The Podium

Well, Lance won again. I guess that has been known for a week now. What a way to end an era. I've always had a love/hate relationship with LA. I admire what he has overcome and accomplished, but at times he does and says some things that I don't agree with. That being said, I wouldn't turn him down if he called me up to go for a ride, and he definitely is an inspiration. At some point or another, we've all tried to emulate him out on our rides. You don't want to copy second best.

Way to go Lance!

I feel sorry for Rasmussen and his melt down in the final time trial. He was definitely one of the big stories of The Tour, and he used to be a mountain biker. I'm partial to those guys. Cadel Evans is another one. It was good, however, to see Jan fight back and be able to hop up on the podium. He definitely had a tough start after crashing into the back of his team car the day before the start.

Basso looked as strong as ever. He has become an excellent time trialer, although he did start out a little too fast in the final one. I think he will be a force to reckon with in the future. Next year's race should be spectacular. Basso, Ullrich, Vinokurov with Liberty Seguros, Valverde, and more. I'm sure there will be some other revelation that no one counted on.

Now time for my races. The standard mountain bike cross country race was on Saturday. I pre-rode the course on Friday. My legs felt pretty good, so I was excited about the race. My plan was just to get up with the top 5 at the start and see if it sticks. The sticking was the big question. You see, after a hair pin start, the course takes a turn straight up hill. Were talking about 1300 feet of climbing in about 3 or 4 miles. If you can't do the math, that is steep.

Well, I did manage to get it to stick. For the first time in a race this year, I felt like I was climbing strongly. I think I fell back to about 8th at one point, but was able to attack at the crest of the first climb and make up a couple of places. I had a solid descent, and was able to get with a couple of guys for the 2nd round of the big climb. I still felt strong and was able to make some accelerations to try to drop some guys. One guy overtook me, but I got the other one. By the top of the course I was pretty spent. I made a visit it to la la land at one point. I couldn't figure out why the singletrack was so rough, but then I looked down and noticed my fork was locked out. There's an explanation for you. I just had the descent left, and I was in pretty good shape. I did lose one place right before the last section of singletrack. There was one little uphill section left, but I didn't have enough to catch the passer. I got to the finish and the announcer said I was the 5th place finisher. My best finish at a National, and since they go 5 deep for the podium at those races, my first National podium! Of course, that is always thanks to a little good luck.

I decided to celebrate a little. Rachel, my dad, and I decided to go get some dinner. Just in time too because a hell of a storm rolled in to the village. A gullywasher I tell you. A waterfall appeared on the steps from the upper level of the village to the middle level. I decided this was a perfect time to polish off some drinks. A beer and three margs later I was feeling pretty good, however, an hour earlier, I had decided I was going to do the short track cross country race on Sunday.

Luckily, said race wasn't until 10:30 on Sunday. I woke up in the morning feeling pretty good. That is until I got on the bike and had to ride it up that damned hill to the short track course. The legs were definitely feeling yesterday's effort, but after a little warm up, they started coming around a little.

The short track course was actually a decent mountain bike course. At some places, the short track races are nothing more than a glorified road criterium race, but this one actually had a couple of sections where you had to make an effort to keep the bike rolling and upright.

10:30 rolled around and we had a whistle sending us off. For some reason, the crafty racer next to me decided to take a diagonal line straight into my path. He nearly knocked me off my bike, and I had to sprint around the group and back up to the front. Not a good thing considering this is only a 25 minute race anyway, and it's balls to the walls from the gun (or whistle). I could never make contact with the front two guys, but did manage to get in a group with two other guys. I eventually dropped them. One of the tried to run some cyclocross wheels and tires and wasn't able to get through the rough stuff too well, and the other simply faded a bit. Well, Mr. Other didn't fade for too long, and despite my best efforts, he kept getting closer. Eventually, I decided to cut my losses because I wasn't gaining any ground on those front burners. I slowed to let Mr. Other catch up. I sat in the front a while and eventually decided to let him and do some work. With a lap to go, I had decided I would attack him at the top of the short bumpy climb he had trouble with on the previous laps. I managed to dig down and find a little something for the attack and put a gap on him by the downhill section. It stuck to the end, and in case you lost track of where I was, that was a 3rd place finish. Another best and podium at a national. The training seems to be working. Thanks Phil!

My dad managed to get 3rd in his race on Saturday. An all time best for him! Way to go Dad! Well, I guess that's enough rambling on about stuff that only I really care about.

Maybe sometime in the future I'll get all philosophical and type something someone else can relate to. Yeah right!

Chillin In Snowmass

Typing here in the hotel room. Not really a hotel I guess. It's a "lodge." Nice place with friendly employees.

Right now I'm watching the VH1 countdown of the 40 Most Awesomely Bad Dirty Songs ever. There commentary on all these VH1 shows crack me up. So far, we've seen, Whomp There It Is by Tag Team, I Want Action Tonight by Poison, and Bump, Bump, Bump by B2K. Quality songs I tell you. Were at 30 to go, so we have quality and quantity. What more could you ask for? I can't believe I don't have cable for all this educational programming.

So the reason I'm in Snowmass is for my first National Mountain Bike Series race. NMBS or National for short. This course is usually a 13 mile loop. Steep, long climbs, tough rolling single track, and some nice singletrack descents. Oh sorry, I just noticed that Dirty is actually Dirrty. Oh boy, I Touch Myself by The DiVinyls.

Anyway, back to tomorrows race. They essentially cut the course in half, but we still only have to do two laps. That will make the race about an hour shorter than in previous years, and it will be fast fast fast.

I felt pretty good pre-riding the course today, so I hope to feel at least that good tomorrow. I was feeling pretty questionable earlier this week due to a couple of stressful weeks at work and some intense training. Not a good combo, but I think I'm on the rebound. Hopefully the race at Winter Park a couple of weekends ago is an indication of things to come. Let's just hope my stomach cooperates.

I WANT ACTION TONIGHT, SATISFACTION ALL NIGHT!

Atta Babe!

WAY TO GO GEORGE!

Racing, racing, racing

Well, that is what has consumed my life lately. Either getting ready for it, doing it, or watching it on TV.

How about the Tour? A few surprises and a lot of wrecks. Those guys were dropping like flies on yesterday's stage. Looked like mostly stupid crashes most likely caused by fatigued.

Lance found himself alone on the final climb of stage 7. It was a nice gradual climb, which, produced some really high speeds. T-Mobile definitely took advantage of Lance's solitude. Vinokourov, the Krazy Kazakh, accelerated several times, but LA was able to counter. Eventually, Kloden went out, and they let him go. In a short amount of time, he caught the race leader Weening, and they duked it out to the very end. Supposedly Weening crossed the line first. I think his slobber, as seen to the left, gave him the 1cm edge at the finish.

As far as yesterday's stage goes, you gotta give your props to the former MOUNTAIN BIKE racer Rasmussen. What a solo break for the win. I recorded that stage, and unfortunately, learned of the results, via my coaching website. I went to log in Sunday's ride, and right there in the top right corner it said, "Rasumssen takes stage." Damnitalltohell, I waited all day to watch the reply, and it wasn't nearly as exciting to watch knowing that his attack stuck all the way through. Good stuff nonetheless.

I did a short mountain bike race in Winter Park on Saturday. I had a fairly heavy week of training in the week preceding. Moderate volume and high intensity with the hardest effort on Thursday.

When I started to warm up for the race, I was definitely feeling that effort in my legs. With it being such a short race, I knew I was in for a little extra suffering. I actually had a pretty good start. I didn't feel like I had gone out that hard, but I looked back and no one was with me. The fast guys of the group eventually caught up, and my legs were feeling pretty tired from the get go. Good thing it was just a fun/training race.

With a little bit of luck and a lot of "sucking it up," I was able to get back on the podium for the first time in a while. With a 3rd place (out of only 8 guys), it was the bottom of the podium, but it's still the podium. I was only a minute and a half of the winner, a guy that wins some of the other local races, and I improved my time by a minute and a half over last year on the same course. Not bad for a tough training week. All and all I was happy with it.

Time to get ready for the National in Snowmass in a couple of weeks.

My Head Itches

Will you scratch it? At 65 km an hour? Thanks.
So, can you tell I'm back in the race scene? I haven't been updating the blog too much.

Hmm, what's been going on? Lots of training/riding. Raced at Eldora this past weekend. Last year, that was a pretty good race for me. It started off that way for me this year, but with about a lap and half to go, I imploded and seriously faded off pace. I guess all and all it wasn't too bad considering. There were some folks complaining on the series website about the amount of mud in one particular section. My question to those folks is: do you race mountain bikes. I did a national out in Wisconsin a few years ago, and the entire course was that muddy. I think the racers out here get a little too used to our dry conditions. In my opinion, it was a great course. It has a little bit of everything, including a nice gnarly fast rocky descent. Well, fast for some. Not so fast for me. I'm still working on getting the new bike dialed.

After the race, Rachel and I headed over to Grand Lake to stay at a friends cabin. I don't know if cabin is an appropriate description since it's bigger than most peoples houses. The main room has huge picture windows with a view of the Neversummer range. Sweet.

We rushed out as soon as we got there to watch Le Tour. Good opening stage. How about Big Dave taking the maillot jaune on the first day? I guess that is the biggest excitement except for Big Tex making Jan look like he was pure climber domestique during his TT. It's definitely not matching the excitement of the Giro. We'll see.

Sunday, a bunch of us headed out to Winter Park to get some riding in. Didn't turn out to be much of a ride because it started raining and the temps dropped in to the 40s after about an hour and a half. Rachel cooked us a great dinner that night, and the beer from the Grand Lake Brewery tasted way too good.

Monday was supposed to be a rest day according to the schedule, but Mattius, Woodrow, and myself headed out for a semi-epic ride. We headed out from the "cabin" and straight up to the Divide. TONS of climbing. From what I had heard of this ride, I thought it was going to be boring, but once we hit the single track, it was daaaamn fun. We got up above tree line and to the border of the Neversummer Wilderness Area, where of course, we had to turn around. The 3 hours of climbing was about to turn into about 45 minutes of some pretty rockin descending. Rocky, rooty, muddy, you name it we had it. Tight switch backs, stream crossing, baby heads, and lots of berms to catch some air. Great 4 hour ride. Especially for a day that I wasn't supposed to be on the bike at all.

It was good hanging out with everyone. I hadn't seen Moon in a while and Wood in a long while. Wood's an old racing buddy that feel out of the scene for a variety of reasons a while back. Thanks Matt and Holly for putting us up!

Time for bed.