Blown Apart & Mocked Up

Look! Pretty Mountain Flower!

Wowee wow, had a little breakdown this past week. Let things get out of hand and had to perform a forced shut-down and system reboot yesterday. Everything's better now, yay!

Starting to get really psyched for Mt. Snow & Windham Mountain. This weekend is the King of Spring race, at Spring Mountain. I pre-rode the course yesterday and it was si-i-i-ick. Thanks to the rain, the course was a little more demanding than it should be on race day, but that will only help come Sunday. After the race, I'll be sciddadling home to get everything cleaned and ready for Vermont, where I'm heading on Wednesday for Mt. Snow and the Mt. Snow Bike Festival. Word is that the course is 'improved'. Not sure how you can improve on one of the best courses ever in cross-country mountain biking history, but as long as it's just as good as the old one I'm OK with that.

The only thing on my to-do list is to re-mold my shimano mtb shoes. Somehow they managed to decustomize over the past few weeks and my feet were in serious pain after the last race. Hopefully I can get that done tomorrow, or else feet be warned!

Gold Cup, Skyline Camping, and Summer Sizzlin

Well, just off a rest week and back from the race in Sewell, NJ. Man, did I have some cobwebs to contend with today. Had an OK start, then went backwards the whole race. Pitiful! Shouldn't be a problem for the next 3 weekends though, as I keep having this scenario repeat all season after a rest week. Let's recap now!

Started off the rest week with the CONCACAF Gold Cup Quarterfinal matches at the Linc. First match was Canada-vs-Honduras. This match was pretty sweet since there were a TON of Honduran fans there and they went apeshit when their team scored the only goal of the match on a penalty kick in the first half. Canada played a good match, but just couldn't finish it off at the net. After, the US played Panama in a great match where Panama rose to the occasion and played a great 2 halfs versus the US to put the match into OT with the score tied 1-1. Eventually, the fatigue of the match got to Panama and they had a costly penalty inside the box which led to a US penalty kick and subsequent goal in the 1st OT. The second OT was lively, with some great shots on goal by both squads, but the US took home the win in the end, 2-1. The picture below is all the US fans under the giant US flag after the US scored the first goal of the match. We all punched it from underneath and screamed our lungs out, must've looked pretty sweet from the other side!

SO.......next stop in our journey is down in Virginia on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah Park. The plan was to camp and relax for 4 days, which was accomplished for once. We got to the top of the park Sunday night around 12am to find we had a 51 mile jaunt south on Skyline Drive (at 35 mph) to our campsite. Sweet. During the drive we took note of the many critters roaming the night, such as: 35 raccoons, 10 deer, 10 bats (2 of which hit the windshield), 1 fox, and 3 sasquatch. Upon entering the campsite, we noticed that the cute raccoons, deer, etc. were replaced with skunks. Upon entering the restroom building we noticed signs which stated that our campground was frequented by many skunks and to be mindful of them. Great! After setting up our tents, we hit the sack with no alarm. Over the next few days, we got in some good hikes and ate some good food. The frequent rain did little to dampen our moods, and we only had our campsite flooded once. On the last night, as we sat around the campfire watching it dwindle, I noticed something moving near my tent. I directed my headlamp in the direction of the movement and out popped a skunk. Excellent! After chasing it away carefully, I sat back down and less than a minute later another skunk appeared. VAMOOSE! As I carefully chased skunk #2 away, skunk #1 reappeared and I vanquished him as well. Then along came skunk #3. This guy was a pain in my rear. He started his journey directly toward the campfire and the people sitting around it. I don't think so buddy! Upon chasing him away, he scurried to the rear of my tent and instead of coming around the other side, he remained out of sight. I aimed my light under the canopy of my rain-tarp and noticed he was at the front of my tent hiding out. Nuh-uh skunk! I got him out of there and he B-lined it to another tent where I was not to worry about him, but it made for some good laughs. Maybe he was just a lonely skunk? The last day we packed up and hit one last short hike at Bearfence Trail. This one is a rock scramble that is worth the climb up. Some great views and challenging terrain proved just the way to end the trip. On the car-ride back absolutely nothing happened so I'll end this portion there.

And now for the finale of our journey, the D & Q Summer Sizzler XC race in Sewell, NJ. This was a MASS race, and I haven't been to a MASS race since April. Not sure why, just sort of how it's worked out. I knew I'd have some cobwebs in the legs after not racing the weekend before and having a rest week prior. I got as good a warm-up in as I could in the 90+ degree heat and humidity and lined up with my fingers crossed. At the start I clipped right in and took off with the front. I knew I wasn't feeling amazing but was hoping to warm up more as the race wore on. This proved true for a bit, but then after making some aggressive accelerations to move up some spots I started to explode rather quickly and for the remaining 3 laps I went backwards and ended up 18th on the day. Blah! Next week is a slightly bigger target at Spring Mountain. A great warm-up race for Mt. Snow the weekend after. I'll be pre-riding Wednesday, as the course is supposedly S-I-C-K. Can't wait. Also, thinking of racing the Super-D's at Mt. Snow and Windham, that is if I can get my hands on a loaner bike.......

Until the next time gentle folk.........

Post-a-rama

I hadn't posted anything for a while, so I thought I'd post a few days in a row to make up for it. This one is sorta pointless, but thought I'd share anyway, here goes: I was down in Alabama talking with Martin when he mentioned that you can get camper tops for Honda Elements, sorta like the ones for VW Eurovans. In case you don't know already, I have a Honda Element and I have turned into a tent on wheels many a times, so this got my attention rather quickly. After a quick search on the interweb, I found what I was looking for. BEHOLD, the Ecamper. They're about $5000.00 which is a little steep for me right now, but how sweet are they?!?! I'm currently taking up cash & check donations to help me purchase one for my vehicle. I thank you advance for you generosity.

Wide eyed stare

Staring blankly I watch as my laptop screen burns to life. It's morning, any morning, and I'm going through the paces I have set forth for myself. Breakfast is soon to come, and this morning will be an unexpected meal of fresh blueberry pancakes and lean bacon. A good start for any.

After last weekend's disappointment I figured it would be impossible to have a bad race this weekend. I had gotten over last weekend's bug, gotten hydrated and stayed that way. I had my bike working tip-top, and I had gotten plenty of sleep all week. The stage was set for a good race. At the start, I turned it up to 11 and grabbed the hole-shot into the singletrack. After leading for most of the first lap, I almost rolled my rear tire on a high-speed corner after burping air out of it. Whoops.... A quick CO2 shot and I got rolling again in 3rd position. Lap #2 saw me chase back to 2nd but another flat on lap #3 had me stop for more CO2. Back on the bike, into chase mode again, almost done lap 4, then PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT. Out of CO2 I had to call it a day. Despite another mishaps and DNF, I am happy with the day as I was feeling good and know I'll be feeling better as each race comes up.

So no racing this weekend for me. After a solid week of training I'll be off for some camping in the Shenandoahs next week before heading into my big run of races for the year. MASS race at Sewell, King of Spring, Mt. Snow, Windham Mtn. If things work out, I'll be getting ready for cyclocross mid-August, doing 'cross clinics during September, and racing 'cross October, November, and December. That should keep the fitness in check and give me a nice base for next season.

Toodles.

A plateful of Ugh

Showed up to race today, but didn't really show up. Stomach problems the day before and a few crappy nights of sleep left me feeling not-so-chipper this morning. Love to race my bike and liked the course so I figured it couldn't hurt to try my hand at the day instead of sitting it out (the ladder would have been the smart decision). Sometimes you push through these things and come out stronger, but today wasn't one of those days. Good thing is that my training schedule is tapering and I'll be able to rest and recover more week-to-week. Hopefully by Tuesday morning I'll be back up and running. OK, back to sleep with me.

Happy Birthday America!