31.10.12

2012.49: 10/29 - 11/4

Well, for those who are unaware, we got hit pretty good (or bad) by Sandy the Hurricane.  As such, I'm writing this wednesday by the power of a gas generator.  Hey, I need the bare necessities just as much as the next guy.  This just happens to include internet access.

Sunday: tried the east setauket trails with Dan.  The first section to the west of the power lines was blown clean and really nice, the far east section was leafy, but passable, but then as you got to the north section it became impassable.  lots of trees down, branches, leaves, etc.  we were running out of daylight, so we ducked out and tried the black diamonds on the west side, but ran out of light for that, too.  That's some serious stuff up there.  I have some new trails to work on.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/240339189
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Saturday: Did a little bit of 'cross training on my short course that I came up with.  The park was actually really hopping as I guess nobody knows what to do with themselves with the electricity out.  It's a shame that this is what it takes for people to actually use the local parks.  I did 10 repeats, then felt like dying so I took a break, then 5 more, though my lap counter got screwed up from those.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/239801336
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Friday: Rode the 'cross bike down to the beaches to check out the damage.  The beaches themselves look very clean and sandy, but you can tell there was a good amount of erosion.  One sailboat broke loose by long beach and was leaning up against an electric pole in the parking lot.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/239468923
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Thursday: Again, no riding.  Boo.

Wednesday: Raked leaves in the front yard, helped some guys cut down the branches that fell in the back yard.  No riding.

Tuesday: Post-Hurricane.  Rode the 'cross bike around the neighborhood and down to cordwood beach.  Later, I rode through some of the other neighborhoods and visited walter and dan.  This bike is great for getting around.  No data.

Monday: Hurricane.  No riding.

24.10.12

2012.48: 10/22 - 10/28

Sunday: Finished building the CX bike, so I decided to take it down to the park for some little practice.  I made this short course with a downhill, long straight, turn, straight, off camber turn, straight, turn, straight, stair climb, round a tree, repeat.  I did two sets of 5 repeats of that.  It hurt, so I think I was doing it right.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/238073968
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Saturday: My aim was to finally ride Percy's RP2IPBP-JP ride.  But I overslept.  As per usual.  Instead, Dan had the day off so we decided to do some sweet mountain biking.  We went to Cathedral Pines, which was rocked, including very likely all of the black diamonds, then we got pizza, then I suckered Dan into riding East Setauket.  I ate shit at the start, but beyond that things went well.  We added one black diamond.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/237628801
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/237628786

Friday: Thought about doing the kreb ride.  Woke up late instead.  I managed a shortish endurance-style ride eventually.  I tried to hunt one KOM on the way out, but the blinkie light I was borrowing from walter exploded on the way up, so that screwed that one.  On the way back, I tried to meet up with an SBRA ride, but apparently I had the date wrong.  Whoops.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/237296616
NP/IF/TSS: 175W/0.758/166

Thursday: Again, no riding.  More volunteer work on the Christeen.

Wednesday: No riding again (what a week).  Another on-and-off rainy day.  I spent it out on the Christeen volunteering as crew for a marine education class.  I didn't educate, I just did lowly sailor stuff.  EDIT: I also did some pushups, calf raises, and squats in the evening.

Tuesday: No riding.  It looked nice out in the morning, but by the time I got myself situated, the clouds started rolling in.  I helped Jen with her ATP for next year a little bit while having my noon breakfast, then Danny asked if I could help with some more seat deletes.  We knocked those out, moved his bmw into the garage, and by then it was raining on and off.

Monday: No riding.  Helped walter split and stack wood for the day.  It was fun.  The weather was great, so maybe I should have rode.

16.10.12

2012.47: 10/15 - 10/21

Sunday: No riding.  Did 4x1.5 min planks with 1.5 min rest, then 3x30 rep transverse planks.

Saturday: I finally was able to attend a Kissena 150 ride.  This is an end-of-season group ride put on each year consisting of (roughly) 50 laps at the rail, 50 at the stayers, 50 at the pole.  This year was dedicated to Dave Jordan, who passed away earlier in the year.  There was a nice group of riders out, including MikeW, ChrisB, LaCorte, (new world champ) Kim, Colin and his father, and team-mates Jen, Dave, and Aaron.  The ride itself was a little unsteady, which I think was a combination of wind and a broad range of abilities, but it was still a beautiful day out.  Afterward, I talked with Colin and LaCorte for a bit.  It was nice to see both of them, particularly Colin since he's generally busy doctoring now.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/235405975
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Friday: No riding.  Visited Dan at the shop.  I think that is all.

Thursday: Pink Rhino Ultimate Team Meeting.  I headed in to Atlantic terminal early to try to meet up with Aaron and Dave at PP to do some laps.  Too bad I didn't start my garmin for the ride to the train, because I was on the rivet the whole time to make it to the train on time.  As for PP, I rode down, did one slow lap without seeing the team, stopped for 15 minutes, still didn't see them, did some half-assed laps with one or two legit digs, then rode to the meeting.  Turns out they wanted pizza instead, so they didn't get down to the park.  Oh well.  On the plus side, I'm now team president.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/234826555
NP/IF/TSS: 151W/0.652/46

Wednesday: Tried for a longer ride in the morning.  It ended up being shorter distance-wise than I thought, but it was still good.  I was hoping for 40-45miles. Afterward, I met up with Karl as he was trying some Shen/Cheung stuff at the track to work out his aero position.  I was more interested on working on my slow riding and track standing.  In between Karl's aero tests, we tried some match sprint tactics on each other.  I can still use some practice, but I feel a lot more confident.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/234525309
NP/IF/TSS: 151W/0.652/46
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/234525225
NP/IF/TSS: N/A

Tuesday: Rode around on the peugeot with Dan.  Not really sure how far we went.  Maybe 10ish miles?  Down browns to lake ronkonkoma and back along gibbs pond, stopping at parks and little vinnies along the way.  It felt good, despite the cold wind.  No data.

Monday: It was warmish but windyish, so I went out for a short, easy ride.  It was surprisingly painful.  I don't know if that was wind or just the fact that I hadn't been riding for 2+weeks.  Not much to really say.  Talked to a guy fishing at stony brook.  At west meadow, I had fun with the apparent wind.  Heading from spit to beach at ~16mph, it felt like there was no wind, so I turned around again and immediately got blasted with wind.  From this, I would have to say that the wind was blowing at about 16mph.  hooray.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/233883166
NP/IF/TSS: 169W/0.733/109

10.10.12

2012.46: 10/8 - 10/14

I think some time this week I'll start to work on my annual training plan for next year.  How exciting!  I'm also looking into getting a squat rack to bring my training to the next level.  We'll see how that goes.

Sunday: Ditto to saturday.

Saturday: No riding.  Got to crew on the oyster sloop Christeen for the day.

Friday: Went sailing in the morning.  I tried to make it out before the winds picked up to a small craft advisory, but I think I got too late of a start.  Buried the rail a few times, but didn't have enough hands to bail the cockpit while also tending the main, jib and rudder.  Let the jib flog for a bit until I could get it down, but then I ended up blown against some reeds that I couldn't get out of.  Eh, could have been worse.  As for bike related stuff, I did some more core work.  3x1.5min planks with 1.5 min rest and 1 more 1min plank.  Then 3 sets of 30 transverse planks, and 2x25 calf raises.

Thursday: It was cold and windy, I gave thought to riding the trails, but I wasn't sure if they'd be muddy from some rain we had last night.  Just visited dan again.  No riding.  EDIT: I think I worked on my ATP for next year today.  I'll write a post about that eventually.

Wednesday: I was going to (side note, I feel like I start a lot of entries with this) go sailing early in the morning as the tide was going to be high and the winds low.  Then I check at like 4am and now there's a small craft advisory and thunder forecast for right when I was going to put in.  So I slept in instead, woke up to a beautiful day, visited dan at the bike shop and afterward rode down to the water.  The weather and water were perfect, but the tide was still less than half with only an hour or so until dark, so no sailing.  Long story short, I rode the fixed gear for like 4 miles.  Of course no data.

Tuesday: Rainy day, no riding.  No way am I going to start riding rollers already. Did some core/leg work in the evening.  5x1min planks with 1 min rest, 3x30 transverse planks, 3x10 unweighted squat jumps.

Monday: Nothing.

7.10.12

Race: GSVA Fall Track Classic

I was looking forward to this race for a while.  Originally I thought it was at the end of September, because I fail at reading things.  When I realized it was the same week as when I would be in Jersey City, I started to think I wouldn't actually be able to race.  This is ironic, as getting to the track is actually a whole lot easier from Jersey City.  The problem lays in that I had no way of getting my track bike.  Were I smart, I could have left it in the shipping container at kissena after sprint training last sunday.  Oh well.

So Josh asked me if I wanted a ride down to the race, and originally I said no, it wouldn't work out.  Then I thought about it more, and I figured I might as well just go to spectate and see what the track was all about.  I told Josh my situation and a little while later he said he would check with Andrew B about letting me borrow a bike.  The next thing I know, I have a ride down to the track, and a bike to use when I get there.  Sweeeet.  Now the big problem was the squats and cleans I did with Lucas the day before.

With a large threat of rain still in the forecast, I decided to treat the day as a big experiment.  At the least, I would learn how to get to the track, and how long it would take.  On a larger scale, if the rain didn't show up, I would be able to see just how my body reacts in a race situation right after lifting weights.  As fate would have it, the rain held off until we packed up the car to leave the track, when it came down as a light sprinkle.  The sky actually cleared for a little bit.

Backtracking a little bit, I met Josh, Jen, and Amira down by Reade street, we packed the car, threw on the bikes and headed out.  The trip down actually seemed pretty straight forward, though we did overshoot the exit, which was more of a pain than I realized with the 50 cent toll each time.  We got to the track, changed, registered, I adjusted my loaner bike (care of Andrea B), and did some laps.  There are some scary concentric cracks along the track, which Andrew pointed out in a slow lap before the A field went to the line for the first race.

Our first race was a miss and out.  I figured this would really tell the theme for the rest of the night.  We started out and my legs were screaming in pain.  Just clipping in, I had trouble using my leg strength, and had to push my heel down by hand.  Either way, I was able to stay ahead of some riders, but on the fourth place pull, I just couldn't get my back wheel ahead of Josh's.  This seems to be a recurring theme for me with these races.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/230299234

Next was a 20 lap Points race.  A good bunch of us seemed none-too-excited about the length of the race.  I think a big part of it was that the humidity must have been 100%.  Just sitting on the ground, my helmet, glasses, notebook, et cetera all had condensation covering them.  We started the race just rotating pulls at a moderate pace.  The first sprint, I was maybe around 4th or so?  We kept rotating pulls again, and I found myself leading into turn 4 just before the bell lap for the second sprint.  I just stayed on the front trying to keep the pace hot.  This was enough to give me first place on that sprint.  After this, the pace slowed a bit, so I gave an attack over the top a try.  The group caught back up with me, and the pace slowed again.  My glutes were really killing me at this point, so I figured I should try another big move to get the blood flowing, maybe win another sprint and probably blow up magnificently doing so.  The group moved uptrack a bit, so I attacked down below in the sprinters lane and was able to get a gap going.  I kept my head down for a few laps to win the third sprint, where I then swung up track again to wait for the group, but the gap wasn't really closing down.  I resolved to put myself deeper in pain, and kept soloing off the front to get the final sprint.  This gave me first overall in the points race.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/230299222

The final race in the omnium was the Keirin.  This was the race that I was really looking forward to.  GSVA happens to have a legit straight-from-europe derny.  I was sad that I didn't have my casco to wear to really get into the mood, but I was still happy to race.  We drew lots to start, I think I was fourth or fifth.  The start order didn't really seem to make much of a difference after the derny came around, though.  It was a little bit hectic.  Rather than slot in line, I opted to sit next to the second or third rider behind the moto.  This worked pretty well as the pace ramped up, but I did find myself starting to fade by the last lap with the bike.  I actually completely lost track of the laps we did, so I was slightly surprised when the moto pulled off.  My timing was a little off for my sprint, but I was still able to come in fifth.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/230299219

This concluded the omnium, and since my legs were shot and Amira had to catch an early flight, the four of us decided to call it a night and not do the feature race.  Andrew B and Sam were understanding, so we did the podiums quick, where I came in third overall in the A's.  This won me $20 and a pumpkin.  We packed up quick, and headed off to a diner to get some food.  It was delicious.  We got back on the road, listened to some good music, had some good talks, and Josh was kind enough to drop me off right in Jersey City.  All in all, I'd say it was a successful evening.  Thanks, everybody!  I certainly hope to race at the GSV more next season.

Finally, what's the verdict on racing after lifting?  My snap definitely wasn't there, nor was my top end.  Steady state seemed about the same, though certainly a lot more painful.  My quads just above my knee and my glutes hurt the most.  My lower back also wasn't too happy.  I certainly wouldn't recommend it.  Especially since I felt even worse the next day than the day after just lifting.  I thought my legs would collapse on me a few times while walking around the apartment.  So there's that.

3.10.12

2012.45: 10/1 - 10/7

Sunday: Nada.  Rainy, rainy day.

Saturday: Headed back from Jersey City.  Rode from Ronkonkoma up home.  It wasn't really a data-worthy ride.

Friday: Ohhh man, my legs felt completely wrecked today.  I thought I was going to fall down the stairs when I went to get the mail.  I still got out to spin around the block a few times, but nothing garmin-worthy.

Thursday: Got talked into racing the Fall Track Classic at the Garden State Velodrome.  See the race report.  My legs felt sore from yesterday.

Wednesday: Lucas was willing to meet with me a bit this morning, so we did some squats, cleans, and a lat/hamstring/other stuff circuit.  I've come to realize my form is a bit off, but lucas is a good coach.  My clean is ugly as hell.  good to know.

Tuesday: Rainy day.  Went to lift weights with Lucas, but as it turns out, he can only check in two guests, so Andy and I went and got burritos and coffee instead.  We then met up with Heather and Josh after they finished lifting, talked about the team a bit, then I headed back.

Monday: This week I'm in Jersey City watching my brother's cats.  Today I walked around a bunch.  Went down to the water and picked up some pottery shards along the waterfront.