More Pro as of 2/19/08

I will be attempting to conduct myself in a more adult like manner, more PRO you may say. You may not?

bookmark this... http://davebreslin.blogspot.com/

Fishing has been a little slow... http://wildmountaintrout.blogspot.com/

Rocky IV TYPE TRAINING DAY

I haven't talked about riding a bike in a while since base training is just a slow grind that numbs my creativity. Today was different. I headed out to get in 4 hours in the wind, often snowy but more often sleet in my face conditions. I thought about turning around when I got up on the levy and the west wind was forcing me to ride at a 45* angle to stay on the bike path, but then I thought about EP and knew he would be sitting in his tanning bed getting ready to go train in some sunny climate and pushed on.

I rode up passed the Chain of Rocks Bridge to Fort Belafontaine and did a loop on the gravel trail and then tried to find some new trails which turned out to be a little soft. A little soft might be an understatement. It was peanut butter mud and I had to stop to clean my tires and brakes because my wheels had stopped spinning. The STL is not blessed with the endless BOCOMO style gravel roads I read about. When I left the Fort the weather picked up and the sleet was coming at my grill pretty hard. I pushed on knowing that at this point EP was probably sitting in a hot bubble bath shaving his arms.

I passed by Spanish Lake but didn't think that riding the trails would be so much fun in the mud so I did a loop around the Columbia River Bottoms. It started out great. 23 mph on my CX bike singing along at the top of my lungs to a sweet show from the solid year of Phish, 2000. "Forgive me if I don't sing in the key!!!" I knew that I was sliding into the pain cave without feeling it and would have to claw my way out; it was an out and back. I hit the turn around point and it was like magic; the sweet Glide>Axilla> Taste eargasm. I sung along as the NW wind belted me in the face with more sleet. This time it hurt and I could barely see the trail through my not- so clear- iced- up- lenses. I stopped at the visitor center, filled my bottles while Trey had the Taste peaking like a 1995 Bordeaux, or so I have heard, help me out with that one if you can!

By the time I passed the Chain of Rocks again I was ready for my first real workout of 2008. I didn't really have a choice. I got my heart rate up a had a nice 30 min long tempo effort which felt easy. A good base helps.

The endorphin rush has awakened my senses once again.

what a game.

The cake was really good. At least a woman who was at the party ate the "score" before the majority of people knew what was up...

Riding in the snow and baking...

It's amazing how much free time I have when I have a rest week... I did have some fun riding in fresh powder on my mountain bike on Thursday night and again for 2 hours last night. Last night was tough because it had become kinda slushy... I'm ready for the game today.

I almost thought twice before I wrote the 19-0 on there... Almost.

More moving motivational moments...

Read into this. If you are a Giants fan or lying there for an hour in your tanning bed, know that I watched this movie last night and it meant a lot to me. Now I'm going to train... BONSAI!

Gisele as well: A day in the life of Tom Brady

You may wake up some day in the morning and wonder: What would it be like to be Tom Brady right now.

Well I have your answer.

You wake up around 7:30 a.m. You look beside you and remember that you are dating Gisele Bundchen. So you say good morning. Then you walk into your apartment kitchen, and slice your self a nice warm piece of Coach Belichick's humble pie.

You open up the sports section of the Boston Globe, flip to the football section and admire your stats for a quick moment.

Now, it's time to raise some paparazzi hell. You go look in your old storage closet and find a plastic medical boot that you used once when you were injured in college.

You then, at that moment, decide that you have hurt your left ankle. You choose to wear this out, not thinking what Patriots fans will think of this. Then you call Gisele in and tell her that she's coming on a walk with you.

You walk out. Then go outside.

All of a sudden a bunch of photographers come running toward you flashing film at your mysterious medical boot. You get so bothered that you decide to go back home. By then, it's time for practice.

You hop in the Porsche and drive on down to Foxboro and park inside Gillette Stadium. You walk into the locker room, and every one of your teammates is just looking at you blankly. You know why they are staring. They saw the pictures of the boot.

Which brings us to our main point. Being Tom Brady might be fun, but pulling off the scandals that Mr. Brady does, might be near impossible.
-bleacherreport.com

Blackness...

Tarmac Pro. Cat II road racing is too hard so I'll just be all the pro I can be training on tubies... This bike is really fun to ride.

Epic Marathon. Will be 22.5 lbs (with pedals) with Stans 1210 gram race wheels...Pirtle wrecking machine.

The S-Works Tricross. Check out the TJ approved TRP carbon brakes below.


Jens Seven Aerios. I rode the rollers for the second time this year yesterday b/c it was too icy. It sucked.

The his and hers edition S-Works Tricross. Definitely gay.

2007 Results

MO Norba Series- Lost Valley Luau - 3rd place Endurance class
MWFTS- Rim Wrecker, Council Bluff- DNF Marathon Class
MWFTS- RIM Wrecker, Council Bluff- DNF Expert Class
MWFTS- Rhetts Run, Cosmo Park- 1st Marathon
MO Norba Series- National City,Castlewood- 3rd Endurance Class
KYMBA Series- White Lightning, Canal Loop LBL- 1st Expert
Heartland Sports Series- KC Cup @ Landahl- 2cd Expert
WEMS- John Muir 6 hr solo- John Muir Trail 2cd 6 hr
AMBCS- Three Legged Dawg NRC Race, AR. 3rd Expert
DINO- Muscatatuck AMBC Race, IN. 3rd Expert in class/ 13th overall
MWFTS- Tall Oak Challenge, Binder Lake- 1st place Marathon
MWFTS- Show Me State Games, Rock Brige State Park- 1st place Marathon
Heartland Sports Series- Rapture in Misery 12 hr, Landahl. 1st place 12 hr Solo
Ohio Mountain Bike Championship Series- Mohican Wilderness 12 hour, 1st place 12 hr solo
Mesa Cycles Burnin' at the Bluff 12 hr solo- Race ending mechanical @ hr 2/12- DNF!
Midsouth Endurance Series- Lakeland 250 (4hr 10 min), Memphis, Tennessee- 2cd/ 2cd overall
Bubba CX Series- Spanish Lake- 2cd place A's
Bubba CX Series- Faust Park- 11 place A's
Bubba CX Series- QUeeny Park- 5th place A's
Bubba CX Series- Winter Park- DNF
Bubba CX Series- Unger Park- 3rd place A's
MO CX State Championships- Hermann- 3rd place A's, Cat III State Champion

cold foraging

things have been pretty slow around here. i've been a crazed maniac, a willy wonka meets hunter s. thompson flurry of activity, in my obsession with high end light bike parts.

i have two new bikes which i will unveil with photos on here soon... for now i will only say that even Murphy was impressed when I took my new Epic Marathon out of the box at just over 25 lbs and had it down to 23.5 in about an hour... the kicker is that i have some wheels and rotors on the way that are going to bring it down to 22 lbs. fo' real.

next up is a tarmac pro. i put my cosmic carbones with some conti sprinters on there and am going to ride it this morning... it's tough. i also put a pair of ksyrium es's on my S-works cx bike to train on and will be racing on the Carbones with some Dugasts that Sven sent me next fall... life is swell in my little world.

lastly, i have been cold foraging lately. i put in 17 hours last week and am working on 18 this week, all outside. while some folks call winter training cold forging, i call it cold foraging. i basically ride around freezing my ass off for hours thinking about food. the only problem is the cold weather has slowed my brain so much that by the time i get home and try to bring the feast all together i leave out crucial elements. for example... i made chili for jen and i to have for lunch on wed morning, so after 4.5 hrs of pedaling i wanted some bad-ass nachos. i went to schnucks to buy sour cream and tortillas and came home with 2 bottles of wine, 2 cartons of silk chocolate soy milk (mix that with chocolate endurox and you recover like rehab), some nachos and some brussell sprouts that looked tasty. i totally forgot the sour cream, a must have. so i pull a cork and start to make my nachos. at this point i'm starved and piling it on. tortillas, chili, cheese... it looks grand but wtf, where's the sour cream? while looking in the fridge i see the big jar of jalapenos staring back at me which really pissed me off...

Brokeback Brady??? My hero likes goats?? EVEN BETTER! Bahhaahhaaaa

The Party's Over... time to detox

I used to see this t-shirt at Phish shows "Betty Ford is for quitters," and while that may be the case I'm still signing up. Sometime during CX season I convinced myself that beer drinking was a part of CX to make myself feel better. Today was day 1; ground zero. Time to build a new foundation and see if I can teach my body to go fast for shorter periods of time on the mountain bike. March is right around the corner.

16-0. Did you watch the game? Are you kidding me? Clutch. Need I say more?

Missouri CX State Champs

Everyone who showed up and raced Sunday is a Champ in my book. The race was epic. The conditions looked like any I have seen in the awesomely radical Belgian CX races of my dreams and really hard. The only downside to the whole day was me feeling totally unvalidated in my victory because of some weak sauce competition who took the easy way out. You know who you are.

Anyone who made and excuse or was worried about the driving conditions is a chump. It reminded me of mornings driving from Boston to VT at 3 a.m in an Acura Integra with 3 ft of fresh snow on the ground with my buddy Joost, so we could get to Stowe and lay fresh tracks. Or Maybe guys who surf in hurricane like weather in search of the perfect wave. A little ice too tough for you? You know who you are. I even saw a couple guys at the race who should have been in my class that didn't race??? Or maybe people were saving themselves so they can get lapped at nationals? Good thinking! Next year when the promoter decides not to go as deep and do all the work for nothing (except for the 32 rock stars that wouldn't let a little mud and ice keep them from having fun), who do you think will be the first one to get on www.stlbiking.com and complain about how watered down the course is when we are riding loops around the Big Shark sales floor at 72*?

It seemed as though everyone who was racing Sunday meant business. Some people have realistic goals for Nationals and are peaking like a sweet Trey solo during an encore at the last show of a tour. For others, myself included, this was the big show. Whether your scope of racing doesn't extend beyond the regional level, or like me you didn't realize how great CX was until recently and reality isn't starting at the back of a 150 person field, there was something on the line here in everyones mind. Some people were just out there racing, the thought of peaking nonexistent at this point of their racing endeavors, maybe with fingers crossed at the starting line in their lobster claw gloves, hoping for their first win. Whatever it may have been to you on a personal level, the mystique of the State Championship race brings out peoples A game.

The masters field had some of the big A names in it and Scott Dunsmuir dominated. Instead of taking the Tom Brady approach as of late, Scott jumped out in front early and maintained a steady lead over Harre and Nagy. Unfortunately the Cat 4 race was dominated by those from across the river but all around nice guy Drew Black was the first Missouri rider across the line and pretty stoked about it. He's a nice fella. In Sven Nys style the FBC points leader let MJ lead for most of the race and then came around him in the last 200 m. MJ has stated that he tried to give him the finger but couldn't feel them and was too tired to raise his arm. Giovanni Fondolini had a great race and blew his loyal fans kisses as he crossed the line, a true Italian paisano. Old Man Murphy hung in there with some of the masters and is now more determined than ever to host a short winter CX series since he improved on the fitness/booze consumption mixture.

Since Matt Laberta and I were the only Cat III cross racers in Missouri that were able to find the zipper to their skirts in time for the race, Buddy put us in with the A's. I double checked with Josh before the start of the race to make sure he was wearing more than BKW's, I got the humble nod; no amount of embrocation was strong enough to try to keep looking pro in these conditions. I was pretty stoked to see if last weekend was just a flash in the pan or if I had figured a this CX thing out a little and could hang. I got a pretty good start behind Nate and could hear Josh gently coaching me from behind "c'mon Dave I don't want to get totally fucked here, pick it up." So much for slow starts. Instant separation on the first lap. They both rode away from me. State Champ fever outweighs starting slow, even for those slightly more pro than the rest of us. The two dominant Missouri CX riders, teammates, would force each other to ride on the rivet forcing one to crack. By the time I got to the top of the stairs I looked back to see Rico and Dust dismounting, I was flying. In the next couple of laps my lead on those guys grew quite a bit, and I noticed that Rico had dropped Dust pretty good.

As the race went on I was getting that euphoric feeling and going harder and harder, it was coming easy and the laps were ticking by fast. I was charging through the sand and riding the tough stuff pretty well for myself. Every time I would pass the pavilion I was getting fired up hearing all my friends yelling and the bells ringing. I set this goal for myself after the first race at Spanish Lake and was achieving it with perfection; it didn't matter who I was racing that day, I was feeling IT and flying. Josh and Nate lapped the rest of the field. Maybe they let up a little when I was out of sight, but judging by what other people told me, I think I was able to maintain the gap between us. I was pretty happy about finishing 3rd to those guys again and at how well I rode. Winning the State jersey lacks merit when there is only one other competitor, but like I said before, it wouldn't have mattered who I was racing that day.

Unfortunately, like all kickass-face melting Trey solos that have you riding a wave of euphoria; grinning ear to ear, starting by moving slowly to a few licks, people wondering if this is going to be one of the good ones before really taking off- erasing all doubt, getting down hard to the machine gun notes, taking it to places you've never been, faster, faster, then the uncontrollable breaking point where it is so good you are just jumping up and down, eyes closed, head and shoulders back and the music is just wailing!!!! So good- but it all is brought down with some thundering bass notes that put your feet back on the ground, the sugue back into reality, the arena stops shaking, the house lights come on and the fun's over. Often times when Phish was playing that well they didn't care whether they would have to pay some hefty fines for playing too long, they'd come back on stage and rip another tune because they loved it so much and just knew it when they had that connection. I'm feeling it now, the fitness is that good and I could probably push it if I had a stage to play on. Strange to have it so late in the season without feeling burnt. The house lights are on and it's over, time to go to the after show party and talk about how great it was...

Definition: That's PRO

http://www.belgiumkneewarmers.com/2007/02/pro.html

If you suck...

...And winning is just too hard, take a Sunday afternoon and watch the Patriots game. These guys are so clutch it is unreal. I laid out the Tom Brady- late in the 4th quarter- clutchness analogy to my boy CC before his race this weekend and he won by less than a wheel length on the line!

Jen isn't sure if football is played in innings or periods but watched the whole 4th quarter last night and now she keeps talking about having Tom Brady's child. Watching the Ravens fall apart and start freaking out on the field was classic. So not-pro it was pathetic.

Sven Nys has choked this year, Tom Brady hasn't. Recognize.

Bubba CX @ Unger Park

Conditions were perfect.

Our man CC won the C race by a 1/2 a wheel length. We all were rocking Delta Bravo deluxe edition Mowhawks and looking pro as hell. Russ, MJ and Corey placed up there in the B race and my legs were on fire from my new embrocation. Fire. Pain. Fire. Conditions really were perfect.

This race started as I thought CX races would, real fast. Other than my first race at Spanish Lake (when I went out as fast as I could, rode away from the field, then blew up hard) I have felt that the starts were slower than I would have expected. My 39x12 for the slightly uphill, muddy start was a too stiff and I was bogged down and didn't get the jump I usually do. I made the push and moved up on the first little nasty downhill and started to put it down. When Nate came by my on the outside he was really moving and riding super smooth. I tried to stay with him but wasn't able to hang for long. I looked over my shoulder and had a pretty decent gap on Josh and Harre and was pretty stoked. I think I held the gap for two or three laps.

The difference between the way Josh and Nate start is really interesting to me. I've never seen either of them race a big race but both times I've raced (been in the same race) as Josh he has started in the back and you don't really see him for the first 15 minutes or so and then he comes by and blows your doors off. Actually, it's less door blowing and more of a grind from 4th gear to 5th gear at low RPM's, you know, when it takes a little while to get them back up before you really start to accelerate. Nate starts like an XC racer; all out off the line, get into the woods first, open up a gap, find a rhythm, back it off just a little, and then sit on the lead and force other to chase and make mistakes. I tricked myself into thinking that maybe Josh wasn't as good in the mud and I would be able to hold him off, then I made the mistake and hit a pothole on the back stretch of pavement, 28 psi in my carbon rims and thought I cracked both of them.

When Josh came by me it was as if I was going backwards. After keeping a 30 second gap on him for a few laps he opened up a gap on me twice that size in the field and just kept going. I knew I wasn't going that slow since I was able to keep a 30-40 second gap on Harre and some Team Mack guy for most of the race. I started to get a little nervous that I had punctured my rear tire because it was feeling really weird on the pavement and rubbing my brakes like crazy. I knew if I stopped I would have lost my lead on Harre and figured that I had cracked my wheel and it was out of true so I kept going. With 3 to go it was worse but Harre had dropped the Mack guy and was closing in on me.

Ironically both he and Josh came up on me at the same time, right at the bell. I jumped on his wheel for the last lap and Josh was nice enough not to demoralize me by lapping me, Harre and I were the only ones not to get lapped. I heard Ricos voice in my head telling me to settle down and be patient. I was thinking about the course and knew with my big meat 50 tooth ring and the way I was going through the first few turns out of the back stretch of pavement I had a good shot at jumping him. I think he must have been feeling it or playing it safe because the whole last lap was more like a match sprint. I just sat on his wheel and followed his lines.

When we hit the pavement I kicked my front derailleur into the big ring and put it down. I opened up a decent gap only to be slowed up by a lapped rider through one of the turns and had to push hard again. I never really got as big a margin as I thought was safe, but had enough to hold on for 3rd. For me this was a victory of the race within the race.

Turns out that my tire had rolled 3/4 the way around. I can't believe it didn't come off. Guess 28 psi is a little low. I also have learned that there is a such thing as insulated long sleeve skin suits from Josh. I never would have guessed that you could look pro as fuck and be warm. Mind boggling.

Potential Mesa CX Series

"Trails suck unless they are wide enough for a cross race."

This is the kind of attitude that keeps Americans from being competitive in the Euro-CX scene. Man up son! Maybe the beer and frites is a better route for you because the racing is just too hard. In my CX racing career (4 races) I have adopted a new rule to live by; WWSND?

What Would Sven Nys Do?

Belgium knee warmers-check. Super Euro haircut- check. Deep dish carbon wheels-check. Super hot girlfriend-check. Quitting a race because his hands got too cold...

On another note, Mesa (me especially) is a little bummed at the level Big Shark domination that has been taking place in the races. I mean, Derek Loudermilks mustache isn't even euro! It might be acceptable at Sturgis but c'mon! When Josh Johnson and Nate return to town after chasing UCI points they are able to race the Bubba courses on 23 mm tires! Harre seemed to be the Euro egg, rolling into races in the bling bling Audi, hard techno bumpin. But then he helped Derek out in a couple races- which knocked his Belgian hard man status back down significantly. Sven would have screwed his teammate for the W.

Murphy was so overwhelmed by the Shark attack he downgraded to the B's only to have to deal with the Biggest Shark in the pond, hopefully his new haircut helps. Ogilvie seemed to have been convinced that Dereks tough guy non-euro look was the answer and shaved himself a handlebar 'stache. Matt James has declared that the Big Shark long sleeve skinsuits are too rad to even try to compete against and told his sponsors that he isn't going to win until he has one. I have admitted defeat, realizing that Jerry Rice was wrong; looking good doesn't make you play better and keep praying that the next race is going to be at Berryman and 6 hours long. Giovani Fondolini hasn't even been showing up to races, too upset to show his face after legally changing his name and not having considered "Dieter Housenstraeten," which would have rolled off the tongue nicely in the Belgian cross race announcers voice in his dreams.

Which brings me to my final point. The Mesa Sven Nys Invitational series is going to be all the Euro it can be with hard races, beer and Sven Nys himself. That is, if he accepts the invitation we sent him. We offered him $100 bucks to show up (no travel expenses included.) We also offered him some beer , as long as he was willing to bring it, we would reimburse him as it's too expensive and hard to find here. Mesa figures that if all else fails in our attempts to knock the Sharks off the podium, Sven Nys is the answer. Keep your ear to the grindstone for more details, we just sent the e-mail last night (the only part of this post that is serious).

Bubba CX @ Winter Park- Belgium Knee Warmers Mandatory

"A true hardman opts to forego the knee or leg warmers and instead chooses an embrocation to cover the knees. The liniment provides warmth for the legs and keeps the blood circulating and muscles supple. Embrocation and the sheen created is affectionately known as "Belgium knee warmers". The hardest of cyclists will sport bare legs in the most ruthless of conditions."- http://www.belgiumkneewarmers.com/

I'll keep this one short, like my race. Felt great, really exited about the conditions, looked super pro with my Belgium knee warmers and fresh cut Mohawk but I could have used some better gloves or heated brake levers. My hands went so numb they were slipping off the bars and I couldn't use my brakes which weren't working so well with the brand new pads and Cosmic Carbone Pros. I had the legs and the course suited me but was a little to antsy and attacked early thinking I would be able to make up a couple seconds on Rico, Harre and Mr Mustache himself, Derek Loudermilk, on every lap. Unfortunately there was enough flat and straights for a powerful group of three to outweigh the skinny technical rider. I was trying to get them to make mistakes when I hit the off camber downhill turn. Pain free slip and slide crashing is cool and I even managed to put the first scar on my right hip- EVER!

When Dr. Mark caught me on the back stretch with my hands under my armpits I started to sprint to get on his wheel; my hand slipped off the bar (from the drops) and I almost ate it on my face. The next couple turn were no better and I pulled the plug, warmed up a bit in the car, joined the beer drinking party and watched a pretty cool race unfold.

On the bright side- I have some new gloves on the way and it looks like conditions will be perfect again this weekend. Let it snow, I've got the heat on my knees.

CX Addiction

Ask anyone who knows me, I'm a little bit obsessive compulsive. I'm at the stage of my life where instead of having lots of interests/hobbies I try to excel at a few. I started bike racing in 2003 I quickly found something that I could REALLY get into. I like the training, the nutrition, the feeling you get when you have good fitness, the mental game (especially with the endurance MTB racing), messing with all the neat-o equipment and winning. I really like to win. For me it's never just for fun. My real fun comes when I am winning. The cool thing about racing bikes, to me, is that there is a never ending source of material to research, components to compare and people to race. I don't care if you want to piss on my parade and tell me it's local racing and I take it too seriously, I enjoy it all.

I didn't really discover my identity as a bike racer until this season. In 2003 I figured I was a mountain bike racer (sport class) and would never race road, and by the end of the year I did my first two Gateway Cup Crits. 2004 I found out early that racing expert was hard and raced a lot more on the road then made up for the off-road miles I missed by training for and racing my first 12 hour solo mountain bike race that fall. 2005 was a full season of road racing and then another 12 hour solo race. I was finding that riding lots of miles was taking the snap out of my legs and was having an identity crisis. 2006 was all Power Tap all the time. I basically rode myself into the ground watching the numbers on that thing. Various factors led to my season totally sucking and by mid season I was so burnt out that I was fly fishing more than riding. I was doing ok at Gateway Cup until I crashed on the Hill and finished off my season by getting shelled at U-City. I wasn't having any fun. I went to the Catskills and fly fished for a week and then went back to Boston and fished for another couple weeks on the Cape. When I got back to town I bought a mountain bike and made some plans for the 2007 season.

This year was pretty intense for me. I was training by feel instead of by numbers and my fitness was improving with every race. I figured there would be a breaking point and my recovery started to take a lot longer after my first 12 hour race in August, but the result from the next one in Ohio 3 weeks later showed that I had pulled up on the throttle in time and was even stronger. The Burning race was a dissapointment from a result standpoint, but I was riding really fast and it was coming easy. By the end of Oct I had raced something like 60 hours. I don't normally look at racing based on hours but when races are 3.5-12 hours long you have to. The crazy thing was I was still totally focused on racing/training and really exited about CX.

After just 3 CX races I'm hooked. The energy and intensity is like crit racing but it's not about the dude that can punch it out of a pack with 200 m to go. It hard racing. You have to be a good technical rider, be able to put down some serious power for extended periods of time and endure some suffering. The atmosphere is great since it is so spectator friendly and St Louis has the potential to get ever better. Next year I've already started making plans on ending my endurance race season a little earlier, doing more XC races during the course of the season and taking a nice breather before getting the engines fired up for CX season. I learned pretty quick that a cheap COMPACT cross bike isn't made for racing CX and will have some kickass new equipment in time for the rest of the season which I am really exited about, after all, cool bikes are how I make my living. Most importantly I learned quickly that there is a fine line at this time of the season between staying sharp and getting greedy for fitness. Luckily I think I caught my mistake in time and can still build a little, mostly just from racing.

Right now I'm still thinking in terms of Bubba points instead of UCI points, but it's making me happy.

Bubba CX @ Queeny

...just got back from our annual Mesa shop mountain biking trip to Asheville NC on Friday and was feeling pretty beat; some pretty epic rides/ hike a bikes, lots of beers, some great food and a little trout fishing. That news will have to wait until the photos are up, so for now it's the CX race I almost didn't do.

Today was a great race for me. Other than missing the Nageltronic Express Train on early in the race and missing the selection, I am pretty happy about what went down. I tried to keep the reigns tight early on, maybe a little too much, but was pretty stoked that I was able to open up a gap on some strong riders working together and watch it grow as the race went on. The guys in the shop were giving me a hard time when I put on the pretty 50 tooth DA outer ring (because Shimano doesn't make a 48 tooth and it's purdee'er) but I was able to turn it to my advantage on the downhill today so that was good. I never really felt like I wanted to quit, the legs were there and that was good too. The intensity is starting to feel a little more bearable and I don't think I offered the photographers any cute photos like I did at Faust, all good.

Todays field of 20 was pretty strong so a 5th place finish made me pretty happy. I upped my standard 2 beer a day program while we were in Asheville to a 10 beers a day minimum and got back on Friday night in time to go to my buddy Pete Rothschild's 60th birthday bash. The party was crazy. Donna had rented out ALL of Frazier's for 250 people with a top-shelf open bar all night and some amazing food. Needless to say after today and the race at Spanish Lake that I got all liqoured up the night before I'm starting to think that booze and CX go together like Terrance and Phillip.

Never have I wanted to quit a race so badly

That was really hard. I want to write this now so my memory of the pain is still strong. I guess it's always easy to make excuses on why I didn't do a little better, why I got smoked by guys that I beat last weekend but it just boiled down to not having the legs. My legs were shot. But here are my excuses anyways...

Hindsights 20/20 and I know what mistakes I made, not in the race, just in the week leading up to the race. I was pretty jazzed about my finish last weekend and knew that the "big guns" would be showing up so I got greedy and dug a little too deep this week, wanting to be sharp. Instead I rode myself into the ground and starting doing some interval work thinking that I might be able to prime myself for the effort. I was fueling myself on Halloween candy and not eating normally. I should have been just keeping the legs warm and riding a little and instead I put raced Sunday, put in 2.5 hours Monday, the same with tempo work on Tuesday, 3 hours with 30 minutes of threshold intervals on Wed, a night mountain bike ride on Thursday, 2.5 hours on Friday and a 1 hour race tune up on Sat morning. I know my fitness is good and don't need to be doing this kind of riding this late in the season. I guess if there is a bright side it would be training through a race like today for this...

I'm by no means saying that I would have been able to mix it up at the front today, but anyone that watched the race or came up behind me would have seen me going backwards after the first lap. I actually didn't even go out as hard as I did last week and avoided the early total anerobic blowout, but as the race went on I began to seriously power down. I wasn't able to hold anyones wheel after they passed me, no matter how hard I tried. I kept thinking about quitting but stuck with it figuring that I would have to catch someone, I usually get stronger as the race gets longer. When a Team Mack guy came by me late in the race I told myself I was going to hang with him; he dropped me in 30 seconds. With two laps to go I told myself I was going to close the gap and pass him but it just wasn't there.

As miserable as it may sound it was a great race. I can't say I learned anything from it, which sucks, but I really enjoyed it. Everything but the condition of the course. The course was brutally bumpy and I have to figure out a way to get some more cush, maybe 4" of suspension.

We went to The Scottish Arms and the good news started to roll in. The Patriots pulled through late in the 4th quarter. This guy is clutch, and the guy who has been looking at my Saab 92-X called to say he wanted to buy it, which means a new Element on the way for me! The Sheperds pie was good and the bartender made me the best bloody Mary I have had in a long time. Cape Cod Country club kind of Bloody Mary... Yeahussss!

Lunch meat and my left hip

Night ride at SIUE last night. I kept expecting Dawson or Dust to jump out of the woods and break my spokes with sticks, as promised if I ever tried to ride in IL, and it through me off my game. MJ and I were talking about CX license categories and going to Asheville next week, just cruising along, when in an instant I found myself flying through the air over my bars. I haven't had a crash like this all season; one where you don't see it coming. I hit left hip first and then on my head. It's always my left hip. My left hip is pink and scarred and my right hip is white and smooth. On the same note, another cool thing about using two Light and Motion ARC HID lights is you can watch your bike fly through the air in slow motion at you from the ground. Something hit me right behind the ear and opened up a nice little gash. Oh well. For some reason I had put some air in my shocks and rear tire but not the front. I hadn't ridden the bike since the race in TN a couple weeks ago and had about 10 psi in the front. The tired burped going around a turn and it was lights out for my left hip.

Here's my buddy Zach with a big deer he choked to death while camping last week. Zach is slowly learning that once you start racing bikes you start to suck at everything else you were once good at. Zach had spent the day chasing Bambi around in the woods but was still not recovered from the 7 laps he did at the Burnin 12 hour. Out of Delta Bravos secret endurance mix he was feeling real tired and drank some beers. true to form, Zach passed out on the ground next to his campfire and woke up with this deer licking his face. Zach grabbed it by the horns and choked it to death knowing that an all cereal diet was already tested and would never work. I think I count 10 pts?? Remember the top-secret mix Zach? Fill my freezer Holmes!

I am afraid that MJ will never read my blog again after this post.