Longest 25 mile ride ever...

Last set of SMSP intervals today. I went to the biggest hill in the area and went up and down a dozen times. It was a nice day down at Port Jeff, everyone was outside shopping while I suffered. This sez I was hitting 500 watts during each interval, take it at what you will. Now its time to rest up!

Wheels

What did you do this weekend? I built some wheels, and they're good. This is my first try building some higher end wheels, usually its just assembling and tensioning the cheaper, easier stuff. Lets hope they hold together well.

Hubs: Real Designs OEM
Rims: IRD Cadence Aero Nio30
Spokes: Sapim CX- Ray 20/24

Built up around 1435g. I just FEEL faster on them! :p

Nothing to report...

Meghan and Evan came to visit on Friday. They're moving to the city soon, so they were in town checking it out. We showed them campus and had lunch at Pita Z. True to its name, greek food was available and Tboughts had a pita overflowing with goodness.




After some intervals, it was off to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I really enjoyed it, the movie has more honest beauty than anything I've seen in a long time.

Not much to say about biking lately. SMSP intervals are going really well, but its all basically the same: Get on bike, push really big gear, rest a while, push big gear again, repeat. I can't wait to race next month. The weather is getting really nice and its tempting to go hit up some group rides.

More Intervals.

This month is SMSP intervals. Short and hard. They're set up in blocks to really wear you down, so by the last interval on the last day it feels like you'll never move your legs again.

I always like SMSP's because the volume is way low. They're super easy to fit into my schedule and since most of them are on the trainer, I don't waste time finding a good road to ride on.

Lately I've been sleeping a lot. It seems like 8-9 hours a night and I'm still tired. I know its just cuz I'm working hard in the hectic grad student life, but a little bit of me is always worried that I've got some strange disease that goes undiagnosed like Tristan Schouten, Jason McCartney or Gunn Rita Dahle. In the end I know I'm fine, though, since I probably worry more about my health than anyone my age (Tboughts sez I'm a hypochondriac).

Wow

I guess its spring

N E R D

Lately there have been a few new shows about the lives of high end science geeks(Chuck, The Big Bang Theory, Numb3rs, etc). As someone involved in the scientific community who is a little 'nerdy', I have a particular interest in these shows. As it turns out they all follow the same premise: A main character (or characters) finds themself in a unique situation due to being a highly intelligent person, but the drama is the same that every 'normal' person experiences every day.

Not that I'm really surprised, but I'm still a little disappointed in these shows. I would hope that someone would want to write a show about smart people that wasn't targeting the lowest common denominator. People in academia lead pretty interesting lives and I think you could make a pretty interesting show out of it. Maybe you'd alienate quite a few people, but I would guess there are quite a few people who have the backround in first year calculus, physics, chemistry and biology who would really enjoy a smart, scientific show. Seems like a job for David Cohen and HBO (or maybe theres already a show like this I haven't discovered?).

Racin'

I did the cat 3/4 race of the NYC Spring Series. Tboughts decided to truck out to Floyd Bennett Field bright and early with me, I'm not sure why, I guess she's a little masochistic. The course was this big, flat, 2.3 mile loop at an old airfield. The wind was whipping off the ocean which created a little more strategy. My plan was to stay out of trouble and test my fitness, like I said yesterday.

I followed my same old strategy: fight for a clean wheel until the race sorts out, sit at the back until race is starting to wind down and move to the front in order to make a winning move. (As a side note, back in MN the wheat would separate from the chafe when hammering into a strong crosswind or something, here its when someone eats it in front of you at 25 mph and you need to drill it back to the leaders. Scary.) I felt really good the whole race, I could follow the moves and jump off the front whenever I wanted. I didn't always make the smart move, but that comes with the beginning of any season.  It makes me excited for more racing in May.

In the end, a break got away with 4ish laps to go and it stuck.  My new teammate Owen got in it and managed to get second.  On the last lap I spent a little to much time in the wind and sprinted for 15th or something.  The result wasn't as good as I felt, but it was a great day nonetheless.  Despite the good time, I'm not sure if its worth $10 gas, $30 race fees and a 4 am wake up call this early in the year, so I'll prolly lay off any more races for the next month.  

mountain biking

Today, Tboughts and I checked out a trail just down the road from school. It was good to go mountain biking again, just the second time this season for me. It was a fun, twisty trail tucked away in a really busy part of town, so we both thought it was a good find. I was in the mood to take it mellow, but Tboughts was feeling feisty so I put my nose to my handlebar and tried to keep up with her. A couple hours later we were home and its time to watch the Final Four. Sorry I couldn't get a better pic, but the trail kept turning back and forth and Tboughts refused to stop, so this was the best I could do.

Tomorrow is the first race of the year for me. Its a 7am (!) race, so I have to get up at 4(!!!) to get to Brooklyn on time. On the bright side I won't waste any of the day, since I'd normally sleep in til 9. The main goals of the race are to stay upright and spend a little time at or off the front testing out my legs.

IRL + CART

the IRL and CART have reunified after 12 years (has it already been that long?!) of feuding. Of course its taken a couple of bankruptcy's to bring them together and neither one is at all relevant in the racing scene anymore. The one positive of this whole affair is Driven, possibly the greatest movie of the last twenty years.....