Dustin Mealor

A!

2009-06-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

I got an A on my final for my first class in my "new" college career, and the instructor said I got a "very high A" in the class overall. Higher GPA is on the horizon!

In other news, I'm still riding all the time, and feel stronger every day. I had a knee injury hiccup last week, but all is well and I'm back to normal. Other than that, my weight is back down to almost a season low, and the first local time trial is tomorrow!

Wow!

2009-05-25T18:17:00.001-07:00

It's been like a month. I really need to get on the ball and post at least once a week. This weekend I raced 6 times from Friday at lunch till today at lunch. I did one time trial, four criteriums, and a road race. I didn't finish one of the crits, and I got dropped in the brutal road race today in which only about 20 of the field finished out of about 60. A team named Fly V Austrailia showed up and did some work on us all weekend, but overall it was a good experience.

I'm back in college now. It's not a huge deal, but my first class is a type of "intro to computers" type class, which goes into more detail than I thought it would, but in a good way. I've been studying and such which seems to be a trait I lacked when I went to college 6 years ago. So far my grades have been satisfying, but I guess I need to keep plugging away so I can fix my "teenage" GPA I achieved the first time around, which right now sits at 2.4 :( ...I guess that's about it for now!

It Has Returned!

2009-04-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, so as of late, I've had a bit of an issue getting motivated to get out and ride. It was getting better little by little until Saturday night, when my motivation went through the roof! The team I race for, Iron Data p/b Apto Solutions, received an invitation to race in the Athens Twilight, which is the BIGGEST criterium in the entire United States. Saturday night as I lined up to race with about 180 other guys, I got so nervous that I almost made myself sick! There wasn't a single spot left on the barriers throughout the ENTIRE course! It really gave me a huge taste of what professional racing is truly about. As the whistle blew, I'm surprised my heart didn't explode from beating too fast, lol. We headed down the straightaway and took turn one, then two...CRASH! I got caught in the first crash of the night and had to head back to the pits. It's not very easy sprinting onto a raging pack of bulls running at 35mph either! Regardless, I was dropped about 10 minutes later, but it was still super fun.

Sunday was the Historic Roswell Criterium, in which I competed in the 2/3 race, followed by the Pro/1/2 race. The 2/3 race went well until the end, which some small AVX guy went down the line like an idiot and proceeded to lean into turn one touching a pedal. He took down about 20 guys, but I managed to skid to a stop on the curb within inches of where everyone else was piling up. I was dropped 30 minutes into the Pro race. All in all, I had a very fun weekend, and my motivation and reason to want to succeed in the sport has fully returned!

Zero Motivation

2009-04-20T05:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted. I've had zero motivation to post AND ride. I've talked to the coach, and seems it's normal, which makes me feel better. I actually CAN'T WAIT to get out and ride today just because he talked to me about it and in a round about way motivated me again.

On a side note, we got a Greyhound this weekend. They are hypoallergenic dogs, which mean they shed very little, but man is he a horse!

Time to Rest

2009-04-06T05:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee. To cut to the chase, my time trial sucked, as did my crit. I raced the time trial like I had never did any pacing in my life, blowing up on the way out, and having nothing on the way back. In the crit, I got stuck at the back from the gun, never really moved up, and finished in the pack. The road race was pretty productive, with me getting in a break with a teammate and one other guy for 15 minutes, chasing breaks, kicking up the pace, ect...In the end, I got dropped on the last lap of the road race, but my teammate we were working for got 9th. Of course there are things I should have done differently, but I'll get there.

A Minute

2009-04-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

So it's been a minute since I posted. I really didn't realize how long it had been. There hasn't been much going on lately other than just a lot of training and racing. I'm almost finished with getting everything in order so I can go back to college, so I guess that's something. Otherwise, I got nothin...

Teamwork

2009-03-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend was a bit disappointing for me personally, but great for the team. We came out for our first weekend racing as a team and took 3rd in the road race. I chased way to many breaks down, resulting in me getting dropped the first time up the climb, but I wasn't all that upset due to the fact that it was in the low-mid 40's and raining. The ONLY reason I was disappointed was because I raced like an idiot and got dropped, when I should have been able to get over the climb and into the chase group again. This weekend is Union City, and I definitely don't plan on racing the same. I'm for sure going to be there for what's best for the team, but I'm no good to the team if I'm not there the WHOLE race to help out.

The Traveling Starts

2009-03-12T07:50:00.001-07:00

So this weekend will be the first that I'm on the road. The Georgia Cup cycling series starts this weekend with the "Seige of Rome" weekend. The time trial is suited for me a bit, so I shouldn't get last at least. The crit seems like something I might do decent in, with the course being fairly flat. The road race, on the other hand, is quite nasty. I'll post the profile below so you can fully appreciate what I mean. For a professional race, it's not very long at just 52 miles. What does make it quite nasty, however, is the little 3 mile climb to the finish. This weekend will be the first real "test" of how well I can manage to play it smart with what I have. The past few weekends have been me acting a bit stupid when it comes to chasing breaks and such, but I can't afford to do that this weekend. I need a solid performance in the first two races, with the third being very tactical as to not allow myself to get dropped on the first climb. Click the "view elevation" button to see the course profile in another window.

09GCROME-RR
Find more Bike Rides in Calhoun, Georgia

Nasty Sickness

2009-03-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

I had originally planned on blogging Friday about the upcoming weekend I had planned and such, but that didn't seem to come to fruition. Tuesday night Aaron got pretty sick, and it was confirmed by the doctor Wednesday that it was, in fact, the stomach virus. Of course the entire family had to come to make sure he was doing fine, which was a huge mistake. The entire family ended up coming down with it, except my grandfather and Hope's dad. I didn't come down with it until Friday, but it hit me pretty hard when I got it, which messed with my race preparations for the weekend.

I raced yesterday, but it wasn't anything amazing. I went to the back after a couple laps of trying to chase a break, and finally got dropped with 11 laps to go in the race. Before the race I parked next to a "no parking" area so I could lay my rollers out in that area and warm up with no disturbance from other vehicles. Of course, so idiot in a Range Rover just had to drive through the area without looking, and drove over my rollers that I got for Christmas! The damage was decent, but not too bad upon further examination today. Also, the guy gave me his trainer, which was a nice gesture. Although, it would have been nicer to get the money to fix my rollers!

Tough Race!

2009-03-02T17:14:00.001-08:00

So I did race #3 for the season this weekend. The race was on Saturday, and was in Dacula, GA. As is the case with races that occur in bad conditions, only the serious racers (excluding me I guess) show up. There was an ex European pro among other actual pros. I got dropped 37 miles, or 1.5 hours into the race, but at that time my normalized average wattage was about 320 watts! To put that into perspective, the best output I had last season was in a local time trial where I put down 335 normalized watts for an average for 23 minutes. That means that I put out almost that many watts, but for about 4 times longer! Needless to say, even though I got dropped, I was still quite happy that my recent knee injury didn't hurt me as badly as I had originally thought!

Insult to Injury

2009-02-24T07:46:00.000-08:00

Not all that insulting, but my threshold power has been affected a bit by my injury. I had a peak threshold of 320-ish last season, so I honestly would have expected at least that at this point. Due to my injury, however, I have dropped to about 305 according to my race data from this weekend and calculations. Whether or not that number will remain there for long remains to be seen. I plan to do all I can to get my training back together and improve myself to be better than ever. On a side note, I got dropped from my Sunday race, as with the wind and competitiveness of the field, it was just too much for me. Hopefully this Saturday will go a bit better.

Finally!

2009-02-21T19:44:00.001-08:00

The season has officially started for me! My first 2009 Pro,1,2 race was today in Greenville SC. Although I didn't do anything by way of a top ten, I did FINISH my race, which is the first time I have officially finished a Pro,1,2 race with the pack. Here's the stats for the race:

Miles Ridden=58.29miles
Average Speed=25.6mph
Work=1725KJ
Avg Wattage=211
Norm Wattage=263
Avg Heart Rate=156
Avg Cadence=96
Total Time=2hrs 15min

The College Game

2009-02-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

Okay, so there's still nothing really going in the world of jobs for me. There IS, however, something going on as far as a possible return to college. The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) is a deal where if you're unemployed, you can get some financial aid from the government to alloy you to gain an education in a "needs" area. I have decided that I want to pursue this route, and have applied to a couple of colleges. Tomorrow morning I'm going to take a trip to the offices that handle the WIA claims in my area to get some serious information on what will be provided to me. I'll update once I get info!

yep

2009-02-09T11:54:00.000-08:00

i'm still around....just not sure what to blog on...

Some Video Updatings!

2009-01-26T19:50:00.000-08:00

Still Here!

2009-01-21T11:58:00.000-08:00

I'm still out of work, though. I've been to the labor department in town to search their "job database", but nothing really came to fruition from that. I've been getting a lot of things done around the house that otherwise wouldn't have been taken care of, but that also doesn't bring home any money! I'm going to drop in at Gainesville College tomorrow or Friday to see what kind of information they have on the WIA (Workforce Investment Act). I've read a few things stating that the government will pick up the tab if I go back to college, but I need to get more info first. I'm a bit torn between a degree in education or something pertaining to a sports medical field. Nothing may come of that either, though. Whatever I do, I just hope God blesses me in it and his will is done. I've been two weeks without a paycheck, because my first unemployment check has not yet arrived. Other than that, the family is doing really well, and I have a positive outlook on the road ahead!

Just Sittin' Here

2009-01-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

So that's what I'm doing. I'm sitting here thinking of where my life is to go next. I've gotten a lot of things taken care of today, like cleaning up some things, doing some clothes, washing some dishes. I have one or two places in mind that I can go apply to at some time this week, but I don't know how it'll turn out. Right now, in all honesty, I'm just enjoying sitting here and relaxing with my son for a change. When you train as much as I do, you find that between God, work, family, and training, sometimes things get to the point where they interfere with each other. I've spent the day with Aaron, and it's been pretty cool. He's a very easy to please baby, and he's growing fast! If nothing else, I couldn't have lost my job at a better time. Who knows, I may be here when he walks!

No Job

2009-01-09T06:09:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I lost my job. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't really tore up about it or anything. I loved my job, don't get me wrong. It was a very laid back atmosphere, and everyone there was super nice, but I don't know if I was really "happy" there. By "happy", I mean it in a sense of being happy with what I was doing. I will admit that I did kind of enjoy it, but I'd much rather be doing something to help someone.
So where do I go from here? As of right now, I have absolutely no idea! I would love to get my level 3 coaching license and get into that game, but I bet the money I'd bring in wouldn't be all that much. It might be pretty interesting to start a business centered around bike fitting, as the closest fit location to me is 1.5 hours. I believe there is enough rider base in this area to support a small business in this area of sorts. The question is "How hard would it be to do this?". I'm not sure right now. I guess all I can do is look into it. Other than that, though, I can pray, and trust that God will take care of me and my family. By the way, thanks for reading, and God bless!

New Year's WBL

2009-01-01T18:47:00.001-08:00

So today was the first WBL of 2009. The ride was pretty good, and was definitely one of the tougher ones so far, with a 7 mile attack zone thrown in for good measure. I did as much work in the attack zone as I felt reasonable, and felt pretty decent. There's not much else to say I guess. Here's my first video blog with the new Canon Powershot the wife and I bought ourselves for Christmas.

WBL #4

2008-12-29T10:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry these are the only posts I'm making, but with me going to part time at work, I've gotten busier with my training and other things. Regardless, I got a new Canon camera for Christmas, and it takes really nice video with sound which is super easy to upload to the computer, so I may start doing video blogs again. The 4th WBL was the last one of 2008. I was mainly on the recovery for this one, but did a couple shorter pulls. Overall it was a pretty good ride, and there wasn't anything else super-exciting to say about it.

WBL #3

2008-12-22T05:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this weekend we were SUPPOSED to go kinda northwest from Athens, but the weather wasn't looking to good that way, so we headed south to Greensboro. I did as much work as I felt like without having my SRM with me (left it at home). I had a pretty good ride, and felt like I got some decent pulls in. At the end of the day, we ended up riding 85.5 miles in 3 hours 58 minutes. About a 21.5mph average. Was a pretty fast day!

WBL #2

2008-12-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

Today was the Bowman Ball Buster, which is a 4 hour stroll to Bowman and back from Athens. Got some good pulls in, and got to ride will Phil Southerland from Team Type 1. Looking forward to cheering those guys on in this years Tour of California. Good times!

The First WBL!

2008-12-08T05:11:00.001-08:00

I went to the WBL this weekend for the inaugural run. I haven’t been to this ride ever I think, as I’ve always been doing a local ride or something that day. The ride was a 3.5 hour one that went through Watkinsville to Statham and back. For most of the ride I was in the top 10-20, with me taking 3-4 pulls. I felt pretty good, but for good reason, since the first ride is always quite docile. A couple of times during the ride the pace would kick up quite nicely, and I kept wondering who was making it do so. After one exceptionally hard pull up a hill, we slowed down, and someone said, “I guess Floyd’s off the front; we slowed down.” I thought for a second and said, “Floyd who?”. They said, “Landis dummy!”. Not until he came back to get into the rotation did I realize I was riding with a past winner (before the doping stuff) of the Tour De France! He was pretty nice, and talked to anyone who wanted to speak with him. Guys like this can completely change your view of them. I’ve been on the fence about Floyd since his suspension, but regardless of what he did, he seems like a fairly nice person, minus a bit of a mouth, lol. It reminds me of everyday instances, where people do stupid things that make people angry. I’ve done some myself in the past, but when things are done to me I try and take into consideration the reasons why someone might have done what they done, and how they react afterwards to the positive, or negative, influence it has on themselves and the people around them.

A Bit of a Pickle

2008-12-05T04:22:00.000-08:00

Well, it seems that I’m in a bit of a pickle. The slow economy has finally hit Habersham County, and now I’m left with a job that otherwise would be good, but is now only part time. Yesterday my boss came in my office and said “We need to talk if you have a second.” I was thinking to myself “What in the world does he want? I’ve been doing pretty dang good lately.” He said he wished he didn’t have to, but our slow sales have forced him to push me back to 25 hours a week. If you do the math, that’s about 160 bucks a week less, which of course is about 640 bucks less a month. I told my wife that I think God will take care of us. I might should be worried more than I am. Don’t get me wrong; I’m worried, but I also have a bit of peace about it. I think that the economy may pick up soon and all of this mess will sort itself out. By soon I mean in about six months, though, so until then, I have a lot of things to cut back on, and may have to get another job to supplement. Unfortunately, the first thing to go was my coach. I really dreaded calling him to let him know, and hope he didn’t take it personal, but it had to be done. Today I’m cancelling our Dish Network service, and we’re going to stop eating out. Believe it or not, just those three things left us almost even to where we were. Mainly the eating out part helped, but still. For a week or two I think I’m going to catch up on things needing to be done around the house. I have a personal friend that might can use me 10-ish hours a week, so I may work with him some. I think for many people during this time, the hardest part will be trusting in God to sort things out. It’s easy to stop paying your tithes due to getting less money a month, but that’s not your money to begin with. I think if Hope and I stay faithful and trust that we will be taken care of, we’ll always find a way to weather the storm.

Update

2008-12-03T06:10:00.000-08:00

Just to get on here and not let the blog die, I figured I'd update a little. Aaron has a double ear infection, and woke up I THINK around 3-4am this morning crying. We did what we could and he finally went back to sleep, but slept the rest of the night with us. I've been hearing from "Bicycling" subscribers that the issue with me in it is out, and I've been sent a scan of said issue. Looks like it turned out pretty good. The WBL starts Saturday, and I couldn't be more excited! I always look forward to the big group rides the WBL brings to bout those "winter blues" that are quite common from riding so much indoors during the week in the winter. Not much else to say. Christmas is coming!

Must Be Something in the Dressing!

2008-11-29T16:46:00.000-08:00

I'm sick, and it sucks! I'm not hardcore puking sick, but I am bad upset stomach sick, and that's just as bad. You can't sit on a bike saddle when your butt hurts, lol. On another note, my wife and son are both sick as well. I also went to Black Friday at Wal-Mart yesterday and picked up a new Mario special edition DS.

Thankful!

2008-11-26T14:57:00.001-08:00

I'm thankful for many things, but losing personal items is not one of them. Yes, I'm a video game nerd, and I've lost my Legend of Zelda Triforce Edition Nintendo DS. Sucks, I know! On a more serious note, my wife has been searching high and low for my favorite "carry-on", second only to my Iphone. She has straight up been a trooper putting up with my baby-ish whining about losing it and helping me to try and find it. I put some "extra" bike parts I have lying around so I can purchase another DS if need be, but I'm hoping it won't come to that.

Sick?

2008-11-18T04:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it’s hard to decide when sick is “sick enough” to not ride the bike. In my opinion, a simple sinus issue is not something to defer me from riding. If that issue even hints at getting worse, though, I’ll take a day or two off. Hope left the heat on a couple nights ago which I guess dried out my throat, because I woke up w/ it being sore. Last night we turned it down, but I was a bit worse today. I’m on the verge of it being okay to ride and me having to take a day off. I guess we’ll see. It’s much better to take a day or two off and recoup than it is to lose a whole week to sickness because I was too stubborn to rest.

Still Here I guess...

2008-11-16T18:27:00.000-08:00

Rode 3 hours today. 245 avg. power w/ 256 normalized. Guess I'll keep posting. The long ride made me miss church, but it didn't really hit me that church starts earlier than it used to (6:00 instead of 6:30). The bible reading w/ me and Hope is going well. We read a chapter or two a night and I'm already learning tons. Mainly a scripture from Matthew that speaks about judging people. I'm not 100% on the exact nomenclature, but it talks about seeing a speck in your brother's eye, but not being able to see the log in your own. Sit back and think about it for a minute, and if you're like me, you might get something from it!

What should I do?

2008-11-12T14:27:00.001-08:00

I’ve been debating for a while on what to do with my blog. I know people visit it because the counter keeps climbing. I’ve been told by a “local” that “Only self-absorbed people have blogs”, which very well may be true. This blogging thing has caused me to say some stupid things in the past, and I already have enough enemies as it is. I guess what I’m getting at is I’m thinking of calling it quits. I am on Twitter now, which is an interesting new way to do a sort of “live blog”, and it’s working out pretty well. Twitter isn’t quite as personal as sitting here and typing up stuff. You just put in what you’re doing and you’re done. If any of you that read, whether you be family or friend, want me to keep on posting, gimme a reply or something to this and let me know why. Let me know what you want to hear about as opposed to “me,me,me”. I don’t know what else to write about, but gimme some ideas! Recent events have led me to try and change the way I think about things. I changed my little caption up top to “I don’t want to gain the whole world, and lose my soul”, which is an excerpt from a song by Toby Mac, a Christian artist. I guess it means that in light of recent events and the way I’ve handled things incorrectly, I don’t want to become successful in cycling if it means losing my soul. I don’t want to lose the friends I’ve made thus far in this game and push people aside in trying to climb the ladder to a possible career. I’ve also not been fair to my spiritual growth and wife. I haven’t really had a “dialogue” with God in quite some time, so this week Hope and I started sharing in reading the Bible again like we did before we got married. I think most of the issues I’ve had with the decisions I’ve made and with people personally has been because of my position with my faith. I haven’t necessarily “back-slid” to the point of doing anything awful, but I have stopped taking other people into consideration at times when decisions affected more than just me personally. I’ve also been short-tempered with Hope and taken the support and love I get from her for granted. I guess this all boils down to my priorities. I truly feel if I just ride my bike, thank God for the ability to ride bike, my supportive and wonderful wife, family, and friends, and start controlling my “mouth diarrhea” that my life would be much MUCH better!

Not as Bad This Time!

2008-11-09T16:14:00.000-08:00

So I ran again today since I had no riding planned. I only ran 2 miles, but had just purchased some new Asics shoes that I got an uber-deal (only 20 bucks from original 70 after discounts and an old gift card)on. This run was MUCH different from the last one a week ago. I have NO leg pain this time, which is a HUGE plus. I also used a new Iphone APP called iMapmyrun which was cool. Check out the link to see the details on my run:

Click here to see my run!

Regardless, I was super fast, but I did feel great!

I AM NOT A RUNNER!

2008-11-03T04:14:00.001-08:00

I figured I’d throw this up here real quick while my programs were opening up this morning at work. I’m a cyclist, and am definitely no runner. This past week was a total week off the bike, which the option to run or something if I wanted. I didn’t do anything all week, and then decided to try and run w/ a friend yesterday. First of all, I thought we were running about 3 miles, which seemed quite daunting to me in the first place not having ran since 2003. Second, this guy is probably the best cyclist/runner I know, meaning he does well at both. Third, we didn't run 3 miles, we ran about 4.5 miles! To make a really long story short, and because my programs just opened, I used muscles I haven’t since 03, and you know how that turns out. I can barely walk today!

Full Week Off

2008-10-27T06:22:00.001-07:00

Yes it is!

Rollers!

2008-10-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

So I decided to try and borrow some rollers from a friend. Hope you enjoy!

btw, it took me about 7-8 minutes to get going, and I still fell of 2-3 times after that video, but only due to stupid crap like trying to ride no hands and such...

Eye Opener

2008-10-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, this stuff is hard! I'm not gonna sit here and act like I'm the shiz-nit just because I went 4-3-2 in one season. I know that's a bit of an accomplishment, but I also want to be as humble as possible about it. Support from family, riding buddies, my coach, and many other aspects of my life such as my faith and what-not has gotten me to where I am. I know that I'm the one that gets on my bike day in and day out, riding 15-17 hours some weeks. I'm the one that rides my trainer 3-4 days a week because I have a son that I need to hang at the house with while my wife does stuff around the house. Still, having a solid support structure around you is the most important thing in ones life aside from faith. If the people you have around you are trash, then that's what you may become. All the riding buddies and friends I have surrounded myself with are definitely stand-up guys who care about their families greatly, and have taught me much more than what I've learned from them on the bike. I'm definitely gonna need support this winter and next season. I've got a lot of work to do, which was made very evident this weekend by the proverbial kick in the crotch I got in the two races I did. Time to Train!!!

Wow!

2008-10-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

This is being posted from my iPhone, so give me a little bit of a break for typos and such. Yesterday was my first pro, 1, 2 road race, and wow. This is a whole different ballgame! I won't say that I couldn't have done decent if I would have just sat in, but I did get dropped about a mile from the finish. The power that I had to use to answer attacks and keep from getting dropped was much more significant than any cat 3 race I did this season. I don't have much more to say. I'm blessed to be in this situation, and what I do with that blessing is up to me.

The other 20%

2008-10-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

So today is my mom’s birthday, so I have to start off by saying happy birthday to her. My mom has been supportive of my cycling from day one. My parents always take the time to come to close races (and some not-so-close) to support me and cheer me on. My other parents, Tim and Carol, are just as supportive and helpful. When I say other parents, I mean my in-laws. I don’t really look at them that way, though, as they treat me like I am one of their own. I guess this all goes to my point, which I’m getting to sooner or later.

Support from friends, family, ect. is what brought me to the place I’m at today in my life. My parents (all four), along with all my grandparents are Christians, and that has been the biggest influence. I’m definitely not always a shining light, but I do try to catch myself when I feel I’m about to do something that isn’t a good projection of what a god-fearing man would do. I think this has recently come more to light with my son being around. Aaron is getting a little older, and is slowly going into the copy-cat stage. We can stick out our tongue, and he’ll do it too. You slap the table, and he does it too. You know, just simple things like that. My wife tells me I act like my dad all the time, which isn’t a bad thing until I bring out my stubbornness, which my dad knows he has. Makes me think that I need to be very cautious about how I act around Aaron, so that he’ll grow up knowing about God and actually having a conscience.

Here’s the point. Family makes you who you are in my opinion. You can tell how someone’s family is usually by how they act. This isn’t always the case, but it definitely is I would say in 80% of people. I also believe that if you have been brought up in a rough environment, you can still be a good person. There’s that 20% of other people. It all boils down to who YOU want to be. I say I’m of the 80%, but that’s a good thing. Are you the other 20?

Six Gap

2008-09-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

I did the Six Gap Century today. It had been quite a while since I took part in this wonderful suffer-fest, but I figured what the heck and did it this year. Personally, I think 50 bucks for a century ride is a bit steep, but I figure it can't hurt once every couple years. Total on the bike time was about 5 hrs. 45 min., and total ride time was right under 6 hrs. I think. I had a pretty good ride and didn't cramp really. My normalized power for the ride was 252. Good times!

But I feel the same...

2008-09-17T11:54:00.001-07:00

As there are epic rides for people, this is an epic post in my opinion. Not epic to you because you should be awed and amazed by something I did, but epic to me because some big changes happened in my life yesterday. Some people may not think them to be big changes, and others may take them as huge. You be the judge on the level of “epic-ness”. I’ll start with bike related and then to family related.

So yesterday I got an email. It was one I had been waiting for, and had gotten a little worried I may not get it. The email in question was my confirmation email saying I was approved to move up to category 2. I would say that on a 1-10 level on the epic scale, this is a 6-7 for me. It’s a huge step for me to finally be restricted to only racing pro,1,2 races, but still not as epic as actually becoming a pro. I realize that from a cat 3’s racing standpoint, moving up to 2 is quite huge. Here’s a quick school lesson for the friends and family that read and don’t know. When you start racing a bicycle, you are a cat 5. This is better known as a crash 5, due to the lack of bike handling skills, although I’ve seen just as many crashes in the 3’s as in the 4/5’s. Then you move up to the cat 4’s, which to me is known as no man’s land. I was a cat 4 from March of last year to March of this year. I call it this because you usually get little to no payout in races, and it’s actually quite hard to move up due to it usually being the guys that are ready to go cat 3 that break away and win. Next is the cat 3’s, which I was from April to September this season. The 3’s are much more tactic’s-centered, and the strongest doesn’t always win. The payout is decent to good in the 3’s, and there are a lot of “career 3’s” that race there and stay there. It’s not that they don’t do well, it’s just that they don’t want to race pro,1,2. That pretty much covers me up until right now, which is the cat 2’s. Moving up to 2 isn’t like going 4-3. Moving up to 2 is going 3-2-1-pro all at once. I will now race with guys from teams like Columbia, Rock Racing, Healthnet, Toyota United, Jittery Joe’s, ect… I don’t have much else to say about this as I think it is pretty self descriptive on it’s own. This is a big move for me.

Okay, so the last being about a 6.5 on the epic scale makes this one seem huge, because I’m going with a 11 on the epic scale. So last night my brother called my parent’s house. That’s right, I said my brother. I’m 24 years old and have known since I was little that I might have a brother somewhere, but my father never pursued it because the woman that had the boy was unfaithful and told my dad the child wasn’t his. I guess in the back of your mind there’s always a “what-if” scenario playing making you wonder if you really do have the “Montel Show” “Long Lost Brother” episode going on. So anyways, he called and apparently we’re eating dinner with him, his wife, and their two little girls Saturday. For the family members reading this with jaws dropped, don’t feel left out because you didn’t know. My mom didn’t call me until pretty late to talk about it. I have since seen pictures of my “brother”, and will admit that he reminds me of my dad a bit. I had quite a bit of things to say about my other event, but this one has just literally left me almost speechless. I mean, I know it may be rude, but half of me is like “Why now?”. The guy is almost 28 years old and just now wants to meet my dad? The other half is thinking “Wow, I have a brother maybe. This could be cool”. The other half (wait, that makes 1.5) is just straight up confused and doesn’t know what to think. Regardless, there’s my epic events of the hour.

Another Weekend Down.

2008-09-14T13:32:00.000-07:00

That's about all there is to say. I did OKAY this weekend, with nothing to note really, minus finishing top 15 in all races, with all of them being climbing races. As the season winds down I'm sure I'll have less and less to post anyways.

Fell Off the Bed!

2008-09-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

No I didn't quit racing and use a weird phrase to describe it. Aaron, my son, fell off the bed this morning while my wife was getting ready for work. I got a call and she sounded a little upset and told me about it. I got a little upset, but not at her or anything, but upset that he might have been hurt. Since I decided to make a run at this cycling thing it has been among my top priorities, and it still is. Having a son has obviously changed the way I train as well as many other aspects of my life. When some people have children they seem to detract themselves from their riding/racing, which is absolutely fine and good. I choose to sit on my trainer for a two hour ride instead of go out so I can watch Aaron while my wife works around the house. He usually just stares at me for 5 minutes at a time and then goes back to playing in his activity center thing. You'd be amazed at how motivating it is to push harder while training/racing when you know you now have a little one looking up to you. Nothing makes me prouder than being able to hold that little guy on the podium!

Day off!

2008-09-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

Yes it is! I'm planning on cutting the grass and cleaning up the wife's car. The parents have Aaron today, and as stated, I have no bike time planned today. I'm pretty sure the proverbial poop is going to hit the fan soon by way of training this winter to gear me up for Pro, 1, 2 racing next season, so I'll enjoy my time off when I can!

Recovery

2008-09-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

This week is a recovery week. It's funny how you can complain about riding all the time, but then when you get a week like this, you're bored because you can't ride more, lol. It's nice to get things done around the house that otherwise would go untouched, but man I miss the bike!

Great Weekend!

2008-09-01T17:22:00.001-07:00

So this weekend was the "Atlanta Crit Series". I'm still racing as a category 3 cyclist because my request to upgrade a month or so ago was rejected at the time. It's a long story, but this weekend was good enough to definitely push me into being able to cat up.

Friday was the first of the series, with us being thrown in the pit with the masters racers. I attacked off the front later in the race for some reason by myself. Fortunately, another guy name Tyler from Pacesetters thought it'd be a good idea, and he had a teammate bring him up to me soon afterwards. We were quickly joined by another guy and established our break to finish the field off three deep. I ended up third!

Saturday saw us racing a great course in Marietta, GA that is used in the Georgia Games weekend. Saturday AM was a decent race for me, in that I got 9th overall, but bad in that I missed the break-away of 5 guys and was left in the unmotivated pack to sprint for the 3 money spots left.

Saturday Evening was at the same course, and I was much better off here, getting in a two man break with another guy from Mellow Mushroom who was really strong. For some idiotic reason I decided to let the pain win this time and dropped off our break to drift back to the pack. My break-mate had another plan, and he solo'd for the victory. I did end up attacking a little early towards the end, though, and came away with 5th place.

Yesterday was the best of the weekend, with me getting in another break with 5 other guys mid-way through the race. I stuck it this time, learning my lesson from the day before, and came out with 2nd on the day! I had my favorite podium mate with me, and the whole weekend was a great success!

Crits!

2008-08-30T19:22:00.001-07:00

So this weekend I'm doing the Atlanta Crit series over in Marietta, Georgia. So far I've done three crits with a third place, ninth place, and fifth place finish. Not to bad so far, but the fifth would have been a second or first if I would have dug a little deeper to stay in the break. You live and you learn I guess!

The Epic

2008-08-24T07:34:00.000-07:00

So what is an epic? I guess it's what you make it. To some people, an epic may be a 12 hour ride/race. To me, it was my 6 hour 125 mile ride yesterday. I've never ridden that far all at once, and it was definitely an experience. I was even more surprised that my first real cramps didn't come till 5 hours and 45 minutes, and they only lasted about 30 seconds! All in all, it was a very good ride, and I got to ride with Caesar Grajales from Rock Racing who is super nice and talked to me about different stuff, and Phil Southernland from Team Type 1 who is equally as nice and gave me more words of wisdom. Here's the numbers:

Time on bike: 6:02:59
Distance: 124.06 miles
Calories Burned: 4041
Average Power: 188
Normalized Power: 240!

Back on the Horse

2008-08-14T19:19:00.000-07:00

So I took 3 days off the bike and today was my first day back. I had a really good ride, averaging about 200 watts for 2 hours for a nice, easy, casual, ect...ride. This weekend I'm staying local for some longer miles and some hard riding. I don't race again till Labor Day weekend when I have 4 crits around Marietta, GA. I'll keep ya posted!

Grant Park and the Late Nighter

2008-08-12T05:30:00.001-07:00

So Grant Park could be taken either way. I got 5th, which brought with it some payout (but less than 6th Saturday?) and some more category points (1 more for 19 total). A break went at the right time and two guys got some serious time on the field. A few of us went off the front to chase and dropped the field, but were caught within a few laps. As soon as we were caught, I attacked again to hopefully wear out some people who had struggled to stay in the pack that just chased us down. For once, my attack worked! Six of us got off the front and spelled “ball game” for the pack, holding our “chase break” for the remainder of the race. Once again, my crap sprint yielded me 5th place as I stated above, but I’m not really disappointed. My normalized power for 46 minutes was 325 watts, which is decent considering this was more or less a “climbers” crit. The only regret I have is that I worked too much, as three or four of us worked very hard in the chase group to…well…chase. The one in the group that got the last podium spot was the guy who did absolutely nothing in the group. He sat at the back the entire time and sucked wheel. Not really a big deal, as I’m convinced had he worked he would have been shelled off the group. I got an insight to who some tough riders are in the 3’s, as my break-mates who worked were all very strong. Next race isn’t until Labor Day weekend, so time to recover and get some longer rides in!

I almost forgot about the “Late Nighter” part of the title. Nothing major here, just the little guy having an upset stomach till pretty late last night and keeping us up. Once he started to settle down he was laying next to me in the bed. He would rub his little night pants and then rub my hair. He did this for about 5 minutes till he finally passed out. Then my wife took him to his crib and all was well.

A Bit of Frustration

2008-08-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

I feel that for this time of the year, I'm leaps and bounds ahead of what I could have ever expected. Through support from family, team, coach, and the big guy upstairs, I've made it this far into the season with no major injury. I do, however, feel that I need to work quite a bit on my "pack smarts". This is the cause of my frustration. I did a race today that lasted right at 3 hours, and my normalized power was 273 watts. For a number that high, I would have expected a podium finish. I got sixth. I'm not disappointed that I got sixth, as I feel good about anything in the money. I seem to have a problem staying in the pack and not working. I'm the only cat 3 on my team that races regularly, so I'm always alone in races. I tell myself every race when a break goes that another team will bring it back, but I still end up chasing it for some reason. Regardless, today came down to a pack sprint where I had the podium, but due to my sub-par 975 watt sprint I slipped to 6th. Tomorrow is Grant Park!

Another Good Weekend

2008-08-04T05:08:00.000-07:00

I’ll throw down a little more for you guys this time, as I haven’t been posting much. I’m trying to condense my life down to God, family, work, and riding. I find it particularly hard to fit the God part in, as most of us do in our busy lives. I carry my bible with me on weekend racing trips, but rarely read it. I do always thank God for helping me to make it through a weekend without crashing, even if I don’t do well. I feel that even though my parents were very athletic at my age, my cycling abilities aren’t quite as “genetic” as some other people I know. I work hard, but the big guy watches out for me and gives me the talent and alertness I need to be successful. Lord knows I’ve prayed during a race many times to stop cramping and I did. The family part is complicated too. I have a little son now who’s 5 months and 1 week old. He’s probably the cutest and coolest little guy you could ever meet. I’ve always hated living the wife for a weekend of racing, but now I have two people to miss. When I’m home I’m riding the trainer much more often in order to be able to watch him while my wife works around the house, or just so I can talk to my wife about stuff and still get my training in. Riding is the same, lol. I train during the week and race on the weekend. Not much more to say.

This weekend was the Elberton GA Cup. The 4 guys dominated the state TTT championship by 2 minutes 53 seconds. I won the 3/4 criterium in a 3-man break later that day, and Eddiue Hsu got 4th in the 35+ cat 4/5 crit. Later that day I got 9th in the 3 crit. I got 12/13th or something in the road race, while Gary Papka got 5th I think, and Star Bridges won the 4/5 35+. A good weekend for the team. This weekend I’m racing at 5pm in Atlanta at Grant Park. It’s a nasty little criterium/circuit race with a good kick every lap. If I don’t update before then, I’ll do so Monday probably.

Good Weekend

2008-07-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I don't feel like posting much. Here's the weekend stats:

Thursday-4th Place
Friday-4th Place
Saturday-4th Place
Sunday-20th Place

Overall-4th Place

Sorry guys, but that's all you're getting.

Good & Profitable Weekend

2008-07-21T04:45:00.000-07:00

This weekend I stayed local for what was to be some of the hardest riding I’ve done to date. Saturday I headed out with the local Habersham Bicycles group ride in the morning to prime the legs and get ready for the rest of my day of suffering. I had a good ride, and came out of that first hour with my legs ready to go. A friend had agreed to ride the next three hours with me, and we headed out about an hour after I finished the first ride for the most painful ride I’ve had all year. The store stop that we had agreed on was on a hill about a mile-mile and a half up a 3-4 mile climb. We hit this store stop at only about two hours into our ride, but I was already starting to get tired and cramp. The stop was very welcome, and afterwards we headed up the rest of the climb only to have Stephen get a flat about 5 minutes after the stop. After we fought the yellow jackets off and got his flat fixed, we headed off for the rest of our ride, which was pretty much a game of lets see how many times Dustin will cramp (no thanks sports legs). This all culminated of course in the middle of town where my legs fully locked up for about 5 minutes and we had to stop until I could get back on my bike to finish the 3-4 miles it would take to get back home. After it was all said and done, my normalized power for the day was about 250 watts with my ride time being 4 hours and 2 minutes.
Yesterday was no different in that I went out to get a good, solid effort in and push myself once more. I went solo this time, but waited until about 6pm to head out due to the heat that’s been around lately. I ended up with about 2 hours 15 minutes and had a normalized wattage of 260 something I think, lol. Regardless of wattage, my training stress for the weekend was enough for three days of riding, so I’ll be taking it easy today and tomorrow with a few short intervals Wednesday to prepare for the Gwinnett Bike Fest coming up Thursday-Sunday. I’ll try and keep you updated!

Good Weekend!

2008-07-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

The weekend started off good with a trip to Union City yesterday. I competed in the Georgia Games Pro 1/2/3 Road Race on Saturday. The race was a 64ish mile one with a bunch of larger rollers on a four lane "highway" near Atlanta. I felt pretty good, even though the temperatures were hovering around 100 degrees. I attacked 10 minutes into the race just to kind of feel out the pack, and they let me and three other guys go. Little by little, we added a guy here and there until we were up to a total of 8 in a break that would stay away for the majority of the race. The heat got to me after about 30 miles off the front with the break and I cramped like a champ. I cramped so bad I almost got immediately dropped by the peloton when they caught me. I lasted for maybe a total of 10 minutes after the pack caught me until the cramps got really bad and I dropped altogether. Even though I got dropped, I felt good about putting my neck out and definitely got a very good workout for the day.

The race today was a wet one. This was the Georgia Games Pro 1/2/3 Crit. There really isn't much to say about this one except it was pretty fast. I ended up getting 13th overall and 5th for the 3's. Overall I had a good weekend, and the other guys on the team did well too! Reilly got 3rd in the crit and Star got 3rd in the RR! Good job guys!

TTT

2008-07-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

For the sake of stupid acronyms, TTT here stands for "Trainer Time Trial". As I was scheduled to do a time trial yesterday, but obviously couldn't with the wonderful downpours we've had this week in northeast Georgia, I hit the trainer for my first ever time trial-like effort on my trainer. I paced myself badly, averaging 345-350 for the first few minutes, and kind of cooked myself for a minute. I think I had the mindset that I'm back in full form, which I'm definitely not quite yet. When the clock hit 20 minutes, I ended up with a bit left in the tank, but was still pretty trashed. I averaged 315 with a normalized of 316. Nothing impressive, but still loads better than last Thursday's 280ish watt average on the TT. My average heart rate during this was around 174-175 for those of you who don't train with power. This weekend is the Georgia Games, which are a couple of races (road and crit) for no payout, but some nice medals for the top 3. Unfortunately my road race 3 field is being combined with the pro/1/2 field due to lack of participants, but it should still be a good race. The crit is still a 3 only field and should be a good one as well. I'll update with results after the weekend is over!

Back in the Saddle...

2008-07-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

So Thursday night I did the local “Race of Truth” time trial to pit myself up against, well, myself with a comparison of last tt’s time to this one. Going out I definitely could feel the fatigue from the previous weekend along with the soreness from not being in the saddle a couple of days. Whereas my average power was 335 watts the last time we did the tt, my average this time was around 280, which is obviously much worse. My time went from a personal best of 22:48 last time to 23:48 this time. It seems bad, but the later is still better than my best last year, which feels good. The rest of the weekend consisted of some endurance rides with a few intervals mixed in to get the legs cooking again. This week I’m still on semi-recovery with no really hard efforts minus a little Tuesday and a little Thursday. This upcoming weekend is the Georgia Games races, which is are two “road” races. These consist of a crit and a road race, and are usually pretty fun to do. I definitely don’t expect to be in any kind of form for these, but hopefully won’t get dropped from either, as I should be semi-back-to-normal leg wise. The posts have gotten less and less lately I guess due to the normal “burn-out” part of the season. I love riding and racing, and have in no way gotten tired of them, but I am tired and honestly am a little burnt out on doing the blog, which is why I am down to 1-2 posts a week. It may pick back up towards the end of July, as I have a race every weekend from the last weekend in July for 3-4 weekends straight.

Tanked it...

2008-06-29T19:08:00.001-07:00

So this weekend was a bust for me. I crashed last weekend in Lagrange, and it really told on me this weekend. I did decent in the team time trial, finding out this morning that my time was originally messed up, and instead of sixth place(last) and a 34 minute ttt we got fourth place and had a 32 minute ttt. That sounded much more in line with what my power file showed, and made the rest of the weekend of getting dropped much better. I got dropped after 3 laps in the crit, and got dropped early in the 2 mile climb on the first lap of the road race.

On another note, the rest of my team did pretty well, with my newest teammate Gary Papka doing extremely well once again getting 2nd overall in the 4/5 category, and getting some nice top 10 finishes with a definite win in the ttt. Star did well in the crit, and Andy did well in the crit and road race (go figure the climbing guy does well in climbing races, lol). It was a good weekend for the team, and I'm glad we all did well, had a good time, and got away with minor injuries (get better Eddie!)!

The Damage...

2008-06-24T04:57:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I took a trip to the bike shop to pull my bike apart a bit and figure out what all was damaged in my solo adventure to the pavement. So far the only things needing to be replaced were my rear derailleur cable, rear shifter hood, and bar tape. I haven't had my wheel trued yet, but Joe at the shop is going to try today I think, so we'll see there. Physically speaking, I'm still pretty sore, but have healed up remarkably well so far. I'm taking two more days off to fully recover and get ready for Rome.

At It Again!

2008-06-23T06:13:00.001-07:00

So this weekend six of us went down to Lagrange, Georgia for the Georgia cup of the weekend. My cat 4 boys threw down and came out with I believe 3-4 top 10 race finishes (not counting TT’s), and two top 10 overalls! Our new guy Gary Papka threw down in style even though it was his first weekend racing with us. We all also got to know him a lot better and learned how cool of a guy he was; “Guys if I don’t eat something soon I’m gonna start flippin tables and throwin stuff up in here!”. On a personal stance, I got third in the TT, which was a tough little 3k course with some technical turns and such. The crit went fairly well, with me covering breaks and such trying to watch out for the MAR (Most Aggressive Rider) laps to pick up some time bonus’s. I ended up picking up a whopping 0 of these, but got a decent 15th pack finish. I was a little angry with myself (for chasing breaks for nothing) and had a little energy left, so I entered the Pro/1/2/3/4 category Win and Out race. This was a crit of 15 laps where the first 5 laps were warm-up, and afterwards there were 10 laps each worth 100 bucks each. The pace was high and I won no money, but I did get a taste of how fast some Pro/1/2 crits are. I was dropped on the last lap due to trying to chase a break and get a jump on the two guys in said break. The only problem was these two guys were of the higher category persuasion, so my chase was in vain. The Road Race went fairly well on the first lap, but I chased WAY too much when I should have been sitting in. I got a little sore on the second lap, but the miles rolled on and with 5k to go I was feeling pretty good. We rounded the turn for 3k to go and something happened. A friend who was behind me said my rear derailleur jumped or something, but when I finally got up and looked at my bike my rear cable was broken, so I’m not sure if this happened before or after my solo exploration of the pavement. All I know is I dropped my chain while climbing a hill at 955 watts (or so my SRM says). When the chain dropped it surged me forward, which caused me to unclip my right cleat, smack my mid-gentlemen very hard on the top tube, and spill knee/elbow first into the asphalt. I got the pack finish, though, and ended up 7th overall for the weekend (sound familiar?). Enough to make me happy! This weekend is the Rome GA Cup! Let’s Climb!!!

A little trip down southwards way…ish

2008-06-20T06:16:00.000-07:00

So this weekend me and my teammates are headed to Lagrange Georgia for the State Criterium Championships. There’s also a stage race somewhere in that, but that’s just an added bonus. I really don’t know what to say about the weekend to be except I’m thinking I’ll take the video camera since I’m not driving and hit up some video-age for your viewing pleasure. Don’t get too excited, as you all know I’m lazy and probably won’t do it anyways. The missus has a pretty tight clutch on the camera anyways now that Aaron aka “Little Man” is starting to do those cute little things babies do when they become aware of everyday things like their feet, and their daddy’s scruffy face. Regardless, I’ll update while down there if you’re lucky and I’m not lazy, with a definite update Sunday or Monday. This is also the first weekend our new teammate, Gary Papka, will be racing with us. Let’s just say this guy has already beat me badly in the local time trial and he’s a cat 5, so I’m sure there are promising things awaiting him this weekend.

“Daddy? Do you HAVE to go race?”

Random "Cute" Pic

Solo Today, Yesterday Was Actually Fun, Though

2008-06-15T19:10:00.001-07:00

I'll start with yesterday. I headed out with the normal Saturday group, hitting up the sprints I could. Not much exciting going on there, except we had a horse run out in front of us at one point, and a duck ran out in front of me a little later. After the petting zoo, I headed out with my teammates and a few others for a few more hours. I felt pretty good the whole day, and definitely busted myself. Stats after the post...
Today was a bit different, as I headed out solo for 3.5 hours. I had no power, and the stats will show. Nothing exciting at all happened today other than I had no power whatsoever the entire ride, and basically had to force myself to get what power I did outta my legs. Now for the stats:

Saturday...
Time-4hrs. 27mins.
Dist.-82.99 Miles
Avg.-189 Watts
Norm.-253 Watts

Sunday...
Time-3hrs. 27mins.
Dist.-58.6 Miles
Avg.-180 Watts
Norm.-210 Watts

Two almost solo days...

2008-06-09T04:45:00.000-07:00

Saturday was like any other Saturday local ride for me. I rode with the Habersham Bicycles crew for about 20ish miles, and then set out for another 45-50 miles on my own. I can’t think of anything interesting about this ride other than I had no flats or cramps, which is always good. Yesterday was set up to be a bit longer ride. I left the house to ride over to another more “mountainous” part of the county so as to make a loop and ride back with the hopes of having a total of about 4.5 hours worth of riding (Saturday was 3.5). Once I got over there, I met Sammy Arial, who rode with me for about 30 miles, and definitely added some good ole’ companionship to the otherwise lonely day. After all was said and done, I ended up with 4.25 hours for yesterday, with that being 7.75 hours for the weekend, no cramps or flats, and about 140 miles. Definitely a productive weekend!

Nice and Easy

2008-06-04T05:32:00.001-07:00

Last night I rode the Tuesday Night Throw Down with the various local folks and teammates. Usually it's a pretty fast ride, hence the name, but last night me and a few others decided to drop off early and take it easy. It was quite the pleasant ride, and was a nice break from the monotony of hard training that usually takes place on Tuesdays. Afterwards, we had a nice wait at Johnny's Pizza, and an hour-sih later we finally got to enjoy some pizza. Good friends, good food, good fellowship...Who could ask for more?!

A good weekend...

2008-06-02T15:27:00.001-07:00

So this weekend was the “Union City Stage Race” with the road race yesterday being the Georgia State Championship. Might as well start off with the TT and go through the weekend…

The time trial was a first for me, in that I was the first 2/3 racer to go off. This means I had no one to chase, which I guess could be a bad thing. I feel it was also a good thing, though, in that I had no one to chase in vain and risk blowing up and screwing myself for the GC. I headed off on my merry way, for the 10 mile mind game. I guess the hardest part of the whole TT was not looking over my shoulder to see if I was being caught, but concentrating on keeping my head in that magical aero position as much as possible. I hit the turn in less than 10 minutes, and THOUGHT I had it in the bag. What I didn’t realize was that there was more climbing on the way back, and my effort was a bit too hard on the way out, potentially toasting me on the way back. After the first “big” rollers I hit some 250-270 watt recoveries to regain what I could, and then busted myself going up the 1k-ish climb to the finish coming in at 22:30. Power was 326avg., 336norm., and avg. speed was about 26.6mph. Good enough for 8th place in a large field of good time trialists!

The team then loaded up and headed over to the criterium course where we would spend the rest of our day laying around, fellowshipping, and racing. I was the first to go out with the 2/3’s, and had a good race. I got my best 2/3 finish to date, which was 6th, and held my position in the GC, which, of course, was 8th. The younger guys represented with Reilly Mahon getting a solid pack finish. Star took a firm grasp of his MAR jersey in the 35+ race, and definitely is going to make it as hard as he can for someone to take it from him. The older guys are always interesting to watch, as they work together so well in throwing guy after guy off the front to wear down the pack and get the right person in place for the MAR points and pack sprint at the end. My power for the crit was 254avg., 301norm., and avg. speed was 25.3mph.

The road race yesterday was a first for me in a few ways. For starters, I think it was the first road race I’ve done which was over 60 miles (66.5). Second, it was the first road race I’ve done without a teammate to help out. My strategy today was spelled out by the ever-so-wise Matt Schectman, which was “Don’t do any work and don’t cramp”. Pretty simple, yet powerful, words, lol. The sitting in part was easy, as I stayed up in the top 20 for the entire race minus when I dropped to the back in the feed zone to attempt to get a bottle, which failed miserably. No biggie, as I had the “emergency” bottle in pocket, and drank some good ole nast..I mean tasty Union City water. I quickly moved back up to the front 20 of the pack in the next few miles, and continued to watch the break add one here and there to reach a total of 8 in all, which we never caught. I rolled in with the pack, giving as hard a leadout as possible in the final 1/2k to string out the pack what little I could to minimize a crash chance for that 9th place sprint. I ended up 19th on the day, 7th overall, and had a pretty dang good weekend! The numbers for the road race were 202avg. power, 279norm. power, and 24.6mph avg. speed.

All in all, the weekend was good, and I'm glad I didn't crap out like I've been known to do, lol. The rest of the team did really well, with everyone having a good showing and good overall finishes. Next up is Lagrange!

The Stage Race

2008-05-30T04:41:00.001-07:00

So this weekend is kinda the first stage race I’ll be doing as a 3 where I won’t be working for someone (only have done one other stage as a 3, but was working for a teammate). I’m anxious about it, but at the same time a bit nervous, as the road race Sunday is quite the monster at 91 miles. Of course this in no way compares to the Cat 1, 2 race which is 114 miles, but it’ll still be tough. I guess the only plan of action I can truly follow is to stay hydrated, make sure to eat some, and stick in the pack not doing any work. If I can manage to survive the entire race, I’ll stand a good chance at the state championship as well as a really good overall finish in the stage, granted I do well in the TT and don’t get dropped in the Criterium on Saturday.

And the Shout Outs Go To…

2008-05-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

Stephen Dean and Star Bridges for the weekend. Stephen pulled a nice 3 lap break at the end of his race (solo), but got caught on the line by one person. He ended up with a well deserved second place and was pretty dang happy. Star stayed up front (and on the front) for most of his race, trying to go off on a couple breaks and such, and came home with 6th place I believe. My weekend was eh, with my Sunday crit ending with me being caught behind a nasty crash (get well soon Adam from Harbin!), and not finishing. Yesterday was a bit better, with me still only pulling off 29th out of a 80ish field. I still have a ways to go to being pretty competitive in this 2/3 game.

No Posts

2008-05-23T04:56:00.001-07:00

Because nothing has been going on. This has been one of the most uneventful weeks ever! I rode every day this week, lost some data from Tuesday and Wednesday by not downloading it right, and….I guess that’s it. On a side note, there’s a drug check going on here near the highway. There’s a big sign on the side of the highway right before the exit ramp that says “Drug Check 1 Mile” or something similar. They’ve arrested a lot people in two days from this! Obviously as soon as you get off the highway and round the curve there’s a caravan of local authorities there to greet you. Yesterday the towing guy said they had impounded 31 cars on the first day, and I heard yesterday was more profitable. Sorry rednecks, no meth for you this week!

Nothin Doin

2008-05-18T17:08:00.000-07:00

Ya, so there isn't much to say about today's race. There was a break; I chased and caught; we got caught. There was another break; they stayed away; I worked way too hard up front to try and bring it back; I got pwned at the end. Nuff said.

Ride to Work Week

2008-05-15T05:22:00.001-07:00

So I rode my bike to work yesterday, as this week is “National Ride Your Bike to Work Week”. Had a nice cool ride in the morning, and it only took me 13 minutes to get there. On the way home I took the scenic route which took about 25 minutes, dropped off my gear bag, and completed another 5 miles at recovery pace. I had a good ride, but the pollen is still kicking my butt. I don’t know if allergies are tied into your feelings and emotions, but it seems like I get depressed with allergy seasons come around for some reason. I have no reason to be, and it’s not bad. I think it could be described as feeling tired or groggy all the time. In other news, I think my little man Aaron found his feet yesterday. He would stare at them and kick them around, then smile and go to the other foot. He did this the whole time we were at Blimpie’s eating dinner. That’s about it for now, as nothing exciting has happened lately. I’ll try and post Sunday night after my race for something a bit more worth reading.

Random Ramblings

2008-05-12T06:18:00.001-07:00

So yesterday was a nasty race. I guess coming off my injury AND a full recovery week didn’t help, but my power was really off, as obviously the SRM doesn’t lie. I averaged 262 watts for the race, but felt like it was 330, lol. The wind was crazy! I ended up getting 9th place, which doesn’t disappoint me, but obviously a little higher would have been nice. A break went with 2 laps to go and they got us. A little Kudzu kid was one of the people in the break, and a reality bikes guy was the other, I believe. All in all, we started with 50ish people and ended up with 20ish, so I guess I did okay. Sorry for the random ramblings, but I can’t think of much to write about the race. This next weekend I’ll be in John’s Creek for another criterium. I don’t know if my previous crashes were subliminally hurting me, but I kinda let myself gap a bit in the sharper turns yesterday, which is totally unlike me. I was able to close the gaps, but wasted a bit too much energy probably in doing so. Regardless of anything, racing in the 3’s is more tactile than the 4’s, but it doesn’t seem too much harder. Yesterday was a testament to how hard it can be at times, with us dropping so many people, but I’m gonna go back to a previous statement of mine pulled from Ben Jaques-Maynes. I’ve prepared myself, and days like yesterday don’t upset me because I did my best. I feel my time is coming later in the season, and I can’t wait!

Back on the Road

2008-05-09T08:56:00.001-07:00

So after my nice little “spill” the other day, I’m heading back out this weekend to a circuit race Sunday. I have an even more important ride tomorrow, though. This is in all honesty one of my most important of the year, as sponsor and very close friend Joe Elam from Habersham Bicycles ( www.habershambicycles.com ) is the man behind the curtain of this ride. The “adventure” in question is the LAP Century, which is the Lula Assembly of Praise Century. This thing gets bigger every year, with last year bringing about 300ish people if I remember right. This ride is for the best cause of all, which is helping to further God’s kingdom by all funds going towards the church. The ride has some great scenery with very well organized SAG’s, and has many different length options from 20 miles to 103 I believe. Go to Joe’s link above and click on the LAP link there to find out more about it. Maybe some of my readers will come on over and give this ride a try. Oh, and btw, the shirts this year are pretty sweet too (good job Danny)!

I got nothing

2008-05-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

Yep, that crash yesterday took it outta me. I had some Vo2 planned for tonight, but just couldn't get anything outta the legs. I really hope I'm feeling better for the race this weekend, but if not, It'll just be a good training race, lol.

It puts the peroxide on it's skin

2008-05-05T04:22:00.000-07:00

And man does it burn! I got some nasty road rash yesterday in the first of two races I was in. The first was a Category 3/4 Criterium that was a little “sketchy” from the get-go. I stayed up front for pretty much the whole race, and felt great! With three laps to go I was sitting about seventh or eighth wheel. With two laps to go, a couple of guys in front of me got together on the second to last turn and just kind of “filtered” into me. I hit the ground pretty hard, and at a nice fast pace. A guy I’ve been racing with since I started broke his nose and lost a tooth (Hope you’re doing better, Nick!). My rear wheel is bent possibly beyond repair, and my frame got scratched pretty bad, so it may be cracked. As for the rash, I dug a really nice place out of my left knee, which I guess is what took the most of the impact (explains the soreness, lol). I have a nice length of rash down my left shin, as well as some on my right shin and right elbow. It really was one of those wrecks where I should have broken a bone or something, but I came out with just rash! As soon as I stood up to grab my bike, some guy starts yelling at me that the crash was my fault, but he didn’t see the guy in front of me come next to me and take me down, so I yelled back, lol. I kept my cool in word choice due to the large tent of kiddy cyclists, but we both quickly calmed when I told him that and we apologized to each other (gotta love that adrenaline).

The second race was a 2/3 race, and I kinda felt doomed when I lined up. I wouldn’t say that I “idolize” category 2 racers, but most of these guys race with the pros on a regular, and a lot of them hang in there! I just felt that if anything, the race would definitely hurt, and I was right! I think my average wattage for the 3/4 race was in the neighborhood of 245 watts, when the 2/3 race was in the neighborhood of 270-275 watts! We averaged about 26.5 in the 3/4 race, and almost 27.5 in the 2/3! There was ANOTHER crash that I was involved in during this race, but it was unavoidable, and I went down in more of a stumbling fashion than a crashing one. It was about a 30-40 guy pile up right past the start/finish on one of the first laps. It’s really hard to stop a bike that’s going about 35/40 mph! I headed to the wheel pit for a lap and then hopped back in with about 20-30 other guys. I ended up finishing in the pack, as my mentality was to use this for training, and I didn’t feel like I would stand a chance in the sprint. Thank God I made it through the weekend with just a little rash, and also that this is a recovery week anyways!

It hit the wallet...

2008-05-01T05:08:00.001-07:00

So Hope and I were sitting in the living room last night, Hope on the couch and I on my trainer for a short recovery ride, and we were looking at our current finances. A person’s financial situation is a private thing, and I don’t plan on telling how much either of us make, but we are both very blessed to make enough to have a nice house, nice vehicles, and other things. While Hope was doing the checkbook, the main idea was to see how much racing has been costing us by driving my car and hers. The numbers may amaze you, as they did me when she told me. If I have two relatively close races, which would to me be defined as driving 2-3 hours total each weekend day, Our weekly gas costs run in the neighborhood of 160 dollars for Hope’s car, but a respectable 200 dollars for mine! Now I’m no genius, but that would indicate that we are spending in upwards of almost 800 dollars a month just to drive! We both had a serious talk about what to do, and it seems that right now we’re just going to sit it out and see how things go with me driving her car around on the weekends, since I’m the one putting in serious mileage. If nothing’s going, I’m going to start riding my bicycle to work at least 2 days a week to offset some more costs. If that doesn’t work, I really don’t know what to do. We can’t afford to get me another car, nor can we afford to operate my car at that cost. I guess the next step would be asking for a raise at work, which right now is out of the question with how slow the residential building industry is. This gas deal is really hitting us all in the wallet!

Here we go again!

2008-04-28T07:40:00.002-07:00

When I got home from the Atlanta Circuit Race yesterday I rode the stationary guillotine again for two hours. In all honesty, I don’t even remember what my average wattage was. I think it was in the neighborhood of 215 or something, but who cares, lol. After riding, I took a look at the upcoming race schedule, and am pretty anxious about what’s coming up. If I looked at everything right, I have about 5-6 weekends of straight racing coming up, starting this Sunday in Roswell. Next Sunday is Cumming, then John’s Creek the next Sunday. The next week is the Tour of Atlanta (unless of course the GA Cup lives up to expectations and cancels it.), followed by something the next weekend which I can’t remember at the moment. Maybe I’ll get me some points out of some of this!

TDG 08'

2008-04-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'm helping out at the Tour de Georgia. Today was the Brasstown stage, and it was pretty amazing! Siutsu (spelling) from High Road took the yellow from Trent Lowe, but both riders were amazingly strong in running off on Levi Leipheimer! Tomorrow should be pretty exciting!

Mental Fitness

2008-04-23T19:21:00.000-07:00

So I rode the trainer tonight. A lot of people think I'm crazy when I tell them that I love my trainer, but that's because they just don't get it. When you're on the road, it's nothing to hit an interval at about 70-75% of your lactate threshold and hold it there for, say, 30 minutes. You have scenery, companions in some cases, did I mention scenery, and other things that help the time pass quite nicely. When you're on the trainer, it's just you and whatever Tyler Perry movie your wife decided to watch for the night. Basically trainer time for longer sustained intervals = suffering. I know that you're thinking "Well I can suffer just as good up a long climb when I'm out as I can when on the trainer." I'm gonna have to call your bluff there, as I know for a fact that even the worst climbs seem shorter, as far as a timed interval goes, than a long effort on the stationary guillotine. Dare I say that riding my trainer once every week or two is what helps me past those suffering times in races? I mean, If I can last 30 minutes at 100% FTP on the trainer in silence, it should be that much easier when in the peloton racing, where your mind has things to concentrate on such as moving up in the pack, watching for breaks, checking for teammates, ect. That's just my $.02, and that won't buy anything these days! Oh, and looks like my blog has finally hit 1000 hits! Thanks for reading!

Rest Time!

2008-04-21T04:32:00.001-07:00

Yes is the answer if your question is “Is this what comes after mountain time?”. I rode with two teammates over in the gaps known to locals as “Turners Corner” because of where we park to ride them. Saturday was my ride with teammates, and it was a tough one. We hit the first lap around the gaps very hard, basically racing up each one. When we started our second lap, I was already feeling the effects of the first halfway through the lap. I was cramping, tired, an…..oh wait, I BONKED! Yes friends, it was one of those days. I would get intermittent bursts of energy that lasted for about 2-3 minutes, but would quickly cramp up again or just get tired. Maybe doing this in training will help it not to happen so much in racing.

Sunday, which was yesterday of course, I went back up to the gaps with an ex-teammate to tackle the gaps again at a bit friendlier pace, and for less time (about 40 miles instead of 75). I still felt the acid in my legs when we started out, but I had a great ride with no cramping, and climbed at a good high endurance pace/low V02 pace for most of the climbs. The day before was all threshold pace, so I can understand why I couldn’t last for the full 5 hours. Yesterday’s 2 hour ride up there was just the kind of rehab I needed. Today is rest time, and I look forward to it 100%!

Mountain Time!

2008-04-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow I'm gonna hit up some mountains. Now I know some of you flat landers don't know how to appreciate a good mountain, but there's nuthin better than a dang ole' big un that takes ye a good 20 minutes ta climb. Sorry, but I felt the need to get all southern on you for a second. I'm not the best climber in the world, but am working on it. One day I might even be able to stick with the big, er little, boys. Ya, I know, never gonna happen. I can dream, can't I?

Why do I even bother?

2008-04-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

Why do I bother to make videos and video blogs when I don’t upload them? I made a cell phone video blog Sunday, but never uploaded it. I have a video of me doing my FTP test, but didn’t upload it. I have a blog from Perry, but didn’t upload it. I’m worthless. On a lighter note, I don’t have another race until the Roswell Crit May 4th. It’s in Roswell in case you didn’t pick up on that. I have a 3/4 race around lunch time, and then race again w/ the 2/3 deal at 3ish. I’m sure the 2/3 is gonna hurt, but at least it’ll be fun!

Which breaks the monotany of which?

2008-04-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

Interesting question, I guess. So at this time of year, does the trainer get you inside away from the rednecks and "hey you fag" guys on the road, or does the road get you off the trainer? I thought when this time of year came I'd be all about me some road riding and getting outside, but now with the baby here, it seems that spending time with Hope has required I sometimes just hit the trainer at night. Last night I didn't finish riding until 10:30pm, and I have a two hour ride to do tonight that needs to wait until Hope and I go out on our first "post baby" date. Tomorrow I'm 99% sure I'm good to go for an outside ride, but that brings me to another issue I've encountered this season. I can't find anyone to ride with any more! I occasionally find someone willing to tag on my wheel for a couple hours, but most of the time no one wants to ride with someone who will be doing intervals at some point or another. I guess it's just part of the territory that goes along with trying to stick to a training plan. If anything, it makes me appreciate those group rides more!

Time Trial Week

2008-04-11T07:19:00.001-07:00

So my SRM finally came, and it’s definitely a bit more complicated than I had originally thought it would be. The system itself isn’t all that hard to figure out. The installation is what is killing me, making me want to beat my time trial bike into submission because the power sensor had no place to mount. I ended up rigging a nice mixture of cateye fork space, electrical tape, and left-over continental tubular tire glue to get it to sit where I wanted. I’m 80% sure the road bike will be a breeze now, as It took me about 3 hours just to get the time trial bike right, and I know much more about mounting the power sensor now.

For the ride yesterday I felt it quite stupid, but also quite proper, that my first ride on the time trial bike with the SRM should be with the disc. It was just a recovery day for me, so I figured there wouldn’t be anything going on to damage the disc. It’s amazing how much faster the disc is. This week has kinda been “ride the time trial bike” week for me as I’ve been on it every day but Tuesday and today. Wednesday I did some 20 minute intervals at about 80% of my normal time trial pace, and was only about 45 seconds off my best split time from last season. This was with only the time trial bike and skinsuit, as I left my tt helmet and disc at home. I think this season I should definitely be able to break the 24 minute mark in the time trial series. My best time last year was 24 flat.

They're Just Too Hard!

2008-04-09T06:16:00.001-07:00

That’s exactly what it is. Matt, in all his wisdom, tells me to stop doing these “Stupid Race Rides” we have on Tuesday nights. He doesn’t call them stupid because of the company I keep in said rides, because in my opinion, some of Northeast Georgias greatest guys to ride with show up. He calls them stupid because of the work involved in said rides. After a weekend of racing where crits and road races tear your legs off, we have these “friendly little “Terrible Tuesday Throwdown” rides that are basically a “What then!” ride to see who the last man standing is. In an effort to let me continue doing these rides, Matt told me to hang on to the group not doing work, and I still average 245 watts for the ride! If at any time were NOT doing hard rides during the week were important, this is it. I’m kind of at that crucial point of the season where overtraining could easily happen if I’m not careful. Mind you I will soon be competing in the bi-weekly Habersham Bicycles Time Trial Series where I’ll be going all out for around 24 minutes, I still think these Tuesday rides should be more calm. Now if I could only convince the other 30 or so guys that show up…

Ah Nah

2008-04-08T05:41:00.001-07:00

So me and Hope were kept up all night by little man, better known as Aaron. My grandparents let him sleep all day yesterday because they “didn’t want to disturb him”, so me and the wife had to suffer. The other grandparents are keeping him today, and we told them to PLEASE not let him sleep after his first feeding. I guess that’s about it. I just figured I’d throw out a non-cycling post for a change.

My First Cat 3 Weekend

2008-04-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

Sounds like the title to a classic children's book. I started the morning in a nice, steady rain. I don't think the rain let up at all for the entire duration of my run out and back. On the way out my chain kept jumping either due to poor adjustment, or to the fact that it was soaking wet. I also went a little too hard in the wrong places, but still felt pretty decent overall. I came out of the TT sitting in 13th place overall. The road race was no different from the TT in that it rained for the full 2.5 hours we were on the road. It was my job to protect my teammate in this race, and I did my best. I ended up getting dropped the final time up the climb near the end of the lap, but Andy, my teammate, did his job and finished with the pack. The criterium was probably the most interesting part of the weekend. It was beautiful and warm for the race, and it was pretty fast. We averaged 27 mph for the 46 minutes that we were on the course. I didn't start out the best and got pushed to the back, but was able to move up near the end for 13th, while Andy got 11th. On a side note for the rest of my team. Stan White tore up the TT and got a very respectable 16th I believe as Eddie Hsu got 17th right behind him. Star finished well in the road race. The entire team worked well in the crit, with Reilly bringing home 5th in the 35 under crit. This next weekend I'll be in Greenville on Saturday at the good ole' Donaldson Center. If I get lucky and do well enough to place up top, I'll come back Sunday, but only if I get payout (yeah right). Till next time!

Wet and Nasty

2008-04-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

That's what it's gonna be for my first two races as a Cat 3! The forecast for tomorrow is rain, rain, and rain. I'm taking extra stuff just so I can towel off and go get some food. I don't have much more to say about it.

Oh Crap!

2008-04-01T12:25:00.001-07:00

So this morning was like any other. I got up early due to the little guy waking me up. I then came to work and things were slow due to the rain. At lunch I went home to eat and then to the bike shop to say hello on the way back to work. I get back to work and take care of the rest of my day’s “fun”. When I come out of work, I don’t notice my bike on my roof any more, and think “Didn’t I have it up there when I came back to work”. I get over there, and the only thing left is a fork, due to my lock being on there! I guess that’s ballgame for me. I just lost about 4-5k in bike crap, and my car insurance won’t cover my bike being stolen even though it was on the car locked! It was fun while it lasted, I guess…

My test, and my weekend.

2008-03-31T15:04:00.000-07:00

First, the test. I had a great test, averaging 331 watts for 20 minutes, which was 53 watts higher than last time. This brings my FTP to 315, which is 45 watts higher than last time. There isn't much more to say about it than that. Getting a coach has really paid off with my wattage jumping that much in only 4.5 months! With my recent move to Category 3, I'm hoping my increase in performance will help me be an asset to Andy, our pimp mack daddy in the saddle.
Second, we have my weekend. We went to the Gainesville Georgia Cup RR course and rode a lap. The weather looked a bit shabby, so we just turned around and rode about 5.5 miles back to the bottom of the "big climb" of the race and did that again. When we got to the top of the climb, the bottom fell out and all of us got soaked. I feel pretty confident with my climbing after our ride, and think I'll do decent in the race. All I have to do is kick up the pace and work for Andy anyways, so I definitely won't get disappointed if I don't do well for myself!

Recovery!

2008-03-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

Which is the reason I haven't really posted lately. I rode really hard this past weekend, logging about 7-8 hours total for the weekend, and had some well-deserved rest yesterday and the day before. Today I was semi-at it again and did a good ol' unstructured ride with a couple guys. I did throw in some hard efforts, but kept my overall average down to 180-185 watts, and had a really good time. Having a set training regimine prevents me from ever really getting to just get out and have a fun ride with attacks thrown wherever. Rides like this refresh you even though they are a bit tough at times, and sometimes are way too hard, like my Tuesday night group rides. Today was nowhere near as hard as a Tuesday night group ride, but it was a ton of fun, and I feel great now! I have a 20 min. power test tomorrow, the last of which came at the end of last season. That one resulted in an average of 278 watts, so I'm excited to see what I can put down tomorrow.

Some distance and recon

2008-03-23T18:21:00.001-07:00

Saturday I hit the road at 7:30am. A little bit early to get out on the road, but I had a great ride, and ended up doing a little over 4 hours of on-bike time, and was beat when I finished. Today I went with my teammates to ride the Gainesville road race course, and had a great time just fellowshipping and getting some low endurance miles in. I think yesterday's ride wore on me harder than I thought, as I was, and am, completely beat after yesterday and today. I'm happy that I have a couple of really easy days ahead of me! By the way, for those of you who are racing gainesville, but can't ride the course...GET READY TO CLIMB!

The moonwalking bear.

2008-03-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting take on cycling awareness...

Resume accepted!

2008-03-19T06:03:00.001-07:00

So my resume got accepted last night. I kinda figured it would, but still thought it’d be worth mentioning. I’m a category 3 racer now, and that means more responsibility…Oh wait, that was another talk my dad laid on me way back when. Seriously, though, I don’t know what to think until I’m on the road actually racing. I hear some guys say it’s not much different than the 4’s minus distance, while others say it’s much harder. Some guys say it’s easier because no one wants to move up to the 2’s because of the huge difference from the 3’s to the 2’s, since you’re racing with pro’s then. Here’s a question to pose to any pro’s or 1-2 racers out there. If you’re a 2, do you tell the ladies you’re a pro? I mean you race with them. My wife could care less what category I tell her I race, but there could be some role-playing going on. I’ll pretend I’m Lance, and she can be a podium girl, and….TMI!

Category 3?

2008-03-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

So I entered my request to move up to category 3 today. I had 20 points, which was the pre-requisite to do so. I'm looking forward to this move, as I have a teammate who is a monster in the saddle by the name of Andy Brackett. I told him tonight I look forward to killing myself for him in Gainesville at the Georgia Cup races. I have noticed that all of the Cat 3 races are about 1 1/2-1 3/4 the length of the Cat 4 ones, but I don't think it'll be a huge deal if I play it smart. I know the big difference will be the power with which attacks are made, and it will be much harder answered those attacks later on in a race, but I still look very forward to this new "adventure" in my riding.

Yesterday's race and some reflection

2008-03-17T05:04:00.000-07:00

So I decided just not to put a video blog up this week, sorry. I had something, but after the long message I posted the other night, I figured I covered everything that should have been covered. On top of that, reading edifies the mind more anyways, I’m sure.
Yesterday’s race was almost as eventful as Saturday’s, but was much harder without a team. Saturday was a 50 mile road race with a good little climb, some rollers, and a couple miles of dirt road that was probably a little more sand than dirt. After the first lap the pack was still all together, with only a few unlucky guys who were at the back when we first hit the dirt road who got dropped. When we hit the climb the second time, all of us at the front made a move to attempt to split the pack up some, and it worked pretty well, with only about 10 of us making the split. We were only able to hold the pack off about 15 seconds until the dirt road, at which point we knew we could make the gap larger and unleashed all we had at the moment. When we made the turn on the dirt road, the pack was nowhere to be seen, and that’s the way it stayed the rest of the day.
On the last lap this new guy I’ve never raced with before name Ty (spelling?) broke away from our break-away group and tore us a new one, taking his third first place finish for the weekend. You Cat 3’s might have your hands full with this guy, as he moved up to category 3 after yesterday, or so he said he was going to.
Now on to where my training stands as of right now. To the best of my ability, and my understanding of training so far since my acquisition of a coach, I think I’m doing fine. I feel fairly comfortable sitting at the front of the pack, and even though I didn’t pull of a first place this weekend, I feel like I’m a lot stronger than I was last year. Obviously, there is coming a time when I may plateau, but right now I feel like instead of doing such, I am slowly getting stronger from week to week. I have bad days/races like anyone else. I was very blessed this weekend, and didn’t nessecarily have such a day. It will come though, and I feel that I’m mentally prepared for it. Like my quote a couple weeks ago stated, I feel that I’ve prepared myself and am still preparing myself to accel. In doing so, I won’t be mad if I have a bad day, I’ll just write it off as such and move on. I feel that in preparing myself, I have made myself much more useful to my team, and have greatly increased my potential to move up to the next category. I guess that’s what it’s all about, though. This is my journey from then until now…

Why yes, I do...

2008-03-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

Have a video blog,that is. I'm visiting family, though, and am toast from the tt and circuit races from today. Yes, you guessed it, I'm at again with this bike racing thing. Today was an interesting one, and I'll try and lay it out to the best of my ability.
The time trial this morning went pretty well and in my favor. I felt fairly strong, but didn't have my usual borrowed (I'm a bum!) front Zipp wheel from my teammate. I ended up riding my front road wheel that normally gets ridden in road races and such. I was pretty surprised at how much it didn't really slow me down, and ended up pulling off a respectable 4th place.
Now for the circuit race. I have been told numerous times by different people that category 4 racing has nothing to do with teamwork. Unfortunately, I had that attiude some last year, and it has cost me the respect of some teammates and other riders which I may never be able to re-aquire. Today's circuit race was definitely proof that teamwork DOES work in this category of racing, and brought me to greatly respect the selfless work my team put forth to help me stay up top (2nd) in the overall GC race for the weekend. Quite frankly, I was asked what to do at the beginning of the race, and I said I didn't feel like I had a break in me. Like a doofus, I didn't take my own advice and actually chased after a break that had one of my teammates in it. I honestly don't know what I was thinking at the moment, but for some reason when I saw the guy that won the time trial, and the guy that got 5th on a road bike, go up the road, I thought "maybe I should chase them". Mind you I already had a teammate dedicated to suck wheel and do nothing in the break to physically and mentally wear those two riders down. After catching the break, I sat and watched my teammate take a few incredibly strong pulls to his breaking point, and then drop off. In the meantime, the rest of my team was taking charge of the pack situation and making sure the pace dropped enough for us to actually establish a break. In one of the most painful races ever, we managed to pull together in the break, and I got 2nd. The great thing about it was even though I broke the team plan to get me in a pack sprint like a dummy, my team still selflessly organized in the peloton and took control of the race anyways to help me stay away. Kudos goes out to all the team, and hopefully I can manage to survive tomorrow at the road race without anyone there to watch my back! Thanks guys!

Been a few days!

2008-03-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy at work and home this week. Yes, I do have your video blog from Saturday now!

On another note, I'm going to Perry, GA this weekend. The TT and Circuit race are Saturday at 8AM-ish and 12pm. The RR Sunday is 9AM I think. I'll try and get a video/text blog up Saturday night, but I'm not sure. I'll be visiting family while down there, so a post may be out of the question. Thanks and stay tuned!

Text for now, video tonight!

2008-03-10T04:48:00.000-07:00

So I had a good weekend. Saturday I was able to drag my 162lbs. up that climb 6 times and tack on to the final break of 6, which resulted in me getting a 3rd place finish! This was my first Cat 4 podium finish outside of a time trial, so I'm pretty stoked! Yesterday wasn't a huge success or anything personally, but as far as our team goes, we showed we aren't screwing around when we want a break to be caught. At one point, we had a train of Me, Star, Eddie, and Reilly rotating at the front to bring in a 6-7 man break that had gotten up the road a bit. There was a crash at the end which pushed us off the road, but no one went down, and I think it was a good day. If nothing else, a very successful training ride, and what more can you ask from the "Greenville Training Series"?

I have video of Saturday's race blog, but with the new baby, and the release of Smash Brothers Brawl on the Nintendo Wii, I have had hardly any time to work on getting it sent to the laptop. Hopefully I can drag myself from fine Nintendo brawling long enough tonight to get it up!

Climbing?! OH MY NO!

2008-03-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

So tomorrow will be the first "climbing" race of the season for me. I've definitely never been much of a climber, but am hoping my winter weight loss of 20lbs., along with my small increases in power, will help me to finish strong tomorrow. Heck, if I can finish with the pack, I'll be finishing strong. I should be game for a nice little video blog again this weekend, so stay posted for the update!

A new feature!

2008-03-06T16:30:00.001-08:00

Okay, so I know I'm not the one checking my own site almost 500 times, so obviously there's one or two others who get so bored that they are reduced to reading about the goings-on with my riding and family. I'm going to be adding a new feature, effective now, simply named "Other Blogs". This new feature will be exactly what it sounds like. Email me a link to your blog, with the name of your blog, and I'll provide a link to it on my site. I only ask that you do the same. Hopefully this will open me, and others, up to other people's ideas on blogging, and I honestly don't know of many other cycling-related blogs, so I'd like to read some. My email is dartingd@gmail.com , and as soon as I get an email from you saying you added a link to my blog, I'll add yours! Just make sure to provide the name of your blog, and a link to it.

Great ride!

2008-03-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

So I went to the pediatrician with my wife today for our son Aaron's first doctor visit. Everything was well, and he did great! Afterwards, I had some spare time, so I went out for a nice "little" 1.75 hour ride. It was a little cool, but not enough to warrant warmers or anything. I had to do some intervals (2x6 @ 375) with basically warm-up, cool-down, and light endurance otherwise. I feel like everything is progressing nicely, and hope to be putting down some really good power numbers soon.

New Teammate!

2008-03-03T16:15:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted in a few days because I got a new teammate. This isn't one of the cycling nature though, as my little baby boy Aaron Dustin Mealor was born! I did race yesterday, but that is of no importance. I may get me a post in on Wednesday, but as of right now, I'm totally exhausted, and doubt I'll be willing to get online to update till then. If nothing else, at least the time changes this weekend! Taking it back outdoors!