climb

I sit here stealing wireless from someone, so I will keep this breif. Snow supposed to be coming soon, and I could deal with some powder.

The whole family made the climb up highlands bowl yesterday. 717 vertical feet topping out at 12,382ft, leads to a 2,500 or so vertical foot descent. Lifts and a snowcat get you to a point along the right ridge. It is a somewhat taxing effort, especially for the parents. The run down is amazing however, as we were making fresh tracks nearly a week after the last snow storm. I even managed to snap a few pictures.

be back in a week

Just when I was settling into a nice routine, my family decides its time for a vacation. I was getting used to and really starting to like sleeping till noon or so, going out for some base miles, finding something to eat, general relaxing around the house until the siblings got home from school, hanging out with them for a bit, dinner, and then out to see friends, bed, repeat.

At least we are heading out to Colorado. Hopefully we will be able to go....all the darn snow closed the airport. I hope everyone has a good x-mas, blah blah blah. I'm hitting the slopes (for the first time this year, a new record of how late in the season it is till I get on snow, usually its just before turkey day) for the next week or so with the family in Aspen and I may even remember my camera. Thats right, a place where the beer flows like water, where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon to capistrana....Ok, so I butchered the quote. I'll be back in time to tear it up for new years, see you then.

dog

I miss my dog. He left today (we leave for colorado saturday morning) and I only got to see him for a few days. He is perhaps the coolest, loudest, and at times most annoying 4lb fluffball in existence...he also has a huge tongue apparently.


Oh yea. I went to Targetraining again tonight (with my dad). Only one semi-guerrilla. We did some cool arizona cross type ride (wide open dirt road). Mostly flat with a few small rollers, and a single 1.5mile 3% or so climb. The semi-guerrilla and I took turn pulling each other (we dropped my dad about 3 minutes in) which was cool learning how to use the computers draft. Eventually we got bored and decided to do a few semi-hard efforts, keeping our heartrate below a certain percent. By no means a race, just kicking up the pace a slight bit, still easy, still base miles, just seeing how things felt. No way I was going to jack up the heartrate.

We kept together perfectly well through the first two. On the last one, about 1/2 way through it, I opened a gap on him of 25 feet. Next thing I knew my gap was over 100 feet and I was gone. He was going hard trying to catch on, but pro told me to continue my workout and not wait for him. I settled into a nice rythm for the rest of our "not overly slow section" putting out a consistent 250w and keeping the hr down, and ended up a minute ahead of him. Again not that I was racing, but after getting served tuesday, I wanted to beat someone somewhere....so what if I was 2bpm over my targeted maxhr for a brief moment? I also put out a not so pathetic 521w for a moment on one of the short little climbs, at an easy/medium effort. I have never ridden with a powermeter before, so using this is a new experience and sort of fun. I want to go back and see what watts I can put out when I am in shape and allowed to go.

pic's pt 2.....much better

No helmet-wrecking crash today!!!

After I wrote all that up yesterday, I went over to Targetraining to get some new gear. Bell Sweep R and some rudy project's and I'm stylin now. While I was there I ended up getting invited to ride with them that night. They use velodyne computrainer type things. About 4 gorrilla's, 1 pro racer, and myself showed up. After spinning for 20 minutes and getting the velodyne's calibrated (you enter some data, it spins down from speed, etc...) they all decided we were doing the simulated alpe d'huez. It wasn't a race per se, just like you weekly shop hammerfest ride isn't a race......

I started 3rd, and from the get-go was hurting bad....you know, the part that goes downhill. I got passed about 3.5 miles in by a gorrilla who had started about .5mi behind me. I had closed down nearly .25mi on a gorrilla who had started .75mi ahead of me, and was holding steady behind the gorrilla who started first. Around 7mi I was really, really hurting.

I should mention 38X23 was my gearing for this "climb". Needless to say it was terrible. One giant pain interval. I got passed by the pro who started 5minutes after me, tried to jump and draft him (you can do that in this thing, its soo cool, you all have your own tv screens, someone comes up, you accelerate to stay behind them and it drafts and gets a tad easier) but as soon as I settled onto his wheel he jumped and dropped me. We played cat and mouse for about a minute, and I was totally cooked. I finally made it up, last, but with the 2nd to slowest time, 1:17 and change. I avg'd somewhere around 175 watts, which isn't terrible, I weigh all of 119 lbs, actaully, I lost 3lbs during that ride. To be fair, I had ridden and crashed, was coming off 3 weeks off, and they are all HUGE powerful guys, who ride, alot, and are faster than me.

Anyways, I slept well last night and decided to ride with my mom for an easy spin to get lunch today. Brought the camera along. Took things super easy and spinny, let my mom suck my wheel for most of the ride, etc. etc. Best base miles of the year to date, by far.


Oh yea. Looks like the Colby team is going to have Targetraining coach us this year. I am super stoked as this is a great oppertunity for us and hopefully for them (probably not). I worked hard to make this happen, and now that it looks like it will, I am excited to be able to work with coaches and athletes of such caliber.

that didn't hurt....pic's pt. 1

After a few weeks pretty much off, I started training again yesterday. Nothing special. With chanukah being celebrated by my family last night, I got some sweet new toys....Digital Camera, ipod...thats right, it pays to not celebrate x-mas sometimes. I took my new toys on my ride with me today. The legs felt fine, but the chest part of the body did not. My HR was through the roof for how easy I was going, and everytime I would try to give it some gas, my hr jumped, my breathing got heavy, etc... I haven't panted so hard since I was doing some major backcountry skiing/climbing/trekking at altitude last winter.

At the end of the ride, about 3 miles from my house, stopping for a light, I lost my balance (one foot out) and took a digger. No one was near (cars or anything) so I got up. I got home fine, only to realize my helmet was trashed and my sunglasses that had been in my pocket were broken. I was pissed, but glad because in my other pockets, my ipod and camera were fine.

I was going to do a longer ride with alot of pictures since it was so nice out, sunny, calm, 45....new england, grow a pair already, but I cut it short as I felt awful. So this wil have to be pt. 1 of the pictures