Merry Christmas to All

It's Christmas Eve and my first Christmas with my wife. Cool.

I started running again eight days ago to prepare for the 10-mile trail run at Lake Bistineau on February 9th. I worked out a schedule based on the one I've done for the 1/2 marathon trail runs in '04 and '06. Started with a simple 2-miler and graduated up every other day in half-mile increments and today I got in 4 miles on the Stoner trails. I hope to stay faithful to the schedule plus get some riding miles in since I have a duathlon coming up in a couple of weeks. It's heck getting back into shape!

Aaacckkkk!!!

I always like it when Calvin goes "Aacckkk!!" when Hobbs tackles him.

Things are happening around here. First off, I'm recovering from a mild cold. That's kinda misleading because I feel pretty good but my chest has tons of green stuff all collected in it. I put in about 80 miles on the bike over the weekend but the cold has made me sore all over because of it. I'm really discouraged from running and stuff because of the coughing fits I have...maybe I'll get over it soon. There's a duathlon coming up on January 6th I really want to do, as well as a 10-mile trail run in February, and it would help if I trained up a bit for them. Plus I'm planning to do major bicycle miles after the first of the year. I have some goals for the upcoming season.

J and I have bought a house!! Well, almost bought one...we offered a contract and it was accepted. We're waiting on final approal of a loan from the bank and all the other stuff that has to be done, like an updated appraisal of the house, termite inspection, and other things like that. The place is nice and is currently owned by some friends of ours who are also cyclists and triathletes. They're moving out of state due to a new job and we happened to hear about it at a party given by our local triathlon club. We jumped on the chance (after looking at other houses that weren't up to snuff for us) and we liked the place almost immediately for practically the same reasons Scott and Lindsay liked it when they bought it some time ago. We hope to move in after the first of the year, or when they finally make their trek to their new homestead. I'm excited but then it's followed by the thought, "What have we done?" :)

We're keeping the old house for at least a couple more months so I can finish up the remodeling being done. The kitchen's almost finished, save for a new floor covering, and some painting still needs to be done. We thought about renting it out but I'm not all that interested in being a landlord...maybe some landlord friends of mine would be interested in buying the place for that purpose. I hope we can sell it in quick order and get it out of our hands. It's served me well the last 20 years but it's time to move on.

The holidays are coming up and the pressure is on. Presents need to be snapped up and wrapped, visits have to be made. We've already done a couple of parties and I'm proud that I haven't stuffed myself like I have done in the past. It's tough enough to stay quasi-slender at my age during the winter and the goodies being offered at these gatherings don't help one bit! I'll still have to drop 7-8 pounds by March (I'd love to lose a full TEN pounds for bike racing!).

Hola! The Holiday Season Begins!!

Thanksgiving has come and gone...let the shopping commence. As for J and myself, we spent the holiday at my Dad's house with most of my step-mother's relatives there. On Saturday, we headed down to my brother's house to hang out with my side of the family. It was nice to see everyone and it all went well. I managed to watch my food intake, was much better than last year but I still managed to do some damage. I just love the pecan pie!!

This morning's parkway ride had 8 people show up! That's surprising because once the weather turns cold, it becomes the standard that around 4-5 riders are the max. The temperature was 43 degrees but it was actually quite pleasant...probably because there wasn't any appreciable wind to speak of except for what we were generating. This was my first ride where I put on the full cold-weather gear for the first time of Winter 2007-2008. I had worn my bib knickers and arm warmers a few times before but now it was full leg covers, long sleeve jersey, and a light jacket! The pace was slow (also a by-product of the colder weather with this group), usually around 20 mph. My legs felt terrible but the pace wasn't anything I couldn't deal with, and my pull on the final section was the fastest of the ride...going about 23 mph. It felt slower. I didn't want to go any faster anyway. My return home was also slow and I almost hit a runner on the bike path who came out from behind a blind corner. I thought I saw some movement thru the bushes and reacted by soft-pedaling immediately and touching my brakes. So I wasn't going as fast as I could have been and really had no problem missing the guy. A bit faster and we might have collided since my turning radius would have been a smidgen wider.

The first part of this week was kinda busy, getting some ads and billboard designs out. I've sent out the invoices on those jobs and I currently have a healthy amount of outstanding receipts which will come in handy as those checks should be arriving bit-by-bit over the rest of this year. I hope to get more work in before Christmas so I can deal with January's bills and needs. But I'm good for December! Just finished the layouts for our Christmas cards and now I need to get them printed and mailed out. I'm fairly pleased with them...they have plenty of photos and updates about us in them and should get the recipients up to date.

Found out that the Louisiana-Mississippi Bicycle Racing Association has tentively listed my road race in July '08 for the district age-group road race championships. That's news to me! I'll have to see what extra I'd have to do to make that happen so I can figure out if I can do it or not. I don't mind doing it but it does add a little more pressure to an event I was going to do on a low-key level.

Thankgiving Eve

I've hardly been on my bike since the Tour de Ouachita, almost 11 days ago, so I thought it might be a good idea to make it to the 5:50 ride this morning and get back into some kind of routine. Plus it might be the last warm morning of 2007 and I better take advantage of it! Including me, there were seven of us cruising down the parkway but the pace wasn't that quick. I think I might have averaged 21.8 mph during my long pull but that was into an 8 mph southerly headwind and that tends to slow you down. And I'm nowhere near the shape I was in back in September.

I did a tradeout with Blackwell Research regarding a couple of jobs I did for them that I hadn't sent invoices for yet. I got a rear Hundred wheel with Shimano hub as well as a Blackwell double-wheel bag....very nice stuff. The wheel had been used last week when the Blackwell team went to do some tests at the Texas A&M wind tunnel, so technically it was a used wheel but it's just as good as a new one. Plus you can find pictures of it being used at the tunnel (it's the rear wheel). The wheel bag is pretty neat...holds two wheels securely and has two pockets for skewers and other gear. Very heavy duty and pretty. Basically the two products combine for about $1200 retail but with this tradeout, Blackwell only pays for cost and that pretty much equals what I billed them for the jobs I did a while back. I'm still waiting on one last check from them for something else and then my professional association with them will be over. I'll still buy their stuff when I can and support my buds over there.

Got more work done on the kitchen today. I'm reburbishing the cabinet doors instead of replacing them, which is cheaper in product but takes up more of my time. But I've been satisfied with the results and will just keep cranking it out. There's other things to do and I'd like to have the whole room done by the end of the year. So far I'm quite pleased with the results.

Lots of fallout from the ULM-Alabama game since Saturday. My alma mater has been in the news continuously for one reason or another, in association with the Tide's "embarrassing" loss to us. Hey, the Warhawks played hard and made Alabama work for all it got. We stopped them when we had to and the better team won that day. Now on another day, Alabama would probably kill us...but on November 17th of 2007, we were the better and classier squad at Bryant-Denny Field. Thank goodness we don't have to play them next year!

Tomorrow is Turkey Day...The Wife and I will do the annual Turkey Trot run in the morning and the rest of the day is to be spent/tolerated with relatives. The rest of the holiday weekend we'll try to get a number of things accomplished around the house and elsewhere. Hope we're somewhat successful!

Something I Never Thought I'd See

University of Louisiana at Monroe Warhawks - 21
University of Alabama Crimson Tide - 14

Jonnene and I were there...Section A, Row 58.

'Nuff said.

200,000 and change

Went to West Monroe yesterday for the Tour de Ouachita. Great training ride with plenty o' hills, more frequent than Rocky Mount and similar to a smoother Rouge-Roubaix race on some parts of the course!

Both LaS'port's Tim Perry and long-lost-son Keith Breaux showed up in their team kits (I was in neutral colors except for my LaS'port shorts), as did several of the S3 Racing team. Lisa Colvin would have ridden but she pulled some hip flexors while swimming a couple of days before and it was painful to raise her right leg (I told her she was just sckeered). A group of 10-12 of us took off about a half mile into the ride and soon we were flying at race pace through some of the rough roads with small gravel scattered about from recent road repairs. I hoped to hang on for the first hour since I had taken October off from the bike and this was only my sixth ride since the first of November. It was tough in the first hills but I was hanging on with the speeds fluctuating between 24 and 30 mph much of the time. After Tim took one of the initial pulls, it was Keith who spent a lot of time pushing the pace up front. He never wears gloves, and on these roads it showed his hands were way tougher than mine! I was happy in that I was making up any gaps that had appeared on the climbs and staying with the group. I want to be a better climber for next year.

On two successive hills, Tim and S3's Grant Dona fell off the pace, almost an 1/8th of a mile back. I was still in the group but starting to really feel worn out. I looked back at them and decided I could drop off and just ride with them...no need to kill myself from the effort so soon after riding again, I thought. Another rider had dropped way off and was of no concern. I waited for Tim and Grant, and soon they flew right by me! I caught up to them and realized they were trying to catch back up to the group! So we team-time-trialed it...I even took one or two pulls....and we ended up catching the pack!

Not more than a couple of seconds after we caught on, 12 miles in, my rear tire popped...I've had such bad luck this year...and I pulled over, watching the pack disappear around a tight downhill corner at 28 mph. I got off and found myself sucking air heavily, and that took me almost 3-4 minutes to overcome before I could work on the tire. Took a pee, changed the tire and continued on my merry way. This fast-paced ride was now a saddle-time-and-get-in-the-miles ride. Just as well, I wouldn't have been able to hang on much longer anyway. I was glad I had put my 25-tooth cogset on since the last few hills were pretty decent leg-breakers for this part of northeast Louisiana. All told, I got in 66 miles and some good hill workouts.

My '98 Dakota turned over 200,000 miles on this trip! It'll be ten years old next April. I got 265,000 miles on my old Datsun King-Cab (1980-1998). The miles came faster on my Dakota but it doesn't feel like I've driven that far. Of course, I have driven on sepaate trips to Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Los Angeles in it so maybe I have?

After the ride I went to the ULM-Grambling football game that afternoon. A very historic event with Grambling playing a predominantly white Louisiana school for only the second time in its history (Northwestern State was the other, in 1976 and the G-men winning 14-13). ULM's defense was the story in this game, holding the Tigers to minus 4 yards rushing and about 165 yards in total offense. We would win 28-14 although the gap should have been around 42-7 except for the mistakes our offense kept making. The other storyline from this game was the crowd: a record for Malone Stadium of 30,101 people...capacity crowd. Yeah, it was probably 2/3's Grambling fans but it was great to see the stadium so full of people. A great experience, for sure.

Change

Plenty has been happening around here, both in everyday life and around the household. The kitchen renovation is moving along. We got our new countertops last week...putting the old sink back in was more fun than you can shake a stick at (if that's your idea of a good time). But I could put another one in a lot easier and quicker now that I know how it all works. The countertops look really good, especially with the painting that we've done. The kitchen is much lighter looking, even looks bigger. There's plenty more to get done and there's some things we're deciding not to do...like replacing the cabinet doors. I'm working on recycling a number of the hinges by removing old paint from them and we'll just repaint and rehang the doors.

Other things are happening, too. Yesterday the support posts on the back patio were replaced and that changed the look out there. Instead of the decorative supports, which were rusting out, we have these lean round poles instead. A little plain looking but I've grown attached to them very quickly.

Today, we're replacing the heating and cooling systems completely. This decision was reached on Monday when we had the system inspected in preparation for the coming cold weather and to see what shape it was in for when we sell or rent the house eventually. The previous system had been installed in November of 1993 so it was already reaching the end of its life cycle. A guy named Tom came by early Monday morning to do the inspection and it wasn't long before he came down from the attic to show me some damage done to a piece of tubing by mice in the past. I had gotten rid of the mice almost a year ago so I knew that was old damage. Tom fixed that pretty quickly but a half hour later he came back with bad news. The heater coil had a crack in it. This meant that CO2 was being released at 2100 parts per million (normal is 100 parts per million). He tested it three times before he told me and let me watch the fourth test to see for myself. Here's the odd thing: the holes the mice chewed into that tubing kept much of the CO2 from entering the house. In a word, that make-shift chew-toy probably saved our lives last winter! The gas dispersed into the attic and out the vents, hardly entering the living spaces below. It might not have killed us but it sure would have made us sick otherwise.

Tom disabled the heating unit, as the law requires. He also said the A/C unit probably had 1-5 years left in it. We had to replace the heating unit and we got a guy to quote us for replacing everything or just the heater. Jonnene and I decided to do it all. It would make the house easier to sell if there's new heat and A/C. We can include the cost to the price of the house to get our money back later.

So for the last three days, I've had people at the house for various things. Today it's two guys removing the old units and putting in new ones. It's kinda neat to see all the shiny stuff that's way more efficient than the 1993-era stuff. For instance, the old heater burned natural gas at 60% efficiency which was standard and met EPA requirements of that time (that meant 40% of the gas escaped into the air). This new unit operates at 80% efficiency! That means more heat from the same amount of gas and should reduce our gas bills by almost 30% over the winter. I can live with that.

The old house is a-changing, that's for sure.

I started riding my bike again on November 1st. I already have 150 miles in to prepare for a bike tour in West Monroe this Saturday. I'll try to push through for 66 miles...it was easier to do that a couple of months ago but it should be a little harder this time after taking all of October from the bike. My K2 is going to be my permanent time trial bike so I'm currently on my steel beast, the Bradley. After the tour, I'll be going to the ULM football game against Grambling, which should be quite interesting and historical. It's the first game ever between the two schools, one predominantly white and the other a famous black college. ULM, however, was the first white college in Louisiana to have blacks on its football team in 1968. Yeah, there's a lot of history here and I'm not missing it. Malone Stadium should be nearly full, maybe a sellout...I've never seen 30,000 people for one event in northeast Louisiana before and this may be it.

Sunrise Down Under

All morning I've been watching the early morning sunrise shown on a webcam at the Adelaide, South Australia airport. Every 30 seconds the real-time picture changes. You can see the first rays of early dawn climbing over the mountains of the Mount Lofty Ranges in the background. There's nice streaks of scarlet and purple heralding the eventual arrival of the sunrise. I check on it every once in a while to see what's happening, to see the activity as the airport wakes up. There's always a long row of Qantas 767's lined up at the gates and as the day goes on, they leave on their flights to be replaced every so often during the day with more aircraft. I visited the airport a year ago this month and located the web-camera stuck to the side of a light standard. I've walked thru two of those walkways you can see in the image.

This is the link (copy and paste it into your web browser):
www.aal.com.au/media/webcam.aspx
Check it out for yourself.

Win some, lose some

I got the official word today that I was no longer the ad guy for Blackwell Research. It was kinda sad to hear it (via email from Dave) but I wasn't surprised. It was a tough job to work up monthly ads, a catalog, and other things without much help from the head guy. Dave did a great job at just taking over the projects so they could be done though it wasn't his job. Besides, Blackwell needs a real PR and marketing guy, and it sounds like they got one. He already had a graphics person in Santa Fe, NM so they didn't need me. I'm kinda relieved but I liked being a part of the bicycle bizness so I'll miss that. Told Dave that I was available for any projects that I could do for them if the opportunity arose. I still have some invoices to send so I'll still get a few dollars and a nice rear wheel from them. I have a 4-bolt stem that I need to take a few pictures of for the catalog and Dave's letting me keep it. It'll go on my TT bike...sahweet!!

But all's not lost...I'm keeping busy with a new project for a place called Pretty Skin Again and it's keeping me busy. I've already produced 7 ads and a billboard, along with a logo. There's still more to go and I should do well with it money-wise. The place is all about botox injections, breast implants, and eyelid reductions...things that are done for women (maybe men, too). In a way it's kinda embarrassing for me and sometimes a pain, but it'll help pay the bills. Anyway, I'm keeping busy for now.

Jonnene and I are looking into getting wills made up. That should be fun (not) and it's something we need to do. I wasn't worried about it while I was single but things are different now. We have a responsibility to each other and to our families.

I've decided to take this entire week off from any appreciable exercise. I got my sub-45 minute 10K out of the way last weekend and I start riding my bike again on Thursday of next week. So I'm just being a slug this week. I'm going to put some real time into the kitchen this weekend, maybe get the majority of painting done. Still no countertops yet....I doubt I'll ever do any renovations with Lowe's ever again. We started this countertop project on August 25th and here it is, two months later...still no countertops. This is ridiculous. We decided that we'll deal directly with contractors next time instead of a go-between like Lowe's or Home Depot. I don't know how it'll affect the cost but things should go faster.

It's gotten cold outside and I wasn't ready for it at all. Later tonight I'll start digging up my cold-weather riding gear and see what I need to replace. I plan to get some miles in this winter but it won't be much fun in the frozen north...well, north Louisiana, that is. The humidity makes the cold much more noticable than it is in places like Colorado. I'd like to make a difference in bike races next year and I'm not getting any younger. Eventually, I'll only be able to do Masters races and these guys are getting faster every year. I'd like to do a couple of Cat. 3 races for the experience. I don't have much time left to do that and still have a chance to finish in the pack. AND I still want to break that hour in the 40K!!

Waking up sore

Wow, Sunday morning and we're feeling the afteraffects of the Autumn Breeze Run we participated in yesterday morning. The Autumn Breeze is a traditional late season run in Shreveport consisting of a 5K and a 10K run through the neighborhood streets of South Highland from Broadmoor Baptist Church. Turned out to be a good day out there...Jonnene set a new personal record for the 5K (3.1 miles) with an official 26:13 time. What makes it interesting is that she wasn't really trying for a PR and hadn't put in the training for the run. She was pretty sure she'd be lucky to finish in under 30 minutes so the time was surprising and pleasing for her.

I had wanted to finish in under 45 minutes for the 10K (6.2 miles) but I've been in the 7:30 per mile range during my training runs and I'd have to do 7:15 or faster to achieve that goal...maybe under 46 minutes was possible. My times went like this:

Mile 1 - 6:50
Mile 2 - 13:56
Mile 3.1 - a bit over 22 minutes or so
Mile 4 - 28:16
Mile 5 - 35:48
Mile 6 - 43:36
Mile 6.2 - 44:47

Basically I averaged 7:13 per mile, but I was really worried at my fast times the first two miles, thinking I might wear myself out too soon. I settled into a rhythm the rest of the run and the time seemed to pass by pretty quick. My time was the 28th fastest of the day but that's not saying much...for such an established race, it isn't that well attended by the majority of runners in the region. To me it's not the fall season without this run.

Later in the day, The Wife and I made our biggest combined purchase of the year when we got a new flat-screen TV...well, it's not here yet but should be delivered in another day or two. I always get nervous when prices have a comma in them! Wait til we get a new house eventually......

Saturday night we headed over to Monroe to watch the Warhawks play Florida International. Short story is that we won 28-14 and ULM played a good game in the second half. Sat with some friends during the game, one is a professor in kynesiology there. Paul came down from Little Rock for the game and we ate pizza with him afterwards at Johnny's Pizza on Desiard Street.

Here's the short Short

1. Jonnene and I spent last weekend up in Hot Springs, AR to celebrate her birthday. We had a great time...went hiking in the hills, visited the observation tower on the ridge near downtown Hot Springs, saw a couple of great sunrises (our hotel room faced Lake Hamilton to the east), ate some great food, toured Bathhouse Row, and spent some quality time together. Paul came down from Little Rock to take some formal photos of us and we all ate dinner with his parents at a nice little local Italian restaurant. HS is definitely a nice place to visit...it'd been over 10 years since I was last there and probably over 25 since I had spent any real time there. I'll not make that mistake again...I will be back.

2. Since I'm off the bike this month, I've been running to stay in some kind of shape. I've put in a productive week by totalling 15 miles on my footsies! Today I did my first trail run in over 9 months down at Stoner Park and got a blister on my right ring toe. That kept me from getting more than 30 minutes...probably about three miles for the day. I felt a little spastic at first, gingerly running over the trails but soon I was in a good trot and feeling comfortable on the trail again. I've missed being out there!

3. Work has picked up! And I received several checks in the mail...finally!!! I took care of some long-standing bills, got some things I've been needing and putting off for oh-so-long. I'll take care of some other items next week. As to work, I got three calls on new jobs...finished an ad for a local magazine...and have been trying to get things organized around here. With Jonnene occupying some of my office space...and that's okay with me if you're reading this, honey...I've had to make some adjustments to how I do my work. So far, so good.

4. The kitchen is slowly coming around in its renovation. We put the first couple of coats of paint on the ceiling today but I'm still not satisfied with my plastering efforts. I think I might redo some of it or I might be resigned to get an expert in here to make it right. I actually enjoy doing it but, in general, I wish I knew more about the process. I hope our countertops come in next week...that'll make the biggest noticable change in the look, but the whole place is coming along pretty well. It might end up looking a little bland as Jonnene said, however, the whole goal is to make the house sellable and sometimes you can't get too wild and crazy.

A Rest from the Bike

October is the usual month I take time off from the bike. Yep, the entire thirty-one days. I don't get on the bike at all but I'll do some repairs and maintenance. It's my built-in time to prevent any burnout from the previous 11 months of riding, especially from the hard race training I've done the last 4 months. It's funny in that I'm probably in the best shape I've been in over the last four years and now I'm going to let it go. The only thing I'm going to do is run...mostly road and trail running. I want to do well at the upcoming Autumn Breeze 10Km run later this month and for the Riverside V in early November (where I won my age group last year with a 36:38 for 5 miles...a lowly 7:20/mile pace). I would like to go under 35 minutes in the Riverside V and maybe under 45 minutes in the Autumn Breeze. As they say, we will see what we will see. In the meantime, I've put in just over 4,500 miles on my bikes so far this year and I want to at least be over 5,000 by the end of the year when I resume riding.

The past weekend was a busy one. I put in about 82 miles over two rides on the steel Bradley plus cleaning out the last of the gutters at my mom's house, TV shopping with Jonnene, going out to eat with friends, plus a few other things around town. I was extremely tired and not a social animal by late Sunday night.

Jonnene and I are going out of town for her birthday in a few days up into Arkansas. It should be fun and a relief to get away for a while with no pressure to be anywhere or have to do anything. Before that I have to do more work on the kitchen and straighten up a problem we've run into concerning our countertops. It's not a problem we've caused but it's one we'll have to solve regarding some mis-measuring of the counters.

Asphalt 3, Old Farts 0

It's been a rough week...we had crashes on both our Tuesday and Thursday night rides, and that's a rare thing. Hitting the deck is something that doesn't happen much on our training rides. Tuesday, Joe hit a hole or something as we were riding in the rain, and as he went down he took Jimi with him. They both got some road rash...maybe sliding on the wet road took out some of the sting. They were both riding tonight. But tonight Don took a tumble and got dinged up pretty good. It seems a big rock (or something) was kicked up by a passing car and hit Don's front wheel. He went down like a ton of bricks, luckily not taking anyone else with him...I was in the front of the group on both crashes....I never saw either one. Don will be fine but quite a bit sore when he wakes up Friday morning. All of our crashees are over 50 and it's something to bite the road at that age....takes a bit longer to recover sometimes.

Not much paying work going on right now so I have spent a lot of time working on the kitchen, patching up the remaining holes and trying my hand at plastering the walls. I'm doing pretty good so far but we've run into a hassle with Lowe's about our countertops. Seems they underquoted the price by 8 square feet! That's a tad more than the counters on both sides of our stove! How did they miss that? I'll drop in on them Friday and see what the deal is. This entire episode with Lowe's is turning into one big unbelievable joke.

Wow, busy weekend...I think

Tuesday Night Worlds came to Saturday morning last weekend during the "Seize the Road" fundraising bike tour for epilepsy. Pulling out of the Stoner Park and heading north on the 62-mile ride, about 15 members of LaS'port pulled away early on from the rest of the tour riders. Mat stayed at the front pulling our little group for the first 8 miles or so, usually keeping the pace around the 23+ mph range. Things eased up a bit, which was good for us mere mortals, but the pace never really slowed down. It was at near race pace (for a normal Category 3 road race) and people took their pulls, although some of us, like me, sat out a few rotations for some "rest".

I was on my old steel bike, the Bradley, custom built for me back in August 1986. Except for using it in a few time trials, I had not been on it as a pure road bike since 2001 when I got the K2. Well, I decided last week that it would be my off-season bike and I got it put together last Friday for its shakedown ride on Saturday. I'll keep the K2 as a TT bike for now and maybe I'll get to use it for duathlons this winter. Everything on the Bradley is old school....skinny steel fork, some of the original Campagnolo components and a lot of old Shimano 105 parts. I got a relatively new 105 front derailleur for $15 (way cheap) to install Friday and Scooter put the whole thing together (I try to spread the wealth between the two bike shops - LBS's - in Shreveport). The Brad is, of course, comfortable since it's made of steel with its only drawback being a bit heavier due to that same steel. Saturday's ride allowed me to get used to it again and stretch its legs. It was nice.

Anyways, there were parts of the ride where we were stroking along at 30+ mph, mostly in frantic attempts to keep the pack together when Mat, Patrick, Russ or Jason would put the pedal to the metal. I remember seeing 35 mph a number of times through my blurry vision! Then Jimi and I got off the front for a small distance going through a quick left-right series of turns. Then he dropped off and I found myself off the front by myself...totally unexpected. When I realized the pack wasn't chasing me very hard I decided to give it a go and pushed. After a half mile I couldn't see the guys (and gal...Lindsay was there) at all so I kept it up with only the lead deputy vehicle for company. I knew it wouldn't last long but I was going to have some fun. After about 3-4 miles the pack finally chased me down (I knew Mat wouldn't be able to stand having me that far down the road!) and I latched into the back, managing to hang on as they zoomed down the road.

The last nine weeks I trained solely for time trials and rarely were my rides over 30 miles in distance, so my long ride endurance was lacking. As we left the town of Blanchard, about 29 miles into the ride, after all that hard riding, I cratered and had to let the pack go. It was down to about nine riders at this point and within a couple of miles they were two minutes ahead of me. That was the last time I saw them and I spent the next twenty miles or so riding by myself at a gentle pace...I was getting in my saddle time now. With about ten miles to go a nice little group caught me and I settled in with them for the remainder of the ride. Mike, Mark, Jon, and I did most of the work dragging the rest of the pack in and the 62 miles was done in under three hours. It was a good ride but I was totally wracked from the earlier hard efforts and lost about six pounds...and I drank pretty often! Jonnene also did the longer distance and she came in with the bike club group about a half hour after I did. She was tired, too, but she was handling the post-ride exhaustion better than I was. I was down and out for most of the afternoon, slept a lot of it off while she was washing clothes, washing the dog, and other chores that I had no energy for.

We checked out a local Thai restaurant out on Youree Drive on Saturday night and it was great. I consider Jonnene the Thai expert and the place passed with her approval. We'll be back.

Sunday morning we drove down to Natchitoches, LA to watch some of our triathlete friends do the Meat Pie Triathlon. It was fun to be an observer to the race and cheer on the folks we knew. Sunrise Tri Club managed to grab up four medals in the various age groups. After brunch with Jamie, Bridget, and John, we headed down to the brother's house in Alexandria to drop off an old doghouse of ours (one of those domed igloo things) for his dogs to use. Nobody was there but I put it out in the backyard for the dogs to investigate.

After we got back home I made a quick trip to Mom's house to install a new curved shower curtain rod. The rest of the night was just prepping for the coming week...not much was on TV...just as well, hey?

The Jena 6

Here's what I sent to the Shreveport Times regarding the protest marches in Jena, Louisiana yesterday and the coverage of the event:

"We are told that it is a good thing to treat people as we would like to be treated. So I do that, treat those I meet with good humour, be they white, black or whatever. I do my part, I hope, to make the world a better place. Then I'm told by a newspaper columnist or editorial writer that the world hasn't changed...what I've done has been for naught, or seemingly so.

"But I don't think so. The events in Jena yesterday are nothing like the civil rights movements of the 60's. It doesn't even begin to approach a semblance of that time. People in Jena have cable/satellite TV and internet...they know what the world and the country is like...they're not stuck in the 60's. Jena is a small, simple town but it isn't ignorant. 95% of the people there are good folks and they treat each other quite well. You'll always have the dumb ones, the bad apples in the barrel, and every town around the world has those. America doesn't have a monopoly on that. There's racism in every country and many of them still have slavery. We just make a bigger deal of it here because we Americans are so absorbed with self-guilt that we continually foist on ourselves.

"Here's the real question: When will we know that equality has been achieved in the United States? Here's the simple answer: We never will know. No bar of accomplishment has been established for us to aim at. As long as we have race baiters like Jackson and Sharpton, there will never be a claim of equality. They'll find something wrong somewhere and we, as a nation, will be trapped in these webs forever. Somebody will be insulted or offended or treated ill, usually by a very small representation of mankind that will reflect on everyone else who's trying to do the right thing. Did ANYBODY notice how well the protesters were treated in Jena? Sharpton wanted water cannons and he didn't get them, and that's because Jena's not like that. Jackson wanted whites throwing rocks at the protesters and he didn't get that either. It was actually a dull day in many ways.

"America has accomplished more than any other nation in the area of equal rights within our own borders...I dare anyone to prove otherwise...yet there are so many who can't see that and still want to live in the 60's. Well, I don't live there anymore. I live here and now, and I'm doing my best to make the world better within my sphere of influence. It'd help if some of these media opinionators would try to do the same thing and actually make the world better instead of only telling us how bad things are."

Mid-Week...Non-energized

Wow, now that I've done the district time trial I don't have any cycling goals in front of me. I realized that this morning during the 5:50 ride and how my energy levels are a bit different than they've been the last 8 weeks while I was training. I still like to ride but the enthusiasm level is definitely lower. I'll start running soon after the "Seize the Road" bike tour this Saturday, my last "big" ride...it'll be my longest ride...100Km...since the first of September. Then I take the entire month of October off the bike and will be running to prepare for the 10Km Autumn Breeze race toward the end of that month. If I can find a couple of duathlons later in the year I'll be motivated to get some quality winter bike time in.

The kitchen is coming along...slowly...but it's happening. I spent most of yesterday evening working on the kitchen/back door, resizing it a bit to fit better in the door jab after I put in a new threshold. I'm going to take off the old paint and repaint the entire door eventually. The countertops have been sized for templates and we might have those installed as soon as the end of next week. Before that happens we have to get the walls replastered and painted. AND I have to remove the old countertops and sink...we'll use the same sink since it's still in pretty good shape. It should be a hoot.

Analysis of a Time Trial

Well, it didn't happen. I didn't break an hour in the 40K nor set a new PR for the distance. I'm not disappointed because I'm generally happy with my effort. The final time was 1:04:03. There were two main causes for the time: one was the wind which I'll explain later and the other was when I dropped my chain with 10 kilometers to go...I had to dismount and reset the chain which dinged my time tremendously.

I was very pleased with my pre-race activities. I thought I got a good warmup although next time I'll do at least 15 more minutes on the trainer with a few more hard efforts. I wasn't rushed like I was at Monroe a week ago and I felt totally ready to go by the time I got to the start line with three minutes to spare. All my equipment was working, especially the disc wheel, and I decided to carry a small gel flask filled with an energy drink in case I needed a drink without carrying a regular water bottle. Turns out I wouldn't need it since I was already well hydrated.

The wind was blowing out of the NE at anywhere from 5 to 11 mph which meant I'd have a headwind on the outbound half of the course. Randy rode past me during the warmups and mentioned that this wasn't going to be pretty! My start was good, not as good as in Monroe, but I was surprised to be cruising at 27 mph into the wind so soon (the guy holding the riders up was pushing us off which was unexpected and a little disconcerting...he's not supposed to do that). That wouldn't last long and soon I would be struggling to stay over 22 mph into the wind. The first 10K took me 16:20 to cover. Not good but I knew I was pushing as hard as I could, the effort was good. Turnaround time was 32:40 (I did 30:22 last weekend for 20K in Monroe but there wasn't any wind). After the turn, I could feel the tailwind somewhat...that NE wind was swirling and sometimes became a sidewind on the return...and I was able to increase my speed. For a while I stayed around 26 mph but soon I got it over 27 mph and was able to stay there. I was hopeful and really pushing it. When I passed the 30K mark, my time was around 46 minutes and I realized that if I could keep up this speed I might break an hour! So I shifted into a harder gear.....

.....and my chain popped off the chainring! "Nooo," I said, "you've gotta be kidding me!" I had just touched 28 mph and now I'm coasting with my chain dangling off the crankarm. As I continued to roll, I reached down and twice tried to put the chain back on the ring but it kept popping off. I realize now that if I had shifted my cogset back in the other direction about 5-6 gears the chain might have stayed in place after I put it on, but I didn't do that. I was now rolling at 14 mph and I hit the brakes. I knew I'd have to get off the bike to get the chain on. When I dismounted I looked back real quick and couldn't see the guy who started behind me at all...I had put a big gap on him but I knew he was gaining on me now! I'm surprised at how calm I was in putting the chain back on the chainring. I spun the cranks backward and forward to make sure it'd stay in place. I put the bike down and looked back again...I could see the guy coming but he was still a small dot in the distance. I have no idea how much time had passed but I swung my left leg over the saddle and my lower calf went into a full fledged cramp! I mounted my bike anyway and started pedaling through the pain...which was tremendous, as Bill Cosby would say....and I knew it had to take a full minute to get up to a decent speed before the cramp went away.

With the pain gone, I got back up to 27 mph but I knew my losses were big so I tried not to think much about it. When I passed the 5K To Go sign, I thought I had a chance to at least get a PR for the distance so I pushed again, being careful when I shifted my gears. About 100 meters later a huge headwind hit me and stayed with me. Now I was demoralized and knew I couldn't push through this wind. Now I hoped to beat my time from last year but I was about 40 seconds too slow as I crossed the line.

Despite all that happened there were a number of good things in the ride. I was comfortable on the bike the whole time, unlike past 40K's where my butt would hurt and my shoulders would ache. Adjusting my position over the last few weeks was the best thing I could have done. Switching to my K2 bike was a good move, too.

It took me 32:40 to go the first 12.4 miles against the wind. Remember that I did the same distance in Monroe in 30:22 last weekend without a disc wheel or influencing wind.

It took me 31:23 to cover the final 12.4 miles and that's WITH my chain troubles including getting off the bike! I have no idea how much time I lost but I knew I had a chance at breaking the hour at 10K to go before the chain came off.

I have reason to be optimistic that I could have broken an hour with better weather conditions (like maybe a tailwind BOTH ways!). Next year I will put in even more effort to do it. I learned a lot in preparing for this TT and I appreciate all the help I got from Jonnene, Tim F, Jason W, RW1, and others.

Watch out for next year! I'm excited!

Early Party

When I rode to downtown Shreveport this morning to meet up with the 5:50 ride group, I wondered if an all-night party had been going on. I saw several well-dressed people on the sidewalks near the downtown bus terminal like they had left a party or work. I joined up with the other 8 riders and reversed the path I had taken to meet them (it's the best way to make sure I don't miss them). We passed by an old warehouse that has been converted to studio apartments and there were several folks standing outside, well dressed. One of the females said, "Good morning, bikers!" and raised a glass to us. We laughed and said good morning back to them. With our flashing lights we probably looked like a mini-Mardi Gras parade to them. I wish I had been to that party if it lasted all night in downtown. Not something you see very often.

There are 110 riders, including me, pre-registered for the district time trial championships this Sunday down in LaPlace, Louisiana. There are eight in my age group. There should be at least 150 riders for this event but I guess it's getting late in the season for most of the racers in Louisiana and Mississippi, and I guess late season burnout is taking hold. Plus most of the entrants are serious TT guys or, like me, are aiming at personal goals. If you don't fall into those two categories then why make the time and effort to do it? Time trialing is hard work...you ride by yourself for 40 kilometers (24.8 miles) against the clock....if you're trying your best then you should be in a world of hurt by the time you cross the finish line. It should not be pleasant but you should be proud of your efforts. The difficulty this time is that the weather forecast says there will be 10-11 mph winds from the northeast during the ride. In other words, there'll be a headwind going out but a tailwind coming back. I'm not looking forward to the first half of the time trial since I'm not that good riding into the wind. I'll have to really push it on the way out the best I can, then use the resulting tailwind on the way back to offset my losses. Should be interesting at the least. As I've said before, I have two goals....first, to set a new personal best (currently it's 1:02:31 set in 1998) and the second is to break an hour for the distance. I should get that first one but I really want that second goal!

I've spent some of today working on the kitchen. We got the electrical work done a couple of days ago and now the place has been nudged a little closer to the 21st century. We have plenty of outlets now and a dedicated line for the computer. Yay!

30:22

I didn't realize I hadn't posted in so long! The Monroe time trial was last Sunday and I did okay for the panic I went through before I zoom-zoom'ed down the course. I cranked out a 30:22 for the 12.4 mile distance which is about a 24.8 mph average, and I'm actually okay with that considering everything.

Jonnene and I left town about 5:15 Sunday morning for the drive to Monroe and we got to the race site around 7 am or so. We signed up when registration opened and got on our bikes to recon the course. Outside of an old smelly deer carcass laying across part of the lane on the return side of the course, everything seemed fine out there. We got back to the car with about 20 minutes to go before the first rider was sent off (but we had our warmup done!). I switched out wheels on my bike, aired them up, and got prepped up....but I forgot to do some things I always do before I do a TT and that should have been my first clue that things weren't going right. Then, as I started to ride off, I discovered my freewheel wasn't freewheeling...it was acting as a fixed gear and it hung up when I stopped pedaling and would force itself off the front chainring! That was unbelievable and as I was trying to find a way to fix it, I heard my name being called to the start line. I yelled to Ricky, the official, that I was having a mechanical problem and I requested a later restart. An official does not have to grant a restart but good ones do try to find a way to help out the rider. Ricky said he had an opening in ten minutes that I could have. Get it fixed or get a new wheel, he said.

I got back to the car, telling Jonnene that her name was being called out to the line and to get herself out there. She was surprised that it was so soon and she told me later that she got there with about 30 seconds to spare...no worries! Meantime, I pulled off the disc wheel I was hoping to use and put on my regular road rear wheel...not as aerodynamic as the disc by a long shot but it would have to do. Jason saw I was having trouble and he calmed me down a bit by telling me that it did no good to think about this....just go do the ride. No thinking.

It helped. I was less rattled when I got to the line and finally started. It was a good start, I popped up to 27 mph in about 100 meters and held that for a mile before I started feeling the effort and the speed began to drop bit by bit. My goal was to keep the average speed above 25 miles per hour and that worked all the way out to the turnaround. My turn was slower than I'd have liked but it wasn't bad...however, getting up to speed afterward took some effort. There was a slight headwind at this point and picking up the speed was starting to be a chore. I had wanted to beat 30 minutes on this course and I ended up with a 30:22. It was the second fastest 20K I'd ever done and I had to remember that I did it without the disc wheel. I was told later that I would have knocked about 30 seconds off my time if I had the wheel. So I was encouraged to get the time I had with the regular wheel I ended up using.

Jonnene turned in a 35:03 time, good enough for 5th in the women's division. It was not bad since she had spent little time preparing for this time trial. Overall, it was an interesting day...the Wife and I got to talk about things and that was good. I hope I'm halfway ready for the district 40K TT championships this weekend! I fixed the problem I had with the disc and the freewheel is freewheelin' now.

Our kitchen renovation isn't going near as fast as I want it to...probably typical for most everyone who does this, I guess. The electrician is coming over tomorrow to relocate some plugs and light switches for us, about two days after we thought he was first coming over. Long story but that's life. We're also being delayed on getting the final order done for our countertops. I think I could almost build them faster myself during all this time! But it'll get done...we still need to find a plasterer for the walls as well as a few other things.

Black Bean & Jalapeno

I never really honestly thought I'd ever find myself zooming down Highland Street on my bike at 31 mph...on my aerobars....zipping through intersections with GREEN lights to boot! Got to do that today at the end of Mike's annual Labor Day ride. I was chasing Jason and another guy back to St. Vincent's Mall where we were parked after 46 miles of hills and other types of road conditions around Cross Lake. It was a fast-paced ride most of the time, the high point being about 12 miles in on South Lakeshore Drive...a curvy, rolling hill stretch of road....where I jumped from the pack at the end of a short uphill to chase down Jason and Lindsay who had gapped us a couple of miles earlier. As I chased I saw that Lindsay was starting to drop off Jason's wheel and I blew by her at 33 mph eventually catching Jason. Of course, with a powerhouse like him it's like catching a shark...now that I'm got him, what do I do with him? Basically it's a matter of just hanging on for dear life! Ian had bridged across with me...pretty damn alert of him, I should say on his behalf...and he had not been riding a lot recently. I let him get between Jason and me, then Jason started upping the pace a bit...Ian realized he couldn't hang on any longer and was trying to help me pull up behind Jason....only I wasn't able to close the gap! It was getting funny...Ian looking back and waving me through, and me just smiling and shrugging my shoulders at him. He finally pulled out and I gave it one last effort to grab the wheel. Finally able to do it when Jason eased back a bit. For the next 4-5 miles we team-time-trialed it away from the rest of the group, finding ourselves out there all by ourselves. Jason waited for me the two times I found myself falling off his wheel but mostly I hung on, going about 26-28 mph the whole way. It was tough but, as always, there's something fun about it all. The group caught up to us at a regrouping point and the rest of the ride was all about chasing, some funny moments, and just enjoying the company of a good group of riders.

In the first three days of September I have about 130 miles on the bike, all relatively short rides (the longest was the 46 miles today) concentrating on speed work for the time trials in Monroe and LaPlace the next two weekends. Sunday was a slow, easy spin day that still covered 44 miles. I think I could be sore tomorrow! I hope the last few weeks of effort on the bike will show itself on those TT's...I just want to stay above 25 mph on average without totally dying of exhaustion!

Jonnene had to work today but she got out early in the afternoon and went off to get in a session of pilates with a co-worker. I spent most of the afternoon continuing the demolition work in the kitchen, getting rid of the rest of the feaux brick fascade and seeing if I could match up the old cabinet hinges for replacement (not a lot of luck there...close but not as close as I'd like). I have a lot of small jobs to do in the kitchen and outdoors. All manly stuff, of course!

Riding, or lack thereof

I had thought I'd do the parkway ride with the 5:50 group this morning but when I got out of bed my legs were quite stiff and a little sore. I decided to skip the ride and just do some stretching and exercises while watching "Fox & Friends" instead (I love that show...it's hilarious). I had a good workout on the bike last night and it was still in my legs.

I had done a 17-mile warmup, both hard efforts and slow spinning...then decided to give it a go on a 20K course that starts and ends at the LSU Pecan Station. The southward and westward legs were into the wind and I was having perceived (real?) difficulty just staying above 23 mph though I'd hit into 25 every once in a while. But once I turned north the effort was much easier and I found myself cruising at 26 mph. Once I topped the hill on Ellerbe Road and made the eastward turn back to the station I was moving along at 27-28 and I think that was mainly because I knew I was getting to the end of the 12.4-mile loop and felt a little energized. I roughly covered the distance in 30-31 minutes which I was happy with since I wasn't really pushing as hard as I could have. The 20K course in Monroe (two weeks from now) is board-flat and I'm hoping to cover that in well under 30 minutes. It will be the dress rehearsal for the 40K in LaPlace the following weekend and my real test for the 2007 cycling season.

Spent some time today doing a little bit of housework...tried to remove the old light/fan from the ceiling of the bathroom and though I got the guts of the thing removed, I'll have to get into the attic to remove the housing. It won't come through the hole in the ceiling and I'll have to enlarge the hole a bit to get the new unit in. That should be fun in this summer heat, so I'll most likely do that in the early mornings wearing the crappiest clothes I have.

This post title for sale?

Yeah! If you want to place your ad at the top of any of my postings, let me know and we'll work out a deal! I'm just looking for ways to fund my art!

Changing out the K2 for time trials ended up being a good idea. I put the aerobars on the steed last Friday and have put in a couple of good training rides on it since then. You can tell the difference...the bike feels peppier and it seems a little easier to maintain some decent steady speed. I made some guesses on my positioning and I was darn close...I haven't had to change much from what I originally eye-balled on seat and bar positioning. It feels comfortable enough for a 40K ride. I've also sent off my nicked-up rear carbon disc wheel for repairs. Russ knows a guy who can do these repairs and has some experience with carbon bicycle wheels. If it can be done, then I'll have a sweet ride for the TT's next month.

I went to a podiatrist yesterday to find out why my right foot has created these "hot spots" outside my little toe. Sure enough, on the x-ray you could see how the small bones on the two outside toes have flared out and the toes are practically sitting on the side of the knuckles, not lined up at all. The doc called the skin area of my hot spot a "tailor's bunion" but in all the talk he never brought up the possibility of surgery. Apparently that's reserved for severe cases and I'm not severe...yet. The tendons are too stretched out and weak to bring those outside toes inline, so I have to find other relief. Among those are to take a tablet of Aleve twice a day for the next two weeks to reduce the swelling, and I took my right cycling shoe to a local shoe shop to "spot-stretch" a section of the shoe next to that part of the foot. If the stretching doesn't work or help much, we can cut a small slice of the shoe to reduce the pressure. I'd hate to cut on a brand-new shoe but I'll do it if I have to. A very last, and unlikely to happen, option would be to get a pair of custom cycling shoes that would be built to fit my feet exactly. I know several guys who have done this but these shoes can cost anywhere from $400 to $700. I wonder if, at my age, it's worth doing this but we'll see how the other options work out. The website link for the custom shoes is:
http://www.rocket7.com/shoes.htm

I've been running regularly now mostly to strengthen my legs for the time trials but also to prepare for the off-season. After September I will take some time off the bike but will get into trail running again. I really like running in the woods but it's nearly impossible to do during the summer. It's way too hot and you rarely see MTB riders on their bikes during these times, too. I'd like to do a few competitive trail runs this winter but need to find out where these things are done. I know there are plenty of runs in Texas. I'll miss the Louisiana Trails half-marathon and full-marathon this fall since I'll be at the ULM-Alabama football game in Tuscaloosa that weekend in November. I won the Masters Division last year in the half and really thought about doing the entire marathon this year. It's easier for me to run on the trails than on pavement so if I was to do a marathon, that's the way I'd do it.

Yesterday's morning ride was well-attended...13 riders in all and it made for shorter pulls for everyone. I usually add some TT training after I leave the group to head back home. It was fun as usual but the windy conditions made for slower speeds when we headed south on the parkway. In the back you aren't affected by the wind as much as you tend to run up on the riders in front of you, so you have to be aware of the ebbs and flows of the paceline. Today I did a short 4 kilometer (2.4 miles) run but I ran it easy. I'm not ready to add some speed to the runs yet.

Got the Blackwell catalog to the printer yesterday (yeaa!) but had to make a correction to a page today. I'm also working on a book cover for a friend and need to have it done by the end of this week. I'm still waiting for approval on the proof right now.

Big Decisions

I haven't felt much like posting the last few days. Sometimes you can spend too much time on the computer doing other things and the last thing you want to do is type more stuff for a blog. And trying to remember what you did that day can be harder than you think it should be. I have a habit of dismissing things and events that I've concluded are of no consequence to me...which means I forget the important things and remember the mundane things. Shouldn't that be the other way around?

Today I decided to change out the bike I'm going to use for the time trial championships in September. I was going to use my steel-framed Bradley which was already set up as a TT bike but when I was doing the Tuesday Night Worlds I had this revelation that I should use my aluminum/carbon-framed K2 instead. Amazing what your brain thinks of when it's oxygen starved! The K2 is at least a couple of pounds lighter first off, and I could switch out the complete aerobar setup to replace the road bars on the K2. Since I have no plans to do another road race this year, I can ride the K2 in its new time trial setup...tune in the seating position over the next couple of weeks...and I would have a faster bike for the TT. Plus the K2 has aero tubing. I should have the changeover done by Friday. I'm also looking at getting an aero rear wheel from Blackwell shortly and then I'm mostly ready. I still have to train however!

Jonnene and I have started our demo of the kitchen to bring it a little up to date and to make the house a bit easier to sell in the coming months. I tore down a cabinet and removed all the old wood paneling in the room (yes, REAL paneling...probably 30 years old) while she took off the half-wall of fake brick which had to be a real chore. There's still more fake brick to remove and that'll be my job. Now I have to get an electrician over here to quote some work we need done on a potentially overloaded circuit in the kitchen. We need a couple more outlets and that'll call for a rewiring, totally outta my league. Later we'll get new counter tops, some other carpentry work done, and a new floor. Then we'll want to enjoy the new version of the kitchen before we sell the house!

It's hot around here, too. The Tuesday ride was a sweat-fest and most of us turned around at Frierson, skipping the Linwood Route. The pace was still fiesty but muted with the temps at 104 when we started out! Some dummy on the Weather Channel was talking about the current heat wave and making a slight claim that global warming was responsible. Yeah, and it might be that it's AUGUST, too! I think in my 52 years that I recall a great number of August months being unbearably hot. NASA has recently admitted that it made a huge mistake in its listing of the hottest years on record, a big miscalculation. Previously it said that 1998 was the hottest year on record, which many global warming fans pinned their arguments on. With the proper corrections in the calculations it is now established that 1934 was the hottest year on record. In fact, with the corrections we now know that six of the hottest ten years happened in the 1920's and 1930's! What were those humans doing back then to cause it, and why didn't it stick to the present day? There are newspaper articles in 1922 warning of the coming warming of the earth. Then we have the articles in 1975 warning of the cooling of the earth. Who would you believe? It's all cyclical and the earth is doing just fine, thank you.

Work is picking up in that some existing jobs are finally progressing. The Blackwell catalog is almost a done deal though there's more that'll have to achieved in the final printing. The main thing is to get out a limited printed run for a bike show up in Chicago next week and I'm pretty sure we can make that. Then we'll do a final "real" printed run for Interbike in Las Vegas and for 2008 year distribution. The layout looks really good if I do say so my-own-self.

Back on August 5th, my bride took 15th place out of 67 in her age group at the River Cities Triathlon. She was worried beforehand that she'd be lucky to be in the top twenty with so many ladies competing. I did she did just fine! The swim seemed to be a little longer but her bike was faster than she predicted and the run turned out well - her knee didn't give her any problems until the last kilometer or so, and that's a good thing. She also got to use her new Blackwell wheels in competition for the first time and she was pleased with them.

The Day Before

It's been a busy day with the biggest part being Jonnene's race in the River Cities Triathlon tomorrow. We've been getting her gear together and ready, got the Aussie flag on her bike and her helmet, and she's been hydrating like it's going out of style. We'll leave for the race site very early in the morning. I'll be a fan this go-around...taking pictures, cheering her on, getting her ready to "BRING IT AWN" as Russ would say. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I spent a bit of the early morning doing some time trial training. I guess I did alright at this time since I have six weeks before the district TT championships in LaPlace to prepare and make myself speedy. The air was muggy and dripping in humidity...wait, that was me dripping...all over the bike and myself. I did some sustained efforts and a few intervals. Probably got in 36 miles all told and I was worn out. Hopefully, doing some specific work on my time trialing in the coming weeks will bear some fruit. My only goal is to beat an hour for the 40K (24.8 miles) distance and I think this might be my best...and maybe only...year to do it. How I place in my age division is not a big deal to me but breaking that hour mark is. Somehow I feel that if I can accomplish that, I'll feel like all this bike racing has been worth it. If I don't, I'm not going to cry about it...that's bike racing. I could have a bad day in spite of the condition I'm in by that point. But I'll tell you...if I can do it, I'll be one happy puppy!

The Wife volunteered at the kids' triathlon while I was out riding in the country. She enjoyed the experience although it had its moments of terror as some of the total 275 kids would veer toward each other on their bikes or some other calamity. I heard a kid fell and broke his arm out there on the course but how can you prevent a kid from falling off his bike? Sometimes you can't...kids just do things like that.

owwwwwww......

My time trial last night sucked. And it wasn't my fault. Really. A bad start due to some confusion at the start line which made me start with a foot on the ground instead of being held up...as I lined up with 4 seconds before I had to go. Then my rear wheel went out of line in the dropouts, causing it to lean to the left and rub against the left chain stay. I didn't discover that one until the ride was over...I could hear a high-pitched buzzing sound and I thought a brake pad was rubbing the wheel rim. But I couldn't see any problems with the brakes. Anyway, I eventually rolled over the finish line at a measly 21 mph and it was taking everything I could do to go THAT fast! Now I know why...a wheel up against the bike frame will slow anyone down. Lesson learned. I'll make sure that never happens again.

Anyway, I was really down about that performance and went straight to bed after I showered. Didn't even eat dinner or drink anything or brush my teeth. I was a tad angry about the TT. I expected to be two minutes faster than I was and I wasn't. And I was exhausted from trying to pedal seven miles with what felt like I was dragging a one-ton lead weight behind me. I'll be better and faster before the district championships in September...no worries about that.

There was a disaster in Minnieapolis with a bridge collapse. Jonnene thinks she may have crossed over that bridge a couple of times back in the 90's when she lived up there but it is out of the way of the areas she lived and worked in, so she would have had few reasons to cross over it on a regular basis. It's a bad deal, for sure, and it'll really screw up traffic in the city for a couple of years at the least. I hope the death toll is as small as possible.

Fall on the Horizon

Oh, yeah, the days are getting shorter. Just a couple of weeks ago, when I left the house at 5:45 am to do the morning ride on the parkway, you could see the streaks of blue beginning to crawl across the sky. By the time I joined up with the group downtown, the sky was beginning to light up. But this morning, it was still dark as I passed under Interstate 20 to meet the group on Marshall Street. In a couple of months before the time change, my entire ride will be in the dark. Fall is coming with Winter behind it.

You wouldn't think that with the way I soaked my bike uniform with sweat today!

The morning ride was a fast one with only six of us, including Louise who I'd never seen on this ride. I think she was surprised at how fast we went up the Stoner Street overpass, dropping her in the process but Mike went back for her and pulled her back up to the group. She was fine after that. I took one long pull and kept the speed around 25-26 mph. My legs were a little tired from riding the last couple of days but they did fine. Mike was riding after pulling a 14-hour drive from Pennsylvania the day before...I think I would have slept in this morning!

Work is still on the slow side but I've made some progress with a few jobs for the local Goodwill Industries and Blackwell Research - www.blackwellresearch.com - for whom I'm designing a new 2008 catalog and I picked up a few new products that I need to have photographed for it. However, all this means I can't bill for the jobs yet although I might do a work-in-progress billing to both places to keep some income flowing in. Good thing the wife has her job! There's also a couple of other jobs that are hanging in the air, waiting to hear from the clients on what to do next. I'm not that fond of that because I start to forget what the job was about and lose some enthusiasm for it. I am going to do an invoice to a local helicopter company on some renderings I did for a job proposal that didn't go through. My policy is that I don't do spec work, so I have to bill them for what the paint scheme renderings I did for them. I don't do formal work for free in hopes of getting more work...that's too much time invested if it doesn't work out and I'm not the one doing the proposal. I was hired to make the proposal a little more appealing!

Did a little road race in Tyler, Texas a week ago and it truly kicked my rear end. I ended up 13th in the Masters 50-54 age group and that wasn't bad at all but I was so totally wiped out from the effort! Despite having to climb some East Texas hills that have no equal around the Northwest Louisiana area, I still averaged over 21 mph for the race. I remember spending time in a chase group where one other guy and myself did most of the work, going around 28-30 mph for nearly six miles. We caught people and spit them out the back but could never catch back up to the main field (the 45-49 and 50-54 groups were combined and that made for over 75 riders in my race) who had dropped us on the "Beast", the steepest climb on the course. I was doing fine on that climb until about halfway up when reality hit and it felt like I was going backwards. When I finally reached the crest of the climb, I really wanted to throw up...no kidding. Fun race for sure.

Right after that, the Wife and I went on to Dallas for the rest of the weekend. We ate at a nice Italian restaurant Saturday night and, on Sunday, spent a couple of hours at Richardson's Bike Mart in north Dallas. We spent some major dollars (there was a summer sale going on) and I got a new pair of bike shoes for my birthday. She got a new pair of triathlon bike shoes plus some clothes and I found a great pair of long-fingered gloves from Pearl Izumi. I ride in long-fingers thanks to the influence of a good friend, Shannon, who races at the elite level of women's cycling in the USA. We both don't like the idea of getting road rash on our fingers if we crash (we're both artists and we like our hands) and long-fingered gloves help to minimize the surface damage. We could still break a finger or two but that's okay...nothing will stop that if it happens but at least the skin's in one piece! And they're really not that uncomfortable in the summer heat.

The Wife is doing a triathlon this weekend and I'll be the support personnel for her. I'll cheer her on, take pictures, and have fluids and dry clothes for her when she finishes. It should be fun, more for me than her!

Oh! I got a new Kestrel 44mm CARBON handlebar a couple of days ago. A friend was selling his barely used set of bars for a nice affordable price and I went after it! It's on my K2 now and I like it. However, I need to put a second wrap of handlebar tape on the top since I used my old tape again and the padding is a bit flattened out. No big deal. I'm slowly bringing my bike into the 21st Century.

Tuesday

I skipped this morning's ride on the parkway...the legs felt a little heavy and if I'm going to do a road race in Tyler, Texas this Saturday, well, I don't want to fatique them too much. I haven't done enough riding the last two weeks as it is. It should be "fun" with a monster hill (monster for East Texas) that'll I'll have to climb twice on two laps of the course with the 45-49 and 50-54 Masters. These old guys are no slouches and I'm just hoping I can hang on for most of the race. I'll have teammates in Brian and Don there but I think they'll do fine.

Last night was the weekly Tuesday Night Worlds. I spent most of the afternoon working in the front yard in the heat so I was a little zapped. I wasn't expecting to hang on even in the early part of the ride. There was a fairly strong headwind out of the south that should slow the pack somewhat but I was suspecting that it would help me keep up. Russ rolled up to me barely a mile out the church parking lot and asked how the marriage was going. I told him it was going pretty good and that I wasn't having to make many adjustments because I wanted change in my life and was willing to adapt to that change. It hasn't been as hard as I thought it might be. Then I told him that I wasn't planning to stay with the group because of the earlier yardwork out in the sun and that my energy was low. He said to stay in the back, draft, and try to hang on. I know he means it....he wants me to hang in there as long as I can.

As it turned out, the opening 12 miles to Frierson were easier for me than I could have imagined. It was easy to keep up, even going 27-28 mph into the headwind on Ellerbe Road. I sat in the back for a while just in case I had any problems, riding alongside T-Bone watching the rotation in front of us. It was a big group, maybe 25 riders (more?), and we touched 30 mph several times. There were a couple of jumps off the front but we reeled them back in. The whole process was quite smooth and, though there were some bold moves, nobody was doing anything dumb. After we turned onto Highway 175 to Frierson, the pace kept up as it usually does and I decided it was time to make some appearances at the front. I made one pull up the first rise on a set of rollers pretty effortlessly...other rides I have a tougher time on this section. Later, we were flying up the last rise before the village and I sat behind T-Bone as we zoomed at 30+ down the other side. This is not a steep decent, you have to work to go 30 mph. As we got to the "bottom" he pulled aside to let me through and I kept the pace up. Then I decided to up the pace to give everyone a minor workout (a VERY minor workout), standing up in the pedals for about 150 meters to keep the speed above 30. I took a quick look behind me and nobody was coming up on my right as I expected...they were all behind me, looking for the moment to make a jump to the Frierson train tracks. I swung to the right and tapped the brakes to force the group to pass me, and they did for the big sprint to the tracks. I was able to hang in to the tail of the group, surprised that we had dropped or lost almost a third of the original pack.

But about a mile on the other side of Frierson, I began to feel the effects of the earlier yard work I did and I didn't have the energy I needed to keep up with these boys. I turned around and headed back the way we came with the idea that I'd catch up to Jonnene's group ride and return back with them at an easier pace. As it turned out, her group is not exactly on the slow side! While I was with them the pace was often in the 21-24 mph range, sometimes faster, and that was much quicker than I thought it would be. It was fun, though, and I passed out some advice to a few riders to help them maximize their speed with less effort. I was proud of the way Jonnene didn't back down from any challenges in the ride and was more than willing to do the work and keep up the pace.

Today I need to get a rendering done for a window display, put together the material I need to send to USA Cycling of the results of the time trial last week, and maybe do a light workout on my time trial bike. Add in a few other things and it should be a full day.

Time flies

I hadn't realized how long it's been since I last logged on and posted an entry! Here's the short of what's been going on.....

1. Jonnene got second in her age group at the triathlon in Jefferson, Texas. Her run was slower than usual, which cost her first place, but I was impressed with the gaps she put on a number of the ladies after the swim and bike stages. The lake had flooded over the beach and some of the land areas so the transistion area had to be moved further inland on the parking lot. It was wierd seeing boats moored up to the picnic tables!

2. We had a time trial on the Fant Parkway over a week ago and it went off well. We had 42 finishers for the 4.91 mile distance that we matched up with the Prologue stage of the Tour de France happening that same day. The only hitch was the hour's delay we had to endure when the city's streets and parks department thought the event had been canceled (we never told anyone that) and didn't show up to block the parkway for the race. However, the police had shown up and nobody told them that the race had been canceled. The officers contacted the right people and we had barricades in place pretty quick. I think everyone had a good time and there were some nice results. However, the difference between the pro riders and our little group was evident...our fastest rider was still 16 seconds slower than the slowest rider at le Tour!

3. I finished up another month of ads for Blackwell. JC designed new aerobars called the Blackwell Base Wing Bar....all carbon and designed specifically for clip-on aerobars to have a nice aerodynamic combo. It really looks sweet. Look for the ad in the September issues of Triathlete and Inside Triathlon magazines. I still need to get that catalog finished up for them in a few weeks.

Da twain, da twain!!

Tuesday morning (yesterday), I got up early to do the 5:50 am ride in Shrevport. As I've mentioned before, I ride over the Red River on the Texas Street Bridge to meet up with the group who have come up from South Shreveport....anyway, I left the house barely on time (around 5:45 am) and get about 1/2 mile from the house to where a second set of railroad tracks are located. There's a train on the tracks just sitting there, not moving. I've been held up before by trains on these rides but they usually get out of the way because they're usually moving at the time. But not this one. I decided to do some circles in the street to kill some time...then the train starts to move. About twenty cars later, it stops again, still blocking the street. I kept doing laps in the street and finally I decided it wasn't moving again any time soon and I ride back to the house. I got in a total of 1.4 miles in 10 minutes! I can run 1.4 miles faster than that! I showered and got ready for the day. I thought about doing a run instead but....naawww!! Ain't happenin'.

The Tuesday night ride was a small affair. I think a lot of folks thought rain was coming, plus several were going to do the Firecracker 5K run in the morning so they didn't need to wear themselves out doing a leg-ripping ride at Tuesday Night Worlds. There were probably ten of us and my legs felt kinda numb, not really strong at all. But it turned into another fast night. I spent half my time in the back but with only ten guys, there's not much to draft off of. I did take a number of pulls, even sat on the only Team Psycho fella who showed up when he tried to take off on a flyer. Even made a monster chase-bridge-thing after a 2-man break that Don was able to finish off while we were on Linwood. I was a little tired afterward but it was all good for me....I guess.

Today is Independence Day. The wife and I went out to watch the Firecracker 5K run...she was nursing a sore knee and I hadn't run enough, which is why we were watching and not doing. Three thousand folks were out there in muggy conditions but at least it didn't rain. The rest of the day was spent working on a mock-up of the Blackwell catalog I'm trying to get done with and replacing three ink cartridges in the printer since I used the old ones up by printing out that mock-up.

It's also three days until the Prologue Time Trial that I've put together with the help of some great people. I've got a few more things to do but it'll be a busy three days.

And the week begins....

This morning's ride was an easy affair. Nine showed up and the pace stayed in the 22-23 mph range on the parkway. When it came time to take my pull, I didn't ramp it up very much and barely stayed over 24 mph the whole time...I saw no reason to make everyone work too much to keep up. I did a quick 1.2 mile (2 kilometers) run after I got back, doing it about a minute faster than I had just seven days earlier. That was a surprise.

Jonnene is starting her second week at work but she'll be busy all day...an hour's swim practice at LSUS, work all day, and a PT patient to work with tonight after work. Then, if she wants, she could go to a ladies-only bike repair seminar at the local bike shop later. She might want to sleep late tomorrow morning! She is also in training mode for a triathlon in early August and will most likely do two tri's during July as part of the training (Jefferson, TX and Dallas, TX).

I'm looking at spending most of the rest of the summer training up for the district time trials in September, with a goal to break an hour in the 40 kilometer distance (24.8 miles). I've never done it and I'd like to do it at least once in my life. It's tougher as you get older. I think I'll do the Texas district age-group championships in early August to see how the training is going, plus a couple of smaller time trials in Monroe and Shreveport. I might do a road race in Tyler, Texas in July but who knows?

I also have a time trial that I'll be race director for on July 7th. With less than two weeks to go, I have to get things together and get 'er done. It shouldn't be a problem to run the actual event, just getting prepped will be the big deal. And I'll have to reserve a port-a-let!

It was a slow weekend for me. I opted not to do the Tour de Louisiane in south Louisiana due to overall costs, time constraints, doggies, and other stuff. However, members of my team did make it down to Covington and they did pretty well. We took 1st and 7th in the GC in the Cat. 1-2-3 stage race, and got 3rd, 9th, and 10th in the Cat. 4's. A most excellent result and I applaude the guys on their success! If I had gone, I would have done the Masters 35+ races and based on the results, I think I could have finished 15th or 16th overall...all things being equal. I would have done pretty well in the TT stage based on the times I saw, and then it would have depended on my fitness in the road and criterium stages.

Rain, rain

For a day that started out with a 40% chance of rain, it's been 100% since about mid-afternoon and it's still coming down. Good thing I took today off from riding and running. Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot done and should have been more involved in a few projects. I just couldn't get motivated enough. Maybe it'll be better tomorrow.

I've decided not to do the Tour de Louisiane stage race in Covington, LA this weekend. After adding up all the costs for Jonnene and me to go, it would have worked out to almost $400 for the whole weekend and I couldn't see spending that kind of money to have my butt kicked around over three race stages. The cheapest hotel I could find in the area was at the Best Western at $180 total for two nights...otherwise it was $109/night w/o taxes or more anywhere else! You add in food, gas, etc., and it's a cost that's better spent on a pleasurable weekend, not one where I'm trying to stay upright on my bike and keep up with a few (or more) superior athletes. Plus we'd have to drop off the dogs at a friend's house, so there's the time involved in dropping off and picking up.

Trust me, I'd love to go...it'd be fun...but the financial cost is too high for this trip. Both of us have things going on the following two weekends so maybe this time we should stay home and enjoy some time together. I'll knock out a long ride both Saturday and Sunday, but we'll go to a movie or two and putter around the house. If Jonnene wasn't working yet, we could go down on Friday morning and have time to make a quick jaunt into New Orleans. That would have worked pretty well.

Anyway, I guess my next race will be the Texas state road championships in Tyler on July 21st, or the Texas state time trials in Houston on August 4th, or a time trial in Monroe on September 9th. I better start spreading my riding out a bit so I don't get burned out in the meantime. I'm really aiming at the LA/MISS district time trials on September 16th 'cause my main cycling goal this year is to break an hour in the 40K, which I've never done. I intend to work really hard thru August and most of September to prepare for that.

Tuesday Night Worlds

Tuesday Night Worlds...that's the name we give our Tuesday training ride. Basically it means that we ride as hard and as fast as we can with no letup until we puke, cramp, or finish hard to the end. This is usually done along a route we call the "Linwood Loop" which is about 30 miles of half-smooth, half-rough roads with adequate hills to make it interesting, lots of flat areas, and a few really fun downhills. It's been more interesting this year because a group of tri-guys called Team Psycho races with us and really challenges us. Of course, they're on their tri-bikes with the aerobars and fast wheels so we have to take it to them with pure muscle and racing smarts. But they're quick learners and it's actually fun to have them out there with us...makes us work harder.

Tonight was probably the fastest we've done the Loop. Our speed was constantly in the 27-30 mph range, just plain crazy fast, and I was surprised at how well I did even without a warmup (and usually I NEED a warmup). I took a few pulls at the front when we were on Ellerbe Road, including one where I glanced at a 31 mph reading on the bike computer...was that me doing that? When we turned onto Highway 175, there really was no letup. Patrick took a long flyer off the front and some of us tried to slow the pack to give him a chance but he was reeled in eventually. Bolt tried one, too, but he wasn't really giving it much effort...we brought him back in. So basically the pack stayed together and stayed fast. You'd have to really pump it to get away. After we went over a small rise on the way to Frierson, Dave S tried a nice little move but the Psycho guys covered it. That was when Calvin (a member of both LaS'port and Psycho) made a huge jump around the pack while we were still about a kilometer from the village. I saw him start that from the beginning and I latched onto his rear wheel. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bolt swing in behind me and off we went. We were hitting 35 mph and Calvin was totally in time-trial position with me stuck to his wheel. With about 200 meters to go, I was wearing out fast and I motioned to Bolt to go around me which he did. I looked back and there was nobody else even remotely close to us! That was fun and eventually everyone caught me before we got to the railroad tracks.

The rest of the ride was, again, just plain fast. It drives me crazy that Russ, Patrick, Bolt, and Sinkule make it look so easy....they can sit in the back and whenever they decide they want to go to the front, no matter how fast it is, they just go ahead and do it. Meanwhile I'm killing myself to stay in the group and look for whatever draft I can find, making an appearance at the front so I can do my fair share within my abilities. But I love doing it and I wouldn't have it any other way. About 2/3's the way down Linwood my right quad started cramping bad enough to make me lose the group, unable to catch back on. My computer was showing an average speed of 26.2 mph at the time! I finally rolled in about 1:11 after we started (I took it easy the last couple of miles) and I heard the leaders made it in only 57 minutes which I find hard to believe because that would mean they averaged about 30 mph for the route...I don't think they did if we were averaging 26.2 when I dropped off and we still had about 7 miles to go. But it doesn't matter...it was most likely the fastest the Linwood Loop had ever been ridden in my memory and I had had a blast doing it.

First Day on the Job

This morning's ride was a slow one but that wasn't a bad thing. There were only five of us cruising the Fant Parkway and we just couldn't seem to get the speed above 23 mph more than a couple of times. The wind out of the south had something to do with it but I think we just didn't feel like putting out the effort. That was okay with me this time. When I took my two pulls, I sat up to provide some extra draft for the folks behind me and make myself work a little harder.

Jonnene had her first day at work and had to attend orientation all day. It would be truthful to say she was bored out of her mind and that probably half of the discussions really didn't apply to her. But that's the price you pay for the first day on the job. She has additional orientation on Tuesday but it's more specific for her PT job...and she could get her first patient as early as that afternoon!

I'm still trying to decide about going to the Tour de Louisianne this coming weekend. Part of it is the cost to travel down there, get a hotel room for two nights, put the dogs up while we're gone, etc. I'll have to decide by tomorrow for sure. The race is going to be tough as it is but I'm entering the Masters 35+, maybe the only member of my team to do that classification. We'll see, and I'll know how good a race I'll produce after I see how I do at Tuesday Night Worlds.

Winning Tri's

I know, I know....I was going to keep this thing updated a bit more often. Sometimes I don't feel like hitting the keyboard and make a post, but I usually think of things I could write about.

It's been busy around here. The wife has done two of the local tri club's races in the series and won her age group in both. Today she covered a sprint distance race of 450 yards swimming, 16 miles biking, and 3 miles running in about 1:20:12, getting first in her age group. About two weeks ago she won the Masters Women's division in the sprint distance at the Red River Triathlon which was changed to a duathlon because the river was too high and too fast to be safely used as part of the course. So she has to do two runs and she wasn't keen on five total miles of running because of her knee. But she made it okay and was also the 7th overall woman to finish the distance. Well done, as the Aussies would say, as well as "Good on ya!" I was proud of her.

Last weekend I was down in Natchez, MS to do the LA/MISS district road race championships. I competed in the Masters 45+ on Saturday afternoon....which was hot enough....and we were combined with the Masters 35+ to cover 47 miles on a 5.1 mile loop course through the Natchez State Park. We had about 40 riders overall that was big on horsepower. I only hoped for a decent result. I knew I couldn't match legs with many of the guys in the lineup so I had to minimized my losses the best I could. There were 16 racers in my 45+ group so I knew I had 16th place locked up! As soon as we started I realized the pace was going to be fast and it stayed that way throughout the first lap, pushing hard on the early uphills (155 feet of elevation gain in the first mile) and flying fast on the curving downhills. I heard that it was like that the first four laps.

I say I heard that because I got shelled early into the second lap on the uphills. Sad to say that I was climbing pretty well for me but not well enough to stay with the stud hosses in the pack. I latched onto two other OTB guys from the NBO (New Orleans) and S3 (Alexandria) teams and we rode together the next five laps, picking up other stranglers, and at one point we had about seven riders together keeping up a good pace. The NBO and S3 guys were riding against me, I began to think, 'cause they were talking to each other and not to me, and I wondered if they were coming up with some plot to drop the north Louisiana guy. We would drop the other riders on the uphills but both of them couldn't seem to shake me until it was just the three of us again. Then the main pack came upon us, about to lap us, and they were going strong. On my 7th lap, they caught us at midpoint of the uphills and I decided to latch onto the back of their group. I thought I could keep up at least one time on those hills and we'd see who, in my little group, could stay. It worked...I latched onto that pack and we powered up the hills. By the time we leveled out I looked behind me and the NBO and S3 guys were gone. I was the lone survivor of the dropped riders (I heard later that the S3 guy DNF'd). I hung onto the back of the pack for 1/2 lap, saw that most of them were 35+ riders and notice my teammate, Brian, was still in the group which made me very happy. He was having a great ride.

But their pace was a bit much for me and I dropped off again, eventually catching a 35+ rider who is very good but wasn't having a good day. We rode together and talked, and as we finished the final lap, I let him have the sprint to the line. He wasn't in my age group so I really wasn't competing with him. I ended up 9th in the 45+ group which was much better than my 15th place last year. I get a few cycling cup points for the team and I finished the race. I was satisfied with my effort for the shape I'm in. I skipped Sunday's races and we headed home after watching the first few laps of the Cat. 1-2-3 race.

Last Saturday at the Races

The Racing Rapides stage race was in Alexandria over the weekend and here's my recap of the fun:

Due to losing Frenchy to a flat tire in the first lap of the road race, and Brian and I getting dropped 2/3's of the way through the second lap, Tim didn't get much help in the Masters 35+/45+. Then Tim and I weren't there for Sunday's crit to defend our 4th and 8th place GC standings in the 45+.

Brian took charge of the peloton most of the first part of the first lap of the road race. He was out there punching the wind with a couple of other guys, staying around 26-27 mph most of the time. Being my first road race since September, I sat in and played it safe to regain the feel of a pack. I had two goals: be with the pack after the first lap (which I did) and, if I was going to get dropped, to finish the 44-mile race in under two hours (which I did in 1:58). The first lap of our Masters race was only two minutes slower than the Cat. 1-2-3's, meaning the breakaway that PMarr was in. We crunched the first 14.5 miles in 37 minutes or 23.5 mph average.

The fastest we went was on a flat stretch of road at 38.3 mph while we were chasing Tim on his first breakaway attempt early in the second lap. I'm spinning 110-120 in my 12 but we only held that for a few seconds, bringing it down to 32 for a good while longer. For several miles after that, Tim, Brian, and I occupied the front 4-5 positions in the peloton. No formal rotating pacelines (can't do that in a pack anyways)...whoever got up front just drove the pace for a while 'til the next person came up. No breaks were succeeding for long. We drove up the first hill of the second lap at 28 mph and I was thinking this was only going to get harder and less fun for me.

We lost Joe when he flatted and he took himself out of the race. The pack didn't slow down a bit and Joe would have never caught back on solo. Then halfway on that long stretch of hills on Lap 2, I couldn't stay with the pack even though I was climbing way faster than I usually do which would be good enough to stick but not this time. A while later I see Brian and V Liberto (NBO) off the back and I bridge up to them. The rest of the race would be us three picking up stranglers, especially a number of Cat. 4 riders from the race ahead of us. At one time we had nine riders all together although we'd lose three of those (one of them was a guy from ProBike who was 2nd GC after the TT in the 45+) by the end of the three laps. My quads started hurtin' & crampin' the last two miles and I was barely hanging onto the group. I gave it one more shot to get past for a chance at the sprint but it wasn't happening. I just rolled in since time was not a factor in these races, getting 11th. That left me in 8th place GC with 10 points.

The time trial was a little tougher than I thought it would be. A couple of nice hills to climb over after some screaming decents which usually left you in the wrong gear for the climb. I ended up doing the TT twice...the first time a truck/boat combo got in my way at the start, leaving me doing a trackstand for a few moments, but I continued on in case I couldn't get a re-start. I got an estimated 7:18 on that run and I used up a lot of calories to even get that. The officials allowed me the re-start so I lined up behind the 1-2-3's as the last rider and gave it another go. I was still tired from the first run but I was lots braver on the decents and smarter on the gearing, so I ended up with a 7:04 for 6th place of 16 in the Master 45+ group. I was happy being only 9 seconds slower than this guy from New Orleans who was in 5th place, and within 11 seconds of 4th place. Tim, of course, won the TT with a 6:36 but it was not one of his better rides.

It was nice to get back in the peloton again. Hopefully, I'll do okay in Natchez next weekend.