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It's a cactus!

Not a lot going on in my world of training lately. I spent the past 5 days traveling with  Ryan to give him a hand and take photos at the cyclocross national championships in Kansas City, KS. Considering the conditions on Saturday, he did really well, coming in 52nd place. The course turned into a giant mudpit on Friday- it was bad enough that the race directors removed the double barriers from the course for the safety of the competitors. Friday night, the temp dropped into the teens and the snow started- freezing the ruts into the course surface and covering them with several inches of snow.

We stuck around on Sunday to watch the elite Women & Men races. Other than being cold, it was pretty fun to watch. Pics are in the KCCX album. There's a lot of snow in there.

More than 3 years after starting it, my phoenix tattoo is finally finished!




Of course, I've already decided on what I will start work on next...

I went to a guerilla-style cyclocross race over the weekend and took some photos. You can read about the race and see the pics here: Ryan's Blog

I thought this one was funny:

I bought one of these a while back and just got a chance to use it on a 10 mile trail run over the weekend. All I can say is that I can see why they're sold out all over the place. It is worth the money- you put it on & then don't think about it again. Lots of storage, close fitting, no rubbing... everything you could ask for in a hydration pack! The chest strap slides up & down to allow for a good fit on different "builds" The men's version is a little different on the chest, but I'd assume that it works just as well.
It comes with a 2L bladder, which I took out & replaced with the same size Camelback bladder. That's the only downside to all of Nathan's water bladders- the filling hole is tiny compared to the Camelback one, so they're a much bigger pain in the butt to fill and clean.

I highly recommend one of these to anyone who is looking to get away for a hands free, bounce free water carrying system.

It's been a good (albeit cold) weekend of training. I ate some traditional Thanksgiving fare, lifted weights, rode my bike in the cold and sleet, endo'd on a cross bike at Shelby Farms, and wrapped it all up watching the Tour du Faso (I was facinated- some African pro teams ride 7 speed bikes with downtube shifters) as well as TLC's "freak night" on TV (a combo of morbid obesity and conjoined twins!). Come to think of it, I've probably watched more TV today than I have in the past few weeks. I needed it, though.
Friday, after doing a few road intervals, I went out with Ryan to Shelby Farms. He'd bought a teammate's cyclocross bike to get components off of for his new frame, so before tearing it down, I took it out for a spin while he was working on some drills. It was a lot of fun, but on our way back to the car, I managed to find a very large hole almost completely covered in tall grass. Needless to say, it turned the bike into a catapult  I didn't feel injured immediately after falling, but my back and neck were sore as all getout on Saturday when I went out to ride.
I lifted weights today, and tomorrow, it's back to business as usual with my training on the road!

For sale- 54cm Javelin Amarone frameset. Only ridden for a little over a year. It's in very good condition- a couple of little scratches, but nothing you notice unless you're really looking. Frame/fork/headset for $800.

If you've been reading my other postings, you know that I've had some issues with my right big toe while on some trail running adventures. I finally went to see a local podiatrist, Dr. Erali. He took at look at my feet and determined that the difficulty I was having was due to the stress put on my toe during overpronation. He demonstrated how the ROM of the toe is greatly reduced while the foot is in an over-pronated position, and sent me home with some giant foam arch supports to put in my trail shoes.

The idea is that if my foot is slightly everted, the stress of running will be distributed across all of my toes rather than just my big one. He wants me to run this weekend and try to "duplicate the injury" with the extra padding. If I find some relief, he'll have some orthotics made for a more long term fix. If it doesn't work & the injury comes back, I'll probably have to switch to a less stiff trail shoe and try again. I currently run in a Vasque Velocity, and will most likely try out another one of their models that has a less substantial stone shield in the sole and a little more cushion.

The goal? Win the Athens-Big Fork trail marathon. I was 2nd place last year- well off the pace of the winner, partially due to getting lost, but largely because of my toe pain.     

Today I ran in the Gulpha Gorge 17 mile trail race. Although I felt good and ran well (a few minutes faster than my PR for 16 miles back in January), some bad luck put me finishing in 3rd place. The whole trip to Hot Springs, AR was really nice, though. I decided, after putting in two very hard weeks of training on the bike (15+ hours/wk), that I'd pamper myself a bit while I was out of town.

I arrived in Hot Springs Friday afternoon and made a quick stop at the Gulpha Gorge campsite in Hot Springs National Park. I'd decided before I left that I would forego the usual Friday night pre-race campout and get a room someplace in town. As I rolled in to Hot Springs, I passed several motels. All looked slightly seedy and a little run down. I happened to turn up the main drag of the city & go into the historic district- where I found the Arlington Hotel. I made the decision then that I was going to make my trip a vacation/race in one. It just so happened that they had a few rooms left for the weekend. Here are a few pics:

Chillin


View from my window




Friday night, I pampered myself- I went to the hotel bath house (Hot springs is filled with bath houses) for a hot mineral bath treatment and massage, then ate at a nice "Nuevo Latino" place across the street, and followed it up with some Tiramisu... from room service, of course. I've been training hard, so I feel like I deserved every bit of it!

Saturday morning, I woke up (still relaxed and refreshed), had some breakfast, and headed off to the race. As usual, I started the race off a little fast, but I still felt good once I settled into a rhythm. Soon after, though, my problems started. First, I got a twinge of soreness in my right big toe- the same one I injured at the Athens-Big Fork Trail Marathon earlier in the year (see picture)


The pain made a huge impact on my ability to run fast on the decents (which, ironically, is where I normally can eat people alive). Although it hurt, I was wearing down (and eventually passed) the one woman who had managed to get ahead of me early in the race. However, not much further up the trail, I came upon a hiker with two dogs on leashes. I didn't think anything of it until I passed them... and one of the dogs lunged out and bit me on the top of my leg (see picture... warning- includes part of my snowy white ass)


This slowed me down enough to allow my catch to pass back by me (never to be caught). I continued on, now hurting on both sides of my body. Next, the trail dumped out into downtown Hot Springs (temptingly close to my hotel, I might add). At that point, all of the trail markings ceased. I had to walk and get my map out in order to navigate back to where the trail picked back up on the other side of the historic district (as well as fill up my water pack, too). When I started walking, my stomach began to cramp, so as soon as I was back on the trail and away from civilization, I had to find a bathroom (tree). While I was searching for my tree, another woman passed me. Try as I may, she got too far ahead for me to catch within the last 2 miles of trail before the finish (I ended up about a minute behind). I finished in 2:52. Better than my last 25k, and on a slightly longer course. It's hard to say if I would have won or not, but I still felt good about my performance. Time to rest and heal. And eat.

This is Indy's first winter with a wall-mount gas heater. He is addicted to laying next to it until he becomes hot to the touch. I am worried that he's going to fall asleep and catch on fire. It reminds me of how some women are obsessed with tanning beds.



He's wearing the lampshade on his head because of a skin infection on his rump. Cute, huh?

My new Blue frameset came in on Friday. I spent most of Friday evening and Saturday afternoon taking parts off of my Javelin, cleaning them, and re-installing them on the Blue (see "Bikes" photo album for a bit of a photo sequence of the changeover).

I went on the group ride from Outdoors Inc. this morning. The new frame feels great- it's a little lighter and stiffer than the Javelin. It felt very smooth (although I did feel more vibration on the rough patches of road), and I like the geometry a little better than my old bike. Next stop- time trial bike!

Any time I check the page views on my map thingy at the bottom of my profile, I always see that someone from North Little Rock has visited. Who are you? Friend? Fan? Stalker? Let me know!

Or anyone who visits my page/blog on a regular basis... what makes it interesting? Post here & tell me!

Pretty soon, I'll be riding a Blue Rc7!
Information here: Blue's Rc7

Here's a pic from Blue's Website:



I'll be swapping the components over from my Javelin- more pictures to come when it get here!

Saturday,10/27

8:00 am: I went with Ryan to Jackson, TN to watch him compete in the Jackson Spokes cyclocross race- first of a two day, two race series.
11:00 am: Watching the race was enough to motivate me to give it a shot Sunday. There was only one woman competing!
3:00 pm: Get back to town. All I had to do was buy some MTB shoes, mount my cleats, learn how to use them, learn how to dismount and re-mount, and get my beast of a mountain bike into working order- install my $20.00 Nashbar pedals, remove the bar ends, chopsaw an inch off of each end of my handlebars, and adjust the front derailleur (the left shifter is broken and it was stuck in the granny gear up front, so I needed to get the derailler "re-stuck" into the middle ring).
7:00pm: Done!


Sunday (10/28)
10:35 am: During warm-up, I approach a barrier too fast, try to dismount, fail to get my left foot unclipped and somersault into the mud with my bike attached to my left foot.
11:00 am: "B" Race Start. Get into 2nd place from DFL, but first overall of two women
12:40 pm: Finish race exactly how I started
1:00 pm: Watch Ryan in the "A" Race. He got off to a good start, but after dropping his chain twice, he dropped too far behind the other 3 riders to catch back up.
5:00 pm: Get home. Ride 20 miles. Yeah, I'm crazy like that.

Edit: Photos Up!