I've given this blog a year to ferment. In that year a lot has happened, but I haven't really had the energy to write about it. 99% of the people who read this blog also follow me on Twitter and Facebook, so I'm not going to waste bits catching everyone up. I do have some pretty cool things to write about this year, so I'll just jump right into that.
Feeling Slow But Being Faster Than I've Ever Been
I might not feel faster (I feel like I used to climb faster), but I am technically faster than I have ever been. I did some lab testing with Matt Miller recently, as a subject for his Master's thesis, which allowed me to get a look at how I am doing physiologically. I was quite surprised that, despite the fact that I have trained exactly zero hours since about last May and only started riding regularly in the last few months, my LT had gone up from 3.54 W/kg to 3.86 W/kg! This I like. It made me very happy. We also measured VO2 Max, but since I had never done that test before, I don't really have anything to compare it too, but at 4.66 L/min it is what it is. Also of note is that LT4.0 came at 86% of my VO2 Max.
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| Matt gives me more cowbell while I suck spit. |
He also had me to a Critical Power test, but we'll have to wait for the results of his study to see what that tells us. It was good to do some cycling for science (I do so love a good science), and I hope that I can do some more someday.
The Gentlemen's Race
The Gentlemen's Race. The... Gentlemen's... Race. Rapha... Gentlemen's... Race. I was invited sometime in March by one
Gary Thornton. He's a Killer B cross racer in about the same position as me. Maybe a little faster than me over the short course. He had scrabbled together a team of ruffians from various parts of the eastern US, and we set off on the grand adventure somewhere in the middle of the groups. It was good. We road a lot of awesome roads, both dirt and pavement. There was a stream crossing, which was ridden clean by Josh and I on our road bikes. There were some early flats, and some mechanical trouble, but we rolled on at a steady clip until about mile 45 when our teammate Martin, who had trouble with a flat and a out-of-true wheel earlier in the day and had been riding with an open rear brake since, had to ditch it in a very fast corner because he was carrying too much speed and heading straight for a low rock wall. I gotta say, he did a fantastic job of it, managing to minimize the damage to his person. He did, however, crack the chainstay on his nice carbon Ibis. He was out, but we continued on as a "rogue" team. After 8:17, we finished; we were the last team in by a few minutes. I got a hat, and it was awesome. Thanks guys. I hope I have the opportunity to do that again sometime.
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| Colin re-trues Martin's wheel after he flatted. |
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| We looked super Pro in our donated Giant kits. |
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| Colin fixes his own flat after a long dirt sector along a stream. |
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| Sad cracked Ibis. |
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| Lebair. |
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| To stop Fonner's nose from leaking. |
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| Hat. |
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| Bike. Afterwards. |
Next...
Now I'm looking ahead. Iron Monkey weekend at Granogue (I even ran today), Patapsco 66 duo with Travis, MTB Nationals at Bear Creek (STXC, XC, and Super-D). Then I get married. Shit done got real, son. It's gonna be a crazy summer!
Rock on!
