Life - Promoting Rest Day

The day before the third Bethel race, the March 20th Tour de Kirche, I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon in bed. Fatigued to the bone, I could barely move. I roused myself out because I knew I had to get registration set up at Navone's; if I had no race the next day I'd probably have spent all day in bed.

Warning: for those that don't like cats, don't bother reading further.

As such, the kitties reveled in the unusual occurrence of being able to share the bed with one of the humans in the day time. I had a camera so I got to capture some of those moments.

Bella, under the covers. She's weighing in at just over 10 pounds and has the second longest tail of the bunch.

She curls up between my knees whenever I'm laying in bed. After 10 minutes or so she pokes her nose out and zips off. Usually she'll meander by a few minutes after I lay down. She also greets us before the others, when we come in from the garage. When she was a tiny kitten, she was the one that stood her ground, hissing and spitting ferociously.

Of course, when she was the size of my fist, that hissing and spitting only made me smile. She chomped on my glove the whole way in from the driveway out back to the office.

Tiger, carefree. He's about 5 years old now, and weighs a tad under 10 pounds.
If he were a racer he'd make a good climber. His tail can hit the back of his head, it's that long.
He's also a feral kitten rescue cat.

The cats at about 10 AM.
Clockwise from the bottom: Lilly (about 10 years old now, 15 lbs), Mike, Riley, Bella, Tiger
Hal is under the covers to Bella's right.

Hal prefers sub-surface naps. Here I'm bugging him by exposing him to light.
Hal weighs about 15 pounds.

Hal (white male with blue collar), Riley (white female with pink collar), Bella (tabby female with gold collar), and Mike (tabby male with coon cat ears) all came from the same litter. They're about 3 years old now. They all came from "under the store" where I work, caught when about 4 or 5 weeks old.

(Their mom and dad are still under the store. The male, White, looks just like Hal, and is ferociously wild - when we caught him to fix him, he was smashing his face into the cage. The female, Grey, is all grey with a white patch on her chest. She'd probably make a nice house cat but I didn't want to separate her from White. She follows him around as evident on the store security cameras. When she got fixed the staff could pet her.)

Estelle, who prefers to sleep on her own and who interacts with us humans when we're sitting in chairs or couches, is missing from these pictures. She's about 3.5 or 4 years old, taken in from the same "under the store" cat colony. She's full grown, about 9 pounds, and is the only long haired cat in the bunch.

Riley in a perfect pike position.
She's tiny, under 9 pounds.

Hal is now on Bella's favorite bed.
Clockwise from bottom: Tiger, Riley, Bella, Hal.

Riley curled up next to Mike.
She really likes Mike, or maybe it's vice versa. They usually hang out together.
Mike weighs in at 15 lbs.

Based on the pictures' time stamps, I spent about 5 hours in bed. After seeing off the missus at about 9 AM I went back to sleep, waking up at 10 AM, again at about noon, and finally getting up at about 2 PM.

Fortunately Frank was still at the studio when I got there, I got registration set up, and the race went well on Sunday.

Racing - June 15, 2010 - @TuesdayTheRent

The hard-for-me recent riding schedule has started getting the better of me. I've been finding it harder to wake up refreshed, even when I go to bed exhausted and sleep a full night's sleep. I'm getting easily frustrated with minor things, whether it be a rider "hogging" the front of a paceline, a car running a stop sign, or someone driving 15 mph below the speed limit on a local road. In normal situations I'm okay with that stuff, writing it off to (respectively) ignorance, carelessness, or fear. But now, well, I think "Come on, get with it!"

I've also been forcing myself to eat because oftentimes I don't feel hungry. I realized this the other day, and I also realized this is what happens to me when I'm riding and racing a lot.

The last time this happened? In a previous life, probably in the mid 90s.

Finally my legs have started to fatigue a bit, responding a little slower, with a little less snap. They respond, and keep responding, but lack a bit of freshness. It's the summer doldrums, something I also last experienced fully about 15 years ago.

Talking with other riders, my situations seems sort of common. I heard talk of one rider taking all of July and August off. Another stopped riding almost altogether.

It seems that I'm balancing at the edge of form and fatigue. In one sense I'm feeling great on the bike. I can make efforts, recover before I get shelled, and keep doing it over and over and over. My sprints, although consistently 300 watts lower than my best trainings sprints, have been enough to garner me placings on a regular basis. And even when I'm tired I can rev up the engine and do a hard pull.

But my eyes feel bleary all the time, I rest when I can, and I feel a certain level of inactivity in general.

I suppose one way to summarize all this is that my team shorts are now baggy.

Yep, my lycra, skin tight shorts are now baggy.

It's kind of annoying. The whole reason to wear cycling shorts is to avoid the chafing, the rubbing. But I'm finding that when I get up off the saddle, I can feel my shorts sliding around. Wrinkles. Bagginess. Discomfort.

It really annoyed me on my long ride to Bethel. I felt like I had diapers on, not sleek racing shorts. Every time I stood up I could feel my shorts sagging, the padding dropping, the wrinkled fabric on my thighs.

A long time ago I was riding with a teammate who had worked really hard on getting fit. I noticed that his shorts grippers hung loose on his legs. The Missus and I (she was the future Missus at that point) always joked about his "baggy shorts", like, "I can't believe his shorts were baggy, he was so fit."

Well, now I'm the one with baggy shorts.

Along with bleary eyes, an underlying layer of fatigue, low appetite...

And good legs.

Yeah, don't forget about the legs.

Tuesday morning ended up an exercise in frustration. I forgot stuff. I had a dirty bike with bar tape unraveling on both ends. Even pulling into a parking spot at work ended up wrong - I'd brought my bike in the trunk so I could fix the tape and clean the drivetrain, but I backed into the spot (like I normally do).

The bushes behind the car would prevent me from pulling out my bike.

So I had to turn the car around. Frustrated, and knowing that the lot doesn't get very full, I parked kind of crooked, almost in the next spot over. I didn't care. I yanked out my bike, grabbed my stuff, and went into the store.

Luckily the day improved my mood. I bonded with the cats under the building. The white male sat outside, in the bushes, a spitting image of our Hal. Normally he's either out of sight or he's inside, and to see him in the bright daylight... it was unusual. Better yet, he was waiting for me when I emerged from under the building, peering at me intently. I fumbled with the camera (I take pictures almost daily) and managed to get a shot or three before he decided to move back a bit.

The white cat, outside. This is the closest I've gotten to him outside.

Hal, inside. We figure Hal is White's son.

I ate (forced myself), drank (okay, I was thirsty), and tried to be nice and not frown at everyone. In a nice slow period I cleaned the drivetrain and then taped the bars. Refreshing, to finish that.

I had planned on putting on white bars and a white saddle, because it was after Memorial Day, but I decided to stick with black. The white saddle, although lighter, had fragile rails, and I didn't want to break it in, say, the Harlem Crit. The reason for no white tape? Frankly, I forgot it in my stressed out morning.

I stood around a little before 5 pm, chomping at the bit. I normally leave at 5 for the Rent, 30 minutes early. My boss noticed me pacing and told me to leave early. I grabbed my stuff and left, after letting the Missus know that I had to go home to get my SRM (I forgot that too).

I jetted off in my blue car ("hot little car" as described by a fellow racer), carefully driving within reasonable limits (5-10 over, yes really). I made good time to I-91, and as I got ready for the fun, long sweeping entrance ramp...

I braked.

Traffic was at a complete standstill.

I spent a bit of time calling the Missus, who checked the traffic. The blockage seemed to break up shortly after this entrance ramp so I stayed the course. Although initially frustrating, I fell back into my "This is the way it is" mode; this felt better than getting all stressed out.

I got to the Rent with time to spare, but I really didn't warm up much. I felt an immense weariness in my legs, and I knew that I had to do some big efforts to open up my legs.

Problem was that I really didn't want to make those efforts. So I skipped them, tooling around until the A race lined up. After all, I'll be making those efforts in the race, and mentally it's much less taxing to be have to make the efforts.

Holy Pin Job, Batman!
(14 now. Note the "Rent" label on the number.)

Unusually, I had more than just SOC for company. Dave and TJ also showed up, and Lance hopped in after dropping out of the B race (he entered it to warm up). Dave wanted to get some action going in the A race; I wanted to work on longer-than-sprint efforts; everyone else was along for the ride.

Our plan going into the race - Dave would attack at the gun, I'd warm up while sitting in, and when Dave got caught, I'd counter and make some longer-than-sprint efforts.

Dave attacked as soon as we got rolling, dragging, eventually, three riders with him.

For a while it looked like we'd get stuck on Phase One of our plan - the part where Dave attacks. His break ended up gaining almost half a lap on the field, and for a while I thought it'd actually go the distance.

Too many riders had missed it though, and there were others in the field looking for a good workout. The pace ratcheted up a bit, then again. And again. At some point we lost Lance - his legs were cooked from the CT Stage Race, as were a couple other CTSR veterans.

One, Ben, yelled to go around him, fearing that he'd gap me off the back. He made it to the finish though, so he was fine.

I realized you could see some of those hard miles on his legs - he resembled a ProTour rider in body fat, whereas I resemble... a crit racer.

Anyway, with the big chase of Dave's first break, I dropped back a little each time, until I was hanging on for dear life at the back.

Dave and his group started coming back. I was supposed to counter after he got caught. But I couldn't counter from the back of the field, not here, not against these guys. I made some big efforts to move up, but only succeeded in cooking myself as I tried to hit the front part of the group.

Of course, that's about when we caught Dave and the break. I was well back, too far back, and dying.

Dave actually responded to other attacks in the interim, as did SOC. TJ kept busy marking the chases. I suffered while the team waited for me to launch my counter-move.

Finally, with a three rider break dangling off the front, my legs pulled themselves together. I moved up, watching the field chase in vain.

I launched hard just before the tailwind section, using my jump to get up to a good speed as fast as possible. 30-odd seconds at 31+ mph and I tagged onto the back of the break, useless now, my legs shattered by the effort.

Okay, now for the work. I wanted to contribute to the break now, but I could barely feel my legs, numb with lactic acid. They wouldn't respond, my upper body felt numb.

Right, this is what it's like when I'm suffering.

A minute later, unable to do anything except skip my turn pulling, we got caught.

Dave and SOC promptly launched a few salvos of their own, and I receded into anonymity, sitting in the field.

A little recovered, I wanted to go again. Two guys were pretty far up the road and I knew that it'd take more than 30 seconds of effort to catch them. I wanted to launch a little less aggressively, then sit and settle into a highly uncomfortable effort. I hoped that I'd bridge up to them. I gave myself a lap of effort before I'd blow, and it seemed remotely possible to make it across the big gap before I exploded.

On the main straight, the field getting a bit wide, I went up the left side, doing a sub-maximal jump (Mr SRM tells me 950 watts, versus the 1150 I did in my bridge effort). The bell started ringing - prime lap!

One or two riders thought about responding, but this was me, the guy who is pretty useless off the front.

They let me go.

I stood a bit out of the first turn and then tried to settle down. The two riders in front looked totally out of reach, and if the field chased me, I'd be in serious trouble...

But they weren't. I kept checking, disbelieving, and it seemed they were comfortable following wheels. I stayed low, kept the power on, and...

Faded hard.

I pedaled squares past the start/finish, a lap after I launched myself. I managed to average about 28.6 mph for the lap. I can't imagine going 32 mph in a time trial!

The field caught me, streaming by, counters going right and left. I had been thinking I could just accelerate and get back in, but the ferocity of the counters surprised me.

Luckily the field wasn't quite so gung-ho, and I managed to slot in at some point, safely grabbing a wheel.

As we hit the final five laps (I missed the 5 to go card, but saw the 4 to go), I started thinking of making a move. Maybe launch a lap to go? Maybe sit in and launch on the backstretch?

Somewhere on 2 to go I stood to accelerate and almost collapsed onto the bars - both my quads seized momentarily, throwing me forward. I had to force my legs to keep turning so I wouldn't flip over the bars.

A little disconcerted by the turn of events, I turned to someone, I think it was Dave, maybe it was just a random rider in the field, and yelled out my predicament.

"I can't sprint, I'm cramping!"

Of course, that was when I stood. Sitting was okay so I powered to the front. I rationalized it by thinking that I couldn't just sit up in the middle of the field, not on the last curve, but I could pull off cleanly on the main straight.

Doug M marked me of course, hoping maybe for another big leadout (I led him out to a win once). I waved him (and everyone else) past, wiggled my elbow, did everything I could to tell everyone that they should ride around me.

Aidan launched hard (probably because he was going to do it anyway, not because of my frantic elbow flapping); one rider bridged, but Aidan powered away to win the race. After a few seconds, everyone followed.

I rolled around, slowly, finishing just in front of the riders on their cool down lap.

The Missus, with Mrs SOC, waited by the sidelines. Dave and SOC went for some cool down laps. Me, I didn't want to pedal the bike any more than I had to, and, right then, I didn't have to pedal nothin'. So I didn't.

We hung out for a bit with some of our favorite fellow racers. One of the things that makes the Rent so much fun is the combination of the relaxed racing atmosphere, the more intimate fields (we all kinda sorta know each other, kinda), and therefore the camaraderie before and after each event.

Just before we left the venue, I picked up socks. Better late than never, I suppose. I have yet to use them, but it shouldn't be too long.

Socks. Got 8 pairs.

So now, I think, I need to rest a bit. Take a break. Debate Harlem. A rainy Harlem would be tough, dangerous, and not really my cup of tea. A dry one... well now.

Here's to a dry June 20th.

Life - Estelle

Estelle is an adult we're housing, but with our 6 other cats, we've housed her with idea that we're doing it until she finds a home.

In other words, she's up for adoption.

Estelle, tentative on the left. Grey on the right. Kitty in the middle. This is the post-fix-Gray but pre-shelter days, so October 2008 or so.

Estelle was always a bit shy out in the wild, darting away at the slightest noise. This is about as close to the food as she got while I was there under the building.

We trapped her during our "fix and release" sweep. The "release" part came hard for us - one cat was adopted out, Kitty (pictured above, her name given to her by the cremation folks) passed away suddenly, and at that time we never caught the one that ended up being White, the male.

Scared.

Big pupils in light means intense emotion. And in a wild animal, it's usually fear. It could be love or happiness or trying to look at something but it's usually fear.

When we caught her in February 2009, her fur was matted pretty badly. We had her fixed, de-matted, and brought her home. The missus argued for keeping her in the house, I thought releasing her would be better, especially considering her quality of life under the desk (i.e. quivering in fear). Or the litter box, where she hid if we tried to get her out from under the desk.

Since the default was to tend towards sheltering her, we kept her in the house.

May 2009

At some point she came out of her shell, probably in late April. I actually asked someone with literally decades of feral cat experience about getting a cat to come out of its shell. He told me it just takes time, patience, and sometimes it'll never happen.

I had just about given up when, one day, she popped out from under the desk unbidden.

With this new Estelle, all social and stuff, we installed double baby-gates and left the door open; this way she could smell and interact with the other cats without losing her "home base".

Rubbing against the chair.

Then one night I woke up to find Estelle missing from her room. After a pretty intense full-house search, we found her tucked away behind some boxes of bike stuff. Estelle had figured out how to get out past the baby-gate so we left them open.

Within a few weeks she and the other cats were reasonably happy. Hal is her biggest fan, approaching her like a boy with a crush. He has yet to cuddle up to her since she runs away, but it's obvious he's fascinated with her.

Estelle, when she determines that you're not trying to pick her up, will walk up to you and rub up against your legs. Usually this happens when I'm sitting at the kitchen table or the computer desk. I also find her waiting outside the bathroom when I shower in the morning (and after rides/races) and near the bed when I wake up.

(I also find Hal, who wants to be in the bathroom and cries loudly if he's left out, and Bella, who sits patiently outside until I open the door - then she stands, tail quivering, wanting her back rubbed.)

Riley, at the top of the stairs, and Estelle.

Riley treats Estelle in a curiously aggressive manner. She doesn't do anything until Estelle tries to walk by, then she bats at her repeatedly, chasing her for a few seconds. Then they both pause and sit and pretend nothing happened. In the picture above, Riley is just waiting for Estelle to try and go up the stairs.

An alert Estelle.

Estelle yoga.

When a cat sprawls on its back, especially when it's near you, the cat really trusts you. Estelle is getting more comfortable around us, even when I'm holding a black gizmo called a camera that flashes really bright every now and then.

ph34r* me for I am fierce!

(*ph34r = "fear")

Either that or she's yawning. She mews quietly, kind of chirp like, when she wants to talk. Usually she's pretty quiet. When I was trimming her nails the other day, she actually growled at me. And let me trim another 7 or 8 paws worth of claws.

No ears.

Her fur is in good shape, very shiny, no mats. She's still recovering from her "fixing", so her underside is a bit barren of fur (you can see some pink in the above picture).

She's still shy about treats, but if you toss one her way, she "discovers" it, stares at it to make sure it really exists, then, after a sniff or two, pounces on it and gobbles it up. Then she looks around to see if any more treats will teleport her way.

Estelle.

Life - More Kitten Stuff

Come on, you know you want a couple kittens.

When I got the kittens in their room, I set up the carrier, a bed, another bed, the scratch post with the built in hiding place, and set the lounge chair in a strategic location. I used up a yet another bin of litter filling their kitten-size boxes.

Then, instead of breaking it down, I set it on its side. I figured the smaller opening would be appealing.

Later that night, I went up to check on them. None on the beds. None behind the chair. None in the carrier.

On a hunch I checked the empty litter bin.

Shy male on the left, the large male, and the female on the right. Tabby behind.

A closer look.

Today at lunch I checked them out. The female had made herself comfy on the bed. The tabby and the non-shy male were on the sill, and the shy male, with the darker mohawk, was in the litter bin.

Female seems most at ease after a day.

Sinking even deeper into the bed. This after some scritching.

Tabby and the non-shy male.

I pulled the shy male out of the bin. Here he looks a bit pensive.

Tabby and the shy male. He climbed up on his own.

Stretching.

The three boys.

Life - Kittens For Adoption

Note Aug 17, 2009: all kittens were adopted.

Not really cycling related but this is one way to find a home for 3 males and 1 female. The one female is the smallest of the white ones, the two larger white ones and the tabby is a male.

They're hungrier than scared.

Currently they're all at a local veternarian. We'll be picking them up Wednesday.

I think the right one is the female.

The dad. Very regal looking. He's fixed and released so not up for adoption.

Tabby contemplating risk vs reward - human nearby versus food nearby.

Tabby sneaking along.

Tabby and one white kitten decided food trumps risk.

I think the female is on the right. She's the smallest of the white ones. I think she has a full mohawk pattern on her head.

Two white kittens. I think the one on the right is the female but I don't know.

The mom and tabby.

The mom is being fixed now, and although she's currently scared of people, I think she'll come around with a lot of patience. If she's like Estelle (a cat we have for adoption), it'll be 4-6 months. We plan on releasing her. The tabby is a male.

We also have a black/white almost adult female who we call Estelle. She's been fixed, shotted, etc, and is ready to go "as is". She's friendly, a touch timid still, but based on our experience with the others, she'll be a great companion. She purrs readily, enjoys being scritched, and doesn't even mind getting her claws trimmed. She uses the litterbox and likes dry food and treats.

Rolling around.

Yawn. Or vicious snarl.

What she does most - rub up against you.

Alert.

Silly pose.

Life - Cats Three

So I gotta do a catch-up post because, well, frankly I haven't been posting much. Usually this means either I'm nowhere near a computer (highly unlikely, although this was the case last weekend) or I've been unable to complete a thought (so to speak). And the missus asked me to update the folks that follow the non-cycling aspect of this blog - with pics of the kittens of course.

Without any further ado...

The twins. Cat 2, so to speak. Boy and a girl.

Closer.

Leaving the fuzzy PJ bed. Heated (I was still in them). The girl is staying.

At some point they went to sleep - the pet carrier is their new favorite bed.

I got on my hands and knees to take the above picture. Suddenly I felt some whiskers on my stomach. Bella had jumped up into my (loosely hanging) shirt. Of course I pointed the camera down my shirt.

She was looking for a warm spot I guess. Note my leg behind her - she's suspended but just barely.

A few minutes later she was asleep.

Note the "few minutes later" bit. I didn't want to move because, well, she seemed too precious where she ended up. The problem with this is that I can't do much like, say, write while kneeling in front of the pet carrier and taking pictures down my shirt. Hence the sporadic post schedule recently.

Eventually I scooped Bella into the carrier with the other two. This made for the following picture.

Cat 3. You knew it was coming.

They woke up briefly, I forget why.

They shuffled around a bit.

The girl twin (we haven't named them) fell asleep first, as usual.

A few minutes later they had all snuggled in together.

We also have a kitten named Mike, who will get his own separate post. We also fixed, treated, and released the (one of?) mom cat who will be known as Grey. I'll explain later I guess.

The important thing about the kittens is that Bella (the little tabby) is staying here but the others are ALL up for adoption. We're paying all their bills and such, and we have some interest in the twins, but we'd like to find good homes for the three kittens - the twins and Mike. We'd prefer to keep the twins together since they seem to hang out together, so they're a "twofer" deal. Mike is good with the other three kittens but he seems to be okay solo as well.

So to return on topic, I, ahem, rode for two days in a row. Yay! This after I got on one of those medical scales and learned I weighed about 184 lbs with light sneakers, shorts, and a shirt. Boo! And my watch and my wedding band, can't forget I had those on.

I felt horrible the first day I rode - my feet were swollen, my legs were cramping, I felt out of breath. Second day (just now) was much better - feet fit my shoes, legs didn't cramp one iota, and I actually rode a bit harder when some faster music came on. I can say that you really need a "pre-" day (i.e. an easy hour ride) when coming off of a break from riding, but I can also conclude that watching Syriana is not conducive towards hard riding.

Tokyo Fast and Furious is.