1 year

Well a year and 5 days ago I was upgraded from cat 3 to cat 2. My first race was the Pro/1/2 crossroads classic. Ouch, that race lit my fire. I was super motivated over the winter just to do well in that race. The time has come to step it up. The first race is on Tuesday. My legs are still not 100% but I'm trying to be optimistic. Staying optimistic is something I always fail to do. I consider myself a little more of a realist. I look at what is possible. If there is not really a chance of completing a goal, then what is the point of even making that a goal? To be honest, I'm not the best at making goals. I remember, my little senior quote in the year book was from the movie Dodge Ball of all things. My quote was, "I've found that if you have goals, you might not reach them. But if you don't have any goals, you will never be disappointed." And to be honest that is how I've gone about so many things. Not only cycling related things, but life in general. Currently, I'm not even looking past 5 years down the road. I know what I would like to do 5, 10, 20 years from now, but there is probably less than a 1% chance of that happening. The hardest part of life is not dealing with the problems you expect. But the hardest part of life is dealing with the problems you don't expect. Perhaps I look at the problems to much. Perhaps that is what keeps me from being optimistic. How do you go about changing the way you think? Is it even possible to radically change the way you view life and its problems? Is it possible to change the way you deal with things? I understand there are life changing experiences, new people come into your life, people leave your life, things just happen. I guess looking back on it, I have had a couple of these experiences, and they have changed certain points of my life. But there are still several things that I need to change if I am going be successful in life. Nothing is going to happen over night. But as I said before, the time has come to step it up. Not just with the Crossroads race, but with life in general.
The first race starts Tuesday around 9 pm. I will probably give some sort of recap Wednesday. Thanks for reading
The Crow

parking lot crits

PARKING LOT CRITS SUCK! So the plan for the weekend was to go to ATl for some hardcore racing. Well that plan fell through do to going to hard the week prior. So my bro Stefan and I decide to race in Nashville. This crit in particular is on some nice and cool black asphalt, not fun, and the best part is, it was 100 degrees. What a great idea to do a parking lot crit in 100 degree weather when the legs already feel like crap. Well, needless to say the race did not go so well. I started out hurting bad. I was sitting 5th wheel, and my legs felt like I was off the front. I was hurting that bad. The break goes and Teammate John Hart is in it. Great! A couple of laps after the break goes, I get popped. I contemplate dropping out, but I decide to train through it. When it was all said and done, Hart ends up getting 2nd, Stefan ends up winning the field sprint for 6th. As I finish the race, I begin having goosebumps and begin to get dizzy. I fall down into the seat of my car and realize I have heat exhaustion, that would explain the horrible performance on my part. After the race, Stefan and I decide to go to downtown for a bite to eat and to celebrate my birthday. Out of all the restaurants in Nashville, we decide to go to Sbarros HAHA. O well it was good pizza. After we finish the pizza, we head back to ktown and hang out at market square for a little bit. Overall, it was a hot day, and a long night. Ended up getting home around midnight (I know that is not very late for some, but after suffering from heat exhaustion and racing a bike around a parking lot, it was)On the bright side, once I fully recover from my build, I think my legs will be on fire, in a good way that is. We found a hotel for Crossroads and it is just around the corner. Luckily, the hotel has wifi so I will be able to keep everyone updated on how the racing is going.
thanks for reading
the crow

tired legs+hills=not fun

Well this past weekend was the French broad race weekend. The road race was 65 miles with a ton of hills. The race starts, and for the first time ever, my legs fill p with lactic acid as soon as i start pedaling. this is not a good sign. First we start the 25 mile junior loop. This loop was super hard. Not a single flat section. Every hill was steep and 1/2 a mile long, not fun. As we are going over this first loop no one is talking, most of the time people are talking during the race, making jokes, etc. not this race. We start the 2nd loop which is the loop that everyone does. It is a 40 mile loop with longer, more gradual hills with longer flat sections between. somewhere round mile 40 of the race, my computer quits working and I don't know how long we are in the race. At a certain point I start to see some of the bigger named riders heading to the front so I do the same. before I know it, I am passing riders while going up hill. sure enough we are on the second to last hill. This is a long hill, about 2 or 3 miles with a 3 mile false flat section leading into the hill so overall it was a long climb. With about 300 meters to go on the hill I loose contact with the leaders. then I get in the laughing group with my bud Stefan and go easy for the rest of the race. I end up 30th or something like that. Not bad for having some of the most tired legs I've had all year. If I had been somewhat rested, I feel that that 30th could have been turned into a top 15 very easily. The next day was the Criterium. MY legs felt noticeably better. The race starts and it is sunny and hot. I am doing well, staying towards the front of the field with my bro Stefan. About midway through the race, there is a 50 dollar prime. At this point there is a small break up the ride, but they are chased down right at the last turn. I am sitting 10th wheel and I begin to think to myself, my chances of getting a top 10 are slim to none, so I go for the prime. Surprisingly no one else did and I won the 50 bucks. I look back and i have a good gap so I keep pedaling. Shortly after I am joined by Eric Murphy. My legs are blown form the sprint, so I can't really work with him. I drop out of the break because one of the major teams is not in it and it is worthless to try. I get back to the field and it starts dumping rain. They begin shorting our race. With about 6 laps to go, puddles in the road are like 1/2 inch deep, and water is pouring into my eyes, I can not see a thing. Coming into 5 laps to go, the rain is still dumping and I am sitting 10th wheel, 2 wheels behind Stefan. I am not hurting too badly, but I can not see a thing. I decide to sit up and not deal with the rain in the eyes. Would I have been able to get a top 10? Probably yes. But do I regret sitting up? Absolutely NOT. I have the worst eye problems and the last thing I want to do is make them worse. Because of Stefans great positioning and good sprint, he was 3rd place behind some super legit pros. Great job Stefan! What a way to turn things around from the day before. Not bad for either of us coming off a 20+ hour intense week. Crossroads will be harder than this race, but this is a good sign for us both. This Weekend I'm not sure what I'll be racing. I might have to work on Saturday, but Sunday I would like to race somewhere. There is a race in Nashville and Atlanta. Also, Sunday is my birthday, so gong to one of those races could also be a fun night in the city. Thanks for reading the recap
the Crow

coming around

Sorry for the late update/race recap. This past Sunday was the ETJC criterium. Boy was it action packed. The race starts and cool dude Graham Foster goes of the front. I bridge to him, then we get caught. Another guy goes off the front, this time he is from the Metrosexual cycling team. I chase him down and go into the hurt box 10 minute into the race. oops, so much for controlling myself and waiting til after 15 minutes have passed to start getting in moves. Now I am in a 4 man break OFF THE BACK. Dang, another crit down with a pointless performance. But wait, the 4 man group I am with is working together. We are consistently 10 seconds back. We come around after a couple of laps and I hear a prime bell, I know the poop is about to hit the fan in the field so I do a hard pull to bridge back up, and I do. GREAT SUCCESS. I sit in for several minutes. Another guy on the Metrosexual cycling team is off the front and the field is completely content with letting him go. He stays off the front for several laps, I think 15 or 20 minutes. Dirk Pohlman is pulling the whole time, so as soon as I feel recovered, I go up to the front to help him out. I pull until I see the guy blow up, then I sit up. Soon after he is caught, my bro Stefan goes off the front and brings a Metrosexual with him, now they have a 5 bike length gap going into the last turn. Going through the last turn, the Metrosexual literally hits Stefans back wheel and they both go down. I go by and the Metrosexual is dog cursing Stefan.

WARNING! RANT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN! if you would like to skip this rant, skip to the next paragraph. OK so this Metrosexual is dog cursing my bro Stefan. As I ride by, my initial reaction is to get under his skin, I do this very well. I am much smaller than him, probably by a good 150 pounds (for a Metrosexual cyclist, he was very fat) So I cannot start a fight and throw my wheel at him, so I have to get under his skin. So as I pass him I yell watch the language. Stupid, I know, however I think he his the kind of guy that would get annoyed by that. Later the next lap, I ask Dirk what happened, he was sitting on their wheel and had a front row seat, he said the metrosexual dude was sucking Stefans wheel, Stefan slowed going into a turn and the Metrosexual hit him and is "bitching" Stefan out for it. As the Metrosexual gets back in the race, I told him look dude, there are a bunch of kids watching this race, watch your language. A few laps after that he comes up to me and tells me,"Dude I don't know what you were telling me, but shut up. You don't know me so don't talk to me. Your f-ing team can't ride bikes." I tell him, "You doing a great job of making yourself look like an idiot." He then mentions something like we should try a bike rodeo? What is a bike rodeo? I tell him, "I ride bikes, not bulls, SHUT UP YOU ARE STUPID" By the end of the race, this guy was "bitched out" by almost every single Tennessee rider in the race. I hope he gets the idea he is not welcome in Tennessee. It was funny hearing his teammate say, "That guy is pissed off on a good day." After the race he was completely ignored by his teammates.

So Stefan gets back in the race and John Hart is able to make the break. He is the only guy on the team in a 6 man break so it was kinda risking letting it go, but I didn't have the legs to bridge up. As the race goes on, I go up and pull, Dirk is on my wheel. After a lap of pulling, my teammate Jeff Mcgrane starts yelling GO GO GO! I look back and I can't believe it. Dirk opened a gap up to my wheel and Jeff immediately bridged up. So at one point of the race I am off the back, at another point I am riding people off my wheel, how is this possible? A couple people bridge up, Dirk being one of them and the chase group is now 5 people. I don't have the legs to stay up there so I go back to the group that Stefan is in and finish with him. End up getting 11th. Big props to my team. They dominated the crit. They didn't win the stupid meat head competition,(Metrosexual team won that competition) but they did win the we race smart and we do what it takes to make the best out of a situation competition. John Hart ended up taking 2nd and Mcgrane ended up taking 6th or 7th. I think Stefan was right behind me or 13th. This weekend is a good sign that my legs are finally coming around. Also, it taught me to never think I'm completely out of a race because I was dropped. This upcoming weekend is the French Broad Cassic in Asheville. This is a REAL race. Big fields, big pros, and hard courses. I've never been climbing this well, EVER, so hopefully I will do well on this mountainous road race. I will let you know how it goes on Saturday after the race. It's going to be one of those races where I do amazing, or I do horrible. Either way, I am going to get a good ride in and good prep for Crossroads. Also, didn't get invited to Presby (huge NRC race where winner gets 10g) The promoter said Cat 1's only, so I might submit an upgrade request just so I can do this race. I'm not sure if I can get upgraded, or if it's even worth it. Cat 2 bonuses sure are nice, not that I'm getting them or anything. BTW I do not have any problems with metrosexuals, I have a problem with this one guy on the Metro cycling team out of Asheville. I apologize if I offended any metrosexual reader, I doubt I have any readers, but just in case there is one out there.
Thanks for reading the long posts
The Crow

piney flats

Well, time for a race recap. Yesterday, Saturday, was the Piney Flats road race. For some reason I was completely nonchalant about this race. I didn't know anything about this race, not even the distance. All I knew is there was going to be a road race on that day in Northeast Tennessee. Friday night, I finally decided to look at the flier. I mean after all, I need to get an address for the start so I can get directions. I got on the website and realized that it was a 35 dollar race. Kinda steep for a race that only pays 8 deep. I began contemplating going, until I saw the distance, 86 miles. WOOHOO! Finally, a race with a REAL distance. Longer races suit me. I hate these road races that are only 60 miles. I love the longer races. With that being said, I had to go race it, even if I don't do well, it's still a great day of training. Saturday morning comes early, real early, about 4 am. The race starts at 8 and I am 2.5 hours away. I wake up and immediately start having lower back pains. Not sure why, maybe used the wrong pillow or something, I don't know why. Anyways, I start driving and the back pains persist. I get to the start line and they are still there. Not only that, but I have a water bottle in my back pocket. At this point, I don't even know if I'm going to finish 1 of the 20 mile loops. The race gets going, and before I know it, the pain in my legs was over powering the pain in my back, so I don't really notice the back pains again until after the race. Once the race starts, Jeff Mcgrane (my Teammate) gets in a 4 man break. Sweet, I get to sit in all day. As we just start the 2nd lap, a train stopped the break which had about 30 seconds on us. Luckily, the ref gave them a head start. Once we got going, it was like a club ride, lot's of coasting. the course was rolling, with 3 notable hills that were about 5 minute hills. As the laps pass, I begin looking around and I realize that everyone else is breathing harder than me, cool. Around the start of the 3rd lap, an Industry 9 rider goes on the attack, and immediately gets 15-25 seconds. I begin to bridge to him, and that's when the field bean to get smaller. We started with 25 riders, after we regrouped from this attack, there was probably only 10-12 riders. Coming into the first hill of the last lap, I see Dirk Pohlman head towards the front, and I knew I had to get on his wheel cause the poop was about to hit the fan, and sure enough it does. Dirk begins doing a super hard pull up the hill to try and make a selection/bridging group. I am sitting 2nd wheel the whole time, about 3/4 of the way up the hill, I look back and the field is shattered. There are only 4 guys left. Dirk continues pulling on the downhill and tries to get some type of organization going, but there is none. Everyone is scared of him. We regroup once again. As we regroup, there is a rider that we pass from the break. After this, I am the only person in the selections that has a rider in the break, thus I can sit on the whole time. We come up to the 2nd hill and Dirk heads to the front yet again. This time, my teammate John Hart, was on his wheel. I was sitting 4th wheel. I could see John was struggling and the whole time up the hill I am thinking john don't blow up, John don't blow up. He blew up, but luckily the rider behind him was able to close the gap to Dirk. As we pass John, I tell him "good job" he gave me a much needed break. As we crest the hill, the group is now 7 riders. Everyone is yelling at dirk to do work, but he is doing work. I don't understand it. They were all sucking his wheel, they ALL should have been doing work. We are close to the 3rd and last climb, I attack. I am tired of this stupid lets sit on Dirks wheel game, it is annoying the CROW! I attack and immediately get a gap. 1 guy from Texas bridges up and we work together. After a mile, we are reeled back in. Coming into finish (about a mile) I take a flier. I stay off the front for awhile until I see Dirk chasing me. DANG IT DIRK. Dirk catches me and sort of has a gap, but not really so then that is it. Everyone in the group I was with could outsprint me and so they do. After the flier, I have no legs for the sprint, so I finish 10th, just ahead of Dirk. My teammate Jeff Mcgrane (who was in the break) ended up 2nd. After the race, Dirk comes up to me and tells me he should have just let me go, I feel like this is a very nice thing to say, it meant a lot to me.
I am happy with my form, I'm not peaked or anything like that, but I am a lot better than where I was at the last race. Every week goes by, I am getting better and better. In my entire cycling career, I have never been able to attack on a hill, I am always going towards the back or getting dropped. This was the first race that I actually attacked on a climb in my entire cycling career. I can't tell you how surprised I am. Here I am racing against pros and I can attack them. Whereas when I was racing juniors, I was getting dropped. I really don't know what to think about this other than it is very cool. Although my result doesn't say to much, I feel like my performance did. As I said in my last post, I am willing to sacrifice results in these smaller races for the peak race. Today is the criterium in the same area. Hopefully, I can pull out a similar performance as yesterday. My bro Stefan will be there making his racing comeback. He took a little break from racing when he went to Italy for 6 weeks. This will be his first race back, and he is doing well. We have been training quite a bit the past week or 2. It will be a lot of fun. I'll probably be posting later on tonight giving a recap of the crit.
Thanks for reading my blabbering about racing,
The Crow

race riding

Time for the recap of this past weekend. I didn't have any races this past weekend. However, my favorite organized ride took place. The Rocky Top 100K. This ride has the coolest roads and a super cool post ride atmosphere. The ride leaves from Barleys Taproom and Pizzeria in downtown Knoxville. 15 minutes into the ride you are on some great roads with some pretty big rollers. Last year I "won" the ride, so the big joke around work (we close up shop just for this ride, plus it is always around the 4th of July so that is our holiday. Everyone at work takes this ride very seriously) Is that I was going to defend my "title." Going into the ride, I let Stefan know about it and told it was a great ride. 100k on awesome roads with free pizza afterward, he didn't think twice about coming. Going into the ride, both of us needed more racing, high intensity in the legs, so we started pretty hard. The ride never really got organized. For the first half of the ride, it was mostly Stefan and I doing the work, maybe one other guy at times. About halfway in, I decided I was going to start taking it easy. After a couple of 20+ hours weeks, my legs were shot. Around the 45 mile mark people start attacking and things like that. Around mile 50 Stefan attacks and stays off the front. My stupid boss, Geri/Jerry/Gerry/I don't Know how to spell his name, was being an idiot. We was pretty much sucking my wheel, if I would put in a good effort, he would just sit there and be an idiot. It's like his goal was to beat me, like he (washed up cat 3 from 10 years ago, never trains in the winter, Miata lover) was comparing himself to me. We are coming into something like 10 miles left and at this point I am so mad at Jerry my goal is to beat him, (I know it's not a race) so after a really good break check and some name calling, I "attack" on this climb (3/4 of a mile long). He is immediately 2 bike lengths off the back, then I drill it and get a pretty sizable gap. I start bridging to Stefan. He gets caught by a traffic light and we regroup. It was nice riding into town with my bro Stefan. We had a good time eating pizza. I think our time was 2 hours 47 minutes. Gerrys group was like 2 hours 50 or more, something like that.
After the ride, I went and hung out at Stefans house. The next day, we had another "race ride" on tap. This time, we actually had intervals and what not. Overall, it was a very hot 4 hour ride that was probably 10 times more beneficial than the 100k ride. We did all kinds of intervals in some really hot conditions. After the ride, we were pretty zonked. however, we had to immediately go and work for his parents at a shaved ice place for the fourth of July. Overall, the weekend went really good. I accomplished a lot this weekend and feel pretty good. Now it's already mid week and only 3 days til my next race, the ETJC road race and Crit in northeast Tennessee. I'll be sure to keep my very few readers posted on how it goes. Thanks for reading.
The Crow

Training, it feels good again

Well, I'm back. After a short break of blogging it's time to get back in the game. Since Avery Trace and Cookeville, I have gotten my head back in the game. My Power Trap is now working, and I am getting used to training with power once again. I once had a power meter back in 2007, the summer before my first year at college. Once I was in college, I trained with it for about a month. After that, I didn't really care about it. After a couple of attempts to get it back on the bike, it would not work. After a couple of shipments to Saris and still no luck, I finally decided to get a new one. Once I started training with the power meter, I immediately saw low watt numbers (lower than what I expected) Generally, I compare my wattages to my friend Stefan. We are very close to the same fitness level, and very close to the same weight (or so I thought) After doing a couple of rides and feeling like crap, I realized I had been over training for the past 3 weeks (I was house sitting for a guy. The house had really bad roads for training, short steep hills, not good for taking it easy) or so. As I start riding with Stefan more and more, I realize my numbers are just a hair lower than his. So what do I decide to do? I weigh myself, something I NEVER do. Seriously, I probably weigh myself once a year. Once I step on the scale, I realize I am a whopping 15 pounds lighter than Stefan. Ok so I was a little off on judging my efforts. That is ok with me. I now have my head in the game, I'm gaining confidence, and I am feeling an all around difference, for the better. Overall, things are looking good for Crossroads. I have a couple of races this weekend that will be good prep races. At this point, I am very focused on Crossroads ad I am prepared to sacrifice some results in these smaller races, to get stronger for Crossroads. I'll probably post a recap of the weekend next. I did a couple of "race rides" and I'll fill you in on how they went.