Goals for 2011

My favorite part of the "off season" is getting in lots of quality training, and thinking ahead to the next season. Here is how my season will break down in 2011.

1) Collegiate Cycling in the spring

2) Trans Rockies Run - Training for this will occupy the summer months, from April to August. The main purpose will be a fund raiser which I am still putting together the details for.

3) Cyclocross in the fall - After mainly running during the summer, I hope to hit the cyclocross season fresh and motivated.

Specific goals:

1) Some top 10 finishes in the B collegiate races. I hear that the B races are roughly equivalent to cat 3/4, so this will be challenging. In order to do this, I'm going to have to work on my positioning and field sprints, as I don't think that there are going to be many very hilly races. It should be good training and good practice.

2) Top 5 finish in the Pottsville City Cycle 17. Knowing this race a little better this year should help.

3) Top 3 finish in the Tek Park Criterium. This is a super hilly race, and should suit my strengths well.

4) More points in the Thursday night late race.

5) Earn points towards a Cat 2 upgrade in cyclocross.

6) Work on my TT, and average 25+ mph for the Route 29 10 mile TT.

In 2010, my training was very sporadic. My season goals were changing, and I had a teaching and class schedule that kept changing. With 2011, I hope to keep a more consistent training schedule, I won't be taking any more classes so I can devote time in the mornings for training.

Looking back on 2010

Earlier last spring, I set some specific goals for myself in 2010. They were:

1) Upgrade to Cat 3 in the road - This was my main goal, and the only goal I didn't achieve. The hilly races that I was planning on using for points (Mt. Nebo, Oxford, Fulton) all lost their USA Cycling sanctioned status, so no upgrade points for those races. I think this will wait until 2012.

2) Stage race - Millersburg 3/4, the racing was hard, and I've got a way to go before I can hang with the 3s.

3) Improve TT - 8 miles in 20 min or less - I did this at one of the Route 29 TT, it was a 10 mile TT and I held over 24 mph.

4) Not get dropped before mile 10 in Battenkill Masters - This race went well, I hung with the field until the Meetinghouse Rd climb, by then the field was mostly shredded anyway.

5) Upgrade to Cat 3 cyclocross - Done.

6) Keep running - Only real running race was the SuperBowl 10k, which I'll do again next year.

7) Multisport - Took 2nd at the Vincentown Du which was my first multisport event, and it was a lot of fun. I plan on doing more of these.

Some of the biggest highlights were getting points in the Thursday night late race. This is a fast training criterium, and I was elated to get 1 point in a sprint early in the season, and 2 points on a solo effort.

Overall I'm satisfied with the way 2010 went. Road was a bit of a dissapointment, when most of my main road races were cancelled, I lost lost much of my training motivation. I started the cyclocross season highly motivated and training hard, but tapered out by the end. Next year I'll make cyclocross a season goal, and make sure I can get through the entire season.

Limestone Cross at the Kiln

Less then 24 hours after returning from Nepal, I rolled up to the start of the Limestone Cross at the Kiln. I had been on a bike twice in the past 5 weeks, and the last time was over 2 weeks ago, but any chance to do a cross race was an opportunity to be seized. It was after midnight Nepal time, and I was still tired from our 30+ hour trip, so I had no real objectives other then to have fun, and get some exercise with light exposure to help readjust my circadian rhythms.

I have no idea where the race organizers got their call up list from, but staging at the back was fine with me, as I was far from finely tuned racing shape. The biggest perk of a local race is the amount of spectators that will come out and watch, several Lamprey Systems families were there.



The race started with the usual congestion in the middle of the pack, but with the muddy and snowy conditions, riders were sliding out all over and there were several crashes right in the first few turns. I saw one guy do an endo and flip over his front wheel. I managed to slip past most of the wreckage and work my way up from the back of the field.



The slippery conditions probably worked to my advantage, as there was more emphasis on bike handling then leg power (which I was distinctly lacking). By starting off conservatively, I could ride more efficiently towards the end of the race, hold better lines in the turns, and avoid the fatigue induced sloppiness that can put racers into the ground.



Greg had a good start, and by the time I came around after the first lap, I got word from the sidelines that Greg was in the lead. Unfortunately, he got taken out on the steep, wooded climb and somehow sheared off his front valve stem.

Check out the crash sequence in the background:







Unfortunately, this was the end of Greg's race as he hadn't brought his spare bike.





A group of hecklers had assembled themselves on the wooded climb and were taking advantage of the slow speeds to pummel racers with snow balls. It took them 3 laps before they were able to finally land one on me.



You can see Selene's snowball in mid flight.

I passed for 5th place as he was taking a beer hand up at the top of the run-up, but I was a long way off from the podium spots. The race paid down to the top 5, so I managed to get my entry fee covered. You can't go wrong with a cross race, I hope this trend of winter racing continues, it would be nicer to have a longer cross season.

Winter training has been kick-started.

Gotta love the snow man, great work by (L-R) Ashley, Sophia, Ella, and Maya:

Nepal (17) Airport

Straight from the Tribhuvan Airport website of Kathmandu, Nepal, comes the following customs requirement:

1.3 Visitors are also allowed to carry one binocular, one camera, one movie camera, one video camera, one radio, one tape recorder, one by-cycle, one wrist watch, one set of fountain pen, one perambulator, 15 radio cassettes and 10 disk records into the country for personnel use, on the condition that they are declared and are to be taken back on return. Carrying narcotics, arms and ammunitions are strictly prohibited.

Nepal (16) Animals

So here is a short post highlighting some of the animals that we've come across.

Goats:



Baby Goats:



Baby Chicks:



Donkeys:



Buffalos:

Nepal (15) Daily Routine

Even though so many aspects of our daily life are completely different then what we're used to in the States, life has started to feel very normal here as we become integrated into daily activities in Tansen. Daily activities include shopping for food, meeting familiar faces, and taking care of things around the house.

Me: Chini cha? (Is there sugar?)

Store operator: Cha..... (There is...)

We've had dinner with a Nepali family at their house, where 8 of us gathered in one tiny room on a bed because their house is so small, and ate chicken which qualified as an exotic luxury based on their income. We've had dinner at a European's multi-room apartment flat with waffles, imported blueberries, and heat.

We've had our teeth cleaned at the dentist.



I've had my hair cut.



Some simple things are much more complicated (like washing the dishes). But some normally complicated things are much more simple.

Despite all these differences, it feels very comfortable, and there are definitely many things that I will greatly miss.

Nepal (14) Welcome back to Tansen

Becca and I left Pokhara early one morning, and took the bus back to Tansen. The main highway doesn't go through the actual city, so when we got off the bus, we jumped on to the top of a jeep to drive us up to the city. The top of a jeep is a good place to sight see, and the air was as clear as I've ever seen. When we got to the main bus park and climbed down from the roof, we were met by a small entourage of somewhat official looking people. I had a hard time understanding what was going on, but fortunately Becca recognized one of them from the tourism board (Getup Palpa).



It turned out that we were being selected to be honored as the first tourists to Tansen of the year 2011 (Year of Tourism). Becca and I were whisked away, our backpack parked at the hotel, and when we got to the main field, the full greeting began.

We met parliament members, cabinet members, various officials, and got photographed and filmed by various journalists. By the end we were covered in marigold wreaths, scarves, and red tikka dust.

Nepal (13) MTB near Pokhara

A few days later, Peter, Becca, and I returned to Pokhara to spend a few days there again before Peter and Anna returned to the States. We had one day planned for mountain biking.

The morning started off with what could have been utterly catastrophic. We rolled out of the hotel early in the morning on our way to the mountains. With the enthusiasm of getting back on a bike, Peter took off accelerating down the main road in Pokhara. Behind him, I could hear him clicking down through the cassette and he was moving faster then I could keep up with. Suddenly, it looked like he hit a land mine and launched into the air, flipping over 180 degrees and coming down hard on his head. The bike tumbled away and he rolled to a stop, fortunately he jumped right up and after shouting a few choice words, gathered the bike off of the road.

Immediately we noticed that the front wheel was very messed up, one broken spoke and several other bent ones. I don't think we realized the full extent of the damage until later, though. When we finally did examine his helmet, we realized that it was completely toast. The foam was so cracked and crushed, the internal plastic skeleton was showing like a broken femur sticking out of someone's leg. The overall shape of the helmet was slightly more kidney bean then oval, and the external plastic cover had buckled in a few spots. We're convinced he would be dead or a vegetable if he hadn't had his helmet on. I still can't believe how well he fared, considering the impact. His foot hurt for a while, and he had a mild headache, but that was about it.

His cleats were worn, and had come unclipped sending his right foot into the front wheel where it locked up against the fork.

Considering the possibility that he just suffered a mild (or maybe not so mild) concussion, we decided to take the ride easy. Actually, it would have been smarter to cancel the ride. Had he gotten any worse during the day, we would have been far away from any help, with no real roads, transportation, or any other people around.

That night, I woke him up every 2 hours to check his alertness and mental status, just to make sure that nothing developed. He seemed fine, so I think we are really lucky.

Here are some shots from the ride:

Nepal (12) Tansen Challenge

So up the road from the hospital is a place called Shrinager Hill, and it is some hill.



There are some 500+ steps, and the goal of the Tansen Challenge is to make it up and down 3 times as fast as you can. The previous record was 14 some minutes, but after doing one up and down in training, I figured that record was just about untouchable. Not only was the run up brutal and steep, but coming down was tricky with some loose gravel and broken steps.



The race was fun and well organized, the kids did one up and down, and my Dad participated in the "geriatric" category.





I managed a 13:04 and won an awesome Norway t-shirt.





Even the goats climbed Shrinager:

Nepal (11) Daily shots around Tansen

Here is just a short collection of a few shots from normal daily activities.

Soaking up the sun in the garden behind the house:



Around the kitchen:



Playing Salu:



The local grocer:



And I have no idea what this is:

Nepal (10) Dakha Cloth

Back in Tansen, we had some time to explore the local area. One of the most impressive things I saw was the Dakha Cloth factory where everything is done by hand. Starting with spinning the threads, to spooling up the fabric, to weaving the entire thing together, the entire operation is done in the same manner that it has been since the first looms were designed and built.







A sample of the finished goods:



The most impressive part of all of this was the metal punchcards used to set the pattern. A spool feeds in the punched cards, which is "read" by the loom every weave cycle just like a computer. Depending on where the holes are, some strings pull up on the main weave lines, so when the weaver sends a shuttle with the correct color through the loom, the pattern and color are duplicated from the punched cards. I have some video that shows this process much better which I'll put together later.

Nepal (9) Trek, Day 4

We weren't far from Nyapul, and the last bit was mostly flat along the river. This was a particularly wet valley, some of the water was diverted into the fields for irrigation.



Back in Pokhara, we rented boats for the evening and paddled around the lake for a while.



The bus trip back to Tansen was another hilly trip through the clouds.