Gremlins in Schralptown

Finals are done, and I have to say I must have spent more time last week trying not to study or write papers than I did actually doing work.  Things I did to pass the time include:

• crocheting a hat
• going to a Hanukah party
• reading other people's blogs (see sidebar)
• doing laundry 
• cooking 
• going to the gym and doing a lot of cross training
• running an NMR - technically, this is work, it's like an MRI for a chemical compound

It got to be a bit ridiculous, and by Friday night I was more than ready to get home.  Since I've been back, I've been coaching with the race club I skied for when I was younger.  

The skiing has been epic; powder day after powder day has made running gates a challenge, but the snow's amazing so it's hard to really complain.  It's rewarding to see the kids improve over the course of days and amazing to see them grow up over the course of years.  This early in the season they're still getting their ski legs back and almost everyone's made huge strides this week.  Today we couldn't run gates because with the soft snow the athlete's safety becomes an issue. Instead, we ripped around the mountain with the gremlins, and to top everything off, we got first legal tracks on one of the best runs at Powderhorn.  

Besides that, I've been doing some hiking and running, and looking at my new hardtail that I haven't gotten a chance to ride yet.  The parts from the XC bike I broke are now on a new Rocky Mountain Hammer frame, but the same snow that's made for sweet week at Powderhorn has kept me from getting out on the bike.  Can't complain though, and it's good to be home

Procrastination

It's a beautiful thing... it's finals week, but also one of the few times this semester that I've been able to get away with putting work off for an hour or so. I'm looking forward to a winter break ski coaching at my home resort, getting outside as much as I can, and catching up with friends.
Mountain bike season came and went, with as much spirit as ever. All I can say is that it's amazing what you can find at Goodwill. I know what you're thinking - and yes, that's homemade. The new race rig, a bright orange Santa Cruz Blur XC, was broken in the hard way, lots of racing and not much time to just take it out for a ride. My beloved old xc bike is getting built up as a hardtail by the guys at Over the Edge, which is one more thing to look forward to when I get back home.
Nationals was down in Banner Elk, NC at Lees-McRae College once again this year. As promised, I stuck to the endurance event to avoid mishaps like last year's concussion in the dual slalom. We took 5th as a team for the second year in a row, and I had a great time slopping around courses in the muck.

High and dry

It’s the end of the summer
I thought this day would never come
My poster is finished
My project is done

-lyrics by Dr. Peter Butler

My internship at Hershey is finished, my belongings (except the duffel and road bike that are with me) are scattered across the floor in my new apartment, one of my close friends is now married and I'm hanging out in Junction. I haven't raced since 'Toona, but that will change tomorrow as I head out to Colorado Springs to try track racing for the first time. I'm looking for a new cross country bike since collegiate mtb season starts soon and my old rig has a crack halfway through the top tube. I've been doing a bit of hiking, seeing a bunch of people and preparing for the Green Mountain Stage Race over labor day weekend.

I guess I'm buying

Saturday night I was joking to my roommate about the nice sized purse offered to the winner of Sunday's Tour de 'Toona. She told me that if I won it I owed everyone ice cream. And I took her up on it, thinking that if I did win it would be well worth the celebration. To sum it all up, Monday night seven of us science and engineering nerds ended up at Mazzoli's Ice Cream, a homemade ice cream shop just down the road from the hospital. It's not often you get to make good on a promise like that and it was well worth it.

As for the race itself, my friend Lenore Pipes teamed up with me to keep the pack together to the finish. We were both well-positioned near the front of the pack as we rounded the final corner and Pipes dropped the hammer so hard no one could get around, giving me the perfect leadout. I came around her with a couple hundred meters to go and hit the gas with everything I had to hold out for the win. It was a great feeling but the best part was that Lenore had held out for third and in the process, she'd won the Category 4 race. We took home all kinds of cool schwag: yellow jerseys, 1st place mugs, commemorative hats, and some good sized checks should be in the mail soon.

I could do that again

I spent this weekend in the Northern New Jersey woods competing at the Giro del Cielo, a two day, three stage race. It got off to a slow start, with an uphill time trial first thing Saturday morning. I have personally resolved to learn how to go uphill and time trial faster, so the 4.5 mile climb was a rude reminder of my two biggest weaknesses. Luckily the GC was based on points, not time, so I was counting on the criterium that afternoon to redeem myself.

The course was dead flat with 4 corners in barely half a mile. The pace was rather casual for the majority of the race and I managed to take second in the points preme. Seven miles later, I was well positioned around the final corner and found myself in the closest sprint of my life. Stacey Jensen of Kissena and I crossed the line within a centimeter of each other and neither one of us knew which one had been ahead when we crossed the tape. After a cooldown lap, we realized that the officials didn’t know either and watched as five people huddled around a screen trying to determine the race winner. Finally, I was announced as the race winner with the difference coming down to a single pixel on the screen.

Early the next morning I was pleasantly surprised to find that the effort had put me in third place in the GC, just four points behind the leader. It was announced that the first of the six laps would be another points preme. My teammate, Caitlin, and I both knew that those points would be key to hanging onto a solid GC placing. Caitlin put in so much work in the first half of that lap that I was worried she might not have enough left for the leadout that we had briefly discussed. Not to worry though, just when I needed it, she came up from my right side and I jumped on. She led us almost to the line, until Stacey and I took it into our hands again and busted out another brutal sprint. I took second, and the race settled down for a while. We put in another 25 miles or so and then it was time for the final sprint. Although we still had most of the pack with us, at this point I knew exactly who to look for. Right on schedule, Stacey opened it up and I chased her hard, but it wasn’t quite enough. I took second place to Stacey for the third time that weekend, which boosted my GC standing to second overall.

Fitchburg Longsjo Classic

Fitchburg is one of the races in New England; it's on the National Racing Calendar and is the second oldest race in the States. This all boiled down to one thing: I was in for an experience. The trip from Hershey to Fitchburg, Massachusetts started at 3:30 on Wednesday and didn't end until midnight. One thing I'm learning to deal with is that traffic jams on the East Coast are much more common and just as unpredictable as the ones in Colorado (they're just not caused by "rock scaling" or rockslides).

Thursday morning got off to an early start with number pickup and the time trial. The course was mostly uphill with a road surface shady enough to make most riders question the usefulness of aerobars. I personally had a less than stellar race, but seeing a lot of my collegiate racing friends almost made up for it. One stage down and I had mostly written off my chances of a decent place in the GC.

Friday morning it was pouring rain before and during the road race. The course was a 10+ mile loop that was either going up or down which, coupled with the rain, didn't leave much room to relax. It culminated in a 3 k climb up Wachusett Mountain that set me further behind in the GC, although I didn't really expect anything less. Living in Pennsylvania has taught me how to handle the rolling hills, but hasn't helped my climbing when it comes to anything more than a couple minutes long. My teammates Chris DeCarlo and Sean McLaughlin fared much better, taking taking a 1st and 4th place in the Men's category 4 road race.

Saturday was the circuit race which was thankfully uneventful for me. There were a number of crashes and I was happy to finish with the pack. In the Women's Pro/1/2 race, Anna McLoon of Harvard had an unbelievable day and finished 2nd after spending the latter part of the race in a breakaway.

I had suffered all weekend to make it through to the crit and Sunday morning I was as ready to go as one can be after 3 days of racing. For the first half of the race, I struggled to keep a decent position and read the pack as best as I could. In the final 5 laps or so I got more aggressive about getting and keeping a position in the front of the pack. With half a lap to go the pack got strung out with a small gap between the front 3 girls and the rest of the group. There was only one girl between me and the top group, so with a small surge I was able to jump the gap. I dove hard around the second to last corners and by the time I got onto the finishing straight, there was only the points leader still in front of me. She powered hard through the last 400 meters or so, and I sprinted around her with about 50 m to go to take the win. It took me another 50 m to realize that I was the first one across the line - it felt great but felt even longer to sink in.

You win some, you lose some

This past Saturday morning, I hit the local yard sale circuit with one motivation in mind. My roommates and I had decided that we needed a blender, and I was out to find one. The first house I stopped at had all kinds of kitchen gadgets, but no blender. However, what I did find was a brand-new, never-been-out-of-the-box espresso machine (As a sidenote, even though I'm not a coffee fan, I do appreciate espresso - don't ask). I left the house without buying it and as I walked from house to house, I wondered how I could call myself a cyclist and turn down such an offer. An hour later, without finding a single blender, I went back and got the espresso machine for $8 - and in the process kept my cyclist's dignity alive to fight another day. And finally as I was about to give up hope, I found another community yard sale and at the very first house, I found an avocado green blender circa 1970's.

Sunday morning I set out early for Southern New York and the Union Vale RR. It was a good course, not well-suited to my strengths, but a good course nonetheless. It was hilly, but not the rolling hills you find in Pennsylvania. On this race course it always seemed like we were going either up or down on a more gradual grade. This means there was no time to rest and I was feeling worked from the beginning because I just wasn't recovered from pushing it hard on training rides all week after the Tour of Washington County. We were supposed to race 58 miles and I was having to dig deep to make mediocre efforts because my legs were so tired. I hate dropping out of races, but I've finally learned that there are times when it's appropriate. These "situations" can be lumped into two categories: one is when I'm pushing myself to the point that my health is at risk, and the other is when completing a race is going to have negative effects on an upcoming race. Since I'm starting the Fitchburg Stage Race tomorrow, I felt that it wasn't worth sacrificing my performance in a 4 day stage race to have a less than stellar finish 4 days prior. So I rode 30 miles, then drove 4 hours back to Hershey. It could have gone better, but I'm looking to make up for it starting tomorrow.

The 49th Annual Fitchburg Longsjo Classic will start off with a time trial on Thursday, Friday is a 35 mile road race, Saturday is a 22 mile circuit race, and it will all be capped off with a crit on Sunday.

Tour of Washington County

I spent a great weekend racing the Tour of Washington County with 3 of my teammates. The race went pretty well, although over the course of the weekend we did have our share of bad luck. My share of it happened first thing during Saturday's road race, when a girl crashed in front of me on a steep uphill. I spent a lap (6 miles) chasing and when I did get back in with the pack I was pretty much done for. I still scored a few GC points, so it was worth the effort. I wish I could say the same for the next morning but time trialing is just not my thing. Crits, on the other hand, are something I am pretty decent at. The crit that afternoon was awfully fast considering it was our third race in 2 days, but my teammate Bianca got into the 7 woman break. We protected them and they were able to stay away for the rest of the race. I came in 4th in the field sprint, 11th overall, which gave me 18th in the GC, a finish I was rather pleased with.
All weekend long, the race announcer was teasing us about how he wanted some of our clothing - thanks to our presenting sponsor, Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Race face

How about that hat?


I've always been told that I look like I want to kill someone during crits, and never really knew what everyone was talking about until my roommate caught this one on filmOk, I get it now :-) And for the record I really don't want to harm anyone, except for tearing legs off. Most of the time I'm loving every second that the race is intense enough to put such a look on my face.

Cowboy hats in Manhattan

So I experienced New York City for the first time this weekend - and let me tell you it was an experience! Luckily my roommate here in Hershey is from Long Island, so she was able to show me around Manhattan and help me navigate the roads and subways. Unfortunately I can't download the pictures I took, but I have a fascination with finding people wearing cowboy hats on the East Coast and there was a great one in the streets of Manhatten. It was a great time and I raced in the Harlem Skyscraper Classic Sunday afternoon. The race itself was pretty uneventful, a few girls got away and no one really wanted to chase. I finished 4th in the field sprint and 6th overall. The atmosphere was great, and the men's pro race included Rock Racing's Tyler Hamilton (my all time favorite cyclist) and Freddy Rodriguez.
This weekend is the Tour of Washington County, which is a 3 stage, 2 day race that I'm stoked about. And sometime soon I will explain what I've been up to for the last couple months.

Tunnelvision

An insider fact about UVM cycling is that we have access to our own wind tunnel. It's known to the layman as Spear Street, and its massive holes, rolling hills, obnoxious drivers and overzealous wind will toughen a rider both mentally and physically. But if you take all that away, this is what you end up with.

We got away from the snow and nasty weather during a spring break trip to Banner Elk, NC, home of cycling powerhouse Lees-McRae College. Race season started the week before we left for break, and so far, we've done some serious damage. Two of my teammates, Isaac Howe and Rose Long hold the ECCC Cat A leader's jerseys going into this weekend, and we've had solid performances all across the board. I'm looking forward to Penn State this weekend, it'll be the first long road race I've done this year, 64.2 exciting miles of racing.

I can't seem to get him off my mind

Need I say anything more?

It's that time of year...

We officially have less than 2 weeks until the first collegiate race of the season which will be hosted at Rutgers, in New Jersey. The weather here is a little iffy; today's forecast includes a possiblility for rain which would probably make me cry. I've been skate skiing a bit lately to give myself something else to do when it's too cold or the roads are too nasty to ride, and rain would kill the conditions out there, leaving me stuck on a trainer.

I'm looking forward to getting a new bike, which should get in any day now. It's an Orbea Orca in limited edition in pistachio, built up with the components from my Ibis Silk that was brutally destroyed after an encounter with a car in June. I think I've checked my mail more often in the last few days than I have in the last month so hopefully it'll get here soon and save me the effort. My dorm room is already packed full of gear, so I had to do a bit of rearranging to make some room.