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).