This weekend Ron Crenshaw and I are heading to Penticton, Canada. This trip has 2 purposes as I've said before I'm volunteering for the race and signing up to race next year. It's funny though because I've been planning this since I finished last years race,less than satisfied. So now all of sudden, out of the blue, I'm a little nervous. When you sign up for your first Ironman you're nervous,and you should be. This will be my 4th Ironman.So why am I worried? I have no delusions about my abilities or lack thereof. But I do have goals and so far I have not lived up to my own expectations. As every year passes I lose another step, work harder, to just maintain. So with every opportunity to compete comes to possibility to fail. Now I'm not looking for a pep talk or anything like that. Just the opposite this is the pep talk. The possibility to fail is part of every endeavor. I think the nervousness is my sub conscience telling my conscious mind that I care about this race. Brilliant,right? Not really! I'm spending $600 and a year of my life preparing for this race, so I must care. I was discussing this with the Hobbit and I suggested that perhaps it's just my ego. But he quickly pointed out that if it was just my ego I would have quit this endurance stuff a long time ago because I've been beat by the old, the fat, the blind and even by a guy with one leg. So why this tinge of nervousness? No clue! That's the problem. By signing up for another Ironman I'm committing to a year of unknowns. Unknowns are always scarier than the known quantities. But down the rabbit hole I go. I'll keep you posted as I discover the questions and try to figure out the answers.
And on the other unknown coming up in 4 weeks to be exact, The Skagit Flats Marathon.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Friday, July 08, 2011
Long time, no write
Not that my life has been boring or anything, quite the contrary. A lot has happened since my last post. I just don't seem to make the time to write on here anymore,until now. I just got a confirmation email from the guy in charge of the finish line for Ironman Canada. I will be a catcher at this years race from 4-8:30. This should be pretty fun. Of course I have ulterior motives for volunteering, cuts in the sign up line. But I also believe in giving back. These races would never be as good as they are without the army of people that volunteer. The folks that were out at Yellow Lake last year basically spent their entire shift standing around in the rain/ hail/cold/wind. I just had to ride through there. And for that 7-10 mile stretch I was miserable. They, on the other hand were cheering and smiling and doing everything they could to help motivate me. At the time I couldn't do much more than kind of grunt and nod at them, but I did appreciate their efforts. Since I have worked on the bike course before at CDA I wanted to do something different. I have always loved watching the finishers come in, even if you do not know them. You can see the emotions come pouring out of people. The pride,excitement and relief of completing an Ironman is incompatible. So I think it will be pretty cool to see and share that with the finishers up close.
Next week I head back to Indiana for my 30 year class reunion. 30 years(fuck me!) it should be fun. I just can't believe I'm that old. The pisser is that I'm training for a fall marathon and next weeks long run is 15 miles. 15 miles is already hard but doing it in Indiana with 90 something % humidity is really going to be hard. I've lived away from the humidity for so long that it just knocks the crap out of me. But we will get it done, probably with a bit of a hangover.
Another big milestone has just come to pass. On July 5th Jayne and I celebrated 10 years together. When I say celebrated I mean we looked at each other and said holy crap that went fast. It has been the best 10 years of my life. Her and I have done some pretty cool stuff together and continue to look forward to doing things together. If you know me then you know what a dick I can be, so do I. So I feel very fortunate that Jayne is gracious enough to put up with me. I wouldn't!
Well let's call that a post, a bit random but so what.
Next week I head back to Indiana for my 30 year class reunion. 30 years(fuck me!) it should be fun. I just can't believe I'm that old. The pisser is that I'm training for a fall marathon and next weeks long run is 15 miles. 15 miles is already hard but doing it in Indiana with 90 something % humidity is really going to be hard. I've lived away from the humidity for so long that it just knocks the crap out of me. But we will get it done, probably with a bit of a hangover.
Another big milestone has just come to pass. On July 5th Jayne and I celebrated 10 years together. When I say celebrated I mean we looked at each other and said holy crap that went fast. It has been the best 10 years of my life. Her and I have done some pretty cool stuff together and continue to look forward to doing things together. If you know me then you know what a dick I can be, so do I. So I feel very fortunate that Jayne is gracious enough to put up with me. I wouldn't!
Well let's call that a post, a bit random but so what.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Ironman Canada
Let me start by saying that both Jayne and Tony(the Hobbit) did great. Jayne set a PR by over 20 minutes and actually beat the Hobbit in the run. The Hobbit actually beat Jayne on the bike, he was sick of seeing her butt I guess. I digress.
Let me just say I love Canada! I was really looking forward to this race. I felt like I was pretty fit. I thought I had thought of all possible scenarios and planned for them. I did make 1 pre race mistake in that I left my arm warmers at home, I payed for that. Race morning started at 0230, which was about an hour earlier than I wanted to wake up. We stayed in Osoyoos which is about 50 min. south of Pentictin so we had to get up a little earlier to make the drive into town. We won't stay there next time, to much driving back and forth. All the other race day morning rituals went as planned. I actually wasn't to nervous and was able to eat a whole bowl of oatmeal. We arrived with plenty of time to spare. Dropped of the special needs bags and right to body marking. My friend Vicki did Canada a few years ago and told me to be prepared to do our own body marking because their system was a big cluster. She was right and we did our own. We actually had about 10 people line up around us to use our marker. The rest of the prep went fine except I lost Jayne and Tony and never found them. As I had planned I got right to the front of the swim start and right in the middle. My thinking is that I will go hard for the 1st 200, those that are faster will blow by me or over me. And those slower folks will stay behind me. This strategy worked pretty well. I could/should have gone a little harder at the beginning. For the most part though my swim went great. I swam very straight always within 5-10 feet of the buoys. I did get punched in the mouth once, but that was all. Tony actually had his goggles knocked off at about 1 mile and went the rest of the way without. The swim finish is weird. Instead of a nice sandy bottom, like the start, the bottom is covered in rocks for 50-75 feet yet the water was only 2 foot deep. I was actually grabbing the rocks and pulling myself along the bottom. When I was finally able to stand up I asked a guy next to me what our time was he said 1:11, I was thrilled. It was really 1:12:41 a PR for me by about 5 minutes so I was happy. Into the change tent and mass chaos. There were no chairs so I had to change standing up. The temperature that morning was a brisk ~55 so I did not want to swim in my bike gear and start out wet and cold on the bike so I had to dry off and completely change. This cost me 10 minutes which was fine, I was warm and dry. The bike started great because just as I mounted my bike I saw Jayne right next to me. This was great for 2 reasons, 1. I got to see her and wish her well and 2. She didn't kick my ass to bad in the swim. So off we go tearing through town. I felt great! But here is were things started to work against me. About 3 days before we left for Canada my bike computer quit displaying cadence. I tried a 1000 adjustments but couldn't get to work. I think a wire is broken. At any rate all of my training was done using cadence. So now I was flying blind. Oh well after all the miles I put in preparing for this race I should know what 95 RPM's feels like, right. As we head out of town I feel great I'm passing people constantly. Then comes the days 1st surprise we turned left on Mclean Creek rd. I thought we went straight, I thought I knew the course. I rode it a few years ago, wrong!! Up Mclean Creek we go this got the HR up a little. Everything was still going well I was eating and drinking and felt great. I cruised all the way to Osoyoos not to hard but felt like I was right were I needed to be just before Richter, but I needed to pee. Richter was fine, until I got to the aid station and got to pee. 2 porta pots and 2800 riders, I did get to stand in line with Laura, another Spokane person, total pee time ~10 min. ridiculous. Back on the bike an up and over Richter. Here is were my day turned to shit. As I started down the backside of Richter I knew I was not completely over my downhill anxiety. I was on the brakes and getting passed by everyone. This was demoralizing. As we started the rollers the wind started blowing, hard! At one point on flat ground I was going 9 mph. Next pee break another 10 min. Then the out and back. This was, I thought, the only part of the course I did not know. I was under the impression that this was a fairly flat benign part of the course. Wrong!! I made 2 big mistakes on this section. 1st came while trying to eat a GU in a big gear going down a small hill which then turned rapidly into a fairly steep uphill. Instead of dropping the GU and shifting gears I muscled my way up the hill. I knew at the top that I had made a huge mistake. But because I'm an idiot I made a similar mistake about 5 minutes later with another smaller yet taxing hill. When I got to special needs I took a little time to pound a protein drink and a V8 splash and took my PBJ and took off. Now it gets miserable. Just before I made the turn onto the Yellow Lake road it started raining and the temp dropped about 10 degrees. This is when I missed my arm warmers. As I headed up to Yellow Lake the wind was whipping the rain was pouring and it was COLD. About 1/2 way up I even got a little hale. Now comes the part I've been dreading ever since I realized that I'm now a pussy on downhills. The long sweeping turns back to HWY 97. And just to make it interesting lets do it on wet roads. I was making my way down getting passed by everyone except one guy he too was a pussy. About 1/2 way down I was reminded why I was a pussy when a guy that had just screamed passed me got a speed wobble going into a big sweeping left hander and as I watch he smacked the concrete barrier that separated him from the edge of the earth. He was fortunate in that he was able turn enough to match the angle of the curve and side wide the barrier. He then did a Fosberry flop over the barrier with his bike. I stop to make sure the guy is ok he bounced up, missing 1 lens from his glasses, and proclaims to be "good". Not sure about good, but lucky for sure. The weird thing for me now is that I'm coming to the realization that my race is fucked. I'm about an 1 hour behind were I felt I would. I'm finally starting to let the bike run a little more. By the time I hit 97 I was going full on even down the hills. The sun came back out I warmed up and I started eating everything I had. The problem I discovered later was that I had to much stuff left at the end. I started the bike with 3x 20oz bottles of gatorade and an aero bottle of water. I finished the ride with 2 full bottles of gatorade and I only refilled the aero bottle once during the ride. I also only ate 3 Gu's and 1 cliff bar and 3/4 pkt of shot roks and Lara bar. Basically I completely blew my nutrition plan on the bike. No wonder I posted my worst IM bike split ever. So now I'm an 1 hour behind and about 2000 calories in the hole. Sounds like a good time to run a marathon. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how this turns out. But just to make it fun when we get to ~12 miles lets cover to bottom of the toe next to the little piggy with a giant blister. I've never had a blister anywhere on my foot running, and now I've got one on the bottom of a toe with 14 miles to run. My pace had already slowed from a blistering, pun intended, 9:03/mi pace to 10:30 pace. Now with the blister and the hardest part of the course I was screaming along right at 12 min pace. At ~14 miles I saw Tony, Janine, then Jayne going the other direction, I was about 2 miles ahead of them. The Hobbit was walking, Janine was running well and so was Jayne. I thought shit they are all going to catch me. Tony said his knee hurt so I thought I could hold him off but Janine looked strong and so did Jayne. But Jayne has not been able to run that much so I thought she might fade as the race wore on. But I was worried about Janine, not that I could do much about it, just keep plugging along in 1st gear. The folks watching us torture ourselves were great. Everyone trying to encourage you but there were two people in particular that really did help me. 1st was that old man that looked like Alfred Hitchcock he said "Bryan, do you think you can look a little deeper inside yourself" That tells you how slow I was going at that point, he had time to say all of that. But it helped some how. I focused on that until my next psudocoach got my attention. This guy was on Main street in a tent and he simply said "relax your shoulders Bryan". Wow! that really helped. I didn't even realize I wasn't. As I neared the end of this journey my pace picked up as it always does. My last mile was a scorching 10:30 and with 1km to go I saw Janine coming the other direction I was about 500 meters ahead of her. I picked it up a little more, at least it felt like it. And finished as strong as I could. The run through the finish shoot of an Ironman is unlike anything else. For 5-10 seconds you're a rock star, even if you suck.
Bottom line I'm very disappointed in my performance. The pisser is that you can't just do another one right away to fix your mistakes. It will probably be 2 years before I get a chance to vindicate myself, in my own mind. Nobody else gives a shit. Most of the world says you finished that's more than most. But I want more. I at least want my race to reflect my capabilities. This was 45 min. slower than my last CDA IM in 08 and only 20 min faster than my 1st CDA IM in 07. And I know I'm in much better shape now. The only area in which I knew I was weaker was in my ability to descend on the bike, and that did hurt me. But not an hour maybe 10 minutes tops. The nutrition mistake was huge. Hell I didn't even figure that out until Tues. when I had to unload my bike and thought why is this so heavy, 2 full bottles that's why.
Not sure what's next.
Congrats to all of my friends that raced as well. Kathi Best and Jeff Blackwell, going to Kona. Erica, Craig, Matt, Laura, Martin and Janine solid races as well.
Special thanks to Mrs. Hobbit for being our gopher and pit crew, one day she too will be an Ironman. Next time you see the Hobbit ask him about Lumby.
It was 10 years ago that Jayne beat her cancer. This race was to be, in part, a celebration of that for her. She did so good. I have never been prouder of anybody ever. She is one tough chick, and I love her.
Let me just say I love Canada! I was really looking forward to this race. I felt like I was pretty fit. I thought I had thought of all possible scenarios and planned for them. I did make 1 pre race mistake in that I left my arm warmers at home, I payed for that. Race morning started at 0230, which was about an hour earlier than I wanted to wake up. We stayed in Osoyoos which is about 50 min. south of Pentictin so we had to get up a little earlier to make the drive into town. We won't stay there next time, to much driving back and forth. All the other race day morning rituals went as planned. I actually wasn't to nervous and was able to eat a whole bowl of oatmeal. We arrived with plenty of time to spare. Dropped of the special needs bags and right to body marking. My friend Vicki did Canada a few years ago and told me to be prepared to do our own body marking because their system was a big cluster. She was right and we did our own. We actually had about 10 people line up around us to use our marker. The rest of the prep went fine except I lost Jayne and Tony and never found them. As I had planned I got right to the front of the swim start and right in the middle. My thinking is that I will go hard for the 1st 200, those that are faster will blow by me or over me. And those slower folks will stay behind me. This strategy worked pretty well. I could/should have gone a little harder at the beginning. For the most part though my swim went great. I swam very straight always within 5-10 feet of the buoys. I did get punched in the mouth once, but that was all. Tony actually had his goggles knocked off at about 1 mile and went the rest of the way without. The swim finish is weird. Instead of a nice sandy bottom, like the start, the bottom is covered in rocks for 50-75 feet yet the water was only 2 foot deep. I was actually grabbing the rocks and pulling myself along the bottom. When I was finally able to stand up I asked a guy next to me what our time was he said 1:11, I was thrilled. It was really 1:12:41 a PR for me by about 5 minutes so I was happy. Into the change tent and mass chaos. There were no chairs so I had to change standing up. The temperature that morning was a brisk ~55 so I did not want to swim in my bike gear and start out wet and cold on the bike so I had to dry off and completely change. This cost me 10 minutes which was fine, I was warm and dry. The bike started great because just as I mounted my bike I saw Jayne right next to me. This was great for 2 reasons, 1. I got to see her and wish her well and 2. She didn't kick my ass to bad in the swim. So off we go tearing through town. I felt great! But here is were things started to work against me. About 3 days before we left for Canada my bike computer quit displaying cadence. I tried a 1000 adjustments but couldn't get to work. I think a wire is broken. At any rate all of my training was done using cadence. So now I was flying blind. Oh well after all the miles I put in preparing for this race I should know what 95 RPM's feels like, right. As we head out of town I feel great I'm passing people constantly. Then comes the days 1st surprise we turned left on Mclean Creek rd. I thought we went straight, I thought I knew the course. I rode it a few years ago, wrong!! Up Mclean Creek we go this got the HR up a little. Everything was still going well I was eating and drinking and felt great. I cruised all the way to Osoyoos not to hard but felt like I was right were I needed to be just before Richter, but I needed to pee. Richter was fine, until I got to the aid station and got to pee. 2 porta pots and 2800 riders, I did get to stand in line with Laura, another Spokane person, total pee time ~10 min. ridiculous. Back on the bike an up and over Richter. Here is were my day turned to shit. As I started down the backside of Richter I knew I was not completely over my downhill anxiety. I was on the brakes and getting passed by everyone. This was demoralizing. As we started the rollers the wind started blowing, hard! At one point on flat ground I was going 9 mph. Next pee break another 10 min. Then the out and back. This was, I thought, the only part of the course I did not know. I was under the impression that this was a fairly flat benign part of the course. Wrong!! I made 2 big mistakes on this section. 1st came while trying to eat a GU in a big gear going down a small hill which then turned rapidly into a fairly steep uphill. Instead of dropping the GU and shifting gears I muscled my way up the hill. I knew at the top that I had made a huge mistake. But because I'm an idiot I made a similar mistake about 5 minutes later with another smaller yet taxing hill. When I got to special needs I took a little time to pound a protein drink and a V8 splash and took my PBJ and took off. Now it gets miserable. Just before I made the turn onto the Yellow Lake road it started raining and the temp dropped about 10 degrees. This is when I missed my arm warmers. As I headed up to Yellow Lake the wind was whipping the rain was pouring and it was COLD. About 1/2 way up I even got a little hale. Now comes the part I've been dreading ever since I realized that I'm now a pussy on downhills. The long sweeping turns back to HWY 97. And just to make it interesting lets do it on wet roads. I was making my way down getting passed by everyone except one guy he too was a pussy. About 1/2 way down I was reminded why I was a pussy when a guy that had just screamed passed me got a speed wobble going into a big sweeping left hander and as I watch he smacked the concrete barrier that separated him from the edge of the earth. He was fortunate in that he was able turn enough to match the angle of the curve and side wide the barrier. He then did a Fosberry flop over the barrier with his bike. I stop to make sure the guy is ok he bounced up, missing 1 lens from his glasses, and proclaims to be "good". Not sure about good, but lucky for sure. The weird thing for me now is that I'm coming to the realization that my race is fucked. I'm about an 1 hour behind were I felt I would. I'm finally starting to let the bike run a little more. By the time I hit 97 I was going full on even down the hills. The sun came back out I warmed up and I started eating everything I had. The problem I discovered later was that I had to much stuff left at the end. I started the bike with 3x 20oz bottles of gatorade and an aero bottle of water. I finished the ride with 2 full bottles of gatorade and I only refilled the aero bottle once during the ride. I also only ate 3 Gu's and 1 cliff bar and 3/4 pkt of shot roks and Lara bar. Basically I completely blew my nutrition plan on the bike. No wonder I posted my worst IM bike split ever. So now I'm an 1 hour behind and about 2000 calories in the hole. Sounds like a good time to run a marathon. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how this turns out. But just to make it fun when we get to ~12 miles lets cover to bottom of the toe next to the little piggy with a giant blister. I've never had a blister anywhere on my foot running, and now I've got one on the bottom of a toe with 14 miles to run. My pace had already slowed from a blistering, pun intended, 9:03/mi pace to 10:30 pace. Now with the blister and the hardest part of the course I was screaming along right at 12 min pace. At ~14 miles I saw Tony, Janine, then Jayne going the other direction, I was about 2 miles ahead of them. The Hobbit was walking, Janine was running well and so was Jayne. I thought shit they are all going to catch me. Tony said his knee hurt so I thought I could hold him off but Janine looked strong and so did Jayne. But Jayne has not been able to run that much so I thought she might fade as the race wore on. But I was worried about Janine, not that I could do much about it, just keep plugging along in 1st gear. The folks watching us torture ourselves were great. Everyone trying to encourage you but there were two people in particular that really did help me. 1st was that old man that looked like Alfred Hitchcock he said "Bryan, do you think you can look a little deeper inside yourself" That tells you how slow I was going at that point, he had time to say all of that. But it helped some how. I focused on that until my next psudocoach got my attention. This guy was on Main street in a tent and he simply said "relax your shoulders Bryan". Wow! that really helped. I didn't even realize I wasn't. As I neared the end of this journey my pace picked up as it always does. My last mile was a scorching 10:30 and with 1km to go I saw Janine coming the other direction I was about 500 meters ahead of her. I picked it up a little more, at least it felt like it. And finished as strong as I could. The run through the finish shoot of an Ironman is unlike anything else. For 5-10 seconds you're a rock star, even if you suck.
Bottom line I'm very disappointed in my performance. The pisser is that you can't just do another one right away to fix your mistakes. It will probably be 2 years before I get a chance to vindicate myself, in my own mind. Nobody else gives a shit. Most of the world says you finished that's more than most. But I want more. I at least want my race to reflect my capabilities. This was 45 min. slower than my last CDA IM in 08 and only 20 min faster than my 1st CDA IM in 07. And I know I'm in much better shape now. The only area in which I knew I was weaker was in my ability to descend on the bike, and that did hurt me. But not an hour maybe 10 minutes tops. The nutrition mistake was huge. Hell I didn't even figure that out until Tues. when I had to unload my bike and thought why is this so heavy, 2 full bottles that's why.
Not sure what's next.
Congrats to all of my friends that raced as well. Kathi Best and Jeff Blackwell, going to Kona. Erica, Craig, Matt, Laura, Martin and Janine solid races as well.
Special thanks to Mrs. Hobbit for being our gopher and pit crew, one day she too will be an Ironman. Next time you see the Hobbit ask him about Lumby.
It was 10 years ago that Jayne beat her cancer. This race was to be, in part, a celebration of that for her. She did so good. I have never been prouder of anybody ever. She is one tough chick, and I love her.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
100 mile ride
I got my bike back last week. It is not totally fixed yet, but is rideable. My new fork is being made by Serotta and should be in the next couple of weeks. Steve is letting me use a loaner fork. For my first week back on the bike in basically 4 weeks it has been great. Total miles for the week was 158 miles. With 101.5 mile on Saturday. We went over and rode the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes. The beauty of this ride 1st and for most the beauty. It's also flat as a pancake. You may wonder why I'm riding on a flat ride when Ironman Canada is anything but flat. Well the answer is twofold. 1st I suck on the flats it is my biggest weakness.The first ~27 miles of Canada if fairly flat as is the last 10 or so. The other good thing for me on this flat course is it was 5:35 of non stop pedalling. There is no coasting down any hills because there aren't any. So I spin at ~ 90-95 rpm non stop. I think the average was 18.7 mph, I would like to get that up to about 21. Maybe not this year but in the next year or so that is the goal.
Tony and Jayne were able to ride together for the whole ride. I was off the front a little so I was by myself but that's ok, Ironman is a solo sport. It is great having them to push me though. Jayne is riding great and this was Tony's 1st century in his whole life. The both did a kick ass job. Tony's wife Laura, who just quit smoking about 3 months ago, rode ~60 miles and did a fantastic job. She has come far so fast. I guess Tony, The Hobbit, was whinning non stop though because all he got to see for about 4 hours was Jayne's ass. And according to Jayne,if she hadn't felt sorry for him he would have stared at it for the whole ride. She took pity on an old Hobbit.
Tony and Jayne were able to ride together for the whole ride. I was off the front a little so I was by myself but that's ok, Ironman is a solo sport. It is great having them to push me though. Jayne is riding great and this was Tony's 1st century in his whole life. The both did a kick ass job. Tony's wife Laura, who just quit smoking about 3 months ago, rode ~60 miles and did a fantastic job. She has come far so fast. I guess Tony, The Hobbit, was whinning non stop though because all he got to see for about 4 hours was Jayne's ass. And according to Jayne,if she hadn't felt sorry for him he would have stared at it for the whole ride. She took pity on an old Hobbit.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
What the Fork
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I may not be as big a pussy as I thought. After a few months of riding my bike and never really feeling comfortable on it I decided to take it in and get it looked at. And what do you know my front fork is AFU. With the front wheel mounted and viewed from the front it is apparent,even to an idiot like me, that the wheel is not in the center of the fork. So it was not my imagination that made me feel like the bike was not stable, that there was a weird vibration. The bad news of this story is that the bike shop that I originally took the bike to after my crash was not the shop that discovered this problem. Even though they had the bike for about 2 weeks. They replaced a completely trashed front wheel. Yet obviously did not bother to fully check out the fork it was attached to when I did cart wheels on the damn thing at nearly 40 mph. I'm not a bike mechanic, that's why I pay someone else to look over my bike, to do the tune ups and replace parts etc. And in doing so I trust them, basically with my life, to do a good and thorough job. Not just sell me a wheel that I'm sure they marked up 100%. I won't do business that shop again. Which is really their loss, it where I bought that bike for a little over $4000 and tires and shorts and god knows what else. Bottom line I was a good customer and they let me down not just with bad customer service, that was never a problem, but poor quality control.
Back to the good news part of this story which I'm fairly excited about. The shop that discovered the problem is new, the owner, is not new. He used to own Two Wheel Transit and now has a new shop in Brown's Addition called simply Steve's on Cannon. As anyone who has ever dealt with Steve knows the guy knows bikes. I'm glad he's back in business.
As for the shop that let me down let's just say I won't be headed up north to get my bike serviced ever again.
Back to the good news part of this story which I'm fairly excited about. The shop that discovered the problem is new, the owner, is not new. He used to own Two Wheel Transit and now has a new shop in Brown's Addition called simply Steve's on Cannon. As anyone who has ever dealt with Steve knows the guy knows bikes. I'm glad he's back in business.
As for the shop that let me down let's just say I won't be headed up north to get my bike serviced ever again.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Lilac Century Surprise
Jayne, Tony and I rode in the Lilac Century Surprise today. This is a charity ride for the local rotary club. It has various distances you can ride 100 mi,66,50,25 and 15 I think. It's very popular and riders of all ages and abilities participate. This was my longest ride so far this year. Previous long was 48 miles. What make this ride so tough is it is hilly.I'd love to be able to say exactly how hilly but we have a little disparity between my Garmin and Jayne's. Mine says we did ~2600 ft of climbing Jayne's say ~4000 ft. Felt more like 4000. I fell a little beat up but I rode pretty hard for the first 45 miles or so. I really freaked out coming down Charles hill. So much so that I was taking to myself, out loud, trying to calm myself down. I was only going 32 mph felt like 132. I'll be glad when I get over this pussy phase I'm going through. All in all it was a great ride and a great workout. This is the last last on my "recovery" week so a day off tomorrow then hit it hard on Tues.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Training has begun
Now that I'm back to training my shoulder is holding up fine. I have however discovered another problem. I seem to have turned into a pussy. Some may say I've always been a pussy, not to my face. But at any rate the problem seems to be a fear of a repeat crash. I've never had a problem going downhill fast. But now I seem to reach for brakes in situations that I would not have before the crash. Yesterday "The Hobbit" and I rode the Charles Hill loop. When we were going down Coolie Height, a hill I've gone down many many times without using my brakes, I was on the brakes the whole time. I was even telling myself to relax, just ride. But the whole time I was on the verge of panic. I know that with time this feeling will abate but right now it kind of takes the fun out of riding, at least downhill. The problem with that is around here most of our rides are hilly. Not to mention the race I'm training for has several thousand feet of climbing and decending. This is a side effect I think of getting old. When your young and dumb you have no fear. When you get old, things break, they take longer to heal and they leave a scar on your memory that is a constant reminder of what could happen. I liked it better when I didn't think it could happen to me.
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