Black ice…

Black ice + pavement + bike = trip to the dentist…. thinking to install some serious gold bling to flash in that smile of mine at the races this season…

My 2012 ride….

……hope I don’t have any UCI issues with it at Nationals…

Coming around…

…Maybe the endurance hasn’t entirely forsaken me, made it through 2hrs of riding with a couple 20min intervals just below race pace, that after 2hrs of core & upper body workouts.

Gotta say though..shoot, it’s cold out there.  14 degree with 15mph winds = damn what am I doing outside riding my bike?  Oh, that’s right, riding a trainer/roller indoors has the appeal of pulling splinters out from underneath my fingernails.  And skiing?  Oh, yeah, if you can any find reasonable abundance of the semi-crystalized molecular form of H2O but that’s pretty hard to come by this year even this far north.

On the positive side…I look at it this way, it’s now closer to April 1st looking forward than it is looking back to Christmas.  In another couple blinks of the eye there’ll be open singletrack & dirt trails to ride on.

Had a great conversation with Coach Gordy this week on the upcoming season.  Gave him the green light to put me thru the necessary pain to cook up ideas to tease some more power and endurance outta these legs & lungs.  

Also looking forward to seeing familiar faces this season and undoubtedly meeting new ones as the turnover and interest in MTB’ing and Cyclo-cross changes as do people lives.  It’s too got me pondering coming up with a list of predictions for the 2012 seasons…..Hmmm…. got any ideas or suggestions toss things into the comment section..

Finding endurance…

…I should put out a want ad or get on match.com– “Fit, relatively fast cyclist, looking for strength or firmness of mind or soul to endure pain or adversity patiently and determinedly.  Fortitude, resolution, otherwise known as endurance.”

This past week I started my 2012 season training again.  I convincingly got my butt handed to me on a straightforward 3hr ride Saturday, I wasn’t sure I was making it home.  At 2hrs in I was already in trouble.  Since it was an “out & back” ride -- outside of wimping out with a phone call to the wife to come get me, I had to stick it out.  

Guess all that cyclo-cross training  & racing gets you speedy… but doesn’t exactly build you a motor to go all night.  Fortunately I kept in mind Todd McFadden, Dave Cizmas, Charlie Farrow & a host of others who did the Arrowhead 135 ultra winter bike race this past week.  Crazies, I say crazies!  But in perspective when they are gutting out 18+ straight hours of racing, it helps one suck it up in the final miles of a 3hr ride.

Like I mentioned in an earlier blog entry it was nice to take most January off & do other activities.  Helps the winter go by faster.  Fortunately, taking the time off hasn’t taken too much away from my fitness (except the abovementioned endurance).   I put in an hour tempo ride and I was able to maintain the same 60min output as I did last year at this time after a month of training.  So that’s a silver lining & bodes well for things to come I hope. 

Enlisting good ‘ole coach Gordy Paulson to bring me up to fitness & speed for yet another season.  He’s always got some good workouts cooking in his pot of pain. 

This MTB season it appears I’ll be racing formally with The Ski Hut out of Duluth, MN, in conjunction with Swanson Financial Services.  The Ski Hut provided some great service and support for my cyclo-cross season this past fall & winter.  So I’m anxious to be racing with the McFadden’s (Todd & Di), Kylander-Johnson’s (Scotty & Sara) & a host of other speedy fun racers this year. 

Otherwise life’s got all it’s normal (& abnormal) ups & downs.  Life’s pretty busy with the four kids, the youngest Aaron Cooper Douglas, just had his 1st birthday yesterday.  Good stuff -- that boy can crawl like lightening and throw stuff like nobody’s business.   People say kids can wear you out but I tend to think once you get used to it they can also give you energy.  I’ll take a smiling face & eyes lit up from my daughters, Hope & Grace any day of the week.  And Marshall at 7yrs old is really great to spend time with, hearing about something he learned in school, playing football catch or wrestling with him.

Not that life is always rosie, there’s deadlines and drama when you least like to have them happen but in every adversity there’s always something to gain from it if you know where to look. 

It may only be the first week in February, but as fast as winter is going spring will be around the corner and we’ll be tearing up the single track  soon & building more of it.  Til then…

Benefits of racing ‘cross thru January…

…I’m not doing hours & hours of long base training rides outside in the single digits, sub zero temps & windchill.  I’m soooooo not missing that.

Chilling out for the remainder of the month of January and not feeling bad that I’m taking time off the bike… priceless.

US National CycloCross Championships 2012…

…found the biggest baddest cats in the cyclocross world and ran with ‘em thru frozen ruts, mud, slop and tears this past weekend at the US National Cyclocross Championships

Can’t begin to say enough about how much fun the weekend was regardless of how the racing went.  Madison/Verona WI played host to 5 days of almost non stop cyclocross racing.

I raced both Saturday & Sunday --  in a master category and then the Elite/Pro race.  Each  day had it’s highlights & low lights. 

The conditions could have been said to be really good or really bad.  While the weather was fantastic for what early January conditions could have been, it made for very challenging course terrain that alternated between slop & mud, and frozen ruts that had become a mainstay from the previous days races.

Certainly some of the most challenging conditions I’ve ever had to ride in for the entire length of a race.  Sat’s 10am masters race had the pleasure/displeasure of racing through frozen mud ruts in the early laps of the 6 laps race that eventually began to melt into gooey mud in the last laps as the temperatures heated up.

Plan to better recap things later, in both races I deemed a success in that I progressed up from where my call up starting positions were, but the between the size of the race fields and the course conditions, the further you started in the back it made for all that much more carnage to work around & slowed you to move up. 

Gotta say nice work to a few of my midwest fellow competitors in the races I participated in –  Tyler Jenema, Chris Smith, Matt Peterson, Jesse Reints, CJ Falkner, Hollywood Henderson and both Brian Matter & Tristan Schouten to name just a few. 

I gotta toss out a bunch of big thank you’s to my support that I got on Saturday, and the many shouts from many friends on Sunday.  When there are thousands of people lining the course and in every section there’s someone yelling your name & urging you on it’s a super cool feeling.  Thank you to every one of you that was out there!  I hope the show was worth it.  Once in awhile I’d get a chance to look up from the treacherous ground to see your face & give a smile of thanks.  Never underestimate how much your cheers help.  Whether it was you guys from the U.P. Cross, friends from North, or many others I’ve connected with through Mt Biking and Cross racing the past several years – thanks again it was really appreciated.

Thanks to the my coach Gordy Paulson, who’s been a great guy to work with this past year and who’s keen sense of what’s needed (and not needed) for training  even made it possible to arrive in reasonable racing shape after 12 long months of training & racing.  And lastly to The Ski Hut for the great support this past season in my cyclocross efforts, much appreciation out to those guys!

Here’s a couple pictures from Chris Schmidt but check just run a google search and it’ll yield a ton of videos and other pictures from the weekend.

 

Cross Nationals…

..after a pre & post Christmas fitness slump from a nasty stomach flu, my energy level and some fresher legs showed up on the bike yesterday for the first time in 2 weeks. 

Might just have a decent go of things this Saturday & Sunday at Cyclo-Cross Nationals.  Really appreciate all the well wishes from so many people this past week about participating in Nationals.  I’ll be doing the Cat 1/2/3 40-44 Age group Championship race on Saturday at 10am, then with enough motivation I should give Sunday’s Championship race of Pro/Cat 1/2 at 2:15 a go as well. 

Just my luck that the two largest fields of participants are in both those races.  For good or bad --  a large part of the final outcome in these races with fields that big will come down to luck & good fortune… and the call up.   The benefit and bane of any race with large numbers of participants. 

So how does the “call up” work?   Well, someones gotta be the first on the start line and someone has to be in the back.  My guess is they will have rows of 8 racers wide, with 95+ participants in Saturdays race that’ll make for 12+ rows.  They base your starting position on an interesting but relatively complex formula that if you’re an engineer, accountant or other kinda number-head you might find it interesting.  Long story short, you’re granted points based on races you’ve done during the Cyclo-cross season.  But only races that participate in & play by the rules of the USA cycling program.  I skimmed through the guidelines but wanna say they take the 3 best of those races.  Good thing I at least did the 2 Badger Cross races & a MN ‘cross race.

Looks like I’ll be starting in 54 position on Saturday (even if I nail down 3rd overall at the Midwest Regional masters championship race…nice eh?) , and 89th on Sunday…. so 7 rows back & 12 rows back, nothing like a good challenge..   I’m confident however that my ending placement should be better than my starting place.

There’s really not too many good alternatives to this method, but it does force a rider to chase point races during the season.  And someone not having that geographical benefit of being able to do so it puts that rider at a disadvantage.

Narrowing it down to smaller fields with a qualifying race(s) would be a nice option.  I think anything more than 30 or 40 participants in a race of 45minutes to an hour on a course that is no wider than 10-15 feet, gives all those participants a reasonable chance.  Bigger fields than that & you could be the lance armstrong of cyclo-cross and starting in the rear you still couldn’t catch the front by the end of the race due to the traffic & volume of racers.

So Saturday, I’m going to be giving it my best and let the chips fall where they may.  Maybe I’ve got good legs, maybe I don’t – hopefully I’ve got a good story or two when it’s all over.

Sounds like a lot of friends and fans are going to be there!!  That may be one of the best parts about it.  Friends from up north are coming down to watch, a bunch from the UPCross scene, along with friends & fellow racers.  That’s going to be super awesome about the weekend just having such a big crowd of people cheering, yelling and screaming.  If you don’t get down there, go to the USA Cycling or some other websites and watch the live streaming coverage of the Elite Races on Sunday.  The weather is forecasted to be reasonably warm and good conditions, it’s gonna be a great time!!