Why Won't July Die?!?

I don't think I'll ever forget July 2008. So much has gone on and I'm finding myself drained in every facet of my life. Between a great trip to Mammoth, my dog passing away and buying my first condo I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed. I think all the stress has changed my riding.

I went out and rode almost 30 miles yesterday to try and jumpstart my training again and found it to be tougher than I would have liked. The whole ride felt like a blur as I just went through the motions of riding.

I've noticed on my last two rides that my lungs and breathing have some problems. Not sure what it is. It almost reminds me of the asthma I had when I was a kid. I'm hoping it's just a small bug or a lapse in my fitness.

I'm looking forward to August and the rest of 2008 now. Hoping to rest and get things to be a bit more settled. Also looking forward to getting my GPS back so I can know how fast I'm doing various rides. It's a horrible feeling to not know where you're at on the bike. Am I getting slower? Faster? I feel like I'm working hard on some rides but I have no numbers to back me up.

Either way I'm happy July is almost over.

Imminent Defection

I remember sitting down to eat lunch with a guy after The Traverse and as we talked about getting faster on our bikes he said that the best way to improve was to get a road bike.

I keep hearing this over and over and over and I have to admit I'm sold.

Between following the Tour de France for the first time and some interesting experiments on my mountain bike I've developed a desire for a road bike.

I've come to realize that I'm severely under utilizing various muscle groups in my legs. When I climb I tend to have a stabbing motion with my pedal stroke. This puts the focus on my quads. I've been trying to have a more rounded stroke and I realize that when I do that my hamstrings and calves suddenly get involved. The pain I get when I start to have a more even stroke tells me those muscles are rarely used.

Also if I ride on a flat road section I notice I can get more power from my pedaling by working at every point in the stroke. In other words instead of letting a leg rest when the pedal is down at its lowest point, I exert some energy to pull it back up. Keeping constant pressure at every point allows all my leg muscles to get involved.

I can definitely see how pedaling on a road bike can develop these muscles and produce a more smooth, powerful and efficient pedal stroke for me.

Now I just need some money to buy a road bike. Not likely to happen soon. =(

I hate Whiting

I hate Whiting Ranch. I've been trying to stop throwing the word "hate" around so carelessly, but I would be doing myself an injustice if I didn't express the feelings I had yesterday at Whiting.

While riding my three laps yesterday I kept going over the reasons I now hate Whiting and wrote quite a bit of prose in my head.

I see a lot of similarities between Brett Favre trying to make a comeback and Whiting. Both used to be awesome and both now suck and should not have come out of retirement. I want to remember Whiting the way it used to be, not the way it currently is. I suppose the main difference is that Whiting will get better over time and Brett won't.

Reasons Whiting now sucks:

1. Sand. Duh right? I hate not having continuity on trails. I don't want to walk, I want to ride. Walking is one of the only knocks I have on trails like Holy Jim and San Juan. But you know what? I have to mount and dismount my bike _MORE_ at Whiting right now than I do at Holy Jim or San Juan. It's incredibly frustrating.

2. People. TOO MANY PEOPLE! Whiting has always been crowded, but it is just stupid right now. It's not that I mind people on Borrego hiking or people walking their bikes up Mustard. I don't even mind enough people to start a small town at Four Corners. But I do mind people hiking and riding the wrong way on trails. I do mind large groups spanning a fire road preventing you from riding through without having to stop or forcing you to brake super hard at the last minute.

3. Sand. All singletracks are now meaningless. You can't attack Cactus because you are too busy trying to keep your tires going straight. Heck you are too busy trying to keep your tires spinning.

4. Sand. I hate having to walk sections I used to be able to ride. I hate sand in my shoes. I hate the effort it takes to ride through the sand. I felt like Borrego took more energy that Mustard yesterday. It's not just that it's annoying. It's completely demoralizing. Ride 50 yards, walk 50. Ride 50, walk 50. Repeat endlessly.

So my three laps took me two and a half hours to complete. Granted I spent some time emptying my shoes of sand and I was on the road to and from my house for a while, but two and a half hours?!?! One Cactus lap and two Live Oak laps should take less than two hours.

Whiting you need a makeover. We need Spiderman to come out and defeat the Sandman that has inflicted his evil plan on such a great riding area.

Drained

For over a year now the weekly riding schedule has been to ride on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Three days a week for a total of hopefully about 7-8 hours. Whenever I start to feel tired, weak or mentally sick of riding I'll skip a Tuesday or Thursday to recover. That usually works great and I come back the next day ready to ride.

I skipped Tuesday this week after getting back from Mammoth and so I figured I'd be in good shape on Thursday. Wrong.

I rode the SS and I know that it is tougher to ride, but it was a lot harder than it should have been. I felt weak and drained the entire ride and only made one significant climb on the SS.

So I guess I can attribute the fatigue to a long weekend and the overall depression I've been dealing with this week. Everything feels out of sync. My sleeping schedule, my eating habits, etc. It's all in bit and pieces right now.

Hopefully I can pull it together before the next race on July 27th.

Good news is that I have all of August off from racing so I should be able to train during that month and get back to normal.

Mammoth Turned Sour

I went to Mammoth over the weekend for the annual bike trip and had a pretty awesome time. I got about around 2-4 hours of sleep every night and when you combine that with a lot of bike riding, I had a few moments of anger and grumpiness, but overall it was a good time.

Despite having a good time, I'll always remember the trip because of what happened when I got home. I had to put my dog Amy to sleep only a few hours after getting home. It ruined any happiness or good memories of Mammoth and so this post is going to be fairly short - or at least a lot shorter than it would have been had my dog not died.


Good memories:

1. Shuttle day. I love shuttle day. Minimal climbing and a lot of fun singletrack.
2. Trying a Bionicon bike. It wasn't as much fun as I hoped it would be, but it was definitely different. More suspension doesn't seem to do that much for me.
3. Fart contests _all_ weekend long.
4. GeoLadders prank on Andrew.
5. Andrew's birthday. The singing, the dancing, the cake. All was good.
6. Hearing the competition in the bathroom at McCoy Station. Wow.
7. Jacuzzi after the second day of climbing.
8. Watching Die Hard _and_ First Blood on tv at the same time.
9. Every night we ate out. Good food and good company.
10. Jason's wig prank to kick off the weekend.

Bad memories:

1. Tipping over on a switchback and hitting my right knee on a tree root. Ouch.
2. Going over the bars in front of two girls that had stopped to walk a section.
3. Going over the bars on a technical section and almost cutting my rear brake cable in half.
4. Jason + beans + confined spaces.
5. Gondolas way high up in the air with wind. (How are these things safe?!)
6. No sleep and plenty of fatigue.
7. Giving Andrew a really hard time on "Follow Me". Sorry about that.


Even some of the bad memories are funny in retrospect. A memorable weekend for sure. Some of the downhill confidence I had built up before going up was taken away with a few crashes, but overall I still feel pretty good about my descending ability.

I took my bike into The Path and I'm hoping they can fix it up. This is the third shop I've taken my bike to in the last month and I'm getting tired of paying to have it fixed.

Also in other news I bought a new wheel for my SS to replace the old dented one and I'm looking forward to riding that bike again.

As one final note I was able to get my shoes replaced by Rock and Road, which was amazing. I had no expectation of getting a new pair, but they said that I was a good customer and helped me out. I'm very excited about the shoes because I couldn't afford to buy new ones.

Fan Submission

I have fans apparently. Jason was searching for pictures of me online and found one from Elings Park (my last race).



Thanks Jason. It's fans like you that inspire me to do what I do. Thank you for your support.

That does answer my question though about where race pictures are. So many people take pictures at these events and yet most of them never make it online.


In other news I leave tomorrow for Mammoth and I'm totally amped up for it. Looking forward to riding a ton and having a good time. Hopefully there will be some beginner riders we can run off the trails like last year. Hahaha. (Joke?)

I'm feeling very confident going into this years trip because I recently cleared T&A/Laguna Ridge for the first time on Saturday. I've also been resting a lot and sleeping a ton so I think I'll be ready to stomp around Mammoth all weekend. Awesome.