Yeah, I was just
thinking about how irritated I’ve been about my ‘bad luck.’ In terms of bad
luck though, what’s a flat tire. It ain’t jack. It’s not like I’m the only one,
Reid wrecked out of yesterday’s race. It’s hard to get rid of my me me me attitude.

If my worst luck
is flat tires ad nauseam, I’ll probably be ok, a good patcher of tubes or a
little poorer, but ok. Considering what really bad luck looks like…a string
of flat tires is unfortunate, but hell, it ain’t horrible. I would love to not
have them, which is why I’m going to try and figure out anyway possible to fix
the problem, but it ain’t the end of the world and there’s a whole lotta racing
still to come. Besides, they’ve got neutral wheel support at big races, what’s
a flat then? Just a little extra effort to get back on. Haha, a little more
than a little.

That’s all I have
to say about that.

Reid and I drove
down to Orlando this weekend for the old Festival of Speed, but since it’s 2006
and FoS is so last year, they re-named it the Spin City Classic. Probably because
spinners are cool, so anything part of that word should help the race, right?
I’m just making stuff up.

Anyways, so it
was supposed to be two 100k days – one a crit, one a circuit race. They ended
up making both days 2 hour races, which was more than enough. We drove down
on Friday to DeLand to stay with family of Reid’s, Jim and Lynn (guessing on
spelling), that was super tight. They were unbelievably nice and gracious and
entertaining, I can only hope they’re saying the same thing about me and not,
oh dear lord, thank god that annoying kid left.

The crit was pretty
cool, it started after 9 pm smack dab in downtown Orlando. Parking wasn’t the
easiest thing to find in the world, but it was no biggie, because Reid makes
a habit out of parking illegally anyways, so when we came back to a 25 dollar
parking ticket, it was like, bah, whatever, it’s been real Orlando, see ya next
year.

So we raced…it
was interesting. For whatever reason, lots of people have their opinions, the
race wasn’t incredibly hard, so there were a lot of people going into the last
few laps, and things got hectic.

Before that though,
I managed to get off the front for a few minutes with Bibens. That was good
fun. I only wish I had worked harder now, just to go harder. Once we got off
the front and got a healthy gap, it looked cool, but there was no Neracian to
accompany us, nor any Aerospace love, so it was dead in the water, that kind
of de-motivated me, but in retrospect, it would have been cool to say to hell
with it, let’s roll real hard-like, because there really wasn’t much to lose.
Too bad there were no primes…not a one the whole race.

So yeah, the finish
was wild and crazy and for once I actually tried to stay in it, getting so far
forward as top 10 with a couple laps to go, but I lost about 50 spots through
two corners because I was so damn scared of the whole final lap chaos. I managed
to recover a bit and almost got in the money. Reid was 22nd, and he was right
there in front of me…but apparently there were at least three guys between
him and me…probably more. Who knows. I didn’t get in the money, that’s all
that really mattered…except not, because that was a huge deal for me not to
duck out when I got scared. I can work off of that.

Sunday was a bad
ass little circuit race, about 5k around and crazy windy. I think every single
section was a cross-wind, or at least it felt like it. There were only about
25 people out of almost 100 starters left in the race after an hour and five
minutes. Hmm, that’s a funny time to notice how far into the race you are and
how many people are left…

Yeah, that’s where
the story gets depressing.

See, I played my
cards right, rode smart, and kept myself in the race. I even got into the small
group that went off when the whole race just blew to smithereens, there were
only like 15 people maybe in that group, and another 10 behind that looked like
they might be done for good too, but we slowed down and they caught back up.
About a lap later I got that funny feeling like things were getting a bit bouncy.

Oh no, dear god
no, please, no no no NO.

Yep.

Flatted out of
my third race so far this year.

That was that.
Fini. I wasn’t very happy. I was feeling so good, I had made everything happen
that I needed to and hadn’t burned a single match. I was just getting ready
to hopefully race and maybe do something really good, and then pssssssss, game
over.

That’s wild. I
guess that’s how the game goes.

With that said,
all of my wheels are getting new rim strips today, as well as a thorough picking
through of the tires. There has to be SOME reason why I have flatted at least
10 times in the past month, with two different sets of wheels and two different
sets of tires. I figure I can’t be that unlucky, can I?

Maybe, but whatever.

That’s all I’ve
got. I’m looking forward to doing some hard bike practice this week….

I feel like I have
a real job today. I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for the past four
hours doing PEZ stuff…I’m sort of a long long way behind on the reviews I
was supposed to have done, um, a long long time ago. I figured that since today
was an off day, it might behoove me to rattle out some written material.

Enough about that.

Jamila motorpaced
me yesterday. That was kind of cool. I had never done it before, and I’m pretty
close to 100% sure I did it in a completely retarded fashion, but I rode myself
into oblivion, which I think is the desired end result either way. I wanted
one more solid day after the weekend, and an hour going really hard behind the
car was to good to pass up. I mean, when Jamila said she’d do it, I couldn’t
really say no. So yeah, I had about 10 come aparts along the way when I just
couldn’t go any faster. Recover for a minute and then do it again until I came
apart again.

The weekend was
a mixed bag, more of the bad tasting sort. Saturday was probably the worst thing
that has ever happened to me in terms of bike racing, and I didn’t even race,
but at least I know it’ll never happen again. I messed up so bad with the directions
it wasn’t even funny. Might as well have ridden down there with only my internal
compass to guide. We left at 9 am for what should have been about a 2 hour drive,
at Noon, Jacob said enough and we went home. I messed up bad. That’s all I really
want to say about that debacle. I still feel like shit when I think about it,
which is why I’m not, which is why this paragraph is ending.

After Saturday,
I desperately needed an ok race. I could barely sleep the night before, I felt
like shit – physically and mentally, and all in all, it just wasn’t the happiest
of feelings going into it.

Actually found
the race, raced it, and it was fun. It was just fun to race hard, race at the
front, and hurt. It was cold and rainy, and the course was slick as hell, but
I don’t feel like talking about the race anymore, JedSchneider.net
already has the race report…even if it’s not exactly what happened, but whatever..

Maybe I’ll feel
like giving my rendition a little bit later, but for now, I don’t. Hekman took
out most of what was left of the field on the last lap, it was mass carnage.
He went down, and all 7 feet of the big red Sasquatch made for a helluva road
block, at least it was the first corner and not the fast 3rd or 4th corners.
He was bummed, ruined his shorts. I thought he was going to win the race for
a minute when he attacked towards the end, he gotta sweet little gap and the
man is a he-beast, so I figured it was done. But it wasn’t, and I’m getting
close to a race report here…

Why not…

Nope, just kidding.
I’ll post pictures later…maybe.

Well, hell, if
it isn’t my 23rd Birthday.

I’m going to spend
it doing things I like: riding my bike, playing golf, coloring, roller skating,
and maybe skateboarding.

Gotta go ride my
bike first though – it’s becoming tradition now. I remember back in Germany
(aka Band Camp) when Rolf, Simon, and me went out and did some kind of 5 hour
ride at 11.2 mph, it was fun. Couldn’t imagine doing anything more fun on my
birthday.

Enough about birthdays.

I got monkey spanked
last weekend racing it was awesome. I got ridden out of the winning break on
Saturday. That sure tickled. I rode hard, attacked, followed, and tried to be
smart, but failed miserably. The positive? At least I found my way INto the
winning break. That’s about all I have to say about that.

Sunday was even
worse. I missed the break of about 8 bajillion riders that went off the front
in the first 20 minutes or so, and then to make matters even more fun, I flatted
out of the race entirely.

Now, THAT is a
short recap of some racing.

This weekend will
be better. It has to be.

I had something
all planned to write, but I don’t remember it.

Happy Birthday
to me.

Ok, bye.

I washed my bike
this afternoon.

Congratulations.

I saw another huge
branch in the road today, rode by it, and then remembered what I wrote this
morning…and I’ll be damned if I didn’t turn around and drag the damn thing
off the road.

Congratulations.

My PEZ Test of
the bad ass Easton Tempest II wheels just went up on PEZ. I’m glad to have finally
gotten that taken care of. I still have three more reviews to write though.
Seriously, what I wrote in there was straight up. Those wheels took a got-lom
ass-kicking. I did everything but drop them from a tall building. They’re still
perfectly true with nary a problem. The Vredestein tires on there were pretty
ok too, no flats, no problems. That’s a damn fine set of wheels.

Ch-ch-check it
out.

I think that’s
all I’ve got for the moment. I shipped a whole bunch of stuff from the UPS Store
today. I thought I had the whole shipping thing down, in terms of how much to
charge for eBay…all was good until I got nailed with one package, and I ended
up 12 bucks in the hole for the whole thing. 129 dollars worth of packages.
I had a total of 117 charged. Close, but coming out in the negative is not good,
not at all. I promise that won’t happen ever again.

Racing tomorrow.
Sweet. I like racing my bike.

Jamila wants to
go out and eat tonight. She can’t eat any meat though. She’s on Lent-time at
the moment. That sucks, more for me than her, cuz I want some meat. Maybe we
can compromise with a well-adjusted menu, I sure as hell don’t want to go to
one of those vegetarian restaurants. I don’t mind em sometimes, but it bothers
me most of the time, and this would be one of those days. It’s funny though,
because at certain times I’ve been a practicing vegetarian…not by choice,
but because of a serious dearth of money, leading me to stray far far from the
world of meat.

I don’t know why
I’m still writing. Somebody shut me up.

Fini.

Three things this
morning:

1.) This just blew
my mind this morning: Planned interstate widening through Cobb and Cherokee
(Atlanta) counties would make it wider than a football field is long at 388
feet across. That’s wider than an aircraft carrier, far wider than the carving
on Stone Mountain. Even Wider than the White House stretched end to end, twice.
That’s awesome, there are going to be 23 lanes, and I wager that it’ll be bumper
to bumper every morning. Atlanta is awesome. That’s why I live there. HA.

2.) I almost got
hit by a car yesterday riding my bike into town. I hate to voice the trite sentiment…bla
bla bla she was talking on her phone in her BMW, but yeah, I bout got plastered
by her Beemer. It would have been awesome to get my right leg busted in because
she didn’t bother looking left before turning onto the road. Then again, why
would you do that, it’s not like there’s ever any oncoming traffic on major
streets. In retrospect, it’s probably good it was just little ol me, because
if she would have done that in front of an F150, she’d probably be dead, better
a little flashing of the peace sign without the index, than major injuries and
bad stuff like that.

3.) I almost got
hit by ANOTHER car later on that afternoon. This is a good story. So the day
before I was finishing up an extra hour and a half after my hour of hell, and
I saw this huge branch in the road. I was like, hmmm, I could get off my bike
really quick like and pull that off the road. Nawww, I’m tired, and I don’t
feel like it. Fast forward to the next day, I’m riding down the road the OTHER
way, and a car comes roaring up the hill doing at least 60. The huge branch
is still in the road, she sees it, swerves into MY lane, sees me, swerves back,
closes her eyes, and rams the huge branches. I think I closed my eyes, because
I was pretty certain I was going to get hit by something, either the car, or
flying branch. It would have been fitting if I would have been clocked by that
branch, teach me to do my civic duties.

I still didn’t
go back and move the branch though. I’ll probably get it good the next time
through there.

At least it even
crossed my mind to move the branch, I bet a year ago I wouldn’t have even thought
about it, so at this rate, maybe in another year I’ll go from contemplation
to actually stopping and moving something.

Whatever.

I’ve got lots of
PEZ work today…I’ll be computing on the computer for most of the day, but
that’s cool by me. It’s only 80 degrees and sunny outside. Ooh, maybe I’ll tan
whilst doing computer work outside. That would be cool. I really am going to
make this an issue this year. I’ve always resigned myself to the knowledge that
my Irish heritage will hold me back in matters of tanning, but my near bluish
hue is obscene, something has to be done. I’m going to tan dammit.

I’m pretty much
wrecked today. I rode for a couple of hours, and it felt like I had raced the
day before. I even slept a solid 12 hours last night. Ha. I won’t lie and say
that I don’t love sleeping to the tune of double digit hours.

It seriously blew
my mind though how bad my legs felt. I mean, that’s good, cuz that means I did
what I was supposed to yesterday, but wow. It’s all good though, I rode chill-like,
and got my umpteenth flat of the last month. That was awesome. I was feeling
through the tire and just about cut myself on the dagger-like staple that was
jammed in there. At least I can say it was a real deal puncture and not a pinch.
My frame pump worked impressively for the job. I haven’t checked yet, but I
think I got at least 100 psi in there. I had at it.

My first installment
for FettyTraining.com’s ProjectPro
is up. I’m really psyched about the concept. It’ll be more or less a running
journal type deal where I’ll write once or twice a week detailing my racing
and training. My first installment was about my winter. It’s insanely long,
but it’s hard to summarize three month’s worth of training into a concise summary,
so sue me. Jacob has some really cool plans for the site, which I think will
make it a definite worthwhile read, way moreso than my bumbling ramblings. He’ll
be racing with power for the season in tons of NRC stuff, so he’ll be putting
up his data, I’ll be putting up mine as well, and I’ll be doing lots of NRC
stuff as well. It’ll be a good perspective thing…he’ll be knocking heads,
I’ll be getting my head knocked. There’s already some good stuff in the Hot
Spot section too, a little interview with Reid and Jacob’s report from last
weekend’s race.

Basically, I like
it. It’s cool. Where else can you go and find actual power data from the big
races in America (big racing will start for us East Coasters in April), hell
from anywhere? Sure, files show up here and there, but no one really lets loose
with the data, like it’ll be giving something away. It’s a good thing, and I’m
psyched to be a part of it.

Anyways, enough
of my rambling on the site, but definitely check it out if you want to see a
lot of info and reporting on training and racing. I’ll be updating regularly,
as will Jacob, so if you’re a bike dork like me that craves some numbers, you
might like it. If you don’t like that annoying crap, then probably steer clear.
Ha.

I think I’m going
to go to bed here in a little bit. I don’t feel like I got enough sleep last
night.

I remembered what
I was going to write about this morning…my car.

I have more important
things to talk about now, like how bad I made myself come apart this afternoon.
It was cool. It was a long, slow, methodical come apart, except for once, instead
of having someone else turning the screws, I did it to myself, all by myself.
I know I’ve made a sort of promise to myself not to talk about bike practice
anymore, but I seriously can’t believe that I actually went out and rode really
hard all by myself today. That just blows my mind.

So yeah, I found
myself a 20 minute loop that had about 5 minutes worth of solid uphillage per
lap, so I rode as hard as I could up each hill and then rode tempo in between.
It was sweet. I rode harder in that hour than I did in the races last weekend.
Whatever. I went harder and harder each lap. The first lap I was doing about
250-275 between hills, the next lap 280, the final lap more like 300, and I
went till combustion on the hills, I completely fell apart on the last hill,
all flailing around on the bike, driving my shoulders harder than my legs, mean
faces, ragged breathing, all that sort of stuff that shows without a doubt that
the game is over.

That was cleansing.

I realized that
I don’t recover so well from efforts. I was hitting 200 or so heart rate going
up, and then trying to get back into tempo rolling really quickly afterwards.
That was distinctly uncomfortable. I actually felt like I was racing…funny
that. It was awesome to watch my heart rate just keep chugging upwards, and
eventually never really coming back down. Funny what a few 90 second hills can
do…over and over again. That was only an hour too. I can’t imagine doing something
like say…the Manayunk Wall…ten times is it? over the course of a 6 hour
day…lord have mercy. I wouldn’t mind doing that every week. You should have
heard what I had to say about it as I was riding home grumbling to myself because
I could barely pedal anymore.

I felt good though,
I felt like a little kid train in between the climbs, and like a drowning fish
when I went really hard. I think I could have kept rolling it at 300 for a long
long time though. I should try that someday…ride tempo till I come apart.
Oh wait, I’ve definitely done that on more than one occasion over the winter.

I think I’m close
to normal again. I would really really like to stay healthy for the rest of
the season. Injury free and healthy, I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed.

Anyways, the fun
number game…

Peak 60min (296w):
Duration: 1:00:00
Work: 1065 kJ
Norm Power: 330
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 684 296 watts
Heart Rate: 96 227 175 bpm
Cadence: 32 116 83 rpm

I can’t tell you
my speed and distance for the hour, it’s top secret, and surely not the torque,
whatever the hell that’s supposed to tell me. I probably just sounded really
ignorant saying that, but I won’t lie, I don’t have the foggiest idea what torque
is. I know it’s something I should have learned in Physics, but I’m not entirely
sure I learned anything in Physics. Math and Science combine to form something
so terrible that I don’t remember one thing from it, not one lousy fact or tidbit,
just that I remember getting a big fat 0 on a Quiz, because I missed some little
part on a circuit, making the whole circuit wrong. That was sweet.

Oh, so my car…my
car is freaking out on me. My right blinker stopped blinking, it just stays
permanently on now. That’s cool. My air conditioning stopped working too, that’s
even cooler, not really. Apparently, that’s not cheap to fix. Sounds like it’s
going to be a WARM summer! I’m going to make a list of things I’d like to get
fixed on my car, and whenever I stumble onto some more money, perhaps I’ll start
checking them off one by one…maybe.

I’m a big boy now.
I rode myself into town and got a frame pump. I rode the whole winter without
any type of air injection device, but realized that since I’m riding all by
my lonely this week, it would really blow to not have supplemental air for the
occasion of a flat tire.

Jacob told me to
ride how I felt today…so I covered my SRM and rode. I rode pretty hard, but
that’s how I felt, so that was ok. You can’t go wrong with those directions.
If I felt lazy and blah, I could ride that way, but today, I felt like an overachiever,
so I rode hard, but not too hard. It was weird. I’m trying to get a better FEEL
for how I am going on the bike, versus just purely what the little computer
on my bars tells me. I’m finally starting to realize that that is probably mildly
important.

I’ve got a fun
workout planned today. I’m supposed to ride Zones 2-3, and then go really hard
on the climbs, so I’m going to treat it as my own faux-solo race. I’m going
to go round and round on a loop that is still to be determined and ride until
I come apart. It’s gonna be a blast.

I was going to
write a whole bunch more, like, say about what I ate this morning, or how I
slept last night, but then I realized that I don’t care, and no one else does
either. I’m going to go ride my bike now.

Racing my bike
again is cool. It brings with it all the fun things like stopping at gas stations
and finding your favorite beverage and seeing how long it’ll take till I crack
and have to get a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich. Then there’s racing
too.

Saturday was a
road race, 10 laps of a 6.6 mile loop with an 800ish meter long climb each lap.
The climb took about 2 minutes, the rest of the race was just fast fast fast.
I flatted the 2nd time up the climb and was out of the race, because there is
no following car for these races, and besides, I wouldn’t have had spare wheels
in the car anyway. So I rode back down the climb with my flat and searched around
for a new wheel and found one just in time to get back in the race as the field
came back around to do the climb again. Worked out nicely, I didn’t miss any
of the climbing, just the fast other part of the course.

I tried to stay
at the front for most of the race, but had a helluva time doing it. I basically
decided that I was going to ride at the front, even if it involved me sitting
out in the wind, which is what I pretty much did for a long long time. I liked
it though. It started to wear after awhile, and I definitely found myself looking
for spots to duck in. I still lost lots of positions heading into the climb
each time, which was frustrating. I just couldn’t seem to stay where I wanted
to. At least I noticed it and tried to do something about it.

I felt good on
the climb, but not when I wanted to. I cramped the last time up it, which was
probably a good thing, because I might have tried to contest the finish, which
would have been really lame considering that I was technically out of the race.
Seems sometimes things out of my control need to remind me of what should be
done.

Reid rode solid
like to 12th place. That was cool.

Sunday was at the
BMW Test Track near Greenville, it was a big ol oval, 1 hour + 2 laps. It was
cool I guess. I felt better than I did on Saturday, which was cool, I like the
whole getting better from sickness thing, because pretty much everyday you feel
better than the last. I tried to stay active and at the front, it was hard again.
To do anything in the race, you had to make a big effort to get off the front,
so when I would come back, I’d be completely f’d and fall straight through the
field to the back. It was funny, but more frustrating than funny. I made myself
go cross-eyed a few times, for pretty much no reason. It was pretty apparent
that nothing was getting away, so it probably would have been smart to conserve
for something at the end of the race. Instead, I rode hard till the final part
of the race, then rode at the back and watched the chaos as the field geared
up for bunch kick fun.

Whatever. It was
a decent weekend of racing. I feel ok on the bike, but realize that I have a
lot of work to do. I think I’ll find out some more here in the next couple of
weeks for sure – there should be some hard races coming up, and that’s where
it counts I guess.

I just want to
race hard, race a lot, and get fast. I have a lot of work to do.

Bike racing talk
is so 3 seconds ago. I’m watching LOST with Jamila. She bought the first season
dvd set. That show is bad ass. I wish I could watch it on tv for real. DVD sets
are sweet.

I don’t feel like
typing anymore. I’ve been on the computer since 9 this morning. I think I’m
going to get carpal tunnel if I type anything else.

Ok, bye.