White Hot

I'm well aware that I have some bike post that I need to get to. I want to take some video of the bikes to go with the posts and I'll try to get some of those done this afternoon. In the mean time, I thought I would show off my new kicks.

I've been a huge Sidi fan for a while. They hold up amazingly well and most of the small parts are replaceable so you can wear them for years. My original Sidi's were a set of silver Hi-Techs that had the dual ratchets and the typical top strap with buckle. They've served me well for 4 years but a couple of crashes have led to some serious scuffs and caused one of the buckles to get finicky. I liked some of the other Sidi's that were out but nothing grabbed me enough to justify moving past these still functional if not quite as aesthetically pleasing shoes. Then Sidi released the new Wire and Wire Vent. The Wire has two independent ratchets on the lower portion of the shoe and then a ratchet versus a buckle on the top strap. Ratchets allow for a lot better management of the tension resulting in a better fit in my opinion. The Vent version also has a sliding vent in the bottom of the shoe along with mesh areas on the top to help your foot breath. This is especially important in the warmer months we have here. So it all came down to which color. Sidi had the standard and classy black, a special edition neon yellow, and white. So here they are....

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Travel, Changes, and the Bike(s)

I'm back after spending July till early October overseas with work. It was a great experience but generally not good for my fitness. The other way to look at it was that it was a forced hiatus for my body and now being back my body feels great and recovers much faster then it did prior to the travel.

Prior to the travel, I was feeling very uninspired about the road bikes and was actually riding a carbon 29er I had built some. That was until a couple of hard crashes right before I left had me deciding that mountain biking wasn't for me and to focus on road and CX. So selling the mountain bike, the financial benefits of an overseas assignment, plus the lonely downtime in the hotel room meant a lot of bike forum surfing and eBay shopping. The result was minor to major (as in all together new) overhauls for my road and CX bikes. I will cover these in separate post.

The major philosophy change in all this was to try to pair down my equipment. In the past, I've had tubular race wheels and clincher training wheels with a set of each for each bike. The race wheels are definitely the nicer of the two but with my lack of racing over the past 1 1/2 years, most had probably been ridden 2-3 times during that span. So after lots of research and buoyed by my experience going tubeless on the mountain bike, I decided to sell off my clinchers and go all tubular. That way I would have 1 set of wheels for each bike plus 1 spare road and 1 spare CX wheelset. It would also mean that I would actually be riding the nice wheels versus leaving them hanging in garage.

Stretching tires

 

So once I got back, it was a flurry of re-vamping the wheels, rebuilding one set with tubular rims, building two new sets of tubular wheels, adding sealant to the tubular tires, and gluing up tires. So far I've had 4 road rides plus 3 short CX races and really enjoyed the switch. The tubulars ride better, the wheels I'm riding are much nicer, and the one flat (pure bad luck, the sidewall was torn) was corrected fairly easily by pulling the tire off, mounting the spare. It's still early in this experiment and so I'll check back in a couple of months to let you know if this will stick.

A couple of sets glued

 

A random picture of Jens Voigts bike equipment at a local bike shop. He was doing an upcoming local ride and his equipment happened to be delivered when I stopped into get some more sealant. There were two Leopard Trek bike bags in addition to pictured wheel and gear bags. Is it strange that I was more excited to be close to his equipment then him?

 

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Life Off The Bike

I haven't posted in a while and to be honest, I haven't done much riding since my last blog post, primarily because I've been away from home traveling with work. At the time I'm writing this, I haven't been anywhere near a proper bike in 7 weeks.

That does not mean my passion for the sport has lessened. If anything, it has been rekindled. I've managed to keep up with the Tour de France, Olympic races, and now the Vuelta, even if the coverage can be spotty overseas. Believe it or not, outside of western Europe, the US actually has a lot of resources that officially or unofficially provide pretty good coverage or Pro Tour racing. I also read David Miller's new book, Racing Through The Dark. It was a honest look at his life, career, failures, and comeback. Books like this are good in that they provide an honest perspective on the doping culture of pro cycling. Unfortunately, this honesty also leads to the perspective that pro cycling is a sport filled with cheats while in reality, it's not much different then track & field, football, or even European futbol. These other sports simply do a much better job of denying that doping is prevalent within their sports and the public is willing to go along with this charade.

The traveling has also meant a lot of dead time in hotel rooms with not much other than the internet for company. This has allowed me to do extensive shopping for bike deals and queue up multiple bike projects including a new road bike that is actually closed to finished, and several wheel projects amoung other things. When I return home I'll try to post up on these projects and hopefully get in a few cyclocross races before school starts back up.

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Catching Up

It's been a while since I last posted. My last post was running my first half-marathon. I've done a few other events since then. Not to long after that a coworker suggested I enter local duathalon. It was a short 5k run, 20k bike, 5k run. It was a fun but eye-opening experience. I quickly realized in the first 5k that my 6:30 miles were incredibly slow. The top guys were putting in 5:15 miles so I was facing a 3-4 minute deficit by the time I reached the bike. The bike leg was comforting as I quickly caught and passed many that had left me struggling during the run. Going into the last run leg, I entered the transition with another guy in my age group. He had put significant time into me on the first run but I caught him on the bike right before the transition. Starting the run he quickly built a 100 yard lead but at that point I was able to stop the bleeding and match his pace. About halfway through the run I started to find a rhythm and begin to be able to pick up the pace. I caught him with about 1.5K to go and made a quick move to pass and get a gap. He was not able to follow and I finished about 20 seconds ahead of him. I finished with a time of 1:19 which was 13th overall and 3rd in my age group. It was a lot of fun, no worrying about race tatics, simply trying to find your limit and hold it.

The other event that I did was the Fort Davis road race. It's the only race in Texas that has legitimate climbing. Climbing is not my forte but it's a welcome change and challange from the normal Texas crit/flat road race scene. The first stage was a hill climb time trial which featured grades up to 15%. It was brutal and I flatted near the top but still managed to finish. However, due to small fields, we were combined with the P12 group for the afternoon road race. Warm temperatures, humidity in the teens, and a lot more climbing made for an absolutely brutal race. The field was destroyed about 7 miles in and about the halfway point of the race incredible cramps set in despite drinking 3 bottles. I managed to finish but barely. My body was incredibly wrecked. The Sunday stage was mercifully canceled due to wild fires and I don't know that I could have started it if it hadn't.

Outside of the limited racing, I've still been running and riding a decent amount but nothing structured. Honestly, this has been incredibly refreshing. My life has enough demands and structure in work that the idea of structured workouts with intervals and defined objectives isn't appealing. My time riding or running is a release and in order to get that release, I need the freedom to do whatever calls to me in the moment. This means a lot of mountain biking, Strava segment hunting, and general fun. I don't think this is the end to all racing but possibly the end to most road races and crits. I still look forward to cyclocross, would like to try some mountain bike races, run a marathon, and do some more duathalons and maybe a triathalon or two. But, the main goal of my sport at this time is to enjoy the sport. This means that my blogging may continue to be sporadic at best but who knows what the future holds.

If You Need Motivation....

Next time you don't feel like working out or are upset that training isn't going perfectly, watch this video.

Now remember how easy you have it, how lucky you are to enjoy sports, and then go outside and lose yourself in it.  (video found in a DC Rainmaker blog post)

Running Milestone

Since my schedule doesn't allow for a lot of cycling (or timely blogging), I have been running.  I also decided to use this time to attempt to scratch some accomplishments off the exercise bucket list as well as build the confidence to do the ultimate on my bucket list, complete a Kona Ironman someday.  So the running portion of the exercise bucket list consisted of a half-marathon and then a full marathon.  I tackled the first part of that about a week ago at the Austin Livestrong Half Marathon.  I ran the half marathon distance twice in the training leading up to the race so I was confident that I could run the full length.  I also wanted to run a sub 1:45 half marathon but I was nervous because I had heard the Austin course was somewhat difficult for a first timer and I had never run with any sort of group, let alone 18,000 people.

My beautiful wife drove me down and dropped me off as close as she could get me about 20 minutes before the start of the race.  I made my way into the start area and found the area for my "pace".  The race was set up so the fastest people start in the front and everyone lines up by pace behind them.  The weather was beautiful and soon we were off.  The first mile was hectic to say the least.  I quickly learned that a lot of people lined up near the front but had no intention of running a fast pace.  I also started out much faster then planned so the first mile or two was weaving up through the crowd.  It was still a large group at the first mile marker and I was serenaded by the sound of hundreds of fitness devices beeping the notification.  My pace continued to be higher then planned but I felt good so I tried to keep it steady.  The first four miles are slightly uphill before turning around and heading back down towards downtown.  The run was largely uneventful till about mile three when a spectator exclaimed loudly "it's him!!" as I passed.  I turned to look over my right shoulder at the spectator only to see Lance Armstrong catch and pass me.  He was followed by ten to fifteen runners pacing themselves on him.  I picked up the pace slightly and kept the gap close for a quarter mile before thinking better of it and backing down.  Apparently the pace had taken it's tole on the fifteen or so runners that had been following him as they dropped off and fell behind even me.  I followed Lance at a slight distance for the next two-three miles as he unassumingly ran through the crowd of runners.  He finally pulled away and disappeared a little before we approached downtown.

We turned west about mile eight to loop away from downtown before coming back to the finish.  At this point I realized my time was close to 1:30 pace but I was starting to slow.  Hitting 1:30 on my first half marathon would have been my ultimate accomplishment so I tried to pick the pace backup.  I continued to feel decent and catch runners as we hit the end of the loop and headed back towards downtown.  About mile eleven, my pace was good and I felt strong running down Enfield road when we came upon a big hill I had forgotten about.  The road dips down to a bridge over Shoal Creek before rising back up at about a 10% grade.  The hill killed my pace and took a lot out of my legs.  I spent the next mile trying to find my legs as well as running and breathing rhythm again.  I finally felt somewhat normal going into the last mile but I didn't have the pop I had hoped for to finish fast.  I ended up running a 1:31:48 which I can be proud of but to be that close to 1:30 and miss it was disappointing.

The biggest takeaway was the difference in running and cycling.  I read about the same time a thread on a triathlon forum about how running and triathlons are very much an individual competition as much as they are a group competition.  Even if you don't have a chance to place, you can still set a personal best and/or attempt to finish higher within your age group.  Cycling however is an all or nothing sport.  You either finish in the top or it doesn't matter.  There aren't any personal best or break outs.  I can see how cycling can be discouraging once you reach a category where your physical make-up or the time allowed for training in your life cause you to hit a performance ceiling.  At that point you can be relegated to mediocrity and pack finishes.   These aren't all bad and there is still the joy of racing but when you recognize your physical limitations and work/school severely limits your training, running and triathlon (or duathalons if you can't swim well like me) certainly hold a lot of appeal and can seem more rewarding.  I think I will probably focus more competitive energy towards running and duathalons at least till I can finish school and get that item off my plate.  That's my plan right now but we will see how it all works out.  In case you were interested, I provided a link to the Strava of my half marathon.

January Status

Here is a quick recap and links for January.

There's not been any racing going on but I have taken advantage of the break from school to get in some miles on the bike.  I picked up a Garmin Edge 800 (more details later) that provides the ability to create courses and have specific directions.  I have a few rides on it and really like the functionality it provides and the ability to ride new routes or get lost and have it take me home.  There is the argument that you could do all this with the Edge 500 combined with the iPhone.  This is true but I don't like the idea of mounting my phone on my bars or pulling it out of my pocket to check where I am.  Following are a few links that I have found interesting.

Strava:  This site is great for tracking rides, finding good routes, and maintaining motivation.  You can also "follow" other riders so you can see keep up with their activities and performance.  There are Pro riders as well so you can review their rides and feel thoroughly humbled.  They recently added a running portion so I can now track both my runs and rides.  All you need is a GPS device or the app for the iPhone or Droid. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

DC Rainmaker: His blog is probably the best at reviewing fitness electronics.  If you want a thorough explanation of the features and functionality of a fitness device, look no further.  Here is a link to his review of the Garmin Edge 800 I purchased.  Why re-write what has already been explained in more detail and style then I ever could?
Also, I have come to enjoy his weekly recaps for the collection of interesting post, typically fitness related, that is a best of the internet for me.  Once again, I highly recommend this site.

Final link is actually from a DC Rainmaker weekly recap.  I thought the images here were especially interesting.

Well, my next semester starts now so we will see how it progresses and if I might be able to squeeze in a few events along the way.  See ya soon.