Hockey

After skiing for five days in a row, and because the weather is pretty nasty outside, I decided I would go play hockey. It is kind of a ritual for me now to go play once a year to remind myself that it is a pretty fun sport.

It is a lot different from mountain biking. I thought for sure, since I ride so much and am in such good shape, hockey would be no problem. But sprinting from one end of the ice to the other still makes me have to take a little breather. My feet were hurting most of the time, and I have blisters on my heels now, most likely where calluses used to be.

I was a little worried at first that I would have forgotten how to skate and handle a puck. It came right back though. It just like riding a bike (although that phrase has a different meaning now).

Anyway, it was fun to play again and I hope that there is intramural hockey wherever I go to grad school, but after all this skiing and hockey, I am very excited to get back on the bike for the long cold rides of January.

First time skiing

I went out XC skiing for the first time ever today. It was a lot of fun, but challenging.

I ended up falling about 7 times, one of which was a pretty nice face plant into the snow. I will say that falling on skis is a lot less painful then crashing off a mountain bike. It is a lot harder to get up though.

I haven't ridden much since Iceman because school has been quite busy. (That's just my very good excuse- I actually have enjoyed the time off.) I am excited to get back into it, though. Now that school won't be busy again for a while, I don't have an excuse, but I don't think I will need one.

I have gone on a couple bike rides this week with very cold temps and wind chills. Frozen water bottles and frozen sweat on my glasses seem to be quite common now. Can't wait to start doing it everyday...

XC Skiing

Yesterday I bought some cross country skis. They still have to come in, but I am very excited to give new sport a try, since I haven't done any sport but cycling since high school when I played hockey.

And now I have decided not to ride inside once this winter. Either ride or ski.

Back on the Bike

I made my return to biking today after a 2 week hiatus. It was a nice three hour local loop ride with Steve. With the exception of no feeling in my tarsals, it was an awesome ride.

I got to try out some singletrack I have never ridden before. It was pretty technical and was tough enough that Steve and I had to walk a bit of it.

That is all...I just wanted to share my excitement that I am riding again. It is colder now, but it is still great to ride. My knee is feeling a lot better now, too.

So here goes the start to a couple month long base mile period.

Blog

It has been a long time and a lot has happened since the last time I posted on this blog. Since I got back from Florida, I have raced 14 races and only won one (out of 1 racer). This last half of the year didn't go as well as the first year as far as results are concerned, but it was still fun...at least most of it.

The Tailwind series ended with Stony Creek XC. It was one of the muddiest races I've done (until the next week at MSU- where I lost all braking ability). I got 1st place out of 1 in the race, which clinched my overall series championship. So, I was this years Expert Men 19-29 State Champion. Plus I got a free Iceman entry out of it.

Collegiate season was really long. We raced 6 weekends straight and it took its toll on my body. Combined with my way too serious attitude about race during the last half (which goes against everything I bike for), my form declined more and more each weekend.

After having a great race halfway through the season at Lindsey Wilson, where I was sitting 2nd almost the whole race until I crashed with a couple miles to go, then rapidly declining, I decided not to go to Nationals. It gave me a much needed month off from racing before Iceman a couple weeks ago.

Iceman went very well. I got fifth, but I still had a lot of fun and was in the lead for most of the race despite having crashed in the first couple miles and losing touch with the leaders.

One aspect of my racing that has improved the most this year is my starts. I have gotten very good at starting and was able to be in the top three for almost all collegiate races this year going into the woods, with a couple hole-shots. Starting better has had an amazing impact on my racing. Going into the woods third position at Lindsey Wilson definitely was a huge factor in my being in second place for most of the race.

The collegiate season marked some ups and downs. After Lindsey Wilson, I started taking racing too seriously and it started not being fun. Here is a picture of me being too serious:
During the third lap at regionals, I finally started having fun and enjoying myself. I rode out the rest of the race with Chris and Jon, and we were just chatting the entire race (mainly bashing Union). Here is a picture of me being not-serious (a fake sprint with Chris and Jon, we let Chris win since it was his birthday):

The best thing about this season was getting Kelly Bartlett into it. She started out already awesome...there must be good cycling in the Bartlett genes. She won 3 out of the 4 races she did. Her skill improved rapidly in just the few weeks she started riding. She bought a bike only two weeks into it and raced her first race only three weeks into it. Here is Kelly looking awesome going up a hill.
Unfortunately, she broke her collarbone and Team BCB won't be able to ride together again until spring. Team BCB is Kelly, Steve, and me. It is our super-cool team created once we got kelly into it.

I think I will start writing again, since Mike has a new blog (which means I will get some traffic again).

Florida Report

I know it has taken me a while (I have had a busy week back), but here it is.

Florida was fun. Hot, but fun.

It started in Lakeland. My time in Lakeland consisted again, as it did in CT as a lot of Tour de France watching. I got to spend a lot of time with my mom and got to see my other siblings and my grandpa, too. It was a really good time. Here is a nice collage of a picture of me with all of them.
Near the end of the week, I took a drive up to Gainesville to visit my friend Jamie who goes to UF. That was a fun time, too. Not very eventful, just went to a couple bars. Although one was a dancing bar that was called :08 (8 Seconds). If you can't tell yet, it was a country bar. Everyone was line-dancing and it was all country music. I was very surprised to find out that there is a unique line dance for every song that they line dance to- actually pretty impressive.

After Lakeland was down to West Palm Beach and the Keys with my brother and his wife and her family. This was a lot of fun. I already talked a little bit about it. I did a lot of snorkeling and water stuff. I ended up only catching one lobster that wasn't big enough, but it turned out to be good enough for me. Ryan and Erin and her family get really serious when it comes to catching lobsters, so I think I helped the most by staying out of the way.

There were amazing sunsets every night and I think the only pictures of me down there also had a sunset in it. Here is one of them.Speaking of the sun, I actually took my shirt off for a lot of the trip. A week in the Keys with my shirt off still didn't seem to be enough to get rid of my tanlines, so I think it is just hopeless to try.

Overall, I had a great trip in all three places I visited. Thanks to all of my hosts for great times. I am very relieved to be back, though. A month of doing nothing started to make me feel like a bum. Plus I was without a bike for two weeks. So now I am back and working and riding. Back to the usual grind.

And just to mention riding...I rode the super sketchy section of the local loop last night with 7 eggs in my back pocket- in the dark. I went down once, but didn't land on my back, so the eggs were fine and made it all the way from Steve's to my place and were just the right temperature to make pasta.

July Wrap-Up

Due to nine days off and lots of MTB riding, in CT and running in Florida, July turned out being a pretty light month.

I did a total of 338 miles, 2/3 being on the road bike. I did 3 races and was humbled in all of them. I've been running the past week in order to keep up the fitness until I can get back on my bike.

August will be a better month, since I will not be racing until the end. This will be my last chance to get intense training in before collegiate season starts.

I'll be back on the bike on Monday.

Florida

Well, I have a lot of disaster control to do with blogging when I get back, but for now I will just say that I am in the Keys and having a lot of fun. Lots of snorkeling- yes I have been getting in the water (and taking my shirt off). Today was the first day of lobster mini season, so we went snorkeling for lobsters today. I caught one, but it was too small, but overall, we came home with 35 lobster on the day.

I have been running here, since I don't have a bike. I don't really like running. And it is incredibly hot here even at 7 am. So I really miss my bike. I miss it a lot. That is all.

Tales of Connecticut

So, now I am in Florida, but I was in Connecticut with Mike. That was a really good time. It all started with packing up my bike. You can see how many pieces the bike has to be in to ship it.

As I wrote about in other posts, we raced in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York the first weekend I was there and this past weekend we raced at Mount Snow in Vermont. They were both great weekends and both places had very cool (though hard) MTB trails, especially Mt. Snow. In Vermont, we stayed at the Nordic Hills Lodge and I would recommend this place to anybody because it was an awesome place. The room smelled a little funky, but they had free real breakfast every morning and they even got up early to get us breakfast so we could get to our races on time.Besides racing, my time consisted a lot of watching the Tour de France and The Office while Mike was at work during the week. Then we also rode a fair amount and just hung out. The picture below is where I slept while I was there (it is the area behind the closet- a place only someone as short as me could sleep in).

Overall, it was a wonderful trip and I had a lot of fun hanging out with Mike and it was a great trip. Now I am in Florida until the beginning of August. I am taking the next few days off from any excersize. Since I don't have a bike down here, I am going to start running once I get down to the Keys with my brother. Then I am going to do some intense training in the first half of August and ease off before collegiate season starts.

USAC MTB Nationals

I had a great time in CT with Mike, and I will write a little on that probably tomorrow, but here I will talk about my humbling experience at Nationals.

So, going into it, with good results in Michigan, I though for sure I could get a top-ten result and was seriously hoping to be on the podium- I was quite mistaken. After lots of trying to diagnose my problem, I am pretty sure I just don't have the fitness necessary to climb over 1500 feet per lap for three laps.

On Staurday, we did three laps in the XC event. It was a lot of climbing and it seemed like I was just going backwards. I was able to catch a lot of people whenever we started going downhill, because the downhill was really technical and a lot of fun, but it was not enough to make up the almost 20 minutes I lost to the winner of my class, earning me 23rd out of 35 guys.
Sunday was the Short Track event. I was really hoping to do well, because I am fairly good at pushing really hard, and there wasn't really any uphill in the course, just a couple bumps. For the first 7 minutes of the race, I was hanging out in the top 5. Then it just started getting harder and harder and some guys passed me here and there. There were points that my vision started going blurry because I was so in the red zone, but when they told us we only had three laps to go, I just pushed my body to keep going for 6 more minutes. I ended up getting 14 out 24, half a lap down on the winner. It was a slightly better result than Saturday and I was fairly happy with the result.

Mike ended up doing really well in his XC race, getting 18th out of 66 semi-pro racers, so congrats Mike. He wasn't as happy with his Short Track race, getting 30th out of 39, perhaps it was a little troublesome having a day off between the XC and STXC race.

In addition, at Windham Mtn. and at Nationals, Mike and I hung out a decent amount with some of the Bell's team, Joe and Erin, so it was cool getting to know them. Joe did really well in the semi-pro STXC, getting 8th out of 39 racers, so congrats to Joe.
It was also great meeting Mike's racing friend from last year, Nathan Pepin and his family. Thanks to them for the cheers and water bottle support at Windham Mtn and at Nationals.

Anyway, I learned a lot about myself this weekend, namely I am not as fast as I thought I was and I have a lot of work to do for the fall collegiate season and for next year for revenge at Nationals.

UConn Trails

Yesterday, Mike and I rode the trails near the University of Connecticut. I love those trails. We rode them last year and it was the most confident I had ever been on a bike. Riding them again made me feel pretty good.

These trails are filled with rock gardens and tough downhills that made my arms sore to the point where I had trouble lifting things later. It would have been really cool if I had been able to get the research position out here at UConn, because then I would have been riding these and other great trails around here all summer. Oh well, it is awesome right now.

This weekend is MTB Nationals at Mount Snow, Vermont. I am going to try my best to get a higher placing this weekend in the cross country race, and I feel really good about my chances in the short track race on Sunday because my sprinting ability- I will just have to maintain it for 25 minutes.

We're not in Kansas anymore

So on Saturday, Mike and I went to the Catskills in NY to race a Nationals Series MTB race. I learned a lot in the race.
1. People don't care about the hole shot out here- I got it with ease and was feeling good as I stayed away for about 5 minutes, until everyone started passing me.
2. Everyone started passing me because when the race promoters say you climb 1500 feet per lap, they mean you do it all at once. The last race I did (in Michigan) probably only had about 200 feet of climbing at most.
3. When you get the top and people say "It's all downhill from here," they don't mean it is easier, just faster. It actually turned out being just as hard if not harder going downhill. My hands have never hurt so bad.
4. I am not very good at sustained climbs- the short steep ones like what we have in MI seem to work better for me.
5. Being good in Michigan doesn't mean anything at a Nationals level race.
6. The picture to the right is how you know who is passing you (or for others, who you are passing.


So, this race was a very good learning experience for me. The course was very fun and exciting and it was really fun to race at such a big event. I am glad I was able to do this race because everyone says this course is very similar to Mount Snow, which is where Nationals are next week, so some valuable lessons that will help next week are quite welcome.


I ended up getting 9th place out of 15 in my class. Mike ended up not so good, but only because he flatted three times on his last lap. He says he was in the top fifteen when he got his first flat.
Overall- a very good time.

Connecticut!

I flew in yesterday to Connecticut. I am here for a week and a half to visit Mike. It should be a great time. Tonight we are heading to the Catskills for the fifth race in the National Mountain Bike Series. Right now, there are 10 guys signed up in my class and 34 signed up in Mike's class. Mike should have his work cut out for him and I really don't know what to expect.

Anyway, I am excited to be here. Look forward to posts after this weekend.

4th of July Weekend

This weekend I went out to Kalamazoo to celbrate Independance Day and my Dad's b-day.

It started with a nice ride back to Jackson with an average speed of 21.5 mph. Then I mowed and we headed over to Kzoo.

Saturday was filled with the first day of the Tour de France, a nice ride in the rolling hills and vineyards of Lawton, MI and a bunch of new beers. Sheldon (Arika's boyfriend) and I went over to the Bell's Brewery Bar and tried a sampler. We had the Amber Ale, Poolside Cherry Wheat, Double Brown, Kalamazoo Stout, Mild Ale (which is never actually bottled), and the Third Coast Old Ale. Of these, I had only ever had the Amber, so I got to try 5 new varieties of Bell's there. And Sheldon had bought Bell's Consecrator Dopplebock earlier that day, which is a beer I have wanted to try for a very long time. The Dopplebock was very good, one of my favorites from Bell's. Of the six sampler, I like the Amber, Cherry Wheat, and Mild Ale. The other three were very strong. The Double Brown was undrinkable because it tasted like someone just dumped vodka in some beer.

Well, to get off the topic of beer, Sunday also consisted of Tour de France watching and a nice ride out to Lawton. I also watched the Wimbledon finals and we celebrated my dad's b-day. Then Sheldon and Arika brought me back to AA and we had dinner at Potbelly's.

June Wrap-up

So June was a pretty good month. Two race wins out of four tries. There was also a 2nd place and a not so good 4th place in the Brighton TT.

Here is the Stony Creek podium.Training was a little more laid back than May, but was still very consistent. I only had 3 days off the bike. 618 miles total, half being on the road and the other half on the MTB.

Besides that, right now I am just looking forward to going out East to visit Mike and do a National Series race and Nationals.

Stoney Creek Marathon XC

Yesterday was the 60-mile Cross Country race at Stoney Creek.

It poured Friday night, so it was a mudfest yesterday. Good news was, it was not as hot as it was last year and the sun was not blaring down as it was last year, so cramping was not a major problem this year like it was last year. I was also able to stay more hydrated this year, as I had water bottle help from Kelly Bartlett- thanks a lot Kelly.

So, from the start, we got to the race at 9:45- at the race started at 10 am. Everyone was lining up while I was still getting dressed. It was a little nerve-wrecking, but I was able to get to line in time with zero warm-up.

The first 4 laps of the race, the guy that beat me at Brighton and I rode together the whole time (with the exception of fifteen minutes that I had to chase after sliding out in some mud). The fifth lap is when it got exciting. Up to this point, I had been riding in the big ring the whole time because when it is nasty out, I get really bad chainsuck in the middle ring. In the beginning of the fifth lap, I decided to give the middle ring a try, because my legs were so tired from pushing hard gears all day. Chainsuck immediately. I had to get off the bike in order to pull the chain out and switch it into the big ring. By the time I got back on the bike, my arch rival was gone. For almost the whole lap, he was about 45 seconds ahead of me, but I kept pushing. Near the end of the lap, I saw him on the side of the trail stretching...he cramped bad. So from that point on, it was just up to me to ride strong without making any mistakes and without cramping. I ended up winning by a little over three minutes. Awesome.

Perhaps even more exciting than winning was a bottle toss from Kelly after the first lap. She didn't see me coming, so when she finally saw me, she instictually just threw the bottle up the air. I suck at catching anything, so I was pretty nervous about that, but I reached over the bars and caught the bottle with my left hand while I was riding probably 10 mph. It was awesome. Thanks again Kelly for coming out and handing off bottles. Without the bottle hand-offs, I may have ended up like my opponent.

So it was an epic battle with my archrival, and I came out on top for my fourth win of the year. With an epic bottle toss (and catch), it turned out the be a great day.

The GRE is over!

So this morning I took the GRE. I trudged all the way over the edge of Ann Arbor- way too close to Ypsilanti for my taste, but it had to be done.

Since I really didn't prepare as much I should have, I was a little nervous about it. The exam turned out being really long, but I made it through.

Scores:
Verbal- 550/800
Quantitative- 760/800
Written- Unknown

So my verbal score isn't awesome, but I am quite pleased with my quantitative score. I don't think the verbal section will matter as much, either, when I am trying to get into graduate school for chemistry. Nevertheless, I am satisfied enough to not take it over.

After the exam, I came straight to work, and here I am with a little down time during a centrifugation. It looks like it is going to be a late night here, since I didn't start my chlorophyll prep until about 1:30. Speaking of...better get back to it.

This weekend is Stoney Creek Marathon Cross Country Race...I am ready to kill the guy that beat me at the last race. Look forward to the report on that.

Awesome Glasses

So, I called Oakley today and they said it would be another few weeks until I get my glasses back. I have been riding without glasses lately, but it really sucks, because tree branches and mud and bugs keep getting in my eyes. So my eyes have been hurting a lot.

Since it will be a while until I get my Oakleys back, I decided to go to the hardware store to buy some temps. Check out the coolest glasses you will ever see a MTBer wearing.

Another Tree...

So there hasn't been much excitement recently in my bike life and even less in my off-the-bike life.

On the bike, I have just been trying to prepare for Stoney Creek coming up next weekend, but doing a pretty bad job at it- riding intensity all over the place and no organization or planning.
The local loop is getting really messy with all the rain and storms we have been getting. My favorite section, the super-sketchy section (aka Baits section) has started filling up with logs. On a spot that I usually get up to about 28 mph, there was a log across the trail, not too big, but I am not yet cool enough to jump logs going 25 mph downhill, so I tried to slow down. I was only able to get rid of enough speed to hit the log, go over the bars and land on the log with my face. So I am a little marked up (not anywhere near as bad as a couple years ago). No concussion and no broken helmet, but I have a couple tender spots on the right side of my face.
This is the second time I have landed flat on my face in less than a month ("What's the symbology there?")

Off the bike I have just been boring, studying for the GRE, which comes next Thursday, and such.

On the lighter side of things, I have a goal to get rid of my tan lines before I go to Florida (pun intended). The only problem is that right before Florida is MTB nationals. In enzyme kinetics, we call that competitive inhibition. The more time I spend on the bike, the less able I will be able to take off my shirt without being laughed at for wearing my "undershirt."

Warranties and Return Policies Suck

I got hit by two crappy sales reps today. One from Oakley and indirectly one from Bontrager.

Oakley: I ordered some clear replacement lenses for my glasses before Boyne and it turned out they were too big and would not fit in the frame. So I finally called today and was on hold for over ten minutes before I could finally tell sales rep Mark my problem. He said, "Are they older M-Frames?" I said, "Yes, I got them about three years ago." He said, "Oh, those should be able to just pop right in there." I was thinking, yeah, I know they should; that's why I bought them and is why I am talking to you right now. But what I said was "Yes, I tried, but they wouldn't go in, and I even put them up to my current lenses and they are bigger by about a millimeter on each side." He then put me on hold for 5 more minutes. He told me I need to send the lenses and my frames back to them and they are going to put the lenses in for me. Apparently I am just stupid and can't simply pop some apparently non-defective lenses into my M-frames. And I get to be without glasses for however long they decide to take to put my lenses in for me. Awesome.

Bontrager: My rear wheel has sucked since I bought it, loosening up all the time. I put in a request for a warranty back in March. Our shop forgot about it or something because when I called about it on Sunday, they were like, oh, can you tell us your info again? Then they called me today and told me that Bontrager said that they don't have any of my wheels in stock to replace it, but they can rebuild my wheel if I send it into them. So, I can be without a MTB for however long Bontrager decides to fix this problem. Awesome again.

So I might just never purchase anything from Oakley again, but I can't say the same about Bontrager, because they make about half the stuff that I put on my bikes.

That is all for now. Sorry for the griping, but I did find Mark from Oakley pretty humorous, telling me that my lenses should pop right in, as if being on the phone with them would magically make them work all of the sudden.

Brazil...I mean Brighton Stage Race

Hard. Hot. Hell. More H words that tell you how hard this race was.

The story starts on Saturday with the time trial and short track. For the time trial, my head wasn't in the right spot and ended up getting fourth, a minute and half down on the winner. That's all I really want to say about that. For the short track, I decided that I would do better and make up as much time as possible so I could move up in the overall. The short track ended up being awesome and I layed down the hammer of Thor. I was able to hang with a lot of the Elite racers and got the win. Sean came in second 40 seconds back, so he was only 10 seconds ahead of me in the overall at that point. The guy that won the TT ended up doing an extra lap, so he lost a lot of time.

So after the STXC, I was feeling good (Win #3 for the year), but none of that mattered for the cross country. It was four 8-mile laps in rain forest heat and humidity. Me and the guy who won the TT took off from the rest of the Expert guys, and ended up catching all the experts and about 4 Elite riders on the first lap. Then on the second lap he pulled away mid-way through and I never saw him again. He ended up winning by 5 minutes. That dude was really fast.

Here is a picture of one of the most awkward podiums I have ever seen.
Also, I unveiled my cool water bottle stand (my replacement for not having a girlfriend like a lot of cooler bike guys out there). But I ended up not having to test it out anyway, because some guys were awesome enough to hand off the bottles.

I got second overall in the stage race with one win out of three races. Today was comparatively painful to 24 Hours of Boyne. And it was so incredibly hot. And it was hard. But I love it.

Not so fast Mike

For all those silly enough to think that Mike might be able to compete for cleanest bike, well, they say a picture says a thousand words...If you look closely, you can see me in the reflection in the second picture...three times.

Take that, Mike. And good luck this weekend, Mr. Semi-Pro.

Rainy Day Ride

Well, two posts in one day might be overkill, but I had an absolutely awesome ride today and want to talk about it. It was a spectacular rain storm today.

It was mostly dry when I went out, and I knew it would rain while I was out, but what I didn't know was that I would actually be going swimming. When I say swimming, I actually mean it with torrential downpours and rain pelting me and nice big puddles. I also found out today that I breathe through my nose when I drink out of my water bottle, because when I tried, I got water up my nose.

Theres nothing like riding it a massive rain storm to clear my head- even if only for an hour and a half.

Chloropyhll...more like Boraphyll

Well, I am sitting at work right now with tons of down time because we are only prepping samples today, so I figured I would say a little about what I do here on non-down time days.

In this lab, I am working with photosynthesis, and more specifically, Photosystem II (PSII), and more specifically, the Oxygen Evolving Complex (OEC) of PSII, and more specifically, the effect of the Chloride ion (Cl ion) on the OEC. Photosynthesis is, of course, how plants turn solar energy into chemical energy. PSII is the first protein complex in photosynthesis and is where water is oxidized to oxygen, which produces 4 electrons and 4 protons (which are turned into chemical energy). The OEC is the reaction center where water is actually converted to oxygen, and it includes four manganese atoms, one calcium ion, and one chloride ion (the tetramanganese cluster). This cluster is the machinery that turns water into oxygen. The chloride ion has been proven to be necessary in oxygen evolution, though for longer than I have been alive, its actual function has been a mystery.

Here recently published diagram of the conversion of water to oxygen and its release of electrons and protons. This model is called the S-state model (starts with S0).

Most days I do assays on chlorophyll samples, which means testing the oxygen evolution capability of PSII under various conditions. We use a mini-reaction chamber that is hooked up to a Clark electrode, which tests for oxygen. The Clark electrode is interfaced with a graph machine that plots a line based on how much oxygen it senses. From this line, we are able to calculate the rate of oxygen evolution in the reaction chamber. The rate is compared to other rates and is used to determine if the condition tested is suitable.

So what does all that mean? Well, basically, I am testing various protein mutants to try to determine the function of the Cl ion in the tetramanganese cluster in the OEC.

On other days, I actually prepare the samples that we test, which means extracting PSII from spinach leaves. It is a four day process that starts with cleaning and de-stemming spinach leaves and putting them on ice for a day. The next couple days are spent spinning the goo-ified spinach leaves many times at various speeds in the centrifuge. It takes many times, because you have to first separate out the chloroplasts from the cells, then the Reaction Centers (RCs) from the chloroplasts, then PSII from the rest of the RCs, then the starch from everything, then extrinsic proteins from PSII, etc. It is a long process, but actually pretty cool, considering you end up with about 150 mg of one protein complex from a bunch of leaves.

Here is a picture of the washer-sized centrifuges that we use to spin up to 30,000 rpm.

Well, I suppose that is it for now. Sorry if this is not very good explaining, and you are probably more bored than I am right now, but this is really interesting stuff (at least for a nerd).

May wrap-up

I don't plan on riding today, so I can do a wrap-up a day early. I ended up doing 795 miles total, 336 of which was on the mountain bike. I only did one race- 24 Hours of Boyne, which was a huge success, but I got a lot of good training in which I think will help when October comes around.

The month consisted on one century on the road bike, which was on Mother's Day when it poured down rain the whole day. And my most miles off road obviously came last weekend with 120 miles up at Boyne.

There has been an unfortunate mess this month, as some idiot decided to take it upon himself to destroy a section of the local loop. Steve and I were riding yesterday and when we got to the Girl Scout's Section, someone had cut out the two really big trees that had fallen. But they didn't stop there, they also cut out three logs that have always been on the trail, including the one right after the stream crossing. Needless to say, the Girl Scout Section is now immensely less interesting.

Steve and I did get to see on the same ride though what must be a prototype Segway Hauler. It was pretty funny, especially because it didn't really look like it worked and the guy on it didn't look very happy.

I guess to wrap up this wrap-up, I would like to say thanks again to everyone that was a part of 24 Hours of Boyne this year. Mike and Mr. B, it was an awesome race and you guys both rocked. Pit crew Caroline, Mrs. B, Kelly, and Maria for helping out. Thanks to our competition Mattison, Sean, Fritz, and Corey for pushing us even faster. And thanks to Steve for putting up with a whole weekend of verbal abuse (and for forgetting the banner).

24 Hours Of Boyne!

It turns out that Mike, Mr. Bartlett, and I have super sweet team chemistry. We not only won 24 Hours of Boyne, but we broke the record for most laps ever done at this race.

But...back to the beginning. It all started Friday night at Shap's restaurant in Flint. Probably the worst mistake I ever made, but when I hear the words all you can eat and it involves food that is horrible, I can't resist. So I went with the all you can eat fish and chips. The first look at the plate told me that it was a bad idea, but I went with it anyway. So I had trouble sleeping that night at my first two laps I felt like I was going to throw up the whole time.

Beyond the early race stomach trouble due to Shap's and poor judgment, the race went very well for me as well as my teammates. Mike set the tone early by being the first into the woods, letting everyone know that Team Sofa King Fast was sure to dominate.

Our lead over Mattison, Sean, Fritz, and Corey had steadily been growing, but was clinched when the third member of Team Diaganum Dave (sp?) had light trouble on his second night lap and was out on the course for 1.5 hours. From that point on, it was just up to us not to make any mistakes.

I ended up getting an hour and a half of sleep from 5:20 to 6:50 (am), but woke up feeling immensely worse than before. I didn't feel like I could go on, but put my chamois on anyway and trudged out into the brisk morning to wait for Mike to come in from his sunrise lap. I started feeling better once I started warming up, but the first of these laps I couldn't sit down the whole time because my bum was so sore. I decided to put my brand new bib shorts on for the next lap so I could have a somewhat comfortable bum (Adidas bib shorts are super sweet by the way).

So, Team Sofa King Fast ended up doing 28 laps...best ever. Mike and I both did 12 laps (120 miles a piece) and Mr. B did 4. Congrats to Mr. B for going a lot faster this year. My fastest lap was 44 minutes and my slowest was 54 (I bonked pretty hard and had to stop on the side of the trail for about 5 minutes to eat my emergency Clif Bar that had been in my pocket for the last year and a half (and expired 8 months ago). I only bonked twice this year, didn't pass out at all and did two more laps this year than last year.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But I did have a lot of time to think of the answer to my ever-present question about racing (see entry: Pontiac Lake TT). I realized it is because I truly do enjoy it...even though it may seem very masochistic.

Big thanks to our pit crew. The race would have sucked without help. Especially Caroline. She slept a little more this year, but still did a great job. There was always food to be eaten, drinks handed off, and Nickelodeon wake-up calls. Awesome job by the behind the scene half of Team Sofa King Fast!

And of course, it wouldn't be me doing a MTB race without a super-cool tattoo, so check it out.