Month: June 2008

My coach, Gilad Gozlan, is putting together a cat 1/2 team that will compete in NRC races next year. If you want to join the team, give his bike shop a call at 541-686-2994 (Life Cycle Bike Shop), or email him or I. His email is gilad@lifecyclebikeshop.com. Mine is kennettp@comcast.net.

We are also looking for a team manager. The position will have compensation, assuming enough sponsors are found. Contact Gilad if you are interested in this position.

The team is also looking for more cat 5, 4, and 3 racers.

I didn’t get very many pictures of the weekend, and none of them involved bikes, but here they are.

Our carbs, arranged in glycemic index order.

Here’s Mike and Will playing a game of chess.  I beat both of them later on in the weekend.  Yeah that’s right Will.

Tony got beat up by his younger brother the day before the race.

Will got heat exhaustion or some stomach virus that caused him to vomit for hours and hours after the first stage.

He ate a lot of something red.

Orion and David doing something.

Will throwing up again later that evening.

I met Mike at Life Cycle at 11:45 this morning for a ride. We planned on doing an easy 130 miles up the mountain on row river road again, this time with the hope that the single lane road would be clear of snow and trees. We didn’t have the chance to find out though, because I felt like crap. We got about 2 miles to the place we reached a few weeks ago, stopped and dunked our heads in the river, and headed back down.

I’ve been riding the last four days, but just easy. Yesterday I rode 3.5 hours and began to bonk (my first bonk of the year). My lungs were still a bit phlegmy and I had very little energy during the ride, just like today. Mike ended up pulling me through the headwind most of the way back home to Eugene today after we turned back down the mountain. I’m hoping that by next week I’ll be feeling like usual. I’ll leave you with a little story about our ride:

During one of our stops at the Row River Road convenient store (east of cottage grove out in the boonies), Mike and I had a little cultural experience that left us both slightly disturbed. We were standing outside the convenient store sipping our first gallon of Squirt for the day and eating popsicles, when we noticed a bit of commotion coming out of the front of the store. A very rambunctious and raggedy-looking women in her 40’s came bursting through the door, laughing and yelling obscenities at her friend. Her toothless upper jaw and jagged lower front teeth gleaming in the searing sun. Actually they weren’t gleaming, they were yellow and brown. But anyways, she stumbled past us and threw a package of hamburger meat at a parked car. The meat hit the windshield and the woman burst into more crazy person laughter. The guy she was with just shook his head as they both made their way to the rusty car she had thrown the meat at–which was their car. As she walked past Mike and I, she commented about us being too uptight. Before we had time to say anything, she said, in a drunken drugged-out drawl, that our “muscly legs were making her wet.” She climbed into the back seat of the old beater, laughing and yelling like a mad-woman. Her friend got in the driver’s seat after retrieving the meat from the windshield and they drove off as Mike and I stared, jaws slightly dropped. Mike put the experience in perspective a few minutes later, shedding light on the good side of what just happened. “Well if we can’t turn on a berserk hill billy meth addict, then there’s not much hope for us at all.” Point taken Mike. Point well taken.

Well I have now been sick for the majority of June.  After getting better from my first cold 3 weeks ago, I had one week of healthy riding.  Then I got sick again, possibly a relapse from my previous cold.  It has been a week and a half now since I got sick a second time and I am still hacking up stuff every day.  I’m riding easy every day, but it will still take a while for me to be back at it like usual.  I am really sick and tired of being sick.  Here’s a little hycoo for you to explain what I am feeling.  Note: I don’t exactly know what a hycoo is or how to spell it, but it sounds cooler than a regular poem.

 

Waking in the morning I hack up a glob of green in a tissue
I shake my head in disbelief at this pressing issue
The days of mucus have been with me for what feels like years
I can’t stand the aching pressure in my nose and ears
The sun is shining through my window
The Cervelo sits in its corner, yearning to taste the warm asphalt and feel the breeze
My legs scream to go outside, their hard-earned tan-lines fading away
Why won’t my lungs allow me to go play?
While the daylight burns and the summer mornings turn to afternoon, evening, then night,
I sit inside feeling not alright
My teammates are winning races
I wheeze and cough from tying my laces
All I can do is ride real slow
Attempting not to cough while I go
My heart is shrinking
Vo2 fading
Quads quitting
Veins constricting, becoming tighter
I might as well be a mountain biker
I’m drowning in a sea of snot
My body and brain are beginning to rot
Let me just ride my bike and once again feel the pain
I can’t take much more of this before going insane
Being sick is no fun
Especially when there is so much sun

 

This weekend didn’t go quite as I had planned.  I woke up last Tuesday feeling very sick.  Sore throat, achy body, stuffed up nose, and feeling very tired.  I slept all day, hoping that it was either allergies or just mild cold that would go away quickly.  I was still feeling like crap the next morning, Wednesday, when Mike and Will and I were to drive out to Baker.  There was no way I would be better to race by the weekend.  But Mike needed me to at least drive him up to Portland so that Will could drive them both over to Baker (Mike doesn’t have a drivers license and we were meeting Will in Portland at his parent’s house).  So I decided I would drive up to Portland and stay at my parents house, while Mike and Will continued on to the race.  

I arrived at Mike’s house in Karey’s car with half of my biking gear.  In my delerious state of mind, I had packed my bike and half my race gear, but had left items like my helmet, trainer, TT bike, and most of my clothes.  I was hoping Mike would convince me to go anyways.  He did.  He said it was probably just allergies because no one gets sick in June…twice.  It didn’t take much to convince me, and we went back to my house to get the rest of my gear.  

That night the car began stalling out 100 meters before we got to Tony’s cabin in Baker City.  We hadn’t gotten gas since Tualatin.  The car started up again and it limped the last few feet of the dirt road up to the A frame cabin.  We had a bit of a party out there this weekend: myself, Tony, Will, Mike, Orion, David Kuhns, and Quinn Keogh.  

The next day we went on a pre race ride (my first ride since Sunday).  Will and Mike both crashed coming down the dirt road, which put a smile on my face (they were going slow).  But after that I was all frowns, realizing that racing the next day was out of the question.  I turned back after 20 minutes and went back to the cabin to sleep.  

I spent the next day sleeping and reading a great book called Cougar Camp–found at the cabin.  If you ever have the chance to meet the author of this book (JR Stoddard), please kick him in the groin for writing such a piece of crap book.  

Staying at the cabin was much better than being sick at home.  The view was great and I had a good time, but it was amazingly frustrating being out there and not being able to race.

The best result from the cabin’s crew this weekend was Will, yesterday, who won the cat 3 stage of Mt. Dooley.  This was his first cat 3 race.  

Three weeks until Belgium!

Saturday: I graduated in the morning and drove up to Portland with my parents in the afternoon.  

I didn’t quite have it in me this weekend to produce any good results.  But both races were a lot of fun and were great training.  The Cirque crit was awesome.  The crowd was huge.  I’d estimate it at a couple thousand people.  They lined the whole route, which was made up of two squares, joined together with a straight section of road, which was separated at the yellow line by cones.  I wasn’t able to spend very much time at the front, and I ended up taking 22nd place, but it was very exciting.  

The next day I raced Mt. Tabor.  It was 30 laps of pain.  I spent the first 5 laps sitting 2nd wheel and bridging gaps, hoping to make the break.  I faded to the rear and right afterwards the break got away.  I tried to help bring it back, but help was slim.  After it was obvious that we weren’t going to catch it, I just did as much work on the front of pack as possible.  After pulling the entire last 1.5 laps, I finished mid pack at 17th.  

Yesterday was a day of pain.  Right now, after 11 hours of sleep, my whole body feels tired and my legs are dead.  Great success!!

Tuesday started off with a morning ride with Tony and Mike.  We met at 10 at the shop, ready for some serious burnination.  The first part of the workout was 1’2’3′ 24mph intervals at the crit course.  Cadence at about 120.  We completed four of those for a total of 12 intervals.  And man was it windy there.  

After the 24mph intervals, we headed back in town for some more pain: Nectar Way.  But this was no ordinary Nectar Way day.  It included another hill as well.  Right at the bottom of Nectar lies a hill called Garmet.  The two hills converge at the bottom to form a U shape.  Our intervals consisted of going all out up Garmet, turning around and riding down and then going all up Nectar.  That counted as 1 interval.  We did 10.  

So that was the morning workout.  Roughly 3 hours.  I went home and ate and laid around until 4:30.  Time for more pain.

My next ride was an easy 2 hours with some quick sprints, but I never got a chance to do the sprints because right at the back side of Welder’s hill, I found out that my top 3 gears wouldn’t work.  So I hammered it back to Life Cycle before they closed at 6.  I got there a little after 6 and Gilad fixed my shifting, then it was off to the Tuesday night crit.  By now, I was sufficiently blown up.  I had that tired feeling that sits in the bottom of your stomach, asking for food and rest.  I got to the crit course and couldn’t stop shivering in the cold, gloomy June afternoon.  While waiting for my race and chatting with Quinn and Sam, I had one leg down on the pavement and one still clipped into my pedal.  The one clipped into my pedal shook with fatigue.  That’s usually supposed to happen after a race, not before.  I warmed up a bit more and the crit began at 7:15.  I had been on the bike for 5 hours by now.  

I spent the first half of the crit bridging up to break-aways and pulling on the front.  But I realized that if I kept it up, I would eventually be dropped.  I told myself I would only pull at the front, no more bridging–which is more risky.  Galen from Midtown broke away and after 20 seconds while no one made any effort to bring it back, I got on the front and began pulling.  Half a minute later I looked behind and saw that no one was on my wheel.  Crap.  I caught up to Galen and I took one pull with him, then we were caught.  I was tired, and the pack was going fast and I wanted a spot in the line NOW, so I just merged like a one-eyed driver, hoping the person behind me would see me and get out of the way.  He did.  

After this happened, I got on the front again fairly quickly for some stupid reason, and pulled.  I can’t really remember what happened, but basically the next 3 laps were pure hell.  The field split up as a bunch of breaks went away and some people on the front put some serious hurt on.  I sat behind Nick’s wheel, trying to  make myself as small as possible.  My legs felt like someone was holding them on a burning skillet.  Just when I thought the pain would be over and we would slow down, I would have to sprint again.  After this incident, I just sat behind Nick for the last 10 laps.  I had a weak sprint for 9th and rode home on the bike path with Quinn and Chris.  6.5 hours of intervals, hills, and crit.  And I have a sprint workout today.  Belgium, here I come.

-Kennett the sore mofo Peterson

Yesterday was my first ride.  I did the CSC ride with a couple LC guys and about 15 others.  The pace wasn’t too hard, and I did a fair amount of work.  But I was definitely not feeling 100%.  I didn’t cough too much and the weather was great, so I have no complaints.  I can tell that I’m starting to come out of my zombie phase (the onset of zombie phase comes due to a lack of riding).  

Do you suffer from poor nights of sleep, restless leg syndrome, boredom, a lack of appetite, bowl movements only once a day, and a general feeling of uselessness?  If so, you may have ZP (zombie phase).  People suffering from ZP lose the desire to do anything productive during the day, and often sit around for hours watching The Office reruns on the Internet.  ZP sufferers sleep in until 1:00 in the afternoon, dreaming of bike racing and doing things outside in the sun.  People with ZP have a fear of losing their tan lines, as well as VO2 points.  But there’s hope.  

New, ground-breaking research has concluded that Bike Riding decreases outbreaks of ZP.  It’s still possible to spread ZP to your riding partner and Bike Riding will not cure ZP for good.  Relapses may occur.  Talk to your doctor about whether Bike Riding is right for you.  

Possible side effects of Bike Riding include, but are not limited to, large quads, skinny arms, cool scars, loss of finances due to equipment purchases, loss of interests in everything other than Bike Riding, obsession, veiny calves, and saddle sores.  

If you suffer from ZP and you’d like to start living your life again, Bike Riding may be for you.  

 

I rode with Lisa and Gilad this morning, working on sprinting and climbing technique.  This is the third time we’ve practiced this and I still suck.  Gilad can out-sprint me.  Something must be done.  Monday workout is tonight.  I’m excited.  It feels great to finally be oot and aboot!!!  

G damn it I’m still sick.  I can’t stand much more of this sitting around at home, waiting to get better.  I have done almost nothing since last Saturday.  My days have consisted of 12 hours a sleep per night, waking up, eating all day, screwing around on the internet, skipping class, and going back to sleep.  I tried to sneak a ride in yesterday but got caught.  My roommate left for the weekend for a triathlon and took his floor pump.  So I had to go to the shop to pump up my tires.  I attempted to sneak in and inflate my tires without being noticed, but failed.  Gilad saw me, right as I started to cough, and yelled at me to go home.  This cold is driving me insane.  The only good thing about this week is that I finished college, but it has been a very anticlimactic end.  I could sure use a good dose of Nectar Way to celebrate.

 

Oh, and while I’m already being a stick in the mud, I’d just like to say that I don’t care that the weather is crappy.  I’m actually glad.  I don’t want to be stuck inside while everyone else is getting to ride outside in the sun.  So screw you guys.  HAHAHAHAH.  I’m going to keep on wishing for bad weather until I can ride again.  

Bah humbug,

-Kennett 

It’s been three full days of recovery now (no biking) and I still keep waking up in the middle of the night in coughing fits.  I’m thinking that this will be my last day of sickness and that I’ll be back to training by Thursday.  I can’t take much more of this sitting around!!!  But to take a look on the bright side, I have been very healthy this year so far.  I have kept a training log over the past 2 and a half years that keeps track of every workout that I have done, plus hours per week, how I felt, sick days, etc.  Last year, I was sick for a total of 13 weeks (that’s starting and ending in August–which is when I first started the training log).  The year before that, I was also sick for 13 weeks.  This year, I have only been sick for 2.5 weeks total.  Not too bad.  I attribute it to a better diet (which includes a lot more fat), more sleep and better recovery, and living with fewer roommates.