Mark's Blog

Thursday, Friday and today was nothing but riding. Today Shoe gave me a text and asked if I was going out, after my commitments for the paper I showed up at 4:30 for some riding. Shoe already having road for about 4 hours decides to ride some more. We ended up running 2 laps at the camp in the rain, it didn’t make the trails bad it was just a little slick. So after riding I decided to go and shoot with the camera at the camp for my independent study, hopefully some of them turn out.

Now I have some bike washing to do.

I was looking at Todd Wells’s website and I seen this picture.  I would like to have this or the Epic version that I heard will be available next year.

Tonight I decided to show up for the Bike Hub ride.  I get there and was concerned that no one would show up because of the serious wind we had.  I get inside and I see Paul from the Performa team and he said that Jesse and Luke would be showing up, so I decided that it was good to go.  I get changed and b.s. for a little bit and more people start rolling into the parking lot.

Well the ride gets started at 5:30 and we are rolling into a beautiful headwind right away.  As usual my lack of a warmup leaves me sucking wind for the first 20 minutes of the ride.  Once we get to school road for the big hill I am winded.  Well this time I wasn’t the last one up the hill, which is a good thing.  We regrouped at the top and we were off again to shirley road.  The whole way south we were averaging about 16 with the headwind.  Once we got to shirley road right before the big downhill everybody decides to take the left and climb the hill to go towards hwy 96.  That is one of the most fun sections of the ride because of the downhills.  So once we were regrouped at 96 it was time for a little bit of a push to Wrightstown.  I managed to be in the lead group for the faster ride towards Wrightstown.  This is where the pace decided to pick up, I looked down at my speedo a couple of times and almost every time the speed was right around 23.5 for the jaunt down 96.  The group got splintered going into Wrightstown, I suggested that we regroup and tell everyone that the trip down Lost Dauphin was going to be a drop ride.  Once we got rolling again the pace was slow for a little bit and just outside of Wrightstown before the first climb the pace picked up and a pace line formed.  That was when the speed really picked up, Jesse and a few other people pushed the pace to about 25-26 and I couldn’t hang on with them.  Once the group got settled out I was in the chase group with Rebecca and one other guy.  Well that was when I pushed it so I didn’t lose sight of the lead group, I know I was doing about 27-28 in the chase group trying to bridge back.  Just outside of the DePere we finally got on, the pace for me down Lost Dauphin was about 25.  Needless to say once we hit the bridge in DePere I was toast.

When we got back the average speed was 17.1 for me, but for the effort that I put in it seems like it should have been faster.  It felt good to put a race like effort in trying to bridge the gap to the lead group.  That was the first time in a long time that I burned 2700 calories on a ride.

Later

This weekend was awesome.  Saturday I woke up at 4:00 AM to go and pick up Scott for the ride to Platteville.  After a uneventful 4 hour ride down there we get ready for the TT that was being held.  As I was getting ready the Lens Construction van pulls up and to my amazement there was actually other people from our team down there.  So the race gets started by 11:15 and I am off for the suffering that is about to begin.  This course is nothing but climbing, there are no flat sections for recovery here.  I still have my bike set up for WORS racing, by that I mean I don’t have the granny gear in the front.  That would have limited the suffering that was taking place up the switchback climb in the back.  The lap took me 50:42 to complete according to my timer.  After having had my average heart rate at 172 for a while it was time to take some pictures for a little while before it started to rain.  I forgot how it sucks to have the heart rate that high for a while.

After taking some photos it was time to drive to Blue Mounds State Park.  Scott and I decided to ride some of the trails there.  All I have to say is that the trails there are some of the most technical trails that I have been on in the state.  I am surprised that I didn’t flat going over some of the stones there, I would ride up on a stone and then the moss on the stone would make me slip off the side of the rock.  All I did is pray that I didn’t slice a tire on the Holy Schist trail.  I also wish that I had a small chain ring for that course to or be in better shape.  I think running the race earlier took all of the energy and made Blue Mounds harder that it should have been.  I would love to go back to that track when it is drier outside there were some muddy sections that made riding a little more interesting.

On Sunday I thought it was time to take some time off the bike and I decided to go through my external hard drive and organize my photos.  I wanted to see home many photos I have and I came up with a final figure of 19,533 on the external drive for a total of 91.5 GB.

I wake up this morning and it is SNOWING outside.  I wish that we could get rid of the snow, I don’t mind if it rains but come on.  I can’t wait for later this week and it is nice outside.  All I have to say is no more SNOW.  It feels as if I am saying a bad 4 letter word.

Later

Hello all, the last 4 days have been nothing but riding at Baird’s Creek.  I ended up going with Scott and Steve on Friday for a couple of hours.  On Saturday I got to go out for a while and I met up with some riders and ended up with another good day of riding.  Sunday I only got out there for about an hour, and then today was about 3 hours.

Today was interesting, Scott and Rob came with me.  Scott was trying to show off at a creek crossing by jumping it.  He didn’t quite make it, the rear tire hit the embankment and then it sent him over the bars almost into a tree.  It was one of those moments where you wish you had a video camera to take video.  Then Rob was trying to go down one section of single track and then he bit it pretty hard and was fine.

Tomorrow it is off for some more riding, but with an increase in intensity.  Intervals suck, I have to say it no matter how annoying it is.  I am hoping that Platteville stays dry this week and I can go down there and race and then show Scott the Hirsch farm.

This week was interesting in that I got fitted for both of my bikes earlier this week.  On Tuesday I decided it was time to start some interval training, that proved to be difficult because of the AWESOME 15 mph headwind on my route.  The intervals were tons of fun and induced some pain, which is never a good feeling at the time.

Then last night I decided to go on the Bike Hub ride with Scott.  When we got there I was surprised by the amount of people that showed up for the ride.  When I seen who was there I thought, “shit.”  I knew it was going to be a fast ride EARLY in the season.  My legs are not ready for a 19.5 mph average yet, maybe in May I will be ready for that.  So at one of the turnoffs it was just Rebecca, Scott and I riding on the short, 30 mile route.  We averaged about 17 for the ride, which I thought was fast enough for me.  The “warm up” out of town was a brisk 20-21 mph cruise, I died on the false flat which it seems to be the usual place for me to die.

Today it is off with Scott to Baird’s Creek for some off-roading.  I need to get some miles on the mountain bike before Platteville’s TT next weekend.  I will hopefully have pictures of the event later for everyone’s enjoyment.

This week begins the training to get into shape for the coming season.  The running track that I used last year will be frequented by me again this week, along with some of the hills around my house, BB hill by Gillett if anyone knows that one.  I only have 2 weeks till Platteville’s time trial, so I would like to have some form for that TT.  All I can say is that the course requires a lot of climbing so I have to have the legs for it.

I will be going to Baird’s Creek on Friday with some friends at about 2:00, if anyone wants to go just email or call me and I can wait for you.

Later