Sweet!

Gianna just got home and found out that Louie ate a Buckeye necklace. They are toxic so she's at the vet so they can induce vomiting. If he ate enought he could die. On the upside, if he ate just enough to make him sick, it effects the GI track. We only have a 12 hour ride to Ohio ahead of us. Should be pretty sweet. What a great way to start the holiday break.

Power to Weight or Max Power

Adam asked if power to weight was as important to Time Trials as max power output. Big riders are usually the best TT'ers. So for those that are interested here is whay I had to say

"The 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis illustrated how much body weight can make a difference while going uphill. Riis beat the great Miguel Indurain in 1996. At the time of his win he weighed 150lbs (68kgs) and had a MS power of 480 watts while going all-out on a climb or time trial. This gave him an incredible power to weight ratio of 7 watts per kilogram (480 / 68 = 7). 7 watts /kg is widely regarded as the magic number in order to be one of the world’s best. Indurain had a MS power of 550 watts when going all-out, a much higher number than Riis. However, he weighed in at 176lbs (80kgs), 26lbs heavier than Riis! This gave him a power to weight ration of 6.8 watts/kg (550 / 80 = 6.8), 0.2 less than Riis. Indurain’s much higher MS power gave him the advantage in the time trials, where the main obstacle is wind drag. However, on the longest, steepest climbs of the Tour this was not the case as Riis’s 0.2 watts/kg advantage, made all the difference." (BTW - I stole that info. from here
https://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/freeinfo/going_uphill_fast.html)

So in a time trial, yeah overall max wattage output is the key. But you have to remember for me, weight does play a big role in my overall performance as a triathlete. I could gain a lot of muscle mass to be a great TT'er, but then I would be a lousy swimmer and an especially terrible runner. So for a triathlete the power to weight ratio is as important as it is for a true climber/overall road racer.

Oly Oly Oxen Free...

So thanks to T3 I’m going to give you 5 things that you don’t know about me. I have to keep them pretty clean because I know my mom reads this site. I’ll try to make them interesting rather than blowing this little game off.

Be the best you can be, whatever the cost-
So those of you that know me I am a super competitive person. Well in grade school, maybe like the 4th grade, I signed up to be an altar boy in our church. I’m from a really small German-Catholic town in the middle of nowhere Ohio. Every male in town at one point or another was an altar boy. Anyway, you spend a few days learning about church (like all of the Sunday school classes weren’t enough) and your responsibilities. At the end of the training you had to pass a test. The tests were handed out and we took them in church in the pews. We were all spread out so there was no way that the teachers could keep and eye on us. We’ll I didn’t know the answer to one of the questions and I wanted a perfect score, so I looked it up in my book. When they announced the results of the test I was the only one that scored 100%. They called me up to the front of church, and in front of everyone, to give me an award for the highest grade. I knew right then and there I was gonna go to Hell!


School Awards/Superlatives-
Just to show all of you that I can in fact be a really good boy, that same year I won an award from my 4th grade teacher. At the end of the year she handed out awards and I won the friendliest kid on the playground. I distinctly remember that she said “Even if people cut in front of you in line to play 4 Square, you never got mad at them.” I still like to think of myself as a really nice guy. I often get myself into trouble because I am more worried about other people’s feelings before my own well being. Also, I was deemed the biggest flirt in our senior class. Maybe the award in 4th grade was a precursor for things to come. It was usually girls playing 4 square so maybe I was just practicing picking up chicks back then.

Detroit Tigers-
In my Junior year of high school I was very anti school function. I avoided all dances, pep rallies, etc. So when prom rolled around my and one of my best friends decided that instead of going to prom we had to come up with something really great as an alternative. My buddy was a huge autograph collector, and still is to this day. Anyway he looked at nearby sports schedules and saw that the Tigers were playing the Orioles in Detroit. We decided to head to Detroit and try to get Cal Ripken Jr. to sign some stuff. So we told our parents that we were going to a local amusement park for the day and I asked if I could borrow our brand new car. They reluctantly agreed and the two of us went to Detroit. Man what a stupid idea. My parents would have shit if they knew we were in Detroit by ourselves (this was at the old stadium in not that great of an area). We also went to Canada just so we could say that we were so against going to prom that we left the country. I've since told my parent so this should come as no suprise to you mom.

Precision Strip-
No it’s not what you think. I used to work at this place when I was in HS and my first year of college. I had really crazy hours, 5pm to 5am. It’s a place that deals with aluminum and steel, preparing them manufacturing. The night shift was all young guys and there weren’t as many people around. Anyway, they would have those super high power air nailers for the truck drivers to secure their freight. Being a stupid HS male I found that if you held back the safety guard on the nailer you could send the nails across this huge warehouse. I mean these nails really flew. It was effing hilarious to us. We never really stopped to think about the consequences one of those nails hitting someone or if they caught our fingers as we held back the shield. We would also huff paint thinner sometimes. Nothing like killing some brain cells at 3 in the morning before you jump on the fork lift. Just another memory that makes me wonder how I’ve made it this far in life without any legal troubles.

No Ozzy Osborne-
After my stint as a factory worker I got a job as a wildlife technician. I was getting my BS in Env. Science, so this was the start of my professional life. I worked at night in the woods catching bats. If they were the ones we were looking for, a certain endangered species, we would put radio transmitters on them and track them. The job was great. I traveled all across the Midwest and Southeast. I met a lot of great people and couldn’t believe I was getting paid for that work. One of the fun things we did after work, like 6 in the morning, was to grab some beers and go birding. Birds are the most active in the morning, so we got to see species that were present in whatever region of the county we were in. All the while catching a good buzz. It awesome to roll into Perkins, dressed in camo and smelling of booze while the old men were in for their morning coffee.

So there you go, some things you never knew about me. I would tag someone else but I have no blogging friends outside of the MN cycling/blogging world.

Oh how I've missed you

So I never got those pictures up huh? Ray has a very flattering picture of me up on his site with a link to here, so I figured I better update the blog with something. So, if you were looking for some pictures, or you just wanted to see my handsome face, go take a look over on Lunatic Biker.

Last week was pretty busy (and work blocked all blogger access). I had a swim and a bike test with my new coach. He filmed my swim stroke underwater, so that was pretty cool to see. My stroke is pretty good, though I still hyperventilate a little bit if there is too much time between swim workouts. I owe all of that to my older sister. When we were younger and would go to the public pool, she would come over to me and hold me underwater. Seriously there were times when I thought I was going to die. Now my chances at qualifying for the 70.3 World Championships are just a dream. We’ll they always were and will be a dream I just wanted to blame it on something other than simple lack of physical ability.

The Bike test was cool. I got real numbers as far as power goes. We calculated my power to weight ratio (which is currently ~3.7), and set some goals as to where we would like to have it once the season starts (something around 4.2). So that means I need to do two things, loose weight and strengthen my legs. I also found out that my cheap alternative to a power tap system is working well. My coach said he used the Kinetic road machine and the power computer for all of his training last year. He ended up making it worlds in the short course and had the 5th best bike split. The point is as long as you have some consistent power and heart rate data (accurate or not) you can gauge your progress and make improvements. I don’t know who said it and how it actually goes but its something like this “That which does not get measured does not get improved”.

That leads me to another thing, if you try to lose weight without tracking your consumption, you might as well forget it. I can be hungry all day, but then when I look at my total caloric intake it’s an amount that equals zero weight loss. To all of the people on the biggest loser, not to mention many others doing it all on their own, Cheers. BTW - the winner this year lost over 200 lbs. Can you effing believe that?

Parts of my life I will never get back

This weekend was great, well except for Sunday. Saturday we got up early and hung out around the house. It went something like this; Breakfast, coffee, some reading, an hour workout on the trainer and an AB workout with the training ball. All of this was before noon mind you. We went out for lunch and then took Louie for a walk around the neighborhood lake. The weather outside was great! We walked out on the lake to throw the stick with Louie. It was hilarious to watch him try to run and stop on the ice. I bet his ass is still sore. G took of for Chicago and NYC Sat. afternoon so I went to the Y for a while and lifted. Later that night the neighbor had some people over to play poker. I didn’t really want to go for many reasons; I’m broke, I suck at cards, I wanted to get up early on Sunday for a long run, etc. Well, I was bullied into going over and I regretted it all day on Sunday. I spent 5 hours in a smoke filled basement listening to Blues playing cards all for the low price of $20. I felt like slitting my wrists the entire time. I was home by midnight and had like four or five beers. I ended up feeling like shit all day on Sunday. Seriously, do people still think smoking is a good idea? Anyway I laid around on the couch till like 4:30 pm when I finally forced myself to go out and run. I thought that it would suck, but once I got out there and fell into a groove the hour went by fast. I felt so much better afterwards. Even though I felt better I couldn’t get over how much of a waste Saturday night was. Man thinking about it still gets me all worked up.

Anyway, while I was in the basement, the dudes I was playing cards with were all like, “Yeah when I was younger I was in such great shape. Now that I’m older my body is all effed up because of the abuse I put it through while I was active. My knees, my back, blah blah….” Uhm…I don’t know, did you ever think that you feel so bad because of your current lifestyle rather than your previous one? Smoking like a chimney, drinking like a fish, and eating bar food every other night might have a little to do with the way you feel. I’m not saying don’t drink and stuff. I’m just saying don’t try to make the case that a previously active lifestyle is the reason for your body falling apart today.

Dana – glad to see you are reading. Hope the post honeymoon life is treating the two of you well.

DId You Know?

Morning Star Farms Veggie Sausage Patties only have 80 calories each AND 10 grams of protein. I’m not saying, I’m just saying. Pop two of them in the microwave for 1 minute, toast an English muffin and that’s a great breakfast, quick!

I just uncovered some new music software that will let my Folder Share friends reap lots of new benefits. Basically I can get around some of the file protections that are out there (iTunes, Rhapsody, etc). I’ll probably have the police after me now because of this post. If so at least I’ll have something worth blogging about.

So, many of you may know that I’m a big fan of the TV show The Biggest Loser. Last night was the episode where the show the finalist next to a cardboard cutout of their old selves. Man that is some great reality TV that has a real point and place in society. One of the dudes lost so much weight that he reversed/lost his diabetes. The show may have actually saved his life! Anyway, one of the common themes across all the finalist were the emotional gains they had made. The cutouts of their obese selves showed a lot of depression in their faces. The “new” healthy people they had become had smiles and confidence that could be seen from miles away. If you haven’t seen the show, I recommend it to everyone. Also, if you aren’t currently leading a healthy, active lifestyle, start today. Every little bit helps and it’s NEVER too late to start.

Is beer a good recovery drink?

So last night we finally got the HD dish installed. It’s one thing to see HD in a store, but when you are laying on your couch it is a totally different animal. I giggled like a little girl for like 20 minutes because I couldn’t believe how good the picture was. Now all I need is a blue ray player and some HD spinerval DVD’s or some HD race footage. If I had that it would be like I was right there racing with them. Even if he was doping, Lance would have nothing on me going up Alp d’Huez.

Pictures from the Michigan – OSU weekend in Columbus are on the other machine. I was going to put some up here last night but I passed the eff out at like 9:30. Waking up at 5:00 in order to get two workouts a day in is for the birds. I’ll post some pics this weekend.

Lofty career goals determined to be unattainable

It’s been so long since I’ve posted anything, and so little has happened to me since. Really not much of anything is happening in my little world. We spent a week at the beach for a good friends wedding, G and I got engaged, we went to Columbus to see the Buckeyes beat Michigan, and it got effin cold around here.

My “off-season” is coming to the end and I am starting back into structured workouts this month. I switched coaches and will now be working with someone here http://www.scsmultisport.com/. My main focus this year is going to be the IronMan 70.3 in Cancun on September 9th (in addition to local races leading up to it). G was getting a little sick of me spending 10 months of the year focused on racing, and 2 months focused on the rest of my life. So we made a plan to pick a race somewhere that she would like to vacation. We’ll end up going from Wednesday to Wednesday. Nothing like taking a week vacation a month before your wedding, huh? After the tri season I think I’m gonna try my luck up at the track. I was thinking about cyclocross, but since I have a track bike and would need to buy xc bike, the velodrome looks like the better option.

Oh yeah, one fun story. When we were in Columbus for the game I finally got to try my skills at pizza delivery. For those of you that don’t know, this has always been a dream job for me. Anyway we were over at Brown’s house after the game playing cornhole and having a bonfire. A buddy of mine told me he ordered some pizzas that we needed to go pick up. So the two of us hop on mopeds and take off for the place. We’ll once we get there I find out that he ordered 9 pizzas. I had no idea how we were going to get them home. He took the one hand on the bars and one hand holding the pizzas on the back rack approach. I took the pizzas on the handlebars approach. Well it turns out I had the bunk moped and it kept stalling out on me. Anyway, I was at an intersection and the thing stalled, and when I went to stop, I ended up dropping all of my pizzas. Some guys on the sidewalk saw it and came running over to help. I felt like I was setting them up on some hidden camera show, because as soon as I took off I dropped the pizzas again. The look on the guys face was priceless. The felt really bad for me until they realized I wasn’t actually delivering then to anyone. Now the problem was since I dropped the pizzas, the box on top wouldn’t close all the way, so once I hit a certain speed on the moped (my max velocity if you will), the lid would fly opened and I couldn’t see where I was going. In order to get the lid back down I would have to slow down to a more “acceptable” speed. When I got back to Browns, I ended up biting it in the front lawn, thus having dropped the pizzas no less than 3 times. I'll post some pictures later. So I guess I was aiming to high for my dream job. I don’t have what it takes for the profession. I guess I’ll have to settle for being an economist.