Start of Winter....

            At the time of writing this (which was over a week ago) I’m about to do a podcast, and I thought I would get some writing done in the spare time beforehand. This week was by far the best week I’ve had in ages. I got to do a cardio workout every day since Monday. I’m probably gonna go for a run later today as well, racking up the volume. Honestly each day that I do something consecutively makes a huge difference. I’m sort of in a base training stage at the moment, but my fitness is such that I’m pushing higher HR zones than most people would for base. I’m not really worried about that though. The heart rates for a given effort are bound to go down if I am hitting those efforts consistently. The thing that people always warn about for is getting burned out. At the current level I’m nowhere near that. We’ll see in a few weeks for sure of course, but right now I’m happy keeping myself in a daily routine.

           

            It’s recently got quite cold out, so I need to figure out my winter gear situation. I was hopeful that I would have at least through the end of October without having to worry about any sort of winter clothing. That’s not happening. I forgot just how quickly it got cold here in Colorado. Anyway, I’m looking at my options right now. I was planning on getting a groupset sometime in the next month, but I think that may end up being delayed until December or so. I’ll ask for some stuff for my birthday and Christmas, as clothing isn’t insanely expensive (at least as far as bike stuff is concerned.) I’ll lay out a list of my top items. This whole wishlist thing is kind of new to me. For the first time in several years I don’t feel as if I’m really being a financial burden on my family. Having a job and going to community college have brought down my cost substantially. Adding to the fact that my parents have been employed for a while, and it just doesn’t seem like I’m a problem anymore. I’m sure my parents won’t be happy with my expense plans, but I’m being much more conservative with it than I would like. I’ve only made one big purchase with a couple small ones.

Cost is relative though. If I deny myself 800 dollars of flippant spending over the course of a few months, usually in the form of food, then I would have enough for a new mountain bike. That’s on the more distant horizon though. I do miss riding mountain trails though. I’ve learned that I am a really good rider technically, so doing those sorts of rides will be challenging in a different way.

My winter gear is pretty lacking. I have one pair of winter tights and one good winter top. My gloves aren’t made for riding, but ski gloves will do in a pinch on really cold days. I have one pair of arm warmers. I’m planning on buying winter gloves, leg warmers, arm warmers, and shoe covers from OU this year. After all if I have another kit I will be less likely to wear the ones that are torn. I don’t like putting those through the wash, as I’m afraid the rips are going to get bigger. Another option is spending a lot of time on my trainer. I’m not excited about the concept, but it sounds like a good option twice a week or something. Two days a week running, two on the trainer, and two swimming indoors will give me one day a week to brave the elements on the bike. That is doable with minimal winter clothing. My issue is going to be adjusting my schedule when it snows, which it is certain to do. There is already some snow on the mountains, which tells me we’ll likely get some snow by the end of the month (we ended up getting some in mid-October.) I suppose this is what I get for not busting my ass since the beginning of the summer. Oh well, I feel good about the outlook on things. I actually have the money coming in to be able to afford these things. It’s kind of stupid to think that I waited until I was out of high school to get a job. I’ve made like 3,000 dollars in the last couple of months, and would be stoked if that rate continued. 12,000 in a year would cover an immense amount of things on my ‘to buy’ list. I might just wait until next summer on any major purchases. I do want to go for the groupset though. I need to understand the deconstruction and construction of a bike better.

I’m sad that I’ve not been more consistent with this blog, but I haven’t had much to write. Things are looking up for me with cycling, despite the fact that my beloved canyon roads are closed thanks to an insane flood. I have some training data to work with thanks to my GPS. I should be putting in some analysis here. I’m definitely a data geek, so working with this sort of thing is my strong suit. Hopefully I’ll be able to write something that people like. As for now I need to get back to my long project of the Born to Run/Run and You’ll Only Die Tired write-up that I’m doing. I know quite a few internet people who would be very interested in that, but are too lazy to read both.  

A Long Expected Update

Sorry for not posting in forever. I haven’t really had anything to write about. The triathlon was okay, but not spectacular. I may write a post about it just to keep it archived here. I have started to improve my running a lot, but haven’t spent much time at all on the bike. I just got a Garmin 510 though, so I will be geeking out about that, and likely spending many hours a week riding just so I can look at all the data it gives.

I am actually glad I spent so much time away from the bike. I appreciate riding a lot more than I did at the end of last season. Even though I wasn’t in the greatest shape I still was a bit sick of riding. Luckily I have been active enough to maintain a reasonable level of fitness. The main benefit I have received from this time off is I have been ridden of all of the guilt that I had. It was stupid, but hard to deny. I was having a tough time in engineering (surprise I am no longer doing engineering,) and I would feel guilty every time I would work out. It was a stupid feeling that shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I suppose the root problem was I was unable to man up and tell my parents I didn’t want to do engineering. That conversation was perhaps the most uncomfortable I have ever had. That actually gives me a good idea for a parody post…. Anyway, I am feeling much better about what working out means to me. I am more willing to sacrifice time on the internet or tv for working out instead of work time as well. Having a lot of structure in my life tends to make me much more productive. I just hope I don’t feel too stretched over the next 14 weeks of class. It shouldn’t be that bad, but 3 online classes is a lot of time on the computer.

Now working out feels more like a small part of what I do, even when I am doing a large volume. Over the next several weeks I am going to put some real solid “pre-base” kind of riding in. I don’t really have the time to just push zone 1 or 2, and for the first few weeks here I don’t think that I would be able to keep it that low with the terrain of Colorado. My average HR zone for my first ride with an HR monitor was zone 5. That’s average. For an hour. I feel pretty confident that my pain threshold is quite good. If I use this data to plan my workouts better I should be able to improve a ton. By the way my max heart rate was 198. I was pushing to make it hit 200 on that hill, but I just wasn’t able to go that far. Too bad, as I know that I have hit 200 several times before.

Running has gone from something that I would probably have to stop after a mile to easily running three. If I double that, then I am well on my way to having the run portion of an Olympic triathlon covered. A couple hours of scouring the internet should give me a good idea of how much running I need to do for an Olympic distance. I’ll see how my garmin holds up for collecting running data. If it is incredibly erratic then I may have to cave in and blow some money on a garmin watch several months from now. I have too many cycling expenses on the horizon to worry about at the moment. At least now I have a job where I can work toward paying for those things. It’s odd. I have spent my entire life having next to no money, and now that I have a small amount I have no desire to save a lot of money. In the short term I don’t consider that a bad thing, but long term it does need to change. After I am eventually done with school money should be a much simpler thing.

The elephant in the room is still swimming, but I feel as if I have a pretty good plan at tackling that. That’s not something I have to worry about for a couple of months though, so for now I am good. My plan is to take some time in the middle of winter when I feel it is too cold to ride (I’ll still do like 2 sessions a week on the trainer) and I’ll swim around 4 times a week. That should be enough to get me to be comfortable and build some proper form. Some weeks I’ll probably do more than 4 sessions, but I don’t want to over push swimming. 

Good to see that the blog got a bunch of views in the time that I was away from it. I'll be a lot more regular now. I still don't know exactly what I want to do for documenting training, but I have a few ideas. I don't have any races on the horizon, but next year if my bike fitness is good enough I should be doing several amateur races. Yet again I apologize for not having any content, but this summer has been one of the most trying ones of my life. I have had a great time, but things have changed, and a lot of my spare time is gone. At least I feel motivated now.  

Baylor Race Report: Conference Championships

Us presenting sponsor and former teammate Anthony Sequera with a signed jersey. Anthony is the owner and all around awesome guy behind 2Quik Carbon Technology.

Well, time for the final race report of the 2013 collegiate season. The championship is double points, so lots of people show up. We got into Waco after dark, but we still saw a bunch of news crews just off the interstate. They were there because of the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas. They had three little ribbons that we could purchase and wear either on our bike or jersey to help out the victim fund.

It went off like most races. I have not spent much time on the bike or working out outside of races, so I fell off early. I hate that I have lost form in season. I've now learned my lesson, but I feel like I should have noticed what was happening much earlier. Anyway, I rode for a few miles working with some guys I didn’t know. I caught up to my friend who rides for Texas. I stayed with them until I just couldn’t hold it anymore. The course started to speed up toward the end. I went to a corner where a lot of people were crashed. They shouted, “Stay to the inside!” I wish that I had gone all the way to the inside of the corner. I skidded and almost held it. I fell going very slowly. It ripped my jersey, re-bruised my hip and knee, scratched my Oakleys, and took a bit of shoulder skin. It was really slow though, so it didn’t hurt too bad. I was more angry than anything else. I rode the rest of the way back and got the wound cleaned up. I sulked throughout the TT, but didn’t let anyone notice. I’m pretty much disappointed on all fronts at the moment. I need to sew up my torn jerseys and do some riding by myself. There is a therapeutic quality to riding alone. It helps me keep things in perspective.

I was watching the TT from the finish line with some of the OU riders that couldn’t ride for this race and the MSU coach. OU had a pretty impressive performance in the time trial for every division that we had a team in including Men’s B. I’ll talk about the team performance after mine for the other races, but needless to say I am quite pleased with how OU Cycling is developing.

That night we had a lot of beer and cheap Italian food. It was the first BYOB restaurant that I had ever been to. It is silly for places that serve food to not at least have 3.2 beer. I had some New Belgium Trippel, which is 7.8% ABV. I was a bit more gregarious and talkative than usual as a result. The pasta was fantastic. I am very happy that OSU has a food critic on their team to suggest restaurants. 

Delicious. One of the better meals I have had at a race.

The crit race was a race that I actually had a goal for. I said if there was a prime called within the first few laps and I was still with the group I would go for it. After the first lap they called it. I was pumped. I tried to move from the back of the race to the front. I noticed my teammate was at the front pushing the pace up considerably. I couldn’t get to the front at all. I burnt myself out trying to move up. I desperately wanted to provide this one thing to my team. At least we got some prime points from the other two OU riders. I rode for a few more laps before being pulled. Not the best weekend I have had. I understand much about what I need to do to maintain fitness through a season though. I will build back up and possibly do a few races down the stretch here; at least once I know that I can succeed in them. I don’t need to pay for non-collegiate races if I am going to do really poorly in them.

Now to talk about the fun stuff. OU Cycling has come a long way since I have joined the team in late 2010. This is the first year where I have felt the team was truly a team. This Saturday we will have our end of the year party. It will be a celebration of a very successful year for this club. I hope that next year the team improves even more. There is a lot of work that needs to be done though. The SCCCC has a bunch of schools in Texas, a few in Louisiana, two in Oklahoma, and one in Arkansas. Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas placed first in the conference. This comes as no surprise. They have scholarships for bike racers, a coach that works with each individual rider, and consistently place in the top at Collegiate Road Nationals. I wish them the best of luck this weekend in Ogden, and I will be looking forward to the results. Second place went to the University of Texas. They are an established program that is sponsored by one of the most famous bike shops owned by undoubtedly the most famous(or infamous if you view him that way) cyclist from the United States. In case you don’t know that is Lance Armstrong with Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop. They have a lot of racers, so they always do pretty well in the team standings. They have a few racers in every single division.

Now to the third place recipients. I am proud to say that this year the University of Oklahoma was able to win this honor. Just four short years ago the team was non-existent. This year we did better than practically the entire conference with a much smaller budget than most of them. Getting on the podium this year is a big step for our team and our state. I would also like to commend Oklahoma State University on getting 4^th place. They were in a similar position last year as we were two years ago. The more our state can do to be impressive the more I see cycling being a part of life here. There are a ton of great areas to train here with a decent talent pool.

A massive photo with the top 3 teams in the SCCCC. Congrats to MSU, UT, and OU!

I should mention that our team would be much lower without all of the points gained by our women's squad. I feel like a strong female recruiting class next year could be what puts us up into the second place spot. I hope that the ladies of OU Cycling can make a stronger presence in the conference and be competitive in the upper divisions. 

I would like to thank all of the sponsors of OU Cycling for the 2013 season. Without all of them it would have been impossible. Our school decreased our budget, and we are thankful for every dollar from the local community. They have helped us immensely. Here they are in no particular order.

AGIO Technology

405 Bicycles

2Quick Carbon Technology

Specialized

Champion System

Andrew Stevens Photography

Hard Edge Screenprint & Embroidery

Buchanan Bicycles

Peak Nutrition

Keep It Local OK

Skinsations Tattoo & Piercing

Fast Lanes Car Wash

Oklahoma Sports & Orthopedics Institute

I am grateful for every moment with OU Cycling this year. Next year if I am back I will be sure to train much smarter. We have a definite chance at getting second place next year and possibly sending a rider or two to Nationals. The future looks great for OU Cycling, and I couldn’t be happier for the success that they have seen. As an ending note to this post I will be back with a season recap soon-ish. I will talk about my ideas for the future of OU Cycling and mention the names of all of the OU 2013 riders with notable accomplishments. 

Ride safe and train hard. 

Texas State San Marcos Race Report

I don't have any good race pics, so here is me eating a banana on the trainer a few months ago.

So this was a fun weekend, but terrible racing for me. I haven’t been able to keep up my mid-week rides, which led to a decline in fitness. We left a bit later on Friday April 12th than I would have liked, but still early enough in the day for it to be a pleasant drive. We got to San Marcos and hung out at the coffee shop where registration was being held for a while. We had a few beers. One of my teammates got a bit more drunk than the rest of us, and he started talking about ideas of how to improve the team. Most were pretty good. I am able to provide perspective on these things since I have been with the team substantially longer even though I am a mediocre racer. Anyway, we went to our host’s house. I got a couch, which was great.

The next morning we headed out for the race delirious as usual. Leaving early in the morning for a race just isn’t fun. The race started off at a slower pace than the K-State race, but it wasn’t exactly relaxed. I dropped off the back pretty quickly, and then sat in with a couple of dropped riders. Then I started to feel a bit woozy, and I drifted into another rider’s wheel. I went down, but thankfully the other guy didn’t. I had a few scrapes and my bike was mostly fine. The hoods are scratched up and I had to replace the bar tape (the new tape is ripped now as well, but that’s another story.)

A teammate also crashed. She was taken to the hospital, and taken care of. I did the much cheaper option of pouring a bit of water on my wounds and hoping I wouldn’t get infected. I got sick later that week, but I am totally fine now. I didn’t do either the time trial or the crit that weekend. It was a really disappointing weekend even though my team did really well. I had fun, because even though I crashed I was still hanging out with some pretty fun people. Oh well.

Sorry about being so late on this in case anyone is a regular reader. I’ve just had a disappointing couple of weeks. I have another race report which I will write up soon for the conference championships that happened last weekend, and then it’s on to some general training stuff. I am going to be training for a triathlon and a 10k(The Bolder Boulder.) I was going to do a half marathon, and still might, but my little sister is worried that she won’t be able to go that distance yet. That’s cool I guess. More on that later. 

Kansas State Wildcat Gran Prix

I headed North from my state for a race for the first time ever. The team went to my grandma’s house on Friday night, which was pretty fun. A whole bunch of us stayed in the basement there. It was kind of strange. I have spent a couple weeks total in that basement at different points, and this was the first time that we have had a lot of people. Everyone joked around for a while. It got a bit late, and I had to steer them in the direction of sleeping a bit. We got there soon enough. When I woke up my stomach felt terrible. I couldn’t eat a thing that morning, which was bad news. I hate when my body is uncooperative. I had a half a glass of milk, and I felt like throwing up.

I got to the race and the conditions were great. It was 75 and sunny, albeit rather windy. We went down the initial stretch going about 30 average. If that tells you anything about how windy it was, then you should know that once that section was over it was going to be tough going. We hit the first turn, and I was having a tough time staying with the pack. I slowly dropped off, and I got stuck out in the wind with only a couple of riders. I wasn’t concerned about catching the group, so I had a few pleasant conversations with people. It was nice talking to riders from different states. I talked with a guy from KU who lives in Colorado as well. He and I really got along, which was great. I talked with a guy from Iowa, and asked him if he knew anyone on his powerlifting team. He didn’t, but it was worth a shot.

The hills were tougher than I thought they would be. After Arkansas I was glad that there wasn’t any of that 22% madness, but it was still enough to make me hurt. The road race finish was uphill into the wind. I gave it the beans at the end, and hit the biggest vomit risk for the day in the following minutes. My parents and I talked for a bit(as the race was even closer to them this time) and then they left as we decided what we wanted to do for dinner. We chose Olive Garden, which is normally avoided by the team, and as we got there I saw they had a Smashburger and a Noodles & Company right behind the Olive Garden. I have never been so disappointed in our team’s decisions. If we go back to K-State next year for a race I am forcing everyone to go to Noodles. They don’t have them in OK or TX, so our guys never end up eating there. Most haven’t even heard of it. They still have no idea what they missed. Next time though….

We need the more obscure sports from each university to have a training center. I would appreciate a club sports only budget, so big schools like OU don’t have to scrounge for equipment. To be honest the funding for these sorts of sports shouldn’t be in the hands of individual students. If a student has equipment they would like to use, then great, but it would be cool if they didn’t have to rely on themselves. The problem is some sports have a huge budget that gets blown on either dumb stuff or produces mediocre results. I am grateful that our football program makes money and pays for our graduate students, but out of a 43 million dollar budget, you’d think they could spare a few thousand so we don’t have to have riders sleep on the floor.

I don’t want to get into a huge diatribe about that though. On to the crit!

Sunday morning we were all really tired. The breakfast at the hotel was mediocre. It paled in comparison to the breakfast my grandma had made the day before. We rushed to get all of our stuff outside of the hotel, and headed down to campus. There was a big hill in the middle of the crit. I have found a big weakness of mine, and I know what I am going to do over the summer. Lots of hills at a paced effort twice a week should be enough for me to avoid getting dropped on scenarios like this. I hate this sort of course because I end up catching the people on the downhill and corners. We had a neutral lap, and everything was cool. Then we were off. Two KU riders attacked at the very beginning, and I made the mistake of thinking the peloton wouldn’t immediately gobble them back up with or without my help. So I went off the front into the wind to chase them down. Then we turned onto the hill, and I fell back. I stayed with everyone for the first half of the next lap, then I spent much of the race latching on to various wheels of other dropped off riders. I eventually found myself toward the end of the race just surviving. I saw that I was on the last lap with a couple of riders in my vicinity. I put all of the rest of my efforts into that lap. The great thing about crit courses is you know just how much effort a lap is going to take because you have done it so many times. This was a 30 minute + 3 lap crit, so it took about 39 minutes. This is 10 minutes longer than the crits I am used to, but to be honest I didn’t feel any kind of difference. I was still dropped because of a hill. I am beating myself up about it a lot, but I want to change it. If I don’t talk about it I won’t do anything about it, and that is a problem. As I hit the hill I put myself into a steady gear and pedaled at a pretty intense pace. After I hit the crest I shifted into my big chainring, put it into a tough gear, stood up, and put my weight into the pedals. I gained speed, and I set myself up for a sprint. Even though I was well off the back I like being “that guy” that sprints for the line. Even though I was exhausted I still pulled out a 32 mph sprint. Not my greatest, but that hill took most of what I had out of me. At least I didn’t get last in either race.

There was a crash each day that had one of my teammates in it. The first day he screwed up his wheels, and the second day he fractured his wrist. He’s out for the rest of the race season. Only two weeks left in collegiate for us, so that means he is definitely out for them. He will possibly do a couple other races in the summer. I’m gonna go crazy on the bike these next two weeks. I’ll give myself a little siesta leading up to finals, and then it’s on to some triathlon and half marathon training. It has been a really long time since I have been in the pool, and I am looking forward to eliminating my mediocrity at swimming. 

On a more team related note, we had a first place finish in the Men's D road race, the Men's C road race, and the Men's C crit. We will probably have multiple riders podium for the season, and our team is on track to handily get third in the conference. We may even chase down some of the points that the second place school has on us. Only two more weekends to go, and I am really impressed with how the team has done. I look forward to the next race and conference championships with a great fervor now. 

Race Report 3: My Legs Are Killing Me

The infamous route.

So last weekend I went to Arkansas. I have waited a bit typing this up because I had a pretty bad weekend there. Climbing is certainly not my specialty, and a combination of factors led to me being rather unsuccessful in the race. The course was the same as the Hell's Kitchen Road Race, and that means that we had to do a climb that was pretty unforgiving. It topped out at 22% for a short stretch, and I was in agony there.

Back to the beginning...

We drove up to Fayetteville on Friday night staying at a teammate's grandmother's house. The next morning it was a bit wet out. We got to the race course, and quickly put everything on. I hate running late for things. Within the first second or so an LSU rider crashed at the start line. It was good for a quick laugh. We had a fairly boring first few miles. Some conversations with people, etc. Then it started to rain. It rained a bunch. I was pretty miserable not just because of the rain, but also because we started to hit harder hills. I was getting dropped off of the back, and settling into my own pace. As we went up the toughest parts of Hell's Kitchen I was losing it. It just hurt. There is an intense sense of relief when you get up to the top of those sorts of climbs. You don't worry about what it's going to be like when you hit the next hill, you're just thankful this one is over with. Well, each subsequent hill I was hurting on.

The descent was pretty fun. I was apparently the only rider that had good visibility. I was wearing my PowerBar hat that I received in the seventh grade from my geography teacher, who just happened to be a retired pro. I also had my Oakley sunglasses, which didn't fog up unlike everyone else's glasses. I topped out at 42, which based on how wet it was and how much the rain hurt at those speeds wasn't too shabby. I struggled through the last 8 miles of the race having exhausted myself on the climb. I did better than 20 percent of the riders, which is low, but it was on a course that I am certainly not built for.

I have had this hat since I was 13.

On to the Time Trial. I didn't want to do it. I told my team I was hurting, and they did the typical thing of "unless it's serious..." So I went with them. We had to ride 8 miles to the TT along the course. All of the teams were out there riding at the same time. During this ride there were a few "What happens on race weekend stays on race weekend" moments. I won't get into details, but it was pretty funny.

I took the first pull for my team. I basically said I was going to burn myself out on one pull, then they could go. I knew that I wasn't going to make it very far, but I pushed myself. The start was at the bottom of a short but difficult hill. I powered up it, and stayed at the front of the group letting everyone else recover. I was already pushing myself pretty hard at this point, but I stuck with it for the rest of the first mile. I was broken at that point, and waved them on. I pedaled the rest of the way counting down each tenth of a mile. When it was over I was really tired.

We ate at a place called Mellow Mushroom. They had some pretty good pizza and beer. I was glad to be in a state that had decent laws regarding beer for once. They could actually keep a decent number of craft beers on tap. No offense to the major beers, but I need something stronger after a race.

The next morning we had the crit, and I did poorly. I'm actually pretty mad at myself for this one. I didn't DNF, but most people would have in my situation. I got lapped, and finished so far behind everyone it hurt. Half of the course was downhill, and through several turns. These were not a problem for me, and in fact I would gain ground on this section. Half of the riders were from Arkansas, and as physically fit as they are, they still don't know how to go around corners. I got accordion-ed in the corners and tired on the hill of the course. I just hope things aren't so bad this weekend at Kansas State.

Here is me feeling dejected after being ejected from the group.

Race Report 2: Electric Boogaloo. OU Land Ronde

Gratuitous uniform pic of me before the TTT

I just finished my second weekend of racing this year. We hosted the race this time. I have to say that I am incredibly pleased with how I did. I probably won’t be moving up to C’s this year, but I’ll end up toward the top of D’s. We had just about everybody from the team race this weekend. One guy is injured, and another is too out of shape to race just yet. They’ll do some of the later races. Now to get into the meat of it….

Saturday morning we headed out to Stanley Draper Lake. The temperature was in the mid-fifties, and it had been drizzling. I was a bit late with my buddy because he slept in, and he was my only feasible transportation to the race. Luckily this didn’t seem to be too bad. It was pretty miserable out there; too cold to wear just shorts while standing still yet too warm to wear base layer for the race. We set off on a route that I was quite familiar with. We made our way past the first turn letting everyone know that they should slow way down for it. The section we rode then was filled with potholes. It was much worse than I remember last year. On the bright side we got up the hills, and I wasn’t even pushing that hard. There was a rider from UNT that got dropped on one of the first few hills; poor guy. He finished a sizeable chunk behind everyone. Kudos to him for finishing the race mostly by himself.

The next turn put us out of the hills and into the wind. The pack stayed pretty tight at a 21-22 mph pace. It felt a bit slow to me, which is a bit strange. I’m normally pushing pretty hard at that pace on that section even with a number of teammates. I’ll just assume it was a larger group causing a more effective shield from the wind. The whole first lap was really wet. I was coated in red dirt by the end of it. As we turned North we brought the pace up to about 28-30 mph. This continued for the last 3 miles or so on the first lap. I became pretty exhausted by this, so I dropped off. I put in several efforts to catch them, but after the first mile of the second lap it was clear I should let them go.

I pushed through the hills to the best of my abilities. I slowed down on more than I would like on them though. I think I’m going to add some intense sustained efforts followed by some climbing to get better at this. I am not so great at hills, but this could help mitigate my weakness. After one of the fast downhill sections in this area of the course I saw 3 of my teammates on the side of the road. One of them was face-down on the pavement. The other two were clearly okay. The teammate that was down has crashed in all 3 road races this year. He couldn’t recall the month, so they took him to the hospital. He had to get his lip sewn up, but was otherwise fine. His bike frame cracked though.

On the second to last hill I was getting caught by two riders, and I heard one of them go down. He and the guy with him never caught me up, but both were uninjured. At the end of the hills I caught on to an Arkansas rider. I talked with him for a bit and asked him if he wanted to work against the wind. He agreed, and we pushed a rotation for the majority of the second lap. When we were closing in on the finish I told him good ride, and rode next to him for a bit having a chat. When the conversation lulled I took off and opened up a gap. I had about 30 meters or so on him at most. As we approached the finish there was a rider from West Texas that had a wheel change and was picking his pace back up. I pushed to catch him, and sprinted for the line. I held off the Arkansas rider and passed the West Texas rider with about 20 feet to go. Great road race.

The time trial was uneventful for the most part. Still wet, and miserable. It rained really really hard with about 15 minutes before the TT started. I was paired up with the teammate that drove me. We had another D squad with 4 guys who we pretty much put together to give a better chance of winning. I stayed with my teammate who was definitely stronger for that. On the way down we got caught by the Arkansas squad behind us, but on the way back we caught them. Poor planning I guess.

This was the beginning of the TTT. I am in the back.

Dinner was good. Beer was had.

The crit was the next morning. We were even colder. This time I put on my thick winter layer underneath the uniform. I had one warm-up lap. We took off pushing about 25 with the wind and 21 into the wind. I stayed in the top 10, but never pushed to the front. I stayed in this position through half of the crit. With 5 laps to go, the pace increased. I couldn't quite hold with the front guys, but I was still in the mix.

I am on the left, the OU rider to the right of me got second, and the OU rider on the right side of the pic got first. All riders pictured are either OU or Arkansas. Our schools dominated the worst division at this race!

I was gaining on opponents all through the last lap, and I went through the final turn perfectly. I sprinted for the line, and passed a couple of people right before the finish. It felt great. If I can focus on maintaining intensity I feel as if I will be able to reach the end of these races with the podium in sight. 

Here I am passing all three other riders just before the finish. Looks like I beat the West Texas rider to the finish twice. The final guy that I beat is a UNT rider that is just behind me from the photographer's angle. 

Until next time, I'm gonna take a big nap now. 

UT Austin Race Report

So the first race is over with. I am a bit disappointed, but also feeling okay about other things too.

The trip down there was okay. I rode with several teammates that I haven't spent very much time with. They were pretty cool, but I wasn't a fan of their music choices. No matter. I should have the ability to avoid that for the next two races at least. We got into Austin kind of late, but the place we stayed was really chill.

The morning of the race we headed out to the parking lot and noticed we had been towed. The lot was half empty, so I was kind of pissed. It's not like there was a need for us to be towed. Anyway, I don't need to stay mad about that. We got the car back in time and got our stuff for the road race ready.

I got dropped relatively early in the race, but they were averaging 26 for the first several miles. Bear in mind this is in D's. They shouldn't be pushing that fast. Those that did and weren't making the newbie mistake of pushing too hard too early didn't belong in D's. There were several such riders. That's not an excuse though. I should have held on for longer. I ended up riding my own race for several laps. I got to chat with a couple of Oklahoma State riders for the second and third laps. I spent laps four and five chasing one guy. I never quite caught him. Luckily I was catching other riders at the very end. That was one of two things to be happy about. The other was that I wasn't last. As sad as that sounds it was how bad I did last year.

After I was done with the road race I was pretty sick of the course. It was 5 laps for us on a 6.2ish mile course. A few hours later we had our time trial, which was 1 more lap. On the first turn of the pedals I felt some pain in my left hamstring. Being the knucklehead that I am I kept going. My team quickly left me behind though. The course had two real turns, the rest being gentle curves. The second turn was maybe a quarter mile to the finish. As soon as I passed that corner I bore down and held my speed at 32 mph to the end. I was having a shitty day, but I was going to end it strong. Several people noticed how hard I finished and told me. Hey, a pity victory is better than not being mentioned at all.

Afterwards we went out to downtown Austin. The first place we went to was crowded and really shitty. We left when we realized we weren't going to be treated well. We hit up a Chinese restaurant, and had some great food and drink. I had some Sesame chicken and Newcastle Brown Ale and a couple of shots of sake.

The next morning we had to get up fairly early for our criterium race. I warmed up, and was okay at half speed, but my hamstring was really bugging me the whole couple of laps that I stayed in. This was the first crit I have ever been pulled from, so it appears my hamstring was a bit more of a problem than it was letting on and/or there are a lot of D's that will quickly move up to C's. In fact, right after our crit the C's were racing. There was a rider from MSU who blew the whole field away in our race, and they made him move up to C's for their crit. He stayed with the lead group the whole way. He doesn't belong in C's either really. He should end up in A's by the end of the year.

As for me, who knows. I am stretching out my left leg taking it really easy here until I feel comfortable. Then I should be putting in a lot more intensity. After the A&M race which I am not going to I should be in a much better field of competitors from my perspective. I'll probably still struggle for great placing, but the next couple of months should lead me to a much better place on the bike. I am also adding in some running and swimming to prepare for the triathlon and half marathon that I am doing over the summer. I shouldn't have any problem training for the tri this year. I know how to do all of those distances without a huge struggle. It's the half marathon that I am a bit apprehensive about. The furthest I have ever ran is a bit over 6.2 miles. I am thinking of putting in a long run day where I run a half a mile or a mile longer than I have before. That seems like a decent plan as long as it's in the middle of the week.

Jitters

I'm already getting a bit jumpy about the first race, which is in 9 days. I promised pictures of the new uniforms last time, and I have been too lazy to put them up. So here they are. I was skeptical at first about the gray, as one should be, but they turned out really well. The stripe on the jersey and gloves is pretty awesome. The sponsor placement seems much better this year than last year as well. I think the two guys that come up with the majority of the designs for us are getting much better at that.

The beard is about to come off. I will have some friendly mutton chops for the first race, then I'm taking it down to a mustache. I probably won't keep that for long. As much as I love having a mustache, I haven't been clean shaven since July 3rd. I do really like the feeling of having a smooth face, but I wanted to do at least a half yeard. Mission accomplished plus a month and a couple of days. I was only able to keep the beard for 4 months last year and the mustache for 7. I hacked off the whole beard in one day, which was fun, but I felt I could do something more interesting with it. I got a few compliments on my mustache at races last year, and I know the chops are going to get me at least the same recognition.

I've been putting in the hours on the bike, and my fitness is really coming together. Last night the team had a meeting, and we discussed a few things. Getting our team to move out of the C and D categories is the big issue. We have a list of 5 guys who can make it to B's without having too many fitness issues. I am only fit enough to compete at C's this year, but that is a far cry from last year. I'm gonna judge what I need to do based on if I can succeed. If I podium the first race weekend and don't struggle in the other races that weekend I am moving up. The first race is always stacked with guys who are fit enough to move up anyway, so I'm not sure if that will happen. No matter. I'm going to race my best.

New Semester, New Uniforms!!!

So I haven't posted in a while. It was my intention to do some well researched posts and have a slightly more empirical approach to this blog. I have been unable to do much of anything other than school these past two weeks. It's a tough semester for me, and race season hasn't even started yet. I will for the time being, avoid putting too much time into this blog. I saw I got a few pageviews the last couple of days, so I clearly a few people have read a bit of my stuff. As much as I want to provide an entertaining glimpse into the life of a cyclist, I will be unable to give too much until I start doing some races this season. My first race is on February 16th at the University of Texas. That means 3 weeks from today I'm gonna be in Austin.

In case you couldn't tell I'm the goober with the beard.

I will do my best to provide a race report each week that I race, but more than likely I won't do one for each. If I said I read all the details of the meet reports of people who lift on reddit I would be lying. I usually pay attention to a few posts really carefully though. There are things to be learned from strangers on the internet.

I will take a picture of my uniform tomorrow and edit my post. I'm just wearing my Hawaii jersey in the above pic. Hopefully I'll get some road pics up for the few people that read this. In order to do that I have to take the micro-sd card out of my phone, and put it into the computer, which can get to be a bit of a hassle. I have to say I am really excited about the whole season though. I have been way more consistent than ever before with my exercise. Last Saturday we did a 50 mile ride, and I actually felt like I could do more at the end. That hasn't really happened before. Usually I get to 50 and I want to collapse and have a beer. I was able to best a few of the new guys thoroughly which makes me feel much more confident.

Normally I am looking pretty out of it by that point. I also am dropping a bit of body fat.

It's weird looking back at the last several years of my life. This is the first year where I can say I haven't been a huge fuck-up since middle school. Don't get me wrong I was a better student than most, but many people can relate to the fact that that isn't enough for most parents; especially parents like mine who are both engineers. My sisters have had better grades than me for years now, and it was time for me to stop being a lazy idiot with my studies. I knew I wasn't putting in the time, and if I changed that it would improve. The same thing happened with my fitness. I have been getting at least 2 quality workouts every week. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but remember that doing 2 workouts focused on a sport will give you more than 4 not focused on that sport. Things are just looking generally better in my life than they used to.

I have a plan for this season, and it involves going up into the C category relatively early on in the season with several of the D squad. We want to try to get a solid C team and a few guys in B's by the end of the season. We have 2 riders who are fully capable of racing in B's, and 3 others that could possibly make it there by the end of the season. They won't be winning races there, but they'll be gaining experience and bringing some notice to OU Cycling. Lord knows this state is behind in our sport, and we may just be able to promote it quite a bit this year. I see more people riding around on new road bikes than I did freshman year, which really makes me think that the sport can grow here. We aren't that far from the cycling center of the US, where I spend my summer and winter breaks.

I had a fun vacation, including a trip to Hawaii. I got to run on the Queen K Highway, and see the course for the Ironman World Championship. I was immediately reminded of my eventual Ironman goal. If I wait until I'm older than 24 it gets significantly harder, so I will be doing my best to improve all legs of the race over the summer. This means making my swimming better than laughable, improving my running significantly, and just adding a bit of distance for cycling. During my vacation I went para-sailing with my sister's fiance, dad, and my little sister. I was feeling a bit uneasy on the boat ride, and when I went up the harness was jerking back and forth. It was really choppy out, and this wouldn't normally happen. I threw up down into the ocean while I was about 600 feet above it. Watching my vomit fall 600 feet was awesome even if I felt terrible. When we got back to the pier I noticed something. We were at the start/finish area for the Ironman swim. This means I threw up into the waters they use for their swim. That made me chuckle a bit.

 That's just water, not vomit on my shirt I promise.

I felt awesome after this vacation. I still do, but things have definitely settled back into the dull steady effort that I am striving to keep. With any luck it will pay off. I'll get those new uniform pics posted tomorrow. I don't want to put on the uniform until I'm actually going to ride in it.

Until then you stay classy people who bothered to read all this. 

What Proper Squatting Can Provide For Cycling

Nothing is completely independent when it comes to exercise. Doing one type of exercise can help you with another. Sometimes, it will actually hurt your ability. Cyclists are often afraid of doing squats, but this is silly. Although I would like to find links for studies for some of the stuff in here, it's finals week, and I can't be fucked to do that. I want to do a post that will take on Mark Rippetoe and one that will take on Joe Friel when it comes to cycling and squatting respectively. I'll mention that I respect both of those men immensely, I just have a disagreement. For those posts I will have scientific studies. Here is the first on a series of why I do both lifting and cycling.

This is your body on squats...and a bit too much food.

FORCE

One of the components of bicycle racing is force production. It is essential for both climbing and sprinting. If you want to be good at crits, you need to sprint. If you want to be good at road races(for the most part) you need to climb. The more you can squat the better you will be at these things. More importantly, it is a training standard that you can hold yourself to with absolute certainty. A lot of cyclists will say you can do your force production training on the bike by pushing a bigger gear. You can, and I would recommend it in addition to weight training. The reason I prefer weight training for force production is that you know when you fail at a certain level of resistance. When you push a larger gear you may slip 10 RPM or shift down without noting the time/distance you spent in that gear. These things bring about ambiguity in your workout progress. A power meter can mitigate this problem, but most beginners don’t have power meters.

Now bear in mind a consistent program is better than an optimal one. If you hate lifting, you don’t need to lift that much. If you love it, then do it. Just know that when you get blasted on a sprint by some fat guy who barely kept up with you throughout the race it’s your fault.

But what if I am an underweight super skinny cyclist who can’t squat good, and want to learn to do other stuff good too?

Learn to keep higher cadence than heavier guys during sprints. Also, squat more. Spending 3 months in the off season doing a linear progression squat program where you squat twice a week can take you from being a terrible sprinter to one that at least stays close to the other racers. You may also find you have higher top end speed because that tough gear was much easier to turn.

You should be consuming a shitload of protein as well for this. I know that you think you’ll bulk up ridiculously, but that’s simply not true. You might weigh a bit more after a few months of squatting, but you’ll notice that weight isn’t slowing you down. Plus, if you cut calories from your normal diet to allow the protein in you will maintain your weight. You may gradually lose weight as increased muscle tissue would allow you to burn more calories. Make sure you know how many grams of protein you’re getting. Don’t estimate. Seriously, you’ll save yourself a huge hassle.

This is an old rookie mark. Not how dirty my chainring was to get that good of a pattern.

But what if I am fat, and want to lose weight rather than get strong?

Instead of attacking anyone personally, I would like to make known that this is a difficult issue. It would seem that heavier riders are at a great disadvantage when it comes to the sport. There is no easy way to put this, but if you are doing anything other than a crit with zero hills you are experiencing a big battle. Entry level road races and hill climbs will make you look far worse than you actually are. If you are on a diet that is working, continue losing weight before lifting. If you are stuck at a plateau weight, and it’s under 220 lbs. you should lift. I know that most of my lifting buddies would say lift no matter what, but being a reasonable weight will do way more for you in more types of races. When I was in abysmal shape during the A&M Race I caught up to a heavy racer and passed him. Had I not flatted out I would have beaten him. Bear in mind I was in really, really, really bad shape for this race.

CRITS

These short and fast races are a good squatter’s dream. I was actually not horrible in them last year. If you want to win them you should know your 5RM, your 10RM, and your 20RM. In the off season do a widowmaker once every two weeks or so. If you fail to hit depth you did not do that widowmaker. See how much you can do, and make it a point to increase it when you don’t need to worry about training on the bike. If you can bring a 20RM up anywhere near 300 or 2xBodyweight, whichever is higher, you should be able to outsprint some of the track guys. Your 5RM should be more your focus though.

ROAD RACES

Hills, lots of hills. I have never done a road race that didn’t have a few hills that were actually pretty tough. If you hate the hills, then strength work can help. I hardly ever have to leave the big chainring on hills in Norman now. If I’m really tired I do, but there are some surprisingly steep hills here. I’m way better than I used to be though. Squatting will make you turn bigger gears, as well as help increase your overall speed on hills. Seriously, do them. As your season approaches you can do them less and less, but they are so beneficial to cycling it is insane.

There’s always gonna be that whiny guy that refuses to sully his pure training by going into that ghastly room with people getting swole. Make sure you do your part to embarrass him when race season rolls around. When he asks you what you did to get so good have a hearty laugh.

Moving up a Category

(After the last race of last season in Baton Rouge)

I’ve been wanting to jump up from the most mediocre of collegiate cycling categories(D’s) to a category where I can at least have a little respect for myself( C’s). Today I went on a ride with a group that would probably race at the winning end of the C’s or middle of the road B’s. We had a wind coming out of the South which meant there was a crosswind for the vast majority of the ride. This is fine for people that were in the shielded side, but that didn’t happen to me. Oh well, I know I am a better windshield than most of the other riders there anyway.

So I’ve judged where I am physically compared to last year based on a vague sense of where I placed last year in all the races that didn’t record the official times of all the riders. There was only one race that gave an actual time, and I’m pretty damn ashamed of it. For the training I suppose it wasn’t horrible, but this year I know that I would beat the crap of my former self. To be honest the amount of effort that I put into that ride today would put me on pace to win any of the races that I did. I did 22 miles in 1:10:00ish which was much faster than the pace to win the D conference championship road race, and if I could keep that pace steady for 1:54:00 I would win the C road race by almost 4 minutes. The distance of the race is actually listed incorrectly for the C’s online interestingly enough. I’m not quite fit enough to win a race with that course yet, but I have two and a half months to really make a difference in my abilities. I definitely have the fitness to move up a category, but I’ll at least try to win a race before I do that. If I am toward the top toward the end of the season I will just move up a category and finish a couple C races with the pack. That means more to me than forcing myself to stay at the bottom category and winning.

Most of the D road races were 25 miles, but the final one was 36 miles including a 7 mile “neutral rollout.” I use quotation marks to signify that that was just as much part of the race as the rest of it. In fact we slowed down when we got on the actual race section. Nobody wanted to pull. I pulled for about a mile or two in that race before being dropped. I don’t want to dwell on that though, because this post is about how much I have improved. I should be able to move up with some of the new guys who really shouldn’t even be racing D’s. We have a rider who almost won the Cat5 state championship road race, and he is starting in D’s. I don’t know who is getting second in the first race of the season, but I do know who is getting first. He will probably move up within the first two weeks. I imagine with my current level I should move up after about 4 or 5 races. Riding for 25 miles at 17-18 mph average seems much more doable this year than it did last year. If I can improve the pace and distance a bit I should be just as impressive in C’s. It’s amazing what actually riding does for your bike racing abilities. Who knows, this year I might end up on a podium in front of that pretty building in Louisiana. 

Entry No. 17- The First Blog Post

At this point in time I am thinking of putting my fitness journal material into a blog. I want to edit the posts so that they don’t suck if I am going to do that though. Once they reach a level of relevance I will add them to the blog, but for now they will remain on my hard drive awaiting correction. So if you were confused by the Entry No. 17 part of the title, that should clear it up. If you're still confused, deload to hooked on phonics or something.

Most fitness blogs have the problem of being pointless. Often they will just give lift numbers or miles ran/swam/biked/etc. I find it ridiculous to read such things. It is like watching paint dry. The other end of the spectrum is when a person just gives artsy bullshit about their chosen sporting activity. It’s fine to have that for yourself, but I don’t think other people should care that much. It is true that sport has a romantic quality for many people. Pushing yourself until you can’t anymore is a beautiful image that is a perfect and relatable way to define ideas like struggle, defiance, and overcoming adversity. Not everyone cares though.

It’s great if you did a workout that showed you some great new meaning. It’s fine if you gain your own life philosophy from your training methods. I encourage people to help find meaning in their life through exercise because it’s a way less bleak picture than gaining these thoughts from our work habits. In most parts of the world now people work very hard for decades in the hope that they won’t have to for a few more. Spending fifty hours a week for fifty years toiling away at some sort of job will inevitably turn you into a miserable bastard. I’ve seen it happen to my parents, and I hope desperately that it doesn’t happen to me.

As a result of this I find myself constantly re-examining my goals as a person. Where do I want to be in life? How will I achieve these things? A nice, and much lower stress, set of goals to achieve occur in sport. I decided to be a competitive cyclist when I got to university. I found the team by accident. I was telling a fraternity recruiter why I couldn’t be in their fraternity, and he was scouting possible philanthropy work that night that happened to be at the cycling meeting. I was ecstatic. I used to bike all the time. I had put some training in that August in fact. I did a grand total of 1 team ride that year. It was 50 miles, and it sucked. I was in no shape to do it, but I did. It hurt. I was unable to bring myself to riding because I figured every ride would be like that. If somebody had told me doing a series of 20-30 mile rides would be a much better representation of what the team normally does I would have been more likely to participate more. I should have raced that year. I could have learned my lessons an entire year earlier if I had just had the balls to. Anxiety causes really poor judgment though; I’ll get into that more later.

The next year I did 2 training rides. Yeah, I am not showing a great amount of commitment here, but I feel the need to be honest about it. If we lie about our failures to prepare, then we have no excuse for them. If you train hard, and you lose the way I did in racing last year, then you should sell your bike and find something else to do. I hadn’t ridden a bike in months when I got up to that start line. I was nervous for obvious reasons. I knew I was going to be bad, but I was much worse than I expected. I got dropped after 1 mile. You read that correctly. I did horribly. As soon as we got onto the gravel I let everyone else go. I flatted out at mile 8. The next race I stayed for 7 miles. The race after that I lasted a whole 15. My season ended with that one, and I have improved so much that I could win that race if I tried today. Well, not today today. I’m still sore from squats yesterday. If we held a 35 mile race on Saturday I would smash it though.

So here I am at the end of November. I am sitting here in my room next to some empty soda cans, textbooks, and cycling books. For dinner I had a banana and a protein shake. Tomorrow I’ve got bench press, some rowing, and some stretching on the menu. I am in better shape than I could ever have expected. I have not let one week go by without a really hard workout. I have a legitimate plan to work my way into dominant race shape this year. I know what it takes after a couple of failures.

I hope this post has provided a good background for you on my sporting history as well as where I mean to go. I am a cyclist who lifts weights. Eventually I want to do an Ironman. I want to get better at both cycling and lifting, but as next semester approaches I will lift a lot less. During the season I will be doing probably one bench session a week, and the rest will be cycling. Racing every weekend takes a lot out of you. If you have any advice, feel free to send it my way. I am open to other’s opinions, but if you are plain wrong I will ignore you most likely. I know a decent amount when it comes to both resistance training and endurance training.

When I include any of the first 16 posts in this blog I will mention what post number it is, and I will tell you roughly the date I wrote it. Some of this shit is a year old or even a bit older. It may have a few dumbass statements from a kid who had never raced before. If you have any questions about cycling, since I know many of the readers I will likely have know fuck all about exercise that is not lifting, just ask. I’m not perfect when it comes to physiological knowledge, but I am a good jumping off point. I hope you didn’t die of boredom in the time it took to read this, and before you do I will end it here.