Just because you want to stay in kindergarten your whole school career doesn't mean you should!

MABRAcross Public Service Announcement from In The Crosshairs on Vimeo.

Thanks to MABRAcross for the PSA.

I mean Kindergarten is great, snack time, nap time, story time, recess, easy homework.

But seriously how fair is it to the new 5 year olds in Kindergarten to have to be in a class with a bunch of 10 year olds?

Yeah, there's a good number of "racers" who are essentially like a 10 year old doing Kindergarten for the 5th year in a row.

Just because Diane doesn't force you to upgrade doesn't mean you shouldn't do the right thing.

Seriously. Thank you.

Let me first state the obvious – leaving aside the fact that USDA’s own organic standards do not allow the use of genetically engineered crops, Stonyfield is absolutely and utterly opposed to the deregulation of GE crops. We believe that these crops are resulting in significantly higher uses of toxic herbicides and water, creating a new generation of costly “super” weeds; pose severe and irreversible threats to biodiversity and seed stocks; do not live up to the superior yield claims of their patent holders; and are unaffordable for small family farmers in the US and around the world. We believe that organic farming methods are proving through objective, scientific validation to offer far better solutions. We also believe that unrestricted deregulation of GE crops unfairly limits farmer and consumer choice.

I still stand by the fact that their flavored products are oversweetened but hey- he can put as much sugar as they want in there if it keeps funding the work Gary is doing.

(for the record - there are lots of very good points in the comments about how WF SF and OV could be doing a better job and where they fall short... hopefully those who have as much negativity can put their $ where their mouths are)

Gotta say this film is awesome. kill the sound on the basic footage (i don't like the sped up track) and it would be perfect. I know it probably is there deliberately...

Braised Lamb Shanks from Fast Boy on Vimeo.

Read the backstory here. Yes it is from FastBoy, aka Ezra. I'm jealous of his work space for cooking. A big long butcher block counter would be awesome in the middle of my kitchen. Move the Fridge over into the pantry and make a long table/bar/island opposite from the sink and stove out of that stuff. would be luxurious.

for now I'll stick with my cutting board next to the stove. Not going to wear a spot out in those tiles no matter how long I cook standing there.

Yeah so i've been slacking.

So much good stuff out there to read. Like this piece: "Triathlon is a Stupid Sport"

I know some good guys who are/were triathletes and they pretty much have said nothing different than what was written there.

Entertaining at least.

Then the other big shoe dropped is from that Kimmage guy. How much time do you have?

Because it is going to take a long time to read it. I would start with the TimesOnline article but they want you to pay money for content. I don't like paying money for content, esp if I can find it for free.

I'm sure the times article is much shorter. But i guess the whole interview is probably the better thing to read anyway. Raw data over the processed stuff. Draw your own conclusions and leave the artistic writing and design off the table.

Mahk McCormahk posted this video up on FB this morning.

crazy shit.

Maybe US Open cycling should try something like this, or really just do roller races on real rollers... not 500m pedal as fast as you can on a fork mounted fixed gear on no-resistance rollers.

I'm going to head to Casters again tonight. Hopefully Freddy saves me a trainer, one of these days I'll get a new one ordered. We'll see, for now i'm fortunate to be able to use a shop trainer to get at least one hard workout in this time of year. Not enough to built, nor consistent enough to focus on one specific skill, but it gets my HR up and the watts going better than the commute (other than me trying to ride on the bike path in the snow).

I suppose if I got the Mt Bike together maybe it would be possible to ride in on the path.

Weekends lately have been about moving snow or hauling kids around, maybe this weather will for another snowday or two on us and I can work a bit more on the bikes. Actually kind of hope it doesn't.

I need to chop the top off the snow piles around the parking spot. Can't see to back out into the street. Not ideal. The piles are taller than the mini-Van right now and extend all the way out past the pavers into the street. I spend a couple hours this weekend moving snow, widening the path to get the van in and out, but didn't really do the whole chopping the top off the mound.

Okay - instead of reading more of the Kimmage I wrote this... I'm actually debating use a branch of a tree and some carbon black and printing the damn thing out.

Today! Yes!

Well there was the dentist appointment today. Got the car dug out and she started RIGHT UP! Well after the glow plugs cycled off boom instant diesel rumble.

Got it shoveled out (only a few patches of stubborn ice mounds to deal with) and managed to get the kid picked up, for a very long appointment. Took much longer than anticipated/usual. Once the kid was returned, and seeing how I prepared well enough to leave my work stuff at home (keys, card to open doors and what not) well by the time I got home, ate some food, get back in - being there for a few hours seemed kind of pointless, and with nothing on the calendar today and craziness starting tomorrow? Choice was made for me. Simple as can be.

We added another two inches of snow here today. Not to bad but enough to warrant a shoveling.

A painful clunking coming from the left rear of the passat motivated me to take the EZ-up out of the back, and clean up some of the season long accumulation. Maybe the bottle left over from the delicious home brew Paul gave me at Plymouth Day 2 was the culprit. Or the tent itself, or the bottles of anti-freeze in the secret compartment. Hell maybe I should check the spare under the carpet in the back too. Hmmm. Well it got cleaned up anyway.

Before heading to the dentist I fired up the ancient laptop. A Dell Lattitude 486DX I think. Lattitude anyway, the serial and model numbers have long since worn off the back.

Wouldn't you know? No problem starting up Win95 (installed using a parallel zip disk mind you - nice cracked and trimmed down to 95 meg version). Or starting the diag software.

So after getting it all cleaned out I climbed in with the 'puter plugged her in and noticed the inverter light was flickering. Ah damn. It was the cig lighter adapter causing the phantom power issues. Simplest answer is often the correct one.

Timing? Bang the fuck on right in the middle. No difference in sound from the engine when switching to basic mode (a good sign). And the fault code was exactly as I suspected 00575 MAP intermittent. So time for new vacuum/boost hoses, when it warms up.

Hopefully the clunk will go away and I can put off doing the rear struts for a while. It isn't so much the cost as the daunting task of completely taking every last bit of brittle plastic out of the interior to get at the strut tower mounts. Probably will take a bit of a bottle of MAP gas to get some of the hardware apart too.

Not something I want to do in frozen temps with slush and snow everywhere, ice frozen into nooks and crannies you'd never expect.

And now that the snow has stopped falling and lunch has been eating - car dealt with, maybe it is time for a walk with the dog. Temps are warm. But then she looks so comfortable sleeping on the couch right now. A nap sounds almost like a better idea.

Now to get the commuting beast ready for tomorrow's ride in, aka trainer wheel from last night removed.

Be safe out there
heddwch
G

Number of posts: 3100. nothing significant about it but it is still a number that isn't 3099 or 3104 or something random. Like the odometer certain numbers get noticed. The Passat was parked at 222,222 for a good bit of time. Going to have to dig that beast out for tomorrow though now that I think of it. Shoot. Should have thought about it when I could have let the sun do some work as far as clearing the snow and ice off the windshield. Oh well. Have to put it in service to do a Dentist run for one of the kids tomorrow. I think the timing is retarded on it, the harder than normal cold starting and the slightly smokier running and smoother/quiet idle sort of clue me in to that. I'd check it but the only laptop computer with the diagnostic software on and a serial cable connection is 15 years old, and well, i guess that's kind of a long time to expect a computer, much less a laptop to work. Only way to check the timing is with a computer, which normally isn't a bad thing since everything is managed by the computer and the maps and sensors and what not and you need it to work on it. Might have to focus on trying to get that ancient laptop to boot long enough to pull the VWTool software off and try and make it work on a not so ancient one with a serial cable so i can get the damn car.

Well hey, there you go some good old gewilli rambling incoherent words.

20. That be vertical leap in inches right now. Not much I know. esp considering i'm tall and stuff. But white men can't jump right? Well walking down the hall to my office I wonder if i can hit the acoustic tiles with my head, by jumping. So today I gave it a shot. And I knocked the hell out of them. If I'm not careful and don't time the jump to hit the tiles in the middle i could probably mess the supports up pretty good. don't want to do that. So then I thought, well I wonder if I can knock them from a standing still position instead of with a running start.

Yup. 20" is just from the top of my head to just past the tiles. Maybe I can get more elevation. Dunno. But all i remember is never hitting the 20" range before. Numbers like 15" stick in my head. And those might have been added by hand extension. Can't make your head any higher lifting a shoulder.

-1 was how cold it was at the house when i left to ride in. Probably would have been better if I wasn't pedaling in circles waiting for 10 minutes for my co-worker to get to the meeting spot. I nailed the clothing for my head, trunk, arms and hands, and from mid-thigh to ankle. BUT the upper half of the thigh from the top of the leg warmer to the bottom of my baselayer on top was a bit cold. And I went with two pairs of med-thin socks. Probably would have been warmer with just one pair of socks. Toes were cold when i got it.

Once we hit the washington bridge and had to walk up to it, then ride slowly and bumpily across the snow covered solid ice my legs had warmed up (it seemed) but my toes weren't getting warmer. 50 minutes of riding from door to door and ~8 min of pedaling slowly in circles in the sun waiting. Took it pretty easy because of the 10mph headwind and mark had played too much squash the day before and his legs were jello, so i just kept the cadence high and his shadow in my periphery vision. Seemed to work out okay.

Tonight we're going to try and make the indoor trainer session work with the ballet. Timing isn't perfect and that may be a deal breaker. We'll see. I could send em all home early and just ride home, and maybe it will come to that next week or something.

And yes, everyone is tired of me talking about these tires but i gotta say, they hook UP. There's a good number of spots along the road where the ice goes way out into the middle of the lane or across the road and I have no pucker factor anymore. I've tried locking them up on skating rink smooth ice a few times and all i've done is just skid in the direction of momentum. No slipping out sideways like happens with unstudded tires on ice.

And no - not all tires are alike. These Marathon Winters are awesome. Freaking buzz saws. yeah heavy as hell and slow... but bacon saving. And I probably won't stop talking about them until I put some Marathon Plus tires back on when the ice threat has passed.

i didn't watch this till just now but it sort of sounded similar to what i have been thinking.


But then what if your goal is a whole season?

granted i didn't say anything special but Negacoach's comment about general now specificity later...

i wasn't as focused about writing exactly what I did this past year, in terms of training and a training diary.

probably should make a better effort, more focused effort to document everything.

even though i'm not using power... maybe i should get batteries for my old sigma HR monitor at least as a start again for doing stuff like last night. Not the worst idea. I suppose I could look online for a used/heavily discounted Polar downloadable HRM/bike computer, but then that starts the question of recording commuting time, although it would more accurately reflect all saddle time. Should i spend more time doing steerage-way on the commute? Questions to ponder.

Right now my ancient trainer is broken, Saris isn't honoring the lifetime warranty because the Cyclops trainer that I have was made before they bought the company so they are offering a discount if i sent back the old fluid unit... the fluid part is working fine still, just the frame needs a spot weld job, wish I had a welder or friend with one here in town. still doesn't fix the issue of the slop in the clamping mechanism (too many years of a lot of weight at the end of a long lever working it back and forth).

(yeah - over-thinking that for the moment)

Ya know what? It kinda feels good to be back on the optimistic side of things. I still don't know maybe as much as many people about this subject and don't have the years and years of high level competitive training most of the Masters around here do, but it is back to being fun thinking about it.

Thinking unstructured riding now, Monday night indoor sessions at Casters maybe... adding bits and pieces here and there as the weather permits keep track of what i do and look forward to loading up the specificity in the summer.

esp coming from me...

Last night's training session got me thinking, what's effective? How do you gauge judge everything, what do you do to get fast?

What to focus on...

is it possible to get elements of training written down...

Seems it all comes down to goals, what are you trying to accomplish.
And in that there are the periodization and targeting of types of races, road races, crits, time trials and then of course Cyclo-cross (i'm somewhat torn between the classical cyclo-cross vs the more modern cyclocross lately).

Each does require a different set of specifics, but bottom line they all require more or less that you're fast on the bike, fit and well adapted to racing stresses to be successful. that or just wicked smart and able to push well past the physiological and psychological limits most people have built in as self preservation mechanism.

One thing that has stuck with me is if you aren't a true sprinter or a true climber just work the VO2 Max intervals.

And I got thinking about the fact that there isn't a huge diversity in types of "workouts" for cycling.

You've go the 2x20 minute intervals, the 6-8 minute ones, and then the 20 second ones.

Everything else just seems to be a variation on those. Long distances/time adaptation seems to make a difference in the pre-season but what i've read seems to suggest that the difference between 2-4 hours isn't terribly significant and you don't really get the benefitial adaptation until you hit hour 5 through 6.

Recovery recovery recovery. Don't screw up the recovery, focus on nailing the supercompenstaion range.

It seems that these last two years have shown me it takes a good couple months to adapt to racing, and there isn't an easy way to compress that for me and deal with life.

I haven't tried to distill anything into making sense for a while now. But I probably should. One thing that seems self-evident is that I need to modify my expectations for September and October cyclocross racing AND race as much as I can in August to get a jump start for the season I really do care about.

Adding the Monday night sessions and maybe a Saturday team ride should do enough to get me through the winter with the commuting. Then maybe work in some of the other three: 20s, 6-8m, 20m on a regular enough basis for them to be effective.

Part of the problem is I have forgotten more good advice than I can remember... but it is all in there somewhere waiting to be spurred into action, work out a frame work and fill in the holes.

And a good deal of what I need to do is still the mental side, get over the limits, like at turtle pond on the hill, dig deeper at that moment i have to, not when I want to. Figure out how to make sort of situation work. But given time and travel race location and what not, I'm probably going to try and just focus on the closets road/crits to me and get to them when they work in the family schedule... Not get to crazy until maybe july and definitely august. But last year it was pretty barren as far as crits and what not go on the weekends (yeah there's wells i know - i suppose i could maybe thinking about that for sunday mornings)...

just random musings... but on the right track i feel... things feel different after this weekend.

like i've maybe pushed through that mental fog i was creating. Somewhat more energized and focused.

better in a way...

in a good way...

now if i can get that ancient trainer fixed/warrantied then things will be looking up...

g

We needed something that could be quick and ready to eat when we got home that would be okay sitting on the stove for a few hours. Soup and Chili are two good options. The dog tends to leave the big pot alone when it is on the back burner and hot. She's taken the pans off the stove but up until now she hasn't tried to get the big pots when they are full (or empty).

I'd picked up a few things for soup makings at WF.

Oh a side note before getting to what I added to the "pantry" check out this price comparison video. Worth the run in. Mostly. They line up Safeway, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods.
Then you can check this link (or skip to it).

I'll give you the spoiler, WholeFoods was the cheapest. And for many of their fresh produce (unscientific study) the organics, at least the dirty dozen are often not much more than the pesticide loaded stuff. AND YES, sorry, pesticides are toxic. They kill stuff. Sure you can kill yourself drinking water. But that takes a lot of work. These pesticides are really much closer to something like arsenic or mercury (metallic not organic). Well they screw up your nerves first but hey - we've got drugs to fix that. And high blood pressure, cholesterol. Oh and I know there are plenty of people with genetically high Cholesterol levels and what not, and people who feel that the only remedy are drugs. Not true. Fish oil and Flax seed will fix all that (well for nearly everyone willing to stick with it and maybe give up some of the volume of bad foods) w/o the drugs. But hey, people don't want to fix the problem, they just want the bandaid. Sorry, inconsequential tangent.

So yeah - back to wholefoods, eat organic, buy the store brand do yourself some good for a change. And seriously, never EVER EVER EVER buy strawberries that aren't certified organic. Those chemicals they use are HORRIBLE.

Oh - right the soup.

Grabbed some parsnips and turnips along with the spinach for the pizza for the soup at Whole Foods. Yeah wicked long sidebar just to get to buying organic parsnips and turnips.

I did something different for this soup. I've had two butternut squashes sitting on top of the fridge for at least a month, maybe longer. One of them had a sticker "roast whole at 375" hell that sounded good. So after risotto i fired up the oven and stuck the pair of them in on a sheet pan.

And then I promptly forgot about them. For a long time. Hour or two. Yeah. Couple hours. I kept smelling something like very fresh artichokes and wondering what the hell that was.

Well i figured it out eventually and hey they were COOKED. but you know what? Since I left them whole the insides were PERFECT. Wicked smushy. Skins were all leathery but they came right out and I was able to scoop the guts out and wind up with absolutely PERFECT squash mush.

Literally the BEST way to cook them. Thanks to Black Horse Farms, INC. over in Coxsackie, New York for the label with the cooking suggestion. I've always just cut it in half and baked but that gives it a skin on the meat of the squash. And peeling these sunofabitches is a pain in the butt.

This was great. Just took time. And since i totally forgot about it and slightly overcooked it, wow it was perfect.

Started the soup with a bit of grated onion in some bacon fat and butter (ATC went through the chemistry of why you cook onions in saturated fats vs olive oil). Got those going, added some carrots and celery and a bit of soy sauce. Then chopped parsnips and turnips and some olive oil. Then the squash (I used one squash and froze the other one) and 2.5 cups of really well geletanized turkey stock (in the fridge it set up like jello after i made it). 1 cup of red lentils and water, some turmeric and ginger powder and a splash more of soy sauce and maybe 3-4 cups of water.

Let that all cook till the bits were soft and the lentils were cooked through, then I added about a cup of freshly washed and chopped spinach. After a few minutes of the spinach hanging out in there, just as it turned bright green I grabbed the immersion blender and made it smoooooooth.

Popped the lid on, slid it to the back burner and we headed to Ballet/trainer work out at the shop.

When we got home I stuck 1.5 cups of water on to boil in a pan, then once it hit 212 degrees I dumped 3/4 of a cup of cous cous in, turned off the burner and covered it while the soup was on high coming back to a simmer.

10 minutes later the soup was simmering and the cous cous was done.

Scooped the cous cous into the bowl first, then covered with soup to a desired consistency. Then put some thin slices of Jarlsberg cheese on there and for my bowl a couple circles of Sirachi (lee kum kee brand with, no preservatives or HFCS) and a bit of fresh ground pepper.

Two bowls of that for each of us hit the spot perfectly.

Hey it is RAINING and everything is melting. Nice. The car did have a good solid layer of ice all over it and that has softened and is dripping.

A good deal of rain too. At least it warmed up, as much rain as is falling in snow would be an inch or two an hour. That would have sucked.

This might be good for attempting to ride in to work tomorrow. But of course we're looking at more snow for Friday... Hey, at least it is winter. Not so bad right?

heddwch
G

I had one last night. Hit the Caster's Indoor trainer session Fred ran the workout, and it was a good general all around work everything kind of trainer session.

First intensity I've had since the last CX race. No, not Wretham, I did a good handful of laps there but didn't race.

It hurt, it was hot inside (body is still cold acclimated) and like I said I messed up the pacing on a few of the intervals. The first screw up was the leg speed drill, no feed back (aka cadence/speed) meant that I probably started higher than 95 rpm and upping the cadence every 30 seconds left me a bit higher than I could sustain there at the end and it hurt. Which isn't a bad thing but it got to the point where the front of the calves started a slight spasm and made it hard to maintain the spin. But that was okay. Other than i noticed my recovery was taking longer than I had gotten used to it a month or so ago. Great, I've let myself slip.

I think we did a low cadence drill next, biggest gear seated for 30 then standing for 30... 4 min of that. Followed by the biggest gear from a dead stop to as fast as you can go for 30 seconds.

That's where i screwed up big time and over-reached. Basically did a final sprint effort instead of something i had to repeat 3 more times. Couldn't do another one... tried to catch the 3rd but it wasn't happening... after the interval I had to head outside to cool down. The good thing is, you cool down wicked fast when it is 20degrees outside and you have a wet jersey on, and the jersey stayed cool enough. I haven't been that close to puking in a while. The pizza I had two hours earlier probably wasn't the best idea either.

But I managed to recover in time for the final effort, an increasing simulated hill (i think that's what Freddy called it). Get a moderate effort up, then every 30 sec shift and keep the same cadence. 5 min of that.

Oh i forgot the around the "world" drill, aka simulated Paceline. Everyone started at a threshold pace and we went around the group one at a time holding a max effort for 30 seconds and then coming back to threshold until the last person went. That's how the workout started. I got on the trainer a bit early as everyone was setting up, got an extra 15-20 min off variable cadence warm up in.

All in all it felt good to just about puke and get that work in.

Now it is raining. or sleeting. On top of the snow we got overnight. Only about an inch and a half of snow. it was 22 degrees this morning so that stuff is light and fluffy. I'm thinking about just waiting till the rains come this afternoon before starting to clear anything. The snow left on the cars now will be better than letting ice build up (temps are still below freezing and it is rain falling, not sleet).

Dinner when we got home from that was good, hit the spot... i'll keep the food stuff in another post so as not to confuse those who are too manly to want to read about cooking and food and what not.

heddwch
G

New England. The trash talking Jets came and took out the trash. They dismantled two of the arguably best quarterbacks of all time in back to back weeks...

Of course, if Brady had let his hair flow, and not exhibited his U of Michigan wussiness (nothing good has come out of that wanna be Ivy League big ten school) wearing that Balaclava, well I'm certain they would have won.

Heck Rex Ryan wore a sweater vest. Bill Belliwritesthechecks[NOT] just wore his thread bear cut off hoodie... but Brady had to wear a balaclava? Really?

Wow.

Anyway... check this link out. Very funny. Should take your mind off the loss for a few minutes.

Oh and Pizza tonight. Holy crap. It was wonderfully tasty.

At the bike shop. I'm not riding right now because i don't feel like it. I suppose I could but really don't feel like it. So what's better than riding the bike? Hanging out around them.

The space here at the new Caster's location in PVD is pretty cool. Definitely an urban kind of space. it is a converted garage/auto detailing shop, but Reed and Mindy did a great job putting the space together, nice layout to the place.

The weekend is actually turning out to be pretty nice. Chill morning, made a couple cups of coffee in that ancient inexpensive espresso machine that still actually makes pretty good coffee, esp if i don't over-draw it.

Not sure what's on the menu for tonight, but after dinner I popped some corn, the old fashioned way, in a pot on the stove. Dancer was impressed. And actually so was I. Great corn flavor and nothing fake about it.

Being surrounded by bikes here brings me to my own dilemma, what to ride this season? Race the Blue on the road/crits? New chainrings/drivetrain? Would make sense, thinking about putting the Giant as wet weather duty and keep riding the Blue when it is nice, but i have a ton of work to do to get the giant to fit the way the Blue does and man I'm not even sure how the Klein fits into the equation. Riding the trainer right now isn't going to happen in the bike room, too many bikes piled up, literally right now. Monday looks like a good project day, we'll see how it shakes out though.

Maybe it is pizza night... hmmm

or pizza tomorrow (not sure i have any Mozz in the house)

well - i'm just staring at a blinking cursor

i feel like taking a nap

major focus on recharging batteries this weekend

bike? ride? haven't pedaled circles since Tuesday last week.

heddwch
G

Risotto tonight.

Put two of my girls on the plane to head down to VA for the 4 day weekend, my dancer is here with me today, Modern tomorrow, an audition for Summer intensive on Sunday, Ballet on Monday and Character on Tuesday.

So we swung through Wholefoods on the way home, picked up some Maine Shrimp (on sale right now), a crazy wild rice blend and some fresh rosemary.

I was going to do the salmon but lord love a duck $15 a pound for something is a lot of cash... shrimp was less and in season and only a few states away vs a continent (Alaska for the wild stuff and i forget where the pale Atlantic stuff is from).

So we were looking at the rice and i was ready to scoop up some Arborio rice (you know classic risotto stuff)... time to stick the stock in the rice...

Okay so we've got the rice simmering in some shrimp stock right now, dancer is watching some 70s Electric Company.

Dancer and I got home and immediately started peeling shrimp. Shrimp shells, a carrot, celery stick and a rosemary sprig into water and brought to a boil makes a brilliant and very fast stock for making risotto. And that was the first plan of action.

While the stock was working I diced some sweet onion and melted 4 tablespoons of butter in a wide pan -was going to find a link to it but i'm coming up a bit empty.

So 1.5 cups of this rice mix (can't find a link to that stuff either - a bulk item at WF). in with the onions, get it nice and hot - then straing some stock in until it is covered.

Then stirr for a bit and cover the pan, then stirr, and cover.

Added another sprig of rosemary and some Pinot Grigio wine to it.

And just now added some mushrooms (Crimini).

It smells wonderful and yes, dinner is going to be late. This wild rice stuff TAKES FOREVER to cook.

But that's okay - it's worth the wait. Sauce already tastes amazing.
Oh I added on pressed clove of garlic and some salt to the butter and 1/4 of a large sweet onion.

4 large crimini sliced just went in there.

The 3/4 pound of peeled Maine wild shrimp will get plunked in just barely before we're ready to eat. They cook in about 30 seconds. Literally.

So yeah, no one will have to read about me riding to work tomorrow, because well they have preemptively closed. Awesome. NOT. So looking forward to the ride in on those super light 920 gram tires of mine with studs in them. Oh well, i guess no talking about how awesome and heavy they are. What the hell will the peanut gallery use to make fun of me tomorrow... my lack of polish in the writing? Maybe, that's pretty good, esp since this stuff is so well constructed and edited and man the money those copy writers and editors are costing me is outrageous, I would be better off hiring a Cycle-smart coach so i'd have nothing to write about anymore.

Oh wait - i write about food all the time now. Susie-home-maker. Yeah, right forgot, dare i be something I'm not. The f'n storm has me on edge but whatever.

I'll still try and get out and pedal around in this "storm" but then I know it is pretty much going to kill any change of having a race to help get Jerome ready for worlds. He'll be fine, there's always a trainer... should be kind of okay, right?

mid-ride snack than Little Debbie Oatmeal pies? No, not really... until now:

Home-made Oatmeal Pies

Good lord those look good. No transfats, no fake stuff, no preservatives (beyond sugar and the acid from the lemon and what not).

I know, some people are bored silly since i've been writing more about food. Oh well. I haven't checked the counter stats in over a month. Mostly because I am not writing for the counter. Although with the Bandit Cross promo it may seem different.

Speaking of that...

Bandit cross is in danger again from a winter storm. Snow removal would be possible, but the problem is, as we found Saturday, once you get a handful of laps on a snow course when it is cold enough for the snow to stay snow, well it just gets really fast. But it is either really fast or REALLY slow. Well to be specific it is really really slow, then suddenly really fast.

We'll see what happens.

Had my first slip on the tires, but it was a quick slip then grip and I never lost it. Snow on lumpy glare ice while turning across it downhill. Must have dropped from a peak into a valley of ice for a second. Caught me off guard but was also very cool to have enough grip to not eatshit on the ice.

You can't be stupid with them, and lordy are they wicked slow and heavy. But that measure of confidence is pretty nice.

Oh and Doug's well thought out and articulate comments are on the money too, that movie is about preaching to the choir it would seem, but that is what they said about Food Inc, and that reached a big audience beyond the expected target demographic.

It is true, lifestyle has to change first. For me it was moving out of michigan and exchanging a 75 mile drive each way with a 2-10 mile bike commute and swapping out lower quality for higher quality foods. I'm sure if I had had a physical and blood work when I moved here wearing size 38" jeans it would have been different than now. My weight is way back up compared to my low of 185 but it's a healthy weight and i'm essentially back to where i was when I started the driving... after 5 years of riding every day and racing and what not...

Check these vids out.

5ème Manche de CDM cyclo cross - Zolder from Web Petitesreines on Vimeo.

(okay there's one, click over to the Vimeo page and check out the rest of the CX vids).

The difficulty of the course is really on display in these. Twitter (okay Chabot) mentioned that you can see how hard these courses really are. Stuff that the live feeds just don't convey as well.

Russ is going to be out of town but if anyone wants to bring some vid equipment to Wrentham on Saturday it would be a great chance to put some great footage together! Now I'm not saying it will be easy to put a masterpiece together like his, but hey he has set the bar incredibly high.

Yes I know there's a winter storm coming mid-week. After Saturday morning's adventures in setting up a snow course I feel much more confident about making a course through whatever mother nature can hurl.

That's incredible, really amazing.

thanks to the tires. yes i probably could have ridden in w/o them, been all proud of myself for negotiating all that ice, but wow how nice is it to just ride through w/o thinking about it. Picking a smooth line. TONS more ice out there this morning, good bit of snow too, mostly just coverage, not depth.

Great way to start the week.

Bandit Cross - Wrentham, MA 01.08.2011 from Russ Campbell on Vimeo.

Russ had some driveline issues and parked the bike and picked up the camera. This was racing in the snow. First couple times through the deep sections were tough but it gets easier. Temps were cold enough that the snow stayed snow and the rare wipeout meant just brushing the snow off.

Next week, come on out. We'll set up a new course, and make it happen. Adam pushed to have two twenty minute races so we did. I timed/ran my mouth, and then we reversed the direction and sent everyone off for one pre-ride lap after a quick break and then did 20 min again. The first lap of the first race was 4.5 minutes. But JT started in the back and eventually went on to turn 6 laps in 20 minutes. Second race was much the same, although resultsboy did an admirable job of holding the holeshot/lead for a lap. Brant Hornberger was turning some impressive laps.

Most impressive was Donny's ride up from PVD, in that weather. That was pretty intense seeing him riding up. Also the two kids from Rutgers, Molly and Eric? They got there early and helped Russ chip up the glare ice where we crossed the road (dog walker's vehicles packed it down and it froze solid and sheer). Yes, they drove up from NJ that morning to do the race.

We're doing it next week. Saturday. Same time, same place. Do it to give Jerome some traffic to race through, make it a race to help our local U23 kid heading Worlds.

Thanks to those who came out!
G

Gonna be there tomorrow, where? Wrentham MRC/Training race course.

First race is at 11am. Come early and help bed in the course/set up. Or show up and do the 11am as a warm up/B-race/seeding race before the Noon main event.

11am is a loose start time. We'll send yall off and if you are late, no big deal. Once the Noon race starts it is for real though.

Although when i use the word "race" i mean getting together and riding around, no numbers, no officials, no lap cards. But i do have a stopwatch and will try and make the noon "race" as real as possible (time first two laps adjust based on fastest dudes and tell you how many to go and all that).

Course? We'll see what it looks like. Show up between 9:30 and 10am if you are feeling generous with your time and want to help get it ready to race (which may mean nothing more than riding laps for a bit re-learning how to ride your CX bike after a couple weeks off).

This will be good. There are people coming. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone that shows up.

I would contend that meat and those products aren't completely the problem, in so much as nearly all the animal products consumed are fed worse than people are eating and are about as healthy as the average obese western diet eating human.

Plants are just way more picky about growing. They need certain things. But then, many plants like corn and soybeans grow with lots of chemical help, so even eating plants you need to find ones that grow in a positive way too. They don't have feelings but they sure can have a measure of health.

How many drugs are you on? How many should you be on (zero). As always there are genetic conditions that do warrant maintenance meds (Type 1 for example), but that clean program guy (watch the video but try and tune out the BUY MY SHIT parts of it) says it pretty well too, fucking spot on if you will.

The food you eat is either killing you or sustaining you.

You have the power to choose.

What choice are you going to make. It isn't just about exercise. It isn't just about reducing your fat/sugar/calories/animal products.

And fucking "in moderation" is fucking bullshit. Moderate amounts of toxic shit is still toxic. See, my language is fucking going down hill, which tends to decrease the efficacy of a message, but demonstrates a bit of underlying frustration, and my passion for it.

*deep breath*

eat well

save this damn country some money

just moving the legs fast enough to keep the bike upright and moving towards my destination...

Steerage way is defined as: The minimum speed of a ship, below which it does not answer the helm and cannot be steered.

That's about what it was like today. Brain going way faster than my legs. Thinking about tomorrow, thinking about getting some large format images ready for a potential exhibt/show, thinking about all sorts of stuff. Even stuff about what happens at the end of august, sort of in the frame work of tomorrow. What happens if you throw a party and only a few show up? Plans that I had been making in my mind to have a party on the weekend of the 27/28 here in NE to celebrate me finally hitting the "okay it is alright to say you're old now" four decade mark, was told in simple and plain terms, "If you want a party for your birthday you have to plan it." Now I'll be in Seattle for that weekend it looks like. Oh well. Yeah, I seem to be unable to figure out how to spin the shit positively around my birthday. Inevitable. Finally thought that 2011 would be the year I would be able to take positive concrete steps to make it not my least favorite day of the year. Maybe I'll try again in 10 years. ANYWAY. Yeah like i said. brain running in overdrive. not really a good thing.

Oh and did I mentioned all this was while I was just not pedaling very fast?

When I would hit patches of ice I'd be thinking how nice it is to have the studs. In the day you can see where you're going far enough ahead to pick the right lane. At night in the dark you may start in one lane and suddenly you're on sheer ice. Now? it's nice, no panic and i can safely get over it or move off it w/o eating hard core shit.

Slow? yeah. Noisy? yeah. But this way the walkers and other folks on my commute can hear me coming. Not so bad.

Even just making steerage way this morning it didn't take too long to get in. And is sure is nice to see the sun.

okay now maybe i should go back and edit some of the too introspective shit out of the above but right now i'm going to say fuck it and leave it... read it in a bit, maybe delete it... maybe i should just start a new web log and put it over there... nah

Yesterday GCD commented about it being a Black Keys day. So I dialed up a Black Keys station and made it two songs. Fortunately Resultsboy made a comment about dubstep that elicited a pretty funny comment from some old long in the tooth wicked hip bike racer, and revealed more about resultsboy than I'm sure he wanted anyone to realize.

Anyway. A dubstep station kept me going yesterday.

One thing I'm learning, what ever station/music GCD is listening too is one I don't generally want to hear at work. He listens to old man white bread stuff. Bob Seger, Rockabilly, The Black Keys are three stations I have [not yet deleted] created out of his tweets. Not bad music just not what I'm digging.

Myerson mentioned The Smiths Radio and I hit that and it's good. Works for the occasional change of pace from Daft Punk, Deadmau5, The Mighty Mighty Bostones, The Young Dubliners, The Dropkick Murphys, and KEEN Beats (mostly a Gorillaz station).

Now on my station list is another genera that I hit occasionally. Hound Dog Taylor. So when old man [anti-winter] Solobreak put up a link to a kick ass (totally kick ass) recording and song from John Lee Hooker I knew what the theme for today at the office was going to be. Start a new JLH station and then add some variety!

I was singing the blues at the top of my lungs in the house getting the recycling out this morning. And with luck I won't be alone tomorrow, cause if I am the birds are going to be hearing a couple good blues improve verses.

Dog came over when I paused for a second and either wanted a pet to keep me from singing anymore or to say thanks for the killer blues melodies.

the same place i've been trying to convince people to show up at for a while now.

No, it won't be balmy, and no it probably won't be very dry.

But, I don't think of warm and dry when i picture ideal cyclocross. I picture wet and cold. Snow or rain wet. not soaked from sweat wet.

But i know plenty of people would rather figure out how to install some offenders and go for a long road ride and forget about cyclocross completely for 6 months.

I'm hoping a few people might take the middle of their day on Saturday and come see if we can't make a cyclocross race break out.

NOAA says there will be about 2" of snow or so falling over night up at Wrentham. Nothing like the storm that dumped 2' or so on the same field.

Going to give this a try because my feeling is that someone has to. I complain loudly about CX racing in August, grumble about racing in the heat of September, and well... time to put some action behind those words.

Maybe we can generate some momentum. There have historically been a few winter cyclocross series... and what got me excited about the sport wasn't that we raced around in hot temps on dusty courses, no, it was cold, the conditions were adverse, it took a tangible something else that one time I had more of than I do now but I still have some, and it used to give me an advantage. good luck deciphering that cronoman.

Anyway, I hope to see a few like minded individuals out there, I can't hope for a huge number of people because plainly not many people read this, and most that do probably won't come race. (yeah, i know, i sound really positive and shit with that eh? totally sounds super self confident and positive and all the stuff that it isn't). Bottom line i have my expectations set pretty low. If anyone wants to come out a bit early and design the course with me (with the snow it could be a blank slate) that'd be cool. I'll probably just stick the the basic wrentham course with only one wrinkle that I think it needs. Those that show up will see what I mean.

Be safe out there. I'm very happy to be on studded tires this week. The ice hasn't gone anywhere and the day's melt just turns into sheet ice for my ride home. And with the long stretches of ice in the dark you wind up often in a situation where you don't have a choice but to ride over it. These tires really make a difference, even though they are loud and heavy, it is nice to have them, I feel very fortunate to have this pair. 240 carbide studs in each tire... loud and grippy.

Okay.

We're going to make it happen. Pack the cross bikes, the booties, and the beers. Lets meet at the MRC training course in Wrentham (same place for 1/1/11 that didn't happen).

Yes i know there is snow forecast. I'll still be there.

Lets make it happen. Come on out. See you there?

Are pretty damn awesome. Yes they are. Today was the first commute with them and yes, about 90% of the commute was clear and dry, 10% was solid ice, either lump or sheets. And it was nice having the traction.

No coasting with these suckers on there. Nope. You gotta pedal the whole time or you ain't going no where. But on the plus side: I've ridden the bike twice since the 16th of December. The most recent venture was the 45 jaunt on New Year's (I'm not counting the attempt to ride at Wrentham on the 30th) and well the most recent was with the studded tires, so I didn't really feel the dramatic difference (weight/speed wise).

It was a bit more work getting there and back. And no these aren't tickets to ignoring the ice, esp the frozen ruts, but they are a huge measure of not sliding around. Pretty damn cool.

I like the fact that sunrise is staying constant this week but sunset is getting 1 minute later each day.

I don't like the fact that snow is forecast for Friday/Saturday. Damn it! Although I'm actually thinking it will be a good thing for the CX race at Wrentham. With snow you can make a racing line w/o flags and stakes and tape. SO....

Mark the time as busy - come out 11am. I'll be there early to work in a racing line. Two races. First race is a seeder for second race. You only do second? You start in the back. Will be most awesome. Trust me. Esp since G-ride won't be there with his incessant bitching and whining and complaining.

It will likely be cold and muddy, kind of how a cyclocross race is supposed to be. I hope to see ALL YOU YOU there. Because really, who reads this except my CX friends.

So as it is I've managed to pretty much completely book solid this week and the first two days of next week at work today. Starting the new year off with ultimate productivity. Oof. Good to be wanted/needed eh?

Oh and (yeah i'm taggin this with food for this reason only) IF you make that turkey soup i posted the other day, well... unless you want pasta with turkey and flavor (and no broth) cut the amount of (non egg) noodles down to less than 8oz. Putting that whole package in there worked great for last night but i have a couple partial quarts of the stuff that's just noodles now. Still tastes wicked good. Oh wow was it wicked good. Add some parsley on top (flat leave Italian stuff because is there anything bad that comes out of Italy? best bike race, amazing women, great food) and some Melinda's XXXtra HOT SAUCE on top and boom! so good.

Simple night tonight food wise.

My brother brought over some organic Vanilla beans and i added the guts of 1/2 of one to the single batch i make in the cuisinart ice cream maker (2 cups milk, 1 cup organic valley heavy cream, 2 teaspoons organic vanilla extract, 3/4 cup organic sugar, and 1/2 of a vanilla bean's guts). BOOM. Should be good. It is in the freezer setting up now.

Yes this was posted with my Cr-48, which i am solidly in love with. Google is awesome. Join the borg. So tempted to try putting the OS on a stick and running the other lappy on this OS. Lappy, I've so fallen out of sorts watching Strongbad and company. So a Michigan thing for me (even if Strongbad wasn't from michigan).

And on the subject of Michigan, what the hell is up with MSU and bowl games? Seriously! I didn't see the game but looking at the score, who f'n showed up to play? Come ON! Oh well. Just a damn game. I was far happier watching Page kill it on Sunday.

Oh this week is going to be insane and last night I was already dreaming promoter nightmares even though Saturday is just a get together and race each other, not a real "race" but doesn't change the fact that in my dream the whole NEBC women's elite squad showed up early and I was looking at a flat featureless field of grass, no course, no place to register, no one else to do anything. Not sure why it was the Red and White, but the only face I recognized was Wellons for some reason. Weird. Damn dreams. Okay - So tell me you'll be there and I'll stop stressing about Saturday. Seriously. Show up. We might even get the mighty Myerson to show up and race. Rooter is talking about going to NC the following weekend so shit he'd better show and get some cross racing redemption. Esp after his epic eating shit on that course after going for the first lap prime! Hard to forget that day.

Good Times.
Oof it is only monday. Media tuesday. Be prepared for the onslaught. Just hope that fucking snow is mellow and not like the last batch we got!!!!

heddwch
G

So, soup day.

Picked up some bionature stelline pasta. Had some Turkey left over from a breast I used half of for some peanut sauce pasta in the freezer, and yesterday I made stock from the drumstick bones left over from the BBQ turkey I made over NBX weekend (yeah that wasn't my best offering, but the collards that day were good).

So I cooked that stuff down a long time, and the stock essentially solidified in the fridge, it was good. Stock was made with the drumstick bones and leftovers, carrots, celery tops (had bought a bunch of organic celery and just chopped the top 2" off for the stock), broccoli stems, maybe some onion, i think a bit of garlic but I don't remember. Some salt and that's about it.

Cooked for a while. Actually made the stock over two days. started it on new year's eve then plunked the pot in some ice overnight and then brought it up to a boil, strained it and then simmered and skimmed and then bagged and froze it once it cooled down.

Anyway.

Put a bit of olive oil in the stock pot. In three batches brown 1.5 pounds of diced turkey, not cooked all the way, just get them some color and pull them out into a bowl with a slotted spoon.

Once all the turkey has been browned stick 3-4 diced carrots, 1/2 an onion, 1 rib of celery diced in with the draining's from the cooked turkey, add a touch more olive oil and cook the veggies for a bit. Then I added between a teaspoon-tablespoon of dried Thyme (i'd use fresh but i don't have any).

Just before adding water I tossed a tsp of rice wine vinegar to deglaze a bit. Then 5 cups of the stock and about 5-6 cups of water. Brought it to a boil. Let it roll for a bit, then lowered the heat and added the browned but not cooked turkey and I pressed three cloves of garlic in there, a sprinkle of salt

Next up about 10 minutes before serving I'm adding about 1/2 of the pasta (8oz to be specific). It isn't egg pasta so it just keeps swelling. If I put the whole 16oz bag in the soup it would probably suck up most of the fluid. So it is simmering right now. I said screw it - there's enough volume that i put the whole bag in there. Could be a mistake, we'll see.

The tastes I've had are awesome. Good flavor, nice and rich but not overly complex. Pretty damn yummy.

The Hoppin' John and Collards last night were awesome. Even better for lunch today.

So good.

Food.

Mmm.

No question, best ride of the year so far.

Snow, wet and cold snow. Bare legs. LS jersey. The Blue Norcross bike with a set of Schwalbe Marathon Winter studded tires.

45 minutes of awesomeness.

Powering through the snow and blasting through plow drifts where the path crosses the road. It took two hard intervals to get the snow riding groove back. But man when it came through - so much fun.

throwing snow all over my shoes and my bare calves. No, not even any embro. In the sun I was having fun. If they didn't get nearly 2x as much snow up in Wrentham as here, today's race would have been epic and fun, but good that it was canceled. Makes it more of a family day, brother coming over. Going to make Hoppin' John and Collard greens an homage to the tradition of our southern roots (my grandmother's family).

I was riding and realize, really this is the best ride of the year. First ride of the year but no question it was the best. Maybe there will be better ones. Who knows. Who cares.

It felt amazing to be out, riding in shorts, in the snow, on 1/1/11.

Happy New Year Everyone. Happy New Year

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda
G

getting use it, to the point I'm having trouble adapting back to the Dell Laptop. Very different experience but one that I'm really liking.

This thing rocks and will completely and totally and utterly kick ass when they get the USB upload thing fixed (yes that is a major pain but i'm not uploading much at the moment and can live it it).

A deliberate play on Marvin Z's Toolbox article Putting Failure in its Place.

Got home and was awake after the party last night. So I grabbed an article that I had printed out a while back and it had fallen out of the stack of mental training ones for some reason and looking for a Kid book I found it and put it on the stack.

I started reading it.

Things clicked.

So I wanted to go through the year and really examine what was a real failure on my part and what was completely out of my control.

The spoiler is, so much of the pain, anguish and bad stuff was really nothing I could have predicted or avoided. It was out of my control.

I started writing this yesterday, and this morning sitting here with a low thrumming headache (my brother and I had a couple beverages last night) I don't want to revisit it all.

It really wasn't a bad year, no. I mean there were plenty of bad things that happened and for the most part we managed to work through them, each one was a learning experience. Sometimes I feel like i'm not mid-way through the 40th year on this planet, I don't know how to deal with everything yet. And some stuff i screw up royally.

The beginning of the cross season my hopes of being something different than myself, faster, stronger, higher placed finisher was an unrealistic goal and set me up pretty well for failure. I've never been anything but the slowest of fast guys or the worst player on a team. For me to put any sort of self worth into athletics is pretty stupid i guess. So many other things i'm better at. My wife feels like she's carrying the family in CX season on the weekends.

Gotta figure stuff out for 2011. Re-think, re-focus, re-tool. Make it work.Take the lessons from 2010 and move forward.