SLOWINGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

I caught you this delicious bass.

Sunday was the Annual Winter World Championships known as Froze Toes. The race that hundreds of people pay $ 15 to enter to get the chance to win one of 3 places for great prizes like tubes & water bottles. Like an idiot I decided to race the 3/4's instead of the 1/2/3's. Really didn't put enough thought in to that one. The field was 150+(100+ 4's& 50 3's) all squeezed into one small lane. Nuts. Constant speed up, slam on your breaks yell Slowing!Somehow there were no ICC like crashes.

I rode up with Jim Coker & The OG Greg Espenkotter. This was to be OG's first actual road race so I was a little worried about him. Well he showed me. Not only did he show great pack presence, he actually got to the front. Something I was unable to accomplish. All you 4 beeatches out there better get your T.I.T.S in because he means business this year.

After the race the three of us did a lap in reverse. This turned into a 3 man TT, with OG doing his best to break our legs. Coker did call sis first & had to let up. Then after some questioning of his masculinity he manned up & helped us gain a higher Avg speed than the actual race. I didn't really expect much from this race except the chance to get some Lactic Acid in my legs. So race one of the season is in the books & now I'm raring to go. Next week looks like I'm going to head to Tulsa for an epic day of racing. Three races for a total of 99 miles in one day. Hopefully my legs won't give out on me.

The ride up & back got me to thinking about how fun it is to ride to races with different people. My goal now is to ride to a TT with Coker & John Jones. I'm guessing that will be some interesting conversation. Actually Coker just asked me to mention his name as much as possible in my blog so he can be as cool as me.

All is well

Monday was a stressful day worrying about the baby, one that I don't want to repeat anytime soon. I did manage to get out & brave the cold using my new secret weapon to keep my toes from freezing. Secret trial #1 temp 30 degrees feels like 22. Rode for 2 hours. Feet very warm! Yeeha I might be onto something.

Today we had a baby doc appointment so to get some sleep(not much Mon) I took the night off to relax & unwind my mind. Too much stress bad! Anyway the Dr. told us everything was fine. Our wee one had just turned & was punching Amber's guts so she was unable to feel anything. So if nothing else we now know where labor & delivery is. Not an easy place to find in St. Johns. Only one elevator goes directly to the 5th floor. All the other you have to go to a floor above or below & walk the stairs. Helps with the baby low jacks.

I do want to send out a big congrats to Doug & Anna Assenmacher. This past weekend in the Sylamore 50k Doug finished 3rd overall & Anna finished 9th, first women overall. Her time was less than a minute slower than what I ran last year. Pretty impressive. Though she did it in the snow & freezing temps & I did it on 4 total runs in 3 months. So I'd say the times are pretty comparable. Those Assenmacher siblings are just pretty damn fast. I can't wait to my annual show down with Doug @ the Turkey Trot this year. He'd better watch out for the baby jogger though. I'm starting a new category fastest baby.

Well I'd better finish my Starbucks & get ready for work. Need to set the old V.C.R. first. To see Mr. Huff finish with the Gruppetto like a true sprinter.

Just another night?

Nope. Before leaving for work made sure I set the old V.C.R.(no make you lazy TiVo in this house) to tape the prologue of the Tour of California. Got to work @ the usual time around 10:30Pm. Got stopped @ the guard shack & was told a bomb threat had been phoned in & to find all my guys & make sure they were out of the building. So an hour later the one & only cop who showed up gave the all clear & in we went. Then it was a semi normal night of F.O.P.S. I did get to spend a FREEZING 15 minutes on the roof troubleshooting a faulty damper motor, good times. I think it was about 14 degrees with a windchill of 3 or so. Then one of my guys couldn't get anything he worked on to stay fixed. This is always fun & it happens to everyone. I had it happen to me about 3 weeks ago, makes for a longggg night.

Then @ 5 am break around 5:20 am I get a call in my office from Amber. She's concerned since she hasn't felt the baby move in many hours & not much all weekend. SO I change my boots, jump in the car & destroy the speed limit going to get her. I get her in the car & hustle of to Labor & delivery. I have to admit I was pretty scared. They got us straight in & hooked Amber up to a monitor were we got to hear the comforting sound of our little girl's heartbeat.

Our friend Mindy is an RN in the NICU ward of St. Johns. She came down to see us before her shift ended. She walked in looked @ the monitor. Her eyes got wide & "are you having contractions?" Oh Shit now I am freaking out a little. But no worries Amber just wanted to really spice my night up with a few uterine disturbances; code for contractions.

All's well now & we're sitting in bed watching curling & letting my HR drop below 190. Hopefully this afternoon I can finally get off the trainer & get out on the road. I know the BOCOMO boys got out, but I'm a pussy & finished painting the baby's room. I did watch the 2000 Paris Roubaix while riding the trainer last night though & cool distraction.

What I know is I know nothing......Socrates

Missouri Weather Part Deux

Yesterday when I walked out of work @ 7:30 AM it was 66 degrees. When I got up to ride it was 35 degrees. So I fixed my F'ing blog & rode the trainer. During this time Amber kept yelling about tornados. I figured it was just watches. Well this AM I got an email from my mommy. She not only drove through it, it tore the hell out of the dock where my parents keep their boat. Luckily it was being worked on in a nice warm shop away from the dock. She sent me some damage pics to share.




This has been one crazy ass winter. This weekends weather predict keeps getting worse so its looking like I'll have to spend the first weekend this year almost entirely on the trainer. Hopefully the wind won't be blowing a thousand miles an hour & I can get out for a few hours.

I need to wish my Sister In Law a happy 18th BDay as well. Happy BDay kid.

Test of the missing blog

is it here or not?????????


It is now. It would appear a large portion of my HTML vanished. But it seems I have it fixed for now. I think I'll save a copy of my html for future use now. Better safe than sorry I guess.

Time to get serious

I'm currently writing this entry @ work. Being coffeed out I'm having trouble staying awake. For the last few weeks its been unbelievably busy @ work & tonight for some reason its totally dead. Which in a way is a good thing since I'm dead tired after suffering a bout of insomnia today. For some reason I was only able to sleep for 3 hours. So instead of tossing & turning I decided to get up & get an extra hour in by riding to ICC's house to help drag him out of his current motivational funk.

Right now I'm chomping @ the bit to get racing. So its a good thing race season officially kicks off in just over a week with the Winter World Championships. So now as Stokes informed me today its time to start putting in some hard efforts & blow the junk out. Having a tailwind on 186 suficiently motivated me to do just that. The pain train officially departed the station then blew up about 10 minutes later. Glorious! The old legs are ahead of where they were this time last year but definitely not up to mid season form yet & I emphasize Yet. I'll just have to watch how & when I open it up.

Speaking of hard efforts yesterday saw me doing my first intervals of the year. Ick. A necessary evil. With all the wind the tailwind runs were to easy & the headwind runs were too hard. I guess that's were the BTU meters come in handy. I have been tossing the idea around of strapping on a heart rate monitor for my interval sessions this year. Don't get excited I'll never wear one to race in. As Pantani once said you'd never be able to go hard enough if you saw the numbers you were putting out. That's right redline it till you drop. Then try & recover & redline it again.

I owe Farasey an apology for that last post. Amusing as it was my photoshop skills didn't really do him justice. So to make amends the first 1/2/3 race I do with him I'll be his breakaway bitch & drag him all over creation till I beg for forgiveness in the form of letting me quit pulling.

Here's a bit of info for ya: Its 4:50 AM & its 57 degrees outside. Only to be enjoyed for so long because the bottom is supposed to drop out of the thermometer this afternoon. I guess this weekend we're going to have to do our best BOCOMER impersonation & head out in the Artic Tundra to get some hours in.

Jimmy's Thumbs

There's been all this talk lately about Jimmy St. Louis(2)'s thumbs lately. Well I did some searching & I found a pic of them. They are impressive.


Sorry Jim I could not resist the temptation.

Figure Skating Shakeup

Michelle Kwan dropped out of the Olympics. Holy Shit the Olympics are being cancelled!!! Not really but if you've watched NBC since she finally gave up the spot she shouldn't have gotten in the first place, you'd think it was the end of the F'ing world. They've spent more time covering, rehashing, & doing retrospectives, while Gold medal winning performances are being ignored. That's crap. As I've stated before I hate F'ing Figure Skating. I now hate it even more, which I didn't think was possible. Who gives a shit? Not me that's for damn sure. Show me some sports not this cry baby crap they keep showing. If I see Scott Hamilton almost break down in tears once more while talking about Michelle Kwan I'm going to fly to Torrino & kick him in the jimmy!

Yes I have a bunch of anger this AM. I haven't rode in 5 days & its showing. I need to get out & burn some anger off for sure. The fire is stoked & raring to temper steel.

PeeWee BBall & Lacy's a bad girl

Actually 2nd grade girls basketball but I've been waiting to use this pic for awhile. Yesterday Amber & I ventured out in the "blizzard" to drive up to Camdenton to watch my nieces' basketball games. Now I'm sure these have nothing on Shane's league but where else @ a BBall game can you loose track of the times you yell "the other way!" Very entertaining. Ashton was her teams leading scorer with 6 points in the first game. With Nina scoring a basket in the second game. They ended up winning both barn burners 10-4 & 6-4. Since this is 1st & 2nd grade girls they have modified rules. They play half court with about 7' goals. They can walk & double dribble @ will. They can't full court press. There are no charges (this is a rule I hear Peter Van Off the Front has trouble grasping).
After the game we went & saw Nanny McPhee. Not too bad a flick. Little predictable but it is a kids movie.

Pics a little fuzzy since those little boogers move so damn fast. Really its all that pre peewee league tailgating.










This AM was hanging out in bed when Amber & I heard this ripping, knawing, chewing noise. Turns out Lacy decided to destroy a pair of my socks. This is after earlier in the week chewing a hole in my favorite pair of Silvertabs! So she got in quite a bit of trouble.

I've been a bad girl, please don't send me back to the pound.

Today we were supposed to head down to Harrison to do a major climbing ride but by the looks of my backyard you can figure out we canceled that little trip. Oh well maybe next week. So it looks like today will be spent wandering through Lowe's & a little work in the Kiddos room. Perhaps some trainer time to work on getting my cleats positioned on my new shoes. This week turned into a recovery week for me since I hadn't realized I've done six weeks of hard training (17 days of those without a day off, oops). I have 2 or 3 big mile weeks planned then its time to get down to the business of racing. Hopefully I can finish the whole ride to my parents without having to take the bail out shortcut in this block of training.

Is everyone as excited as me that so much Curling is being televised this year? It has the distinction of being the only Olympic sport being almost entirely televised Live. Granted you have to get up @ 2am to watch it, but its still Live. You may think I'm joking here, but I'm actually a fan of the sport. Every 4 years its my favorite Winter sport to watch. Why? I don't have a clue, it just sucks me in. I wish the SPR had a league in our fancy Ice Rink. I'd play every chance I got. Speaking of Live I got to watch the Men's 20k Biathalon yesterday. Biathalon is another winter favorite of mine. How can you not like a sport that involves skiing & shooting? I figure it should be a big hit with the Rednecks if they broadcast it more this year. Oh yeah I REALLY F'ING HATE FIGURE SKATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dumbest winter sport ever.

Under Construction

That's right the site is getting a face lift. In my ever ongoing pursuit to keep up with Skip I've added a few new features. His quote of the day feature lit a fire under my arse to get with it. So far I've added a title pic & just for Skip a Jive translator. Just scroll down & click on link & begin to laugh your ass off. More to come as I figure out more HTML. Peace out G (wanted to see what that translated to).

Was that snow this AM?

Once again Missouri weather mystifies me. This AM on my way home from work it started snowing. I figured this afternoon I'd be handcuffed to the windtrainer to get a ride in. Nope it was sunny & cold. So I bundled up & headed over to Stokers for some miles. Not as many as I would of liked but a guy can only stand so much frostbite on his feet. Plus I've had a couple of big mile weeks in so it won't kill me to back off a little & start ramping up my intensity.

Kind of F'd that 2nd one up. It reads temp 30 feels like 21. Just so you can see I'm almost as bad as the BOCOMO's. Speaking of which Skip is now refering to The SPR as GRECOMO. Don't know if that works or not for me yet. Just something about the greater greater metro SPR. But whos to challenge Hip Hop Royalty? I guess Thumbs up!


In baby news the kiddo kicked hard enough that I SAW Ambers stomach move. Pretty cool. I also was met @ the door when I got home from riding by the UPS guy delivering the kids bed stuff. So now we're ready to get paint chips so I can eat them. Oops I mean paint her room.

The Weekend in review

Friday I finally decided to wash some of the dirt roads off my bike while I waited for the guy I sold one of my boats to come & get it. Luckily I washed it or I'd have had a heck of a walk on Sat.

Sat I went on the Sat AM group ride. We did the Wednesday night loop with a little special loop of mine thrown in to get another time up Jamesville. MMM Climbing! I got to see the latest in Baseball cap protective wear from some dude trying to do his best Lance impersonation. If your going to impersonate Lance I'd suggest not blowing up with atomic force, Gotta love leg breaking.


Sunday came a little early for me thanks to my neighbor revving her POS up @ the ass crack of dawn aka 6:30 am.














The dogs always eat first!

Then I get to eat. Today was a big breakfast to fuel up for a long day of climbing.

We had a pretty good group, Stoker, ICC, Coker, & 57.

The first pee break came early on. Which gave everyone a chance to recontaminate Shane's water supply.


Coker left us before we headed over to the High Road for our return trip. Which we got to go by The Wilderness but we didn't spot SDJ. I think he's gone into early retirement or perhaps hibernation.
The first flat. Look @ that team work.The 2nd flat not 3/4 of a mile later.

Then a quick stop @ Spanky's for water & Zebra Cakes.


Flat 3. Took me forever to dig out that piece of steel belted radial.

57 helped out & got the 4th flat so Stoker didn't have to flat.

Having a pregnant wife is great. She was craving pizza. It hit the spot after a long ride.
Thanks to the Petti I have a new cape. Not really its a present for the baby but I couldn't resist, capes are in this year.

Trek's New Female Team?

In my internet surfing this AM I've stumbled accross a rumor that Trek has a new female team. With a little more searching I found photos of possible team uni's.

Shameless Cutting & pasting from other sites

This doesn't technically count as an entry but too funny not to pass along: From Prostuff.com

Inside Scoop:

Mike Jones

When Mike Jones sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Mike Jones has not had to pay taxes ever.

To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer. Mike Jones smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and acquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.

Mike Jones sleeps with a night light. Not because Mike Jones is afraid of the dark, but the dark is afraid of Mike Jones.

Mike Jones ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

Mike Jones can touch MC Hammer.

A blind man once stepped on Mike Jones shoe. Mike replied, "Don't you know who I am? I'm Mike Jones!" The mere mention of his name cured this man blindness. Sadly the first, last, and only thing this man ever saw, was a fatal roundhouse delivered by Mike Jones.

Mike Jones has a word for a person he puts into a coma; that word is "lucky".

As a teen Mike Jones impregnated every nun in a convent tucked away in the hills of Tuscon. Nine months later the nuns gave birth to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only undefeated and untied team in professional football history. Mike Jones once ate three 72 oz. steaks in one hour. He spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress.

Mike Jones is not hung like a horse... horses are hung like Mike Jones.

Mike Jones appeared in the "Street Fighter II" video game, but was removed by Beta Testers because every button caused him to do a roundhouse kick. When asked bout this "glitch," Jones replied, "That's no glitch."

Achilles was supposedly the greatest warrior of all time, but he died because of his weak spot, the Achilles tendon. There is no Mike Jones tendon.

Oxygen requires Mike Jones to live.

If Mike Jones is late, time better slow the f down.

Mike Jones died ten years ago, but the Grim Reaper can't get up the courage to tell him.

A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Mike Jones and that you will be handicapped if you park there.

At birth, Mike Jones came out feet first so he could roundhouse kick the doctor in the face. Nobody delivers Mike Jones but Mike Jones.

Mike Jones doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

Mike Jones frequently donates blood to the Red Cross. Just never his own.

Interview

In keeping with the current trend in blog interviews I've decided to interview my favorite cycling/blogging personality. That's right Me. So I caught up with myself after a long solo ride.

Scott: Thanks for sitting down for this interview.

Me: No problem, I'm sure every one will be on the edge of their seats reading this.

Scott: So I'm sure the question everyone is wanting to know is What makes you a bad ass Mofo?

Me: That's easy, because I say so & my massive 3" biceps, beeatch.

Scott: That is true they are massive, How did you develop them? Lots of gym time I'm assume.

Me: You know what happens when you assume? You make an ass out of you & me. No gym just good ole 12 oz curls, with some 20 oz super sets thrown in for good measure.

Scott: Rumor has it you've not been lifting lately.

Me: You have goods sources. Yes its true, I decided to come into the season this year without a big fat ass.

Scott: A lighter you. What's your thinking behind that?

Me: After seeing what Super G could do with his 130lbs I figured 130 must be the optimum race weight. Though I do hear his thumbs have been getting pumped up lately.

Scott: How close are yo to this goal?

Me: I'd say a couple of good Sponge sized poos or so give or take 20 lbs.

Scott:What are your goals for this season?

Me: To burn out by May, so I can take a Skippy like break from the bike.

Scott: Ah trying to emulate SPR's Hip Hop Royalty good plan.

Me: Well I've grown bored with this little chat. I need to go bang my head against the wall to get rid of the voices.

Scott: Well thanks again.

There you go folks the first & possibly last interview. Hope you enjoyed it.

Groundhog Day 2006

Today riding I definitely saw my shadow so 6 more weeks of winter. Sorry folks but the winter this year hasn't been too bad YET.

A ride in pictures

I'm beginning to not recognize my legs anymore. Yes for you close observers that's Smurf piss in the bottles. Damn cooperate America conspiring against the man!

As part of Stokes new training regime he now drinks nothing but Red Bull "It gives him wings!" Plus he's decided the added bonus is he gets to see what sleep deprivation feels like.

Another part is eating nothing but Powerbars & bananas in an attempt to cut weight.

Armpit Cam.

Saddle bag cam.

TINA!
Think about it you'll get it.

??? Not an F'ing clue what ICC is doing. Don't ask don't tell.