Sunday is Funday

This past Sunday ROCKED.

I was excited to wake up to the gentle hum of cars driving by my apartment window on dry streets, instead of the dreaded "shwooosssssssh" of said cars in sloppy winter road conditions. I had gotten a great 9 hours of sleep that previous night, and woke up with both a fresh mind, and fresh legs.

On top of it all, I had cleaned my coffee maker the previous night and knew I could look forward to a delicious (and fast) pot of my favorite sanity-inducing elixir.

What did all of these circumstances mean? What was the celestial prophecy that I was being handed on this fair February morning?

I was going to ride my bike - Ride it fast, and ride it hard.

After breakfast, and my prodigiously prepared cup of java, I met up with some bad actors at the Arboretum for an 11:00 group ride. The roads were a little bit damp near the arb (and throughout), but our spirits were all high. It was good to see some familiar faces - Julio Jacabo and Kevin Berger were there. Steve "Sparky" Knurr decided to make an appearance too, which was cool since I've heard so many references to the guy, but never gotten to ride with him. David Ziehr, Yvonne, Jordan, Rachel, and Kenny completed the core of the group who I knew. A couple of other strong guys showed up for the ride too - Seth and Dan, whom I hadn't met but enjoyed riding with.

Our route took us out of Madison to Belleville, and on towards New Glarus before looping home. We hoped to get in a steady 4 hours of riding - Not bad for February. I was pleased that after a jaunt through the Arb, my legs warmed up and were kicking pretty well. I spent some time hanging out in the middle of the group, chatting with people and getting used to riding in a sizable mass of cyclists once again.

Once we got to the outskirts of Belleville, Kevin and I took the reigns. Well... Actually, Kevin plowed up a hill and I tagged on thinking I might have an opportunity to shoot the breeze with him. I was wrong. We basically pulled at tempo until Belleville, whereupon Kevin shot off with 1K to go. Thank goodness he throws a good draft, because it was all I could do to hold on and save enough juice to make a go coming around him when we came into town.

Once out of Belleville, the pace started out innocuously enough. But then somebody had to make a joke about Steve... And he responded by upping the tempo up a steep little power climb. My lungs were getting a nice warm up amidst the chilly air, but the legs felt great. We made a turn on to Hwy W, and again motored up a westward incline. Kevin and I set the pace up the next brief hill, and we wrapped around into New Glarus for some coffee and food. Ziehr pulled a wonderful acrobatic maneuver and somehow caught his fender in his spokes as we took off from the Fat Cat Cafe after refueling. Classic - But I'd probably do the same thing, so I have to cut the guy some slack.

The way out of New Glarus is where the real rubber met the road. It wasn't too long before we faced a stiff head wind, and the big guys up front (Kevin and Dan) chose to keep warm by igniting their diesel engines and pulling us all along in echelon formation. The smaller guys seemed to jostle a bit for slipstreams, and I was reminded of the impending race season. Felt great! Each hill on the way back offered an opportunity to duke it out. First, I targeted Kevin as a challenge. I'd let him rocket up the climb, and then try to close the gap before settling into a solid pace beside him. Julio decided to play ninja games with us, and sneak-attacked us near the top of a steep road. If it hadn't have been for Steve's cheer from behind, I wouldn't have known what hit me. The move caught me by surprise, but I managed to accelerate just in time. I went to shift and put in a counter attack, but my heavy winter glove missed the lever, and I only managed to hold with Julio to the top. Next time, I'll be ready.

The next series of hills offered a chance for Ziehr to strut his stuff, as he came breezing past on the lower exposure of a medium-length power-climb. Realizing that he went a bit early, I steadily upped my pace before making a move. I chose to test my limits here, and go much earlier than ideal. My acceleration felt incredible (I love my bike), and I popped through three successive gears on the way up. Unfortunately, Julio must have known my limits more than I did, and played my move to his advantage. He waited until my cadence started to drop, and then lunged from behind me, just squeezing by to take the hilltop.

This ignited a bit of competitive nature that I hadn't felt in a while, and I dug deep into my reserves to mount a counter attack. I figured that if I jumped past him over the crest of the hill, that the downhill would buy me a bit of recovery before the next slightly uphill section. My legs on fire, I made four or five hard pumps past Julio, and tucked into the quick descent. As soon as the road pointed upward again, I took to the drops and attacked a-la-Pananti up a quick rise. Once my move was done, I looked back to ascertain the damage. I saw Julio coming down the previous hill, and thought that my move had worked.

I missed Kevin in the periphery.

In Ullrich-fashion, he barreled past me and never looked back. Not far behind him, Dan provided my only hope of catching on to Kevin's wheel. Once Dan was within a bike length of me, I jumped forward to catch his wheel as he passed. A quick moment of recovery on Dan's wheel allowed me to take stock of the situation. About 30 meters ahead of us was Kevin, plugging up a ~4% incline. I figured I'd let Dan pull me up to within 5-10 meters and then make another move to attack Kevin.

I slipped by Dan's right side, in the saddle, and then lunged forward and popped up a cog to pass by Kevin. Bad move. After getting a solid gap, I totally popped. I sat up, and Kevin cruised by, closely followed by Dan. I ended up giving chase over the next few rollers, and managed to catch back on to their wheels once, before Kevin shot away from the group at the base of a descent.

A few breaths, and kind words from Kevin later, and the whole group was back together.

We got one more opportunity to duke it out, and Kevin took the prize on a quick hill into Verona.

Sparky won the Tree sprint on Seminole as we came into Madison. I think he also referred to me as "Thomas the Tank Engine," at some point. Eh... Maybe he was talking about Kevin or Dan, I'm not sure. Whatever, it was a cool reminder of my childhood.

So... What did I learn on this ride?
1) Don't attack too early... And now I know what "early" means for my maximum intensity attacks.

2) Julio is going to be a great guy to race with, and a silent torpedo to launch for points.
3) Kevin makes my legs hurt.

4) I've got a lot more confidence about my own fitness heading into next week's first collegiate race.

Time to bring it to Murray, KY.

Regards,

Thanks for reading.

Slap in the face

Oh man. Last night I went to bed thinking that today would be completely different.

I was planning on having a leisurely morning (which I did), reading a little evolutionary theory, getting some P. Chem done, and then going on a nice long outdoor ride with some strong guys from town.

What did I wake up to? Snow! Surprise - It's Wisconsin, you schmuck!

Oh well, I suppose I can still get some quality training in, but I was really stoked to get out on a quality group ride. So now I'm left with a bit more of an afternoon than I had originally planned.

On the schedule (not in order of priority):

• Arguing with creationists on YouTube comment boards when I get bored. Dirty pleasure.
• Yoga baby! I love this stuff, my flexibility is already improving, and it sure does make you strong fast.
• Emailing a professor I'm interested in talking with about organic chemistry/natural products/biochemistry research, and my future as a student.
• Hopefully hanging out with some people.
• Laundry - Can't escape it.
• Homework - Probability distributions! Boltzmann Constants! Lagrange multipliers! Oh my! I feel more like a physicist/engineer than a biochemist these days, but it's pretty interesting stuff.
• Finding true love? Hahaha - NAH! Bachelorhood has it's perks.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get back on two wheels, and show some people how this whole sport is done. Oh yea... Only 1 week to my first RR of the season. Should be fun!

Because Matt Waite Said So

You know those people you meet, who always have to have the latest and greatest gadget? When their phone doesn't have the newest app, they're the first ones firing up the 3G (oops - 4G) connection to download it. A new ad in Bicycling magazine touts a high-tech TT frame which saves 0.0002 femto seconds on a 40K and they're the first on the waiting list. You know - Those people who signed up to be the first commercial space tourists. Them...

Well... My friend Matt Waite isn't one of those types - But the guy just can't bring himself to appreciate a blog page unless it varies from time to time. As such, he has been harping me to update this one for a couple of weeks now.

I feel it's necessary to oblige Matt, because if I don't, he'll grind me to dust on the next group ride just to drive his point home. I don't feel like begging for mercy just yet this season, so I'm going to cook up a new post instead.

Well, since the time in Telluride, I've had some major ups and downs. For the sake of brevity, I'll summarize in an orderly fashion...

On the positive side:

• I Got to ride outside with James and B. Fosler... In January! For 4+ hours too. The ride was great, and I definitely felt the base that I had been working diligently towards since November.
  
  
• I've summed up my training volume and calculated that, on average, I've been getting about 10 hours per week indoors (until recently... See below). Considering that most of this has been endurance and tempo work, I'm feeling pretty confident in my base for the race season.
  
  
• I'm sticking with my lifting schedule (until recently), and finally achieved a long-awaited goal of putting up "plates" (135lb) on the bench. For me, this is good progress... and I don't really want to put on any extra upper body muscle now. My squat has increased by 50lbs for the same number of reps, and I've finally honed my dead lift technique.
  
  
• I'm feeling pretty comfy on the rollers, though I still need to work on that no-handed one-legged stunt.
  
  
• I've increased one gear at my LT since the early fall. Not sure where this lands on the wattage scales... I hope to get a power test done soon.
  
  
• I am officially racing collegiate category A! HEYA! This has been a goal since my freshman year, and with my category 3 upgrade this summer I qualified to race with the big boys in the MWCCC. I'm really excited.

On the negative:

• Got sick in CO. Started to fight it off, but the ride back in a cold van with little sleep definitely didn't help. Felt better during the first week of school. Got sick again, and stayed sick for about 12 days. Finally got over it yesterday, as far as I can tell.
  
  
• Due to sickness, I haven't been consistent in my training for 9 days. I don't think this will kill me in the end, though, and I'll choose to see it as an extended rest period. Considering that it all fell about 2 weeks before our first collegiate races, it may have been for the better anyway.

You know what? That isn't so bad, really. It seemed so much worse while I was in the midst of whatever strain of the plague I had. Looks like things are shaping up well, actually.

I plan on posting much more regularly now that the spring racing scene is starting up.

Here's some of what to expect in future updates:

• Shenanigan alerts/updates from upcoming UW-Cycling events and race weekends.
• Race reports and training/ride stories.
• Details on the upcoming season with Team Wisconsin/MC2 (Our kits are sweet - Think '09 Lotto Team)
• Pictures!
• My top 10 list of reasons why the Trek Stores of Madison should be your LBS.
• USA Cycling Collegiate Nationals
• School - (Hint... I've decided "Brian Stoveken, Ph.D" has a nice ring to it...)
• A thorough review of my favorite coffee shops.
• Some essays regarding critical thinking (or lack thereof) and the perception of science in our society.

There - Even the likes of Matt Waite should be pleased with all of that to look forward to.

Until then - Best regards, and thanks for reading.