The Great Equalizer

Sheri and I have a sitter for Rowan that comes once a week for 4 hours, either Saturday or Sunday. This allows us to have some grown-up sanity maintenance time, and we get to ride together. We have had some difficulty however riding together while both staying on whatever the pace for the day is. I can't soft pedal for 4 hours, and Sheri can't hammer for 20 minutes to keep up then yell at me(well we can and have, but it could be more fun).

As a solution I finished putting the Raleigh together with a 33x18 and some huge and heavy tires. Then hooked up the Burley trailer and tossed 45lbs of weights in it. It worked, in fact it was more effective that I would have liked it to be. I had to push pretty hard to keep up. I've put in plenty of miles pulling the weighted trailer in the past, but it is a different thing in the snow with monster truck tires. So, three hours later I was starving and whining, crawling home like an wounded animal. All in all, a great way to end a big base week right before a rest week. I put myself in the hole right proper.

Speaking of the fastest chick on our block, Sheri's new ride will be with us soon. In the name of fit and function, it will have smaller wheels than planned. On the upside, those wheels will be propelled by only one gear. When it gets here, I get to hang out in the basement for a few hours and drink beer while watching a girl build a bike.

Choices - and what it takes....

Breakfast:

Bagel w/ cream cheese 500 calories
OJ 110 calories

Cheerios, banana and skim milk 290 calories
Tropicana light and healthy OJ 50 calories

Snack:

Glazed cruller from Krispy Cream (always something like this in the lounge, and it's evil)
240 calories

Kiwi and half a granola bar 120 calories

Lunch:

Quizno's Turkey Ranch Swiss, chips, and drink
990 calories

Leftover Kashi pizza and yogurt 375 calories

P.M. Snack:

Fudge Nut brownie some chick from mar/com brought in
550 calories

Other half of granola bar and banana 150 calories

Dinner:

Meat loaf, mac and cheese, garlic mashed potatoes and corn bread
1090 calories

Steamed brussel sprouts, rice and orange roughy
320 calories

Beverages:

2 Pabst Blue Ribbons 290 calories

Water 0 calories

Late Snack:

Leftover hot wings your brother made 400 calories

Wheat bagel w/ Nutella off the bike 280 calories

Diet A: 4170 calories. This is an example of how I was eating last winter.(except that I drank beer that was made for grown folks) Nope, I never got close to a good climbing weight.

Diet B: 1585 calories. This is what I am closer to this year. I'm not there yet, as the occasional fist full of some unplanned junk pushes this number up between 2000 and 2500 on most days. "They" say that optimal body weight for an endurance athlete is near what you weighed as a high school senior (if you weren't a fat kid). At my current rate of loss I should know by late March/early April how close I can get to that. If I can actually hit 140, I would be hauling 15lbs less up the repeated rollers at Iola. At this weight I should still be able to military press Michael Rasmussen 20 times.

Do it....

Because we can't hook up our trainers to the grid and donate our kilojoules.

GREEN POWER

I ride inside.....

....because I know better.

This beast comes out when it is 25 degrees below zero

It can rip your head off

It can fly as high as a bird

It can bite your face

The Chicken Cow

The Chicken Cow

The Chicken Cow

The Chicken Cow

This beast killed as many as 100,000 people

Its wings can flap like a bird

It can break a glass

It can also stab you in the ass

The Chicken Cow

The Chicken Cow

The Chicken Cow

The Chicken Cow

This beast attacked my brother

It stabbed him in the ass while he was in the cold

His hands were frostbitten

His hands were also numb

The Chicken Cow

The Chicken Cow

The Chicken Cow

The Chicken Cow

Respecting the Clock

As my title and stupid name I picked for myself show, I grew up a huge Vonnegut fan. I appreciate his work because he was the master of one-liners that would have me chuckling warmly. Like, "Bad chemicals and bad ideas are the Yin and Yang of madness.", or, "The good Earth - we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy." I also like how he played with the idea that the progression of time may not be linear, but then in the same writing concludes that it must be for sanity's sake. Billy Pilgrim may have been unstuck in time, but he might have had an easier time had he remained decidedly stuck.
Another viewpoint on the nature of time that I found amusing to ponder was one proposed by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. Adams said that most people believe there is such a thing as time only because they assume that objects actually move. Each moment in space is a still image that our awareness flows through, making it only appear as though we age, and move through life, and experience heartbreak and love, and all that jazz. I like this idea because it explains things like luck. People that seem to always move easily through life and have everything work out, just happen to be more aware of this nature of time, or rather, the absence of it. Perhaps not consciously aware, but some folks might have a knack for steering through the most desired path within these infinite combinations of moments. Finally, it says that life is nothing but a bunch of cartoons.
As I get older and more aspects of my life live and die by the clock; it gets sillier(and plain ol' destructive and crazy) to stray from a mainstream understanding of time. If success in bike racing is getting from one place to another faster than anyone else, the guy that doesn't milk every last second is going to lose. As the base period hours increase by the week, I also see that time is nothing to be found, but rather something to be made. If a grown man is to squeeze the most out of everyday, there is no choice but for him to have a profound respect for the simple 3 dimensional world that we have fashioned for ourselves.
In this spirit I've decided that I can no longer be unstuck. And if I ever thought I was, it's only because I was young and stupid. I still think we are pilgrims.

Leadership

I just may as well get this out of the way now. At this period in our history as Americans, an Obama presidency is the best thing that can happen to us. We can't erase what the last 8 years have done to our international influence or our domestic self loathing, but we can completely change direction with a 180 phase change in leadership. We can go from being manipulated and divided by fear, to being inspired and motivated to heal our country.

There will always be the intolerant psycho alienated right that somehow thinks we aren't all in this boat together. This contingent will arm itself proudly in defense of that sacred and widening gap that lies between those that have and those that don't. These people are outnumbered. If the rest of us can realize that the right doesn't give a damn about you, then we can take the next step. Next would be to realize that your own sensibilities are being exploited in order to manipulate you. An Obama presidency can help to free some of us from the ties that link our spirituality to our vote. Those remaining would be the manipulators, and the happily manipulated.

Obama could be the first president in recent years to be elected by virtue of what he IS, rather than his polarity on whatever the wedge issue of the day is. Anyone having spent a day and an hour in the military knows than an effective leader is one that commands with respect rather than fear. Nothing but jeers and rolling eyes greet the man that refers to himself as the decider, but a battered America should embrace a leader that actually IS a uniter.

Unfortunately, the more I see and read out there the more I realize that America is far from ready for Obama. Hell, the Dems aren't even ready for him. As long as we continue to define a person by where he comes from over what he IS, we will be subject to the poor leadership of the officials we select. As long as we allow the religious right to make "liberal" a bad word while Jesus was a liberal, we will continue to lose the war of words. As long as the guy that calls intolerance as he sees it is battered to be seen as worse than the actually intolerant, we can't get any closer to accepting a candidate like Obama. The first step towards resolving some problem is to identify it, and we aren't even brave enough to do that.

Hopefully 8 more years of decline under damaged leadership will get us ready to accept what Obama has to offer, but I'm afraid we are much further gone than that. This is coming from a pathological optimist that is holding onto the hope that he is wrong.

Sandbagger Alert!!

Q: How many Citizen Women are out putting in the miles on Saturday night in January in the snow during a Green Bay playoff game?A: Hopefully only one.

Q: Am I a complete dork if I am posting pics of my new winter bike shoes on the interwebs?

A: Probably, but I'm gonna be a dork with warm toes.

Expert < Elite

I read all of the blogs. I read everything I can find on training. I have a pretty good idea as to how my planned hours and mileages stack up against established Elite racers. Reality says that at this stage in my development I can probably tackle a little more than half of the training hours that a top 5 WORS Elite can before flirting with over training.
I've been considering this, and how fun Comp SS could be if it was as full and competitive as it looks to be in '08. Additionally, even though I had the 2nd place spot for the series last year, 3min 20sec is as close as I came to the Comp SS win.
These things had me doubting my plans for '08 until I saw these changes. Distinguishing expert age groups from semi-pros and pros makes a lot of sense for WORS I think. I understand that it really is only an adjustment in labeling, but I find it might be an effective one. I would guess that at least the top 25% of Comp racers would upgrade now. Expert 30-39 could end up being a nice, rounded-out, competitive bracket that I could live in. Besides, that's what it says on my license.
Now if Don would only create the 1 lap "first timer" class as the last wave with the citizens, with a free beer provided to all finishers. That is the class I first raced in while in Florida, and we need new blood right? Someone new to the sport might wonder what exactly it is that they have to be a citizen of anyway.

Clean and Dry LSD

All is good but the numb toes.

Victories - Big and Small

This is my view of this political season and my training period. My ass feels like it belongs in the saddle again, and Obama is bringing it. We did it together though right? He helped me get my 6 minute CP, told me it was a united effort. I still felt like I was doing all of the work. In any case I'll return the favor by knocking on doors for him later. Moon-kee here, didn't really help anyone and is quite worthless. If we could somehow harness the stray tens of thousands of volts zapping around in his nappy ass fur, we could power the microwave through the popping of some several bags of popcorn.

Damn

Thank you for your interest in SSWC08. Unfortunately registration filled up prior to receiving your form. We had over 800 people interested and only 350 spots to fill. We hope you will still consider coming out to Napa, CA for the race festivities and to cheer on your fellow single speeders. There will be various rides around the Bay Area the week leading up to the race and afterward too, so it should be a lot of fun. We will be posting a blog soon to keep everyone up to date on what's going on. Thank you.

SSWC08 Team

What's that ya say?

As anti climatic as it should have been, 2007 has poured me into a new place. Sunday had me in fits as my mind is ready to attack but my body isn't ready. I jumped in the trainer to start establishing some zones, 40 minutes and 1 6 minute effort at max had me dizzy and staggering. I couldn't even stay on the bike for an hour. Fighting infection takes more out of you than I had thought. Tonight I will re-assess as I would really like to have some power zones roughly chiseled out before base 1-1 next week.
I have also had it with only being able to hear from one side. I really didn't realize how disabling it was until I came back to work today. It makes me feel numb, like someone could be behind me poking me with a sharp stick and I may not notice. As it happens, most people are only milling about, trying to put off doing any real work until next week. I'm down with that, since it lessens the chance that someone might take advantage of my numbed state and stage an attack. I am a former rolling chair racing champion though, so if anything does go down I should be able to flee.