Pulled a Fast One

Pulled a Joseba Beloki move today from the Tour De France. Rear blow out at about 35 mph. All limbs still attached, some bike & skin damage. More details to come.

There's a New Sherriff in Town Boys!

Went to coach Stan-O's house this evening to do our indoor workout on the computrainers or "CT". The "CT" is an electronic simulator for riding indoors, which will "re-create" an outdoor ride, usually only harder though, because you can't coast, you are constantly pedaling against resistance.

On the computer head of each "CT" there is a resistance button, which you can override the computer, and make the workout harder, or easier.

The Badger & Stan-O were talking about how long it would take for me this training season, to use the negative or less resistance button when the going got really tough. I said that would not happen. You see, The Turtle knows pain, and actually we have become good friends over the past 3+ years. Pain & myself had lunch together the other day, as he has not seen me lately. I mentioned that now with VQ cycling coaching, Pain & I will be seeing a lot of each other, and that is OK, although the "negative resistance" button will not be used, because that would be an insult, or a slap in Pains face. I do not insult or cause bad feelings to my dear friends, especially Pain, as he has a temper.

The Badger & Stan-O gave me a laugh, and said that I would be using the less resistance button, as the pain of the workout would be so bad, that NO man could take it. Well, I guess I am "no man" because I told them to put their money where their mouths were. After a moment of silence, The Badger said that whomever loses the bet, has to ride their bike around the block naked. Fine, I'll do that for kicks any day of the week, before & after breakfast where I eat nails, topped off with gasoline. I said let's make a real, man's bet. When Stan-O & The Badger lose, The Badger has to have his ENTIRE body waxed, including his head. As you can see from the most recent photo, he is quite hairy.

Stan-O???? Well, he puts up with enough crap from me. Just knowing he lost the bet will sent him into mental hibernation, and plead to coach me for free, for the remainder of my life, and any offspring that may occur.

I am not quite sure we "sealed the deal" as The Badger is an attorney by trade. He is probably home tonight trying to find some old case law or loophole to get out of this mess he will soon be in. Stan? He sleeps like a baby, knowing full well that The Badger will look silly after the wax job he has to take for opening his mouth.

Said it before, and I'll say it again. There's a new sheriff in town!

Pedaling Squares

Spent the last week with my cycling/coaching group, Vision Quest Coaching Service.

I was affiliated with them from 2003-2004, until I had the smackdown by a car. I am "gently" easing back into it, and of course, the week I decided to make it official, they do all of the base fitness testing, ie: Hell Week.

Tuesday was 40 minutes of lactate threshold, indoors on a stationary compu-trainer. This determines a power number in watts, that you can hold for a specific period of time. Thursday was VO2 max. testing. How hard can you go, all out for 4 minutes on a compu-trainer, and see what that wattage number is as well. This is followed by 2 maximum sprint efforts for 10 seconds each, to see what the maximum amount of power you can put out.

All was well, until yesterday. This was the last of the testing. 4 hours of pain. Ride for 4 hours, to determine what amount of power you can put out, average over a 4 hour period. This translates into about 75 miles worth of riding, outdoors. For some reason, it was about 92 degrees outside in the last hour and a half, and it was miserable. I have not ridden over 60 miles at one time since before my accident, so 75 miles in the heat, wind etc. was brutal. Heck, they even cancelled the Chicago Marathon because of the heat, and it was a couple of degrees cooler up there!













Here's Coach Stan-O-Leenie giving pre-ride instructions to the group.

Classic shot of Ethan, aka "The Young One"

Here's the group, pre ride: The Young One, Little Mikey, Coach Stan-O, Rob, Steve Evans aka: The Judge, Dr. Reid, The Badger & Myself, The Turtle









Here's the aftermath, over 4 hours of riding later. We all joked, told lies about how we could have gone harder if we wanted to blah, blah, blah.

It was a great day for all of us. I would not want to do it again anytime soon, as when the 3 hour mark hit, I fell apart. Not imploded, but pretty close. I guess you could say that I was pedaling squares the last hour or so.