Every once in a while I draw something I really like. This sketch of an eaglet (a young eagle without the white head-crown) was one I did yesterday while working on a storyboard for a TV commercial. The storyboard sketches were supposed to be roughs but I really liked how this one turned out. I love doing pencil sketches but I just don't do it enough. Free-lancing is more computer oriented now and that's a shame for the real artists and illustrators out there.
And people actually pay me to do this...that always amazes me.
It's just something I do.
Last Sunday was the TCC 20K Time Trial in Monroe, 12.4 miles of fun. We had a great turnout of folks from Team LaS'port. Mat would win the overall and that was no surprise...the guy's a stud-hoss. JP won the Cat. 5 division. The big deal was having four women from our team out there, including Jonnene!
I didn't have as good a time out there...just wasn't my day. I knew I was in better shape than last year...way better...but nothing came together for me. It didn't help that there was a headwind on the outbound leg and once I went around the first curve I was going only 19 mph instead of the 27 mph I should have been doing at that point. That shot me mentally because I knew I wasn't going to get the 31-minute time I was hoping for. Plus a sqeaking noise out of my cogset started getting on my nerves...plus I kept sliding forward on my seat (I readjusted the seat after the race...we're okay now), hitting my elbows with my knees...plus....
Yeah, quit whining, Alan. Basically, I just couldn't get into a rhythm and I ended up 34 seconds slower than I was last year with a 33:34. Just 16 months ago I did a 30:22 on this same course. Oh, well, it was a good workout and I'll get over it.
Here I am talking to Elka before the time trial. She had a great ride, going 33:32, although she complained of the difficulty in the wind she had.
I understood totally.
Ready to go at the starting line...or at least I thought I was ready. About a minute later I was going to find out that my ride was going to be a disappointment!
Jonnene and Elka preparing to line up for their starts. 
Mary checks in with the starter while Jonnene and Brantley wait behind. Everyone went off at one minute intervals.
Coming across the finish line...you can see in my face that I'm not happy with my ride. It should have been faster but it wasn't. No biggie, it'll get better as the year goes on. Hopefully this is my only bad day of the year and that means I already have it out of the way now!
Last Saturday was a long fast ride, probably my first this year of that intensity....about 75 miles all told and I cratered at around 65 miles. I felt fine from the waist up, no aerobic problems, breathing was fine, but my legs finally gave out and I had to let the group of twelve other riders go. I noodled home, stopping at a convenience store to down a couple of oatmeal/raisin cookies for a little extra energy. Part of the problem was that I didn't eat and drink as much as I should have during the ride and I knew it the whole time. But I had fun out there and enjoyed mixing it up with the racers. In a couple more weeks I just might be ready to get that first road race of the year under my belt.
I don't think I'm going to do Rouge-Roubaix though I could change my mind. I could get stupid like that. That's three weeks off and I'll have to decide if I want to spend the money to get beat like a drum. I'd like to do it one more time but it's not on my things-to-do-before-I-die list...I've already done it three times but not since 2004. I really think I could do it faster than I ever have before if I don't have any flats or mechanicals, like on two of those other rides. I'll let my head skate on that for a while.
I am planning on doing the 20K (12.4 miles) time trial in Monroe this Sunday. The Guru is about as ready as it's going to be and maybe I'll get under 32 minutes which would be a good personal time for this early in the year. My fastest time on this course is a 30:22 and last year I squeezed out a 33-even with virtually no prior rides in my legs. Maybe it'll be better this time...I already have over 900 miles so far this year.
Jonnene's coming, too, and will give her Kuota its first real race test. I think she'll do just fine. I'll try to have some photos when I post about it then.
A racing buddy o' mine, Shannon Koch, won the criterium stage at the Valley of the Sun stage race in Arizona last weekend. She needed a win...it's been about 19 months since her last victory in Tulsa. With that win she finished 7th overall in the three days of racing, her best result in that race in the last five years.
Around the house I'm getting the bike room in shape. It's been repainted and now it's being reorganized...keeping stuff, tossing stuff out. We want to make it a functional room, not just a place to toss our biking, running, camping, whatever stuff in. Maybe someday we'll have a TV in there so we can do wind-trainers while watching a movie or do pilates in an open space. We're also getting our bedroom closets and pantry redone and make the space more useable and practical. More on that later. Free-lancing is still going on...right now I have a helicopter paint scheme to work out and have to finished up a fund-raising program guide for the local Goodwill. Just finished up a couple of magazine ads, too. Check out this one for Cobb Cycling to go in the next issue of Triathlete Magazine:
Dedicated to a very good friend (who'll remain nameless):any minute nowmy ship is coming ini keep checking the horizonand i'll stand on the bowand feel the waves come crashingcome crashing down, down, downon meand you say be still my loveopen up your heart, let the light shine indon't you understandi already have a plani'm waiting for my real life to beginon a clear dayi can see for a very long way
– colin hay "waiting for my real life to begin"
About 1:30 am last night we had a little weather happening come thru town, part of a larger system that caused a few deadly tornados in Oklahoma. Jonnene's dog, Sophie, jumped up on the bed shaking like a leaf while there were numerous flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder going on. What was noticed was the sound of the wind and the hard rain outside. I went back to sleep.
So this morning came and I crawled out of bed to prepare for the weekly Wednesday run with the guys - our 4-mile Man Run. I cleared out some of the branches on the driveway when I left (Jonnene removed a big one earlier when she walked Sophie) and met Jeff and Mike at the tennis courts. Rex wasn't there due to continuing knee issues and Matt didn't show up either but we figured that there might be storm-related things going on at his house since he lives further out of town. During our run we saw the usual debris in the streets and lots of water but not much else...until we got to the south part of the neighborhood where a large pine tree was laying across the street, totally blocking any traffic. It was the top half of the tree on the ground with the bottom half standing in the ground. Most tall pine trees will snap about halfway in a strong shear wind, so this was a classic result. Good thing it broke toward the street and not to the house only 15 feet away. We ran around it on the sidewalk and finished the run.
There's another snapped pine about two houses down from our place on the other side of the street but it also landed away from the house into the front yard. I still haven't done an inspection of our property but I think we're fine. We lost power for a moment during the storm and had to reset some of our clocks. I do know I have a lot of sticks to pick up!
We were in Baton Rouge over the weekend so that Jonnene could attend a seminar/classes on myofascial release...something about which I haven't the slightest clue. After all, I'm an art major. Pencil, paper, draw, print...I can wrap my head around that.
I took my bike, riding both Saturday and Sunday. Did the south loop of the epic Rouge-Roubaix road race course up in St. Francisville and really wore myself out for only 53 miles of steep hills, gravel/dirt roads, and some stiff wind. On Sunday I did an easy loop on the River Road south of the LSU campus to loosen my legs from Saturday's effort. The Rouge route was just as tough as I remembered it from 2004 and the climbs on the Tunica Trace in the gravel and dirt felt like someone was hitting my thighs with a hammer as I struggled up at 3 mph in my easiest gearing. My wheels were sliding side-to-side on the rocks and I was doing my best not to fall over. I stayed up all the way through but the Trace is the slowest and hairiest 4 miles you can do on a road bike. A mountain bike might not have as tough a time out there.
We stayed at the Embassy Suites where they have these really great breakfasts and the rooms are roomy. The University of Alabama basketball team stayed there on Saturday night for a game against LSU on Sunday afternoon. We got on the elevator with one of the players and a team manager that evening. We talked a bit but I held off telling them I graduated from ULM (we beat their football team in 2007 for one of the top five college football upsets in the nation). I actually like Alabama and wouldn't have minded going there as a student way back when.
Saturday night we went out to the Mall of Louisiana located east of Baton Rouge on I-10 and had dinner at Bravo's, a fancy Italian restaurant on the Boulevard at the mall. Had to wait 25 minutes to get a table. We ordered simple but it was tasty. The serving was big enough for us take half of it back to the hotel for lunch on Sunday (we had a fridge and a microwave in the room).
Here's a couple of links to the trailers for The Year One movie where I played an extra last October. I don't know if I'm visible in any of the crowd scenes here but it gives you an idea of what the inside of the "city" looked like. Enjoy!
Trailer One
Trailer Two
Yeah, someday I'll take the time to figure out how to put the videos directly on this blog so you won't have to follow a link. But, until then, I have to take a shower!
I got myself up out of bed to see what the weather was like and I was surprised at how dry the streets were. We had heard the thunder and saw lightning around 2am, and Sophie The Dog had jumped up on the bed because she isn't that keen on such happenings. But there was definitely evidence of a past rain. I put my bike gear on and headed out the door for the Monday morning 5:50 ride with the temps hovering around 45 degrees and a nice 10 mph wind out of the northwest. I met up with Mike, Roland, Jeff, and his wife Lisa and we altered the route slightly where we went further down the parkway with the tailwind so we would only do a short ride into the wind from Hamel's Park to Preston Drive. Even then the pace was not as fast as it should have been but I wasn't too bothered by it. I probably pulled the fastest out there and that was only at 22-23 mph. I think we sat around 20 mph when everyone else took their turn at the front. That was fine since I had done a 52-mile ride on Sunday.
I spent most of this afternoon dealing with Centenary cycling club stuff. The proof for the team kit came in from Pactimo and, even though it looked really good, there were a few changes and corrections that had to be made. Most of them were simply oversights on the part of the Pactimo graphics department where they didn't follow my instructions exactly. No problem as long as we get the uniforms by the first of April. I also had to deal with the procedures for registering club members for the national college triathlon championships which included getting an account password and the seeding process. Also, I needed to make sure of who in the club is actually serious about doing this so I can reserve the spots. I have one young lady who is definitely signing up and I may have a guy who could be interested (but he doesn't get his bike from home until March). Then I dealt with our new membership in USACycling and spoke to Daniel, the national manager of college and high school cycling for USAC. He sent me some great material and advice on growing the club and getting the college full-on behind the group. It made me a little more excited about what could be done.
As I said, I did a 52 mile ride with a small group of seven other riders into the north stretches above Shreveport. The pace was fairly easy although we did a few harder efforts on occasion and I mostly wanted to get some miles and loosen my legs a bit. Jonnene stayed home due to her lingering cold and did about an hour on her trainer. I think she'd doing much better today and maybe she'll be mostly over it by the weekend.
Every once in a while I draw something I really like. This sketch of an eaglet (a young eagle without the white head-crown) was one I did yesterday while working on a storyboard for a TV commercial. The storyboard sketches were supposed to be roughs but I really liked how this one turned out. I love doing pencil sketches but I just don't do it enough. Free-lancing is more computer oriented now and that's a shame for the real artists and illustrators out there.
