The Bank Job, without the accent or action

Back to lending 40 hours of my time a week in exchange for some hard earned cash. Bank again, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. I go in, get a list, throw out some ideas, send lots of e-mails, fax lots of documents, print some things, then go to lunch. Since I take my lunch at 2 p.m., I come back at 3 to 2 hours of work which just fly by. Although this is only temporary (again), I have some prospects on the horizon.

Unfortunately this has made me busier than I'm used to. In addition to my determination to do extraordinarily well at the Mercer Cup USGP, I have become addicted to Quake Live. I needed a first person shooter that operates on OS X. How surprised I was to find out one of my favorite games was free online with nothing more than a browser plug-in. Yowza! My last weekend in Philadelphia was spent drinking cans of wine (thanks Always Sunny) and shooting demonish figures with all sorts of weapons. When wars inevitably head down the DOOM/Quake path, I will be well prepared and even excited. Go Earth!

As for racing... or lack there of. I am not doing any races till Spring Mount... Only two weeks away but I will be very well prepared. I have GREATLY increased my workouts and am in better shape than ever. I plan to PEAK for the Mercer Cup, and then maybe do another race or two before I call it quits for the 'cross season and start preparing for road. 

"Arthur, a roadie?!" No, not yet at least. I have really enjoyed this season of cross and really like the competitive aspect of cycling so am going to spend this winter/spring training for the upcoming road season. I hear it's much more competitive, and I hope this will push me to train harder and get me to a new level for next year's cross. This also means.... a new bike! I will have all winter to research and decide but right now I'm looking at the Giant TCR Alliance 1. Maybe some cyclist will happen by this post and scream "NO DON'T DO IT BECAUSE..."

Lastly, Halloween this weekend. I will be spending it in New York City escaping the giant mechanical spiders at Psybotik. Where'd all the darkpsy go this year? I don't know but not NYC that's for sure. I saw Gappeq was playing in Warsaw and it made me incredibly angry that my Polish citizenship doesn't allow me reduced price travel between here and the motherland. Instead I'll cope with the loads of progressive-borderline-house tunes that will be jammin in my ear drum all night long ["This-Is-House-house-house-house" (dun-ch-dun-ch-dun-ch)] Ugh. Although I love progressive and downtempo but why an entire night of it the one day of a year it's Halloween?! I hear Treavor Moontribe sometimes sneaks a dark set in so maybe given the occasion my head will be spinning. High hopes.

beaten, worked, and tired...

Went to Granogue yesterday to watch the two UCI races. Meant to get there earlier, but left some things at parents' house so had to make a 2 hour detour. Brought along two friends to experience the frenzy that is cross, and had a grand ole time.

If I remember correctly, I fought for my 63rd of 85 people today. I knew it was bad when the announcer said something along the lines of, "If you just slowed down a bit, you could have let [first place person] pass through and finish on this lap." Ouch. But I did not, I did four laps just like the big guys and have the hurt to prove it. I couldn't seem to get my muscles to loosen up today, so I felt like I was battling myself up until the 4th lap. During the run up I hobbled like a penguin. Still a good time and I left lots of room for improvement. While I still remain defeated, I won't let it get to me since this is my first season cycling. But I will be sure to outdo this performance at Spring Mount. I promise you I will.

For $10 I enjoyed two glasses of Victory's HopDevil and one glass of the Prima. Although I left with no prize or medal, I do have the Victory pint glass to remind me of the cold rainy day.

Again, I will keep on increasing the intensity of my workouts so next time will be better, not worse. To date, this is the most difficult course I've raced. I did like the spiral and I feel my cornering has definitely improved. Now just need that strength thing....

(The last one is from Granogue)

Godspeed.

mud sheddin' shreddin'

In celebration of an AOK interview, I bought myself some egg beaters. For those not cycling inclined, they're mud shedding pedals that will possibly save my life on Sunday... no more desperately stomping out dirt from the Wellgos. I installed them, put in the new cleats, and it was all like... Cinderella.

I did a longer higher intensity ride today, and tomorrow I will take it a bit easier in preparation for Sunday. I also set up a makeshift cyclocross course at Mercer County Park (USGP here I come!) and road that for about 30 minutes.  There was many a stick lying around, so I actually managed a pretty well defined course--complete with run through the sand.

Since I will most likely be moving back to Jersey, I checked out some local shops in Princeton today for some info on clubs/teams/whatever. Pretty much to no avail... know there is one shop I'll never step foot in again and that's pretty much all the info I got.

I think I might check out the races at Granogue tomorrow... should be pretty fun to watch. 'Til Sunday.

...aiming for "not last"

I am going to get WORKED on Sunday. Practice at Belmont today was not as successful as in the past. I attribute a lot of it to my crazy hill workout yesterday, and lack of decent sleep last night but I fell behind the rest of the "B" group really quick. No painful falls though, although I had an incredibly close call when I ran into a chunk of lumber with some considerable speed.

After the practice I stopped to watch the Kensington Triple Crown. I didn't want to hurt myself before an ideally triumphant Sunday, so I decided to merely spectate. I got there and saw only two people with cross bikes, as opposed to the 35+ at the previous edition. I rode one lap through all the glass ridden urban obstacles with the other two people. We ended up doing some drills since we all came out for some cross. When I returned home I saw it got moved to tomorrow. I still had a good time and just recently I've been getting sad about leaving Philadelphia. Although I welcome a salary and health insurance with open arms.

High hopes for Wissahickon. I will try my hardest to get in the top 50% so I can have one ">50%" race on crossresults.com. I PRAY the "UCI" doesn't scare away some of the other newbies I compete with.

Oh, it went in (thanks Geoff).

Defeat with a capital "D," Kensington style

I've never been mugged or assaulted in Philadelphia, so what better time than now (figuratively of course). How? It's pretty humiliating so I say this is a step backwards in not embarrassing myself in a cross race. Oh the urban jungle, littered with natural(?) barriers and obstructions, it practically screams cyclocross. On my third or fourth lap of the course, I decided to just casually pop on over the barrier before the road section. This was doable, because I've done it the previous lap. My racing brain has a pretty narrow thought process: Engine, on. Gears... engaged. Mach speed. Brake. Hop... and before I knew it I flew over my handle bars onto the concrete. This time my fall was broken by my elbows, shins, and shoulder. I slammed into the edge, got back up, "I'm fine, thanks... No I'm okay, thanks..." and hobbled over to the pit area. When I got there, everybody with their "flat?" (lots of flats) Me with my, "Nah, I tried to go over that barrier and endoed into the concrete. It was cute." That got a laugh, so for about 20 seconds I was part of the group. I hobbled over to my corner and spoke to nobody the rest of the night. Need to work on socialization/not being awkward skills.  

I hated myself for not completing the race. I was doing very well for myself, increasing the lead between me and the pack behind me. At least I wasn't alone. Many many (I'd say of the 35 or so riders, about 15 finished? Flats, falls, all that jazz.) For now, I'll just ice and clean the bleeding parts and hope for a speedy recovery. I'll also need to fix my bike. Brake hoods are all sorts of out of place.

All in all a very fun training race. Only about four blocks from my place? Ouch though, ouch.

Happy Birthday barcode. If it wasn't for you, grocery shopping would be awful.

Climbing

I woke up at 5:00 in the morning to get some smallmouth fishing in at the Schuylkill (near Phoenixville). It's amazing that this is the same river that runs through Philadelphia. It was really cold and I couldn't figure out the bite. Since I wasn't having much luck with that,  just enjoyed the fresh morning air.

I started my more intense training regiment yesterday. Two weeks till the Wissahickon UCI race, so I am trying to not embarrass myself this time. High hopes.

Hillbilly Hustle v.4

Thanks to some friendly motorcyclists (no potentially violent Warlock encounters this time) I made it home okay. My race was at 9 AM, so I got there at around 7:45. There was an insane amount of fog on the way over, and after just recently having seen The Mist, I was incredibly frightened. Anyway, being the third person in the check-in line, I thought I was all good to ride. I needed a one day USAC license, which caused some trouble since being the third person in line meant helping the people working the booth figure everything out. I managed to get in two warm up laps before it was time to race. While lined up, I realized I forgot to add air into my tires and before I knew it the whistle sounded. I'm off and didn't get too great of a position (not that I would have won or anything if I had) so I fought my way up. Between me passing some people and other people passing me I managed 51/78. Cornering wasn't as much of a problem today as my lack of sheer strength. A lot more training to do.

I stayed to watch all the rest of the races (with the help of Yard's contribution). Favorites were Men's collegiate and the A-race at the end. Once I got in my car to head home, I found out my battery had died. Once I was on my way back, my phone (AKA navigation system) died. It was okay because I knew my way back. That is until there was an accident that called for the closing of two roads. That's where the non-gang-related motorcyclists came in and saved the day.

Although in my eight hours I spoke with practically nobody, I still managed to have a great time and enjoy the races. Can't wait to see all the crazy talent at the Wissahickon race in a couple of weeks.