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.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
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.
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.
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