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| *Truck actually runs on testosterone |
Sunday was filled, start to finish, with manly work. It was all extensions ladders and logging chains and work gloves and power tools and mowing and edging. Sweating in the sun, driving your pickup truck and getting dirt on your jeans, the way God intended. And pulling out a bush for a friend of mine, mostly because it’s fun.
Katie and I took advantage of the mild weather today and rode our bikes downtown, to have lunch and pick up some delicious pork products at the Second Street Market. The overcast kept things comfortable, and we enjoyed a leisurely ride there and back, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of Dayton in the spring the way you really only can on a bicycle. I had guesstimated the route to be about a 13 mile round trip, but we ended up taking a safer, if less direct route that totaled almost 23 miles. How’s that for earning your lunch!
The trip reminded me of one of the reasons I got back into bicycling in the first place. When I was a kid, I knew the town I grew up in intimately, because I rode through just about all of it. You can see a city’s secrets when you travel it on a bike. You smell the honeysuckle and lilacs, you see the fish jumping in the river, you can stop at the monuments and read the poems etched into paving stones. There’s an innocent joy of discovery you get from the experience, which has retained its novelty and allure even after all these years. Dayton has so many of those fascinating details, and I’m going to make an effort to discover more of them, by experiencing the city from the seat of my bicycle.
An added bonus today was a classic British car show, being held next door to the market! It was breaking up just as we were leaving, but a few pristine examples remained. Neat little cars, with such a unique style, though I’ve never had a burning desire to own one.
It’s been a couple weeks since I deadlifted. It’s not how I like things to go, but with all the races lately, I’ve had to conserve my legs a little bit. That’s going to slow down now and through the summer, so I’ll be able to get back in the weights hard again.
That said, my deadlift doesn’t appear to have suffered from the relaxed tempo. I pulled this, 255 lbs, 8 times today on my last set, and didn’t feel like I was straining too hard to do it. I probably even quit a couple reps early, but I’m okay with that, since deadlift is one motion that can go terribly wrong if you let your form go to crap. It makes me excited for the next couple months, to see the next big jump in gains!
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| +50 Bonus Cool Points two whoever can name each of these three flowers! |
A couple weeks ago, I decided to surprise Katie with flowers. And instead of buying her a vase of flowers that’d be dead in four days, I went down to the local garden center and picked up a few flats of some of the more interesting varieties they had. And hey, two weeks have gone by, and not one of them has died, yet!
I picked most of the flowers I bought because of their intricacy. I’ve spent most of my life planting your standard runs of petunias and impatiens, but the amazing, delicate details of these three varieties couldn’t be ignored. I always tend to gravitate towards things, and people that require close examination to appreciate, and that could be entirely overlooked by the inattentive. These may not be as pretentious as irises, or flashy as lilies, or complicated as orchids, but they’re no less beautiful in their tiny details.
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| Photo by Jamie Clifton |
Wednesday evening was the third installment of MVMBA’s FastLaps series held at MoMBA, and the final race of the Spring season. The trail was absolutely perfect, dry and fast, but with water still in the creek crossings and the corners just wet enough to give amazing grip.
Contrary to the previous two weeks, I went out with basically no strategy at all. It being the last race of the Spring, and so my last chance to hit my goal of a sub-50-minute lap, I decided to just go hard right from the start, hammer every chance I got, and see how long I could keep that up. I was hoping that would be 50 minutes!
The good weather and awesome trail conditions brought back some of the faster competition we saw in the first round, and right from the start, the lead group left me spinning in the field. I was a little surprised by that, given my strong start last week, and I didn’t feel like I was going any slower. Besides, I figured some of the lead group would drop off later, and so much the better for me to pick them off one by one.
The first two trails went well. I attacked whenever I could, tried to flow the corners and pick good lines, and kept my head and eyes up. I kept waiting for a straggler to come back to me, and finally one did, at the end of Twisted. I took that as motivation and hammered forward, but nobody else came into view. But I pressed anyway, telling myself that they’d come eventually, and I just had to keep working at 100% to get them.
As hard as I was riding, I wasn’t quite as smooth as usual. My line choices were mostly okay, but I was making a few mistakes, due partially to the increased effort, and partially to the slightly altered handling from my new stem. That said, I was mostly covering up my mistakes with aggression, and that served me well in Hawk’s Lair. A couple of derailleur malfunctions contributed to hurried and non-optimal lines, which normally result in me either stopping, or falling off, or both. But I was hitting everything so hard that I ended up having just enough momentum to make it through somewhat cleanly. Not pretty, but a decided improvement over last week.
I kept attacking and keeping the pace up, trying hard to use momentum where I could, aggression where I couldn’t, and fitness to back up both. I tried to pay a lot of attention to my breathing, and if it started to get too relaxed, I’d find a way to ratchet up the pace a bit. Try as I might, though, the series of long, gradual climbs out of Creekside sapped me, and I found myself higher on the cassette than I wanted to be, and spinning up rises I should’ve blasted though. I guess my fitness level just isn’t quite there yet.
I never did catch anyone else in my class, but nor was I caught and passed by anyone, unlike in weeks past. Despite my worst placement so far (8th of 12), I did manage to go 2 full minutes faster than ever before. The trouble with fast conditions is that they make just about everybody go faster! The real heartbreak was that I missed my goal by six seconds. I finished in 50:06.3. There are a lot of positives I’m taking away from this week, but now I have unfinished business, come the XC Classic this fall.
I managed to scoot out of work today just in time to make it to Katie’s belt ceremony, for the Green Belt she earned on Saturday. It was every bit as cool as the last time, and I’m twice as proud. Proud because she’s progressed so quickly, and proud because she’s met the challenge of her instructors’ expectations with the sort of professionalism and grace that I’ve always known her to embody.
She’s pictured here, just after her promotion, with Mr. Lloyd, the head instructor at the Springfield Mudokwan school. He and the rest of the Lloyd family (who run the school together) are nearly as proud of her as I am!
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| Yep, that’s dinner. |
The last few weeks of my life have contained a level of chaos unusual even for me. Lots of races in close calendrical proximity, madly varying work schedules, training ramp-ups, social and family obligations and the general freneticness that accompanies late Spring have conspired to throw my nutrition and training schedules somewhat off track. I’ve had more than a few meals lately that I can’t exactly characterize as “responsible eating,” and all the racing has resulted in my training schedule being more fits and starts than steady, grinding progress.
But rather than beat myself up for taking an unplanned break, I’ve decided to just embrace it as a temporary pause in my big push towards fitness this year. And despite my recent lack of consistency, I’ve mostly continued to drop weight and increase strength and endurance measurably. It’s good, for a whole lot of reasons, to take a break from time to time anyway, so I’m just going to count this as one. It means I can’t take a similar break later, of course (as I had planned at the end of this month), but that’s okay. I’m still happy with the progress I’ve made so far this year, and I know that once I’m back on plan, progress will continue to come and I’ll erase any small setbacks quickly enough.
So, dinner tonight. You’ll remember some weeks ago when I decided I just couldn’t do Little Debbie any more? Well, two of the most talented women in the kitchen that I’ve ever met, my wife and my older sister, put their heads together to help alleviate the pain of that loss for my birthday. On my dinner plate tonight are home made examples of Fudge Rounds and Oatmeal Creme Pies, which are in every conceivable way better than the originals. They surprised me yesterday with a box full of them, to go along with my mom’s double chocolate cheesecake (?!). Thanks, you lovely ladies!
In the side yard of the house I grew up in, there was a scraggly old lilac bush. It was tall, and thick, and was never really pruned properly, but the bush didn’t care. Every spring, it would faithfully burst forth with thousands if tiny purple flowers, sweetening the breeze with a scent that, to this day, evokes memories of home, and of happiness.
Now I’m grown and have made my own home, with my own lilac bushes in the side yard. And every spring, just when it’s warm enough to leave the windows open through the day, the wind will occasionally bring that familiar fragrance through the house, and I always smile and think of my Mom, and her lilac bush. I’m often reminded that she also never asked for much, but was always so faithful in her vocation as a mother, and was always around to make us smile, and teach us to find joy in life. And she always was, and is, beautiful.
I love you, Mom. Happy Mothers’ Day.
A day scarcely passes without Katie doing something to make me proud. Today, she went to Newport, Kentucky to test for her Green Belt. AND SHE PASSED! I’m jump-up-and-down-and-scream-like-a-school-kid proud of her.
Let me explain why this is so amazingly awesome.
Katie’s job is for a medical network, providing training and support for a major software suite they use. For the past two weeks, she’s been up to her eyeballs and working all sorts of crazy hours, as they rolled out a brand new version of that software. She just hadn’t had time to get in the studying and practice that she wanted before going to test, and we had both agreed that it was probably a good exercise in discretion for her to wait and test in August. Did I mention that, before today, she had already tested and upgraded twice in the past six months? While transitioning to her new job and learning an entirely new career field?
So we were all prepared to take the conservative approach, until Katie got a strongly-worded phone call from one of her lead instructors. She informed Katie that she was ready, and that she would pass, and there would be none of this talk of waiting. My understanding is that this was not phrased in the form of a question.
We both panicked, a little. I tried to help drill her on terminology whenever we could, and Katie filled in every nook and cranny of her already packed days with memorization and practice. Yesterday, we went through the whole folder (yes, it’s a folder) of stuff she had to know cold, and felt like she had a fair handle on it all.
And what’d she do today? She went down there and rocked it, like the pro that she is! So for those of you counting, that’s three belts in six months, and a whole pile of splintered pine boards. My wife is amazing, and she keeps giving me reasons to think so. Great work, sweetheart.
This doohickimabob came in today. It’s a new handlebar stem, and while it may not seem like it would matter at all, it can change quite a bit about a bike. By moving the location of the handlebars relative to the seat, you can quicken or dampen the steering response, adjust the riding position to be more aggressive or comfortable, and change the stiffness of the front end.
I bought this one to replace my stock stem, mostly for the last purpose. The stock stem on my bike was a 2-bolt, which means that there are two bolts securing the faceplate and handlebars to the stem. This Easton stem features a 4-bolt faceplate, which results in higher lateral rigidity, giving a more positive feel from the front end. The Easton is also 1° lower and 10 mm longer than stock, meaning my riding position will be a touch lower and more forward, so just a bit more aggressive.
My next move will probably be to rearrange the spacer stack, making the position more aggressive still. It’s these small changes — a stem here, a spacer there, a tweak of the controls positions — that can make a bike truly your own, so that it fits you perfectly and you can operate it instinctively. Not so different from the small changes you make in your life that yield big differences, and make you the person you’ve always wanted to be.
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| Vascularity (n) – a very silly word to describe being all veiny. |
I’ve made it a point over the years to avoid, at all costs, workout plans and techniques geared around aesthetics. It’s not that I don’t care what I look like a little, and it’s not that I don’t enjoy the visual improvements that have come along with increasing my fitness. It’s just that for me, that’s not the point. Lifting weights, especially, has always been about what it will allow me to do, rather than what I’m going to look like later. It’s another reason why I spend almost no time on isolation work.
Still, when I’m halfway through an upper body session, and my arm starts to look like this, it does feel pretty good. Katie says it’s gross, but the BRO in me thinks it’s sorta badass.
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| Photo by Jamie Clifton |
Tonight was the second FastLaps race at MoMBA. I decided after last week‘s surprisingly strong performance that I was going to go out much more aggressively, and press my advantage in the parts of the trail that I can do really well. I’m fairly sure that I can crank out a sub-50 minute lap, and if I can, a podium isn’t out of the question.
The rain from the few days leading up to the race left the trails very tacky, and slick in a few spots. I warmed up moderately just before the start, planning to use the field loop to spin my legs up. That plan worked well, and soon I was flying along in third place, making quick work of the grassy start and diving into Twisted with all the confidence in the world. I was keeping a solid pace, gapping the riders behind me and throwing the bike around the corners by instinct. Everything felt good, even my legs, despite the six mile trail race yesterday.
Then I hit a long, right hand sweeper, slightly downhill and very fast. I charged into the corner with some aggression, only to feel the front tire lose traction and start to scrub. The handlebars folded in, and I instinctively unclipped my right foot, dabbing at the ground to get the bike stood back up. As I did, the front tire regained traction and hooked the bike sharply right, and I stood it up and grabbed the brakes, smacking into a small tree to bring me to a stop.
I called out a warning about the corner over my shoulder to the riders behind, got back on the trail and hammered out a few pedal strokes, happy that at least I hadn’t lost a position by my mistake. I was still okay, just needed to dial it back a notch in the corners…
But then I turned into a big wuss. Instead of looking up and ahead, I started eyeballing the dirt right in front of me, worried that each turn might contain more slick mud. I’ve always had an exaggerated aversion to crashing, ever since I tipped over on my gold and black Huffy as a kid, and skinned both my knees. It’s not that I haven’t crashed in the meantime to assure me that it’s mostly alright. I’ve crashed lots, on all sorts of equipment. I have a pretty high pain threshold. It’s just that, for some reason, once the thought of crashing gets into my head, there’s something in me that’s unwilling to even approach the limit any more.
So for whatever reason, that slide stayed in my head for the rest of the race. I lost almost all of my earlier aggression, and got passed by three riders before the next trail section was done. I stayed with one of them for awhile, but when we got to Hawk’s Lair, my lack of aggression translated into poor riding, and I had to get off the bike twice to clear obstacles that I negotiated perfectly last week.
Once through Hawk’s, some of my confidence returned, as I looked up to see that one of the riders who had passed me was not completely out of reach. I started charging the hills, determined that, even if my aggression was curbed, I could let my fitness carry me forward. I planned to catch the guy on the climb out of the bottom of Creekside, and if necessary, pass him in the grass sprint to the finish. But just as I started to reel him in on Upper Stealth, his rear tire flatted and he was out of the race. There went my rabbit.
I pushed as much as I could find the motivation for the rest of the lap, and crossed the line after a decent sprint. I finished just 11 seconds slower than last week, which, given the conditions, my running race the day before, and the fact I had to get off twice, isn’t really that bad at all. I have to wonder how far ahead of the pace I was, until I had that first big slide. No matter, next week it’s do-or-die time. I have to carry the same aggression and confidence into the race, and this time charge it the whole way, crash or no crash.