Dahlonega

So, I'm down here at the Cowie house rocking out on some road bikes in the rain. This morning was awesome, we had a TTT at 9. We started in the rain. We finished in the rain. We got 3rd. We raced 2 other teams. We were done and headed back to the house by 10:30, and have been hanging out ever since. We've had a really good time.

There has been some killer food thanks to the Cowie mom and dad, and I think I might puke if I eat another of their awesome cookies. Tristan, squirrel, Julia and I played Halo for a while today, that was sweet. Julia killed us all. I took a nap for a while, and then came back to playing Halo. It's been full on all day. We were finally forced to play some kind of salad game by the girls, and even though we were getting manhandled by the overwhelming girl factor going on, we stuck it out to the end. Not sure why I told you all of that. Maybe just to give you an idea of how pinned we have been today.

Tomorrow is going to be another awesome rainy day, maybe even snowy. I'm looking forward to it immensely. Really.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Three

Thanks to some cleverness by coach squirrel, I am now a cat 3 road racer, despite only having done 1 road race (in cat 5). I am also an A collegiate racer. Although I remain a cat 5 in track... I guess that is the next thing I should work on. Anyway, look for a new member of the Jeff Parker lead out train coming to a race near you. Maybe I can take the KOP's spot since he has sworn off all road racing from here on.

Speaking of the KOP, he was told by a certain someone that he could get a certain placing in the pro field at a certain race because his power numbers were at a certain level. Well, looking strictly at my power numbers vs. the KOP's power numbers (watts per kg in a LT test), we are pretty closely matched at that level. So, if you look at just the numbers, I should be able to get the same placing at said race. However, I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. While I don't really doubt his chances at getting that finish, I know that I couldn't come near it. He is a good bit faster than me.

That just shows a weakness of a power meter. They aren't the end all be all. There is a lot more that needs to come together to produce a good race. Keep that in mind all you power meter'ers out there. Power is only one aspect of bike racing. Don't get too carried away with it.
(I really hope that made some sort of sense... I'm not sure that it came out right, but it was fine in my head.)

Anyway, I'm heading to GA on Friday to compete in my first TTT. It should be fun riding in the cold and the rain. Yeah.

Mountain biking first though.

Have you ever had the feeling that you were missing something, that it was close but just out of reach? Yeah, I have. This weekend actually. Julia and I went down to Greenville to race at the Donaldson Center, which apparently is super easy to find, although not if you follow Google's (totally wrong and completely made up) directions. We ended up getting lost and driving around in circles for about an hour and a half before heading home. Awesome.

It turned out OK, since we got back to Brevard at a decent hour (since we got up and left at an ungodly hour, we had plenty of time for our driving around) and then went mountain biking with Old Man Balls. It was good times. We hit up some Avery Creek followed by Pinnett. AWESOME! After getting shown up by The Hoo on a couple of climbs, and destroyed by the KOP on all the descents, I am confident in my middle range abilities. Although I was just good enough to avoid dying on anything, which is always a good thing.

I love mountain biking. Road riding can be cool too, if you do it right.

Later.

2009 Racing

Well, the 2009 racing season is upon me, and as usual, I don't feel at all prepared. I've done a good amount of training, in spite of missing a lot of riding in the off season because of injury. I don't expect to be on top form until around the beginning of May, and am doing a lot of collegiate road racing to race myself into shape.

Here is my 2009 planned races list...
NGCSU collegiate road race
Clemson collegiate road race
Georgia Tech collegiate road race
Hobby Park
The Assault on the Carolinas
Lees McRae collegiate road race
Brevard collegiate road race conference championships
Winder SERC
Ducktown SERC
Collegiate Road National Championships (if I qualify, Stumpjump if I don't)
12 Hours of Tsali
Bump and Grind
Clemson SERC
Cowbell Challenge
French Broad Cycling Classic
Fontana SERC
All followed up with a full season of 6 collegiate mountain bike races, then nationals.
Finally, there is talk of a possible 'cross season and 'cross nationals. That would either be fun or kill me.

If I do all of these races, it will give me a total of 23 race weekends, not including cross, which is a lot more than I have ever done before. Hopefully I'll be able to learn how to race, and stop with the inconsistent results stuff that I posted last year.
As far as I know, my goals for the season are...
~Top 5 at collegiate mountain bike nats in the ST or the XC
~Top 3 in one of the national races that I do (Ducktown, Bump and Grind, or Cowbell)
~Upgrade to Pro by the end of the season

Finally, my sponsor list is pretty much finalized, and since I don't have all that many (I'm not that bad ass) I'll give you the long list...
I'd like to thank:
Sycamore Cycles and Wes D for helping me out in pretty much everything bike related
Brevard College Cycling
Specialized Bicycles (for their bikes AND tires, the Fast Track LK is going to hook up this year)Industry Nine
Tifosi Optics
Bracken Mountain Bakery (for their awesome baked goods, even though I have gotten in trouble from eating too much of the goodness)

I'm looking forward to a great year...

Training

Well, I've had a good 3 week block of training so far, and am looking forward to my upcoming rest week. I've got one last set of tempo to do today (courtesy of coach squirrel), and then a nothing cat 5 race this weekend. Yeah, super boring.

You know, I mostly just get tired of riding the same section of road for weeks on end. When I was doing muscle tension intervals, I pretty much just went up to the parkway. With tempo, I have just gone on the Rosman loop and on Island Ford. It gets boring after a while. Yeah.

Tonight I'm going to play trivia at Square Root. I'm looking forward to some domination, and hopefully, maybe, with some luck, my team can finally get away from being the "Banana Bears" or whatever ridiculous banana combination we come up with at the moment. I'm going for "The Trivia Domination Squad", or TTDS for short. I feel like if we do that, talk all kinds of trash, and get on a serious training plan and have a selection committee for our final spots, we can't lose.

Speaking of not being able to lose, guess what is coming up in less than 2 weeks... BREVARD COLLEGE ROAD CYCLING!!! It is going to be off the chain. We get to stay with the Cowies and Chaputs for the first race, and I'll go ahead and say it, it is going to be full on! What happens when you mix a bunch of dumb mountain bikers in with some road racing? We'll find out in Ga...

Later.

I got some killer riding in this week end... a (almost) 3 hour ride with Julia and then a killer Lake Logan loop on the "community" ride. Good stuff. I kinda forgot to drink anything on the roadie ride, so I came very close to bonking on the 215 climb, but after guzzling some Powerbar Endurance (courtesy of Powerbar and Brevard College Cycling) and eating some Powerbar Bar (also courtesy of the same), I was back on track.
We ended up riding for just under 5 hours, and then hit up some Mexican't for lunch.

I'm starting to feel a little better on the bike... I think that the muscle tension workouts did some good, and losing some weight has moved me back towards fighting shape. It's still base, but with road stuff coming up at the end of the month, I feel like I'm in a good place for the coming season.

Now if I could just get my computer to stop being clapped out, I would be happy.

Awesome.

It's been a while. I'm not all that worried about it. I know of only one person who is.

It is almost 70 today. I'm going on a nice long mountain bike ride. You don't get many days like this during the winter, and after 2 months of cold, it is nice to have a nice day. And tomorrow is supposed to be just as awesome.

So stay awesome America... I'm going to ride my bike.

Oh yeah, Contra Dancing. Good stuff. The whole bike team was out last night, and some of them even danced. It was awesome.