2011 Back in the Saddle!

Well it's been over a year since I made any posts. Last year was not a good racing year for me. I never felt good at any race and decided to see a doctor about it. He saw that my cortisol levels were low and told me to stop riding for 3 months. I finished my racing season with issues and actually took the 3 months off and now I'm back to riding again. I ride Tuesday and Thursday nights in my basement with shorter rides consisting of intervals and standing. Sunday is usually my long ride day but haven't been out much due to weather or me being sick. Last Sunday I did 43 miles by myself and had shifting issues and ran out of liquids. Need to order a new cassette this week and hopefully will be back to the long rides in the next week or so. I'm hoping this season will be better and I'm using what I know to be my strength to choose my races this year. I have three 100-mile races planned and I don't care about winning but finishing. Last years Mohican 100 was horrible with the mud. Hopefully this year will be rain free. I still plan on doing the Tailwind Series and will try to win a series award this year. Please comment to keep my posts going!

2010....a big year planned

Well it's been a while since I've blogged...I figured that no one was reading so who cares. Turns out, someone's been looking at my page since I have 900 views. Well I ended 2009 ok. I wasn't happy with any individual race but ended up 3rd in the tailwind series. I was one of those racers who had a lot of points by being at every race, but never was actually in the top 3. This year I'm staying in the sport class and hoping to be in the top 3 as many times as possible. I've got some new races this year planned as well...starting with the Mohican 100. I wanted to do lumberjack but didn't get an entry. I might end up doing Cohutta 100 as well but I don't know if I'll be ready in a month. I've also added swimming and running into my workout routine...and hopefully will do a few triathlons this year...maybe even a 70 mile Ironman in July. My most eager endeavor is riding my bike around Michigan. I plan on using the great lakes scenic tour roads to ride around at least the lower half of our beautiful state. I have no idea how long it'll take...I'm assuming 2 weeks for now. I'll plan better when the summer gets closer. post up if you're actually reading this so I know this isn't all for nothing. later!

First Century Attempt and Team Ride

On Friday, July 4, Mark Olin and I were planning on riding from his house in Rochester to Port Huron and back. I've never done a century (100 miles) before so was a little hesitant about going, especially since he wanted to leave at 6 a.m.. Well I decided to go and we started off on the Macomb Orchard Trail at a moderate pace on the the road bikes until we got to 29 mile and cut east to Gratiot. Our plan was to take Gratiot up to Port Huron. We were cruising around 19-20 which was a good pace for me behind him. Once we got to Gratiot though, Mark got a flat. We tried fixing it using a CO2 cartridge and blew the tube. I tried it again and realized that he had a groove cut into the sidewall of his tire due to some rubbing. We tried inflating the tire but the tube herniated out of the tear. Mark called his wife to come get us while we sat at the gas station for about a half hour. We only ended up with 22 miles.

On Sunday, Will, Jason, Mark, some other guy, and I went for a dirt road ride. We ended up doing 50 miles heading up to Dryden and back. We did some of the Paint Creek and Polly Ann Trails. Once again, Mark and I ran into trouble. He got a stick stuck in his front tire and wiped out into my direction. I didn't have any time to react, so I ran him over and then fell myself. I was ok, but Mark was bleeding a bit from his leg. It was pretty sweet to see that my tire mark was on his jersey. I'll have to remember to stay away from him on rides. Oh yeah, Jason actually did the 50 miles. No one at the store believe that he did that many miles since he hasn't been riding lately and needed as a witness to prove that he did ride the miles. Miles to date: 1105

Stony Marathon and Pre-Ride with my Aunt

Yesterday, My aunt wanted to go for a ride up the Polly-Ann Trail. I told her that it was a nice ride and was 11 miles long. She decided we should ride from her house which is 3 miles from the trailhead. When we got there, I was corrected because it was actually 12 miles, not 11 to Leonard. We were slow and steady and only had to stop once to take a break, but when we got to Leonard, I said we needed to go another mile to the end of the trail in Oakland county. We rode to the Oakland/Lapeer county border just to say we did it and headed back. Obviously it was harder on the way back, especially since the limestone was drying out and was turning into a very sandy trail. We stopped twice on the way back and added in the small nature trail just north of Drahner. We ended up with 32.5 miles which is the farthest she'd ever ridden... YEAH!

Today was the Stony Creek Marathon consisting of 40 miles of mud. I rode hard and strong the whole time and was pretty well spent by the end of the 4th lap. I kept saying to myself "If I could just catch the next guy." It seemed to work because the last two laps I wasn't passed by anyone. That's probably because most people were in front of me. It was quite muddy and I was having issues shifting during every lap. Lap 3 was the worst when something got stuck in my derailleur just as I was passing my aunt and uncle (thanks for coming). I pulled it out and did better but was still slow due to mud. I finished in 5th place out of 9 with a time of 3 hours and 21 minutes. Of course Josh Radi won again ahead of my by 10 minutes. Derek was just behind my by 30 or so seconds. I'm glad that I placed at this race especially since I didn't place due to a small group but actually beat 4 people. Miles to date: 1033!!! Finally over 1K.

TK Lawless

This weekends race seemed to be a bit weird for me. For starters, I was up at 5:15 to meet Brian Crook from Team Sandbag to carpool to the race. We got there roughly 9:40 and I started at 10:48. I was strong in the race. I passed several people and wasn't passed except for 2-3 people the whole 14 miles. Around mile 10, it started to thunder and was shortly followed by rain which was bad for me to see with my glasses practically made unvisible. I pushed it hard the whole time and felt ok... no cramps, no chest pains, no slowing down. I saw Nick at mile 12, and he was a mile ahead of me. Considering he left 2 minutes ahead of me at the start, I figured he couldn't have been far in front of me since I was less than a mile away. As I rounded the last corner I knew I had done ok. I changed my clothes and cleaned off my bike. Shortly after they had the times posted. I was 7th out of 7. I had a time of 1:11. The math didn't make sense to me. If Nick had been ahead by a mile and finished around 5 minutes faster, but started 2-3 minutes earlier, how did he end up 5 minutes faster? should have been 2-3 minutes. Maybe the timing was off. Probably not, I probably just suck, thinking I did good but ended up last. Hopefully I'll do better at the marathon at Stoney next weekend. Miles to date: 927

Hardest race ever

This weekend was the Brighton Stage race. It is three races over two days. The first race was a time-trial on the torn shirt trail which was 6.5 miles. When we got there, the guys at tailwind it should take between 20-30 to do this lap. So I was early and decided to go slow and preride it. It took me 40 minutes and I was worried that I wasn't going to make it back in time. So I was an idiot once again and got myself tired before I raced. During the race, I ended up doing the lap in 38 minutes. It was a pretty cool trail but a little overgrown. I came in 3rd of 3 for this race. Later that day, at 4:00, we did the short track race. This race is just like a criterion except on mountain bikes. We had to do 5 laps and each lap was .8 miles each. This stupid race was all in the grass. I didn't do to well at this one because I don't have speed on my side..especially on grass. I also came in 3rd of 3 for this race. We went home, watched "clash of the titans" and I returned today. When I got there, the experts/elites were just about to leave. They had to do 4/5 laps and it was muddy from the downpouring last night. I was keeping track of lap times and noticed that they were going pretty slow for each lap. By the time my class started, it was unbelievably hot and muggy. I knew that I wasn't going to do as good as guys who were just racing today, so I put myself in the back and was trying to hang on to someones rear. Unfortunately that didn't last too long and I lost my group in a matter of minutes. I kept getting passed by the subsequent groups and by the middle of the first lap, I was suffering pretty bad from the heat. I finished the first lap and was gonna call it quits. Unfortunately if I quit, I would be DNF'd for the whole stage race. So I changed my mind after a few minutes of resting. The other two laps were as slow as growing trees. For most of those laps, there was someone riding my tail the whole time. It made racing a bit enjoyable but was still really tough. I ended up in 5th of 6 for that race. I was pretty surprised that I actually beat someone. Maybe they were thinking the same thing as I and quit earlier. I don't know why this race was so hard for me other than the heat. Everyone had to put up with the heat though and I was one of a few that struggled so much. The course in my opinion was pretty tough for being 8 miles. I'd say it's harder than Pontiac lake if they were the same distance. The climbs aren't as big, but there are more of them, and there weren't too many places to get speed. I still ended up with an award for the stage race for sticking it out. I don't really care if it was last, or 3rd, I won in my mind for not quitting and actually finishing the hardest race I've done. Miles to date: 753

Busy Tiring Week

Well this week was probably the busiest week I've had in a long time. Tuesday was my concert at school. Wednesday was a field trip and then I spent that night getting music for Friday. Thursday was another field trip but this time to Chicago so I was up at 3:30 and home by 12:30... and Friday was field day in which I was the DJ. I rode on Saturday with Dave at Stony. We ended up with 9 miles because the pines section was a bit muddy. Today I rode by myself at Stony and ended up with 15 miles. First I did the Pines, Snakes, Coasters and headed back to the parking lot and did a lap of the race course and bailed just after the Coasters again. I didn't race on Sunday because I was too tired and didn't want to drive 180 miles each way when I'm trying to save every penny I have to get a house. Miles to Date: 702