Weather and other boring crap like that...

This weather is bullshit, but I guess considering it's middle of December I should be a little more thankful. I just wish it'd stay somewhat consistant for more than 24 hours. I do hate that everything seems to drastically slow down as soon as November ends.

It is that time of the year that everything at the shop changes too. New '09 bikes and accesories and I think it's tradition to knock out a couple walls and rearrange the whole inventory but we've gotten that out of the way early. My recovery is still the slow process I was told it would be so it's good I don't actually have the motivation to want to do anything. Saturday evening I did get to spend 4 hours in the Brack ER so they could stick a 12 guage needle into my elbow to dig out a piece of glass that had been bothering me for a month. Aaaand that's about the only exciting thing going on with me besides getting a PowerTap power meter for my P3C! More later....

Things I've learned this week

After the little accident I had wednesday I haven't been able to do much besides sit down or lay down, which apparently leads to alot of t.v, computer, and thinking. I decided to compile some of the finer points I've learned lately. The first being that riding on the trainer might not be as monotonous and boring as I'd previously seen it to be. The next that the human body really does not like to go from over 30mph to zero too quickly. Then that random Austin citizens can be your best friends, and APD/EMS/Fire have impressively fast response times. The final that I don't ever, ever want to get hit by a car again. I'm not even that bummed about my cracked and splintered SLC-SL that has less than 20 miles on it because I'm still in one piece, nothings broken, and in a few days I'll be back to the way i was on Tuesday, and a bike can be replaced. As always the care and support of everyone kept spirits up and again reminded me that I'm lucky to have all you guys around. Thanks Mom and Dad for keeping calm when I called you from the back of an ambulance, meeting me at the hospital, and taking care of me more than I'd wanted the first couple days of recovery.

Down and Out.

This is gonna be a tough week... I thought it was going to be great because I got a new bike yesterday (SLC-SL!!) and finished building it last night. Took it out this afternoon for the inaugural ride and was psyched about the upgraded ride quality. I had about a mile to go until the end of the ride and was cruising down congress on my way back to barton springs. At 8th and congress I had a green light, a lady going the opposite direction was was turning left and came to a stop to let me go. last minute i guess she decided to try to make it and gunned it. i was moving about 30-35 mph trying to go the same speed as traffic and just couldn't stop in time. I put a big dent in her car and put my elbow through her windshield, and the first thing i heard after she hit me was the sound of carbon shattering...Not even 20 miles on the first ride and my bike is trash. I layed in the street unable to move and the EMT's scooped me up, put me on a backboard, strapped on a neck brace, and loaded me into the ambulance. In the ambulance they were shining flash lights in my eyes, checking my blood pressure, sticking needles in me, wiping up blood, and covering me with heart-rate moniters. Once I got to the hospital they were picking glass out of my arm, scrubbing the road rash, cleaning the open wounds, x-raying my back, and asking me a bunch of questions i was too drugged up to answer. My parents are awesome and picked me up from the hospital and took me home so they can cater to me and grow gray hairs. I don't think I'll be doing Tour Das Hugel on saturday. Way too sore to move much right now and doctors say it's gonna be worse tomorrow. Fortunately I'm drugged up on a bunch of hydrocodone right now and as soon as i lay down I'll be out for the night. Hopefully everyones having a better week..

Kona

Yesterday was ironman world championships in kona, and as always, it was pretty exciting to watch even from a poor connection on my laptop. My prediction for next year is Chrissie Wellington takes the overall.. Congrats to Grant Glauser in finishing! By the number of DNF's and painfully slow bike/run times for the pros and the AG'ers it must have been a tough day.
Now the only big event left for the season is clearwater then a brief hibernation for triathletes.

The winter can never come too soon after seasons like these. Some good races, alot of bad races, and plenty to learn from. It's good to get into a different rythm now that I don't have anything to train for, just maintainance until January. Now if it'd just start to cool off outside so it felt like the off-season.

Longhorn 70.3

Longhorn is this weekend, and I'm secretly really disappointed that I won't be racing it again this year. The turnout looks intense this year with Bjorn Andersson, Simon Lessing, Tim Deboom, Marky V, and Brandon Marsh. I anticipate the swim/bike to be a heated race and can't wait to see who's gonna take it on the run, which all led me to come up with my own race-day playout, so here's how it's gonna go: marky V first out of the water, Lessing and Brandon close in 2nd and 3rd. Bjorn will be backstroking playfully sporting a baggy swimsuit because he knows what's about to happen on the bike. Mile 15 of the bike marky V and Brandon battle for 2nd while being lead by bjorn. The order into T2 off the bike will be Bjorn, Mark, Brandon, and i don't care after that. Brandon and Mark struggle to gap Bjorn who just drop-kicked Tim Deboom, in turn making Lessing afraid to pass Bjorn. Brandon wins, Mark and Bjorn even-tie for second (first time in 70.3 history!!!), Lessing happily accepts a conscious 3rd, Time Deboom wishes he was conscious or 3rd.
As far as the womans race goes we all know by now Amy Marsh faked a stress fracture to train secretly on her new P4 and will win by a huge margin, hurdling over the out-cold Deboom to cartwheel through the finish line, which in it's entirety is obscenely ridiculous and completely untrue. So that's my completely unbiased version on how the race will play out.
If I were to be serious for a brief moment I'd say that I was fortunate enough to hang out with Mark and Bjorn for a short while today, both of whom seemed nonchalantly confident about their own races and it could be anyones day on sunday.

Off season and ACL weekend

It's monday night and I've finally recovered from the carnage that is ACL weekend. It was a heavy weekend of drinking that started on wednesday. The professional drinkers carried it out until sunday night. I, a young amatuer, had to throw in the towel after a horrendous saturday. I didn't get much riding in except for my commutes. This week is probably going to be alot of riding and a few good swims. After a couple short runs i'm having mild, not so much pain, but discomfort, where I had the stress fracture in leg. To be on the safe side and with CDA training in mind I'm taking another couple months off from running.
Training aside, the focus for the rest of the year is school, and not drinking beer ever again. But mostly school. Good luck to everyone doing Longhorn next weekend, if anyone who reads this is racing Longhorn..

End of Season Race

This is the blog where I say everything I've said before then say that this time it's really true. The first being that I'm going to start updating regularly and more frequently and the other that today was the last multisport event of the season for me.
This morning ATC made a strong appearance at the burnet triathlon with 5 guys in the top 10 overall. Conditions were perfect, course was poorly marked but competitive enough to break up any forming groups on the bike and run. Now I'm going to take advantage of my bragging rights (since there was no prize money) about my first overall win in a triathlon, which I unrealistically like to think will stop Don from taunting me about the time he beat me in a sprint a couple years ago. Congrats to him though on his 5th overall finish and to Adams first AG and 8th overall.
For me the rest of the season will probably be focused on cycling and running until CDA training starts in January unless miraculously the Galveston tri is NOT cancelled.