My spring break didnt go the way I thought it would. To say the least. First, it is hard to admit, but I've just been down and out for quite a few weeks. Its hard for me to honestly say that to the 4 people who read this blog. I have spent quite a bit of time online trying to look at new ideas, new thoughts, new places. So I spent everyday in SF looking at things I had not seen previously. LIke this albino aligator at the CA Academy of Sciences. He got frisky and his lady-friend bit off his pinky. Its easy to see that his forward right hand is shy a digit. Which brought me to wonder what would be worse, having your heart broke or just losing a pinky pinky finger.



I've also enjoyed some auto trouble lately. I picked up a nail in my tire. I paid an insane amount to get the run-flat replaced at the dealer. Sweet for me, the dealer thought they'd leave some of their lift on my car skirt and front fender. So now I have to run back to the city to drop off my car and get it fixed. At least I dont have to pay for this mistake.

My riding has been absent. My last ride was on tuesday. I just havent had the heart to get on the bike in the past 5 days. Weird, I know. But I'm just not into right now. Funny thing is that I put out an all-time 20 min high of 377 watts at the Tuesday night Port of Oakland ride. 1032 10 second max. Liz Hatch was there. Jarrett Streebin was there. What more could you ask for?

Lastly, I did score a summer job. I thought things would be different at this moment. I thought I'd be celebrating and taking things by storm. But I'm apathetic. Yuck. I did try to change my power steering pump on the truck today. Got my ass kicked and now have two non-functioning cars. Never the one to not count my blessings--at least I have a nice car and bike-hauling vehicle. I am truly blessed.

WTF?

James worthy and me at the hardwood suite

This is the reason that macy's is strugglin.

Ryan and I just won passes to the $40k a night hardwood suite!
Holla. I heart vegas

Lucky Cal Men

The only pic to get any traffic on my facebook (other than annie
commenting about something she doesn't like).

Siren

Happy B-day to my sis! Its also tuesday, which means that I have my 3 hour long Management in Tech class and the weekly Esquire email. This week's email included pictures of Katy Perry. She's not a great dancer or even a great singer, but she makes me want to buy some black clothing items.

Happy St. Patty's Day. Di2 is on the way. Who is going to be the first person to have it? I would say that it'd be Fowler, but he's stuck in Lala land with campy.

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Rough week

Last week was rough. 3 final exams, 3 interviews for one job, and
some personal info breakthroughs. This picture sums up the week--not
shaved, seriously overcast and a bad haircut. Waiting to hear from a
couple jobs for the summer time.

I did have a good experience at Santa cruz. 6500 feet of climbing in
22 laps of a miserable circuit race. I decided against racing on
Sunday because I just needed a day off.

Now I'm sitting in leadership class. It's pretty funny to me to hear
some very different perspectives. That's where I am stuck right now--
I'm engulfed in my own little corner of the world and need some better
perspective. Maybe next week's spring break will deliver that.

Good racing weekend

My second weekend racing collegiate level racing didnt disappoint. The Cal cycling team has 4 men's A riders. Each has their own strengths and without question, mine is not climbing. But I was never at a deficit on the bone flat 27mph crit in Santa Barbara. I'll still learning who everyone is and figuring out who is fast and who'll explode. I really looking forward to the opportunity to ride off in a break as no one knows me. I just need some more fitness and I should be able to do so.

Anyway, our A crit was 60 mins and flat and fast. Nothing stuck so our team went to the front with 3 to go. For some reason, other teams (UCLA, Davis, SLO, SB) let us stay up there all the way through to the finish. We had 4 of the final 7 spots. I was in 7th place happily content to sit on some wheels. My boys peeled off a little earlier than I would have liked and some of the guys started sprinting at about 400 meters. I thought this was a little early, but one guy just timed 3 jumps perfectly as he leap frogged from one fading sprinter to another. That should have been me. I just blew it and ended up 6th on the day besting about 40 riders. I was happy with that considering I dont have the miles I would like at this time of year.

Funny note: the kid who won was relegated to last because he raised his hands and tore off the course instead of following the marked path. The officials (who think he's a loud mouth-as do I) gave everyone fair warning about raising their hands. So it is rumored that my 6th might be a 5th. Ha!

The next crit was the Pro,1,2,3 and the U23 national champ justin williams was there in his stars and stripes. So there were about 5 rock racing guys, a bissel dude, and a high road columbia girl--kim anderson. It was weird seeing pro kits in my race. THe other thing was there was at least 120 people all fighting for wheels. It was crazy. The good news is that I was able to finish the race somewhere in the top half, bad news was that I was absolutely cooked after 140 mins of crit racing.

Legs didnt work today but my teammate got 4th. Nice job Lucas.

I'll post some more pics but this week is tough. 3 finals and a job interview. Yet here I am, up at 130 blogging.

Great job T-karnes for almost beating keith. Great job smelliot for working the break. Keith still gets the big-ups of the weekend for staving off all comers and taking 2 wins. I even heard there was a real kelly pro at the snowball--->what?????

another pic

The team did a great job of taking some pics. This was the 100 hay bale corner.

Cal Poly--> Slow motion for me

This weekend was my first collegiate A's race in 10 years. 99 was the last time I got after it with kids who throw caution to the wind and race like their school colors depended on it. Surviving many crashes, I came away unscathed and got in some great training. Like a true college-budgeted racer, I stayed in a $60/night motel 6 with 3 other dudes. Never doing that again. I told Jordan that I sleep naked and he just slept in his clothes. Those guys were also weirded out by my compression stalkings. Little did they know that these tighty whiteys do more for snap the next day than any hokey pokey jumping in frozen lakes or eating 10 bananas.



This is a pic of me in the hurt locker after about 20 laps. This climb was a wall at about 120 feet then another 60 feet. Then it was straight down around a 100 hay bale corner. 100 HAY BALES! I have never, in all my years of racing, seen so many bales. And as you can imagine, the 19 year old racers did not disappoint. There were at least 10 crashes there.

Seated suffering.





I like this pic. It gives glimpse of a couple things. FIrst, I'm huge. 200 lbs is too heavy. Second, pactimo is the worst clothing ever. Our bibs dont even match our tops. Pitiful. Third, it shows how spread out the climbing was. It was seriously hard. Not for me. But really good training. I'm about to download my wattage. I'll post that next. THis hill was about as long as reston but WAY steeper. NOt fun.


Pain cave plank owner. At least I look good. I have this thing with rough kits though. SR, bless all y'all, had the worst uniforms 2 years running. This top and bottom is a close third.


All of these photos are credited to jarrettstreebin.blogspot.com


Ok, so now the race recount. In saturday's 60 mile men's A race, we just chilled the 1st 5 miles. Which was nice. THen the moto didnt know where it was going so they took us down a wrong road. Head on to the men's B! yikes! We somehow managed to not crash. It was the worst course I have ever raced on. A 5 mile circuit, about every 300 feet, there was an 18 inch cut in the road which was just filled with dirt or gravel. NOt awesome. I couldnt believe it. We were cornering at 30 mph in the gravel! Stupid. As you can imagine, there were plenty of wrecks. The omnium leader had his rear D tore off from some dude crashing into him. Thats not good for the leader.

Two breaks made it away and I missed both of them. 1st was 4 dudes, 2nd was 3 dudes. SO the field was left to sprint for 8th. My teammate, 19 year old cat 1 harrison, went to the front and yanked like a madman setting me up perfectly for the final corner. I made it there with ease and 3 bike lengths. Then I look up to see a dude doing jumping jacks in the middle of the course. I thought to myself--weird. THen I saw the jacknifed rv and car behind jumpin jacker. Seriously not a good thing for sprinting to the line. I sat up so that I could live. Protesting only got me my 8th place--and the next 10 dudes all got 8th too. Sprinted for nothing.

I knew the next day's crit would be not my cup of tea as it was a serious amount of climbing followed by the 100 hay bale descent. Of course I was caught behind a crash (7th and 8th place decided it was cooler to slam into each other, then the curb, rather than letting one go in front of the other through the corner). Free lap then I just hung out at 5 seconds for a half hour. I was pulled with about 15 mins to go and ended up 12th (I think).

Long drive home with jarrett and talked a little about training and life. NOw I am not doing my HW or studying because the weekend should be for good times. Next weekend is a race in santa barbara but I have finals the week after. We'll see