Mon, 12 Nov 2007
Shutting it Down
I have decided to stop training for Cyclocross and not enter any more races
this year. The headaches and lack of form are a big factor. But also I am
getting interested in other things. It's possible that I will
not do any bike racing next year. Running however has been encouraging
this year and I plan on doing more 5ks and more specific training to
better my 5k times. I have no desire to do longer distances.
I don't see any benefits to doing a Marathon. My church friend Travis
has been doing a lot of
Crossfit workouts and I find this interesting
as well so I might look into that a bit more.
[/cycling/gen] 5 comments permalink
Sun, 04 Nov 2007
Frustration
I was set on doing Bubba 4 today but it has been a bad week of headaches.
I started out training pretty good. By Wednesday I got up early
and did about 40 minutes on the trainer. Then at lunch I ran for 30 minutes.
I got home and walked around with the kids for trick or treat. I was
tired. As the day went on Thursday I cold feel a headache coming on and
by early Friday morning it was full blown. Finally got rid of it
Friday afternoon. I went out Saturday early evening and did about
30 minutes of hard riding but woke up today with another doosy of a headache
building. I just have no motivation with these things and I didn't want
to make it worse so I decided not to race. Hopefully things will look
better next week.
[/cycling/races/2007] 3 comments permalink
Tue, 30 Oct 2007
What is Cyclocross?
This is cyclocross. Great video from last Sunday's race complements of Jeff Yielding and the Dawndi Cam. I didn't race again. Went on a helicopter ride instead. I will be back at it again this Sunday at Faust Park.
[/cycling/races/2007] 0 comments permalink
Mon, 22 Oct 2007
No Show Bubba 2
No racing for me this weekend. I managed to get some kind of
sinus infection Tuesday and it took me most of the week to shake it off.
I seem to get this when I do a hard effort in dusty conditions on
the bike. I had something similar the first practice session
at Forest Park a few weeks ago. But this one was a bit stronger.
Needles to say I did no bike riding all week and hardly any exercise at all. Hopefully I will be able to start up again this week.
[/cycling/races/2007] 0 comments permalink
Mon, 15 Oct 2007
St. Vincent Cyclocross (Uncertainties Confirmed)
Intro
I trained every day of the week leading up to this first Cyclocross race of the season. But it was definitely too little too late. I haven't done any bike racing all year, opting instead to do more running. I became enamored of the Pose running technique and have spent most of the summer running and racing in 5k races. I have still been riding the bike weekly but not nearly as much as in the past couple of years. There's just nothing like being in a race where the adrenalin is flowing and the heart rate gets pegged a few times. But I have been extending my run times to 40 minute sessions and also throwing in an occasional Tabata workout where I do very high intensity. Last week I did several CX bike workouts. A 2x20 at the local church yard and some technical work on dismounting and mounting with high intensity. I had some hope that I would have a degree of fitness but I wasn't overly optimistic that I could challenge the guys who I was racing with in the past.
The Course
This course was mostly fast. There were a couple of technical features that made it fun. After the start/finish line, the course was mildly uphill and then a little kink led to a downward section of about 100 yards and up a little berm and around a hairpin. This section was actually very easy and you could carry enough speed to easily make it up the berm and around the hairpin.Then there was another downward section and a 90 degree left. You could carry a lot of speed here and it was tricky trying to break enough and still carry enough speed around the turn and then up the little rise to the next turn. This is the type of section that you can improve on as you gradually increase your entry speed and test the ground and your line with respect to getting around the turn without loosing it.
About a third of the course was on asphalt and the hardest part in terms of effort was the asphalt hill which lead to the top portion of the course. This hill was may 60 yard long and in the range of 8 to 9 percent grade. At the end of the pavement, there was a curb to go over and then more incline through a patch of walnut infested grass. Most of the upper section of the course was bumpy and looked to be faster than it actually was due to the bumpiness.
Then there was a downhill section which lead back on to the pavement. This downhill section was great fun. You could really get some good speed going. It got bumpier as the race went on but I was still able to take it pretty fast. It had a slight left right curve as it bottomed out and then inclined up and over the curb, back on to the pavement. There were a couple of times during the race when I thought I might loose it and go outside the ribbon marking the course but I never did. This is one of those sections that is thrilling and feels very fast as you ride it on the bike but looking at other racers go through the section just doesn't convey the speed that you feel when you are doing it.
The Race
Rich Pierce, who is a couple years older than me and an experienced racer by many years, had decided to do the C race this year. He is a guy with lots of endurance and good technical riding ability. If I could stay with him for a while, I would count it a good race. On the first lap I was mid pack right after the line. The field was bigger than past years. Maybe 40 racers total. But as we came to the berm and hairpin, I saw a bike fly into the air, maybe 10 feet high (without the rider). Ouch, that did not look fun. It happened about 15 yards in front of me and I had to come to a complete stop as I crested the berm and went down the hairpin. Rich and some others were ahead of this incident so I was way behind at this point.But surprisingly, I had caught up to Rich by the 2nd lap and I was also riding with Rudy so I was not too discouraged and I had not put in any kind of hard effort yet. Gradually I got closer to Rich, again, riding moderately hard. I begin to think of just staying with Rich. I know he is a tractor like rider who will burn you out. I am the opposite, I thrive on a doing a couple of ultra fast ultra hard laps and then resting. Too much fast twitch for good, that's my physiology. But if I could just stay with Rich and keep him in site and then turn it up at around the last few laps, that might make a good race. But no, my adrenaline and that rabbit mentality got the best of me. I reeled off a scorching lap, passing Rich around the tricky right hander, dismounting and mounting over the two barriers and then downhill and onto the uphill pavement. I dug deeper going up the hill and when I got to the top, pretty much exploded and watched everyone pass me back for the rest of the lap.
That was the end of any hope I had of staying with Rich as by the end of another lap, he was way ahead of me and out of site. The rest of the race, I battled with a guy on a mounting bike. We must have passed each other a half dozen times but I finally held on for the last two laps.
Conclusion
Pro Pam was the only women to pass me and this happened about half way. But other guys were close that I have beaten handily in the past. I will have to try and get some consistent training in and hope that I can see some improvement over the coming weeks. Next week is rumored to be at Creve Ceour Park. This park always gives me trouble. Let's see what happens.[/cycling/races/2007] 0 comments permalink
Mon, 17 Sep 2007
Tour of Missouri Wrap Up
I watched part of the race Saturday. I was able to hear the interview
with Johan Bruyneel and it was very interesting to hear how Bruyneel
contrasted the reception of the Discovery Channel team in the US
compared with Europe. It's seems they are a bit bitter over the way
things have gone in the sport. I can't say I disagree completely.
Not that I am against something being done about all the substance abuse
but still, the sport is really self destructing. It was also announced
that the Navigators team will be folding after this year. They are a top
US based team who also did a fair about of Euro races.
I left thinking that this stage would be very similar to the day before with the sprint oriented teams bringing back together in the end. But I was wrong and it must have been a very exciting finish to see Danny Pate attack and win solo at the end. I would think this is probably one of his biggest wins (if not the biggest).
Sunday I went down to the course. The stage consisted of a circuit race. The idea here is that you do multiple laps on a closed course. The course was about 10 miles in length and they would do 7 laps. I was walking around the far west end of the course which was DeBaliver avenue. I had my amateur radio HT with me and about half way through I got the race radio frequency. This is not the audio that the fans listen to on the Internet but it's what the team directors listen to. It is mostly just information. They relay time gaps and the numbers of the racers. The time gaps were most useful. There was a break of 4 that formed early but Discovery was again holding the rope and with this course being mostly flat, I was sure they were not going to stay away for the whole race. I was really hoping the Missouri native Brad Huff would be up there and it looks like he was right on Ivan Dominguez' wheel but apparently hit someone or something and crashed into the barriers on the left at high speed. He is OK from all the information I received.
Cycling news has lots of photos. A local racer took some good photos and caught Huff right before he impacted the barriers. And here's some YouTube video of the climb from Saturday. A couple of my Big Shark teammates are in the frame at the end.
I guess I just can't express how exciting and really surprising the reception of the race has been. 30 thousand people in St. Charles Saturday to see the finish and 55 thousand at Union Station finish line Sunday. I think next year I'm going to try and see more stages. This is really turning into one of the premier bike races in all of North America.
[/cycling/professional] 2 comments permalink
Sat, 15 Sep 2007
Stage 4: Discovery's Leash
I took the day off yesterday, not to watch the Tour mind you but
in order to paint our dining room walls. But of course I had
my computer on with the video going and I was able to catch most
of the stage. The break that took form fairly early looked interesting.
The fact that it didn't contain any of the 12 from the stage 2
break meant that it did have a chance of sticking. But as Mark
Gorski pointed out (co-commentator), Discovery Channel employed
their typical tactics and were never going to let it get more
than 5 minutes or so away. And with that being the case,
as the race came down to it's final few hundred kilometers,
the teams interested in winning the stage with their sprinters
took over and drove the peloton to finally catch the break.
The Brazilian, Pagliarini, who won the stage really seemed to keep his speed and stay ahead for quite a distance there at the end. It's kind of rare to see a sprinter who can go early (like 200 meters out) and hold it. But it's kind of hard to tell from the video exactly how far out he was before he came forward. It looked like it was pretty far but I'm not sure. The quote from Ivan Dominguez indicates that he caught something near the end and that held him up for a moment. That's enough to do it at these speeds.
I can't say enough about how well the commentators are doing. Schlanger along with Mark Gorski are doing a fantastic job. Not only with their own comments but they are managing to get on the phone with some of the team directors who are calling the shots in the team cars and it is really very insightful. One interesting thing that Gorski said when discussing the business end of the tour is that, compared to the other tours here in the US (California and Georgia), the ToM has much better financial backing from major corporate entities like AB, Monsanto, ATT, Enterprise Leasing, and Build a Bear to name just few. That really seems to indicate that this race is going to be going for a while to come. What a fantastic event to have in the State!
[/cycling/professional] 0 comments permalink
Fri, 14 Sep 2007
Stage 3: TT thoughts
The stage 3 time trial went pretty much the way I thought it would with
George Hincapie taking a slight lead for the overall win by pulling out a slight
margin of time over his 11 other companions in the break away from stage 2.
Nathan O'Neil put in an excellent performance and Levi Leipheimer was even
better, taking the stage win.
I was able to watch some of the video coverage from the Tour web site yesterday.
This features local sports commentator Steve Schlanger who has been doing a pretty
decent job covering the Tour in my opinion.
But one thing I have a slight difference of opinion on is a comment that was made during the coverage yesterday. Schlanger mentioned that this particular TT course doesn't give the riders any chance to take a rest but I'm not sure that's true. The course (like many of the stages) features rolling terrain. Now with rolling terrain you do have downward sections which can provide some moments to rest. The thing that makes this kind of riding difficult is that it's hard to get into a rhythm. And this makes it hard to gage your effort and tricky to determine an overall strategy.
The Velonews account of the stage has quotes from Hincapie, Leipheimer, and Nathan O'Niel. All three of them seem to feel they didn't do the TT as well as they would have liked. Curiously, O'Niel says the course did not provide any place to rest But Leipheimer on the other hand says he was actually stopping pedaling on some of the downhill sections and getting into a better tuck. When you are going uphill on a bike there is less momentum and it is easier to hit your target wattage output and even go over it but when you go downhill, the effect is reversed and you carry more momentum and speed and it can be harder to maintain the same wattage output. O'Niel was using a power meter and it's possible that his strategy in terms of average power was difficult to maintain due to the rollers. Hincapie and Leipheimer were not using power meters but still, the rollers might make it harder to determine your overall effort and perhaps they felt like they had more to give by the time they reached the end or perhaps they felt overly exhausted and were not able to ride as consistently as planned. At any rate, I think the conclusion that is most certain is that rolling terrain can be the most difficult to race effectively and it takes a certain kind of mind set as well as physiology to do well.
[/cycling/professional] 2 comments permalink
Thu, 13 Sep 2007
Stage 2: Armadillo Attack!
Anyone who was skeptical of the existence of armadillos in the
state of Missouri was treated to prime evidence to the contrary as
one of the little critters apparently ran into the middle of the
peloton yesterday about 3 miles into stage 2 of the Tour of Missouri
bike race. This apparently caused several riders to go down and
unfortunately Dan Schmatz of St. Louis got the worst of it
suffering a bad collar bone break. Let's all wish Dan
a speedy recovery (no it's very difficult to even pedal
at all with a broken collar bone, he's out of the race) and hope he comes back
next year to show those rodents who's boss!
And you might also wonder about my ability to understand bike racing as my prediction of today's time trial being the major selector stage for the overall winner has been disproved for the most part. The reason this is so is simply that 12 riders formed a break yesterday and proceeded to extend their lead over the rest of the peloton by about 15 minutes. So for sure, the winner of the tour will be one of those 12 guys. And the guy who is sitting in the cat bird's seat is George Hincapie who was clearly in control yesterday. The only question is how much energy did he use chasing down attacks at the end and in general keeping that break together for most of the day. But today he will have an advantage over the others because he will go last and so will know who of the 12 has the best time at each checkpoint on the course and he can adjust his speed accordingly so that he maintains the overall lead. That's not to say he can't be beaten but if I were a betting man, I would probably not bet against George at this point.
Cycling News' account of yesterday's stage is really good and will give you some great insight into what makes bike racing so interesting and at times unpredictable. As that break formed, there were certain politics of the situation that came into play and the article explains it quite well. And you have got to love some of those beautiful photos of Midwestern Missouri!
[/cycling/professional] 2 comments permalink
Wed, 12 Sep 2007
Stage 1 to Ivan
I have to admit, it's pretty exciting to
see these guys racing on the roads of my home state. And the St. Louis
Post actually has a
decent and informative article.
There are two natives of Missouri in the race. Now that in itself is quite interesting. Brad Huff from Springfield is on Jonathan Vaughters Slipstream Sports team. This is a very innovative team that very likely will be in the Tour de France next year. Huff has had success over in Europe in the past two years. Then there is also our home town guy, Dan Schmatz who races on the BMC team which is active on the US pro tour here in the states. Dan and Brad are both sprinters who I expect to be competing with Ivan Dominguez who won yesterday's race. Dan is providing some good insights on his blog. Reading his entry from yesterday gives you a bird's eye view of what transpired on those closing laps. You can get a feel for how bike racing (at least for the sprinters) almost equal parts luck, skill, and intuition. Those sprinters have to make decisions within just a few seconds in order to be in the right position. Let's hope Dan gets it right on one of these stages. For sure there will be a lot of people shouting for him on the final stage here in St. Louis.
So who do I think will win the overall? It's all going to come down to tomorrow's time trial stage in Branson. I don't know exactly how steep it is. That will be very telling. If it's more like a climb then Contador (the Tour de France champion) might have a shot. But if it's less steep, then look for the pure TT guys to dominate. Maybe Health Net's Nathon O'Neil or Levi Leipheimer of Discovery.
[/cycling/professional] 0 comments permalink
Tue, 11 Sep 2007
Tour of Missouri Starts Today
I haven't said anything about this recently but today is the day.
Cycling News has coverage and their
preview of the race gives an
overview. They are a bit critical of the date on the calendar.
The Vuelta De Espania (tour of Spain) is still going on right now
as well as some other UCI races both here in the states and in
Europe. But most of the top domestic teams and Canadian teams
are here. The final stage will be a circuit race in St. Louis on
Sunday afternoon. Well perhaps the good thing about this is that
both the Cardinals and the Rams are struggling so perhaps the
attendance at both of these games (which will also be going on
Sunday afternoon) will be diminished. The official web site,
www.tourofmissouri.com
has more information on the course. The biggest stage will be
the Time Trial in Branson. It will most likely provide the best
opportunity for the overall winner to take command of the race.
[/cycling/professional] 4 comments permalink
Tue, 28 Aug 2007
Shoes for Pose?
Earlier in the spring, I went to the store to get some new running shoes
which I badly needed. At that time I was just getting interested in
the Pose technique. The salesman at the Running Center was very helpful
and was actually familiar with Pose running. But at the time I was
a little leery of purchasing a shoe that was recommended for Pose technique.
So I got a shoe which he suggested might kind of fit as an in between
for running Pose style and non-pose style. The
Asics Speedster
is actually a very nice shoe and quite comfortable. The heal is still sizable
but the shoe overall is very flexible and not as stiff as the Nike
that I used to have. But if you read Romanov's
article on shoes you can quickly see the problem. This
shoe still has way too much heal and padding for effective pose running.
The next shoe that I get will be more along the lines of a racing flat
like this one. But
I will probably not get one until next year. So for now I will make due with
what I have (which isn't that bad for learning).
[/cycling/training/2007] 0 comments permalink
Mon, 27 Aug 2007
The First Step is Critical
Take a look at this video of Dr. Romanov describing how you
start running in the Pose method. This is a good one to get started with.
There are several other good videos linked on this page to view also.
I have been telling several friends about adopting the Pose method of running. When I tell people that I have been running a lot more this year they typically ask me about injuries and if I am concerned about it. This question is a perfect segway into describing the Pose method. I do feel a difference compared to when I would run for 20 or 30 minutes in the past (pre Pose). My legs are not as tired. I'm sure I haven't implemented the technique perfectly and there are several aspects that I could improve. But I think I have it down well enough to notice some differences. If Romanov does a seminar anywhere close in the Midwest I would really like to go and see it.
A couple of my church friends have tried the technique and I have heard some complaints about calf soreness from them. Yes, this can be an issue. One thing to do is start jumping. Jumping jacks or just skipping or hoping on one leg, jumping rope, anything to get you going with switching weight to the balls of your feet. This will help the transition to Pose.
If anyone is close to downtown and would like to run with me during lunch, let me know. I can try to show you what I know about the Pose Method and we can run a little bit so you can get an idea of how it works. I typically run around the Arch grounds between 11:30 and 12:30.
[/cycling/training/2007] 0 comments permalink
Sun, 12 Aug 2007
Run Around the Park
Yesterday there was no 5k locally that I could find so Bret convinced
me to try running the 6 mile path around Forest Park. I have
never tried running this distance at one time before. It went pretty
well actually. I felt like we were running at a very leisurely pace. My
HRM stop watch suggested a time of around 51 minutes which I suppose is not
too bad. But I'm sure getting it down to the 45 minute range would
be quite challenging.
Saturday afternoon I took Jonathan ice skating. The Brentwood rink has cheap sessions for only two dollars on Saturday afternoon. I skated fairly hard at times and I was pretty tired out afterward. Even today I am still needing a bit of rest.
[/cycling/training/2007] 5 comments permalink
Ultimate Ron Paul
Daily Paul
Ron Paul Book Bomb
About
RAW Data, Bobber's Web log.
RAW Data (Bobber) Interview
How much daily?
CTTE (read, listen, and sing)
Bobber's latest Del.icio.us links:
- Linux Raid - Linux-raid(tags: sysadmin)
Contact Me:
bobber at kc0dxf dot net
Music Sites
Guitar Builders and Luthiers
Running
Frequented National Blogs
Internal
Columnists (political)
Columnists (technical)
Health and Nutrition
Big Shark Team Cyclists
Other Cyclists
Health Care Reform
Paleo (Hunter Gatherer) Diet (and related diets)
Christianity
Historic Christian Confessions
Classical Education
Routed Slot Car Tracks
Training With Power
Cycling
Digital Cameras
Sporting Goods and Bike Shops
Technical
Transcendent Music
Utilities