Biscotti Madness

Quick spin around the county before WFH today:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/8050656

Just about 4:20 in the saddle, 72 miles and change, 16.7 average, 5200+ vertical. This is basically a "back to business" ride after the first race of the season. Even though conditions this morning were miserable, I find motivation pretty easy to come by after the race Sunday. So the rain and 50 degrees wasn't enough to deter me from putting some quality time in on the bike.

I may have been in a bit of an in between state with this, a bit faster than a "base" ride yet too long for a solid tempo pace. But then, I still need to try and drop 10 pounds so this ride can't be considered bad by any stretch. Nothing amazing about the ride today.

I have to say that the results of the Clif Bar Challenge are probably more or less useless even to me. With the new White Chocolate Macadamia it throws everything on its ear. You would be able to get them at Halter's except for the fact that Jay has already eaten the entire case and there's none left. They're so good I will pay the $1.50+ at the local Kings to get them. I also had an old Black Cherry Almond today and the difference in flavor between this and the fresh ones is stark. So it seems like the taste has a pretty moderate shelf life and who knows which bars were fresh when I did the test. Sadly, Congress will likely have to officially renounce my findings.

Tomorrow early ride, hopefully 2 hours, then a late train to Brooklyn and who knows what until the weekend. My boss and his boss are in town and that often translates to beer drinking, which doesn't exactly go well with the whole bike training thing. I'll try to be good.
 
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/8050656

Just about blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

I blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah the ride today.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah White Chocolate Macadamia it throws everything on its ear. You would be able to get them at Halter's except for the fact that Jay has already eaten the entire case and there's none left. They're so good I will pay the $1.50+ at the local Kings to get them. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

white choclate macadamia!!! zioks!
 
Limited time this morning. Wanted to get out today because tomorrow is a wash. Did a double hill loop that goes into Bernardsville, about 22 miles and 2200 feet of vertical:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/8056395

Hard to define this ride in a strict "training" sense. I hit the hills hard and recovered in low/mid tempo between. The second big hill on the ride I pressed pretty hard, and it hurt a hell of a lot, probably more than any other forced effort this year.

Off to Brooklyn in an hour or so. Then out after work where I'll try not to eradicate myself. Tomorrow is likely nothing and Friday is iffy at best.
 
dude, drink jack and water. lower calorie count, same mind numbing effects.

It's the alcohol I'm trying to be cautious about, not the calories. I may slum and drink Coors Light. Maybe we'll do shotguns.

My legs hurt. I've done 3 pretty hard efforts in 4 days. I think it's probably easy to fall into the "overdoing it" realm after race #1.

Slow and steady, wins the something something or other. Then again I've never won anything so WTF do I know?
 
fast and steady wins the race my friend, fast and steady. you're almost there.

here's the thing: if you are going to drink, why drink sh!t? coors light is for those of questionable drinking age and when you're working out in the yard all day in the middle of the summer.
 
Maybe I'll shave my arms and butt too. I would say my head but it's half gone already.

I was on the podium yesterday...standing in for Fred. F*ckers made me stand there in order to collect his medal.

Thanks Norm! I want that picture!

fast and steady wins the race my friend, fast and steady. you're almost there.

here's the thing: if you are going to drink, why drink sh!t? coors light is for those of questionable drinking age and when you're working out in the yard all day in the middle of the summer.

Please! Please! Just stop drinking if your going to consume coors light. Unless your going on an all day drinking binge. 😀
 
Please! Please! Just stop drinking if your going to consume coors light. Unless your going on an all day drinking binge. 😀

Well last time I was in Chicago, I spent more time in the bar than in the office or sleeping. So yeah, it could be.
 
here's the thing: if you are going to drink, why drink sh!t?

Had 3 Brooklyn Lagers tonight, a pretty tame night all in all. I even got the veggie panini (sp?) sandwich for dinner, no fries.

They want to go out tomorrow night and really drop the hammer though. My early lean is to beg out of that full marathon after some food and drinks. They're talking a Scores-style night when all is said and done. Regardless of what I do I will likely WFH Friday. If I ride remains to be seen.

My legs still hurt a lot tonight. I need some sleep.
 
Someone asked me this recently:

I've had a thought stuck in my head after you posted something a couple of weeks ago when you were not too inspired where you stated that you would probably never be more than a cat 2 or sport racer. I was wondering what would make you feel like you were "cat 1" worthy. I guess if the worthyness was to be top 5 or something in cat 1 that could be tough, however don't you think you could race that class now and be somewhere in the middle?

Well, I have to admit that after race #1 I am reassessing if expert may be within my grasp after all. I don't know though really. I was on a rest week and I may have been in the perfect spot for a good showing. So I can't say that my 5th place was above (or below) what my average is right now. Also, this was a MASS race and I'm not totally sure how the fields compare to H2H. I always thought it was tougher, but now I'm downplaying that and wondering if the H2H competition is actually tougher.

If I extend my lap times by a lap and add a few minutes and go with 1:40 for 3 laps, that would put me 16 out of 21 in the expert class for my age. I may actually pull more of a 1:38 since the expert classes probably aren't quite as gummed up by sloppy riders, so maybe you could say 1:38 or even 1:37, which puts me in the 13th to 16th range. These are all numbers as a result of me pissing in the wind, mind you.

I guess within shouting distance of middle-of-the-pack would be the mark, and a 10/11 place spot would be a time of 1:34 to 1:35. I'm not there yet. That would be a 1 minute improvement on my current estimate at least, if not more. So right now, while I could compete in expert not to lose, I wouldn't really be a remote threat to win unless the whole field got a flat, and even then the fast guys could undoubtedly change a tire and catch me regardless.

We'll see how the Wawayanda race goes then maybe I'll reassess.
 
If i really attended these silly events w/ the license and all that i would be in expert and you are probably faster than me right now.
 
Lazy Friday:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/8070606

From Sunday through Wednesday I had 3 pretty solid rides in those 4 days so I really don't need any more "breakthrough" workouts this week. My legs were pretty tired yesterday and I took the day off. Turns out my wife got sick so I wasn't out drinking after all. Probably a good thing. But I was eating like there was no tomorrow so it was clear my body was trying to tell me something.

The eating continued today so I just took it easy out there, a lazy day to enjoy the warmth. Have to say that when I don't have any sort of aim for the ride it kinda blows. I think 3 of 4 days on the road has gotten to me and I need to get back off-road, which I will do tomorrow at Wawayanda. Hopefully Sunday as well.

This week will be a net loss on the road-versus-mountain ride count. Currently I stand at 41 road rides and 16 mtb rides on the year. I think last year it ended up being like 5:1 so it's certainly much better.
 
So thinking more about today, I had almost zero aim on today's ride. The only aim I could think of was to burn calories. There wasn't any intensity nor duration, just 1:23 of run-of-the-mill riding. And I was bored as hell even though it was nice out. My mistake was probably doing a really common route on a day when I was just out there to be out there. If I had the time I guess I would have gone off-road and it would have been a better workout.
 
Made up for my lack of mountain bike rides during the week by riding for over 5.5 hours and just about 49 miles off-road this weekend. Saturday was 31 miles of Wawayanda as we did 3 laps of the race course. Sunday was 18 miles of Lewis Morris with Woody and a buddy of ours who was in town from Massachusetts.

Wawayanda:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/8080465
Lewis Morris:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/8088975

Bill and I did 1 lap at a fair pace (not race pace) and clocked in at 55 minutes and change. Roger (the SaD pro) Foco has apparently dropped a 50 minute lap time so I'm fairly happy with 55+ minutes. Then we picked up more teammates on laps #2 and #3. I started the day at 7:30, and started driving home at 12:00. I was pretty dehydrated by the end of the ride but felt good all-in-all.

Went home and had a picnic. Devoured a Bubba Burger and 5 Seirra Nevada Pale Ales. Also saw one friend who I haven't seen in 2 years as well as one I hadn't seen in 5 years (despite them living literally 8 miles away now - yes human beings are weird).

Today met up with Woody and the haven't-seen-for-2-years friend and did 2 hours of Lewis Morris. I wasn't feeling amazing but once I warmed up I started feeling like anything I did was fast. Up, flat, down...I just felt strong out there today. I tried out Woody's IF 29er SS with 32/20 gearing for a bit and was able to climb everything we rode sitting down. Felt pretty good, like no matter what bike I get on I can make it go fast.

So, we then went to Woody's and I had another burger. Waited to get back home to drink beer though. Only 1 Sierra and a bomber of Nugget Nectar. I need to sleep soon.

WFH this week. Honestly no idea how to play this week because I should be getting volume but I also have a race Sunday. WWPD? Penis would finish off his Nugget Nectar and not think any more about it. Consider it done.
 
seriously norm, your pimp hand must be wicked stong. like epicly strong.

there is no amount of MBU's (quality or quantity) that would allow me to vanish two consecutive days like that.
 
seriously norm, your pimp hand must be wicked stong. like epicly strong.

there is no amount of MBU's (quality or quantity) that would allow me to vanish two consecutive days like that.

I'm not sure about wicked strong. I feel good some days, is all. Following Bill around on lap #1, I didn't feel like a possible expert that's for damn sure. I was pretty surprised with the 55-ish lap though. Yesterday I felt like crap to start but I warmed up and then felt quite good, but still tired.

Saturday we hosted a picnic, then Sunday we went to Woody's for the same. So I spent plenty of time with family. Also took child yesterday for a few hours and I'm WFH all week, so I earn the MBUs back that way.

Jim - I'm finding it harder to enjoy the road if I'm JRA. If I have something I'm trying to do (ride long, kill Kenny, etc) it's all good but when I have an easy/lazy day planned I'm finding the road is kinda droning right now.

I took today off the bike. I'm working from the patio, and burning up my yard sticks in the back. I think tomorrow I'm going long, road style.
 
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