Summarizing

Ok, wow. This will probably be a long post. I'm not going to apologize for my absence because I hope that it made your heart grow fonder.

I just spent too long searching YouTube for a clip that I thought appropriate for that strange introduction to this post, but I could not find it. Since things are ALWAYS funnier when you try and remember them and then explain them with words and commas instead of video and audio, here's the clip:

Film- Coffee Town
Actor- Ben Schwartz

The trick to helping your friend get a date is to lower the target's self-esteem before your friend goes in. Like this. Hey, what happened to your face? Is that chair going to be strong enough for you? Didn't you mean to order Diet?

I didn't use quotes because I have absolutely no idea if that's how it goes and I'm not trying to get arrested, you savages.

Let's fill in the gaps of the last month:

First, I've been well. Thanks for asking. Second, I've recently decided that in order to make my mornings unbelievably exciting, I stare at my morning coffee until I see an image. Then I drink it. This morning routine is based off of the whole tea leaf reading lifestyle made famous by Harry Potter and Miss Cleo. I've been noticing something strange- all of my accidental creations are forming into marvelous animal creature shapes! Check it out:

This is a bearded giraffe:

This is an adorable Koala bear:

A brave Sea turtle:

A jelly fish with HUGE eyes:

A duck:

This one I couldn't really make out the animal shape I made so I just poured coffee all over the place.

I'm not sure what this accidental-drawing skill means for the season to come, but I can only be excited that wild creatures are starting to show themselves in my daily routines. I do hope that I can latte-draw a rhino or jaguar here in the next couple of weeks so that my mentality can stay fierce.

Continuing with coffees and animals, I saw this van while leaving my go-to coffee establishment in Seattle.

We've worked our way to about mid-February. Next, Marissa and I went to Valentine's dinner at Brimmer and Heeltap in Ballard. It was awesome and I had a good time. However, I couldn't help myself from being distracted by the shirt that was staring at me all meal:

It's nice that our Valentine's Day dinner had a lazer show too!

Then this happened:

We got our typical nice week in February where everyone wears shorts and thinks Winter is over, followed by our typical biggest snowfall yet. Yes East Coast, that is about two inches of snow and I'm calling it our "biggest snowfall yet". My bad. This weather scared me and my road bike, so I got on an airplane and flew down to Southern California to hang out with Steve Fisher and do some bike practicing.

I got to LA and I found Steve in a bit of a slump:

You see, his multiple case shipment of Jelly Beans maybe was taking over his living situation. He was trying to save some for the Apocalypse, but I showed up and started making lots of political decisions:

This made Steve a HAPPY chappy!

I forgot to take more than one photo while I was there. So enjoy this photo A LOT because it's all we get to reminisce upon:

I returned from California and started plotting for my first race of the year. The Ice Breaker TT is my usual season kick-off, and this year was no different. I squeezed into Carson Miller's skinsuit (I get my clothes at team camp next week) and pedaled hard. I was able to get the win, which breaks my streak of... not winning... at the Ice Breaker TT.

photo credit: Woodinville Bicycle

We're caught up to present day! Speaking of "Present Day", I got my training bike in the mail yesterday. The new Jamis Xenith is way better than last year's bike, and last year's bike was the best bike I had ever ridden. I'm very excited to get racing on it. Marissa says that it's "a million times more beautiful" than my bike last year, so feast your eyes:

Go ahead and make fun of me for taking a photo in the little ring. Whatever!

Let's talk about more racing! The season officially starts for me this Saturday at the Old Pueblo GP in Tucson. I fly down on Friday, meet my teammates, get my kit and other bike, race, then have a week of team camp in the sun. Following team camp, I do another race: The Tucson Bicycle Classic.

It's been a long winter, and we're four days from take-off.

THERE ARE NO MORE PICTURES, SORRY.

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Focusing on the Little Things

Biking is happening. This has been fun and as we approach race season, focusing on the little things becomes more and more important. Remember people, the decisions we make today play a big factor in how we race come, uh, three weeks from now. Little things: awesome. I'd like to share one of the things that I've been focusing on to try and make the 2014 season my best one yet.

I've been thinking about parts in bike races that are hard for me. Certain moments in races that stand out are those pesky mountainous terrains where little people pretend that the road didn't change gradient, when really it did. So what little things apply here? Food choices? Equipment? Gearing selection? All of these are relevant, sure, but I've pinpointed something better, something different, to help me make it over lumpy terrains a bit easier. I've discovered how to simply... eliminate those climbs from bicycle tournaments. Proof!

I was experimenting here, and although I did the same climb eight times, I only did FOUR climbs. 

Getting more precise with my calculations. Same climb, six times, or WAS IT??!?!?!

How'd I do it?!?! A Lake WA loop basically flat?

I've been experimenting with this technology for awhile now. Check out stage two from Joe Martin Stage Race last year!

Unless Steve did 4,500 feet of climbing during his three-mile cooldown, you can tell that I had some excellent line choices as well as a successful trial of my new anti-uphill technologies. As you can see by the 2,288 feet of elevation gain, my technology still wasn't perfected.

After nine months of practice, I feel better about my "climbing".

Look out Tour of the Gila, I've figured out how to essentially ride through the center of hills. You know how a mole just kind of burrows its way through bumpy terrain? That's basically what I've been doing on the road, but to a more extended degree.

I'll sell you the technology behind this skill for 100 trillion million dollars.

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All this happened in 2013. I enjoyed it.

Whoa, it's 2014. Wild. Since everyone has forgotten about the excitement and jubilation from the 2013 season, I feel obligated to look into the rearview mirror a bit and share what I found to be fantastical-highlights from the 2013 season.

This is a different sort of highlight reel: less focused on things like results or attacks but more on the experiences and accomplishments throughout the season by myself and my teammates. It was a pretty great year for HB Cycling on all fronts, and these are some moments that reflect that to me.

BAM 2013

1) Let's start with the obvious. Four members of the 2013 HB Cycling roster signed professional contracts and three members signed with strong elite teams. That's an incredible turnover rate for a team, especially with the state of professional cycling in the US. In the year's past, HB Cycling had averaged about one graduation a year. This season, with the team ending, seven of us secured contracts and guaranteed another year of chasing the bike racing bug around the world. I think that shows the incredible program that was built- our graduations were in a large part to the hard work that Alan, Doug and Burke put in throughout the season. So throw yo' hands in the air for:

• Steve Fisher: Jelly Belly Professional Cycling Team
• Jon Hornbeck: Kenda 5hr Energy
• Chris Stastny: Firefighters Upsala CK
• Me: Jamis Hagens Berman

• Colby Wait-Molyneux: HBU23
• Stuart Wight: Team H&R Block
• Ryan Miller: It's a surprise!

2) I somewhat lied, highlight number two *led* to a result, but the true highlight to me isn't the result by itself, but how we got there. Flash back to the Ballard Crit. This race as a whole was one of my (and I think the Seattle crew's) biggest racing highlights of the year, but my highlight reel focuses on a specific moment within the race. The absolutely absurd speed of David Fleischhauer's last-lap leadout. There isn't much else to describe there. David was setting me up for the finish, since I had lapped the field earlier. I panicked and yelled at him to go way too early. I heard some form of primal grunt followed by what I can only assume was 1800w for the entire last lap. His leadout was so incredibly fast that he decimated the field behind us and shredded my legs to pieces. I saw a lot of feats of cycling power last season, but I firmly stand behind this statement: This leadout was the most impressive piece of cycling I saw (was a part of) last year, pro and amateur combined. It was just so fast, and way longer than it should have lasted. I'm shaking my head right now thinking about it. Crazy.

It was the last lap.

3) An overall highlight for a lot of us was the Tour of Walla Walla trip in general. It was the first moment for me where I was in a position to win a GC and had to call the shots on the road, it was the first time that our team really gelled together, and we all gained a new confidence in eachother and our abilities. It was a pretty great weekend, made better by the fact that we had a team made up of people from: Washington, Oregon, California and Utah. The real excitement, and real highlight, came when I was driving home across the pass with the Californians (Danny and Staz) and we nearly ran out of gas somewhere in that area that has no gas stations. We barely made it to the gas station at the top of Snoqualmie Pass, and all of a sudden the California Kidz saw snow. This is not normal for people who live on the beach or in the desert, so to top off a great weekend with some midnight fun made it an especially memorable trip.

4) Having phone service at Gila when no one else did, haha suckers.

2013 was the best year that I have had in cycling, both on and off the bike. I'm sure I speak for all of my teammates when I credit the incredible program that we got to be a part of. I'm very excited for the new team and new challenges that await me in the next couple of months, but for now, I practice my pedaling. Bye.

"Abraham Lincoln once said that if 'he had six hours to chop down a tree, he'd spend the first five hours sharpening the axe'. You have a great task ahead, but you are not yet sharpened. It will take time, and require great energy"

-Excerpt from Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman

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I keep my promises

In my last post, I cried a bit about yoga. I made a Christmas promise to you to master these gymnastics stunts by this day. 

"I've been secretly practicing these headstands at home and I can do about 30% of it. I'm really good at the falling violently part at the end that's not shown in the video, but I'm sure that's part of it. I've made it my goal to do these by Christmas."

Turns out that it was a goal of mine, not a promise. But whatever.

Happy Holidays, friends.

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Hot Yogurt

I paid money for a haircut yesterday. This is one of the many new changes and adaptations I've made in the last three weeks of my life. Here's a photo of me and my new setup:

I always make excuses for lack of posting, but really if I post more than once every three months that's probably considered successful in the blogging world. Unless you're one of those "professional blog posters" like Kim Kardashian.

As a perfect transition, here are some photos of things that are falling apart and trashy:

Please note the hand as secondary support to the bungee

I'm sorry to Kim K. fans, that one was just lobbed right to me. By myself. That's like the legend of Cool Papa Bell, one of the fastest baseball players to ever play the game. He was rumored to be so fast that he could turn off the light and be under the covers before the room got dark! In case you didn't follow, I'd have to be that fast in order to lob a pitch to myself.

Here is a quick summary of my last cross race of the season: I had a terrible start, passed people during the second half of the race, and got 4th. This, as proven by math and science, is better than 8th. It was my season goal to get 7th or better in a cyclocross race, so voilla.

I decided to retire on my metaphorical "top", so cross is finished. I've replaced it with something way more difficult, confusing, draining, exhausting, humiliating and all-around excellent. That's right, folks, I have started doing "Heated Vinyasa Flow Yoga" as a means to make myself have awesome evenings whenever I want them. Since the above name is too hard to type regularly, I'm just going to refer to it as Hot Yogurt for the remainder of this post.

Referring to this gymnastics stunt as Hot Yogurt serves two purposes: 1) yogurt is delicious and it calms me to think about yoga in this way, 2) the instructor last night said to think of a phrase or motto that helped to keep you grounded and present during the class. I chose Hot Yogurt because when you pour yogurt it adapts to any shape and that is how I like to think of myself during classes.

Picture this fully engulfed in flames and you'll get the point

Hot Yogurt is a new experience for me, by definition, because I've never done it. I have however done lots of core work and some pretty detailed stretching in my life, so naturally I figured I would be an expert. This belief also causes me to refuse to rest, to take the "easy" ways through things, or use blocks.

Hot Yogurt begins normally enough, and I have to make sure that my "I have no idea what I'm doing" stares at everyone's techniques don't give off any sort of creepy-shirtless guy in the back of the room vibe. Which is exactly where I place myself in these Yogurt classes: as far away from people as possible. I do this because there is a very high possibility that at any moment I may collapse and fall over during some one-legged crow-dive swan-touch position that the 65 year old woman in front of me does with grace and ease.

No worries though, I'm a stubborn sack of potatoes. This is the wrong power vegetable for Hot Yogurt class, but there's nothing I can do about it. The teacher announces it's time for "Child's pose", which to me is one of the most terrifying poses. At this point, I have sweated so much that there is a very large, ocean-like puddle growing in volume in the center of my mat. Child's pose throws my face into that puddle.

She tells me to breathe, but I just flap my arms and feet violently until it is time to change positions. It's time for the part of Hot Yogurt that hurts so good: Any sort of hip stretching. As a pedaler of bikes, my hips are sore often. Yoga tends to dive right into the hip-region of my world, which is a bit of a jab at my "never take the easy method" mantra. Some of these movements I'm confident would legitimately remove my leg from the hip socket if I tried to do the advanced option as suggested. Hot Yogurt wins this round, so I was forced to choose the most advanced thing I could think of to try and master.

I've been secretly practicing these headstands at home and I can do about 30% of it. I'm really good at the falling violently part at the end that's not shown in the video, but I'm sure that's part of it. I've made it my goal to do these by Christmas. I try doing these in class, but my mat provides no resistance on my forearms. I am sweatier than when I shaved my arms pre-Tulsa Tough and glistened the whole evening.

Hot Yogurt is exciting because everyone can challenge themselves. I'm learning that it's ok for me to not win Hot Yogurt class because that's for people who have been more than three times. Which is why I will try again to win Hot Yogurt in January, after I have mastered my headstands, can thrive in 500 degree weather, and have the ability to touch my toes.

Hot yogurt smells bad. Because it's a dairy product. Hot Yogurt smells bad because people smell. Now you know.

I've been going with Marissa, and she just informed me that this isn't Hot Yoga that we are doing, it's just "heated". Holy Satan's underbelly I can only imagine the emotional punishment that happens at actual Hot Hot Yogurt.

For something else completely shocking:

For people who don't know, here's a sample of 2 Chainz's educated lyrics:

"My wrist deserve a shout out, 'I'm like what up wrist?' My stove deserve a shout out, 'I’m like what up stove?'"

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I took photos of street art!

I'm all about circles, so since I finished last post with a way-too zoomed in photo of my head, here's another!

Matthew J Clark photo

That photo was taken immediately after I crossed the line at Woodland Park. Clearly I didn't go hard enough because I had the energy to smile, which means I need better fitness. More on that later. I've determined that the other large, glaringly obvious issue with my cyclocross racing endeavors is my general lack of willingness to not brake in ever corner. There are some downsides to this method, sure, but the positives are what I like to choose to focus on. For one, I'm typing this post with absolutely ZERO fatigue in my fingers. I'm just blitzing along the keyboard. I don't want to say at SewingMachine speed, but it's close. The reason behind this? All the braking has added the equivalent of an 8-pack to each of my fingers. So there's that.


Secondly, I was thinking about how wild that I was getting on complete accident at the contest at Woodland Park. This led to me using Youtube and re-finding this gem:

This has nothing to do with my style of cyclocross racing, because that is all intentional. It seems.

I have a terrible confession. All cross season I've acted as if cross was just a weekend-for-fun gala event of extraordinary proportions, but really I've had deeper intentions. I've gotten 8th about 100 times, and after all those 8ths, my super-secret hidden goal has to been to get 7TH or better.

I figured that it was too hard to get better at turning, driving the bike, running with the bike, and jumping off the bike, so instead I thought I should focus on getting better in the pedaling zone of the offroad contests.  I decided that it was absolutely necessary to take a trip to California in order to properly optimize my training prior to my final cross race of the season. I mean, ignoring the fact that this has been planned since August, I'm realllllly here to get better at cross. Right.

California. This is a state in the United States populated by surfer bros and frozen yogurt establishments. Training is going very well here: I ate TWO cookies yesterday. One was a peanut butter delight, purchased from a bakery on Seal Beach. I rate it at about an 8/10. It was very good, but it was a bit too dry to get a much higher rating. My next cookie was a Gingersnap from Intelligentsia coffee in Venice. I rate this at a 9/10 because my personal rule is to always get a gingersnap if they are sold at a coffee establishment. This held a lot of merit on this certain day: I was eating it from a business on Abbot Kinney, which anyone who knows anything about being trendy would know is GQ magazine's "Trendiest Street in America". So in conclusion, eating my gingersnap cookie made me trendy even though I was wearing a tshirt and hadn't showered in like, 20 days.

This is where I practiced for cyclocross racing. And other types of racing.

This is a picture of me surfing.

This is a picture of a bird flying.

This is my new tattoo I got on my calf. It's a Uniwolfeetah.

And that's the story about how Ian Crane got his first sunburn of the 2014 training season.

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These are important life lessons.

Wow, not having to be at school is something that I extremely relish. Relish is a  strange word because it is also a gross condiment that people who have no taste buds smear on their hot dogs and breakfast cereal. If you use relish you probably also hate puppies. So there's that.

Relish is the green part. Do you really want that in your life?

This is the first October in my bike-pedaling life that I haven't had to balance pretending to study with training. I graduated in March and it turns out that I did not have any desire to rush back for extended learning, so here I am: Mid October, living at home and drinking coffee in my pajamas at 2:38 PM. Please don't show that statement to any of your friends, colleagues, or criminal conspirators without first giving them some background of who I am and how the path that I am on doesn't lead me towards Dungeons and Dragons. Yet.

I've been thoroughly enjoying my free time now that I don't have Western to navigate. This free time has led to a lack of blogging because I no longer have things that I am trying to avoid doing. I also have been living a fairly stressful life as of recently. I usually wake up when I'm rested, which is stressful because I go to bed early so that means I wake up around 7-7:30. Then I have the difficult decision on Espresso, French Press or Bialetti to ponder. Soon comes the most difficult and stress-provoking moment of my day. Do I wait to ride in the hypothetical "nice" window of the day? Or do I get out the door by ten?

Now you can see that I have my stresses too.

This no school thing makes the biking much easier as well. I am having no problems finding any motivation to get out the door. I'm obviously hugely motivated by the season to come, but I'm also not worn down from the huge and physically destructive hour of class a day.

It's important to know that this post has taken me three days to write. I'm busy, I swear it. Let's talk about cyclocross racing!

I recently did something substantial: I raced cross two weekends in a row. The past two to three years I've done one to two cross races each year. I always end up retiring after each one because my back hurts and I probably got beat by someone wearing a costume. However, this year I've had a teeeeeeny change of heart and have only retired after one of the three cross races that I've done. That's progress!

Cross has been a nice change of pace because when I race cross, I can reward myself by having a Motofish coffee afterwards. Motofish made an excellent business plan when they decided to use Lighthouse beans, and because of that I make an effort to come to the cross races simply to get un cafe. They are really good. Get one. I've also enjoyed cross racing because I can get some riding in beforehand, then race, and call it a great training day. I currently can't decide if I like this method of awesome-training better, or the method of a three hour ride in the morning before track racing. One is colder. Both are equally hungry.

I image searched "I have to make a decision" and that was on the results. So I think that helps to clear things up in the smallest of proportions.

Cross racing. Right. In typical Ian cross fashion, I've been pretty good on the pedaling portions of the races and pretty awful at the bike-driving, bike-running, and bike-clippinginfast categories of these contests. This is especially great when I hear 100 times before the race "Ian this is a great course for you!" because there is one pavement section. Which is the reason I went to that race, because there was one pavement section. Now I'm confused, because there were also several turning sections and I got dropped.

Also important about cross racing. I get heckled A LOT. I think this has something to do with my constant braking in the corners, or maybe the fact that I just look hilarious while riding. Let's look at some photos of me in action to determine my success rate.

First of all, starts are very important in cyclocross races. Here's a good shot of how things usually turn out immediately after the start line. I circled myself to assist my readers who don't recognize me riding knobby tires:

Next, I've found that slippery corners are tough. Here is a good pictorial analysis of me searching out the most slippery line possible through every corner:

Or, in a possibly related category:

 

So the cornering, yeah, it's not good. That's ok though! There is more to cross racing than cornering. In fact, sometimes on courses there are parts where you have to get off your bike and either run or jump, or in my case, walk. Here's a great photo from DBCphoto.com that shows my technique whenever there are barriers or runups:

I try to take advantage of the pedaling as much as possible, which I'm sure leads to me being the most annoying guy in the race to ride with. I'll go really hard on any sections of sustained pedaling, open up a gap, then promptly get caught and passed in the corners. Then repeat. I also make sure that look at my Garmin while racing.

This picture is titled thug life.

This picture is titled "Catch up":

And this picture is titled "12 mph":

I'm confused as to why I'm having such a good time racing cross this season. I blame Motofish coffee and wanting to get better than 8th place. I'll keep trying to corner fast.

Hopefully this post kick-starts my blogging again. Because really, what else am I going to do?

Sincerely yours,

wingerstudios.com

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