Johnny works to make me FAST....hope it works!
The Wife and I went to Tyler, Texas today to get fitted to our time trial bikes by the great Johnny Cobb! He's been in the bike business for, maybe, 25 years and is an expert on the aerodynamics of a bicycle (spending plenty of time at the Texas A&M wind tunnel) and position fitting for speed, comfort, and efficiency. He established the aero position of Lance Armstrong for his first three Tour de France wins and has worked with other cycling greats as Ivan Basso, Andy Hampsten, and Greg LeMond among others. Originally from Shreveport, he lives now in Tyler and runs a new business call CobbCycling with his first products being bike saddles which Paul and I took photos of back in October (I think) for his website and for other advertising.
We met JC at Elite Cycles in Tyler at 10am and left a bit before one that afternoon. Jonnene was fitted to her Kuota bike first, getting photographed, measured, and one of Johnny's new V-Flow Plus saddles installed. He also did some grinding on the aluminum arm supports of her aero bars to provide an angle that she wanted for her arms when she held the aerobars. There included an adjustment of her shoe cleats and by the time it was said and done, she was in a more comfortable and, hopefully, faster position. The bike is faster...now we'll have to see if Jonnene can keep up with it!
Next was me and I didn't get all the fancy attention that Jonnene did. JC took one look at my position and said, "Man, you are terrible!" Johnny has done this positioning thing for so long that he can just look at someone and correct any flaws without referring to cameras and computers like others who do this type of work. "I can fix somebody in a minute, then I have to justify what I charge," he laughed. There's places in Houston and Austin that have all these fancy setups with print-outs and animated position programs on computers...and they end up with the same result that he gets just by using his eye and experience. I ended up getting shims put on my shoe cleats since my right hip is lower than my left by a little bit and a new headset stem that was only 6 centimeters long which I thought would bunch me up. But it turned out to be very comfortable and surprisingly easier to turn the pedals. Maybe I'll break that hour in the 40K time trial this year?
So we got that done and drove back home. I finished painting the new carport door and installing a kickplate while Jonnene did some bill paying and did a home-made get-well card for one of her patients who got hip surgery last week. We took it easy tonight since she's still not 100% and I plan to get in a long ride in the morning.
Yes, we were supposed to have this ice storm last night that would freeze up everything. Heck, Arkansas was already experiencing layers of ice that measured up to 3" deep! Thousands are without power and the roads are impassable...fairly typical of your average winter-time ice storm. Yawn. Well, it didn't happen here. We woke up to rain outside but it was too warm...it was officially below freezing but I didn't buy that for one second and, apparently, neither did the rain outside. It was cold but no ice anywhere. In fact, it stayed cold all day and that chilly breeze didn't help any.
Jonnene's feeling a bit under the weather with a sore throat but she went to work and taught a pilates class tonight, whispering most of the time. I spent most of the day painting the "bike room" and I'm about halfway thru that. I had no free-lance jobs to worry about although I did have to phone in a few instructions for printing an invitation and reply card for a local fund-raiser that Goodwill was putting together. Tonight I spent one hour on the wind trainer and I hope to get in some riding outside tomorrow afternoon. The temps will be better...lower 50's...and the sun should be out.
Rode this morning...just Mike, Roland, and myself....did a shortened version of the 5:50 ride. About 3 miles shorter, mostly because the streets were wet (we didn't expect that) and we started getting rained on when we approached downtown. Roland asked what do we do now? Mike said we had so much gear on that we probably wouldn't get wet before we got home. I agreed. My feet would have gotten wet first since I had no booties on but after a few minutes the rain stopped so it wasn't an issue. I was still rolling tires with 140 psi in them and I wasn't comfortable doing that on wet roads. I kept my center of gravity VERY upright.
The weekend was as uneventful as you could imagine...well, maybe not that bad. The Saturday morning weather found Jonnene and I on our wind trainers in front of the TV for a solid hour's spin. Actually a pretty good workout. We opened the back french doors, turned off the heat, turned on the ceiling and box fans, and got with the program. We sweated quite a bit doing our own workouts. Sunday we didn't even bother to go outside. It was okay as far as the actual temperature was concerned but it was dreary cloudy, windy, and felt colder than I liked. I had no enthusiasm to go ride and I also had a catch in my back that wasn't much fun (still have it but it's much better now).
We did do some things around the house. Jonnene did some reorganizing of a couple of closets and cleaned the place up. We discussed how we wanted to redo the closets and take advantage of some wasted space. Always something to do....
The first to give it a go...that's me, second from the right.
Tonight my bike racing team, Team LaS'port, tried its first attempt at a mid-week training ride that mimicked conditions of a real race. The Wednesday Night Crits started up with ten riders in 50-degree temps in the dark...well, we had street lights...and it went pretty well. Basically, the course was back-and-forth on this stretch of wide road near a manufacturing/technology park...about six-tenth's of a mile per lap with two 180-degree turns. Being as this was my first real speed work of the new year, I decided to do about 35 minutes of hard effort and then just ride a bit to keep the tired legs loose. I'll have plenty of other times to increase my endurance for this kind of ride and I didn't need to blow it all out tonight. But it was fun. I did a couple of jumps, made people chase me, and in return I did a lot of chasing. It was easy to get tired but the cold weather kept everyone feeling somewhat fresh.
Craton, owner of Bikes, Etc., was there and gave out a gift certificate as a door prize. That was nice of him. His shop is very interested in getting involved with the bike racers and triathletes in town and he seems to want to walk the talk.
I got some work done this week. If you go to SlowTwitch.com at their triathlon forum section, you might catch a banner ad for CobbCycling.com that I worked up. The banner pops up at various times when you enter the site.
At the Cobb Cycling website you can see all the pics of the saddles that Paul and I shot last October for the website which is now officially open. Now go buy a saddle so I can get paid for my work!!
Today is the inauguration of The Chosen One. I'm not going to pay much attention to it although Rush Limbaugh is broadcasting the event with running commentary and that'll be the extent of my involvement. I hope the New President does well in the next four years but I wouldn't bet on it. It's a tough job for anyone no matter their political affiliation or beliefs. However, the closer a President is to the intent of the Founding Fathers, the better off the country as a whole will be. I fear that Barack Hussein Obama will stray from that long-time goal. I fear he'll lower the expectations of the USA...with the help of the current Congress...and that he'll pass blame to others. He will make the mistakes of any man who has the lack of experience that he has and the media will give him a pass. Excuses will be made for him...he won't have to say a thing.
LANCE IS BACK! Racing the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, South Australia. So far, so good. You can tell the race is definitely in Australia!
Jonnene and I are still recovering from a long 70+ mile ride on Sunday. Actually I did alright with my third long ride of the year and I'm up to 460 miles for January and 2009. She had not done a ride past 50 miles in quite some time but she bulldozed thru this one and I'm proud of her perseverance.
It's been boring in The Mansion this week....lots of cold weather (but sunny!) and work picked up, too. I've got a fund-raising invitation to finish up and a magazine ad to send out sometime today. Just when I think I'm getting out of this business something drags me back into it just a-kickin' and a-screamin'. I did get out yesterday to do some hill repeats on the bike but I was covered up to deal with the cold...but you still sweat from the efforts and that chills you. It's supposed to be 27 degrees tomorrow morning and I'm going to drag myself outside to knock out about 40 miles. The long ride will be saved for Sunday...I can hardly wait.
Guess what I'm doing Tuesday? Staying as far away from the TV as possible!! I'll have Rush Limbaugh cranked up during the day for laughs and some sanity.
A new conservative blog website has popped up and it's great! Called Big Hollywood and it's easy to spend way too much time here reading the thoughts of folks from SoCal who have to keep their conservatism under the radar in Tinsel Town.
Also was pointed to another conservative satire website called The People's Cube which reminds me a lot of the old National Lampoon magazine I used to read in the 70's but the magazine had a more liberal bent to it. This website is hilarious and has way too many articles and links in it to cover in a single day. Here is true political satire at its best and it's by conservatives!! Who'd thought?
Believe it or not, Louisiana is sorta recession-proof. Having oil and gas as our primary state-producing products helps a lot...people gotta have oil and oil products (practically everything out there!) and we've dealt with past recessions way better than most of the rest of the states outside of Texas. When the USA catches a cold, Louisiana just sniffles. We'll be hit by the down-turn of the national economy but it'll only deal us a glancing blow.
Anyways, here a simple thing you can do to help deal with the current economic downturn that's going on. Try to buy locally and at the smaller stores, the mom-and-pop types. The Wal-Marts and other large chain stores will survive in some form or fashion, or not be really affected at all. They'll still be here when all this is said and done. It's the single businesses that will be hurt the worst and they stand a better chance of going out of business, to be gone forever. Sure, their products may be a bit more expensive but the smaller places hire the majority of workers in this country and if they go under...well, it won't make the news like seeing 150,000 laid off from some car company but, as a whole, layoffs from the smaller businesses can make that 150,000 look pretty small. Do business in your town and help it survive. It's a nice thing to do. I hate looking at empty buildings that used to belong to now closed businesses.
For example, we want to replace a couple of windows in our house. We could easily go to Lowe's or Home Depot but we're going to talk to local contractors who deal with a local door/window place. The bigger stores will get business despite what we do but the local contractors are starting to hurt a bit and are looking for work, size of the job is not an issue anymore. That's how we replaced our carport door last month and they did a good job...have even checked back with us to make sure it's working properly. I like that kind of business and they'll get mine.
So, help out the small guy. That'll do more for the economy than anything else in the long run.
Did my second long ride of the year, staying to my pledge to do a long ride at least once a week to prepare for Rouge-Roubaix on March 8th...if I do it! Knocked out 91 miles in a vicious 10-20 mph wind that I rode head-on into for probably 2/3's of the ride and it really took a lot out of me. I started with the LaS'port group for the first seven miles where we had a great tailwind, going around 30 mph, sometimes up to 32...very fast on the wet road we were traveling! Then I was on my own as I stuck to my plan for a fat-burning, Long, Slow Distance (LSD) ride. I have to admit that riding by myself for 83 miles isn't the most fun I've ever had. But now I've already got a total of 304 miles in the saddle by the tenth day of January and, in the past, I've never had more than 260 miles for the ENTIRE month! I hope this pays off. I was tired the rest of the day and pretty much ate back all the weight I lost!
This list is only about those folks who have been in the headlines or have stood out in other fields for a short or long period of time. I also know plenty of other outstanding people who don't get the press but I'll save them for another time.
Jim Irwin - Lunar module pilot of Apollo 15 and eighth man to walk on the moon. I met him at a banquet when I was 17 and being the space nut I was as a kid I was absolutely gassed to meet him and shake the hand of a man who walked on the moon. I had made a banner for the head table at the banquet and he complimented me on the design. I could barely get the words out to say thank you.
Alec Baldwin - actor. I can't stand his politics but the man can act! A few years ago I was in the American Airlines terminal 4 at Los Angeles International Airport. I was walking, killing time for a flight, when I stopped next to this man bent over picking up Christmas packages that had fallen off his luggage cart. I didn't really look at him but I overheard two ladies saying something about seeing someone's movies and pointing at this guy next to me. The man stood up...he's 6' 2"....and I recognized him as Alec! The two ladies came over to talk to him and he was very polite to them. I moved out of the way and watched. I was impressed that he was carrying his own bags and packages and was not looking for any help due to his celebrity status.
Mercedes McCambridge - actress. When I was in college I used to help out on the spring play which always invited an established thespian to play a role. This particular spring we were doing "Cabaret" and Ms. McCambridge was the featured player, doing one of the minor roles. At that time she was an honored actress but we knew her as the voice of the devil possessing Linda Blair's character in the film "The Exorcist". I was sitting in one of the theater seats watching a dress rehearsal when she came over and sat down next to me. She was already 61 years old at the time and had a deep throaty voice but was a delight to talk to. "I don't like sitting by myself, so I hope you don't mind me being here?" she said. What? What was I going to say? Mercedes, you've won an Oscar....you can sit wherever you want! We talked for about 15 minutes before she had to go do a scene but I truly enjoyed talking to her. The one story I remember is her telling me that she, being Catholic, went to her priest to find out if she was committing a sin in doing the voice of the devil for The Exorcist because of all the foul language she would have to say. Her priest told her not to worry because the words were not from her heart but from a movie script. She admitted she was quite relieved to hear that and the rest is history. I really felt a connection to her when she told me that story and right then she became one of my favorite people. She died in 1991 at age 87.
Rita Moreno - actress, singer, dancer...one of only nine people to win an Oscar, a Grammy, an Emmy AND a Tony award. Watch West Side Story...her dancing kicks ass. Same situation for me as with Ms. McCambridge but the following year. And we sat together in virtually the same seats! She had a wonderful laugh and was interested in what I did...which was boring to me but intensely interesting for her! I loved her after we talked and my ears always perk up when I heard her name anywhere. A few years ago she came to Shreveport for a fund raiser and I made it a point to go. I knew she wouldn't remember me for beans but that was okay. She looked fabulous and was a great master of ceremonies for the event, even sang a song for the audience. Thing was, she was suffering from a throat infection and still did the show! She left early because of her throat but she left an audience who was begging for more.
Suzanne Somers - actress. Very short story...I was at the Lorimar Studios in Los Angeles in 1987 and was getting a personal tour of the studios by a former resident of Shreveport who worked there. Suzanne was starring in a new comedy TV show called "She's The Sheriff" and we dropped in to watch part of the rehearsal. During a break, we went down to the stage and I can say I got to shake hands with her. Definitely a total babe in person!
Nicole Johnson - Miss America 1999. Met her in '99 as part of a promotional event for diabetes research which I had done some graphic artwork for. She wore a pump that would inject insulin at scheduled times and it was largely an experimental device she promoted to show how technology was helping diabetics. She was pretty! And nice, too!
Well, that's all I can think of for now. It was a slow day when I wrote this up. I might do some more later.
Normally, I like rain. It settles me down. At night I sleep fantastically with the sound of rain (I even sleep thru the thunder!). I like the clean air smell afterwards.
But I haven't been on the bike in two days because of it and I don't have much patience to get on a wind trainer. I have a little more patience for spin classes, but not much. But tomorrow is a sunny day...maybe I'll get to ride? Mack has a nighttime ride scheduled for 6pm tomorrow...might do that, too. Spent part of this morning working on wheels and resetting my bike computers. Gotta get on the road.
Jonnene and I finally got out in the front yard and laid waste to the deep layer of leaves scattered all about the place. It was pure ground assault from the word GO. We can proudly announce that the front yard has been cleared of dead leafy matter, all neatly stored in about thirty 39-gallon plastic bags on our front porch until I can put them out on the front verge for the Tuesday trash pickup. There will be medals and commendations all around for this noble venture.
Finishing up for 2008, I set a couple of new PR's for yearly distance in both cycling and running. I racked up 5,091 miles on the bike which is pretty good since I didn't really start riding until March! And in pounding the pavement I put in a record 285 miles, definitely a grand achievement for me. I doubt I'll surpass the run miles in 2009 but I'm going to try to shatter the bike miles this time.
And, before I forget...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAUL!!
Alan and Jonnene watch the after-race awards ceremony.
As for results...just to get that out of the way...I got third in my age group with a time of 56:21, just a second short of two full minutes faster than my time in 2008 (that's me finishing in the photo at right). I ran a more sensible race this time but still ran faster than I was planning on. Averaged 7-minute miles on the first run and 7:27-minute miles on the second run. Compared to 2008, the first run was slower and the second run was faster. My bike average speed was 21.3 mph, faster than last year, and my transition times were faster, though, not by much. It added up to a better race. I was surprised to do that well after dealing with that 112-mile ride just two days earlier. My legs still aren't up to speed yet.
The day started and stayed cloudy with lots of wind while the threat of rain eased off. That was a good thing but the roads still had a dampness on them that made me drop the air pressure in my bike tires so I could get more traction. I wasn't interested in taking the corners fast on those slick surfaces so I sacrificed some time that way during the ride. Jonnene came with me and did her own ride while I prepped for the race. Her knee still isn't up to doing this race yet so riding is her only aerobic exercise option for now.
Lining up for the start I wasn't convinced my legs were ready for this. There seemed to be no power in them, almost like they weren't there. I had taken an ibuprofen and my SportLegs capsules so I hoped I'd do alright. I knew I could do the run but I didn't want it to be ugly out there either. Well, it worked out okay. Headed out fast the first 200 meters and then eased back into a nice trot which turned out to be faster than I thought it would be. Elka, a long-time runner, caught me near the end but I stayed in front as we entered the transition area for the bike. I pulled off my runners, slipped into my cycling shoes, put on the helmet, grabbed the bike, and was on my way. I was probably 50th or so coming in on the run and knew I needed to put some distance on these folks during the bike so I could stay in front of them on the second run. Going down Harts Island Road I passed a huge number of people, including Elka whose transition had been faster than mine. I had beat her by 12 seconds last year but she has been coming on strong in her biking abilities the past year. But I blew by her early on and, like the others I passed, I put her out of my mind and concentrated on the next rider.
I'm estimating that I was probably the 17th rider to complete the bike leg which means I passed at least 30-35 people. But with one kilometer to go, I saw someone pass me on the left and it was Elka! She had been killing herself to catch up to me and did it. I was actually happy for her to be doing so well and thought about just sitting in behind her as we came in. I had done the entire ride in one gear, just pedaling steady with no hard efforts, and saving my legs for the second run. But then, I decided that Elka wasn't going to get this pass so easy. I increased the cadence and blew by her at 27 mph yelling "You gotta earn it!" She had no answer as I got ahead by a few seconds at the end.
Ending the bike ride just a few seconds ahead of Elka (in the back). 
changed shoes, and headed out with both him and Elka still fiddling with their gear. I knew they were both going to catch me and they did. Several other runners came by me and I would end up 25th overall out of 131 entrants. My second run was a lot better than last year and, as usual, I never thought that finish line would ever get to me! Deuce came in 20 seconds ahead of me and Elka was at 10 seconds ahead (see photo above). Good race for both of them. I wasn't too upset with mine, that's for sure.
Not much happened today, unless you want to hear about my New Year's Day training ride. It was 112 miles of fun and frolic through the extreme northwest corner of Louisiana and through parts of East Texas. I hope I can walk like a normal person tomorrow. The destination was Jefferson, Texas and by the time we arrived at the convenience store in the middle of downtown we had already covered 53 miles...only 59 left to go. This ride was mainly to get some quality miles and saddle time (yeah, about 6 hours and 34 minutes of butt-to-saddle time) and speed was not an issue this time. I did pretty well for the first 80 miles, eating and drinking when I needed to, but the legs don't have much in them yet and the last 32 miles were tough. I think the average speed came out to 16.7 mph after we had hit a high of 18.3 mph before I lost the lead riders. It was nice to finished and get a shower! Tomorrow morning I'll decide if I want to do another long ride...but don't bet on it! I really need to recover for the duathlon on Saturday.
Jonnene did a 26-mile new year's day ride with the local bike club, an annual tradition that's been going on for...well, a lot of years now. They head out to Waskom, Texas and back, then it's off to a local Mexican restaurant to reload the calories!
And that's about it! Happy New Year to everyone and I wish you all the best.
Johnny works to make me FAST....hope it works!
