Great ride

today. Perfect weather and a good day for a longer endurance ride. We finished the ride today with 58 miles in 2:50. We all took good pulls and felt good the whole ride. I sure do wish we could have raced in Greenford yesterday though, sounds like a bunch of good races, congratulations to you all and Nice job on the win's Rudy and Ray!

We seem to have a visitor that keeps hanging around the house lately, I think that's why I haven't seen any chipmunks too. We had a couple that were living under our shed in the back and now I don't see em' anymore, I think this guy' the reason why. When he isn't chasing chipmunks around he likes baked ham and American cheese slices, no milk though, strange! If he keeps hangin' out over here we'll have to come up with some sort of a name for him.

A couple

of CX pics from today. Tony and I rode easy today at the YMCA. Rode for about an hour just doing some dismounts and technical stuff, not much power stuff at all.
Good Luck to all racing at Greenford tomorrow, I will be at work all day tomorrow thank you very much!

CX practice

yesterday, Westlake Tuesday and a 40 mile training ride today. The legs have been feeling pretty good lately. Tuesday at Westlake Tony and I did not make the break but we rode strongly in the field and mixed it up early and throughout. A break of 6 got away into the wind and Rudy was one of them. Rudy ended up 4th. With 2 to go in the 32 mile race Tony and Jim Gilmore jumped away and held it to the end with Tony nabbing the sprint for 7th overall. I felt good in the field sprint and wound it up pretty nice and hit 35.2 mph crossing the line.

Wednesday was a CX practice day at the Perry Outdoor YMCA. What a great place to practice, I sure wish that they would allow us to hold a race there, it would be ONE of the best venues in the state and I'm sure of that! We have tried unsucessfully over that past 3 years to land a race there but it's just not happening. Maybe one year.

Today Jim Behrens and I did a 40 miler. Very good ride today with a few hills, and Jim rode very strong, probably the strongest I have see him ride in a long time, he must be out there doing that secret training plan that Neil Shirley has him on ;-)
As you can see from the picture Jim is very modest and doesn't really like to have his picture taken. After I took the picture and put the camera back in my jersey pocket, he rode up beside me and stole it out and pretended like he was going to throw it into the other lane,(no traffic coming though) I told him if you do throw it I'll never pull your butt around on another training ride again! (wink wink) He gladly handed it back to me. Jim's going to Greenville this weekend for a National Pro race where he will ride in the Jittery Joe's Team car. Have a good one bud!

We've signed up already for the UCI CX race in Detroit and Harbin Park in Cincy. Cross is right around the corner.

Jeff McNaught designed and had these kick a$$ Bike Authority Cross decals made up for the 10th. year anniversary. Jeff designed and drew up a cyclocross print that is going to be put on long sleeve t's as well, that is still in the working stage right now though, but will be finished very soon. Nice work Jeff.

Oh yea

V.C.R.R.

Snake Bite did a great job organizing this race the whole way through, nice job to all the volunteers and staff, Thank You!

Tony raced in the I,II,III race and said it was pure suffering. He said that it was the hardest road race he ever did. His legs started to cramp towards the end and he said the last lap was really lit up. After the race he collapsed in the van and just laid there for quite a while to recover. Nice job hanging in there though, he never lost contact with the group.

I raced the 35-44 group and was the old man in the group at 44. Tris and Eric Lesko went very early on the first lap and were never seen again til the finish. Our group was pretty spirited though with many attacks and chases. I was in many of them myself with Chris out front quite a bit as well. All was going pretty decent until the first climb on the last lap after the sharp right hander on the last set of rollers, when the inside of my left quad cramped pretty bad. We crested the climb and I almost let the group get away from me trying to work out the cramp. The group started down the downhill and I caught back on on the flat and was okay up the next hill. Once we hit the parking lot of the school I cramped again. Down the hill and around the sharp right and through the chicane and I felt fine again. I'm sitting in the middle of the group, thinking if I can just get to the top of the final climb I'll be allright, I'll sprint it out for a field sprint. Up the final climb and everyone is going so hard, I jumped out of the saddle and the inside of my leg knotted up so tight I got to the top and had to just spin the rest of the way in! I still managed to finish in the field with the same time as the field sprint. I hydrated well during the race and took 2 gels, I don't know what the problem was and my leg is still sore as I'm sitting here writing this. 48 miles, very hot, windy and humid conditions, felt good the whole race until the last couple of miles! Like we say about all the Cleveland sports teams, "There's always next year"

Nice racing with everyone in the 35-44 group. Congratulations to you Phil for a nice move at the end to nab 3rd.

Later.

Valley City

tomorrow. I feel cooked too, hopefully I'll have some legs for the Masters 35+ race. It's supposed to be one of the hottest days of the year too, Nice! but I say that in a sarcastic kind of way...... Probably the last road race of the season for me. Maybe a couple more Westlake's, I don't know. The Spin weekly cross series will be starting up and we're gearing for cross anyway so maybe we'll just concentrate on that. There's plenty of cross racing to do in the next 4 months that's for sure and we're definately looking forward to it!

We do have 1 more triathlon though which is Presque Isle on Sept. 6th. That's a good race and always a nice venue. We ended up doing 6 multi-sport races this summer. Every one that was on our race calendar we were able to do and that doesn't usually happen here for a multitude of reasons. It came together this year though and turned out to be a good season with some pretty decent results.

Good luck to everyone racing tomorrow at Valley City.

See ya tomorrow.

Pretty quiet

lately. Not much to post. We're getting ready for Valley City. Tony's racing the I,II,III race and I'm doing the Masters race since it's the Ohio Masters Championships. Had a couple hard workouts the last 2 nights to prepare so we'll see how it goes.

Olympic track and field and triathlon has been exciting. Usain Bolt from Jamaica, I've never seen a person run like that in my life, and did anyone see the mens 10,000 meter (10k) race? amazing! I know that Michael Phelps guy is pretty good too :-)

Actually I'm going to watch right now.

Later all

Lotsa climbing

today. Tony and I went out this afternoon to do a hilly training ride around Chardon and Kirtland Hills. We got 60 miles in and just a notch under 2,000' of climbing, not bad at all for around here. We hit all the big climbs and some even twice. We are making the trip down to Zanesfield, yup Zanesfield, not Zanesville like I thought, on Friday and Tony is racing in the Junior State RR on Saturday. His race (17-18) is 61 miles and it's not what you would call flat down there so we thought we would do some climbing enough in advance to where his legs won't be trashed for Saturday.

On another note, Tony passed his compass tests which qualifies him to start Lakeland Community College this year while still in High School. He is only a Junior this year but this allows him to get most of the pre-requisite classes out of the way at the High School's expense. He will be going to Lakeland his Junior and Senior year. Nick will take them next year too as long as he passes the test's. He should, he get's much better grades than Tony does!

Later.

GCT

Or should I say Greater Cleveland Duathlon. The wind at 5:30 this morning was strong enough out of the Northwest that the Fairport Coast Guard called off the swim portion of today's race, Bummer! Instead of the swim, the race director had all groups start off with a 1.2 mile out and back run to split things up, the rest of the race was normal.

The 1st. 1.2 mile run was done faster than ever. Tony ran a 5:00 and mine was a 5:40. I was about 4th. into T-1 for my International Distance race and headed out on the bike and this time the legs were responding. I had a strong bike despite the wind and came back into transition in 1st. overall. I held 1st. until the halfway point of the 6.2 mile run(the run was more like 6.4) when 2 runners passed me. I tried matching their pace but that sent the heart rate into tachycardia and it didn't need to be any higher than it already was. I managed to hold on to place 3rd. overall for another podium spot in the last 2 races.

Tony was 3rd. into T-1 after the fast first 1.2 mile run, off on the bike and was soon in 1st. overall in the Sprint Distance race. T-2 was fast and on to the run. He ran fast and held on to 1st. to WIN OVERALL. Tony's 1st. overall triathlon win! He was even interviewed by the Plain Dealer after the race.

After the race we were all sitting around and under the food tent they put out a large box of popcicles. Just to keep him honest, I said "hey Tony, go get me a couple popcicles", you know, just to see if he would still do it, now that he won. He said "sure, what flavors do you want?" Then Nick said "hey Tony, go get me a couple too" Tony's reply.......Go get your own Nick!
Nice! I still have clout...

A couple pics. You could never guess how EXCITED Tony was by looking at this picture.

Good Day.

Easy week

We've been tapering down for the Greater Cleveland Tri this weekend at Mentor Headlands. We took a day off this week with the other days just being short and about 65-75% intensity, no volume at all, hopefully it will come together this Sunday and we can have another good race like Lighthouse. This race is a little longer for me. I'm doing the Olympic distance which is a .75 mile swim, 24 mile bike and a 6.2 mile run. Tony is sticking with the Sprint distance which is a .50 mile swim, 14 mile bike and a 3.1 mile run. Each race venue is slightly different in length in each of the distances, it all depends on the area that the promoter has to work with.

The Olympic bike course in this race is pretty hilly. It goes into Kirtland Hills and basically is all uphill until past the halfway point. I know the route well because it is one that Tony and I ride quite a bit in training. The run has a few rollers in it too, nothing real big but big enough to drain some strength out of your legs. The Sprint race is very flat and fast, Tony should have a very good race pending he is feeling good, he could be looking at an overall top finishing spot.

Mickey Ryzmek does a great job promoting this race with the training day's months in advance leading up to this race. Bike Authority (Sherman McKee) is the sponsor of the bike support for the training days and day of support along with raffling off a bike at the race.
I have been doing the bike support for Bike Authority for 4 years now at the training days and look forward to it each year, I hope it continues.

Everyone racing the Milk Race in Orrville this weekend, have a good race!

See ya.

Weekend Recap

Friday evening I wound up at Mentor Headlands for an open water swim. Wanted to do a swim and bike but I just didn't have the time earlier so it was just a swim LATER in the evening. Swim went well. I ended up swimming for 45 minutes straight, twice the time and distance that I'll be doing next week in the Olympic race at Greater Cleveland.

Saturday Tony and I went out on the road bikes and our intention was to do most of the major climbs around here. We rode out into Kirtland Hills and climbed the hills on the way out. Got to Baldwin and climbed Booth to Kirtland Chardon and up to the Arburetum. Took Sperry to Mitchells Mills to Mentor. Screamed down Mentor until the up part started and climbed pretty strong all the way to the part where we went down again. Rode back Pinecrest, Hermatige to Girdled and climbed Girdled up past Big Creek and out to Kniffen. Rode the downhill section of the Leroy TT course to Taylor and headed North to Blair and home. Got 51 miles in, in 2:48 with 1,500' of climbing. Good ride and we felt strong.

Sunday morning we headed out on the TT bikes to get an Olympic distance transition workout in. As we were heading out on our main course we saw Karen, Eddie and Juan. We stopped to talk for a few minutes and found out they were heading back West after a 70 mile bike and then they were going to get in a 9 mile run. Ironman workouts sure are tough!

Tony and I got the 27 mile bike in, in 1:15:30 and felt REALLY good. Didn't kill ourselves but just rode a nice constant pace and then did a quick transition and it was off on the run course. The reason for the hilly bike on Saturday was to run today on somewhat fatigued legs. Tony is doing the Sprint distance race next weekend at the GCT so he ran slightly longer than 5k. I tried to convince him that running 6 miles with me was going to make him stronger for next week, but it didn't work, he said that the hilly bike we did yesterday served it's purpose. As we split off from each other I called him a sissy. He responded back with something, but I didn't hear what he said, probably for the best. I did my 6 mile run and it was starting to get pretty warm out there. I finished the transition run in 43 minutes flat and tried to keep my hr in zone 3-4 along the way, but when it gets hot, my heart rate really starts to creep up, so I just backed it down and saved myself. Good work today.

Good weekend of training and the weather was beautiful and everything went well.
Hope all went well for those that raced the Zoar Road Race today. I know some from the team made the trip down today. Hope everything was good for those that raced in the Cleveland Triathlon in downtown Cleveland today too.

Next up, Olympic distance race at the Greater Cleveland Triathon on Sunday.

Ciao