Irony

Here's some irony, this pic will be a year old almost to the day our baby is due. This is Michael Irelan, our friends Mark & Mindy's son. And no he's not from Orc.

Double 13

First I know its been a long time between posts but I'm ahead of Skip. Been busy gathering parts to build up my cross bike & racing this past weekend(more on that in a sec). Thanks to the generosity of one of OCC's sponsors I decided to build up the Green Machine with used/new parts from EBAY. So I'll end up with less than $400 in it. The bulk going to a carbon fork & a set of Tufos.

This weekend was the Berryman Adventure Race. Last year I did it as a 2 person with Cynthia & we smoked all the 2 men teams (we were actually the 3rd to finish a solo guy & a 4 man team beat us) by over 2 hrs to win. So I was looking to have a good race as a 4 person coed team this year. Cynthia raced this year to a solid 4th in the 2 person long with my buddy Jason Coleman (spelled DICKHEAD) whom I've shared an all too close night in a one person bivy sack last year during the Beast of The East. I was a little pissed @ myself for having to chase them for so long during the race. I wasn't superstitious before this race but I am now. We were team 13 staying in cabin 13. SO everything that could go wrong went wrong.

I don't recommend finding out your going to become a dad the week of an Adventure race(especially if your the navigator). Needless to say my body was on autopilot & my mind.. I'm not really sure where it was. We got off to a great start running the "prologue" to hit the bikes first & start building our lead. Well @ 5am in fog & riding a mountain bike @ 17+ mph its hard to read road signs. Not really thinking about the map we hauled some serious ass right past the turn we wanted. It only took me 6 miles out of our way to figure out I'd made the Fup off the century. There was a lot of cussing going on. Not by my teammates who were super supportive & positive but by me because I couldn't believe I screwed us that bad. So too make amends I put my head down & go into TT mode racing to CP1. TT mode not so good for looking for road signs, yep about a mile past it before realizing mistake. I did have enough sense @ this point to realize I wasn't in nav mode & told John "I couldn't find my own ass please take the maps". To his credit he took them & didn't say a word about my Fup & nav'd a great race, I was really proud of him.

After almost sinking to the bottom of a pond in a rubber raft with a hole the size of my head in it getting CP2 the pace started going better. By the end of the bike we've actually pasted a lot of teams. We hit the first mystery event which is a traverse across a set of cables. No problem but once you get in the middle they swing you about 180 degrees each way! From here we trek to the canoe. We had a pretty good boat leg. This was the first time I had been in the front of the boat with Doug steering though. He managed to make me have to duck under every low hanging limb in the river. I was beginning to wonder if he was paying me back for the earlier 12 mile transgression? Surely not since Doug is about the most upbeat guy on the planet.

Off the boats & on to the 2nd mystery event which even though Anna won't admit it I think was her favorite. We had to climb over varying size piles of round hay bales. This took a little team work with John pulling & me pushing Anna over. She only complained a little, why I don't know John & I did all the work. Off to the first transition & we've come from double double last place to 5th. We get another set of coordinates & now know how we're going to get back to our mountain bikes which we had dropped many many miles from the TA. With a long, long, run up road 2265.

John put in a great nav here & we managed to run(yes run) our way into 4th place by the time we got back to the bikes. Needless to say the bike is our strong point in AR. Depending on who you ask some think its our run but I'm pretty sure its the bike leg. By the end of the bike we were in 2nd! We pass 2 teams almost @ the same time & they had started the bike almost an hour & a half ahead of us!

By this time the sun had set & it was time to get back in the boats for a night paddle. This was my first time back in a boat @ night after my near death night time paddling experience @ the beast. It was pretty good except for my one flashback near a very large undercut boulder. Paddling by headlamp & glowsticks is an interesting experience.

After the canoe we hop out for a pretty long final trekking leg were the map (or lack there of) made us take quite the leap of faith in our final route choice. Luckily we were able to figure out the Ozark Trail wasn't on the map & it would take us almost directly back to the finish. We mustered up enough strength to run across the finish line in 2nd an hour & 10 minutes behind the team who beat us @ the Sylamore challenge. So factor out my F'ups & we should have won. Once again Team Dynamic Earth proved we overcome adversity & can come from behind to finish strong(this is the 4th time this year). Hopefully @ Nationals we'll put it all together & have that race that our potential says we can have.

9/23/05 The Big announcement

Well its finally the 23rd so Super G can quit guessing what the announcement is going to be. The news was based on if I got an entry into Primal Quest next year or not. Well this week it became a moot point anyway. I've been kicking around the idea of not AR racing next year & Primal Quest was going to be my only AR race next year. So next year I'll be Hell bent on catting up to race 2's with Super G. Hopefully by April I'll be moved up to take my beatings from the big boys. Being only 9 points away it shouldn't be too hard. Hopefully I can make the Tour of the Gila my first race as a 2 (not sure how smart an idea that will be?).

Here's the rush to cat up; I'm taking the end of May through June of because I'm going to be a Dad. Excitement is plentiful in my humble little household!! Amber is due on or about May 24. So I guess without knowing it (me or him) Super G was the most accurate in his guessing. So now the Blog is going to take on a new twist. The following of my first born, my racing & training exploits.

Well got to go to bed to get some sleep before heading off to my next to last AR race the Berryman.

Weekend

Sorry for the late post but was waiting for my mom to email some pics to highlight this entry.

Sat was a full day for me. September 17th is my dad's & my twin nieces BDay's. So went to Camdneton to hang out with them.

My day started bright & early with a hint of fall in the air. Went & ran the Two Rivers Trail Run put on by my AR Sponsor Dynamic Earth. Ran into Super G doing one of his many side jobs to pay the bills before heading off to the Harbor Meadows Crit later in the day.. He was handing out & taking chips back before & after the race. Being short on time I decided to do the 5k. Thinking I could bust out a sub 20 min 5k @ will. Well this was no ordinary course. Straight up & straight down is the best description. It actually turned out to be a little shy of 5k, so my time isn't quite as fast as it appears. But my legs did feel like they had run a sub 18min 5k. I ended up 3rd overall & winning my age group. Anna & Doug Assenmacher also of Team Dynamic Earth competed in the 10K. Doing pretty good themselves.

After a quick trip to pick up some new helmets to go with the new bikes my nieces were getting we headed off to meet them. After a quick helmet fitting & a talk about always wearing them (do as I say not as I do, you'll see in a sec) an impromptu race ensued. Of course I got stuck on the old tiny tiny BMX bike. Well I won the race but lost the battle. Here's some pics of me (1) not wearing a helmet, (2) finding out the hardway that the bike has a loose headset, (3) showing my niece the right way to crash, & (4) making my mom wet her pants laughing so hard @ me.



OW! That's a big hunk of missing skin. Not pictured is my swollen ankle with big ass bruise on it as well.


Oh well it was all in fun. Afterward I realized why I had parked the BMX bike a long time ago. I suck @ it!

This coming weekend is The Berryman Adventure Race. Cynthia Petty & I won the 2 person long course last year. She's going to defend her title with one of my Teammates form the Beast of The East Jason Coleman. I'll be competing with Team Dynamic Earth as a 4 person team in the Long Course Division.

Urban Boating Part Deux

Yesterday morning I had to take a little detour home because of the rain. The rain had caused a few of the local urban creeks to leave their banks & cross the streets. This was too much temptation for me. So a quick call to CBass & an impromptu surf session was planned. Of course this meant letting the Secret Spot out of the bag, but he's a trust worthy soul.

The secret spot is pretty nasty so unappealing to most boaters, only the truly hard core mentally deranged boater. Urban surfing involves a lot of trash dodging. Things you'll see are bottles(soda & 40zs), various building debris, chew cans(we are in the heart of Redneck country), trees(whole & in parts), cans, etc. Plus your covered in a nice oily film when you get out. If someone could figure out how to recycle all the parking lot oil they'd make a serious dent in the oil shortage. But I diverge.

After a good hour & a half of excellent surfing being watched by the various awe struck spectator(basically "look @ those F'ing idiots!!") one of Greene Counties Finest decided to pay us a visit. Turns out he was more interested the stalled car @ the edge of the water than us. Oh well the need for sleep was starting to take over after some much needed hydrotherapy after a week of out of control allergies & a nasty week @ hell.

12 Hours of Sac

Read on if you DARE

CMac, UBALLez, & my humble self did the 12hrs as a relay sat. I'll make a long story short outside of 5 flats by Cale; One flat, a couple of crashes, & a nasty ass cut by UBALLez; Three crashes by me (yes I'm out of practice); & one mystery lap we won pretty easily. After regularly turning in 23-24 min laps apiece & 27-28 min laps in the dark we beat the next closest 3 man team by 5 laps, the next closest coed team by 1 lap. So a pretty good day by the boys.

A big applause must be given to Junior Chris King for riding Solo on FULL ridged!!! He finished middle of the pack but he did take a 2 hr dirt nap on the side of the trail while every one but his mom worried about him. Turns out this is normal behavior for him & she is very used to it. Give him a few years & a suspension fork & he'll be a contender for the overall solo.

Thanks to Sara UBALLez for spending the WHOLE day putting up with us. Also to SuperG & Emory for stopping by 2x. Although Farasy looses points for helping drink all the beer BEFORE we finished! Aquaman for spending a good portion of the day tempting us with those cold beers (I will seek my revenge!) My sweetie for bringing me dry riding shorts(A crotch saver). The Greeker for a nice dose of harassment about only winning by 5 laps. I guess when you ride lead out for a national champ your head swells. Sweitzer for stopping by to watch the football game(yes we had a TV). ICC for loaning UBALLez the piece of the sun which helped out during the anger laps.

Now for the pics:

Cale off to another potential flat(sorry Cale I couldn't resist)

UBALLez now knows why mtber's wear full finger gloves.

Some spill over from the thumb

No wonder he was having trouble shifting & braking.

Yes its been almost 10 years since I rode singletrack @ race speed.

Ragweed, Commuting, & Next year

The ragweed index is at an all time high.  Unfortunately I don’t need a graph to show me this.  I have my own personal indicator attached to my face; my nose.  The higher the count the more snot comes out of it.  This week I’m setting records.

My allergies have been so bad it feels like I have a collapsed lung.  This with the heat and the farmers cutting hay it makes riding very undesirable.  So this week I’ve ran some and got a short ride in on my road bike.  The rest of this weeks training has consisted of commuting.

Last year the bulk of my training consisted of biking to work and back.  I went a span of over 6 months riding everyday to work last year.  With my training/racing load this year I’ve been a little lax in my commuting.   But with all time high gas prices I’ve got out the commuting gear.

It was good to see several fellow OCC’ers riding to the club meeting on Tuesday; no the Zebra doesn’t count Super G.  It inspired me to use the bike to accomplish more of my errands.  I should rack up some quick miles this way since I live 6 miles from town.  If more people would do this we could start making some in roads to our super high demand on fuel.  This winter is looking expensive with natural gas prices predicted to raise home heating bills by as much as 71%!  I’ve been flooded with emails this week telling me what gas stations to buy from since certain ones import & certain ones don’t.  What days to not drive, etc, etc.  I’m thinking a little saddle time would be easier than reading those long winded emails (although some do have some interesting points).

With cross season coming and 2 more adventure races left this year running is starting to become a bigger part of my training.  I once said once I graduated college I’d never run another lap on the track.  I’ve made it 10+ years without doing it (yes I graduated WSC  in the fall of 1994 you youngsters!).  Now it looks I have seen the method to VanAsten’s madness and I’m going to join him for weekly attempts to not puke sessions on the track.

And now a teaser for future blogs:  This week several things have popped up that might make next season extremely interesting for me.  Can’t say yet but if they pan out it will be cool.  Stay tuned.

Interesting Weekend

No word yet but hopefully Super G is on his way home from St. Louis with the Cat 3 MOBRA victory in hand.

This weekend started out being a good weekend of training to end on a down note. Got a call Friday evening from Scot VanAsten looking for a running partner for Saturday. Being game for a challenge I said sure. So Sat saw us running along the Greenways trail. After about 5 miles @ sub 7:30 pace it dawns on me to ask how far he plans on running. Oh 10ish. Ok no problem I've run 20 miles total in the last 2 months that's plenty of prep. After a quick loop through the nature center we end up with about 12 total. Actually didn't feel too bad. Suffered a little toward the end but was never reduced to the humbling walk of shame. I filled out Sat afternoon putting the finishing touches on SDJ's new cross bike for him. Being in the bike building mood I built up my Fuel 80 while I was @ it.

Sunday AM I hoped on the bike to ride with VanAsten, Aquaman, & El Presidente. Scot was on Steve Inmon's trusty Trek. Of course he turned the loaner shoes down so decided to level the playing field by riding in cross country spikes. Theres just a little too much pedal float in that combination for me.

After the ride my allergies kicked in to full Fall glory. A quick trip to the store to stock up on allergy relief which brought no relief. I woke up this AM having gone from allergies to what has to be a cold. So I've spent my day laying on the couch watching old movies & news.

There is an OCC meeting tomorrow night & from the look of it a lot of important things are to be discussed. So I think I'll make my first appearance @ a club meeting.

Pack Riding 101

It seems once people buy a bike they think they know how to ride. Worse yet they carry this thinking over into group rides. You see all kinds of crazy scary things on these rides & its getting to the point its becoming dangerous. A few simple common sense things would make everyone's ride better. So I've decide to come up with a little beginners guide to riding in a group.

Basics:
-Keep your hands on the handlebars. Outside of eating & drinking keep your hands near the brake levers.
-Pay attention. Then since your hands are near the brake levers you can slow down if needed.
-Your bike will slow down in a timely manner, no need to jam on the brakes (unless you've not been paying attention & your hands are else where).
-Its OK to ride 2 or 3 abreast as long as you can get over when a car is coming without putting someone in the ditch or causing the driver a fit of road rage. Better yet ride close to the right side of the road & help keep from pissing the road ragers off. That line in the center of the road is for cars not people on bikes.
-Warn people of obstacles in the road. This is usually accomplished by pointing but most people need to keep their hands on the bars so call it out.
-Don't overlap wheels! If the rider in front of you moves over where are they going to go? That's right into your front wheel. You don't need to overlap wheels to gain benefit from the draft. Keep about 12-24 inches between your front wheel & the rider your following rear wheel.
-If your going to draft take your turn. Then signal or say something & smoothly pull to the side. If you can't help out your in too fast a group & need to fall back to a group more your speed. Some where along the line people have been led to believe if OCC riders are on a group ride it is their job to pull everyone the entire ride not so.
-If lead rider or riders pull to the side they want to quit pulling. Don't follow them trying to force them to continue pulling. This is a chicken shit move. Its done in racing not in group rides. Refer to above rule, take your turn then pull off.
-If in a single line paceline & the pace becomes too much & you need to fall off warn the rider behind you so they're not hung out to dry when you swerve to the side. Better yet muster up a bit off strength a pull up a little before pulling out to help the following rider catch on to the back.


This is the basics for now. I'll work on the list & update it. So study up there will be a quiz.