and go home for some soup. then comes perhaps the most exciting part of my day, other than watching BACK-to-BACK grey's anatomy and private practice, i find dan.gerous's blog post about specialized getting sued:

"...I hope Stan wins but I also hope he knows what he got into, Specialized take their name because there are two things they do very well, they are specialized in marketing and legal court bullshiting. That could end up in a few different scenarios:

1: Specialized do what they've done in the past: buying Notubes to shut them up and steal their ideas and technologies.

2: Specialized drag the court process for so long and multiply the legal fees to the point NoTubes are out of money and are forced to shut down.

3: NoTubes wins, get a chunk of cash, start giving away wheelsets to racers in need and a movie is made about the thing with a 'from the heart' message: even the small guys can win against the big bad evil. Sinyard will be played by Jack Nicholson... or maybe Malcolm McDowell.

4: The rest of the cycling industry secretly finance Stan's defense to make sure Specialized get a well deserved lesson.

5: Specialized lose the case, pay up, then sue NoTubes because they use red and white on their decals, getting back all the money they paid and then some..."

for the whole post, please see the dan.gerous.net post here

so that was my day. currently we're looking forward to seeing our friend frank from georgia. he was one of my groomsmen. he's coming up for the weekend. yep. charlotte short track in two point five weeks...

2009 goals.

i've seen that its popular in the blog world of appstate-ers to talk about goals for 2009. so. well. i'm old and not a cool appstate cycling team member or anything but i thought i can try to be cool like them so i'll list out some goals(cycling and other):

1. race consistently on the xc cat 2 (makes sport sound like we're fast or something) circuit and get some top 5's.

2. using said race results and some bribing usa cycling officials to get my CAT 1 (expert) upgrade. or at least keep my top spot as North Carolina Sport MTB 19-29 rankings leader

3. do a 180 on my snowboard. fakie stalefish

4. consistently write blog posts. basically, make sure to always have n + 1 posts where n = # on noah niwinski's blog.

5. use the word 'belgium' more times than J-Flo

6. finish top 7 at the BURN24 hour SOLO race. yes. top 7. top 10 seems too broad. top 5, well, they're all pro guys

7. beat shaw brown at any mountain bike races he does this year

8. be a good husband and continue taking out the trash.

9. beat sam hutchens at any and all, yes all, races we do together this year. unless he's my pit crew, then we'll finish top 7 (see goal # 6)

10. dream up some cool training plans and actually stick with em. like with intervals and zone 3 tempo and zone 5 vo2 and... you get the idea. and blog about EACH and EVERY training session with graphs and charts from my powertap. well, if i had a powertap... =(

so. those are my goals. you have problems with them?? well, write your own blog and leave some comment here and i will come over to your blog and well, talk trash about your goals. or lack thereof. welp, thanks for reading and go ride your bike

old 421, drakes creek, bulldog, mtn dale, georges gap.

today i awoke to rain and clouds. determined to go for a bike ride i suited up for the 45 degree rainy slop and texted andy to let him know i was headed to old cove creek school. he agreed to meet me there for ~2 hours and off i went. too bad when i arrived in sugar grove it was 55 degrees and sunny and... NOT RAINING. here's our route:



our route was 27 miles rather than 25.something. we took 1hour 56minutes total time. andy had to wait for me at the top of all the hills, and there was a little time stopped to hydrate. drakes creek was a nice addition to my library of known roads, and it was nice to be on mountain dale road again. now... on to exploring locust gap rd. thanks for reading.

F29er 1 super rad 23.1 pounds racing bike since i'm so fast...

perhaps the worst picture of the coolest bike ever:


and one from our nightride around the park:

09 cannondale caad9 + DURA-ACE 7900 review

here you will find a review of my 09 cannondale caad9 featuring the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain... okay, so i have sram rival otherwise but the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain is pretty awesome. i also really really really really really really really like being on the road bike again with sram rival. i like the new lever shape a lot. it reminds me of the sram red that i had on my supersix last year but well, actually i think its the exact same but it cost a lot less. so basically the bike is:



2009 cannondale caad9 56cm frame
sram rival shifters
sram rival front derailleur
sram rival rear derailleur
fsa slk light 34/50 crank
shimano 105 11-25 cassette
shimano NEW DURA ACE 7900 chain
tektro junk brakes
c3 junk handlebars and c4 stem. the stem is actually okay, but the bars will be replaced soon
thomson masterpiece post
bontrager inform rl saddle
king cages
conti grand prix 4SEASON 700x25 tyres
chris king/mavic open pro wheels (custom built by me) with spoke washers. yes, spoke washers. if you haven't heard of them, you're probably not classy enough to have them. so thats it. oh, and no you can't put spoke washers on your mavic ksyrium. good try though

so, the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain is pretty awesome and well, it only took 10 minutes to put the chain together using a sm-cn79 quick link. i've gotten two rides in so far totaling about 45 miles and i'm really enjoying the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain. i love love love my sram shifters and stuff and while i really really like sram's pc-991 hollow chain on my mountain bikes, i found that their pc-1090 chain wasn't so good. it seemed to work about as good as a shimano 7speed chain on a 9speed drivetrain. with the chain cut too short. and rusted fraying shift cables. however the new DURA-ACE 7900 chain seemed to work super wicked super awesome good on the 105 11-25 cassette. it silently glides from cog to cog and chainring to chainring without effort. i think shimano does a good job of making chains and cassettes. however, their new DURA-ACE 7900 shifters are well, about as exciting as sram's pc-1090 chain... and their new derailleurs look, well, like XTR. boring. oh well. thankfully we have both sram and SHIMANO to choose our parts from. so my bike is really awesome and weighs 17.1 pounds which isn't so bad for a alloy bike with junk heavy brakes, alloy bar, and heavy winter 700x25 tyres. i think it will be 16.5 pounds with some nice sram rival brakes, bontrager xxx lite bars, and conti gp4000s tyres. alright, i'm off to work on reading jacob florence's blog. it is the most boringest blog in all the internets you know??

saturday morning ride. commute

mid-day edit: you must click this. yes, you have to.

after sleeping in until 7am i woke and realized i would not be riding my planned route over rich mtn and down the front side but rather using an old friend, much shorter route up jordan v cook and throwing in a snowy lap on rocky creek before stopping at stick boy. i was out the door at 8am and crossed 105 at 9:06am. by then it had warmed considerably to 31deg F from the 20deg F when i started. okie dokie, here's the proof:



comments are welcome by the way. feel free to tell me i'm wasting my time. or that stopping at stick boy won't help me win the biggest loser v2.0 contest. or that i'm awesome. really, write whatever you want. unless you're J-Flo

trainer riding. checklists. noah.

to start things off:

way to go noah. first loser at cyclocross nationals!!! woooo hooooo.

results here

moving on...

since noah sailed away on his boat, boone continued getting rain. about 178" of rain fell in the last 24 hours. well sam and i decided to ride trainers after work. sam managed to get everything on his trainer riding checklist

[ ] bike
[ ] shoes
[ ] heart rate monitor
[ ] base layer
[ ] post-ride snack
[ ] helmet

but like this guy:



he forgot his bib shorts. i told him if he didn't want to ride the trainer he could have just said so. dragging his trainer, shoes, helmet, bike, etc to boone JUST to intentionally 'forget' his bibs because he didn't want to ride with me wasn't necessary.

anyways i rode the trainer on my own even though its about as fun as a root canal. i went with max's suggestion of a 10 minute warmup, 10 minutes around 168-170 bpm, 5 minutes around 120bpm, then 3x 3minutes at 170+ doing the hardest work i could sustain for three minutes. it was quite difficult. i haven't done much interval type stuff this year although i can tell i need to. i hope to race the charlotte short track series (at least three of four events) so i think this interval sillyness may be a good idea.

welp, gray's anatomy was a re-run so i had some time to blog tonight in between conti tire researching and cooking veggie stir-fry. whew, busy schedule. thanks for reading. oh, i should be blogging again next week with a report from the megan carmody cocktail party. oh, you didn't hear about it?? yep, you're not invited

blogging off season. entering base 1

okay. if you haven't noticed. i haven't been blogging lately. and for good reason...

after a long hard season of racing, i mean blogging, i knew i needed a break. i've needed to put my feet up

give my legs and typing fingers a break from all the work. long hours on the saddle, and blogging take a toll on us all. and so i entered my off season back around september. i also stopped bike racing around october. i got into a race with no results (IRON MTN BIKE RACE)and finished fourth overall, and a cx race at hawksnest (scroll down, i promise its there!!!) and finished one spot behind victory. i mean one spot behind megan. oh well. at least i beat sam hutchens:



CONGRATS GOES OUT TO SHAW BROWN



for winning the NC CYCLOCROSS CX4 CHAMPIONSHIP.

you may better recognize him with his STATE CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY:






anyways, realizing i didn't have any state championships coming up for my own, i moved deeper into my off season. riding some. no heart rate monitor. no gps. no data. it was quite difficult, but even more though, i had to take a break from my blogging!!! so after a quick teambuilding training camp this november

i've gotten back into the swing of things. i've even begun planning my 2009 season and started planning which events i plan to 'peak' around and how to structure my blog posts for the coming year:
April 5th - Dragon's Back XXC??
April 19th - GSC #2 Columbus??
April 25th - Cohutta 100
May 3rd - SERC #4 Ducktown, TN
May 10th - Stumpjump Spartanburg
May 23/24th - BURN 24hr SOLO??
June 7th - SERC #6 Clemson
June 14th - SERC #7 Athens
August 1st - Wilderness 101
September 6th - Shenandoah 100
September 19th - 12 Hours of Dauset

my goals for the year are to have at least 189 blog posts, 276 pictures posted from races, average 378 words per post, top 5 at the BURN 24hr SOLO, get on the podium at least three times (XC races), upgrade to cat 1 (expert), and win a sport xc race.

lastly, i need to wish my boys good luck (they are headed to the usa cycling cyclocross national championships in kansas city):
NOAH

J-FLO

RYAN FAWLEY


blogging will continue rather slowly for the next few months as i progress through BASE 1, before moving into BUILD 1. so thanks for reading, and knowing i won't post again for a month or two, happy new year

moses cone. lunch. calloway peak

darcy and i started our sunday running at moses cone trails. we ran around the lake, up the maze, down from the apple barn, then an extra lap around the lake for a total of 4.8 miles. we ran about 10 minute miles. not bad since we haven't gone running in weeks.

we came home, ate soup for lunch, then headed to the boone fork parking area on the BRP. we hiked up the tanawha trail past nuwati trail to the daniel boone scout trail. turning uphill for 2.7 miles brought us past beautiful rocks, trees, and even some icicles hanging in the shade. the views from the top were quite amazing, and made me happy to live in the high country and be able to see this stuff any day i want. now for the photos: