2012 Kick-off

It's about time I get back to posting, it's been almost 2 years. I've got plans to return to racing more fervently this year, as well as big plans for life in general, so I'll try to keep them chronicled here. I've also done a little redesign on the blog, I like it, hopefully you do too. For now, here's a little catch-up.

I don't remember much about the rest of 2010. I did the Ouachita Challenge for the 3rd time (and 2nd in a row). I was shooting for 6 hrs but got sick about an hour in so I didn't come close to my goal. I'm sure I did a little more racing, but definitely not much. I did somehow finish a strong 2nd at the Huntsville race in the singlespeed open class, as well as 2nd at Ruston in the SS class again.

Huntsville trophy shot.

We went snowskiing last February with Adam & Clare, it was my first time in about 10 years. We went to Breckenridge, during the best snow season they'd ever had. I was back on blacks by day 2, and went to Vail to ski with Andrew I. on day 3. I got in way over my head with some powder skiing on some stuff that was way too steep or tight for me, but I figured it out before the end of the day. When I went back to Breck I went straight to the top and skied the big bowls the rest of the trip.



Top of Breckenridge.

In 2011 I did the OC again, again shooting for 6 hrs but again had stomach issues, this time about halfway through (while I was on pace to make my goal of course).

Ben turned 2 in August, he's getting so big it's amazing to watch him grow and learn.

At the Sugar Cycles cross race in October.

Fireman for Halloween.

Helping daddy trim the hedges.

Playing on the playground at a 'cross race in Austin.

Riding Ryan's tricycle.

We bought a new house late last year so we don't live where we used to anymore. I miss being able to ride out my front door to Bear Creek Park for all-weather traffic-free training, but other than that we love our new place and location. We are much closer to our church and all our friends so it has been a great move for us.

I didn't do a ton of racing last year, and definitely not much training. I got Richard back into biking in a big way last year, he rode my MTB for several months while I rode my singlespeed with him. It was just weekend riding, didn't do anything for my fitness but it was fun to take a break from "training" and we had a lot of fun just riding. He finally got his own MTB so I could get back on mine and we even built him a CX bike from the ground up after he got hooked on 'cross racing. We traveled to a few TXBRA races, neither one of us did any good but we had fun.

Sugar Cross Fest

We went back to Breck in October with Richard and Kristen. Richard and I took bikes, him on a borrowed Specialized Epic 29er demo from my guys at Sugar Cycles (before he got his bike). We had a blast in Breckenridge, the girls got to have some spa days, we got snowed on, and Richard and I got in about 10hrs of awesome riding.

Top of a big climb outside of Breck at an old mine.

I went offshore 5 times last year, the most I've been in a year so far, I don't mind it too much but I think that's enough. The last trip left a few days after Christmas and kept me out over New Year's eve which was a bummer.

That pretty much gets us to now. I'm trying to get some base miles in for the next few weeks, then ramp up to some interval training for a few weeks before the OC. TMBRA races will fall in there, and I'm going to try to make it out to some races in the fledgling LA XC Series, too. There's a great group of guys over there, I'm very glad to see them getting a series going so I plan to support them whenever I can. I did a couple of 3 hr rides this weekend, one with Richard, one solo. Then I was on the bike at 5:55 this morning to get a couple of hrs in mid-week. I think my Garmin has died so I missed the first few miles/minutes trying to get it working before I kicked off the iPhone logging. Oh well. It was about 40 degrees and the wind was blowing at 20+ gusting to 30 so it was a tough day on the bike. Looking to get some more solid long rides this weekend to keep building that base for the year.

Comfort and Coldsprings Catch-up

I've been slacking a little bit, so I'll catch up on my last two races.

The first was the STORM Hill Country Challenge at Flat Rock Ranch in Comfort, TX. This was the weekend of the massive rains that rolled through TX from San Antonio to Houston, causing day one of the BP MS-150 to be cancelled. As we were driving through the rain Friday afternoon, doing good to make 35mph on I-10, I was dreading what lay in store for us at the ranch.

When we woke up Saturday morning in Comfort to more rain, I was thinking even worse thoughts. We loaded up and headed out to the ranch, where we were surprised to find things in reasonably good condition. The creek was dry and the ground was only slightly soggy. This was an omnium weekend, so the short track and time trial were scheduled for that day. It turned out that the rain had been perfect. Other than a small mudhole in the short track course, the trails were absolutely incredible all weekend. My racing wasn’t much to speak of, as I’d been sick all week and hadn’t gone to the doctor until Thursday before the race. I held on to the leaders as long as I could in the short track and the XC, and tried to ride a steady time trial (until a cow blocking the trail on the fast downhill to the finish caused me to have to dismount and walk around!!!). Due to a low turnout, I came out 4th overall in the omnium and took home a little prize money. I guess I can’t complain.



The next race was the GHORBA Big Ring Challenge at Double Lake Recreation Area in Coldsprings, TX. After another round of torrential rain that caused a lot of flooding in Houston on Monday, the trails were in great shape Saturday for pre-riding. Sunday morning I was awoken by, you guessed it, rain. It started about 7:30 or so, and rained right up until the Cat. 2 start at 9:00. Just before my Cat. 1 start at 11:30, it started again. It had quit by the time we lined up, but the damage was done. Luckily, the Double Lake trail has a lot of sandy soil. It was still a muddy mess, but it handled the rain better than most any other trail could have.

From the start, my plan was to try to stay with the leaders. I wound up on the back row and the far right, which wasn’t a good starting position. When the whistle blew, I worked hard to move up, took the low line to the singletrack entrance, and went in 6/7th. The trail was super slick, with both wheels wandering aimlessly down the trail in only the general direction you pointed them in. Thankfully, it was totally rideable. I worked my way forward a little bit with a few passes to get up to 4th or 5th I think. I caught site of Kyle Johnson and thought I was doing well, but shortly after that my legs just went dead. I felt like I still had lungs and energy to go, but my legs just felt like logs. I got passed a few times through the rest of the lap, then a group of three that had been following me for a bit came by in the start/finish. One more pass in the second lap and I was back to dead last.

About halfway through the third lap my legs started to come back and I was picking up the pace. I passed one of the three who had passed me earlier, and then I caught and passed my teammate Brian McGrath and friend Geoff Mann. Brian was the second of the three, and Geoff had passed me somewhere earlier in the singletrack. I also caught back up to Kyle, who was obviously having a bad day as I put him behind me. I saw Dominic Adl (the third of the three!) up ahead about halfway through the final lap and set my sights on catching him.

I finally caught Dominic a few miles from the finish, and sat on his wheel for a while. We caught a lapper who let us through cleanly, and I was glad because I didn’t want Dominic to have a chance to get away. It was then that he realized it was me behind him. I asked him if he wanted to let me by or sprint for it, and he said we would sprint. The exit of the singletrack involves a slight right turn, a few roots to ride over, and then about 50 meters with a volleyball court sandpit leading to the line. Dominic came out of the woods and gunned it, putting up a strong sprint, but it wasn’t quite enough as I came around him through the sand. I wound up finishing 7th, not as good as I was hoping for but I was glad to put on a good comeback after a mid race collapse.


Next up is a Disney World trip with JT and Abby(I'm actually writing from Orlando, LOL), then the Houston Grand Crit, and then LOCO Fest.

Bicycles & Burritos, Airplanes & Pain, Flowerbeds & Friends

Interestingly enough, none of the above pairs are actually pairs. They're all just things that have been going on in the last week. In fact, there are triplets, a pair, and a loner.

We'll start with the loner: flowerbeds. Since we bought our house, we haven't done much improvements to the exterior. We still haven't put down grass on the sides and backyard, and we didn't have much of a flower bed. Raine and her mom and grandma had done some work to the flowerbed last year, but it never really took. The soil was just not good for plants, and they planted at the wrong time of the year. So we decided to redo it this spring in the hope that it would take this time. So we started by mixing some organic matter into the soil to better support the plants. Then we planted three roses, some Salvia(?), and a few small flowers. We also put in a soaker hose to keep the bed nice and moist. We topped it all with some mulch, and it actually looks pretty good. I really hope it will stay looking good, as Raine really likes it and it also really improves the looks of the house: curb appeal, that is. Maybe a pretty flowerbed will make it easier to sell when we decide to evacuate this flat swampland, who knows?(pic to come)

Next up, the dynamic duo: bicycles and pain. After all the setbacks I've come across this season(road race wreck, grandfather sick and passing, etc.) it has been less than ideal. I am just now starting my high intensity training stuff, where you envelope yourself in pain to acclimate yourself to the pace required in a race. I was talking about this with Raine the other day, and she said "I don't get you people. Pain is not gain." This was my response:

"Pain is gain. How do you figure it's not? Ok, well you're actually right it's not the pain that's the gain, it's the recovery part that's where the gain comes from. But you have to have the pain first. But there is a certain enjoyment(to me) of going out and pushing yourself to the limits if for no other reason than to get back to the house in time to see a stupid TV show. It's euphoric. You just have to get into it to feel it. It can't be explained."

It's true that sometimes I don't feel like getting on my bike and pushing to my limits, but I know that I have to. But once I get out there and get started, I don't want to stop. In this case, hurting is good. The pain truly is euphoric. That's what those doods who hang themselves by meat hooks in their backs say, too, but I really think this is different.

And finally, the trifecta: airplanes, burritos, and friends. Towards the end of March I still had some hours to use from my plane "lease" so I took a few mid-week evening flights. Monday night I flew from home over to Eagle Lake, then up to Brenham, then back home. Had a good flight, beautiful day with smooth air and good landings. Then Wednesday night, I flew to College Station with Brandon as my copilot for dinner. Patrick picked us up and they took me for a tour of the A&M campus, then we dropped into Freebird's where Jon met us for dinner. All these guys are Aggies who are in my church small group. We are all either newly(relatively) or nearly married. It's a great group and we all get along great and have a great time. We ate our burritos and told war stories, then we went to Jon's place and watched a "The Office" episode. Namely, Conflict Resolution. Then it was back to the airport for the flight back to Houston. We were bucking a headwind down low, but the ceilings were only about 2800 feet, so we just had to ride it out. Still only took about 45 minutes, though.

So that completes the list. It's now April, which means I'm almost another year older(April 12th if you didn't know, hint hint). It also means the heaviest period of racing is upon us, with three weekends of this month occupied, and two sets of back to back races with only one weekend between the sets. Hopefully I'll have good stories to tell about those races that do not include vomit. And as always, I'll have good pictures of myself. SEE YA!!