The Mt. Snow Mud Fest, I mean bike race

Muddy, sweaty, and beat, ohhh so much better than not riding for a week!

After a week enough was enough, I could not just sit around any more with tired legs. There was a big race in Vermont at Mt. Snow, the location of Mountain Bike Nationals in just a few weeks. I wanted to race not only because I wanted to ride again, but because it will be good practice for the big national race. So I headed up to Vermont starting at 8:30, I picked up my friend in Mass. and we arrived at Mt. Snow at 10:30, and the race started at 12:00. We registered and got dressed and began to warm up. At first my legs felt a little sluggish, then we put in some hard efforts to get the blood pumping, and I had a some strength, not what I ushually have, but a lot more than this past week. So I felt alright, lets skip ahead to the start of the race.

In the Pro/Semi-Pro field there were 20 riders, the biggest field yet, and at Mt. Snow you always end up with fast riders. The starting line was packed with riders, and I was ready to see what the legs would do. The gun went off and I started in the middle of the pack, but by the middle of the first hill I had fought my way into 4 or 5th place. At the top of the hill my legs felt a little wobbly so I laid off the gas the coasted down the first open hill. A little winding and dashing later it was time for the big climb, which takes about 20-25 minutes of pure climbing, and I knew my legs would show there true intentions here. We started climbing and everything felt pretty good, I was climbing at the front of the pack, then it came, the big steep muddy hill that you had no choice to hop off the bike and carry it. Well, hiking the bike is not my strength, so naturally 3 or 4 guys walked right by me, but I know that soon we would be pedaling again soon. So I sucked it up and was just waiting to jump back on the bike. This moment finally came and many people had put some time into me on the walk, so I just put my head down and went up and up. By the top I had passed a few more guys back, and it was finally time to go down. Well going down may sound easier, but at Mt. Snow it is not. The downhill was muddy, rocky, and rooty, so basically my arms wanted to fall off about half way down or so. I was moving along just fine and then it happened, I hit a rock and went over the handlebars and landed right on my head on a rock. I hoped up and got off the trail before I really realized what was going on. I sat down, felt a little dizzy and my neck was throbbing. I checked my helmet and it did not appear to be broken, so I put it back on a walked down the rest of the hill. I then slowly pedaled for the next while, trying to determine if I could keep racing. I started to feel better and I decided that I would keep going.

Laps 2 and 3 went in a similiar manner, climing and descending, but this time no crashing. I was not really sure what my position was, but I just keep at it. I ended up passing 3 or so people climbing on the last lap, and then it was time for the final descent. In laps 2 and 3 I slowed down going downhill, making sure I did not go down again. But I knew the guys were close behind so I had to be a little more risky, and it turned out fine, I made it down and came accross the line.

I ended up in 7th place, a very good finish with a 20 person field, which contained many pros. The race lasted 2:42:12, a very long race, and it was tons and tons of climbing and difficult descents. It was also very muddy, so I was covered from head to toe, as was my bike. New England mountain bike racing at its best, I better get used to it as I have another 5 summers of it!

As you can see, the bike gears were covered with mud.


I may be tired, but I still have to pose with the bike.


The legs did the job, I hope that they can be 100% come nationals, then it will be time to really lay it down.

The story of work

So I had a meeting with my three bosses today to discuss my project and future plans. Long story short, I have nearly finished my summer long project in about half a summer so I am going to be picking up two more projects. One of the projects is similar, while the other project is much different. All of the bosses were impressed with my progress and I am glad to see that they are giving me more responsibility. I guess maybe its not that I have three bosses, but that I need three bosses worth of projects to keep me busy!

Bettter, but no where near

Well I went for a spin on the bike today, and my legs did feel a tad bit better, but no where close to normal. Its a very weird sensation, my legs just feel numb and limp when I am pedaling, and after any sort of effort they just feel blah. So I have decided to skip the two races on Saturday this weekend, and I hope I feel better by Sunday for the cross country race, keep your fingers crossed please.

So Boss, what else you got?

I asked my boss for more work. A wise decision? We will soon see. From my calculations (yes my calculations) it appears that I will be slowing down on my current project in the coming weeks. So talked to my boss, and he says that he has another project that I could work on, if my other two bosses agree. So I am pretty excited about this prospect, as I have figured quite a bit out about my current project, and until some testing gets done, which is not my responsibility, I really can't do to much more. Either way my boss liked my ambitious attitude, and seemed impressed by my actions, so cool.

With my dead legs I am taking it easy for a while. So after work I headed to the Willimantic Brewing Company for some food. Its a cool place, it used to be an old post office, but now it is a pretty cool brewery and restuarant. I got the beer sampler and had 5 different beers, two of their brews and 3 other New England brews. Had some good beer, and got to hang out with some co-workers outside of work, so that was cool.

Well, gotta sleep to get these legs kicking again, so I will say good night

The story of my sluggish limbs

This weekend I was going to do three races, this quickly turned into only one race. Two races were on Saturday and one on Sunday, all of which were Vermont. I woke up Saturday morning and didn't feel well, so I decided to skip the first two. My legs also felt tired, another situation that caused me to take the race off.
I woke up Sunday and felt better, so I decided to head up to the race. On the drive up my stomach and head started aching, not a great sign before a race. Long story short, during warmup I felt all right and my legs felt just ok. During the race I just didn't quite have it, I was climbing like a cow and just could not get my legs into it. I ended up finishing 11th out of 17, but to put it in perspective the winner was only 6 minutes ahead of me, and the guy who got second is the 19 and under national champion and spent the last month racing in Europe.
This marks two races where I just could not climb and my legs just did not feel very lively. On the bright side I am riding faster than ever, I just can't figure out what the deal is with my legs feeling sluggish and tired. I have one more month till nationals, and I hope that the legs come around in this time!

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Life lessons from work

Today at work was a very eye opening day. Today we had a large R&D meeting were many people were honored for their long commitment to the company. Awards were given out for people who had worked at Rogers for 10, 15, 20, and 30 years this month or so. They got recognized and some choose to say a few things. Of the people who talked I know the guy who had been there for 15 years. He is a really fun guy, he helps me make all of my experimental stuff on the pilot line. He had a graph of the stock since he got there, showing how much it had gone up, saying that maybe he was the lucky charm. He also mentioned the summer interns and how he is glad to be able to hassle us in the summers.

The guy that had been there for 3o years was only 48, and had worked there straight. He has really only worked for one boss, a boss that has very recently become sick and must retire. The guy talked about how every day he was happy to wake up and come to work, and how much all the people mean to him. He then moved on to talk about how much his boss means to him, and that the boss has been there for him and others, and how now it is our turn to be there for the boss. A very nice thing to say, and a very emotional moment.

This was all very interesting to me. Hearing every one of the people who made speeches say how that every day they are glad to come to work, and how great the people are at Rogers. I feel the same way, although I have only been there for two summers. I hope that throughout my life I can have what they have, to wake up and happily go into work (who knows maybe it will be at Rogers too!.)

Mystic Seaport with Caroline

Well, its time to talk about my great weekend with Caroline at Mystic Seaport. Caroline flew in on Thursday afternoon and I picked her up at the airport. On Friday after work Caroline and I went on a hike on one of the local trails that I see on my bike. We hiked for about an hour and most it was along a river, so it was a very nice hike. We also ran across a lot of these white flowers, I took a picture of a butterfly on one as seen below. We also watched the movie "Mystic Pizza" Friday so we could get an idea of what we were going to see on Saturday.



Saturday morning we started to make our way down to Mystic Seaport. After stopping by the hotel to check it we headed down to the town to get lunch at Mystic Pizza. The town of Mystic was very nice with lots of little shops, and the pizza was great. We then continued to look around the town until dinner time.

For dinner we ended up going to a great place called Go Fish. We wanted to get lobster, and this place looked really cool with some hip decorations and a catchey name. We both had a chowder for appatizer, which came with some good bread and bean dip. We then ordered our 1.5 lb lobsters, and man were they good. And this year as we are 21 we decided to get some wine, we got a bottle of Savignon Blanc. I don't usually like wine all that much, but it tasted great with the meal. Overall it was an excellent meal, and we felt pretty cool getting lobster and a bottle of wine!



Sunday was time to head over to the Mystic Aquarium and Mystic Seaport, which is an historic seaport. The morning was overcast, so we decided to head over to the aquarium first. It was a nice place, with the main attractions being Beluga Whales and a whole collection of seals. Both of which were pretty cool, and below you can see one of the seals that seemed to find us interesting too!

At the aquarium there was also a bird exhibit, which contained over 250 birds. You get a stick with some food on it and you could go up to birds and let them hop onto your stick and they would eat. As you can see Caroline was a pro and all the birds loved her!

Myself on the other hand, I was pretty scared of all the birds, and I didn't really want to get to involved with them.


The seaport was pretty interesting as it had a bunch of full size whaling ships as well as lots of old town stuff. Below you can see the main attraction, which is one of the last real whaling ships left.

Overall it was a great trip and it was really nice to spend time with Caroline before see ships out to Italy. Which reminds me, on the top of the page I have a link to her blog, so get ready for her adventures, which should start on Monday or Tuesday!

Quick Post the second

Sorry for another quick post, I am gearing up to write about the weekend I spent with Caroline at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. I have been busy getting the bike ready for this weekend, as well as getting the body ready. Fun fact for the day, I was riding my road bike on a 35 mph road, I was cruising down this baby around 38 mpg, I then saw two cops sitting there catching speeders. I didn't get pulled over, but I was still speeding in a 35 mph zone on a bike!

Quick Post

I am pleased to say that I have my first guest, Caroline is here! It is really nice to have her here, and we have some fun plans for the weekend, like going down to Mystic Seaport. Before we go to the seaport we are going to watch Mystic Pizza so we can get a feel for the town. Goodnight tonight goodbye.

Here and There

Today was an ok day. Work didn't go all that well, sort of a bummer, and other than that I did a bike wash from the races this weekend, and went on a little bike ride.
On the bike ride I just wanted to ride around, going no where in particular and trying to avoid any hard efforts. Well, that didn't go quite as planned. After about 5 minutes I ended up on a back country 1 lane dirt road. I had no idea if it was someones drive way, or if it would take me somewhere, but I kept on it. After a while I hit pavement again, and almost immediately I found a hill that I would have loved to have found if I were doing a hill repeat workout, it was pretty steep and fairly long. I worked my way to the top, and I finally found a familiar spot. I took a picture of a cool oldish looking church, (you can actually see the moon if you look to the left of the tower)I wish I could do it justice, but here it is.


I then was able to go downhill on a paved road for the rest of the way home. A nice ride, and it was not really that hot. So good bye for now.

Hot Hot Heat

After two days of racing in the heat I enjoyed a nice day off. To celebrate my day off I worked a 10.5 hour day and then went to Wal-Mart for some groceries. Due to the fact that I love to ride my bike, and really do not like to let work and shopping get in the way I generally do these things on my day off. Wal mart was good, I hoped to get in there for a few essentials, but I then realized that if I get lots of supplies then I would not have to come back, and would then be able to ride more or get more hours in at work. So I got tons of food, and after $160.00 I was out of there (lets hope that lasts a while!).
Tomorrow is going to be another hot one, and I have to do some work on the pilot line at work, where it gets really hot. So I hope the runs go well and we are out of there before it really gets boiling.
One last thing, I have been to 2 Wal Marts and have not found a decent skirt. Yes, I said it, a skirt. I want to get an oversized skirt so I can change my biking clothes at races and at the end of rides. But I can't find any! Maybe this weekend Caroline can show me where they keep the skirts, and this way I wont look like a creep meandering around the womens clothing section alone.

I will have my bike racer well done please

I have been pretty busy over here as usual, working and biking, but now for the good stuff.
I had two mountain bike races this weekend, yes in the 95 degree heat! The race on Saturday was a short track race, meaning that its a smaller course and the race lasts about 25 minutes. These are tough because you have to go really really hard. I was pretty nervous for the race, as I upgraded into the pro/semi-pro category this year. The race was relatively small, I think there was 8 guys. The gun went off and so did I, I took the lead from the start, and it is history from there. I just kept on getting further and further ahead of the pack, and eventually started lapping everyone, and one guy twice. So I had a good day, and I felt all right considering the heat.

Sunday was the cross country event, and this is where just about everyone comes out. In the pro/semi-pro category there were 16 riders I believe, so a pretty big field. The gun went off and again so did I, I was the first or second off the line, which is always helpful in mountain bike racing. We then go going, but my lets didn't really want to. We started to hit the climbs and this is really where I noticed my legs lacking strength. I ushually do well on climbs, but not today. So I held on for dear life and clinched my teeth (by the way, I am so proud of my dad for clinching his teeth so hard at Boyne that he had to go to the dentist, that is really awesome, way to go Pops!!!!). This method can only get you so far without legs, so I gradually fell back into about 9 position. This was the story for the first three laps, wanting to get going but having my legs fail me. The final lap was time to get going. At this point there were a number of racers who had dropped out because of the heat (it was brutal) and others were getting weak, so I knew it was time to make the legs just go. Long story short I ended up going much faster on this lap and made up some good time. At the end of the race I was the 5th person across the line, a finish I am pretty proud of. A bit of bad news though, they for some reason only payed out the top three, they almost always pay out the top three, oh well.

So to recap, a win and a 5th, a weekend I can be proud of considering it was my first time in the pro/semi-pro class.

Lets Go Red Wings

All right, heading into the third overtime now, time for the wings to win the game and take the cup home. I am taking this intermission to give a a little information about my day.

Work went all right, I wasn't able to run some experiments because the lights were getting replaced in the lab, so looks like those will have to be run tomorrow. I hope they provide some insight, I need to get over my current roadblock and keep moving forward.

After work I headed out on the bike and I had a great ride. I was cruising around really good and I got to ride some of my favorite roads, but once again I rode a new route. Last summer I was able to ride a different road route every time, and so far this year I have not done any repeats from last year, also some variation. I think that I will try to keep this up as I get to know the area better, making this much easier.

Well, sounds like the puck is about to drop, so I am going to head back down to the TV. LETS GO RED WINGS!!!!!