i am tired. skiing is lots of work, especially at 4 hours a day for the whole week. and eating only bagles, and a bit of cereal. except yesterday when i had one awful thanksgiving dinner and one really good one. ha. more on that later...
eating on the olaf budget (homemade spoon and coffee pot for cereal)Today I decided to start my 2007 bike season. And to start it I decided to ride to Old Faithful from here in West Yellowstone. A good 30 miles. The road started as really hard packed snow, then eventually changed into just plain road. The snow/ice was actually quite nice, not a whole lot slower then the blacktop. Anyways eventually I had to pee, so I stopped and peed of a bridge while watching some elk. Then once I started riding again the elk got spooked and ran into the road in front of me and stood there. Needless to say I had to stop and let them do whatever they want. After a minute they took off and I continued. Saw some buffalo off in the distance and blocking the road too. They make surprisingly good road blocks. Eventually I came to a climb and for the next 16 miles I went in the general direction of up. Not steep, once in a while flat or a little down, but none the less generally up. Along the way I started to see geysers and hot springs and all that kinda fun thing. Eventually I got to Old Faithful, and the had to wait 90 minutes for it to go off. The usual interval between eruptions is 94 minutes. I am so lucky. After that I cruised back the 30 miles. Taking a few detours to check out some other interesting things. Since I was the only one around I could do anything I wanted, like ride my bike on the board walks I wasnt supposed to and pee on hot springs. Good times...My total ride time was 4 hrs 18 min. It was only about 1000 feet verticle change, but I think the altitude was really hitting me. Once back I veged out for a bit, it was great.
After a fast 16 hour drive, oh how I love Montana highways . We, the ski team, made it to West Yellowstone, MT. On the way out we listened to a bit of A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. He told us how Yellowstone is actually a giant volcanoe and if it blows up (which it is 30,000 years over due) everything within 1000 km will be annihilated. Comforting...
Anyways after getting settled in it was out on the first ski since last Feburary. I'm so dedicated.
It was actually pretty good. A nice 90 min. or so. It took a while to get the heart going again after my week off, but once it did I was set. Then an early bed, early morning, and then a total of 4 hours of skiing today. I'm feeling pretty good for not having skied for so long. And the mountains area always fun to ski in.
I was able to smuggle my bike along, so tomorrow if the roads are not to icy or to deep of snow, I will bike the 28 miles into the park and visit Old Faithful. Hopefully that will work out. If so I'll get some pictures going.
Today I played director sportif. I drove seans car so he could do some motor pacing intervals, It was really quite hard to keep a constant speed when going around 25. Well, actually on flats its not a problem, but then uphills and downhills I had to adjust speed to keep the same effort level, that was hard. Also when your just driving its easy to think your speed is constant since the speedmeter is not precise, you touch the pedal and speed up 3 or so mph. That makes it hard on the rider. I got better the more I did it. Just need some practice and Ill take over Johans job. haha.
sean looking like a tool. ha
ride faster
sitting in my draftThis week has been busy even without riding the bike. I have kept myself plenty busy, done quite a bit of homework, some work on cycling team stuff. Talking to professors about all things under the sun and so on. Yesterday I just about went crazy from not getting my daily dose of going off campus, so I decided to go to Cub and get calcium and magnesium since I felt like I was going to start cramping. Cub is basically the furthest you can get from Olaf within the urban sprawl in the area. A good 15 minutes by bike, I went and came back and felt much better. The elecrolytes might be helping too since I dont feel like cramping any longer.
Yesterday was registration, my name group was the last to go. Almost all the classes I wanted were full, so I had to go back and rework everything. I ended up being the last the very last person in my class to register...somehow I ended up sneaking my way into some classes today, so its all good.
Today Rober Baer a retired CIA field angent came and spoke, it was pretty good. Sean came up and after I went up with him to talk more personally with him. Sean asked him some question about N. Korea and the answer led to government. Then Bob said something to the effect of, a government change would be good, but hard to implement, Ive tried before. Well actually I helped overthrow one government, but I cant talk about that. It was sweet. haha. During the talk he also had lots of subtle things he threw in that I dont think many people caught. They were entertaining, things like, people blow up a lot of stuff there, ive blown up lots of things too. Quite entertaining to listen to.
Tomorrow I pack for Yellowstone. Time to go climb some mountains, Ill bring a compass this time.
Here is a picture from the race at olaf. I like it a lot so Ill post it.
Well folks that it, the 2006 bike season has come to a close. A little depressing...
Yesterday was the state champ race in the cities. The course is pretty hard, hills to bike, stairs to run, turns to make. All extremes. At the start I was switching into start gear and I found out my back brake was rubbing, not good. Apparently I did not adjust it right, I thought about disconnecting it. I decided against it, and tried pulling the brake hard, luckily I had not tightened it very well and the wire slipped making it wide enough not to rub. And luckily it was my back brake instead of of front.
Oh, and it was really cold...33 or something like that.
My start was terrible, I was in the middle back of the pack for the first bit. The start is a gravel road and it was really really dusty, it made things hard to see. I was in the backish until we got to the stairs. I knew people were slow at this so I took off all out. I think I passed a good 10 people there. Then I just kept the pace high until the race thinned out, that took 2 or 3 laps. Eventually I found the guy who was winning the A2 standings, I just stuck on his wheel for a while. Sean eventually caught up, I dont know when I passed him though. He worked for me for 2 laps of so trying to get rid of the guy. Unfourntuatley it did not work. I stayed with a group of 3 or 4 for the rest of the race, or just behind them. They would gap me on the road and I would catch them on the hill and run ups. However, I never managed to hold on. The last lap I put it all out there and got really close to catching them right at the end. So I missed A2 state champ by 20 meters. Nuts. After the race I realized that my front brake had been rubbing just a tiny bit, I wonder if I could have beat the guy without the rub.
Oh well, this cross season ended really well despite that. Since this was my first year of A things started a bit slow. My first race I finished 30 out 37, the next few races went like that, just a little better. I was getting frusterated as to why I could not ride bike. Then at Anoka something clicked, and I got faster, a lot faster. that race was 6 out of 24. The next day went even better as I defeated Sean in our race. ha. And yesterday ended the season well with 11 out of 55. I am really happy how much improved. Hopefully next year I can do the same!
faster!
into the mudWhen I said the weather was weird the other day, I did not really mean it. This week its been weird. Wednesday was over 70 degrees (summer), yesterday was 50s (fall), this morning there is snow on the gound (winter). 3 seansons in 3 days. tomorrow is supposed to be 45-50 (spring). a whole year in 4 days. What the Heck....
it snowed a whole ton, all this last night biking will be hard.
but it snowed on the deck too.sean looked at some of moms photos today. I did too. There are lots. Here are some that show the awsomeness of the pinwheel.
ha! i still cant believe i made it work.
really warm, uncomfortably so. It was really weird riding through downtown northfield when it was 70 degrees and dark (at 5:15). weird.
I just looked at the forecast. 55 tomorrow and snow and friday, again, what the heck?
Also someone really liked our race. He made a movie. Low quality but sweet. Sean and I are even in it.
This afternoon I decided to take the MADone out for a spin. I had to be back by 4 so I did 40 minutes by myself then met up with Sean, Brandon, and Andrew (a Carl). We took off towards Cannon City with the intent of going easy. It was working well until we hit the KOM before Cannon City. Brandon attacked and Andrew took his wheel. I was still going easy with Sean at this point so they got a good 40 or so yard gap. I said to Sean "Think I can catch them?" I don't know what he said, but I took off. The MADone was fast today and I closed that gap quite fast, I was really surprised I was able to get up there that quickly and get around them by the top. They did not appear to be going to easy either. I love climbing...After that Brandon kept going, I sat up and waited for Sean who soon flew by saying lets catch him. He had a good 20 seconds on us and the townline was all of a mile away. Sean pulled a bit and closed quite a bit, then I went off, but Brandon held me off by a few bike lenghts. Thats ok I felt fast today. So did the Madone.
A few weeks ago I sent the treasurer of the bike club to a funding meeting, hoping he could figure out what needed to be done. I talked to him right after the meeting, he said everything had gone well, the people were just undecided about how much they were gong to give us. I figured that was good and did'nt think about it until a few days ago. I got an e-mail saying that club funds were low and we should not expect much money. Since I thought our budget was already in I did not really mind the e-mail, but I asked anyways. It turns out we were supposed to resubmit a new smaller budget proposal to be considered for funding, I was never told this, thus never did so. So basically we are not going to get any money from the school now. That made me really really angry. The one task I give this kid he screws up. Starting to look like last year...
But, today at dinner the caf was having Thousand Hills Cattle beef, its free range stuff. The farmer who runs the company was standing next to the food, and I realized I could ask him about a sponsorship. Nothing to lose. I did so and he was really interested, so after dinner I got the jerysey designs that we drew up yesterday (just in time it seems), and talked to the farmer. The St. Olaf cycling team is now sponsored by
Thousand Hills Cattle Company-100% grass feed beef.
sweet.
And it just so happen to be that there was also a guest chef here tonight, and that he was sitting by the farmer when I brought up the jersey design. Apparently he was going to sponsor a team up in the cities last year that disolved, soooo, he is going to sponsor us as well. Talk about a good 10 minutes...
hopefully now the funds will work out.
If you want an olaf jersey, let me know.
Randomness:
I voted, people here are flipping out about election results. Its kinda funny.
Also there was an awful smell in the german house the last few days. No one knew what it was. Today someone found a dead mouse under a couch....
time to study. blah.
Saturday
Started it off with a cx race up in St. Cloud, it went pretty well. would have been great except that my contact fell out and i had no depth perception, that made barriers hard. i was right with sean or within 30 meters of him or so at this point (45-50 minutes) but after losing the contact he got further away. oh well id get payback.
as soon as we got back from anoka (5:30) the crazyness for our race really began. Olaf gave us a bunch of poles so we (sean and i) went and got those, then raked the woods part of the course. Then we (sean, ben, brandon, finn, peter) started to set up the course. the poles olaf gave us were no where near sufficent. so ben and i went to menards and got a bunch of cheap wood poles. While we were gone the others started taping the course, then dissapeared (except sean). so sean ben and i went and pounded steaks into the ground by moonlight for 2 hours before we got to the hard part of the course. the spiral. in concept easy, actually making it hard. in the moonlight, harder. after about 90 minutes of trying to figure out how to make it work i, yes i, made the breakthrough and we finished that up. that was about 11. after that bikes were prepared for the race. then i went to bed.
the remanents of the spiral...
Sunday
Woke up at 6:45 and went down to the tavern to have breakfast. finished that at about 8 and went back to olaf and began taping. I was in charge so i was giving task to everyone, and soon the tape ran out really fast so we had to scrammble to find more. ben went to the store. unfourtunatley the course got taped off wrong in a few spots, so sean and i were running around fixing the wrongs. after a stressful 2 hours we finished up only 10 minutes late, and the C race was off. I watched it a little to
I got some time to warm up for the colligate race at this point, which sean and i did. Eventually that got around to being started.
Right from the start sean and i were out front. by the end of the first lap we had a good gap. for the first 25-30 minutes he lead for most of it, then i went to take my pull and he dropped back a little. i just kept going and slowly putting some time on him. unfourtunatley he crashed on the decent (in the sand i think) and the race became mine. apparently he broke his shifter, but hey mine was screwed up too. once i knew i had it, i ended up lapping finn right around here too, so i yelled at him to beat the guy he was right behind while i was spirling. Then hit it hard for the finish. finn won his sprint. I was hoping that the race between sean and i would come down to a sprint, make things fun, although if he would have pulled the whole race i would have given it to him. but ill take a solo anyday. conference champ! wahoo. 
its a race
i win
after that the b race was off, i watched from the far side of the field as the group of 60 went into the spiral, it was a wall of people, so flippin cool. then sean and i went off and heckled. at one point some dick broke the spiral. luckily i was standing right there and fixed it really quick. it would have been real bad had i, ben or sean not been around. anyways, besides that everything went well in that race.
eventually it was time for the A race, sean and i were both dead so we did one lap to go through the spiral in a group. although he caught the tape and did not make it into the spiral with the group. i did, it was fun. so i waited for him after that and then we had a sprint to the line to drop out. he won, i can live with that.
a race on thors revenge
then clean up time, luckily lots of people helped out so it went pretty quick. that made me really happy. i might still be doing it had it only been sean, ben and i.
I'd like to thank all the volunteers. you were all great help. There are a million pictures, so eventually i will get a bunch up. but not tonight, so thanks to those who took pictures (most of the photos here from Jim Wellbrock, hope he (you) don't mind). and also to ben for helping out with funding.
was fun, lets do it again next year.
i think now that i have some time, i can take my first shower since friday...
So yesterday Finn, Brandon and I went out for a 2 hour road ride. It was about 68 degrees or so at departure time, with a medium south wind, a great day to ride. We had a headwind going out, and eventually we turned getting a cross wind. Then a tail wind. At one point about an hour 20 into the ride we were cruising with a tailwind, just coasting along. Out of nowhere, the wind did a 90 degree turn, picked up 15 mph, and the temp dropped a good 5 or 10 degrees, instantly. It was crazy, and unfourtunatley we had to turn into this sudden wind almost right after it hit. Upon returning to the house 2 hours after leaving the temp was 15 degrees colder, and the wind totally different.
Today was really cold and windy all day, the opposite of yesterday. Nevertheless, Sean called me at 1:30 (when he was supposed to show up at my house) saying he was in Fairbault at the shop. He wanted me to meet him halfway, so I took off with what I thought was a tailwind, it was definatley not. So I then rode into the wind for 40 minutes before we met, it was hard. We got back to Northfield in about 20 minutes...It made it worth it, since Sean was carrying my new leg warmers (no more wool). Once back to Olaf we did the course, or most of it, 2 times hard, I only felt crappy on the run up. I had no trouble holding his wheel for those 2 laps, except on the decent where I hit a rock and thought I had a flat. Hopefully that is what this weekend will be.
Speaking of this weekend, I am getting pretty excited. Hopefully a whole bunch of people will show up and it will be a grand old time. The course just keeps getting better everytime I ride it.
there is no better way to end a week, and start a week, then with a race. ha. this morning i felt pretty good. legs were not tired at all, rest of me felt well rested as well. So i took off solo to como park. i got there a bit early so i just hung out in the nice warm sun for about an hour. then i went on my warm up, and came across the state fair grounds. i rode around in it for a while. it was really really weird being there with no people and on a bike. crazy.
no line for the cookies
mighty mighty midway?
got milk? nope...
after that i went and rode the course. it was so friggin bumpy i thought i might die. pothole everywhere. everywhere. and even the sidewalk/bike path the race went on were terrible. so after that i lined up and the race was off. quite a big race i might add. dont know how many, but seemed big. i had a bad start and got stuck behind lots of people on the bike up and run up. no good. so i had lost a bit there, finally it spread out and i was movin up and feelin good. i think at 3 or 4 laps in the guy i was behind took a corner to sharp and went down, i proceded the get my foot on his hood, and shin braced against the flat of the bars. all my momentum and weight went right into my shin, it hurt a lot. i also twisted my hip funny. for the next half lap i was recovering from that so i lost quite a bit of time. once the pain receeded i just went, i made up a little ground but with that incident i lost the back of the group i was in. so i chased for the rest of the race. my back hurt a bit, but i tried not to pay attention to that and just bike. it worked pretty well. eventually i caught some of the guys from the group. but not the ones i wanted. so despite the crash the race went pretty well. i still think i can bring it up a notch though, just really need to work on my start.
we will see what happens on the home turf next weekend!
look familiar? well it is. my scar (not scab) got ripped open again...
today was the red barn cx race, up in taylors falls. last years was my first cross race ever.
i finally got my rd wheels back from ben and since they are tough they can be used for cross. i threw those on because that are a whole lot faster than the stock wheels.
the weather looked warm, but was surprisingly cold. and the wind kept getting stronger. drafting was actually useful today. instead of starting super fast today i went out a little slower. i think i ended up a few spots ahead of usual. one guy that has beaten me finished behind today. i also only got lapped by the first 2 guys, not the usual 5 or 6. for some reason i was not really wanting to race today, so that played a big role in how hard i went. i definatley could have gone harder, but with not a whole lot of desire its difficult. but today went alright, so i want to race again tomorrow. hopefully i can pick it up quite a bit. only one way to find out!
they were giving out stuff at the race today, like water bottles and such. so i collected those. 4 total, haha, and whatever else is in the bag. i also got a free jersey, even though it is way way to big. but hey ive got some xmas shopping done then. ha!
and my back did not hurt a whole lot today. a bit, but nothing like last time. ive decided that it might be a mix of running all hunched over, a little bit the bike, and part the mattress. the new one is great by the way.
also i feel that for the shape i am in i am not doing as well as i should be at cross. i dont really know why. but hopefully it is just lack of experience. so i guess i just have to keep racing to remedy that.
during races i have been getting some back pain, i mean real back pain. it has gotten progressively worse each race, and last race it really really hurt. it starts at about 20 minutes into the race and just keeps getting worse. last race i had a great first 25 minutes. right up there where i wanted to be, then the pain came. it hurts so much i cant't push it at all so i just fall back one place at a time. it sucks. at some points i could have breathed through my nose only. my legs werent tired either, its really frusterating since i know i can do a ton better.
i realized that i dont remember problems from before getting to school. and if it gets worse each race (does not hurt much at all in training), something i use every day is the problem. so either it is my mattress for my bed here, which i got replaced today. or my bike. which again if it does not hurt during trainging wouldnt make a whole lot of sense. so hopefully my new mattress will take care of the problem, if not i dont know what i am going to do.
November 5. St. Olaf campus. Cyclo-cross race. be here.
pictures from last weekend
in the woods
steep?
today was the cx race at spirit. a rematch of me and the mountain from this summer.
the A race was massive. and i managed a top 10. and won the a2. haha! by massive i mean 9 people.
the course was decent. a long climb with a barrier in the middle then some gravel then trail then gravel. the first two laps i felt pretty good. keeping up pretty well. on the 3rd lap i was running up the hill next to sean and my legs just all of a sudden quit. i dont really know much else then, they just simply did not want to work. that was at about 20 minutes. then next 20 minutes i felt like crap. then at 40ish my legs decided to work again. kinda strange. but it was too late sean had already gotten 2 minutes on me. but i held strong and might have even gained back a bit of time on him by the end. but dont know for sure.
hopefully next race i will feel good the whole time. i think part of the problem today was that i had not ridden for two days prior to racing. wont do that again...
my parents got some good pictures but the computer here at home cant download them for some reason. ill put them up when i get back to school.
as my title suggests it got cold. in fact it has been snowing off and on for the last 2 days. i dont mind biking in the snow, but when the cold northwest wind is blowing at 30 mph it makes things hard.
yesterday i rode fairly easy then played hard in the intramural frisbee championship game. we finally won. our 6th final. wahoo. free t-shirt! not only did that go well but i had two essays and a test yesterday, all went well. a goood day.
i dont know if ive mentioned it before, but we have been trying to get a cross race at olaf for about a month now. e-mails stopped working so the last few days ive been calling and showing up in person at offices. it worked. as long as USA Cycling approves it all on nov. 5th there will be a cross race on campus. sweet!
ive also seen some snow accumulation today. in october?
the sun came out for a bit yesterday, made for a nice picture.
last saturday i had a birthday party to go to, and i would not have made it back from a race in time. and sunday i just did not feel like spending 20 bucks so i rode 2.5 hours hard. with some run ups and a whole lot of barrier practice. then had the first playoff game for frisbee. yesterday i was feelin tired so i did an hour easy then tried hard in playoff game 2. which we destructed our rival and are going to be going for the t-shirt once again. im confident in the team this year. tomorrow is the big game. and supposedly it is going to snow. it is going to be an epic game, thats for sure. now that the cold is here, biking is going to get really cold. uh-oh, i might have to start ski practice soon. this morning i did, did the roller board and did well for not ever using my arms.
on another note, we all know Ullrich was fired from T-Mobile, he lives near Konstanz. One day he brought all his T-mobile clothes into one of the shops. My bike friends over there let me know of this oppurtunity, i ordered some things. Its gonna be sweet. I will have Jans polo shirt. haha!
well for some reason my legs are just not working right for me. they seem to be tired to often, or just not have enough power. i dont think i am training to hard, but maybe i am. but i think that if someone pays for a professional message for me all the troubles will go away. who wants to volunteer?
sean has a bunch of pictures and such up on his blog from recent rides. check it out.
saturday i headed over to wisconsin to race in the mn cyclo cross series?? it went decently well. the course had some issues, such as running in sand and basically biking in the river. but other than that it was ok. i felt lots better than last week which is good, but i am still not where i want to be. ill just keep on training then i guess! i also got to see the dogs and the parents, so that was fairly nice.
a day on the beach?
i can fly!!
well this weekend did not go as planned. saturdays mountain bike race started out with a good warmup on a fun trail. it was really wet, but i did not mind. then sometime inbetween finishing the warm up and the start my chain got bent a bit (i did not know that at the time). so as soon as the race started i got chainsuck. and kept getting it. my rear gears kept skipping as well so i thought maybe it was just really off. nope. at about 30 min in after not being able to make a full pedal revolution without issues i stopped to look at the chain. it was bent a full 90 degrees...the race needless to say was over for me. first sporting event ive ever dropped out of.
pictures are not working right now, so maybe later
after the race sean and i went to grandma lous where she made some spegehtti.
then off to st. johns to spend the night with teddy since the next race was in st. cloud.
sunday finally brought the sun. during the warm up i felt ok, not great, but i figured that would change once i got warmed up in the race. unfourtunaley that did not happen. i think from having a light cold all week my body just did not want to move fast. so i struggled through my first a crosss race and eventually finished far back from where i wanted to. oh well. next time...
now its back to the books for the week.
my bike just got to bens shop. ill have it tonight. i cant wait to ride it. this weekend are my first races since spirit mnt. saturday is a colligate mtb race in elk river i think. then sunday is the first cross race of the season. hopefully 2 days on the cross bike will be enough for the race. this year im moving up to A, no more B for me!
other than a bit of a scratchy throat right now im feeling pretty good. the other day when it was almost snowing i went out for a 50 minute run, my legs never hurt, and that was my first run since that one in germany. my riding form is also feeling pretty good. my legs are not the former perma tired as i have known before while being at school. im excited to get back into the racing, its about time!
ill post about the races sunday night or monday.
well, its been quite a while. school has been keeping me busy with all kinds of things to do. i have found time to ride though. the beginning of the week i did cross training with sean and charlie. we planned out a course on campus and are trying to get permission to host a race here. the lady we talked to gave positive feedback, she just was not the one who could say yes or no. hopefully we will get it approved. on wednesday i was going to ride my road bike, but the spoke was broke last week the day before the century on those really nice wheels (brandon screwed up). the wheels lasted through the ride, on wednesday i was starting from a stop light and that put to much pressure on the wheel and the spoke broke. ben was not happy about it. so then i rode cross on my mnt bike again. thursday afternoon i went over to milltown, got the wheel fixed, found out my mnt bike wheel (rim) is finished. so ordered a new on of those, i also ordered a cross bike. should be here next week early! horray! its a redline conquest pro.
but about the wind. its been on average this week 20 mph gusting to 30. its just insane. makes biking hard. and the wind just wont go away.
next weekend is the first cross race in st. cloud. there is also a collegiate mtb race there on saturday, but i have not decided if i am going to do that one yet. 
the almost broken spoke
well, im back at olaf. good to see all the friends again. get out riding with other people again. the german house is pretty cool. as of right now my roommate has not moved in. that would mean i get my own room, as well as bathroom. that would be sweet!
today i rode over to fairbault to see what was happening. i picked up the demo bontrager xxx wheels. they are sweet. full carbon and all. i will be "demoing" them for the weekend and the jesse james ride.
you can try them after i am done, and buy them too. from milltown cycles! (see link to the right...)
is a great state fair dont miss it, dont even be late!"
well as seen above i went to the fair. it was sweet. it took a long time to get there because max and i drove all over, then ended up picking up jennie at olaf and going back up to the fair. then getting mildly lost in the cities. eventually we got there and the eating began. french fries, corn dogs, corn, cheese curds, hawian shaved ice, popcorn, a bucket of cookies, all you can drink milk, free quelsidea (i cant spell), nitro ice cream (frozen by using liquid nitrogen). and im sure i am forgeting some stuff.
we left the fair at 8ish and got back to olaf at 9 to drop jennie off. then we hung out for an hour then started to leave. max and i got out to the car and i said you wanna drive he said no, i didnt want to at all. so we went back in and i used a carpet as a blanket. it was sweet.
this morning we drove home and as soon as i got home i went sailing. only 1-3 foot waves today. but it was still fun. we (jason and i) were flying.
then i went biking. and no cramps! wahooo!
this morning i woke up to a gray sky and a stiff wind. after an hour and 20 minutes of mt. biking i preped the sail boat for an adventure.
i took it down to park point (big sand beach), and met up with jason and one of his friends. we set up my 14 foot racing sailboat against 25 mph winds. it was crazy windy, a perfect east wind bringing in nice waves. there were guys surfing, and some kite surfing i saw one guy get like 20 feet of air. it was sweet. once the boat was set up it was time to see what would happen. we put on some wet suits since the air was about 65 and water at cold. then we had to get through the surf. that was the part. we had to push out a bit because the daggerboard doesnt work in shallow water. then i jumped in pulled in the sail and pulled jason on board. we still had a bunch of surf to get through and it was crazy. the best way to describe it would be those storm stories you see on the weather channel and such. but in real life. the water just crashed over us. somehow we kept her upright and got out past the breakers. then the wave stopped breaking, but got huge. the weather man said 5-7 feet. but that is only half the wave since waves are measured from normal water level, and a wave goes up and down. so 10-14 foot swells. it was insane. we had wrapped the sail around the mast to decrease sail area, as not to die. and with that and two people in the boat we still were able to plane (like a speed boat) down in the trough of the wave it was fairly calm, and up on top it was 25 mph wind. the waves were just mountains of water. it was just insane to experience. i had to look almost straight up to see the tops. just crazy. after a bit we came in to see if jasons friend wanted to try, but she is not a very experinced sailor so she passed. jason and i tried to get out again, but the surf defeated us and we flipped and broke a piece of metal that holds the rudder in place. so we had to call it a day.
but man it was just so much fun. jasons friend got some pictures so thats what you see below. enjoy!
inital launch 
about to clear the breakers
The open sea
the top half of the 16 foot mast
surfin
wheres jason? (beginning of the end)
jason just chillin
well since last time i updated not a whole lot has happened. allthough my family had a garage sale, my mom had some stuff priced ridicoulusly low, i marked it up and kept the profits. i made $43 wahoo.
yesterday i planned on going on a 3 hour ride, i wanted to ride some rds that i dont often. i went out aways but then was feeling great and i just kept going. and missed my turn. so i just kept going because eventually i would find a turn to take, so i basically went 2 hours north of home. i was way the heck out there. the frontier basically. no cell phone service for at least 50% of the ride. there were long
stretchs of 20 minutes or a bit more when i saw no cars. only a house or two every few miles. no side roads no nothing. the frontier i tell ya. but the road was really really nice. ill have to do it again someday. eventually i found out where i was. 24 miles straight inland from the lake. so i road to it and then it was another 20 back home. so all in all it was a 132 km ride. and i felt good almost the whole time. i just got really thirsty for a bit.
today my dad made me go try out the new bike path that is up the shore a bit. it was actually not bad. i think it was one of the few bike paths i need to use brakes on. it was a nice change from the usual rails to trails kinda thing.
tomorrow it is supposed to be windy. 2 to 4 foots waves on the lake. im going to go sailing.
oh i forgot. i have some nice wave pictures. there were decent size the other day. 
the rock in the center is a good 7 or 8 feet abover the water
big spray
for reference, this guy was standing on the rock picture above this one.
smaller but at night!
today i had some tests done on my legs to see if something wrong could be found. the first test involved a lady sticking electrodes on my legs. then taking a tazer type thing and zapping the nerves in my lower leg. some hurt some did not. she was having trouble finding one of the nerves so she zapped me about 1000 times. that was a bit much, but finally she found it. my nerves are all normal.
next the doc. came in to test my muscles. he stuck a small needle into certain muscles which i said usually cramp when its happening. then once the needle was in i would tense the muscle and on the computer screen (which the needle was hooked up too) a whole bunch of lines would come. it was kinda like an electronic ricter scale. he did not have to poke me many times. he ruled out muscle diesese almost right away. my dad was really happy about that, i did not even know that is what i was being tested for.
so the mystery continues. in the mean time i guess i just have to ride my bike.
speaking of riding the bike. my plans have changed a bit. after doing lactate testing and talking about important training stuff, he who was doing the testing has reason to believe my glycogen is low. too much hard training without rest. perhaps this is the source of the cramping. very well could be since it seems nothing else is. so i will not be racing this weekend. i am going to take about 3 weeks nice and easy. he says that i will actually get faster from that, because ill have more energy stores. so instead of doing the race and not getting faster, ill save up for cross season. i will be attending state fair instead.
also i stacked 3 chords of wood. thats a lot of wood.
this morning i was not sure if i was going to do the mtn bike race up at spirit but somehow sean convinced me to spend the 32 dollars. so sean and i decided to ride the 9 mile course an hour before the start. we did most of it. but then ran out of time and rushed back up to the start and made it 3 minutes before sean started. i had a bit of 5 minutes or so. got in the front row somehow and the race was off up the hill. the first lap went pretty well. i was a bit tired from the super long hour warm up, which i think i did way to hard. but still i was only tired on the really long climb (bottom of the ski hill to top) i felt i was riding decent lines and all. about a mile or maybe a bit farther after the start i passed sean who was laying on his back on some rocks, it looked pretty uncomfortable. the second lap started well the only problem were my hands cramping up, that made the super skinny rocky single track hard. right before the trail got to a nice open road area there was a steep rocky downhill section. i screwed up and went flying over my bars and smashed my legs into some rocks. it really hurt. it made me yell a while it hurt so much. the next 3 guys who were pretty far behind me stopped to help me out. so thanks for them. after 5 minutes or so the pain had receded and i was able to get back on the bike. i rode the rest of the downhill pretty carefully. then caught 4 guys who passed me while i was down. 2 had stopped to help me and were very impressed i was still moving. so ive still finished every race ive started, that makes me happy. i have no idea where i finished, but i think i was near the top ten before crashing.
i was told not to put this up, but pictures are so fun.
but overall i think this was a good experience. second mtn bike race ever, and first one that i remember. so things are improving!
this past week i was in marquette michigan visiting ingrid and family. it was a good time. to start it off it was a 5 hour drive and to my surprise and delight i only used half a tank of gas on the subaru. so that is fun. but yeah the week just kept getting better from there. went biking. went swimming, a nice sand beach is a two minute walk from ingrids. so that was very nice. i did both road and mt biking. the mt biking there was amazing. tons of trails. single track, downhill, places wide enough for four wheelers, technical, non technical, and so on. just amazing mt biking. (the ore to shore is in that area). since ingrids dad is the coach of nmu running and skiing he has got all kinds of fancy training tools. he was nice and decided to help me out by doing a lactate test. the purpose is to find out where my body starts making a lot of lactic acid and is unable to keep clearing it. also known as the lactate threshold (i think). also it is used to find the point where just lots of lactic acid starts to be created. to recover right, do intervals right, do OD workouts right this is important stuff. so we set my bike up on a trainer and all i had to do was (for round 1) put my HR at 125ish and keep it there for 3 or so minutes. then a finger prick and blood tested on a cool little gadget for finding lactate. then the next set was at 135ish HR then blood then 145 then blood, up to 163 is where my threshold is. so above that i will fatigue fast. and i should be under 143 for long distance stuff. hopefully this will help the training.
but even without that fun test the week with ingrid was great fun.
tomorrow sean comes for a race up at spirit and some bike riding.
today i went to the doctor to see if he could figure out what the heck is wrong with my legs. I got a whole ton of x-rays taken, absoulutley nothing wrong with the bones in my legs. then i got some, no actually a ton, of blood drawn for blood tests. 5 tubes of it in fact. no rest in between the tubes either, one right after another. after getting the blood drawn i stood up, and with the mix of less blood, nothing yet to eat (fasting for the cholesterol test) and no liquid i was really dizzy. but it passed and i made it out of the lab. after that i went and talked with the doc. again. and as the title suggests he has no idea what is wrong with me either. if the blood tests come back normal he said maybe try and mri to see what shows up.
the past few days have been decent biking. wednesday i rode with the local racers. they remembered me from last year, so that was cool. that was a nice 4 hour ride. i was not feeling very strong so i just chilled out. yesterday the weather changed to 60 degrees and a strong east wind, i think it was 20 mph or so gusting to 33. i still felt like riding bike and did not want to get muddy (rain and dirt on trails= mud) so i went for an easy 2 hour rd. ride. i made it down to the lake at one point and just watched the wave bash the rocks. it was the second highest surf ive watched at that particular beach that i can remember. oh i love the lake...
today i went into the woods for riding. a nice 2 hour mtn bike. this whole week my heart rate was kinda high, but today it was back down to its pre-week-off low. that made me happy.
well ive been home for a week and a day now. its been great despite a few leg problems.
this batch of cramps started when i got off the plane in chicago. my legs cramped just walking from the back of the plane to the front and kept getting worse until i stood in line. but got really bad again when i started moving after. as planned i took off a week from biking and so for a few days i did not do much at all. so no leg trouble there. on that wednesday it was off to the Boundary Waters with some buddies. the first and thankfully only portage (carrying canoes and all over land) i was carrying a canoe and pack. a bit after starting my legs cramped and by the end i was really really struggling to walk. not only to my legs cramp, but they loose all strength. it was awful. for the rest of that day i could hardly move. sleeping helped a bit, but they still cramped when i walked a bit. i made it out of the BW without to bad of cramps although they still showed up.
yesterday i tried going for a mountain bike. i made it 10 minutes before the cramps hit. at 16 minutes into the ride i had to stop because i could not take that much pain. after a bit i tried again, then stopped. and so on for nearly 2 hours. i managed to do a super shortened loop, it should take me under 45 minutes. it took me 2 hours. i got passed by a runner. i was both physical and mentally drained after getting home. dad thinks that i may have a herniated disk which pinches a nerve, obviously one that goes to my legs. tomorrow i get a doctor appt.
today i went down to milltown cycles to get my madONE all fixed up. it was good to see ben again. after getting some new parts ingrid drove the car back to northfield and i rode my bike. no cramps at all. nothin. so confusing.i think riding the road bike de-herniates my disk or something. because as soon as i got off and walked my leg cramped a bit. weird....hopefully i can get fixed soon.
the bw
