Tuesday, November 29, 2011

2012 Events

Race and ride schedules are starting to come out. So far I am looking at the following 3 events for the spring

April 7th- XC Race- Bunny Hopbrook at Middlebury CT
April 22nd- XC Race- Winding Trails at Farmington CT
June 10- Century Ride- Tour De Cure New Haven CT

I'll be racing CAT3 for XC races hoping to be at mid pack or better. Winding Trails is where I finished 6 out of 11 in the First Timer category last year. Knowing a bit about the terrain and some of the mistakes I made I hope to improve over last year. I also have a more structured plan with more volume and a purposeful base period.

Tour De Cure is a charity road ride for diabetes. There seems to be a lot of these fully supported non-competitive charity rides around and the dates works well for me. This will be my first century. I'll have a full 7 weeks between the last XC race and this century. Plenty of time to shift gears and prepare for lots of road miles.

OK bruthas, lets see your 2012 planned events!!

Friday, November 25, 2011

Another Newtown-Monroe 20 miler

Early morning road ride. 31 degrees and a beautiful sunny day. I am trying to get lots of easy to moderate road miles in as a base in preparation for the mountain bike race season. I am also doing the Friel Cycling Bible Book's weight training program. I am feeling stronger and 20 miles doesn't feel nearly as much as it did a month ago. Today was a little tough in the motivation dept because of all the eating yesterday but I never doubted being able to handle this ride confidently. 

Heart rate data is not accurate because it wasn't registering for the first 15 minutes.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Florida Cold


QUOTE OF THE DAY

You don't stop riding when you get old, you get old when you stop riding

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Cleaning Up the Mess

The past 2 weekends I have been trying to clean up after the big storm. Here are some trees that feel on the deck. They just missed the roof. If it weren't for the leaves cushioning the fall I think we would have had roof damage. Then again, if there hadn't been leaves on the trees they wouldn't have come down in the storm in the first place. 

Our property was such a mess. Every single tree had major damage. Huge limbs and whole trees down everywhere. It has taken 2 weekends now to clean it up. Luckily my neighbor had a chainsaw making the work easier. Also, I used the tractor to drag trees and limbs to the front where the town is scheduled to pick it all up.
This is only half of it. My camera ran out of battery when I tried to get the other side.

I still managed to get a ride in this weekend. I have been so inspired by Mike and Don's achievements not only on the bike but also in their triathlon events, that I am constantly jonesing to get on the bike. I have had some really great road rides lately proving to myself I can handle more mileage. I hope to keep building so I can try a century in the spring.
Yesterday it was only 24 degrees and I set out on my singlespeed mountain bike to complete and hour or so of road and dirt. It only turned out to be 40 minutes or so but it felt good to get out there. My legs have been sore from my new workouts. I have been trying to incorporate Friel's weight routine.
Below is my not so impressive ride from yesterday. Pay no attention to the HR data. In the cold sometimes the signal gets lost. There is no way I was ever at 30bpm.


Monday, November 7, 2011

Don Completes NYC Marathon Faster in 2011

A great day for Don. He completed the NYC marathon in 4:20. More than an hour faster than last year.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

20 miles complete and heading to the city

Had a great ride this morning. Cold but I warmed up quick after climbing the 18% grade Castle Hill. The route was a good choice with smooth pavement and relatively little traffic. Most of the climbing came in the beginning. Felt great!!!




Heading into the city soon to see Dondi finish and then have dinner. Go Don!!!!

Friday, November 4, 2011

New Wheels for the Road Bike

I was fortunate to score a set of Easton Circuits. I guess what I plan to do for now is create two wheelsets. One for winter and the other for spring, fall and summer. I am about to order Panaracer Stradius Sport Tires in 700 x 26C mm as an inexpensive, durable winter tire. This extra width and tread should make for a comfy ride with all the winter debris on the roads.

I rode yesterday on the Westchester North County Trailway. It was in miserable shape after the storm. Huge trees laying across the path. I felt like it was cyclocross and it quickly reminded me that I need winter tires. My Serfas Secas took a beating.

Sunday is the NYC marathon and I plan to be there at the end to see Dondi finish. We also have dinner plans afterwards with Mike, Robin and Felise. In the morning before I go down I plan to do a 20 mile road ride near home with lots of hills. I have it mapped out and loaded to my Garmin 705. The ride can be seen here

Watch Dondi run the NYC Marathon this weekend

A bunch of us will be there rooting Dondi on at his 2nd NYC Marathon outing.



In the meantime, enjoy this triathalon pic from Mike

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Race for the Booty

Mike finished 44th overall. 6th in his age category. AND 12th overall in the bike!!!




Nice number btw......

Don's Pre-NYC Marathon Taper Run

From Don: I was listening to some great tunes yesterday. Started off with a little Grateful dead and then into some funkyPhish. The music was running through my veins and was seeping into my soul. I was on my last mediumdistance run before the NYC marathon. 9 miles. Nice and easy was the plan. A little zone 1 for 30 minutes and thenan hour in zone 2. I choose to run down by the ocean. The ocean run has taken on a new meaning in myjourney as take in all that it has to offer. It is a Mecca of inspiration with all its runners and cycle-ers. Thiswas an afternoon run and the weather was a beautiful mid 80's with light winds. The taper has left me withsome nice energy and I am really trying to hold back on this workout. Focusing on my gait. Slowly closing myeyes and feeling every part of my stride. Falling into a trance like state. I slowly become aware that I am doingsome kind of tribal dance as a run. And this tribal dance makes me feel part of a special group. Eminem is playing. I am thinking positive thoughts about overcoming challenges. Getting deeper into my tribal dance and I gota little runners high going on. Nothing sweeter. Positive thoughts of challenging myself to a full Ironman is brewing in my head. I have many friends that are racing today and next weekend. Marathons, Half's, and Full's.I hope you all find your groove, mojo, tribal dance and have a fantastic race!! Will be thinking about you all.


Thank you again for your donations and support. You all have been so awesome. Life, at times, can feel so
awesome. I am choosing to embrace it.

The Storm and Last Friday's Ride

Since the storm hit Saturday I have been without power and internet. Scariest thing I have ever seen. When I was walking the dog last Saturday night every 5 seconds I would hear crack, woosh, BOOM. Trees and large branches falling everywhere. No power still. 24 degrees at night on Sunday. 48 degrees in the living room. Keeping food cold in the snow. Cooking on the coleman. Three trees laying across my deck. Today is my first day back at work.

I have been so inspired by Mike and Don's races that I was anxious to get out last week and do a longer more challenging road bike ride. I have had some decent mountain bike rides lately and I wanted to see how I would do on the road. Below is last Friday's experience.
My Intended Route on 10/28/11
Last Friday I hit the route from the link above. It was a total of 26 miles and very enjoyable for the most part. It certainly had its desirable challenges and some regrettable mistakes. Setting out on Lake Rd was a real nice, mellow and scenic ride. Here is a pic I lifted from somewhere else so you could see the view. Obviously the leaves have all turned and now with the storm much of it is down.

Croton Lake Rd was great climbing until I discovered my first mistake. The last 0.6 of a mile leading up to Cherry is hard packed dirt. It is rideable but slow and the climb is killer.

Cherry Street is a quick descent to Rte 35 through Katonah. From 35 I turned right into Pepsi for a nice climb and fast descent, BUT the road does not go over to 100 by the ballfields as the map suggests. Well, it does but it is GRAVEL. I had to turn around and go back up a steep climb. The climbing started to feel a little overwhelming at this point and I just reminded myself that it wasn't a race and my pace didn't matter much. Relaxing and focusing on breathing helped a lot.

I found my way back to 100 North with no shoulder and too much traffic. Its a very difficult and dangerous left turn from there onto Primrose. I always thought Primrose was flat from driving it for several years. But it ain't flat at all. Its a slow painful climb. 3/4 of the way up I developed a cramp in my right calf. I have never had that happen before but with all this sustained climbing I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I stopped and stretched, massaged the calf and drank water. The cramp went away thank God.

From there i rode onto 202 where I heard the clamp from my headlight clanging. I stopped to tighten it up. I put the headlight on at this point as the sun was beginning to set. I continued onto Granite Springs and then the bike path which was one of the more enjoyable legs of the trip. Then the bike path was a quick cruise back down to Yorktown. I averaged about 17.5 mph here holding back a bit so as not to run over any unexpected runners or slow-poking old people walking. Crossing the bridge over the Croton Reservoir at sunset was amazing especially because it was at the end of my trip. I left the bike path in Ossining at 134 and crossed back to 100 North and back to my car at 100/118. This was the least enjoyable part with no shoulder and the occasional obnoxious work van buzzing me at 50mph. Very dangerous.



I plan to modify this a bit in order to avoid those danger spots. But for a guy who is mostly a mountain biker this was enjoyable even if I did poke along for a total average speed of 13.2 mph for the total trip.
Here are my actual ride stats