Update

Sorry i kinda put the blog on hold for a little while.

Anyway..the second stage of Cascade went okay. Survived and finished mid field somewhere. Was coming down with something and didn't feel good all day. Stage 3 was 15mi TT which climb for 7.5 mi going out and screamed back. Probably harder than the Gila TT. Rode pretty well considering I couldn't breathe super. Stage 4 was 7 hrs after the TT and was a 90 min crit around downtown Bend. Super fun course, but with the pro teams controlling the race it was single file for the entire 90 min. Stage 5 started on a 20 mi climb and right away my legs had nothing. Once the Nav's started setting tempo on the climb i went straight out the back. Kinda hard to keep up with a 350W+ tempo when your legs can put out 280 before they want to fall off (really bad day). I ended up riding with another guy who had gotten pretty worked by the double day too and we rode most of the course and pulled out in the second feed zone. Not exactly what i had hoped for my first NRC this year, but not much you can do when you get sick. At least I have an idea of where my fitness has to be for next year to make final groups.

Once i got back, went to the doc....and doc says i have strep...doses antibiotics and i take to the couch and bike a little bit. Just getting back after a couple of really slow weeks, but i finally got some good work time in. later

Cascade

i'm in Bend, OR now for the cascade classic. It's a freaking long drive, but once you get here it's kinda worth it. the town itself is really pretty and cool. I'll post some pics soon, but haven't taken a whole lot yet.

We did pretty well in stage 1. it was a 92 mile RR with a couple climbs. the final climb finished in town on a little butte. I think we had 3 or 4 guys in the top quarter of the race. Corey was somewhere near the top 10 which is pretty sweet. Tomorrow's stage is 80 miles and finishes on a 15 mi climb so that should be interesting and painful. Okay..more updates later since i was informed my blog sucked.

Up to speed

so the last few weeks have begun the process of getting back into the groove of racing. Some guys come out flying after a winter of hitting it hard, but usually it takes a few races for me to get back into it. Last weekend was probably the messiest race i've ever done. The Cateye Road Race up in Lyons. It was a fun course...but it was raining and had two dirt sections, which turned to mud sections after all of the rain.
The bike took quite a beating, but didn't do too bad on the day. The next day was the last Stazio crit and that was considerably easier than the first one because the majority of the pros were at Redlands. This weekend is the Oredigger classic which consists of a time trial up lookout moutain and a circuit race (pretty much a climbing crit) around campus. The lookout TT went pretty well. It was crazy windy so times were slow, but it was a good test to see where the climbing legs are at.

It's been a while...

Yeah...I know it's been a while...I'm still alive..just been lazy for blogging. Haven't had a whole lot to post minus alot of the same training reports. So since stuff is starting to get underway, the race blog returns.

A couple weeks ago, a few of us headed down to AZ to get some warm weather training in, escape the snowmelt and in general just get out of town for a while. We stayed in Bisbee for a few nights and prerode most of the race courses down there. Nice town. 5 miles from the border and really really small. We went to Tuscon our last day and got a nice ride up Mt. Lemon in beatiful 75 degree weather.

My season finally kicked off today, since i didn't go to VOS and was a getting over a cold last weekend. Rode the Stazio crit today. Pretty unremarkable course. One hill, 4 corners, but it's always a hard race to knock the cobwebs out when alot of big name pros show up. So i rode as long as i could and ended up getting popped with a few laps to go. The power numbers said it wasn't a bad race and it pretty much went as expected, but i still got a lotta work to do yet before i get back in race shape. next weekend is the CU race, so a crit and a RR, which should be fun.

SUPERSIZED

Wow..it's been awhile since the last update...um...okay...so school is still going and that sucks. I thought senior year might be cool since I might take classes that I wanted to..but those were hard so i didn't. So i'm in a couple of liberal arts electives (japanese history and culture, engineering law and ethics) and one electrical elective--power systems engineering YUCK :-P. The good news is that the semester is halfway done..the bad news is that the semester is halfway done...and the EIT is NEXT SATURDAY and i still have a lot of stuff to study...but we'll see how much gets done..hehe..just as long as i pass....

The best part of the offseason is YOGA. That and climbing are the two biggest things that i miss when racing is in full swing. The last couple of weeks i've been going as much as I can...and i finally got a program from the physical therapist to get keep me from breaking again next year...and he found that I have some pretty big muscle imbalances to take care of. So that translates into 1.5-2hrs of exercises every day and weights in a few weeks...I still haven't been climbing yet this offseason. Waiting until the hip stabilization period is over then hopefully its not too cold and i can go tear it up a little bit....

We had our 'fall break' last weekend, which just meant that we got monday off. LAME...it was a good time though..i can enjoy college life for a little while and it's pretty damn FUN. If anyone wants to go for a ride and finish with a visit to the Coor's brewery for their 'short tour' (skip the BS and get beer..we call it Coor's Lab..hehe) with me give a shout and lets go!..or just skip the ride part and go for the beer..even better.

!happy_days

So school has decided to actually start..or more like I've put off stuff long enough and it's finally coming due. Yuck. I spent the day doing an update memo for my senior design instructor and collating 160 exams for the class I'm grading for. I'm supposed to have finished a 350pg book for an exam thursday, but that's not going to happen..and finish power systems hw. I think I'm going to coor's lab. Fuck this. Last performance test tomorrow. Woohoo! Not really, but I get to not spend my afternoon sleeping in class.

Okay enough with the school whining...this is supposed to be a race blog...but i'm not racing any more and it gives me something to do instead of being bored and watching tv. So there might be some utterly random posts and rants outside of the bike..so BEWARE...MWAHAHAHAHA.

Speaking of the bike...I did something totally uncharacteristic this weekend...I actually went for my first mountain bike ride in a year...haha. It was alot of fun minus the non-fit on the bike and that my bike is 7 years old, i think. No pics again :/ but green mountain is a pretty cool place to ride...if you're technical skill are far below par. The majority of the singletrack you can ride comfortably on a 'cross bike and the climbs were pretty loose and gravelly, but it was something i'd never ridden before. I guess that's what i get for telling my coach i suck at mtn biking....HA

Anyway, until next time.....