New Route

I tried a new section of the North County Trail in Westchester today on my singlespeed Cannondale mountain bike. Its all new pavement and it is so much nicer than the lower sections of the trail. They did a really nice job designing this section with bridges and tunnels. You never cross over any roads. Next time back here I have to do more of it and on my road bike. Elevation gains are minimal which hard to find in Westchester. Actually the section I rode went from Carmel to Brewster which in Putnam County. I hear it connects and runs all the way up to Columbia Cty.

Its Cold Everywhere

47 degrees in Florida for Mike......

and about 20 degrees this morning for me. This was about the coldest I have ever felt out riding. I did about 45 minutes on the road bike and it was brutal. My face and head were frozen even with the balaclava. I think I need to get a thicker one for temps this cold. My ride was pretty lame in terms of mph and distance. I just didn't want to go that fast because the wind just hurt too much. Crazy!

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!!

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.

Florida Cold

QUOTE OF THE DAY

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

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.

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.