Feeling good!

Well, I finally am posting here again. I've had a fairly decent road season. I started the blog to help myself keep a track on my progress through the season. Unfortunately work and being responsible, not too mention, being lazy when it came to this task came into play.

To start with, I'm feeling good. I'll stop short of saying REALLY good, but things are coming together for me.

One of the biggest things that I've been able to fix this year has been my health. I've had to deal with fatique issues over the past decade which I've determined to come from a couple sources, some physical, others from issues that have danced around in the head. It doesn't help the physcial health when you are not totally in the game upstairs. Little by little though, I've been knocking off the physical blights that have damaged my racing over the past decade. Besides dealing with the fatigue, one of the main things that seems to have been holding me back has been the weight. Since peaking in the spring at around 178lbs, I am now sitting around 165. It does make for a whole new ballgame when you can drop that kind of weight. It's like dumping off a gallon and a half of milk. Trying riding home with just one gallon of milk and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Part of this has been actually getting out there and training. Another is my diet, which falls in the attrocious department. Anyone who drives all over God's country for work and winds up eating on the run will relate to this. I managed to cut most of the fast food out, though I still hit the Chinese buffet which is a personal addiction of mine. I also have cut out the late evening/night snacking as well. The fast food and the late night snacking are probably two of the things that have killed me most over the years.

Past the diet, I am also doing a few mountain bike races to keep the riding interesting. I'm on a single speed Gary Fisher. It requires learning a whole new way of riding. Patience is definitely a virture here. Hammer too hard, too quickly and BOOOM, you're seeing wonderful colors and hurting like you never thought possible. I've gotton better in the skills department and can now descend at a reasonable rate and not have to flash on the mantra 'GET OFF THE F**KING BRAKES, JAY' (you can do an endo on a 29er. - another 'poor dumb bastard' moment) After doing the endo at Charleston, the next couple races, I was saying that outloud to myself. I'm making some pretty good progress now that I can just be thinking it.

The mountain biking and weight loss has certainly helped out on the road as my climbing has been improving quite a bit. I can keep up with people now and not embarrass myself on many of the races I've done over the last few years. Along the way, I've actually won a few races this year. They weren't big races, but it was a good boost to the morale. Another good boost to the morale is at some of the criteriums I've done this year. These are my favorite races, as I really like the cornering. The Westlake races in Cleveland are very competitve weekly races. I hit a few of them a year and the competition is pretty good for a training race. They normally have some of the Texas Roadhouse and Ambercrombie & Fitch guys there along with the RGF and Columbus teams as well. This past Tuesday, I only placed 8th, but I definitely got some satisfaction on being able to be the second rider to react to a very serious attack from a Roadhouse rider, pulling past the initial rider with a trail of bikes in tow and then once catching the attack, continued on past at 52-53Kph for another couple hundred yards. Then when a few of the weaker riders were wimping out on hitting the front, I was able to hit the front again and keep the pressure up. I even had the energy to yell at the wheelsuckers to take their skirts off and pull on the pedals a bit. A couple more riders helping out and we would have completely blown it apart. It was good to hear the compliments after the race like 'What's gotten into you? You were smoking it out there' It was also a good sign when I'd jump up to attacking riders and they'd see it was me there, they'd keep going because they knew I wasn't going to wimp out on the pulls. It's been a long time since I've felt good enough to do that.

I've used the road and mountain bike season this year as a springboard for the cross season which is to be starting up mid September. Last year, I started to see signs of life in my riding again. This year, I'm hoping to be doing much better. I began my hill run ups this week and felt like I was going even better than I felt on them last November. I have a hill near the house which is close to 200 yards long. It's not steep, but hucking a bike up on the shoulder and running that distance makes you work. I did it with the rig which is at least 5 lbs heavier than the cross bike and didn't feel pegged at the top even though I did a decent clip up the hill. Some of those drags up the steep hills in the WV mountain bike series races seem to be doing some good here. I might have to do more of them next year. Thanks for convincing me to do those races, Gunnar.

There's only a couple more road races this year, but my nemesis race the Mountain State Classic is there looming large. It's a really tough race with lots of climbing. I've usually been described as the 'blinding flash' that blasts out the back of the race as the climbing got serious. I like to say that it's a patented 'attack out the back move'. They never see it going and they never see you til the finish. I'm thinking this year I might be able to suprise some people here.

Oh, yeah, things are getting fun again!