Snowshoeing Fun.....

I got in some good snowshoeing yesterday, but never did get in a ride as my sister was up here from California and her and my dad came over in the afternoon for a belated X-mas dinner. I was up early and on the trails a little before 8:00 and it wasn't really all that bad, I was dressed appropriately this time so I didn't sweat as bad as the last time I went out. There was no one else out there, which I wouldn't expect at that time of the morning so I was blazing the trails all by myself and Friday's snowfall made for a tough go of it up some of the hills. After snowshoeing I had to get back and get in some last minute grocery shopping and house cleaning before I started cooking. There just was no time left to get in a ride as my dad and sister ended up leaving at about 9:30 but I really didn't care at that point as we had a great time playing some GH3, pool, darts and sitting by the fire. I will get in a good ride today though, hopefully about 3 hours on the rollers and trainer, using the trainer for muscle tension stuff. I do have to be in Burlington though at about 11:00 this morning until about 4:30ish, so my ride will be done while watching a movie tonight otherwise I'd probably try to ride outside if I didn't have to leave. Oh well, I'm used to sweating it up on the trainer. Well, that's it for now, until next time.......

Sunday's Snowshoeing Pics

Tis The Season

Tis the season for snoeshowing, certainly not cycling, as I got out this morning and did just over an hour of snowshoeing on some local XC ski trails. There was a nice sledding hill at the parking lot and I also did a few running repeats up that to give myself a little burn. In addition to the snowshoeing this morning I'll also be riding the bike tonight (inside of course) after some afternoon family festivities. I've allocated about 2 hours to ride the rollers while watching the newest Harry Potter movie with the family. Yesterday I was able to get in 3 hours on the rollers and the trainer. I did 2 hours on the rollers while watching the Packer game and then after 2 hours I switched to the trainer so that I could do Muscle Tension Intervals as there really is no resistance on the rollers. So 3 good hours of cycling yesterday, 1hr15min of snowshoeing and 2 hours of cycling today have me feeling pretty good about my fitness, well, in addition to the 7 straight days of cycling and 3 days of weightlifting that I did last week. I've been on a roll lately with the bike since I've got back from Florida and I'm feeling pretty good with the Foundation Period that I've almost completed. I've done almost 16 weeks of foundation work and in a couple weeks (the 8th I think) I'll move on to the Preparation Period. The winter season has been pretty snowy so far, I'm hoping that it tapers off a bit, even though we've really just begun, so that I can get more cycling in outside on weekends. I've ordered some parts and mtb tires for the new singlespeed so I'm hoping that I can get that outside even in the snow in the next couple of weeks. I'll also be getting in some time on the snowshoes to break up the monotony of the cycling as well. Well, the next couple of days will be filled with Christmas fun, I hope you all enjoy the next couple of days as much as I'm sure I will, have a great Xmas!! Until next time...........

New Rig

This year I really had a desire to get a fun, tooling-around town, trail-ready, single speed bike......sooooo, yesterday I picked one up. I went to the bike shop to get a seat collar for my road bike as I tightened mine a bit too much Tuesday night while making some adjustments and snapped the seat collar right in half. Luckily I didn't damage my frame or seatpost. Anyways, I went to the store and bought my seat collar and was heading out the door. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this wonderful green machine that caught my attention. I walked back through the door and checked it out. I said to myself "SOLD!" A few minutes later I had it downstairs in my basement, luckily the wife wasn't home so I snuck it in and still haven't told her as of yet. I'll have to let her know tonight though....wish me luck. It's actually not an expensive bike, pretty cheap actually, about 300 bucks but I liked the style and the color, lime green with flames! It's basically a starting point to having some fun cruising some of the trails around town that I wouldn't take my road bike on, such as limestone or dirt trails. I'll also use it to ride with my wife and it's great to take out on wet, crappy days as it has fenders! Admit it, you're jealous....well, probably not. So, the frame is aluminum, so it isn't super heavy and other than that most of the parts will be upgraded shortly. You're probably asking why I just wouldn't get a better bike if I'm upgrading most of it but basically I bought it for the frame style and the price, and for the singlespeed setup. The first items to be upgraded will be the front end of the bike.....the threaded cromoly rigid fork is going and will be replaced by a threadless carbon rigid fork and threadless headset and stem. The bars that came with it are the wide, curved bars and they add to the style of the bike so I'm keeping those. Basically that will be it for upgrades until Spring, then after that I'll be upgrading the seatpost and seat and then at some point this year I'll upgrade the wheelset, but of course I'll be keeping the fenders. Well, that's it for my exciting news for now, I've attached a pic below. Until next time.....

New SS Rig

Winter Blues

I hate the trainer, I hate the trainer, I hate the trainer. O.k., now that we got that out of the way........
The New Year is approaching and it's probably a good time to look at what my goals and plans are for 2008. Of course I already started training for 2008 back in October so that has already been ongoing and will obviously continue to progress up until the first race. As far as what I plan on doing for races and what I expect in '08, I'm hoping to expand on the number of races I did this year, and I already have and will be increasing the quality of my training to be able to be competitive with the 1/2/3s. This is the start of my 3rd year back and obviously I won't ever be able to train as I much as I did before so I won't ever be as good as I was but I think that if I was 80% as good as I was, then that should be good enough to be competitive. I can already tell that some of the issues that bugged me last year won't be holding me back this year, such as my sore knee, and tight back/hip. Last year I had a very sore and tight left hip and I couldn't push my left leg at full power on most rides. I don't have even the slightest tinge of tightness in my hip anymore, all the stretching that I've been doing has alleviated that. My knee pain is essentially gone, I haven't felt that in quite a few weeks. Basically there are no physical limiters right now. Sooo, anyways, on to my plans and goals for 2008.....
Given what I know I'm capable of, I don't think I created goals that aren't realistic so I should be able to achieve all of them.

1. Finish in the top 30 in all my races this year
2. Finish in the top 20 in 50% of my races this year
3. Finish in the top 10 in at least 3 races
4. Finish in the top 3 at least once
5. Finish in the top 15 in WCA points in 1/2/3 30+
6. Upgrade to Cat 2 by season's end

I plan on doing at least 25 races in 2008, up from 17 this year and most of the extra races will come in the form of SuperWeek races, which I skipped entirely this year.
Other than that, I just hope to be a good teammate to the other guys in my races and I'll also try to help the guys in the 4/5s as much as I can as well to get them moved up to race with the 1/2/3s. As far as things I need to improve on personally, I'll be working on my climbing ALOT more this year and I'll need to improve my sprinting a bit more as well. My time trialing will come along as well as I get stronger but I won't work on that specifically as there are only 1 or 2 TTs that I'll be doing this year. Well, that's it for now, gotta get back to work...until next time.....

Snowshoeing

Pictures of Melissa and I snowshoeing for the the first time......the snow was great, we were pretty wiped out after we were done. Next time I'll wear clothes that are a bit more breathable as I worked up a pretty good sweat, and jeans and cotton shirts just don't move that sweat away from the body very well. Lesson learned. It was hard work and I'm feeling it today.

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