Memorial Weekend

I wanted to go to Texas for 3 crits, but the weather didn't look too great. It showed rain and thunderstorms all 3 days. So I stayed here in OKC. Saturday I didn't even touch my bike. And Sunday I rode 4 hours. I thought we were heading out for 1 or 2 and ended up with 4. I bonked pretty bad so the last hour was not very enjoyable. I guess that is what happens when you don't eat anything for 3 hours on the bike. Normally I am pretty good about always having some food with me, but I didn't expect to be out for 4 hours.

I missed the 8:00 am ride this morning. Sleeping in sounded like a better idea. So, now it is 9:45 and I am on my front porch with Pepper and coffee enjoying the morning. Maybe I'll suit up here in a bit but not for another 4 hour ride for sure. My legs are in major recovery mode after the bonk yesterday.Next weekend is the OK State crit and road race. I won both of these last year, but the competition may be a little tougher this go around. The crit is a fun course, but the road race travereses some of the worst roads I have ever ridden on. So, yesterday we rode 6 or so miles of dirt, gravel and shale roads to prepare.

Frozen cow embryos!

Frozen cow embryos!
Originally uploaded by cyclesq.

One of the attorneys I work with bought these frozen cow embryos and is having them implanted into one of his prize cows named Bubbles! How crazy is this? He was driving around OKC in his pick-up with frozen cow embryos in the back! I thought it was a wet/dry vac at first. I'll post a picture of the new baby in about 9 months!

One of those days!

Today is one of those days, for sure. One of those days when nothing seems to go right. Everything is just a little off. I'm not sure what is going on right now, but I hope it gets better. But after a day like today, it seems, it may not be able to get much worse. One of the attorneys that shares an office with us said to me, "I haven't seen you smile all day." Well, he is right! I don't think I have smiled all day. Maybe tomorrow I will wake up to a brand new day and hopefully it will be a better one.

Recovery

I am tired! I did the last OKC Velo TT on Saturday. We rode over to the TT, did a warm-up TT, did the TT, did an easy lap around Lake Overholser, and rode home. A little over 50 miles with an all out TT effort. I got 3rd in the TT for the day, but I only lost 1 minute to Magen and 7 seconds to Desire. So I feel happy with 3rd place and I think I'm an starting to get fit. Desire won the whole thing and I got 2nd overall. Not too bad and the pay-outs were excellent!

Sunday was the annual Red Dirt Rendevous at Lake Stanley Draper mt bike trails. I raced expert women and we started with the expert men. We started at 9:30 and it was already 90 degrees and humid as heck! At first it was hard because I was trying to keep up with the expert men and pro mt. biker chic, Becky, but after about 5 minutes of that nonsense I just raced my own speed, which is slow on a mt bike. After three laps and almost 30 miles, I was hot and beat. My lower back and triceps are certainly not used to the mt bike beating. But, I still got 2nd place! Ok, there were only 2 expert women, so I guess I also got last place. BUT I FINISHED! I was so happy to be done with that!

Charles and I rode easy last night through Nichols Hills, which is a very wealthy part of OKC. Easy like 14 mph easy. My legs are a little tired today so I may do another easy ride tonight. But if I start to feel better as the day goes on, I may do the BLN ride for some hard efforts. I want to race in Dallas this weekend for 3 crits, but there are also 3 crits in Iowa. We'll probably decide Friday evening where we are going this weekend. Nothing like last minute spur of the moment road trips!

My mom and I

My mom and I
Originally uploaded by cyclesq.

This is my mom and I at the Omniplex. She had been wanting to go to the Norman Rockwell exhibit for awhile and she finally got to go. We went there after the Weenie Dog Races.

Weenie Dog Race

Weenie Dog Race
Originally uploaded by cyclesq.

My mom came down to OKC on Saturday and we went to the 1st Annual Weenie Dog Race at Remington Park. There were 4 heats of 8 dogs and the top 2 went on to the finals. It was so funny. I may have to get a weenie dog now and start training for next years big race. They even weighed the dogs in before they raced.

Nice Pants!

Nice Pants!
Originally uploaded by cyclesq.

This was taken at Wal-Mart. We bought a pool for the dogs and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the guys pants. You really can't tell in this picture, but they had a little rasied pattern on them, too!

Back in the swing of things.

I guess racing this past weekend has helped my psychie (sp) a little bit. Even though I didn't do too well, I am more motivated to ride now. I looked at the results today and it shows that I finished 5 minutes back in the crit. No way. The group I finished with was only 45 seconds back, but whatever! It is my own fault for not sticking around after the results were posted to protest them. Oh well! Last night I rode down to the Bicycle League of Norman ride and it was so windy. Like 25 mph and gusting up to 38 mph windy. Chad pulled all the way there so that was good. The ride was super fast and I got dropped on the second long hill. I was in the gutter and just couldn't seem to get out of it. It was a good work-out anyway. Tonight I'm going to do the Ride of Silence. It will kill me to do an entire ride and not talk! I am going to try though. After the ride Charles and I are doing kilos. We are up to five now so it's going to hurt. The good news is that they are relatively quick so the pain is short-lived.

My mom is coming down to OKC this weekend so I am excited about that. She just got email and figured out how to use it so we have been emailing back and forth all day. It is so much easier than calling. I can't imagine back when you had to write a letter and drop it in the mailbox.!

The last OKC Velo TT is this weekend and then Becky has convinced me to do a local mountain bike race. I am so not very good at mt. biking, but it should be fun anyway. At least there is no stress or pressure to do well. I guess I need to get my mt bike out and dust it off. Maybe even pump up the tires a bit, too.

Women's racing

I raced this weekend in Arkansas. Becky and myself drove over to Fayetteville on Friday for the Joe Martin Stage Race. I was a little nervouse because this was going to be my first non-local race of the season. We decided to ride out to the start of our race on Saturday to get in a good warm-up. We also rode up the big hill that is about 2 miles into the road race and Becky says, "wow, that really isn't that bad!" To me, that hill is steep and my butt does not go up steep things very fast. So, we finally start the race after seeing one of the 1/2 women crash head on with a parked car on the side of the road. I'm sure glad I wasn't already a bit nervous! The race started as usual and one of the OKC Velo girls attacked before the climb so the pace picked up substantially. A group of 10 or so girls were off and I found myself in the same predicament as both years before. A small group of 3 of us began chasing. We were rotating well and started picking up chics that had been dropped from the leaders. The first was Becky, so I was stoked to have her with us. We ended up with about 8 girls and we were rotating well for awhile. The last 10 miles it seems nobody wanted to pull or work. So I found myself at the front for most of the last 10 miles. I wasjust trying to minimize my time loss. Anyway, some chic starts talking crap to me about this is probably my first race. I just smiled and kept going, And then another girl says something along the lines of "oh are you not going to work with us?" Even though I had just came off the front after 3 miles of pulling. I needed a little break to shove down some Gu. Anyway I think I ended up 4th in the sprint of my group, but maybe 11th overall. I'm sure we lost at least 5 minutes to the leaders.

Going into the TT I was just thinking about getting it over with. I warmed up pretty decent and then started my TT, Angie from OKC Velo started right behind me so I knew she would catch me. Sure enough, she caught me a passed me like I was standing still. And then Helene, another OKC Velo chic passed me too. Wonderful! I lost a bunch of time on the TT, but again, my butt doesn't go too fast uphill.

I was really excited about the crit on Sunday. I love crits and I wanted to do well. It was a pretty chilly morning, so the warm-up was difficult. We rolled to the line to start and took off. Some chic braked hard in the first turn and her rear wheel washed out and nearly took out the whole pack. That was enough for 5 girls to get off the front. I was behind the sketchy chic so I was stuck in the field. And what is even better- the sketchy chich is the same one that was taking crap the day before. How ironic is that? About half way through I felt the dreaded bouncy feeling from the back of my bike. Great, I flatted and I am at the farthest corner from the wheel pit that I could possibly be. I tried to ride it over to the wheel pit but I couldn't ride it up the hill. So, I was off my bike pushing it up the hill. I got to the wheel pit and got my wheel change and then got shoved back into my group. The same sketchy trash talking chic says to me "you took two free laps instead of one!" I looked at her and said, "are you kidding? You need to worry about not taking out the entire pack instead of how many free laps I get on a wheel change!" And then I took off. They caught me, but she was breathing hard so I went again. They caught me again. And then a Kenda chic attacked on the last lap. She got pulled back in on the climb and Melissa from Mercy won the field sprint. I think Helene got 2nd and I got either 3rd or 4th.

I was so relieved to be done with this race. It was possibly the most negative women's race that I have done. I don't know why women can't just race their bikes and worry about themselves instead of critique what everyone else does. This race has opened my eyes, for sure. I really need to start training hard! I am way off track from where I had hoped to be this year.

Joe Martin Stage Race

I just registered for Joe Martin for this weekend. This will be my first non-local race of the season. I'm a little nervous about that but I'm a little excited too. It will be a great opportunity to see where I am and where I need to be as far as my fitness level. I'm going to the race with Becky (pro mt bike chic) so it will be a chic's weekend for sure. I'm also excited that I found a non-smoking hotel room for $41.00 a night in Fayetteville with only one day's notice. I was sweating having to camp out at Devils Den. Now I just have to get a new helmet since my current helmet is cracked.

This is very very sad!

This article is from cyclingnews.com:

Young Wisconsin rider dies after crash

Matt Wittig, a 20-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and rider with the US amateur ISCorp team, has died in hospital after crashing during a Wisconsin Cup criterium race in Muskego County Park on Saturday May 6.

According to event organizer Hans Higdon, quoted in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wittig was attacking when his right foot slipped out of the pedal, his right knee hit the handle bars and he was flung over the bars on to the pavement. "It was basically a freak accident," said Higdon, who was 10 to 15 feet behind Wittig in the Cat 3 race at the time.

Paramedics were called to the park and Wittig was taken to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Wauwatosa, where doctors operated in an attempt to safe his life. However, it was determined that Wittig had suffered severe brain damage and he was pronounced brain dead on Sunday.

Cyclingnews understands that Wittig's parents planned to have his life support turned off so that his organs could be donated in accordance with his wishes, but at press time we were unable to ascertain if he had yet passed on.

Wittig was a popular member of the University of Wisconsin Cycling Club, for which he performed the role of road season co-ordinator. Even before the news broke that Wittig would not recover, club president Steve Knurr described Wittig as "a very, very important part of the team and the UW cycling program. He's genuinely good and one of the most dedicated and honest people that we've had in our program."

It is anticipated that the wake will be at the Schmidt and Bartlett Funeral Home in Mequon on Thursday evening and the service on Friday morning. Everyone at Cyclingnews extends our deepest condolences to Matt's family and friends.

Flowers

Flowers
Originally uploaded by cyclesq.

Charles must have read my previous post of being depressed and wanting the flowers to bloom. These arrived at my office this morning. They added a little sunshine to my gloomy day!

Tired

I'm not sure what the reason is exactly, but I have been so tired the past few days. I went to bed last night at 10:30 and could not get out of bed at 7:00 when my alarm went off. I finally crawled out of bed at 8:00. I think it might be the weather. It has been cloudy and cold and rainy the past three days. It is May after all and it is supposed to be sunny and warm so all the flowers can bloom. How are the flowers supposed to bloom when there is no sun? I am a little upset about this no sun situation. I have heard of people getting depressed from prolonged no sun days. Maybe that is my problem. I may have to start tanning to get some fake sun or something.

I rode last night. It was cold and depressing. I was in full winter gear, which may have been a little much. It was 54 degrees but it was still cold. I only rode and hour and a half but it felt like four. I rode to Jones which is pretty hilly, so I was tired. The good thing was the no wind situation. For Oklahoma, that it a rare occassion. I still haven't raced yet, other than local stuff. There's a local TT this weekend that I'll probably do. Joe Martin is next weekend and I suffer every year in the road race. I am not as fit this year as last year so the suffering will be twice as bad, I'm sure.

My brother went home from the hospital yesterday. He sounded pretty excited about it. He is walking with the assistance of a walker and is getting stronger every day. He lost 40 lbs. in 2 months. To me that just seems crazy. He is able to eat anything he can get his mouth around now, so he'll probably start gaining some of that back. His son is 15 and weighs 4 lbs. more than he does right now. I'm going to Enid on Sunday for Mother's Day and we're having a cook-out in the afternoon at his house. I'm excited to see him walk. Hopefully the weather turns sunny so I'll be in a better mood.