when coffee is more important than changing out of your kit.

another shot of Jay Beerman from the GA training trip.

Battenkill-ME!

5am is early. Its rowing early, triathlon race early. Being the rodey that I have become I am used to slow mornings, eating breakfast for an hour, coffee, having teammates come over, more coffee, more eating. So you can imagine how I was relatively displeased I was with not only getting up at 5am but choking down a bowl of Grape-nuts and running out the door with a cup of coffee to pick up a teammate at 5:15am. ok I’m over it. The drive out was smooth we stopped for that inevitable call to nature that came at a normal morning time! We got there with a 1hr to go, signed in dressed up, 10 minute warm up and we were off. Mike Jones was there , Domestic pro, and by domestic I mean way better than any one else in the race. There were 3 climbs of note and some dirt roads in the first 10 miles. we hit them, well… Mike hit them, pretty hard and the pack was one third smaller. I was feeling horrible. Really horrible. Some attacks by others and the Kenda-Raleigh team kept things lively. As we cam into the middle part of the course marked by heavy rolling terrain and lots of dirt roads I followed one of Mikes attacks. After he let me catch him I tried o pull through and keep the pace going as I had 2 teammates with me but the pack was there and right into a climb we went. And right to the back of the pack EK went. I was hanging on but realized that I was going to have to follow wheels to the finish and save any effort to help our two protected rides when the time came. On a fast section of dirt road a guy in front of me blew his rear tire. “damb that sucks” I thou.. BAM! And that sucks even more. I ran straight into a good sized rock and blew my front tire. I got a change but it was all over. Even if I was feeling really good and got a supper fast change it would have been hard to get back on. I tried, but it was in vain. I settled in with some other guys that had got flats on that section. There were a lot who flatted there. After a few miles 4 of us grouped up and settled in. the race up ahead broke up not long after that section. Joe Moody was there for the team making the final move and coming in 5th. Meanwhile I was feeling like it was nice day. I had bad legs anyway so… this stuff happens and there is not use getting upset about it now. I was upset, more with my bad legs that the flat, but so it goes. Until, on the last climb 10 miles from the finish my chain broke. Ok now I’m mad. Luckily a nice man on a Mt bike came by with a chain tool and I was able to make good enough to get home. Thanks, I for got your name, sorry. I was surprised at the amount of cheering I received on my arrival. These people were really into this race! It was great to see. For cycling, not me, but it did cheer me up. J a long drive home with a bit of excitement when Joes bike came off my rack and was swinging from its rear wheel while I was driving 80MPH down the highway. That was pretty exhilarating, bike and car are fine. No scrapes or damage really at all. My guardian angle figured I had had enough for one day. Thank you again.

VT pics

not a bad place to crash for the weekend!

weekend in VT, part II

on day 2 we all awoke with some tight legs to say the least. being up till mid nite, doing 86 miles, going to see team sponsors and meeting up for a team dinner with one of our team advisors, who was in town from Atlanta make for a busy day!
we left a bit earlier Sunday and were welcomed with warmer air, bright blue skies and more hills. after 30' or so we hit a long undulating climb. nothing crazy but it warmed us up to say the least. another 30' we road up a long climb around Mt. Mansfield. It's still snow covered. really beautiful back drop! we kept the pace high riding shoulder to shoulder like the day before. that reminds me. at this weekend, being still early in the season and with the entire team there was quite a bit of "flexing" going on. guys know what i mean. remember in college when you were playing a pick up game of football, basketball or what ever. the girls walk by and you flex. not so much that its obvious but you did. you know it. suck in the gut. tighten the arms a bit, real subtle like. girls are even more guilty of this! they do it so much that its second nature to them. flip there hair, and give you "the eye". "what? i wasn't flittering". yeah what ever!

anyway we didn't have a pose down but when your riding shoulder to shoulder with teammates the last thing you will let happen is for your wheel to slip back even the slightest bit. and so it begins. everyone riding up the hills at 400 + watts holding a conversation trying to act like its nothing. trying to show everyone that your strong, with out realy "showing" it...

at the national rowing team training center in NJ. they often go out for long endurance rows. 90', 2 hr. maybe, at a low stroke rate. But what makes this different than any college or club row is that it's easy... as long as your boat is ahead of the others. and so begins the "flexing". In rowing this type of workout is called steady state. It is also taken on the nick name of "teti-state". in honor of the men’s national team coach Mike Teti whom only takes winners. its not long before your rowing as hard as you can gasping for air yet trying to look effortless.

If you ask my teammates they'll say, "what! thats not what happened?!" but it did and they all know it.

ok back to riding bikes. lots of hills today and the miles wore on. windy too. steamrolling along. we averaged about 19mph for the day, and for you wattage weenies out there we were pushing between 250-300 watts on the flats and 400+ on the hills, when on the frount. until the last 1:30 when that attacking started. after suffering for a bit i brought my self back to life with some caffeinated cliff shots and laid down some hard attacks. a bit of hard riding and again we laid down some fast pace line riding for a bit. i felt great today and really pushed hard on some of

the climbs. as we came in to the last 40' or so we settled down and enjoyed the view as we rode on the bike path next to lake Champlain.
a great weekend. its so nice in this area of VT i was really happy to get up there again with or without the cycling.
thaks for reading, pictures to come soon!

Team weekend in VT

first off I love Vt. I love New England. The seasons, the green, being able to get breakfast at a diner in Boston and go to bed next to the ocean somewhere in downeast Maine that seams so far away from everything that you would swear that your that only person on earth.
that being said, I was not really amped on the idea on driving 4 hr’s to the Burlington, VT area to train in colder weather than we already have this sping (it snowed on me Wednesday!) and rain. call me crazy. However we called mother nature’s bluff and it was beautiful! a bit chilly, we are like 90' from Motreal, but bright blue skies, good friends and great roads! SAT:after driving p late we arrived at the Shelburne farms estate. pics to come i can't do it justice with words. after sorting through yet more sponsorship stuff from the best sponsors in the world, I was in a daze. the last few days have been long for me. in the morning we had some Vermont maple syrup, with some pancakes on the side and set out for 85-95 miles. it was cold, 40's but sunny. and the sun makes everything nice. easy ride not to hilly, rolling and a brisk pace, riding shoulder to shoulder for 5' at a time or so. then pulling off. we averaged a bit over 20 with the tail wind on our way south. The head wind on the was back was tough but not so bad. we pushed a bit harder to keep honest. Eric Pearson was attacking/ working on his sprint in the beginning of the ride and now that we were coming pass 3:30 hr I decided it was my turn and started putting the pressure on. after a few attacks we turned up Mt. Fillo. not long, pretty short actually for this area, 10' or so. but steep. 22 percent in places. i gave it everything. our new member Eric Tremble (yes there are 3 of us now) leapt away from me about half way up and while I held the gap I couldn’t bring it back. a good effort by everyone. on the last 5-10 miles home I opened it up again. creating some gaps. Jay Bear and I had a nice gap but we were reeled in by our chasseing teammates. all together we drove hard into the head wind to the town line. solid day. More to come.

SAUL

Saul Raisin, a promising young american cyclist was involved in a crash the other day. he has taken a turn for the worse and is now in a coma. please keep him in your hearts and thoughts .
be safe everyone.

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/9701.0.html

He is already doin better. nice job everyone.

Back Home

Back in town now, feeling rested from the big trip and have a few races in the legs. The first races this yr have felt... better than normal. Saying the first race of year is a shock to the systems would be a huge understatement. But this year despite a very tough field at wells ave last weekend the legs handled the stop and go chaos of a bike race rather well. I can only imagine that this is due to the changes I made in my training. The changes of... ohh, sorry, the secret training can’t be reviled in detail. There is always the factor that it’s another year. Another year of races, adaptation, more training, more endurance, being smarter, but still. 3 races so far and I feel I am ahead from last year. So I am pretty happy. Most of all I am happy with the fact that I am racing again after a long winter and still loving everything there is to the sport. I have seen many athletes fight there way to the top but during there battle they forgot what they were fighting for. I was one of them. You start saying things like, "I have to do those intervals this afternoon." with a sigh, a frown and monotone. Rather than," yo! are you training this after noon? what are you doin? Because I am doing that killer interval workout and need some company to remind me what my name is after I sweat off 3 lb's of water!" almost yelling, and hands flailing like an angry Italian mother. I guess I am saying is its important to remember why we do the sports and activities we do. We don't need to understand why we do them, or feel the way we do about them. But as long as we still fell "that way" after the intervals we'll be doing the sports we love for a long time. And that's what it takes. Longevity. Back to the races. Johncake training race. I started a move which looked real good. After 7 miles or so the "pack" came back (only 30 strong now from 60). which set up the break of the race to go. Joe moody shot out of the pack to connect with Robbie King formally kenda/raleigh teammate. And they were gone. Only 10 miles into the 63 mile race they continued to put time in on the chase for the rest of the race. Joe in the end settled for second but a great showing for the team and for 140! Marblehead was, as expected, a barnburner. Fast from the gun and it never really let up. Even if it did there is a false flat with a cross wind, a 180 degree turn to sprint out of and 30 mile per hour head wind section and a 8% 30 second hill to put the nail in your legs. Throw in a few strong teams, big Mark attacking and you've got 90 minutes of pure hell. I felt good trying to bridge to the break following one of Marks attacks and patrolling the front for much of the race. In the end it was to much as the last 8 miles came I was unable to move up and relegated my self to the back. It was now Eric's job (my teammate) to see what he could do at the finish. 7th! And we were all pretty happy. Improvements to be made, yes, but 7th was a good result for a team with no pure sprinter. Back to some training. thanks for checking in.