Monday, August 12, 2013

I wrecked my body

Totally ruined myself, man.

It is now roughly 30 hours after finishing the Washington State Time Trial championships. I've been on the floor watching Breaking Bad for three hours now. And I can't move.

Last night I felt like I had been repeatedly stabbed. I couldn't roll over in bed, because for all I knew my hips had been disconnected from my body and were floating around in an smorgasbord of discomfort and angel tears. Let's not even begin to talk about my ass muscles. Sweet Baby Jesus.

Let's not talk about something else. How there is something wrong with me. Why do I want to do another one of these? Just typing is hurting my forearms!

Yesterday I drove to Tenino, the town where they feed road kill to wolves at Wolf Haven. On tap was a 40km time trial, on mostly flat roads. There was a section of terrible chipseal where upon hitting it, my power went up 200 watts and my speed went down probably 7 mph. There wasn't much wind, there wasn't much turning, and there wasn't much to distract you from pedaling hard. This combination of factors combined to create the feeling in my universe that there may be a risk of internal combustion and permanent damage.

I've never done a 40 km time trial before. I've done similar things though. I've ran full speed into brick walls. I've jumped off a bridge into piles of nails. I've also tied my legs to semi trucks and have them driven in opposite directions. Only one of those statements is true (two counting this one).

Now that I wrote that, I think it is probably pretty likely that I have ran into a brick wall in my lifetime. So two of those statements were true.

Since I never have done a 40km tt before (sorry to ruin the game), I set a power goal and wanted to stick to it. I was feeling great, I was in a good rhythm, I was staying smooth, and I was passing people. I thought that I was on tap for a great ride! Then, shortly before the turn around, something happened.

I got MASSIVELY Colby-Cranked. That's right folks, my teammate Colby Wait-Molyneux started one minute behind me and had just caught me by the turn around. I right then threw my power goals out the window and pedaled as hard as I could. This worked well for about three minutes until I started to implode and I backed off again. Soon, Colby caught and passed me for the second time. I focused on staying smooth and passed him back ten minutes later. He caught me with two K to go, and I caught him back with 500m to go. We finished together, with Colby finishing exactly one minute faster than I did.

I had a ride I was very happy with. I did better power than I was hoping, I didn't explode, and I didn't have anything left at the line. Colby and I were able to go 1-2, with third place a couple minutes back from me. Let's find where Colby got that minute!

Here I am, settled into my pace on the way out. Notice I'm mostly nose breathing, I'm in focus, and I look like a fairly friendly human.

Check out http://spotshotphotography.smugmug.com for more great photos!
Meanwhile, Colby was coming up HOT behind me. Here's what one minute looks like! Notice the lion roar, the shifter further down in a bigger gear, the blurry photo, and the lack of apparent eyeballs. You never want to let your competition see your eyes. I need to paint my visor.

http://spotshotphotography.smugmug.com
We rode the same time on the way back and passed eachother five times. Actually:

The way back

http://spotshotphotography.smugmug.com

http://spotshotphotography.smugmug.com
Will Teal from HSP had a good ride for third, and I heard that he finished on a flat tire. That means he was smashing it!


Here's a picture I pulled off of Colby's FB page. It's Colby there on the left. I can only hope that's me on the right.


I love these time trial things. Wow.

Monday, August 5, 2013

The internet is CRAZY

Hello world.

First of all, you are reading my mind right now. Thanks internet. Try and read my mind in person, and I guarantee you will be wrong. Unless you predict that I was thinking about monkeys and slurpees, then there is a good chance that you would be right.

Mind-reading ability is only one of the smallest examples of the ways in that the internet is an absolutely crazy and mind-twisting realm of human capabilities and function. Let's take a look!

First, the internet makes it so that celebrities, sports heroes, politicians, comedians and that person you are stalking are just one small click away. You may never have a chance to meet Lady Gaga, but you can follow her tweets with passion. This access often never leads to much, with usually only a sarcastic defense (if any) to various fans tweets of admiration, or in most cases, hate.


Recently however, there has been one shining example of just how crazy the internet is. I'd like to introduce you to "Bubby Lyles". He had 500 twitter followers. He then decided that OMG Lolo Jones is a hottie, I'd love to date her.

http://instagram.com/p/bzs-j_nJzz/#

Then, he used twitter to ask her on a date.


In 11 days, he got 150k retweets. WHAT! In those 11 days, he shot from 500 followers to 2500+ followers. What!

The greatest thing about this is how down Lolo was:



You see people! With the internet, you can do anything.

Next, I hate skateboarding. I tweeted this earlier this week because it is amazing. Seriously incredible. Thanks internet for making this possible.


Finally, I have incredible powers when I use the internet. I admit, I was doing something stupid. Truthfully, most things that most people do on the internet are pretty stupid, but here I was, August 1st, looking at various winter cycling shoes to buy for when the weather turned sour. I was hoping I could get a good deal since it was summer and all, but instead of a good deal I got another surprise.

That's right, the next day I got torrentially rained on while riding. The first time in quite awhile that I rode in rain, and it happened the day after I looked up winter shoes on the internet.

The next day I was looking around the Smith Optics website. The next time I rode my bike? 80 degrees and sunny. You're welcome, world

So as you can see, the internet has magical powers that make things happen. It may be a date, or it may be inspiration, or it may be a shift in weather. Since it's apparent that what you search on the internet comes true, recently I've been doing a lot of researching on Professional Cycling, BMW's, and Capuchin monkeys.


See you later!