Penultimate Period of Playtime Pending a Post Portraying Participatory Phenomena

As you can see, the snow makes for outdoor training difficult
Damn, tomorrow signals the end of my Christmas Break. Been eating like it's going out of style but have been cancelling out the consistent intake of kilocalories by running, skiing, and riding the rollers episodically.

Been thinking about how my 2011 cycling season's gonna pan out. My modus operandi has been doing the early season, spring races (not the big ones) until Colorado's snow has melted in the high country and the WinterPark XC/Downhill series begins. Can't do the early, long distance races--the 80 mile plus road races--due to not having enough early season endurance in the legs yet and I can talk myself out of doing criteriums. Here's how I accomplish that (blowing off criteriums): It takes about an hour for me to get to Denver from where I live--one way--and my events are an hour long. So I say to myself, Self? You are in the car twice as long as the race is, and, the cost of gas (to get to the event) is less than or equal to the entrance fee. Now that's some rationale. It depends on how my Winter training (I said training) comes through. What I normally do is I get myself into some early season crits and see where my fitness falls into the pecking order of the peloton (which is usually at the far left of the bell curve), then maybe I'll commit to more races. Racing towards fitness. If my fitness sucks, the weekends are reserved for constructive workouts (or just piling in a bunch of miles with some intensity thrown in) and group rides. I wanna do the Battle the Bear (Creek) 50 mile XC race in April. That's a good one to fire up the system.

I have mental encumbrances planning out roller workouts during the work week too. Two hours of commuting, and another hour workout? Don't have enough hours in the day to ensure I spend time with the kids doing homework or even planning out my days' next lesson. The punkins are getting older so maybe, once they're more independent, I can ferret out some actual training that involves group rides. Training solo has its advantages. Mainly don't have to wait for the rest of my party to show up; but, my perceived exertion may or may not trick me into thinking my intensity's hard enough (no peer present to compare it to). I have no idea how hard to go to make the break if I'm flying solo. Don't have any machinery that displays watts just m.p.h. and my reptilian brainstem says, Dang Mikey you sho is going hard and shtuff. Don't you think you need a rest? Need a group ride to suss out my fitness and any resulting improvement thereafter.

Yes, you read it right -7°F currently and if you look at the bottom it dropped all the way to -13°F that night before!
Here's what I have done this week: two roller workouts ever since wind currents from the Arctic nether regions visited us lately. This translated into frigid temps even with the sun overhead. Talking about single digit temps. Coupled with my 3 mile jaunts on the dreadmill (treadmill) hopefully this is making the fire of metabolism burn with a wee bit more intensity. I also finished The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. Excellent read, highly recommend it (see sidebar).

My roller workouts consist of doing alternating, minute-two minute-three minute-four minute-five minute (then reverse) periods of big ring spinning over 25 mph with the same amount of time recovering. I try to do this for an hour. One hour on the rollers is like my real time version of Sisyphus. It is singularly the most mentally painful thing I endure. I don't put any cheater railings to help stay gyroscopically afloat neither. Here's how I mount my steed: I put my dominant (foot) pedal at the 12 o'clock then I push down and get the other foot clicked in and I'm off! How am i going to train for road racing and attempt a half marathon come June? I better get off my arse and do some planning or hire a coach (or I can save the money and buy boutique beers!).

To break things up mentally, I try and get a new max speed without falling off the rollers. I slap the chain on the 53X12 and spin it like a fiend! Can't seem to break 50 mph.

My friend Chip, back-in-the-day when we were teammates in Texas, had a team roller workout at the shop that sponsored us and we were going for top speed, roller records and he beat me by 2 mph: 57 mph. He promptly fell off the bike and put a big rug burn on the sales floor carpet and the head mechanic was pissed because he had to clean it up.

Just got back from skiing with my girls again! They/we all did an ungroomed bowl today and attempted moguls. I got a kind comment from another male skier when he saw me towing my middle daughter (via my ski pole) up a hill using my mad XC skiing skate skills (albeit alpine skis). He said you're a good father! I replied I'm trying to get 'em hooked [on skiing]. The moguls kinda killed 'em but boy did we have a blast today! Work starts up tomorrow. NOT looking forward to that...

Skiing With My Girls!

Wow. Spent the entire day skiing with my girls at Winter Park. First time the young 'uns didn't do lessons; instead we skied the whole day with them. Awesome. It was slow going at first but once they got used to the speed underneath their skis (and their snowplows) it was time to venture onto some new terrain.

The Mountain was absolutely righteous. We got there at nine and left around 3:30. Skied the entire day with nary a break for lunch. The girls were troopers. They never complained about being cold; only brought it to our attention when they were hungry. The weather was forecasted to be snowy and cold, rather it was a smidge overcast with blue skies always just beyond the horizon. The lines at the lifts were non-existent and it seemed like whatever run we chose it was just the four of us and our random fall lines. Amazing. Nothing more satisfying than skiing right next to your honey/children.

Melissa's new skis are treating her right. Her turns are looking even more fluid and connected. Only one fixable problem with her boots: we have to slightly elevate her heels.

While they ate at the top of the mountain restaurant for lunch, I fired off two runs down to the bottom. Fast and no lines. Perfect. Met 'em back at the top and away we go again to finish the rest of the day skiing.

At the end of the day, we carted all our stuff in a wagon (no poles yet for the kids) and made our way back to the parking lot via the Village for hot chocolates.

They did their first blue runs today too. Albeit snowplow action, they did do turns. Keeping my mouth shut for now about their technique but next time I'm going to have to show them form (that's how I started too).

Melissa made a quick dinner and we (Melissa and I) celebrated our Team M skiing event by rinsing down our dinner with some celebratory, silky smoof Gulden Draak (Golden Dragon) Ale (Trippel).

Back at home, there're just more boot liners to dry out next to the fire. Team skiing. Ah yeauh kids.

Next time: moguls!

Cycling can take a back seat if I'm skiing y'all...

Fitt'na Bust a ski-move

This is from Team M visiting Hudson Garden's Xmas Tree Lights Event.

One of the geographical advantages of living in the boonies (aka the Front Range Foothills) is being close to the I-70 corridor ski areas (as well as super awesome terrain for cycling once the snow goes away). Tomorrow we're taking the two oldest kiddoes for a day up at WinterPark. It'll be our inaugural outing and it's going to be a cloudy, snowy day. Gotsta ensure I find all the kiddoes's gloves, helmets, base layers...etc. so's their first, non-lessoned day hanging with Mom and Dad will be pleasurable and remotely warm. My goal is to get them hooked and their skills up to a proficient level where we can eventually get passes and Team M can tear stuff up at any given mountain (and to not get them to the dork-side which is boarding-yes, I'm biased!). Skiing with novice kids means the selfish part of me won't be able to do ungroomed bowls and moguls going with my hair on fire-same with Melissa. Melissa has new twin tip skis too, and I'm sure she's ready to tear up the mountain but not tomorrow. Tomorrow is hanging with the kids on groomers and facilitating a better technique for them. Tomorrow is making sure out of control mountain riders don't hit my precious's and for them to take occasional warming hut stops. Maura is less reserved skiing whereas Maricel's very cautionary.

I've been daydreaming alot about skiing. I'm dating myself here but remember going roller skating and afterwards your feet still have a pair of phantom roller skates on? My feet have phantom Technica Alu Comp's on and they're paralleling and floating over three-dimensional bumps my brain has projected to the motor neurons attached to my doggies. It's that vivid. Maybe I should cut down on my caffeine (NOT!).

Haven't been able to ride during my break (I'm watching the kids silly!) but I have been doing an inordinate amount of running on our treadmill. Three miles a pop; running less than or equal to a 10-minute pace. Doing this almost daily. There is some translation into cycling. When I fired off a 39 miler (yeah, it was close to 40, but I can't lie) last weekend my legs felt reasonably fresh. It was freezing that day (Winter at 5000 feet). I rode solo with me breaking my own wind (I said breaking wind). Nonetheless my legs felt great! I did the Kenny L. technique of keeping it in the big ring to knock out simulated weight training and fat-burning miles. My take is: running is so abusive to the legs that when you do a non-weight bearing activity like cycling the body's perception is that 'hey, this isn't so bad' therefore keeping the legs fresh longer. Not very scientific but there's your anecdotal evidence with an n of 1 (me!).

Have not done rollers! Okay I did it once and had a slow speed biff. Eventually I'll have to do some interval training on that contraption of consternation. In the meantime, I'ma go skiing, running (hopefully I can get a couple days of cycling in), and luxuriating (reading, napping, listening to music) during my Winter Break.

"Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

My apologies to Dr. Martin Luther King but I am done entering grades electronically for my students thereby finishing my accountability piece for my lovely district and going on holidaze for two weeks! His statement (R.I.P) is what I cathartically felt once my boy Billy and I went to lunch. What to do, what to do? I'll tell you what I did: Firstly, I bought the new Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. I purchased this fine piece of music from a generous gift card one of my students gave me as a present. How grateful and cool is that? There are 2010 top whatever (pick an integer) lists from reputable journalistic organizations that I take with more than just a grain of salt (I have no time to listen to all this good stuff) and by looking at different lists I try to choose the ones that have overlap. The aforementioned CD was just that. It made the top 10 in different lists. Not quite the wall of sound of Neon Bible packed with their orchestral instrumentation nor as sparse as Funeral (I like this better than Neon Bible actually), but still sonically righteous with some well crafted songs. That's how I'm going to start my celebratory two weeks work-free (committing some luxuriating, mental time to absorb some music audiovisually)! I'm also committed to finish reading The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. Usually don't read fiction but sweet Melissa loved this book so much I gave it a try and was hooked as well. Seems if I don't finish reading a book/novel on a long-ish break, I feel as if I didn't accomplish it properly and without quality.

Started Friday morning witnessing our stove piping, coming undone, and laying against our living room wall. I only noticed it after I started a fire (we have a very long stove pipe that goes into the ceiling, that's why I thought everything was normal visually) and the smoke started diffusing slowly into the room. Stopped everything put it in arrested development and went down the hill to finish entering grades. Melissa researched where I could purchase some 6" diameter, 24 gauge steel, black stove pipe and told me where to purchase it on our way home. The representative at Ace Hardware was helpful and said I probably saved three to four hundred dollars by getting it done by myself as opposed to the shysters (fireplace repair businesses, meant that in a non-denominational sort-of-way) that work locally here. It was fairly easy just some drilling, screwing, malleting, cutting of metal and eye-balling a straight line (well, four out five ain't bad).

Now, I'm figuring out how to get some riding in in weather above freezing temps. In the meantime, I'm putting in quality treadmill time preparing for a half-marathon that I'm tentatively going to attempt come June in Steamboat Springs; and, trying to figure when the first ski-action of the season's going down. Not bad options actually for the holiday minded. Oh yeauh!!!!

I'm tapping this out listening to Noah And The Whale's The First Days Of Spring-another excellent CD (a burned CD from a colleague-thanks James!). Contemplative stuff, kinda spatially-dark sounding too. The guy's baritoney, amateur-sounding voice adds to the darky aura of the music.

Give these two a listening to. I wouldn't steer y'all wrong.

Ite den y'all I'm off to:
-ride.
-read.
-ski.
-listen.
-converse.
-nap.
-eat.
-hangout with familia.
-fight the battle of the bulge (am I missing anything? probably).

"There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmas time...

...Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them".
-PJ O'Rourke

Christmas is fast approaching and what that means is my Winter Break's around the corner, the commencing of the smackdown of FINALS are looming for my students, our bank account's mettle's about to be tested, and my bah humbug tolerance is slowly making an appearance (but lo and behold I will hold steadfast and keep it in check).

I have nothing to complain about though. All things considered:
-sweet Melissa and I saw Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds play at the Broomfield Event(s) Center which was fairly (and sonically) remarkable and tonight we're about to see (and listen to) Handel's Messiah.
-La Nina's weather pattern's revealing little to no precipitation in the form of snow, where nowadays we'd kinda be socked in, but it is ski time in the mountains where it has been snowing.
-our Christmas tree looks real purty-like.
-my oldest daughter's enrolled in the Colorado Gems programs which means she can ski for free at certain areas.
-speaking of skiing, sweet Melissa's back into skiing again!
-got my Völkl Karma's de-burred, edged, and waxed.
-got in a mellow 25 miler in the cold with some teammates today...so yeah, my 2010's nicely winding down.

As for cycling and planning for the 2011 season I cannot even muster up the synaptic fortitude to set anything in motion other than keeping my weight at bay (which so far so good--knock on wood--I'm doing ite). Running's kinda messing up my left knee but on the bike it's fine. I'm planning on running a half-marathon with no kind of formal training come June in Steamboat with sweet Melissa who's apparently running like a person possessed. I ran an 8-miler in Dallas with very little training (my training regimen was if I can run three, I can run eight).

Riding with some new teammates today was nice. Haven't ridden the road for a while and it was nice feeling the ground underneath my under-inflated tires. But jeez it was a cold one today. The thermometer belied the fact that the wind chill was about a beeyatch today. In fact, it was warmer where I live (see my blog header) than it was down the hill (Denver, that is; it's what us hill folk call "D"). Skootched my saddle forward just a bit and what a major comfort booster that was. Should try and work on dialing in my stance a bit more I suppose. I only change it when I feel some type of discomfort.

This is one of those apathetic season beginnings where I'm thinking more about skiing than I am about competitive road cycling. Definitely thinking about competitive mountain biking. The quicker I can get on a Cannondale Flash 29er with a Lefty, the more I can feel how my "training's" going to be decided and an injection of enthusiasm can ensue for 2011. Have only done one cross race, that's how unmotivated I am currently but sweet Melissa and I are chomping at the bit to use up our WinterPark 4pass with our kids.

Maxwell Falls in the Snow

I started ride at this temp (-1° C)with snow falling. Awesome...

The day was past its prime for riding and that mid-day circadian rhythm of narcolepsy was encroaching. We had just finished taking the kids to get their pictures taken for the Christmas paper shuffle aka the perfunctory how-do-you-do, see-how-happy-the-joy-of-Christmas-has-parked-itself-on-our-smiles-as-evidenced-by-the-card-you-are receiving. We did this at the mall. I forgot how bah humbug I truly am during the Christmas season. I just keep that part to myself. It was time to the leave the mall...

Melissa and I got a coffee to kickstart the latter half of the day and so's I could be alert on a snowpacked trail with slippery rocks and tree roots. I picked a fairly technical trail to descent (due to windchill) to keep me honest and I rode back uphill on the road to warm me up.

This was the first part of the descent.

It was excellent. My tires were more grippy than I expected (front: Kenda Blue and rear: Panaracer Fireroad XC with matching red sidewalls) and I had to really concentrate because if I chickened out on a line, it would be difficult to get the flow back. Snow quickly builds up on the cleats when you dab, so I really wanted to cherry pick my fall line. That takes a lot of concentration and uses up a decent amount of kilocalories. The stuff that gave me the chickenskin was when I slid on roots hidden underneath the snow and trying to stay on the uphill parts of the berm. The hikers I passed thought I was crazy but holy mackeral I was in the zone. Super, laser focused on my line and ne'er did I crash (had a couple'a close calls though). I love the way my bike handles with the slightest body english for corrective purposes. It's super sensitive and it whispers to me to take the sickest lines and to always accelerate. It persuades me to go to the dark side. Sometimes I listen to it, but most of the time I attenuate its mental hubris.

for example, my Yeti told me to get to ramming velocity and float over this...

It was cold my feet were numb but everything else, including my willy, was warm to room temp. If my willy or ears go numb, that's a deal breaker. Today was good. Today was better than good actually. The nutty part too is that earlier I ran almost four miles in 40 some odd minutes. My team issue jacket's the $hit too. It was a gift from my teammate and longtime bud, Kenny L. I swear, like in skiing, the day you have is proportional to the equipment that's used (technical clothing included).

I drank a Scotch Ale afterward-a beer made from the Grand Lake Brewing Co. located near Estes Park-and like the Lord said, "it was good."

F.I.N.S...

I forgot to take it off of sepia...

...is the abbreviation for Fantasy Island North Singletrack (not the Tucson one). Unfortunately this would be my last ride of my Arizona vacation with me brother's family during my October Break. The best, truncated description I can give y'all is that this area seemed tailor made for short-track XC. They had all these spurs/loops of other spurs/loops where the topography was fast, tight singletrack with a plethora of hills interspersed where it seemed like an interval workout. That's my version of fun. Truly, anytime I'm upright with the rubberside down is my version of fun. It turns exponential hanging out with me brah. The climbs weren't too intense except when they were and the twisties were just right enough if you mentally highlighted your trajectory you could maintain or increase your speed through the S-turns. Again though, being centered is crucial because the riders before you bulldoze the scree to the flanks, if your front tire drifts over there you better correct it mighty quick in order to not lose traction and eventually biff it. The highlight of the ride was the climb Lemmy took me on and at the ascent we had these gorgeous 360° views of the desert and the encroaching civilization.

The change of scenery was enough to shift my neurons from teacher, working-stiff phase to mentally curious, I'm-just-a-stranger-here-myself-being-in-awe, vacay phase. The mountain biking's cool because the topography's keeping me honest but seriously? the super mild weather and extremely sunny days had this therapeutic vibe to my vacation. Yeah Phoenix sucks come Summertime but these past couple'a days have been just gorgeous (in a preventive mental and body maintenance sort-of-way too). I guess part of the mental newness too is riding a new bike (see my White Tanks Mountain Regional Park blog entry) where it's just a bit off my normal riding posture (dialed in-ness). Seeing (and riding in) all this vast, open grandeur of the Sonoran desert made me feel grateful. It was as if my brother just let me in some great big, mountain biking secret and the deluxe-ness of it was this picture, postcard climate. It's the terrestrial analog of seeing the stars on a clear night up in the mountains and feeling like an insignificant speck of a sentient being. I can see why nutjobs congregate to the desert because of its spiritual, cleansing properties (especially in the Fall) to channel energy or whatever nutjobs do. It feels like while I'm out in the desert I'm punching through some cosmic ether/fabric as I propel myself forward-especially when my brother and I are standing next to a skinny singletrack on top of a vista looking at all the spaciousness. While overlooking a vista my perception is that I feel some electric, static buildup in my chest proportionate to the elevation and my range of view.

In fact, here's Lemmy on top of Jim's Star Pass ascent.


Kinda reminds me of Taos/Santa Fe 'cept in a much grander (desolate beauty kind of) scheme. Bet the native americans thought this place was special too until the white man shafted them.

One particularly cool view as we were still climbing Jim's Star Pass...


A funny thing happened on the way back to (the) Westar Elementary School...as we were riding back to Lemmy's Pathfinder it felt as if I was getting a masking tape bikini waxing while I was pedaling. I reached my hands down to that area and my fingers felt it too. As I shifted gears my fingers felt as if I was touching ice! My brother started laughing and said, "Low hanging powerlines. I'm guessing you're getting shocked?" Damn! Ain't that about a bitch? My saddle rails were shocking my bidness. Using my rolling inertia, I stood on my pedals and kept my hands strictly on my (brother's bike's) handlebars while I rolled past the shock-zone. Funky, fresh. Never had that experience. Rode my mountain bike over a waterfall once in Austin, TX while my friends treaded water downstream to catch my bike. It just floated upside down (due to the air in the tires), pretty much stationary. Hmmm.

Here're the pertinent GPS data for y'all data hounds.
Countour


About one thousand feet of climbing taking us 13 miles.

Thoroughly enjoyed myself. Can't sing enough praises in my brother's (family's) name on this vacation go 'round. Work, you suck. Family, I missed y'all; and Mr. Bicycle inventor, thank you and you are a rockstar...

Alas, my vacation comes to an end, punctuated by my last ride in Arizona.