wednesday. blah. spinach salad! yay

so wednesday was busy - i got to work early, mounted tires up and got rotors on the new wheels. the workday was filled with excitement/phonecalls/busy-ness. its nice that spring is here, business is good, and well, 6pm comes even quicker!!

after work i replaced my saddle (stock one had a loose rail/shell interface) with a new fizik tundra2:

needless to say i'm excited.

a quick earthfare trip for cereal, ginger and FREE APPLES!!! and i'm home cooking up spinach salad. its not quite boone saloon spinach salad, but rather, umm, better. spinach, thick sliced bacon, chopped red pepper, minced ginger, chopped red onion, ground cumin, baked sweet potatoes, orange juice (freshly squeezed from an orange), salt/pepper, olive oil. thanks mark bittman for the recipe/inspiration. yum:


thankfully, as with our dinner last night, there are plenty of leftovers for lunch. =) i'll hopefully get some warrior creek laps tomorrow. thanks for reading. jg

10x 1mins + stir-fry!

so after a great day sunday and a chill monday - no ski-shop monday night - i went for a big workout this morning. max and i settled on 20mins warmup, 10 x 1min PI 1min RBI, cool down. a short workout - straight to the point. i did a usual 20mins warmup with some fastpedals and a couple PI's. getting into the intervals i felt good at first, and instantly began deteriorating as the 1min intervals ticked by. eventually i told myself quit being a baby, i want to stand on the podium this year and managed to crank out a couple more good efforts. the #'s looked like this:



interval 1 - avg power 356watts
interval 2 - avg 338w
interval 3 - avg 313w
interval 4 - avg 322w
interval 5 - avg 305w
interval 6 - avg 328w
interval 7 - avg 322w
interval 8 - avg 342w
interval 9 - avg 295w
interval10- avg327w

danville, VA shootout XC is coming up - i'll be racing there for the third year in a row, although this year it opens up the southern classic mtb series and NC bike racing in general. it is a great race and fun trail and i'm hoping the last 6 weeks of 'training' will pay off and i can stand on the podium, even if i have to sneak on when nobody is looking - maybe after these guys are done:



work at the bike shop went well today, i got in some earthfare grocery shopping before work and a harris teeter trip after work. i got home and found out more about the awesomest thing in a while: darcy, my wife, got teacher of the year for bethel elementary school. i cannot explain how proud i am, knowing she generally works harder than anyone could imagine and puts the kids education first and will try any new interesting technological lesson if it might help the kids figure it out. currently she's in grad school for technology in classrooms (i can't remember the proper name) and just finished coaching basketball and has cranked up her running club again for the spring. basically, she is AWESOME and i am so proud!!!

insert silly animated smily face here


we'd decided to make stir-fry tonight and well, it got started late but was quite worth it:

local chicken breast, steak, broccoli (stalks too), green onions, snow peas, shiitake mushrooms, ginger, garlic, almonds, szechuan sauce. rice is barely visible on the left.

cooking. peanut oil, sesame oil, and white wine come in handy.


yum for dinner!! leftovers too...

so that wraps it up for today - now watching biggest loser and parenthood. thanks for reading. jg

rainy days - sunday ride - rollers

so it rained on my day off last week. boo hoo!! i'd planned on going down to wilkesboro for some mtb fun but instead hung around the house, did laundry, napped, grocery shopping, etc. a view of the day:



so that was a day. friday night after work darcy and i went to spectate pee-wee basketball. you get the idea:



saturday night we had a party for charles 30th birthday - it ran well into the night and was awesome. waking up sunday morning for mtn bike riding was slightly more difficult, but well worth it. darcy and i got in our lap at warrior creek and after switching bags/clothes out for my carpool home (thanks Chuck!) i was back out looking for marland, paul, brent, and stack. they were riding the trail backwards and i met up with them about 1/3 of the way through. we headed back towards the cars (the trail is weird backwards btw) and then after a short water stop, drop paul off to his car, and pick up greg seiz we were back at it. marland kept pushing the pace and well, i tried to hang on:



we got about halfway through the lap (normal direction) and i peeled off to head back to the car. rolling up to chuck's truck my computer says 3:59:something ride time. granted some of that was standing around but i'm happy with 3+ hours with some quick bits thrown in. pizza for dinner was made even better after some driveway/gravel work in the rain.

this morning after a bowl of cereal i jumped on the rollers for a quick easy spin. it was quite fun and i managed to unzip my jacket (basement is cold sometimes!) and also pedal up to 115rpm at one point. unfortunately i could not pat myself on the back or take cool photos/video while riding:




then i had a tough time fitting my head through the door upstairs afterwards. not sure what is going on:



thanks for reading. comments are welcome. jg

photo of the day.

i could get used to this. photo of the day makes consistent posting quite a bit easier. photos from a recent 4.5 hour solo ride:

65 miles, 3 x 30min intervals, sunshine, & recess visit with darcy!

i had a great bike ride today. probably the best 'training' ride in a long time. i rolled from george wilson rd to hodges gap, oak grove, old bristol, us321 to sugar grove. i finished my 60mins warm-up rolling up old421 with a few fastpedal and a few PI's. along the way i discovered Kern's Bakery - it doesn't look open today:



so returning to the 321 end of old421 i started 30 minutes of tempo headed toward trade. after finishing with a short loop i took a minute to stand/stretch/recompose myself and then started up 30mins of 'steady state' headed back towards sugar grove. unfortunately i went too fast, had to make a u-turn roll back to sherwood rd or so then recovered for 10 or 12 minutes including shedding a layer (long sleeve jersey and glove switch) since my next 30minutes was going up georges gap rd:




well i got to the top (beautiful view):



again, i misjudged where to start my interval so i got to the top in 21 or 22 minutes. i re-installed my long sleeve jersey and rolled/coasted to bethel elementary school playground to kick it with mrs grimes during recess =)

after some lance crackers:



i headed out rush branch rd to 321 south to rominger rd then watauga river rd:




some of watauga river rd was in perfect shape for the road bike:




some of it was not:



i managed to ride up nc194 forgetting the bridge was out:



so i walked over a 2x8 bridge then did the standard bairds creek, dewitt barnett, laurel fork. passed some mailboxes:



to nc105-bypass:


i finished up with an easy spin back down to george wilson rd and thought to myself this was a great way to spend 5 hours while getting in my workout. this is roughly my route (mapmyride.com didn't save it):



thanks max for the workout - thanks to everyone else (thousands of ppl) for reading. jg

STOP - trainer time?

so i'm riding my trainer this morning with my phone playing pandora. i put it on the fatboy slim station - good stuff plays throughout my workout and nearing the end of a 30minute (rather challenging) interval i hear "duh dunnah dunt, duhdunt duhdunt" and i think i kind of smiled a bit - here i am suffering and superfreak comes on!!! i'm reminded of Little Miss Sunshine - YES!!!!



another few notes go by and "YOU CAN'T TOUCH THIS!!!" my kind of smile turned into laughing and i happily finished my workout to MC HAMMER. for your viewing pleasure:



thanks for reading - comments are cool too.

resting

so i'd been following a pretty solid training schedule for the last three weeks - hitting target power for 5mins, 10mins, 22mins, etc



and setting peak power records, doing 3+ hour mtn rides on weekends and days off - starting to feel somewhat fit - like this guy:



and then i catch the plague.



okay, not that kind of plague, maybe not even the flu, but a cold that has my ears popping, nose running, chills and coughing as a bonus. so i go home early from work, do a 1/4 day yesterday, and on my 'day off' (i actually would like to go in - i feel so slack!) i'm sitting at home, drinking emergenC, hot tea honey and whiskey,



and covering up to my nose with my blankey.



this morning i took advantage of my fatigue, feet up,



ability to surf the interweb and type to update my 2011 'racing schedule'. if you want to see all the races i'll be fighting for DFL then look to the right hand side of the screen. yup - right there--------->

so i'm excited about this year, i've got a new 2011 specialized stumpjumper EVO R 29er



at least i will look fast when performing reverse attacks. i can tell at this point that my HR (heart rate for those of you who don't know) is getting a little high suggesting to me that i am typing a bit much so i'm going back to putting my feet up and fluids. this year will be a turning point for sure - the blog will actually get updated, i will get faster (2nd to last place instead of DFL), and people will actually want to check this out. thanks for reading. jg

2011 -

hmm



where did 2010 go?? must have spent too much time riding mtn bikes. or maybe it was buying a house?? i did some racing - got a few top 5's, almost on the podium...



i'm looking forward to the 2011 season - lots of xc races, no 24hr solo stuff this year, maybe one 100k and one 100miler. i hope to get in on the boone binge and also the fall tour in GA. otherwise i want to hit up some southern classic races and SERC races too.



this seems to be a good re-introduction to the blogging world - with that i'm off to get a good 7 hours of sleep, wake up early and go XC skiing before work. thanks for checking this out. jg

bikes beer boys weekend 2k9 - asheville

blue skies - all weekend!


hanging in asheville/fletcher/pisgah with evan daniel and matt (and kinsay. thanks for letting us invade your house!) - super fun

food before:


food after:


SQUIRREL - start


matt - squirrel gap


evan - crossing cantrell creek


cantrell creek (cool camera water setting):



me on fs-5018:


black mtn i think:


daniel - horse cove


matt - the smile sums up the day:


pisgah - ranger district - SQUIRREL!


gps after:


all of my pictures are HERE.