stubborness only gets you so far

and cirrem served up a healthy dose of humble pie. and somehow in the process of learning this lesson for the umpteenth time i lost 5 teeth. i've known for a long time that the gear i've been trying to push on my fisty is extremely tall. my rationale all the way along has been that i don't want to be spun out in the flats. i've been pushing this gear for a year and a half and two of the worst condition days i've had have been last years transiowa and this years cirrem. lesson learned. when the conditions get too windy or too wet i am simply forcing too much lactic acid into my legs by trying to push that gear. i've known this for some time but i've been too stubborn to change it. not really sure why....felt like i was letting myself off easy by not sticking to my original plan of how i wanted to finish transiowa. whatever. so i'm no longer running 42x16. i've dropped 5 teeth on the chainring and am currently testing out a 37x16 setup. conditions are supposed to be rainy and cold tomorrow so i think i'm gonna try to push it to rochester. should be a stiff tailwind mixed with soft gravels which should give a good idea of how i like the gearing in less than favorable conditions. i've done this ride before and been anywhere from 85-100 miles depending on the exact route and how many turns i miss. scott was there for the 100 miler and we sucked at following directions that day. guessing a 6-7 hour ride ending at the saturn dealership to pick up the vue with a new transmission, which somehow ended up being replaced under an extended warranty that i didn't even know existed. so the ride will most likely end up cold and wet and followed by some pretty interesting looks from the fine folks at the dealership. from there i plan to murder some chipotle. best. restaurant. ever. this will probably be one of my last real long rides for a while as i'll be tapering for ouachita and then racing too much in april to put on big miles which will effectively turn april into one fairly long taper leading into transiowa the first weekend of may.

re-evaluating the weekend

in light of the repair estimate on the vue that took a dump on my way down to cirrem, i'm attempting to change the way i look at the weekend. here's what i've come up with so far...

-i purchased a $6000 sculpture from squirrel, however he gets no part of that money (sorry man)

-i bought a pair of $6000 oakleys rather than accepting them as schwag for winning the fixed gear category

-i was fined $6000 for poor taste in facial hair

-my cirrem registration, although posted as a free will donation, actually came out to $100 per mile

yeah, none of this is really helping the fact that they want six grand to replace my f-ing transmission. this is worse that triple d ruining my cell phone the first year. even to get a used one put in there would be over four thousand after labor. so i'm now on a mission to find a rockin' ass minivan to haul me and my bikes around the country. i'm excited about that part but not the thousands i've lost in trade-in value. so it is.

more thoughts on cirrem...first, photos here. there's a couple pics in there that start to capture the misery that the sky dropped on us. second, thanks again to kent and jed for throwing this little party. do it again...i'll most likely be back. i was absolutely impressed by the difficulty of the course given its central iowa location and my northeastern iowa bias. third, congrats again to anyone who threw down whether you finished or not. you could have been sitting home watching the t.v. and stuffing your face. you're better for it.

quickly

cause i'm spent and i hurt. car broke down on the way to des moines last night. waited two hours on the shoulder with a 5 year old watching scooby doo til the sis came to get us and take us to des moines so i could still race. conditions were miserable beyond words. 2" or so of rain before we started and 35-ish degrees with driving hail/sleet/wind/shit during the race. 62 miles of gravels took me five and half hours. 1st place fixed. would have put me in the top three ss and i think i was 9th overall. i'm happy. half the field dnf'd. i've ridden something like 2000 gravel miles this winter and this was the first time i've had to walk a hill. and i walked a lot. it was a thorough beatdown and i had to battle demons i haven't faced in a long time. bonked. cramped. frozen and drenched. felt like a huge accomplishment just finishing. more later.

ramblings

-fixed gear trophy for cirrem looks super cool. no idea who's gonna be there let alone who i'll be racing against in the fixed category. but know this...i fully expect to get throttled by the roadies that show. oh, and the weather is supposed to suck. that kinda makes me smile.

-being sick has taken me off my bike. while this means i'm not getting any faster or adding any base this week, it does mean that i'm truly starting to rawk at guitar hero. ok, i still kinda suck but i'm getting better. i don't really RAWK!!! i just kinda rock.

-ari is right. transiowa is right around the corner. yes, its 2 months away but this beast sneaks up on you like a silent ninja assassain. you spend so long preparing for it, so many brutal winter miles with no sign of t.i. then one day you wake up and its 4 a.m. and you're sitting on your bike wrapping your head around what's in front of you. 2 months left of training and its about time to start getting in some gear training. full pack of everything i think i might need over 30+ hours on the bike so i can start adding/subtracting til i think i might be as minimalistic as i can possibly be and still get through.

-jabber and fisty are shiny...crazy freakin' clean. pretty much thanks to the weather and my health. now that those are clean its time to get this guy ready...

so far

the following remedies have been tried in an attempt to kick this crap out of my body before cirrem...
sleep...lots and lots of sleep...mostly nyquil induced comas.
no biking.
robitussin
echinacea (in 2 different forms)
saline nasal spray
herbal ear cones
drastic increase in vitamin c intake
daily water consumption equal to most weeks
2 trips to the chiropractor
lemon chamomille tea with honey
blackberry brandy, honey, hot water and lemon
humidifier placed roughly 12" from my face while sleeping
hour-long professional full body massage
healthy dose of fresh air today-it was over 60* so i picked larsson up from preschool and headed to the trout hatchery where we ran into bill and zoe and got to see some MONSTER broods

i absolutely hate being sick. hopefully turned a corner on this thing today.

thanks scott

for the well deserved kick in the ass. three and a half hours in a sub-zero wind chill and felt good in the legs despite falling off the sleep wagon pretty drastically friday night. looking forward to getting back into competitive mode this weekend in des moines.

requisite bridge pic with evidence of the recent massive ice migration