Chipping away at winter

January 2012- so far so good!  We got our first 'real' snow on Saturday.  By 'real' I mean snow that actually stuck around after it stopped falling.  Although today they're predicting Freezing Rain which will either melt what's left or turn it into ice. 

I always consider March to be the unofficial start of spring.  Dec-Feb = Winter.  Sure, it's going to snow in March.  Maybe a lot.  But by March you can count on some decent days.  You know, upper 40's.  Clear trails.  So to have made it mid-way through January with only one significant snow bodes well for having fitness going into road racing in the spring.  (We're not like Tahoe out here - we don't depend on snow pack the way you do in the mountains.)

Since my last post I have:

• Gone to see the Patriots crush the Buffalo Bills in Foxboro.  (Thanks Cody!)
• Run about 2x week.
• Crosstrained at the gym 2x week.
• Gotten in 3-4 hour rides on the weekends.
• Drove solo to Montreal for SBCU Fit School.

Erm, that's it.  We were visiting with some friends who'd been away for the last month and they asked, "so, what've you guys been up to?"  And the honest answer was " . . . .uhhh?"  But it's nice to have time to hunker down and focus on making the most of the "off season" with no stress, no pressure. 

Yesterday we had a gluttonous breakfast of fried potatos, scrambled eggs from the chickens in our back yard, and toast (gluten free for me, with lots of strawberry jam).  I threw on more layers than I care to recount, strapped a rear fender on my CX bike, and rode to Newburyport.  It's usually about 1:15 to get out there, but with the snow, headwind, and thousands of layers restricting my movement it took closer to 2 (this the season to ride hella slow).  I stopped in Newburyport for a soy mocha, and to restore feeling to my toes, and rode home.  The return trip went much faster, and my ride was about 3.5 hours.  Perfect.  We had a little playoff party, with some friends stopping by to eat pizza, drink beer, and watch football.  Cody ordered some "normal" pizzas, and I cooked some GF flatbread to make my pizzas with.  I splurged with Daiya vegan mozzerella cheese, garlic and sundried tomatos.  It was amazing.  Yesterday was a splurge kind of day.

2011 in bad pictures

I am not a good photographer. I also forget to bring my camara/take pictures when it would be cool to have pictures of things. So here's an incomplete recap of 2011 in bad photos.

The winter totally sucked. This was probably the only time I smiled while surrounded by snow. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but this was the first big snow so my soul hadn't totally been crushed by 2 months of unending ice.

When I went out west and it was hella warm.

We went down to Cape Cod in March to check out the trails around Otis AFB. It was so totally rad, and the first time we'd been on MTBs since early December.

Riley + Chickens. It's really just here for cute value. 2011 was a cute year. 9 friends of mine had babies in 2011. See? Cute. Just like my doggie.

Claymore f'in Challenge! The next day I "hit" the big practice drop up here at Highlands. I totally didn't crash (I totally almost did).

LadiesFirst racing!!!

Wedding in September. We're so good looking, you know, if viewed from a distance.

Kingdom Trails in Vermont! 5 days of singletrack magic.

Cross. This was in NoHo. I loved this race.

Thanksgiving Day polar bear swim. I just took pictures. The water was insanely cold. Screw that.

Obviously there are a lot of things here that I don't have pictures of. I couldn't find any pictures from my parents visit, or my visit to see my parents, or our trip to NY to see Eddie and the MTB world cup. Or the running I did. Or any of the awesome little rides we did every weekend we could. Or the sailing we did. But you get the picture. It was a pretty cool year, all in all.

Happy New Year! Here's to 2012 living up to it's promises of awesome.

Ice Weasels

Wow, where'd the season go? Hard to belive that it's already mid-December. In past years nationals would have been this weekend. Weird. I'm having a hard time believing it's almost Christmas, too. I think that has to do with the amazingly warm and dry weather we've had this fall - it's been late-October-like for 2 months now.

Anyway, I met my end-of-season goal on Saturday to have two consecutive good races, although I went into the race intent on having fun and ending the season positively even if I was getting lapped by cat 4s. The course was super fun, twisting back on itself a lot so it was kind of hard to tell where people were. There were some fun tight turns, a blazing fast set of barrier surrounded by tons of rowdy spectators, a fun up-and-down section on the back of the course with a little run up, and a fly-over. The only other fly-over I've done was at Gloucester, and that one had a nice set of stairs leading up to it and a pretty long flat section on the top to remount. At Ice Weasels it was a ramp up, covered in that fake-grass-carpet stuff, with a boards nailed down every 16 inches or so - wicked slippery - and then a pretty short remount area and a quick drop into some rutted mud. Fun, but I was pretty cautious on the way up after I slipped and almost fell down it when I was preriding.

It wouldn't be 2011 without me having a lousy start, which in this case could best be described as "apathetic". So there was some traffic to wade through on the first lap. I passed a lot of people, then got in a group of 3. I was corner really well (wee!) so when I was sitting anywhere other than 1st wheel I would get frustrated in the corners by how slow I was forced to go. But my acceleration wasn't fantastic, so passing was a little tricky. I passed at one point before a technical section and had a little gap, but then I was going to slow up the fly-over and actually got passed back at the top. OK, that's all right, passed again before the technical up-and-down-run-up section, and the girl behind me bobbled something and I got a pretty good gap. At this point I had probably 3 to go, and I was feeling kind of tired. I was pretty stupid before my race about what I ate. Basically I didn't eat enough. I had my oats and coffee at breakfast, but for some unfathomable reason I didn't bother bringing much food with me. I had a yogurt, a container of raisins (???) and a Gu shot. Right? What was I thinking? So I had eaten my yogurt about 3 hours before my race, then snacked on raisins, then totally forgot to eat my Gu shot after my unimpressive warm-up. So I think I was running out of fuel at that point in the race. The good: I kept it together, rode within myself, rode well technically, and kept the gap I had on the 2 girls I'd been riding with. The bad: I didn't catch anyone else. But I finished pretty strong, despite getting hung up in some lapped cat 4s.

The rad: before the women's race my teammate raced with the 3/4 men and schooled every last one of them. Then she won our race.

It was, in fact, a terrific end to the season. That race pretty much embodied all the awesome things about 'cross - great course, great crowd, beer tokens, and a pedal-powered apple press, to name a few. I'm not particularly burned out on racing, but I am a little tired of being slow, so I'm excited to get back into it after great season of training under my belt. I just wish I didn't have to wait so long!

2011 Season Wrap-Up

I don't know what's wrong with me in this picture. The photographer told us to look excited. I look like I'm dislocating my jaw to swallow a large rat whole. But I guess that's exciting.

I am again surprised at how quickly 'cross season has come and gone. I spend all year looking forward to it only to have it go so fast that it's hard to stop and really enjoy it. Don't get me wrong, it had a blast, but I wish I had a little more time with it. But that's what next year is for, right?

2011 Stats:

Races: 15

Podium finishes: 1

Last place finishes: 2

DNF's: 1

UCI points: 0

Ugh, that looks terrible when you write it out. It just goes to show that statistics can be misleading. Here's the good stuff:

1. Raced with a fantastic team.

2. Met a ton of great people.

3. Learned the ins and outs of New England cyclocross (some of them, anyway) and travelled a ton.

4. Spent all week every week being totally excited for the upcoming races.

5. Started my first race of the season at Quad Cross saying "jeez, I really need to learn to corner better." By the last race of the season I was dropping people in the corners.

6. Improved my starts (sorta).

7. Ended the season with two consecutive good race weekends!

8. Not remotely burned out, totally psyched on getting way faster for next year, and motivated enough to be excited to start training again January 1st.

So basically, a good season. I've got a couple weeks off the bike here and then I'm going to start training to do some road races this spring. Psyched to train. Psyched to race road. I'm already planning my 2012 'cross season, which is just crazy talk in December of 2011, but I'm an addict, it's hard to help.

Bell Lap

I have a new season goal - two consecutive positive race weekends. And I only have one chance left here to get it right.

I had a great time racing the second-to-last NEPCX race down in Warwick on Saturday. Not the best legs, but an overall decent race that I'm feeling good about. The last race of my season is this Saturday and I am absolutely determined to make it a good one and to finish my 2011 cross season off strong.

The course in Warwick was super fun. We were right down by the water (it was COLD by the water!) on Narragansett Bay, which you can kind of see in the picture up there. The course started with a paved climb, had a bunch of woodsy rooty fast stuff, some fun sandy corners, a nice flat set of barriers, a steep little kicker climb, and a sadistic beach run, not in that order. I had a super slow first lap and couldn't hang on with the group that included most of the people I'm usually racing against, but when we got into the rooty stuff and loose corners my bike handling and the fact that I wasn't following wheels and getting bogged down helped me catch the group as it started to fragment. I caught a number of people, and was right on one girl's wheel going by the pit when someone from the LadiesFirst camp suggested that I "pass that girl now!" me: "OK". I powered around her, but then took a stupid line into a tight turn and had to scrub a ton of speed and was super over-geared coming out of it and she passed me back. I was totally gassed and the next section was pavement into a headwind so really no good way to recover and I couldn't hold her wheel. I never caught back up but I was able to rally enough to not get caught by anyone else, so I didn't feel too bad about it. In retrospect I shouldn't have passed her right before a big headwind stretch, and instead waited for some technical section that I felt strong on. That's racing.

The super rad news of the weekend is that my uber-teammate Andrea Smith won both days. On Saturday it was a fantastic team effort (of which my only contribution was the post-race high five) that culminated in her outsprinting Laura Van Gilder - no small feat. And from what I've read of Sunday's race she just outrode everyone else, including LVG.

Anyway, the only part of me that is happy that my season is ending after this Saturday is the one that cares about paying bills in a timely fashion. Otherwise I'm super psyched on racing, and would be happy to keep going for a couple more months. I'm holding off on post-season analysis and next seasons plans until we're actually in the post-season. I'm actually really excited for some 5 hour rides in the cold this winter, which I find slightly disturbing. But more on that after next weekend!

Anyway, while I didn't race on Sunday I did have a fantastic day helping Cody take down a tree for some friends up in Maine, followed by a MTB ride on some trails I'd never ridden up in Exeter, NH. It's kind of funny, but out west you'd never wake up in one state, do some work in another, and finish your day with a bike ride in a third unless you owned your own plane. Oh New England, you amuse me.

But I have all this gluten free beer left!

I made it through my two weeks with no wheat or gluten. It wasn't so bad, but I didn't feel any better or worse or different than before. I feel compelled to add that I largely avoided grains during this time. I ate oatmeal almost every day, but cooked mostly with garbanzo bean flour and ate a lot of potatoes and yams. I think I ate brown rice one or two times. So last night I made lentil and seitan "meat" balls and spaghetti for dinner. Seriously gluten heavy meal. I figured that the real litmus test would be how I would feel after re-introducing wheat to my diet. And this morning I feel . . . the same. *

Conclusion?

The obvious:
Confirmation of my initial belief that when I eat crap I feel like crap, but when I eat good food I feel good. Weird. (okay, not really). Maybe (okay, definitely) I'm blessed with an incredibly hearty digestive system, but it doesn't seem to matter if I'm eating meat, soy, wheat, or dairy, as long as it's all in moderation and with proper macronutrient balance. I'll continue to enjoy wheat products in moderation, thank you very much. I'm especially excited to discover that I don't have to give up seitan to feel good. Of course I'm not saying that anyone who avoids gluten or grains is wrong, quite the opposite. If it works for you, rad. But what this experiment has taught me is that wheat is not something towards which I have a noticable sensitivity.

The good:
Every time I eliminate something from my diet, even experimentally, I learn something about my patterns and habits and my relationship with food. I know, that sounds totally stupid, but I spend a whole lot of time every day talking to people about their relationships with food and how to improve them. They come to me to lose weight, generally believing that introducing exercise will be the solution. While it's a fantastic start, everyone struggles with the truth that losing weight is 85% diet. In the same way I can't really tell someone to do more pushups unless I can do them myself, I can't expect to be effective in talking to people about their dietary patterns and habits without having a healthy grasp on my own.

The bad:
I still have 3 gluten free beers in my fridge. I don't know why I thought I'd drink a whole 6 pack in 2 weeks while deep in cyclocross season (or really at any point, if we're being honest here). It's not bad, but it's not nearly as good as the Alagash White Ale that I also have in there . . .

*UPDATE!
I fear I may have been premature in my conclusion! As the day progressed I started feeling all bloated and yucky. It wasn't seriously uncomfortable, but it was noticable. I didn't eat anything different than what I had been the last couple weeks, except the wheat.

Crap.

But I'm still going to drink normal beer.

Two to go . . .

Day 2.

One of the best parts of racing and riding bikes is getting to travel to places that you normally wouldn't. I feel like in the last three months I've seen more of Massachusetts than a lot of people I've met around here who have lived in Gloucester their whole lives (although Gloucester is known as being a bit of a black hole - some people never really get off the island). It was the same way when I lived in Reno and travelled all over California, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah. And it's not the same old touristy places most people go on vacation - you can't put on a bike race at Disneyland, and rarely do you get a downtown crit in a big city (although it happens - SF, Boston, etc).

The weekend after Thanksgiving I went to Sterling, MA for a couple 'cross races. My races weren't super great by virtually any measure, but it was neat to see the new roads and get familiar with a new area. It seems like there are a lot of races out around there, both road, CX and MTB, so it's good to be able to say, "oh, I know where that is, it's only an hour away" rather than having to consult a map every time I want to go to a race.

Anyway, the races. I don't want to get into course description but suffice to say that they were Tom Stevens designed courses and super fun. On Saturday I got a second row call up which I utterly squandered by missing my pedal and generally sucking. Second row!!! I'd like to trade that second row call up for a race that I have great legs for, OK? Can I do that? Anyway. Like I said, kind of crappy start, kind of mediocre legs. And then I flatted. It was really, really stupid. I pinched it on something, and I thought I felt my tire going flat. There was a little set of stairs right before the pit, so at the top I stopped to feel my rear tire, which felt firm to me. So I hopped back on and just on the other side of the pit I realized that I most definitely had a flat tire. So I had to run half a lap. Half a lap is probably just over a mile. Not far by running terms, but pretty damn far when you're carrying a bike and in the middle of a race. Anyway, by the time I got straightened out I was about to be lapped, so I just rode pretty easy for the rest of the race hoping I'd have something left in the tank for Sunday.

On Saturday night I stayed with the lovely family who owns Milton CAT - our biggest sponsor. It was fantastic to stay with my teammates and get to just relax after the race, rather than driving home or staying in a hotel.

I woke up on Sunday feeling kind of crappy. Mostly just tired, I think, as I didn't sleep too well on Saturday night. The house was comfortable and great, I was just awake. Sometimes it happens, you know? Anyway, the course on Sunday was a little more technical, and super fun. I felt lousy until I really started warming up on my trainer, and then started feeling a little more lively. I had ANOTHER second row start! What the hell? I guess it was a small field and I pulled a low number in the call-up lottery for those of us who don't hold UCI points. But still! I started right next to Rebecca Wellons. That's so cool! Anyway, I didn't have great legs and made some kind of critical technical errors in the first lap, so I didn't have a particularly spectacular race. But I managed to have fun anyway, which, when it comes down to it, is the most important part.

Anyway, my does-not-meet-expectations result for the weekend was fully in keeping with my rather unfortunate patter of good weekend/bad weekend/good weekend/bad weekend. Which means! That I should have a good race this Saturday in Warwick. Right? Right?! I sure hope so. I was really hoping to have two consecutive good weekends this year, and I'll have a chance when racing my last race of the season in two weeks, Ice Weasels.

I'll be sad to have the season end - cross season feels so short when you're not carrying it into January! But I decided that since I didn't manage a UCI point this year, and I'd undoubtedly be starting near the back at nationals, to just skip it this time around. I'm heading out west in two weeks to visit family and I doubt the prospect of coming in "top 70!" at nationals is enough to keep me motivated to train through travels and the holidays.

I did have a good talk with my coach/team director about road season and the lead up to NEXT cross season, though, and I'm excited to start the 2012 planning! I've learned so much in the last couple months, and I can't wait to combine it with a whole year of good preparation.

Oh yes, and I guess I should say something about Thanksgiving. It was nice. Is that enough? No? Okay, I made two vegan gluten free pies. One was a traditional pumpkin, the other was a pumpkin cheesecake (didn't have any cream cheese, of course) with a homemade, GF graham cracker crust. I made my own gluten free graham crackers. They were amazing. Anyway, both pies were fantastic and well received by even the staunchest meat eaters in attendance. Yay!