RAAM training weekend

This weekend is bound to be a tough weekend for me.  Wednesday night I hopped on the bike for the first time in 2 weeks and this weekend is full of miles in a competition that our RAAM 4 man team will do.  We are looking at near 250 miles in 3 days for each rider and the break down is something like this:

Friday: 20km tt after work

Saturday: 202 total miles (RAAM Style rotation for two man teams)

Sunday 100-125mile training ride

This is going to be a GREAT opportunity for all of us to push our limits and hopefully motivate us as well.  I can not deny the fact that I am having a hard time getting/staying motivated and maybe this will be the kick start that I need!  More to come later!

Movember and a new blog

So, for those of you that don’t know and even the ones that do know.  November is officially known as Movember.  “Why?” you might ask.  Well it is known as Movember to help raise dollars and awareness for men’s health, particularly prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.  The whole purpose of this is to help in the fight against cancer by informing people of the methods of early detection as well as raising funds to support research (http://us.movember.com/?home).

So, now your asking, “Brady, How is the mustache coming along?”  Well, unfortunately due to a lack of ability to grow a mustache, at least one that doesn’t make me look like a pedophile (bad look when you have a 1 year old daughter…), I will not be attempting this year.  My goal, however, is to show my support of this great cause by sporting my new Mo’ socks for all of my rides. I know, I know… Lame! Thankfully Save Our Soles has made up for my shortcoming in ability to grow a nice handlebar mustache! 🙂  For all “Mo’ Bros” who are able to grow one keep up the great work and send me some sweet pics to post at the end of the month.

In other news… I am switching Scalybirdlegs over to a WordPress account.  It seems to be a fairly easy transition and due to several things coming down the pipe it is more beneficial for me to have a WordPress account.  Thank you all for following me here at blogger and I hope that you will continue to follow me at: http://scalybirdlegs.wordpress.com

Changeover

So, I am Switching from blogger over to wordpress.  It is more because it allows me the opportunity to sync with other sites and some other things to come in the future.  Nothing huge but that is what is up.  Thanks for following and have a GREAT rest of your week!

Cash Mwoney


To be honest I was not expecting much from today’s cross race.  I think part of it was because I am used to racing in a Colorado field after the past several years and my training has not been where it needs to be or I expect to be in the last 4 months.  But I was pleasantly surprised today.  Let me start from the beginning though… This morning I got everything ready and loaded up to head to work.
After putting in 5 hours at work I headed to the races with Janelle and Katelyn, my number one and two fans.  I couldn’t have been set up any better since I was riding a brand spanking new Trek Cronus CX bike, and with a ride like that there were no excuses of issues with a bike.



With a couple of warm up laps under my belt I took my backup wheels to the pit and headed to the start line.  Position was not the greatest since they were calling my name (oops) as the last rider to the line since they wanted an early start for the final race of the day.  With the start of the race I weaved through the field and hit the first corner about 8 back and the fun was just getting under way!  For 5 laps 3rd through 9th place stuck together.  Biding my time I sat in for 3 laps and let 2 guys put in the lions share of the work.  Half way through lap four the leading rider bobbled and another rider attacked on the pavement.  I responded with ease and stuck to his wheel for half a lap.  The surge lost one of our 6 riders and we were down to five.  We stayed this way for the next several laps and with 2 laps to go I was sitting second wheel and the guy in front of me eased off at the roughest part of the course and there was an attack from one rider.  Everyone sat and let him go through the twisty part of the course until he had a 5 second gap.  Out of the final tight corner I attacked and was in no mans land for half a lap constantly reeling in the guy off the front.  I caught him and attacked
 immediately on the long gradual climb of the course but he stuck my wheel and sat on.  With a little more than one lap to go I turned to him and said he was going to have to work with me to keep the gap on the riders chasing behind.  He obliged and pulled nearly half a lap.  I took over on the narrow single track section and lead the rest of the lap.  With 3 turns to go he tried coming around and I accelerated to hold him off and came out of the last turn first wheel where I knew I wanted to be if it was going to come down to a sprint finish.  I did not wait for him to attack and went as hard as I could out of the corner with 300 yards to go.  I managed to hold him off and get third by a little over a bike length on him.  Not a bad way to start off and a great thing to boost confidence for a great deal of roller riding to come.

Cross race weekend

Well, due to a fairly busy schedule and some other factors there won’t be much racing in the coming weeks and months, but today after working for a couple of hours I am off to do a ‘cross race here in Tallahassee.  After watching some Behind the Barriers videos and some Superprestige this morning I am amped and ready to race.  Now, as long as the legs are ready we should be good to go!

It has been since April since my lat race and for those of you who know how that goes in terms of not racing for a while there is always a little uncertainty heading into it simply because it has been a while.  Here is hoping to a fun filled sufferfest and potentially even a strong finish.

RAAM 2012, Halloween

Okay, so as some of you already know and others will know momentarily, I will be competing in Race Across America in 2012.  Yes I am crazy and no I am not mentally insane and doing it solo.  I will be competing with 2 of the 3 team mates that I did RAW with in 2010 and one new rider to the team.  We are doing this to raise funds for 8 children in Tallahassee, FL who are battling Leukemia to help them and their families with this struggle that they have had, are having and will continue to have.

Training recently has been very rough since days has been long and sleep has been minimal but this weekend has me more motivated than before(not sure why).  It has been a lot of early morning roller rides and then some long rides on the weekend but will only be ramped up from here on out.  I can not thank Janelle enough for everything she has been doing.  She has been taking care of Kate and the entire house so that I can focus on work and training and then spend the time that I have with her and Kate doing more enjoyable things, like hanging out and playing.

Katelyn is by far the cutest mouse there ever is and was for Halloween.  Tuesday, I worked late which meant I was able to go to baby time at the library in the morning with Janelle and Kate and got to take pictures of the parade as they all went through the library in their costumes.

Today we walked up the street to one of the local churches “Trunk or Treats.”  Styling her cool mouse costume she was all over the place and caught on pretty quick on how to trick or treat.  The only problem was that she wanted more candy than was given.  I guess what sane child wouldn’t though, I would want more too!  With some pumpkin carving and home made cinnamon rolls in there the whole weekend couldn’t have been any better.  Not a bad way to spend my first true weekend off in 2 months. 🙂

Now, off to bed and tomorrow night will entail some more trick or treating and fun with Janelle, Katelyn and some friends.  

Pet Peeves

Alright so several weeks ago I did 6 Gap Century in Dahlonega, GA.  It was a fun event and really eye opening at how much fitness I have lost in the last 5 months or so.  The riding has slipped a bit since our move, and a little before that for that matter, the guys I did Phantom canyon with can attest to that! 🙂  But hopefully really long days of work are going to become fewer and farther between and a little more consistency will come back in my training which is necessary in preparation for RAAM next year.

Anyways…enough about that and on to my real reason for writing.  At 6 Gap I was surprised by the audacity of one individual who stated, “Dumb racers go to fast to even enjoy the scenery,” as I was riding through a little slower moving traffic (missed the start by 10-15min…oops!).  This really bothered me because I felt I was being as courteous as possible in going by.  Either way I think there is something that the “racers” need to understand as well as the more recreational crowd and everyone in between.  Everyone gets their enjoyment from riding in different ways, some enjoy the scenery, others like to push their limits.  The most important thing is that we all have a mutual respect for everyone that is out on the road.  Love what you do and just be glad that someone is out on the road and riding in a respectable manner to continue to give cyclists a good name.

Life is a changin’

Well, it has been a whirlwind since my last post.  It has included turning in my two weeks (or month in this case), packing up our house, selling the Subaru (I LOVED that car and miss her so much!), Katelyn’s 1st birthday, spending some time in Canon City with Janelle and her family, driving to KS and spending time with all family, driving to Tallahassee Florida (Just me, Janelle and Kate flew), finding a new place to live, starting a new job at Sunshine Cycles (where big things are happening and continuing to happen), and selling our house in COS (painful, but glad it sold)!  Why so much many of you might ask and the most common question that we get around here is “Why would you EVER leave Colorado?!”  Well, here is all I can answer with that:

So…if you don’t know what that means let me explain.  This opportunity has given Janelle the opportunity to stay at home with Katelyn and raise her and any potential Irwin child (yes it is singular) that may come along in the coming years.  It was SO hard to leave all of our friends and “family” in COS and just as difficult to leave the beautiful climate and amazing scenery but in the end will all be worth it and then some!
Things have been going well since we got here, minus the occasional snag or two.  We do love the “Southern hospitality” and forgot what it was like to live in a very friendly community.  It has amazed me the number of rides and events I have shown up to and gotten an “oh, you are the guy!” has been frightening almost.  Someone has been talking a little it seems!
Katelyn is now walking, and running for that matter.  And is growing so fast that I am almost having a hard time keeping up with it all.  Janelle seems to be adjusting to being a stay at home mother and is doing such an amazing job!  I think it is like anything you do full time though, their are days where you really love it and then days where it stresses you out and or frustrates you.
Right now though the whole household is getting over some sort of bug… Kate had to go to the hospital last weekend because she had Croup and couldn’t hardly breathe.  With some Steroids in her system breathing quickly became better and we were out the door.  Janelle and I are fighting some head cold thing and are both ready to be feeling 100% soon!

Off to the races and so is Kate!

Well, I got my first road race in 4 years done 2 weekends ago at the Mead Roubaix.  For those of you unfamiliar with a roubaix style course it is not only pavement but dirt and gravel roads.  This race happened to be 68 miles in total and 20 miles of that was Gravel.  Let me clarify that a bit more.  It was gravel, hard packed dirt and the worst of all was sand that was 2+inches deep.  The race started and we have several miles before we reached the first of 3 dirt sections.  This was the longest section each lap and was the smoothest and fastest (minus the the headwind) it wasn’t more than 150meters onto the dirt and the first crash happened near the front of the field taking down 5 guys right in front of me and thankfully there was enough room that I was able to steer clear and catch up to the guys who had already created a gap.  The cross winds played their toll and those who were not able too find shelter suffered.  The race turned south and the tailwind kept the group compact.  Because of a recommendation from another racer in the morning wave I moved to the very front in this stretch for the next section of dirt.  It was a great tip because when we hit that stretch I was second wheel and the 2+ inches of sand had clearly played havoc on the fields.  There were police cars already on scene from groups that went off in front of us and broken and battered bodies laying in the ditch.  A deep section of sand grabbed my front wheel and put me into the left lane and almost onto the hood of the cop car that was sitting there.  Through the descent and up the sandy climb and a field of 65+ was now a break of 10 riders. A couple miles of pavement and we were on the final dirt stretch.  This was two shorter steeper climbs with what looked more like a cyclocross sand pit to me than a road race and we reached the top with four of us together and nearly 50miles to go still.  We turned back north after the start/finish line and within miles it was 3 of us. The final 2 laps we continued to push and pass the shattered remains of many of the fields that headed out before us.  On the final lap one of our 3 men was struggling and in the second dirt section we dropped him and then there were two.  I worked as little as possible and tried to conserve as much as possible.  A valuable lesson was learned in the final 1000 meters and that is be sure that you pay very close attention to what the finish looks like.  I attacked thinking I had 400 meters to the finish and it turned out there was a orange fencing up at the turn prior to the finish and I went with closer to 750 meters.  OOPS!  So giving it my all and realizing that the distance was nearly double what I expected the other rider caught my wheel with 200 meters to go and then went around me and I was unable to muster up any additional strength.  Second place on the day and a big lesson learned.  Either way it was fun and a great challenge.  Final lap and hurting a little

Kate has been off to the races as well!  She is now crawling and I don’t mean just a little.  If you turn your back on her now you might turn around to an empty floor and if you are in a large enough area she will be gone.  I have to be honest though, the best thing is the greeting I receive when I get home from her.  She hears my car pull in the garage and the car door shut and she is amped!

Family update

Well, it is official. Katelyn is crawling!  Not super fast at this point but it is also only the start of her third day.  I have a feeling that in no time at all we will be wondering where she disappeared to. I think Janelle was relieved because at Katelyn’s 9 month appointment on Wednesday the doctor was really hoping she would be a bit more mobile. It must have bothered Katelyn too because the next day she was cruising around. 🙂  She is also pulling herself up not too so i doubt it will be long before we are walking.

For those of you that don’t know already, Janelle was nominated for the “Rising Professionals” award and was one of 40 people under 40 in Colorado Springs to receive it! Unfortunately the award was being held at the same time I was in Austin, so I was not able to go and celebrate with her.  She is such a hard worker and amazing at whatever she puts her mind to.  I know that she deserves the credit and much much more.

For me things have been a little less exciting.  I am racing this weekend at Mead Roubaix and don’t have any travel for a couple of weeks which is nice.  There was a trip to Solvang, CA that I was originally on this weekend for a camp but the sign up list was small enough that I was not needed for it in the end.  It is nice to have a weekend of no travel other than pleasure and hopefully there isn’t a whole lot to do around the house other than the usual… doubt it though!