First Race of the Year

Today was my first race of the year. It was the Quabbin Reservoir Road Race, only about 15 minutes down the road. It was also my first road race in about a year, so I knew I was in for something. Got there and was a little behind getting ready and only had about 10 mintues to warm up, but for a road race, that seems like enough time. The first half was pretty moderate, however there were a few extended climbs and some fast decents. I stayed at the front of the pack, I was not about to get involved in a crash, and kept up just fine. They were some fast sections and some slower sections, but nothing muched happened, as no one really works together in a Category IV field, but every now and then one or two guys would get a little ways down the road. At this point the group ushually decided to chase them down, however when I say group I really mean me self and my friend Sean, as only one or two other guys were helping at all. The final climb came and unfortunately I didn't know where finish line was, so I got a little late in the final seconds but came in 7th place, one place out of getting paid! Sean came in a little after that, and my other friend double flatted, so he rode almost the whole coarse by himself.

It was a hot (85 degrees) beautiful day and it was a nice start to the season, my fitness felt really good considering that I have not started high intensity training, and it is a good sign for the rest of the season.

The New Machine

The new bike has arrived and it looks great. The bike is totally redisigned from last year, and much changed from my bike from 2005. The suspension design looks pretty good, and the fork is entirely different, so I am excited to see how it will feel out on the trail.


The crankset is similiar to my roadbike, so I think it should be nice and stiff.


The bike has Avid brakes so I need to learn how to deal with a different brand, because if they are anything like my old brakes I will need to learn how to adjust them!

I wish I could get out on the bike but I left my shoes back at the bike shop and I wont have them for a few more days, nothing like having a brand new toy and not being able to pllay with it....

Thanks to the guys up at Bikers Edge for getting me set up on this thing, I will try to return the favor by getting up on the podium, I certainly have no escuses about the equipment.

First Mud

So the past few days have been pretty good on the bike, well at least in theory. On Sunday I decided to head over to the famous Quabbin reservoir, never heard of it you say, well prabley not, but its a big lake down the road. The ride was very hilly and very windy, but I made it back home in one piece, and 70 miles under my belt. Along the way I stopped in front of this neat church to snap a shot.

In other news I got back late from work today but I decided to just head out on the bike for a few minutes before it got dark. In doing this I somehow decided to take a right and not a left, and then took the wooden bridge into the woods. I tooled around and it was not that bad, dry in most spots with only a few wet areas. As you can see below, I got my first mud of the season on the bike.

Its been like four weeks or something, time for a new post!

Well it appears that I have once again gotten behind schedule.
I suppose the biggest news is that last week I created my first ever training plan. I have always toyed around with sort of making one, but I never really ever finished. However this time I sat down and decided to give it an honest effort. The long and short of it is that I did some self evaluations trying to figure out my strengths and weaknesses. I then picked the important races for the year and said "I want to be my fastest here!" and then I work backwards planning my weekly hours and training objectives. As I sort of decided to do this about two months into my training I had to make some adjustments, but it looks like it should be all right. In doing this I realized that before I really only had three different rides: slow, medium, and race. I would throw some other types in before, but in general I was always just sort of going medium. With my new plan it is more specific on what types of rides I do, so it theory I should be fast this year, haha, we will see. Hopefully when June and July role around I am not sick of riding in a particular manner according to the plan, but time will tell.

In other news I visited home this past weekend and it was sure nice to be back. I went up north over the weekend then spent Monday and Tuesday in Ann Arbor with Caroline and saw some other good friends. The weather was great up north, as seen in the following photo take at the summit of Nubs Nob:


In Ann Arbor on I got to spend some nice time with Caroline which included a run which took us past the football stadium, it is certainly looking different these days. Tuesday was St. Patricks day and it was nice to be in Ann Arbor around some familiar places and faces. To top off the night we got to drink some green beer, and after we were done it was easy to tell that we had, as Nick and I show below:



Thats it for now!

Its been like four weeks or something, and all I see is that thumb

The title of this post is a direct quote from my Dad and was hinted at from many of my loyal readers, time for a new post!!! It has been a busy month, lots of very important exams and Caroline came and visited for a whole week. But things are getting back to normal here and I am started to get back to riding. Well I gotta go for now, but I will fully update this weekend!

Thumb Therapy: Day 1

Today was the first time that I did exercises at physical therapy. When I got there they treated me with therapeutic ultrasound, its not the imaging type, but the sounds waves are supposed to help reduce swelling and help get my thumb back in action. I also performed a number of exercises with a puddy designed to strengthen and stabilize my joint.

For some color commentary I decided to throw in a picture of me performing one of my exercises:

Don't worry, doing the exercises is much more exciting than it looks, but either way you better believe I will be doing them as prescribed.

The Current Thumb Situation

So I sprained my thumb back in Novermber, and it has not really been healing like I would have liked it to. So on Tuesday I went for my first visit to the physical therapist. They did some tests and determined that my strength and range of motion were the same on both thumbs. My problem is that it is still swollen, and I just dont feel confident if I were to fall on it again, so gotta get it fixed. I have another appointment on Friday, to began the real therapy, but in the mean time I am wearing this wrap. In case you were wondering this wrap is made of a high tech polymer called a shape memory polymer, cool stuff!