Ski Jumping

Despite what reading the blog may have you believe, cycling is definitely not the only sport in my life. My love affairs have included soccer, running, hockey, bandy, skiing and ski jumping. Ski jumping was probably what I took most seriously in high school. Every winter, all winter, I'd spend my tuesdays, thursdays, saturdays and sometimes wednesdays, fridays and sundays at Bloomington or St. Paul, throwing myself into the air over and over.

Despite what I looks like, ski jumping is a much closer relative of golf than bungee jumping. It require a great deal of muscle control, coordination and mental calmness. Sitting on the bar, taking your third jump in competition is a lot like teeing off on the 18th hole; if your head isn't in the right place, it doesn't matter how much courage you have.

Over the years, I got pretty decent at jumping. I never won anything big or even made it to JO's, but I got to the point where I was going off the big jumps with the big boys. My biggest problem became I had too much energy and too little focus. I'd be the kid running to the top of the jump over and over the day of competition, wearing myself out before it really mattered, as coach Keuler just shook his head at me. I think with a little more focus on technique and strategy and I little less concern for repetition, I would have done better.

I think that's why I doing better in cycling. First of all, the person with the most energy to go out and ride over and over is always in a better position. Its hard to reach the point where riding more will hurt you. Second, I'd learned to take a step back and use better strategy. I'm trying to make the most of my time and definitely not putting in killer rides the day before a race.

I mapped out the Trevor Ride, which is where I go to have my ass kicked every Sunday morning.

Snow!

I felt like I was back in SD this week. Big fluffy snow flakes falling from the sky.




Is that guy holding an umbrella in the snow?


No biking in the snow, thats for sure. Spent some good quality time on the trainer.



In other news, my insulin usage has been way down. I figured I would need more insulin as carbed it up during training, but its actually been down. I've gone from 55-60 units a day down to the mid 40's. I'm not sure exactly why it is, but its just one of the many cool things about the new pump.

Today there was a wicked wind coming out of the west. Every time I was going east, I'd throw it in the 11t and crank things up to 30 or 35, then just ride the wind as long as my legs would hold out, like a sailboat out on the water. It was tons of fun, but now my legs are tired.

Competition

Every year, theres someone I'm competing against who sticks out in my mind. Three years ago, it was Some Guy on an old Schwinn Homegrown. He obviously couldn't ride single track well, but he would pull away from me on every climb and, because of it, Guy beat me every time we raced together.

Two year ago, it was Eppen, putting it in a higher gear and motoring past everyone in the race like it was no big deal. To a lesser extent it was ED who would, at the drop of a hat, gap us all on any training ride.

Last year it was Woell, who pulled away from the peleton with ease in just about any race. Every time he would go, it would be all I could do just to hang onto a wheel in the chase group and I was just amazed by his speed.

I wonder who it will be this year?




In other news, I don't get VS from my cable provider, so I won't be watching any of the Tour of California. Are you?

Mountain biking

Flying through the trails with Tboughts.....


Trails are fun!

I'm getting a new phone pretty soon with a kick ass camera, so hopefully there will be some better pictures soon.

Today wraps up an impromptu rest weekend. I'd been riding pretty heavily the last couples weeks and a few things combined to give me a few days off.

1) My dang shifter broke! I ebayed a new one and its on its way, but its hard to ride when you can't shift gears.

2) It got cold for the first time. Not negative-40-international-falls cold, but cold enough that it was too cold to ride at the beginning of this week.

3) I just got a little tired of riding, so few days off didn't hurt.

So I took off friday and saturday, had a nice easy ride with Tboughts on sunday, monday off again and on tuesday I'll cut the ride back a little.

Riding the bonk

For the second Sunday in a row.