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!

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

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!

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.

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.

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:

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!

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!

So…I figure I will use my lack of mental fortitude today as a coaching opportunity.  First with a little insight into our office setting though.  Around the office everyone is fairly interested in what other coaches and staff are doing in their training.  Whether it is to learn something new, gain some motivation or maybe even poke fun of something “odd” someone is doing.  Well before the ride today I was asked by Coach Rebecca “what are you doing today? More Power Intervals?” My response was “Yes.” and Coach Jim responded with “What are you training for?”  It brought me to a realization that I haven’t really put together up until now.  I don’t really have any races on my calendar or major events that I want to do until ‘cross season but my training has been more consistent/structured than usual.  But the conclusion I came to was, I am REALLY enjoying riding right now.  I’ve found a renewed energy in the bike, I’m the most fit I have ever been and my power to weight is quite a bit higher than ever as well, which makes it more fun. 🙂  Love what you do and do what you love!

Now, on to the learning experience… So I am on day 3 of Power Intervals and as many of you have done I am doing a “peak and fade” type of interval where it is all out from the gate.  So on Wednesday I went out and did my first set and they turned out pretty good.  I went as hard as I could on each one and was definitely gasping by the end.

Thursday my power numbers were even better, which isn’t too out of the ordinary, and I continued to push myself to my limit for each interval.  My motivation was super high and I felt like I held nothing back on any interval.

Today was going really well for the first through third intervals and then as you can see, looking below, I gave up on the fourth interval.  A big gust of wind came up as I got into it and mentally I talked myself out of the effort.  I was planning on quitting and as I rolled down the hill on my recovery I got angry and decided to give it another shot.  So, I went at it again with yet another mental debacle.  Beaten and batter I rolled down the hill again and got just past where I start each interval and then told myself “well, the third try is the charm right?” So I gave it one more shot and went in with the mind set that quitting was not an option.  It might not have been my prettiest effort but then again when are power intervals ever pretty?! I know this was mental because you can see my starting powers for both of the “failed” attempts were still high and my powers for the next 4 efforts were consistent to prior days efforts.

When things get tough and don’t always go your way we might have moments of mental lapse where we either want to quit or do quit.  The biggest thing is to regroup and come back and do it again.  We are all capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for but overcoming those hurdles can be very difficult.