Back to life (on a bike) (again)

I know it has been a while. And I know I used this title at the end of last year (minus the "again"), but hopefully this time it is for real.

Mainly I have not updated my blog because there has not been much to talk about (Besides 24 Hours of Boyne and my whole trip back to Michigan, which I meant to write about but never got around to it). Back in April, my right knee started hurting anytime I would ride, so I took some time off in April and the beginning of May so that I could hopefully ride in Michigan. I rode pretty easy for the first part of my trip in Michigan, and I was able to enjoy a lot of Michigan trails (I got my money's worth out of an annual state parks pass while I was back). The first weekend I was there, I raced the Brighton stage race. The first day was a wreck because I had not slept in three days because of an eventful drive back ($900 car troubles), and Sunday I dropped out because I was again doing pretty bad and I did not want to hurt my knee just to get last (by a long shot).

So, like I said, most of the rest of the trip I spent going on really fun mountain bike rides, trying to hit all the trails I would normally be riding in Michigan over the summer. Then came 24 Hours of Boyne. Team Sofa King Fast is the reigning champion, and I wanted to do my part to continue the tradition (see Mike's blog for a post about the race...it was very good). The first two laps were pain free for my knee, but after that, it was all down hill (for the knee, not the course). The pain got progressively worse over the course of the race, and by my last lap, even a Tylenol-600 could not ease the pain. It actually hurt to walk for the next week or so.

So, when I got back to Montana, I went to the doctor to get it checked out. Of course, since I had not ridden on it in over a week, it was feeling better and the doctor could not get any symptoms out of me with that analysis. And with the X-Ray on hand, he said my knee checks out fine. This was good news and bad news. Good news because it must not be anything serious, bad news because I still do not know why it hurts to ride my bike. He said to start physical therapy and come back if it is not better in a couple months.

I started physical therapy, and at about the same time, dug out of the closet a knee brace I bought a few years back when my knee was bothering me because my saddle was too far back. I put it on and went for a ride and voila- no pain. I have been using the knee brace since then and have been able to ride consistently without it hurting. I am still doing physical therapy so that hopefully I can get out of the brace soon, because it is really hot and I am starting to get a pretty bad tanline on the one leg.

With that said, I am finally starting to feel comfortable about the prospect of racing seriously again. I have been riding much more consistently now. So hopefully I can regain some of the form I have lost over the past year (I also am still getting acclimated to winter lasting through June). My next race is going to be in a week and half- the Bohart Bash.

Since I haven't mentioned it yet, I joined a racing team this year, and will be sporting the colors of the Gallatin Alpine Sports (GAS)/Intrinsik Architecture Racing team this year. There is a link to the team website on the right. Those colors are orange and white. It is a little weird for me to wear something other than a Block M after exclusively racing for Michigan for so long, but I am actually starting to like it. At 24 Hours of Boyne, Mike did not recognize me when I was there to hand off because I was wearing the GAS/Intrinsik jersey, so I think it will take a little getting used to for everybody.

Finally, I am going to be moving into a house with a couple guys in a couple weeks, which means I will be saving a lot of money on rent. Right now the plan is to use some of that money to finally go the route of being a coached rider. I feel like it will help me get past the plateau I am on (or at least was on before the knee trouble), and hopefully it will prevent more injuries due to biking.

That's all for now. Sorry for such a long post with no pictures. I promise pictures next time.

Seattle

This past weekend, I went with the Montana State Cycling team to race a circuit race and TTT at WWU and a criterium at UW. The weekend started out nice enough, with nice weather upon departure, and figuring out how many bikes I can get in my truck. You can see from the picture that we got five bikes in the bed and four on the hitch rack. The value of the bikes was about three times the value of my car.

Other than a lot of wind, the first part of the drive was pretty uneventful. Then two miles from the Idaho border, on top of Lookout Pass, my tire blew out. The picture says it all with this one. Well, not all of it. When we got the jack and spare tire out, we realized that the spare was riddled with holes and cracks because of serious dry rot. Oh, and the jack was too short, and the tire iron is too big. Luckily, the flat occurred right in front of a rest stop, because none of us had service. So we used the payphone to call for a tow truck, which took us to the nearest city with a tire service place, which was 40 minutes away. In the end, we made it to Seattle with only about a 2.5 hour delay.


The race on Saturday was a 6 lap, 50 mile circuit race. I got dropped halfway through, so I did a sweet solo break off the back for the last half of the race. I ended up pulling my calf during the race, so when I tried to race the TTT later that day, I made it about a mile before getting dropped by the team. I ended up not racing Sunday because my calf was hurting so bad.

But the weekend wasn't over yet. On the way back, down the mountain passes, my truck started making a weird noise whenever I was coasting. So that worried me all the way back to Bozeman. But we did make it.

Now its snowing for the rest of this week.

Spring Breaks

Plural Spring Breaks.

The spring breaks started with Steve, his brother Greg, and sister-in-law Jen coming out for a skiing trip. Unfortunately for them, it hadn't snowed here for three weeks before they came and it was unusually warm in Montana. So snow conditions were sub-par for what they came for. We still enjoyed the skiing, a couple days at Bridger Bowl and a couple days at Big Sky. We did some really fun runs including down the Schlesman's lift at Bridger and off of Lone Peak at Big Sky (which both were about 40 minute runs). Here is a picture of Steve and me on Lone Peak- 11,166 ft high.

We had some fun times not skiing, too. I took the three of them Western dancing. Steve didn't do any dancing, but Greg and Jen gave it a try. We also soaked a little in the Norris Hot Springs, and they spent a little time in Yellowstone when I had to be in school. Here is a picture of us enjoying a very odd lunch one of the days we were at Bridger. I think we had PB&J, yogurt, left-over pizza, which all went very well with a couple tall boys of PBR.

For my own spring break, I was planning on working, but it turned out that I had nothing to do in lab, so I kept up with the previous four years tradition of spring break and rode a lot. I ended up doing 335 miles over the week, including one century, which my legs were definitely not ready for.

I also went for a couple hikes. The unusually warm weather has melted a lot of the snow, especially on the southern facing slopes, so it made for some relatively dry hikes. Here is a picture of a river on one of the hikes I went on.


Well that's about it. I had two very good spring breaks and I had a lot of fun with Steve and Greg and Jen.

Race season is about to start. I think I am racing this weekend in Seattle, so look forward to hearing about that.

The Ridge

Today on the way up the lift in the morning, Katie asked me how many times I've been skiing now. I said today was my 12th time (ever). Little did I know 45 minutes later I will have rented an avalanche beacon and hiking up the ridge. I told Matt while we were hiking it was only my 12th time ever skiing and he said he would take it into consideration when deciding where we would ski off the top of the mountain.

I was nervous on the way up, but it turned out to be an awesome hike up and a really fun time going down, too. We went up twice, which means I actually only did 3 runs in the 4.5 hours I was up at Bridger today (the runs are a little longer from the top, and hiking took a little while). This turns out to be a much better workout than just riding the lift up every time, and hence much more fun for me.

Here are some pictures from the top. It was a little cloudy today, so you couldn't see the Crazy's until later in the day, but enjoy.


Here is a link to the trail map at Bridger Bowl. We started climbing from the top of the Bridger lift. From the top of the hike, we hiked more right the first run, then left the second run. http://www.bridgerbowl.com/images/wwwtrail_map.pdf

Exciting Last Week

This last week has been a pretty exciting one.

Let's start with last Thursday. I've probably already told this story to anyone that will listen to me, but if you haven't heard it, it is a good one. I was riding my bike down the road, minding my own business when I felt something knock my helmet and then I saw an open pudding cup fall on the ground next to me. My riding style has tamed a lot over the past few years, so I don't really ride really far out in the road or anything. But getting something thrown at me didn't really make me happy. So I chased them down. But they got away. Unluckily for them, though, I went to University of Michigan and know how to read- license plates are particularly easy. Also unluckily for them, the Bozeman Police Department doesn't usually have anything to do. So when I filed a police report, I got a phone call later that night with the cop telling me he tracked down the pudding thrower. It turned out he was a minor and didn't want to get in trouble, so he "was willing to apologize to me and maybe do something for me." But I said no and he got a ticket for disorderly conduct.

It was a pretty sweet outcome. Hopefully that's one less person now who thinks it is funny to mess with cyclists on the road.

Then it finally started snowing on Friday again. We had been without snow and cold weather for a couple weeks, so skiing wasn't very good (but bike riding was, so that was cool). Saturday skiing was pretty good. I thought it was awesome that there was powder up to my knees in some spots, but then on Sunday, at the beginning of the day, there was powder up to my chest in some spots. It was like skiing a fluffy cloud. It was an awesome experience.

Last night I made it to the gym and lifted weights for the first time in probably 3 years. I am still able to walk right now, but I assume as it gets past the 24 hour mark, it is going to be pretty silly to watch me try. Lifting isn't anything I have done seriously since I started biking, but I think I am at a point where doing endurance lifting would be useful. We'll see.

Well it is still snowing, so this weekend should be good for skiing too. I'll only get to ski Sunday, but I think the forecast is calling for snow on Saturday, so that should be good.

New Truck and Bull Riding

When I was back in Michigan, I finally took the plunge and bought a vehicle. It is a 2002 Chevy S10. 4WD and 4-door. It runs great and already made it all the way out here to Montana. That was a nice 28 hour drive with no sleep. I made good use of the 4WD through most of Illinois and Wisconsin, where I was kept under 50 mph the whole way because a snow storm.

The only problem is now about half of my very funny jokes are obsolete.

Also while I was in Michigan, I rode my first bull. A real, live bull. I went with Sheldon and we each paid $25 for one ride (we both thought we would get more than one ride for this much money, but it was still worth it). Below is a picture of Panda, the bull that I rode.

I lasted 1.19 seconds and bull riding is much, much harder than it looks on TV. I was so scared as I was climbing over the gate to actually get on the bull, but it was probably one of the most fun things I have ever done. Despite shaking almost uncontrollably after I fell off, I wanted to get right back on and try again. The only damage I suffered was a little bruise on my shin where I fell, but I think if I had been wearing chaps, that would have not been a problem.

In other news, training has been going well. I have only taken one day off since getting back in Montana, and the weather has been pretty decent lately, so I have been able to get outside to ride a fair amount. I went for a nice 60 mile ride the other day (my longest ride since being in MT), and I am a little out of shape. The hills tore me up, but other than that and the strong headwind from the south, it was a great ride. I've been skiing a little, too, but because of the mild weather lately, we haven't had any new snow and the warm temperatures have been turning the snow on the mountain pretty icy, so that hasn't been as much fun lately.

2009

The numbers for 2009 are dismal. In a year where I should have expanded on my training since I finally made the leap to Elite/Pro, I had my worst year in recent history.

I only rode 4515 miles and worked out 352 hours. Unfortunately, this works out to be less than one hour a day, which is way below par. Time spent on the MTB was still about the same as time on the road bike, though, so that is one good aspect of my training for the year.

With my ridiculously long hiatus from biking these past couple months, I took 33 more days off than last year, putting me to 137. That number has to go down.

My race count was half of what it was the previous year, with only 14. My only race win came with the Sofa King Fast team victory at Boyne. Finally, the year only included one century, when I usually do three or four.

Despite all this, I achieved my cycling goals for the year. My mission this year was to help Kelly develop into a better mountain biker and it happened. Kelly won the Sport Women 24 and under State Championship and she did very well at Iceman. So, yeah, it was a good year. Congrats to Kelly on her first full year of competition and good job with all the hard work.

The transition to Montana was hard and adapting is still a work in progress. But in order to start improving again and to get back to and beyond my competition level of 2008, I have to stop making excuses and get back to work.

I will make a picture collage soon of some of my favorite 2009 memories, but probably not until I get back to Montana, because I will probably use photoshop to make it. Happy 2010 everybody.