On Lethargy

fuck, I'm tired.

I've been feeling tired for a few days now. Since I've gotten back into a routine of commuting and training, I think I dove back into it too fast. I could have ridden to work today, but was tired on the ride in yesterday, tired on the ride home last night, sluggish when I woke up this morning, and I've fallen asleep twice at work today. yeah, I need sleep.

That's too bad, because a ride in today would have made this two perfect weeks in a row. I think I'm going to get up and go to a cross country running race at great brook state park tomorrow - rain or shine. It's a 6 k race, I know all the trails there, and I've never done a cross country race in the rain.

Then I'm going home to sleep.

The ZenBox

What's Zen Listening to?

I have over 800 CDs I've been collecting for over 20 years now. I've recorded them all onto a few portable hard drives. (redundancy, so I don't have to spend 6 months recording them all over again should one of the HDs crap out).

Should you want to check out the eclectic music lack-of-preference of The Master of The Double X Funk, set up windows IM on your computer, add me as a contact, and you'll be able to see what comes next on the almost 8000 songs in my library.

No, I've never joined or downloaded any of these from a peer sharing network.
Yes, every song here was on a CD purchased by me at one time or another.

So, from Albinoni to Weiss,
from ABBA to ZZtop,
from Adult Contemporary Alternative to World Beat,

I bring you ZenBox

Tuesday Night Fights

I felt better at last nights ride than I have since the beginning of the year, especially after feeling so useless the week before, but still didn't feel as well as I think I should this time of year. It was a small turnout, and it pretty much stayed together. I went off the front alone a couple times, and ended up in small groups that got gaps a few times. I got away with one other dude who's riding very well this year (he was laid off for two months in may/june) but I ended up getting those dreaded wind cramps again. I surprised my self with a couple of sprints, I dusted the group at one hill sprint and at the finish. I couldn't believe no one went with me at the end. We came into the last corner and I just went, thinking I was going to duke it out with a couple of the other active riders, but neither one countered....strange. One guy mentioned that I took everyone by surprise, but hey, it's the same spot we've been sprinting at since I first started going to these rides like 15 years ago.

I think I shouldn't worry too much about placing in any more races this year, but simply riding to my best ability. I'd like to go into the off season as fit as possible. Unfortunately, there aren't too many masters events left until 'cross starts. The only road events I have an interest in are 1/2/3. I've never been a contender in 'cross, but enjoy it, so I'll try and get a few races in this year. Let's hope for a rainy fall, I love mud!

And you can thank solobreak for this.

The 'perfect' week.

It's been a while since I've had one of these. In fact, this is the first one all year.

Many years ago a racing friend of mine defined the 'perfect week' as one in which you never have to start your car. I've had many perfect weeks in the past, but not lately. Between the rainy early season we had, and obligations relating to a certain loathsome piece of rental property, I have had none at all this year, until now.

So, counting tonights ride home, I'll have ridden to/from work every day this week, as well as the Famous Tuesday Night Fights in Plaistow, and a few extra miles on the way home last night, for a total of about 160 miles for the week.

And what a dull boy jack has become.....

It's been a while since I even _looked_ at this blog. I had to go back and read my last post, just to remember what the fuck I wrote.

"all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" hit it for me. From all the grand plans of getting things done, it pretty much went awry. The only thing I _did_ finish was getting the one side of my house painted. I didn't fix my car, I bought a new one. I got a total of 7 hours of riding over ten days. I had to spend a day shopping for, and installing a new pc, then probably a days worth of shopping/buying the car.

The rest of the time was spent painting. I got it done, but I seriously spent 6 days scraping, priming, and painting.

What did I do to compensate? I entered both the Salem Witches Cup and the Beverly Grand Pix. DNF'd both.

Same thing both nights. About 15 minutes in, I got wind cramps, way up in the diaphragm. This is a result of not training, and is pretty typical for me in very early season races. My HR for both nights show that I was above my AT for the whole time.

There was one bright spot to the time off though, I rode the bike leg for the Franconia Notch Triathlon, and got the 2nd fastest time in my age group. Unfortunately, the other team members were a coworker and his brother in-law. Don't get me wrong, they're good people and I like them. They just arent athletes.

The event is run differently than a standard tri - bike, swim, run. the bike is 6 miles, 3.5 paved, 2.5 on rocky rooty muddy uphill new england double-track, finishing on the paved walking trial up to cannon ski resort. The swim is 1/2 mile across Echo Lake, and the run.....well, isn't really a run unless you're a genetic freak. It's 2.5 miles up the ski slopes of cannon mountainfrom the base lodge to the very top. 2200' feet of climbing. I saw two guys running, the first two out of the water. Everyone else walked.

I came into the transition area in 5th place (3rd for the teams), then my swimmer came out in, ready for this? 30th, out of 70 teams, his time was 4th from last. Next up, the 'runner'.

Now, Jim was a nice guy, very friendly, but easily 50 pounds overweight. I waited at the transition zone (rode my bike around the lake) and had them drop a pair of sneakers for me. I figured I would go up with jim. I knew he wouldn't drop me, and I figured even if we pushed it I would at least get a good workout. Well, jim was waiting in a pair of merril hikers, cargo shorts, pearl izumi wicking shirt, and hiking poles.

We started off, and at first the pace was good, but not fast. My HR was at 80%.

We got passed by everyone. We passed _no_ one. My HR steadily dropped going up the hill. I was breathing normally by the half way point, and my HR dropped below 100 several times. Jims time was 3rd from last, netting us 47th place out of 70 teams.

Still, I enjoyed it. After the race we went back to their campground and ate lots of food and drank lots of beer. They are genuinely good people, and I'm glad to have met jim and done the race with them.

Well, this wasn't much of an entry, but I've had other things I need to deal with rather than blogging. Hopefully things will settle down and I'll get back to some sort of enjoyable routine of working/riding/writing.