Monday night should have been a rest day, but I couldn’t help myself.  I just had to get out and spin around.  The evening weather was just too nice.

The ride itself was nothing special just more or less a really mellow (i.e. 15mph) recovery tour on the DC surface streets.  What it did do was give me time to take in the scenery and think about the procurement of a race frame.

As hinted at in the prior couple of posts, the lust for a race frame started this past weekend and has been dominating my thoughts for the past few days.

The Zurich, for all its comfort and simple elegance, is not a race machine.  I found this out during last Saturday’s race finish after having sprinted the bejesus out of bike and body, taking special note of the major weaknesses in both.  The body…..well, I just need to ride more and ride a little harder.  The bike?   There’s not much you can do to milk more performance out of a steel frame.  If this were the 1980s and everyone was sprinting and climbing on a 19lb bike with boat loads of bottom bracket flex (I can hear chainring rub when I sprint), then I’d fit right in.  Since this is 2009, I can’t help but feel as though I “need” a stiffer, lighter and racier frame.  That being said, I still don’t regret parting with the Seven.  It seems a little strange, since the Seven fits the criteria just mentioned, but the bike just wasn’t me.  I don’t know if it was the aero downtube, the compact geometry, or the obnoxious paint job.  It just wasn’t really me.  I tried to really like it on account of how nice of a bike it was (the parts were certainly top shelf), but it just didn’t click.  I guess you have to be a pretty obsessive cyclist to get to this level of bike ownership analysis, but I’m just rolling with it.

Ok, so where am I going with all this?  What’s the point?

Well, I scored a new frame.  It’s another eBay transaction and I’m putting it in the “good deal” column.

I had been leaning toward going mainstream, getting a bike that most common folk would recognize…..maybe a mid-level Cannondale or a Giant.  I spent several hours on Saturday and Sunday, scouring auctions and classifieds, looking for something for a few hundred bucks.  Something that I could just migrate my tired, worn out and trusty Ultegra onto.  With our wedding approaching later this month, and thus knowing that cash is flowing out the door faster than in any prior point in my life….I know I can’t go all out building something up like I did with the Seven.  I can’t be out buying carbon anything.  So there was never really too much consideration for buying a bunch of high end parts.  As such, I didn’t want to target a frame that had too much of a trendy, techy 2009 look.  I needed something a bit more classic, with plenty of cachet, but something that wouldn’t look too underdressed in 2002-3 Ultegra.  I also wanted something that could jive well with some modern accoutrements once the wedding is behind us and the cash flow situation improves.  So what did I go with?

Well, I’m gonna leave it as a mystery until I can take some proper pictures and get going on the build.

Stay tuned for the full story, and frame pedigree will be revealed next week upon arrival.

You’re welcome to email me your guess in the meantime….

Wow, so after all my whining about my back on Friday….I had a great Friday, Saturday, Sunday’s worth of riding and racing.

As mysteriously as the back pain came, it just as mysteriously went away.

Friday night, sometime after I had composed the previous post, I slipped out for a ride with Jon S and CJ over at Hains Point, just to loosen up the legs for Saturday’s race.  It was the perfect pace, just toodling around chatting, nothing extraordinary about the ride until the very end.  For most of the ride, the sky was unusually dark and ominously cloudy, but sometimes a dark cloudy sky is just a dark cloudy sky and passes by harmlessly….so until it starts sprinkling, I don’t even think too much of it (except to always have a little ziploc baggie to stash my iphone in).  Anyway, after peeling off from the other two guys and heading home, I noticed the wind started to pick up and I ended up with the craziest little tailwind heading from the 395 bridge along the Mt Vernon trail up toward the airport.  As I was riding along effortlessly at 23-4mph, I looked over my shoulder and saw black and brown tornado-like clouds.  I was clearly on the leading edge of the storm.  It was just as though I was trying to outrun it.  As I neared the airport, a jet slowly descended in to land (the bike path comes within 50 feet of the runway with only a little chain link fence in between, so the jets literally fly less than 100ft above your head when they land)….but, just he passed over my head, maybe 80-100ft up, his wings started rocking back and forth like crazy and seconds later, the pilot gunned the engines full on and pulled back hard up into the sky.  It was actually pretty cool to see.  Probably not for the passengers who probably felt like they were on a roller coaster ride…but it was cool for me.  So after seeing this pilot respond to the storm that was pushing me home, I figured it’d be a matter of just a few minutes before I’d get blasted by hail and driving rain.  I crossed my fingers and started hammering as much as I could….watching the dust blow around the bike path and the brown clouds bear down on Crystal City.  I kept waiting for that first little pitter patter of drops before the merciless wind and sideways rain…..hoping I’d have just a minute more.  I got within 100 meters of my building and felt those first few drops…..and after really gassing it to get in under the awning of my building…..the rain started to pour, and sure enough…an absolutely brutal maelstrom raged for the next 30 minutes.  I looked out my apartment window at the tree limbs snapping and the crazy wind howling….so grateful I didn’t have s soaked bike to prep for the next day’s race.

So besides escaping Mom nature’s fury, I was also very very happy with the way my back felt on Friday.  After being achy all day at work and feeling 90, I went for that ride and felt more like the [slightly less than] 30 year old I am.  That gave me a lot of confidence for the following day’s race…..not so much in terms of fitness, but at least in terms of pain-free competition.  I still found a reason to self medicate with a few Belgian ales before bedtime however….

….which of course meant that I woke up at 5am on Saturday extremely dehydrated and not all that enthused about the 2.5hr drive I had ahead of me.  Its always those first 10 minutes out of bed that are the hardest.  I can’t help but ask myself: why am I about to spend my Saturday morning in the car?  Oh that’s right, I’m driving 200 miles each way so I can pay to ride my bike 25 miles…..that’s why.  So I got in the car and made the tired drive up to Lancaster county.  I have to say, I really dig the Lancaster area.  Its basically like a mini-Belgium.  Its got the same kind of rolling topography, epic farm field vistas (not the boring flat Indiana corn field vistas, but more the Belgian kind that rationalize my pilgrimages).  To top it off, the sky was a perfect blue mixed with cumulonimbus clouds….the kind that would make for a great generic desktop wallpaper landscape.  I also got the timing down. I wasn’t there 2 hours early and sitting around on my hands (like previous races), instead I was a perfect 1 hour early, just enough time to get my registration packet, chug some more water and coffee, and do my 30 minutes of warm-up on the trainer.  I lined up at the start and realized that the field was unusually large for a Cat 5-Only race - there were nearly 50 of us.  So right from the start, I knew it’d be a challenge to stay in a good position for the finish.  With a strict center line rule, the entire race was a fight to stay mid-pack or better.  There were 4, 6 mile laps with lots of twists and turns and a finish that opened up into 2 lanes for the last 1km.

The first two laps were pretty mellow and I tried as hard as possible to stay really really conservative.  I saved as much energy as possible and tucked in behind people with the least sketchy bike handling.  Mid-way through the 3rd lap, I started to work toward the front.  I jumped on the outside and launched myself up to the top 5-6 guys and started to ride pretty aggressively to secure a spot in the top 10.  Toward the end of the 3rd lap, 3 riders on a local team made a coordinated break and I jumped in with them.  Being without any teammates, I figured if I just mooched off them and refused to do any work, it’d maybe get us caught earlier than if I pitched in, but I’d at least be toward the front of the peleton on the final lap when we’d most likely get caught.  Well, we got caught pretty quickly going into the last lap, and so I was left fighting pretty hard for position in the last 3-4 miles of that lap.  Just before the finish, about 1.5km out, there was a little hill that spread out the field on every lap…..every lap except the last one that is.  I was really hoping that the hill would enable me (sitting somewhere around 15-20th wheel at that point) to jump on a strong rider’s wheel and leech myself a lead-out.  On every other lap, it looked like that would be a perfectly viable strategy.  Unfortunately, the field remained much too clustered for me shoot into a good position and instead, the top 20-25 riders (top half of the field) just went nuts into a totally chaotic and extended sprint about 1km out.   Keep in mind that 1km is where folks like Cavendish and Pettachi start sprinting for the line….NOT Cat 5 racers.  It was a really weird finish because nobody appeared to have coordinated anything with anyone else, on behalf of themselves or otherwise.  It was just this long drawn out sprint with everyone for themselves from whatever position they were in after the hill about 1km out.  So I sprinted my balls off and managed to move up to 11th place, totally fighting the wind, with presumably horrible form.  If there were 2 or 3 riders working together well, they probably could have delivered the world’s worst Cat 5 sprinter to the line for the win.  95% of my team was busy running a Maryland race that our club sponsors and so wanted to race, this was my only last minute option - hence the lack of any team to coordinate with.  So anyway, I can live with 11th out of 47-8 riders.  Not my best day, but not my worst either.  One thing is clear though.  I really “need” to get a race bike if I’m to make this a regular thing.  The Lemond, as money as it is on nice long training rides (i.e. super cushy and compliant), it felt like a wet noodle in the sprint on Saturday.  It was the first time that I ran the bike through a 110% effort at peak power and it wasn’t pretty.  Since Saturday, I have been poking around on eBay for a cheap used carbon or aluminum frame - something really basic, not a long term frame by any stretch…..I’m thinking a Fuji Team or something on that order.  Just something to race the rest of 09 and maybe the spring of 2010.  I’ll post up some possible frames this week, maybe tomorrow’s post

oh and yesterday was indeed Ride 126, and was pretty much just a recovery spin around D.C.  Ok, enough blogging for now….more on the pending frame swap soon!

So in lieu of the manifesto I had planned for this long overdue blog post, I figured I’d just wing it and crank out this less ambitious update instead.

My how quickly things change….

One month ago, I was shaving my legs and shopping for carbon tubular race wheels. As of Tuesday morning, I found myself shipping my pimped out Seven race bike to its new owner in Tulsa, OK. I’d like to say that the proceeds will go toward something equally glamorous, but I’m afraid the cash will probably just get lost in the wedding spending spree we’ve been on.

So how did all this come to pass?

Well, in a nutshell I’m simply burnt out on battling chronic injury. I’ll be the first to admit that I absolutely did not do everything (i.e. physical therapy type sh*t, stretching, etc.) I should have over this past winter off-season to prevent the types of overuse injuries I’m prone too, yet I did more than I’ve ever done in the past, and it still wasn’t enough. Everyone that knows me as a cyclist or runner knows that I’ve been bitching about my knees off and on for years now. The strange thing about my knees is that they feel great under 99% of the conditions I subject them to. If you read some of the posts where I’m complaining about knee problems, you’d think I was an arthritic 55 yr old. Yet, that’s exactly the issue that confounds me….I’m only experiencing issues after a certain threshold of use. Unfortunately in cycling terms, that threshold is actually pretty low. Even though I went out and fought pretty hard in a few races this spring, I did so with a mere handful of base mile rides lasting more than 2 hours during the preceding months. Did I end up with an IT band (not even convinced that’s 100% the issue) because I didn’t log more long rides? Or did riding those longer 2, or 2.5 hour rides over the winter aggravate an underlying condition in the first place? The bottom line is that I’m just sick of troubleshooting the situation, and sick of dwelling on it. Its very frustrating as a cyclist to be worried about injuring yourself when riding for more than 2 hours a pop…

The final straw came almost a month ago at the Baker’s Dozen race in Leesburg. I would have written up a race review several weeks ago, but the fact of the matter is that it was a pretty demoralizing race for me. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and a bunch of friends were congregating among bikes, piles of junk food, and countless beers for the entire day. So what could tarnish that? Well, when big chubby guys with beer bellies resting on their top tubes are cranking out night laps while yours truly, (on account of the knee situation described above) is really only capable of drinking beers and trying to feel good about riding 4 laps…that’s what. Thankfully, having a bunch of good friends sitting around drinking beers pretty much makes 95% of life’s problems disappear, so the race was ultimately worth every penny of the $80 fee just to spend a Saturday immersed in that scene.

Following the race, my wimpy little knee felt like a$$ for a solid week. Had the pain dissipated after some NSAIDs, icing, and a few days’ rest, then my mindset might have taken a different trajectory. Yet, here I am today, having joined a climbing gym last week, having sold the Seven, and currently staring down a boat load of wedding planning tasks. Suffice it to say that my road “season” is over. I still have the Lemond with a fresh set of Conti 25s that I plan to log some miles on. I also really want to max out the Walt and give her the attention she deserves. That being said, I managed to get out on my first post Baker’s Dozen ride at Rosaryville on Sunday and it felt great. I logged a nice mellow 2 laps (~18 miles) with CJ to keep me company and it reminded me of how much I miss the casual mountain bike ride. So it’s back to the basics across the board and hopefully quite a few chill mountain bike rides to break-in the Walt Works.

I’ve got a few additional mountain rides to post up in the coming days…still trying to get back into the swing of things here…stay tuned.

• Seven frame > sell on ebay
• Seven Parts > migrate to Lemond frame
• Lemond parts > migrate to Surly frame (for Oksana’s new around-town bike…the Surly frame can be setup in a gazillion different ways…one of them being a road/cross type bike with cantis)
• Surly Parts > migrate to Walt frame

• Lemond with DA and several pounds lighter
• Oksana with a better bike to roll around town on
• Dan with some extra cash to apply to his Bolivian mountaineering trip (or Glock 19)….

Ok, a lot to catch up on…

first, a note on the title change.  I got an email from my friend Ian in response to the fat bus driver post and my cog analogy where he jokingly referred to me as the MVCIS.  I thought it sounded funny in a satirically self-deprecating sorta way, so I thought it’d be a good “post-300 to 30″ blog title to try on for size.

So onto the recap of the roller coaster week that has me ultra bummed out and cracking a beer(s) right now:

Last Wednesday was recovery from the Tuesday night’s 3 hour ride, and otherwise pretty uneventful.  I did the same old one hour spin into DC around Hains point and saw what was probably the gazillionth fox so far this year.  Honestly they are more populous than squirrels down on Hains Point.  I don’t know if the scent of my sometimes-a-little funky chamois is becoming familiar to them or what….but they seem to be getting bolder and stopping only a few meters away from me as I slow down and creep by them.  I’m still not entirely accustomed to regularly coming within spitting distance of these supposedly “wild” foxes on these night rides and so it weirds me out a bit.

Thursday was cold as hell outside and turned out to be a perfect gym workout day.  I’ve been trying to do more hip flexor and quad work to stabilize my knees a bit (and hopefully mitigate my IT band issues…so the gym work is a good thing right now)

Friday was a do-nothing-keep-my-feet-up-and-catch-up-on-my-drinking day.  I didn’t plan on it being a “cheat day” since I anticipated some dietary loosening during the NYC trip later in the weekend, but I ended up pouring myself a few fingers of scotch and one thing led to another…  I’m not sure if God was watching down on me and getting ready to punish me for my utter lack of discipline or not….but the rest of the weekend (from a training standpoint) was all downhill - despite being an awesome time.

Saturday was bad.  The forecast looked to be pretty brutal, and I knew I needed to log a good solid ride.  I suited up in my 25 degree riding outfit when I probably shoulda prepared for 15, caused thats about what it turned out to be.  I started off feeling ok, but not nearly as refreshed as I expected to feel.  I went out of my way to seek out some hills to avoid the wind and stay a bit warmer.  After snaking through Alexandria neighborhoods down south of Mt Vernon, I was about 20 or so miles from home when I realized that my feet were starting to get colder at an increasingly scary pace.  With the daylight fading, and my feet already completely numb, that’s when I decided to start heading home (dumb, I know).  I started back at about the same pace as I had gone out with…but my feet became so wood-like, I started to get concerned and jacked up the intensity a bit.  I started running through mental scenarios where I’d end up getting home to purple feet and tissue damage…and I actually kinda scared myself - I had really underestimated the cold.  I rode as hard as I could on the way back and was well into the 20s the entire way despite the variable winds and dropping temps.  This would have been all fine and dandy, getting in some unplanned high intensity training…but then my IT band started acting up.  It was totally demoralizing to feel the now very familiar pain in my left knee, but still not quite distracting enough to keep my mind from thinking about my poor feet.

By the time I rolled into my apartment building….I could barely walk.  I literally felt like a pirate with 2 peg legs.  I almost fell down inside the elevator, and then hobbled down the hall like an absolute gimp… I did something even more foolish once I got inside my apartment… In a hurry to warm up my feet….I tore off my shoes and immersed my scary ghost-white feet in hot water.  It felt kinda good at first…..and then, the man-tears were shed.  I was literally crippled with pain there on the side of the tub, still in my jacket, tights and helmet….my feet the source of unbelievable pain.  It was silly bad.  It felt like my toenails were being ripped out with pliers.  I honestly couldn’t believe how bad it was.  I’ve had super cold feet before and just allowed them to gradually warm on their own, or with the aid of a warm car vent or simple ambient room warmth.  The hot water thing….well, it goes in the never again category, thats for sure.  Obviously I felt like ass after this episode and decided to pound some wine at that night’s dinner party (my dietary restrictions were also suspended).   Fun was had.

No rest for the weary however.  After staying out til 2ish on Saturday, Oksana and I got going early on Sunday and drove up to NYC to spend the remainder of our weekend.  Not wanting to miss out on the chance to cruise around the city with my friend Norman (953 SSR guy), I threw my Lemond on the car and off we went.  By 2pm Norman and I were on the bikes cruising through Brooklyn.  As an aside, Norman’s bike, the “November bike” that I posted pics of a couple months ago….damn does it look better in person.  I’m 100% sold on the 953 concept now.

I’m also sold on NYC riding.  Its just a totally different world up there compared to DC (duh right?) with so much to take in.  We even found some pretty sweet kayaking to be had.

Compared to DC, the bike lanes are actually pretty abundant, if not disrespected.  We cruised over the Brooklyn Bridge, which was awesome.  If I wasn’t so blown away by the views of the city as we crested the bridge I probably woulda been a little more annoyed by the clueless tourists meandering in and out of the bike lanes…but in the end it was a treat.  Here we are just starting out on the Brooklyn side of the bridge, Norman on his pimp-ass bike:

I actually picked the most uninspiring spot on the bridge to take this shot - the city is obscured by the arc of the bridge at this low point - so here is some random dude on the bridge (seriously, no idea who he is), but you can see what the view looks like riding over the top.

Anyway, we cruised along the west side highway and up into central park.  The park is actually a pretty sweet little training loop.  I don’t recall exactly, but I think Norman said it was 6 miles - ideal to do some rolling training laps on.

The weather was less than ideal: a wet 30-34 degrees at the start and somewhere less than that at the end of the ride with some spitting snow and sleet to finish it off.  I think the excitement of riding someplace different made me care a lot less than I ordinarily would and the ride just kinda zipped right by.  Between the daylight fading, Norman’s feet freezing (bootyless in 30 degree wet weather I might add) and my knee getting worse by the mile, 30 miles turned out to be the perfect cutoff point before our Sunday night food & beer binge.  Norman and I started out with a quick post ride drink at one of his local favorites, “Beer Table,” before meeting up with Oksana for some recovery food and a night full of more deliciously hearty craft brews:

Its pretty safe to say that CO Nick has a leg up at this point in the 150lb contest.  The picture above kinda gives one a sense of what my state of mind was on Sunday night.  With the 70 wet and cold miles in the previous 48 hours, and a throbbing knee to show for it…..I started my downhill slide.  The 48 hours since Sunday night have included multiple decadent desserts, bagels w/ cream cheese, daily beers, an entire Pizza Hut pizza (size L), multiple chocolate bars (I think a bag of Skittles made its way in there somewhere), a cuban hot pressed sandwich and plate of fries, and other stuff I don’t remember.  Uhhh yeah, I gained back a couple pounds.  The coup de grâce?  Well, the fact that I can’t log any miles without pain right now is a HUGE demoralizer.  I’m back to the same Spring 2007 situation I found myself in when logging a few too many miles on the singlespeed.  I’d laugh off the disgusting food with some epic training rides this next week if it weren’t for the pain.  Now its back to a mixture of therapy and 100rpm low gear-short duration rides on the flats - pretty much the second fastest way to becoming much slower, only bested by pure couch time.

I hope alcohol has some anti-inflammatory properties.

ok, back to business…..I skipped a write up of Sunday’s ride which was just a recovery spin with CJ…..but last night (Ride #64), well….last night was a cold-as-shit 3 hours in the saddle.  My Niterider Tri-Newt light barely got me home.

Now that its regularly dipping down below 30 at night, I’ve had to ditch my jersey + baselayer hardass approach, and actually mix in a softshell layer.

What a difference a little Mountain Hardwear makes….damn.  It was upper 20s for most of the ride and the only body part thrashed by the cold were my feet.  I love you mysterious softshell material.

On another note, I must confess, I’ve started up a nasty little habit…

No, not black tar or china white….its the dreaded ear-buds-whilst-riding that I’m addicted to.  Now that my phone (which I’ve always thrown in a jersey pocket for emergency purposes) and music are so sweetly intertwined a la iphone…well, it was only a matter of time before I gave in and decided to plug in some headphones.  The best part is, when I get smoked by a car that I didn’t hear coming, I’ll be able to conveniently dial for help from the phone that’s playing some nice tunes in the background.

Honestly though, riding with music is pretty much the way to stay motivated when you’re out by yourself at 10pm on a weeknight in the pitch black winter cold, trying to convince yourself to keep going for another hour….

I’ve got a great bunch of mixes put together and I’m noticing that I’ll randomly get a shot of insipiration depending on how the shuffle on my iphone works out.  I was lollygagging along the other night when Prince’s “Fury” popped on….suddenly I felt a bit energized and ramped up my intensity a notch.

I know quite a few of you are probably thinking that I’ll just become another one of those douchebags that’s out riding around oblivious to his surroundings and a hazard to other trail users.  Well, I’m already a little bit of a douchebag, but I’m fighting to remain attentive as much as possible (win some, lose some)….

One last thing: It looks like the race for gauntness is heating up.  Colorado Nick is down to 158 or so (depending on whether he’s shat pre-weigh-in).  and I’m hovering around 152-4lbs.  Originally the wager was suggested to be $50, but I’m proposing that the winner receives an IOU coupon for miscellaneous entertainment of his choice when we are in Amsterdam this July (there may more may not be pictures ;-0)

Ok, time to go purge…..the apple I just ate was not part of my daily plan.

The only thing I hate worse than being yelled at, is being yelled at - at the end of a bad ride.

Last night I got out for what was planned to be a pretty mellow effort, and it was indeed mellow in terms of effort, but my body simply felt like ass the entire time.  My legs felt fatigued (not in that good, “I’m working hard accomplishing something” sorta way, but in the “I need a rest day” sorta way) and my left knee really never warmed up.  Now considering it was a chilly night, with the temp sitting right around 32 degrees the entire duration of the ride, I guess some of this shittiness is expected.

Whats not to be expected?  Some fat ass bitch of a bus driver standing on the street corner yelling at me to obey the light.

Now, I have to paint a better picture cause I’m sure some of you are like…yeah, she has a point.  Well, maybe she does, but there is something to be said for delivery.  I’m going to ignore the fact that I’m in all likelihood a far more valuable cog within society than this piece of shit slob who will probably be pulling a disability check by age 45 considering her grotesque obesity (after all, behavior of valuable cogs is intrinsically correct right?) - and just look at the situation from a neutral stance.

The intersection that I was stalled at, is a pressure-sensitive timed (those metal thingies embedded in the pavement) light.  Therefore, unless you weigh 2000lbs, you are not triggering this light sensor in the pavement.  So, knowing this (after having waited multiple light cycles in the past at the same intersection), I creep out onto the median past the first side of the street, and wait for the opposite side to clear.  Thats when I hear this bitch yelling at me.

I hear shouting and not realizing its directed at me, I look up…..

“Yeah, YOU!  YOU NEED TO OBEY THE LIGHT!  SEE THAT RED LIGHT!? (she points)…..blah blah blah”  Then my internal filter kicked in and I didn’t make out anything else she was saying as I rode away from her.

Then, as I rode away, the delayed anger set in.  Sure, maybe she had a bad day at work….whatever.  I had just put in a really long work week myself, and nonetheless forced myself off the couch and out onto the streets to relieve some stress.

I guess I don’t really have a point here, other than to vent.  Obviously I’m joking about the more valuable cog thing, but seriously….I don’t know what more to say.  This kinda thing just pisses me off.

Then again, maybe the dieting thing is making me cranky.

I weighed in at 152 this morning (147 goal race weight), but was probably a little dehydrated.  This is pretty crazy, but I’ve only had 4 beers in 2009 (and no other alcohol either), and all of them were at the Gogol Bordello concert last Friday night.  To be honest, there is really no way I’m going very far with this kind of self imposed asceticism.  I figure to see what kind of dividends the discipline with pay this spring, as far as maximizing my own physical performance potential….then go from there.  I have a feeling, being “kinda sorta fast” and guzzling craft brews and single malt night caps might be a happier place than “fast as I can possibly be” and having 1 beer a month.

random: found out the other day that Oksana and I are skipping town for the inaugaration and will be up in NYC for an extended weekend.  We’re driving up, so I hope to have some solid ride time while there.

I’m not sure there’s a good “spin” to put on tonight’s ride.  Normally I’d be inclined to wax a little poetic about how I battled the cold or the wind, but actually….it just sucked balls.  It seemed like there was never a tailwind to enjoy, just shitty headwinds and crosswinds.  I never felt strong and just kinda struggled the entire ride.  To be fair, the lower intake of carbs is probably making me a bit sluggish, but I guess its a small price to pay.  To top it all off, I didn’t even log the 2 hours I had planned…..settling for 1.5 instead.

A couple observations from tonight’s ride:

• It sucks when you ram into a Mexican wearing all black with no lights walking across the bike path.
• There is so much f*cking noise pollution in this area.  I swear, between the howling wind, the cars and just whatever else…I could barely hear myself think, let alone listen to see if I solved my creaking bottom bracket issue.
• Noises emanating from the bottom bracket area are by far the most obnoxious since it makes your entire bike sound like junk.
• My glorious Sigma computer has one glaring and obnoxious flaw: unusually audible beeps when the crank magnet passes by the cadence sensor and likewise for the speed sensor on the wheel….surprisingly loud actually.  What the f*ck?  What is the purpose of that?  I get that it lets you know that the sensor is working on each pass, but wouldn’t a little blinking light work just as well??? and be WAAAY less obnoxious?

To finish with a positive sentiment…I can say that my new seatpost is a shockingly noticeable improvement in the overall ride quality of the Seven.  Its probably 2x as stiff as the carbon post it replaced….maybe not everyone’s cup of tea, but it serves to accentuate the frame’s ride qualities so much more than before…and I’m loving it.

So I decided the best way to bring about some structure to both my blogging and my training is to base each entry around my daily training log and then go from there.  Might be a bit boring at times to read about my stats for the day, or what I’ve had to eat, etc, but it gives me an extra driver for organizing my plan and staying on the ball.  Since today’s ride was simply an hour long recovery ride where I literally kept my HR below 130 the entire time, with an average of 119 on the flats, this is a good time to touch on the high-level approach to these first few months in 09.  I’ll sprinkle in the other crap around each individual ride entry.  For now though, I’m going to fast forward a bit up to #60.

Obviously one of my larger buckets of mini-resolutions/goals this year is cycling specific.  That being the case, I put together a pretty sweet training plan, basing it on both info found on the trainingpeaks site, and my own previous knowledge of my own body and training history (i.e. issues to mitigate).  There really isn’t anything magical about “my plan,” other than my fancy excel tinkering and a more holistic approach than I would otherwise have taken, since I’m looking at all aspects of my life as they relate to cycling.  I have the standard base phase (which I’m in the midst of) and then the build, competition, transition phases, but then I also have a pretty thorough means with which to track diet (in addition to training peaks/dietpower), stress, and other factors.  Most important will be the scheduling though, since I’m essentially working with a 2/3 season.  In a nutshell, my season will peak immediately prior to my wedding in July.  After the wedding trip, I’ll be a pile of shit bike racer.  I managed to mitigate some of the self-destruction last summer in Ukraine with a wee bit of self discipline and the fact that I was there by myself to study.  This time around, I’ll be there to celebrate, passing through such places as Amsterdam and Vienna? with 4 friends looking to tear shit up bachelor style.

Anyway, the point is, my season will be kinda short and sweet with a lot of road racing in the spring and early summer, and then after the wedding… probably a long period of goofing around on my mountain bike before thinking about some cyclocross (maybe).

Now as for my approach to this, I’m first and foremost concerned with getting into early season race form asap.  Here’s where it starts to get boring unless you’re obsessive about bodyweight like me (i.e. a bit chickish).  The first step for me getting “fit” is to drop some weight.  Everyone knows that you should be as lean as possible to race at your potential.  That being said, I had a disastrous Thanksgiving-New Year’s stretch from a cycling/bodyweight perspective.  I easily packed on 5-7 lbs of pure fat in that brief period gluttony.  That doesn’t sound like much, but if you do the math, its horrendous at my weight (I’m right around 155 now after shedding a couple in the last week).  Just pretend that at 150, I was 10% bodyfat.  If I add 5lbs of pure fat to my frame, my bodyfat shoots up 2.5% just like that.  It might not be enough to change your pants size, but its more than enough to zap the juice right out of any cyclist’s climbing ability.  So to say that I’m pulling out all the stops to drop down to my target weight of 146 is an understatement.  No sugar or cream in my coffee, no alcohol (I’m serious about this one…unless socially obliged of course ;-0) and a no eating out.  I’ve pared down the ratio of carbs in my diet immensely already (this coming from a carb loving freak) and have boosted the overall quality of my proteins and fats as much as I can for now.  I’m shooting for a 500-700kc deficit per day (including training expenditures) to start trimming down.  This might sound entirely neurotic to some of you, but I’ve spent way too many season’s just screwing around way below my potential, just randomly racing without any real training or prep.  Hence the obsessiveness.

I can tell you that the reduction in carbs is hard when I find myself inadvertently jacking up the intensity a little.  I’m straddling a thin line on some of these rides.  With that being said, I’m being very diligent about my refueling - trying to consume most of my carbs right in that prime absorption window post-ride.

My friend Nick L from out in Colorado is similarly neurotic about his training and weight, and so we have this casual “contest” to see who can get down to 150lbs first (we’re pretty much the same size and build except he’s starting with 7 or so more lbs of muscle).  We stopped short of getting into speedos and posing with a newspaper, but we are texting our morning weigh-in numbers back and forth.  155.5 for me today…

Since there are other posts and topics to touch on, I’ll wrap this up with a snapshot of my food intake over the past weekend (this is out of my food journal in my custom training log (i.e. not training peaks)).  Note that I’ve actually been undershooting my target intake by quite a bit, which is not a good idea for very long, but just worked out that way this weekend….I will typically eat a bit more (note the dark chocolate is only on account of a house guest we had over the weekend, probably the last time I eat chocolate for a few months).

SATURDAY

• 2 Servings Bran Cereal w/skim 2 cups of coffee
• 2 slices whole wheat toast w/ PB,  1 serving of Heed during ride
• 8oz OJ, 2 slices toast, 1/2 chicken breast, 10oz glass of tomato/Tabasco, handful of almonds
• 1 pear, 1/2 chicken breast with Thai chili-pepper sauce, 1 serving dark chocolate, green tea

SUNDAY

• omellette w/ eggplant, onions, cheese, olives
  1 cup coffee, 1 double espresso, 1 cup green tea
• Handful of almonds
• power drink: 1 serv whey, 1 serv mixed berries, 2 tbsp ground flax, 1 cup milk, 1 banana. 2 dried figs
• salad: mixed greens, tamatoes, vinegar/olive oil, almonds, olives, mushrooms, onions.  Partial baked acorn squash, green tea, 1 serving d. choco

Yesterday was another recovery ride, but instead of the previous day being a monster workout, it was instead an epic party.

Friday night was ridiculous.  Irish car bombs, an entire flask of scotch, a little tequila, a few mojitos, a few beers and I was out (ask me sometime about the bum waking me up in the metro).  I don’t think I crawled out of bed until early afternoon.  Another couple hours later and I was on the bike feeling like ass, sweating out all the toxins.

I scooted down around Hains Point a few times and then up into DC.  I just kept going and going, logging more miles than I had planned, simply on account of all the massive guilt associated with hedonistic food and alcohol consumption the day before.  In the end, I only racked up about 35 miles, but it was 35 more than I felt like logging…thats for sure.

I did have some time to reflect back on some cycling related “goals” I had set for myself in 2008 (I don’t like “resolutions” so I set “goals”….but really its the same shit right?)  I kept these in my cycling ride log where I tracked things like miles and ride locations, etc.

I’ll spare you the work/education related goals, and just list the health/cycling items and how I’ve fared.

Log at least 200 days in the saddle - I blew this one away and am closing in on 250 for the year.  Thats not bad considering the month I spent abroad at peak season (all of July).

Drop below 150lbs and be at a “solid” riding weight - Nope.  I got below this once, but it was an unhealthy dehydrated 148.  I’d like to get down to 147 or so for spring 2009, but never did in 2008

Limit alcohol to weekends and social events - Not even close.  I routinely go back and forth between a carpe diem mentality and a: “I’m going to buckle down and get fast” mode of thought (in which case the alcohol should be kept to a bare minimum)…but thus far, the former has won out.

Benchmark myself in a handful of mtb races - Yes.  I didn’t do an all-out race calendar, but the handful of races I did do gave me enough data in terms of lap times and results to tell me that I can compete at the expert level if I train (something I did very little of in 2008…most just logging junk miles to and from work).

So anyway…I plan on refining my “goals” for 2009, and they will likely be a lot more aggressive, and disciplinary, since I’d like to give this season my all.