Well my second Iceman has come and gone.  I missed last year due to the infamous lottery.  This year was starting to look like a disaster in the making after the online registration debacle.  After letting in everyone who mailed in an entry, the race was at over 4,000 riders, twice the normal amount.  But turns out despite sucking at running the registration, the organizers hit a home run with the actual race operation.  Everything went off great, much better than 2 years ago.  The busing in particular was much faster, we didn’t have to wait at all after the race to get back to our car.

My night before meal of endless shrimp may not have been the best idea.  Stomach felt a little queasy early in the race.  I figured with cool weather I wouldn’t need much water and only partially filled my Camelbak – big mistake – it turned out warm as a spring day and I went dry with quite a few miles left at the end.  But no biggie.  Our hotel had a nice breakfast buffet, loaded up on waffles preride.

Weather was way too nice: sunny and 60s.  Not exactly icy conditions.  Race start this year was from downtown Kalkaska with a roughly 1 mile paved rollout before hitting the dirt.  The start was really fast but helped everyone settle in to the right order.  Not that passing was difficult anywhere on the course of 95% two-track.

I held pace with the group through the flat beginning but as usual, the hills separated those who were really prepared.  I didn’t have to walk the hills but I was moving at a pretty slow pace near the end.  Time was pretty lousy in my opinion at 2:52, only a 5 minute improvement over my last time.  The crowds were great too, the climb at Williamsburg road felt like a pro tour event in the mountains with a huge crowd of people shouting and ringing cowbells.

Post race was pretty awesome, with a food and beer tent featuring awesome Michigan breweries such as Short’s and Right Brain.

Couple of links here:

Complete Results

Write Up in the Traverse City Record Eagle

Photo Gallery in the Detroit News featuring yours truly

Some photos we took ourselves

Postponed twice, with the third date conflicting with a personal engagement, it seemed fate did not want me to complete my first 6-hour race.  Then at the last moment – a cancellation freeing up my Saturday for bike racing!  So with virtually no prep time, I committed to doing my longest race of the season.

It wasn’t a slam dunk however, it rained constantly for three straight days before the race, evoking fears of a repeat of an infamous prior muddy running of the same race that resulted in unbelievable mud caked carnage – documented in online photo galleries.  That did not look like fun.

The rain seemed to keep the racers away as turnout seemed light.  The wimps missed out though, Addison held up beautifully to the rain and was in excellent shape except for a few small mud slicks.

I ate a hearty pre-race breakfast of eggs, fruit, juice and lots of toast and coffee.  I carefully planned out my nutrition for the whole race budgeting one water bottle for every hour, and a gel and Cliff bar alternated every lap.  Fluid wise I was dead on, maybe even a little overboard considering the cool temps.  Food was also a little too much, but better than bonking.  Gels went down easy but I found that cramming down the Cliff bars was a real challenge after about the second one.  Worked out though, never felt I was at a loss for energy the whole race.

I worried most about my back or neck getting sore as they sometimes do after a long ride, but never really was an issue.  I think it was somewhere around hour 4 that my legs started cramping bad after every big hill climb.  Still had to press on, not that hard since I otherwise felt fine.  I succeeded in staying on the bike the whole race, pausing in the pits just long enough to swap bottles and grab some food.

I had good timing and rolled to the time check with 5 minutes to go, perfect chance to get in an extra lap.  But by this time I had decided to start listening to my legs and call it a day.  I could have moved up 2 more places had I finished that extra lap, but I haven’t lost any sleep over it since.

Ended up completing 7 laps good for roughly 50 miles and 6th place in my class.  I’m hooked on the format though.  This series has a bunch of 6, 12 & 24 hour races all around Michigan, and I plan to do more next year.  The big question is: should I spring for the lighting system necessary to run a race longer than 6 hours?  Or just focus on the “shorter” format?

2008 time 1:09:01

2009 time 1:09:49 (course is .5 mile longer this year)

Ever feel like you’re just not making any progress?  To be fair I wasn’t well prepared this year, I didn’t ride at all the week preceding, and hadn’t ridden the trail since they did some extensive rerouting.  I drank an unhealthy amount of alcohol the entire day before, and hardly slept the night of the race.

No biggie, the race was still fun, the trail conditions ideal, and the hot dogs free.  Bike performed flawlessly.  I managed to stay upright, though I came unclipped just before the water crossing and struggled to get my cleat back in, and I grazed a tree leving a nice scrape.  I still don’t think the short course is my forte, still waiting for a good chance to do a longer race.

I love riding the Poto, it is by far the best trail in the entire southern LP.  It just always seems like something goes wrong there.  I’ve locked my keys in my car.  No matter how perfectly my derailer is tuned at the start of the ride, it always stop shifting right about halfway through.  Today was no different.

Aside from the rainy conditions which I pretty much accepted since I started in the rain, things seemed to be going ok.  Then I looked down and my computer was gone!  WTF!?  I did finally find it after backtracking a mile or so.  Finally my drivetrain starts making some very unhealthy sounds after becoming caked in sand.  Not sure what the exact problem is, but it is not good.  So after a loop and a half I decide to call it a day.  I had hoped to do more but I didn’t want to take the chance of seriously damaging something.

I have raced the innaugural Yankee TT three years in a row now, and the first two years had nearly perfect weather for April in Michigan.  I guess we were due for a less than perfect day.  Conditions were on the cool side at about 50 degrees, low wind, and very light rain all day.  This wasn’t really a bad thing, the trail is very sandy and the rain helps solidify it quite a bit making for easier trips through the many sand pits.  The main downsides being all the sand sticking to you and your bike, and the slippery tree roots and rocks along the way.

This is my first year racing sport, and I was ready for a rude awakening.  I ended up with a time of 1:05:54 which was good for 20th out of 30 starters.  Course length was 11.4 miles by my computer, my ave speed was 10.3 with a max of 21.9  I felt pretty lousy about this result, but then I looked at my 2007 and 2008 times on the same course: 1:16:22 and 1:11:22 dropping roughly 5 minutes a year, I guess it looks better from that perspective.

Still, I had hoped for better after training a lot more for this year than in the past, dropped a fair amount of weight too.  This is a good wake-up call to start training with more intensity if I want to really improve.

Needs improvement/negatives: didn’t warm up properly due to time, that was just dumb.  My bike was not shifting properly in the low gears which was a bit of a problem on the uphill sections and had me preoccupied constantly looking down to make sure I wasn’t in the problem gear.  I also had a bit of a sore throat/congested feeling possibly from spring allergies.

Positives: carefully preplanned all foods and drinks for raceday by the hour, energy level felt good.  Bike otherwise performed perfectly, the handling was razor sharp and never let me down.

I might bite the bullet and take the bike to the shop, I can’t race again with it shifting so poorly.  Training wise I need to do some hard intervals on the mountain bike, going to stay as far from the road bike as possible.

I just recently finished building my winter project bike: a Sette Reken aluminum hardtail.  While my full suspension bike was certainly plush by comparison, I never got used to the tail bobbing of the rear suspension.  Plus the bike had some issues I could just never quite solve, so I decided to go back to a hardtail.  Aside from being a good learning experience, it would also be cheaper to salvage as many parts from the old bike as possible.

The frame was surprisingly cheap, it is a “house brand” frame from Pricepoint and only ran $90 on sale.  Its basic, but solid, and quite light at around 4.5 lbs.  I had hoped to salvage the wheels, fork, drivetrain, and headset.  I intended from the start to replace the brakes on the advice of a local bike mechanic.  Also planned to replace the usual wear parts such as stem, handlebar, and seatpost – they were getting old and it is recommended such parts be replace every few years at least – especially if used heavily.

After tearing the old bike down I found a few problems with that plan.  The headset was actually the wrong size, not to mention the bearings were trashed – gotta replace it.  The bottom bracket – looked questionable and considering its age, definitely due for replacement.  Finally the front and rear derailers had to go – the rear turned out to be bent and the front was the wrong size.  Technically I could have shimmed it to work but I didn’t want to half-ass it.

Aside from those mishaps which only required a few extra trips to the bike shop, the process went pretty well.  Its really not as dificult as you might think.  Only a few specialized tools were required for installing the bottom bracket and cranks.  Otherwise its mainly allen wrenches, screwdrivers, and wire cutters.  I still have trouble perfecting the rear derailer adjustment, which is quite frustrating.

Well here’s my component list:

• Sette Reken frame – 6061 aluminum
• Fox F100X Fork – 100mm travel with inertial lockout
• Easton EA50 aluminum bar and stem
• Avid Juicy 5 hydraulic brakes
• Shimano XTR rapidfire shifters with XT front and rear derailers
• Specilaized ergonomic grips
• Race Face Evolve XC Crank
• Mavic X223 wheels with Shimano XT hubs

Today was the annual MMBA Expo, for the first time held at the posh Lansing Center.  Posh is relative of course, in prior years the Expo was held in an unheated barn, so it wasn’t tough to make an upgrade.  The Expo is basically a series of speakers, a silent auction of donated items, a swap meet for used parts, a bunch of organizations with information booths, and awards for both the top trail work volunteers of the year and the CPS race award winners. Ten Mile Media posts some pix if you want to know what it all looks like. Bonus points if you can spot Eric and I.

Personally I don’t get all that excited about the Expo.  I like riding my bike, but I’m not into “the scene” and socializing with bike shop workers and such.  If I hadn’t won an award in my class I surely would not have gone.  I am a little cheesed off as well at the awards this year.  In every past year the award was actually a pretty sweet looking little trophy with a statue of a mountain biker on it.  This year it was a cheap little plastic chainring.  Seriously!  I know its just a silly little award for an amateur race series but I drove over 2 hours to pick this thing up.  Not to mention I paid a fee for the series, and by their own admission this was the highest participation year yet.  So why cheap out on it now?  Just my luck I gues. Judge for yourself, I think you will agree.

Current trophy:

Old, awesome trophy:

Being a very lazy person by nature, I naturally gravitate toward the “low hanging fruit” as they say when it comes to getting just about anything done.  Getting in shape and losing weight are no different.  So here are a few tips I have run across that really involve little to no effort on your part but can be very beneficial:

1. Drink lots of water. Most people are chronically mildly dehydrated so this gives you a couple benefits.  I guess if you think drinking water is too much effort for you then maybe you should stop reading right now.  64 oz daily is the generic recommendation, but basically you should keep drinking until your urine is almost clear.  Filling your stomach up with water will make you feel fuller helping you eat a bit less, and any exercise you do happen to do will be more effective.
2. Eat 5-6 small meals per day. Don’t eat more or less, or anything different, just break up what you do eat into smaller more frequent meals.  This will increase your metabolism and cut off hunger pangs before they happen.   Always eat breakfast.  And a trick I like since I pack my lunch is to just eat half my sandwich around halfway to lunch time instead of eating it all at once.
3. Sleep 8 hours. If you are doing any kind of exercise it is crucial to recover properly, and this means sleep.  If not much of your effort is wasted.
4. Eat out less. And if you do order water not soda and definitely not alcohol.  This also appeals to my cheap side.
5. Eat slowly. The bodies hunger signal is extremely slow, so eating fast causes people to keep eating well past when they have had enough.  Some people use little rules like chewing every bite 20 times.  Whatever works for you.  If you’re always the first one heading for seconds, it may be time to slow down fatty.
6. Fidget. If you’re just sitting around doing nothing tap that toe or shake that foot or whatever you do.  Nervous twitching like this consumes a surprising amount of energy – and yes people have actually studied this.
7. Turn down the heat. By keeping it as cold as you can stand in your house you will force the body to burn energy just to keep you warm, even if you’re just sitting on your butt watching TV!  And you save money on energy.  We call that a win-win.

One major benefit of my new job is getting out at an ealier time, since my start is at 5:30am.  In theory I could leave as early as 2, though I’m usually there till at least 3 taking care of one damn thing or another.  But even 3 is a real treat, which I took advantage of today by getting out for the first ride of the year.  Unfortunately it wasn’t quite as warm and sunny as Sunday, but I’m perfectly fine riding in 30 degree weather so long as its light and dry outside.  As I rode out the door it was 39 but by the time I headed home it was down to 32 and quite breezy in the wrong direction.

I had just enough daylight to do 60 minutes which is what I would have done at the gym had I opted for the warmer climate instead.  But there’s just no comparison between riding a stationary bike indoors and the thrill of riding outdoors – its so much more motivating.  I think the weight training is really helping, pushing up hills felt noticably easier.

There’s a lot of rain left in the forecast this week so that may be it for a while.  But with a few 60 degree days coming I think I’ll be logging plenty of miles very soon.

At 178 lbs and a height of 5′11″ I have a BMI of 25, the upper bound of “healthy” weight.  Using the wrist test I have a small frame and therefore have an ideal weight range of 160-164 lbs.  At 164  BMI would drop down to 23.  Based on my current weight and exercise level I have a maintenance calorie level of 2,600 and a fat loss level of 2,000 (1,600 for extreme fat loss but we won’t go there) which sounds about right.  Remember that to lose a single pound of fat you must create a deficit of 3,500 calories, or 500 calories a day if going by the pound a week philosophy.

Ideally I would like to achieve a calorie balance of 50/25/25% carb/fat/protien.  Not sure how close I am to that, haven’t been tracking it, but I would guess I’m close.  I plan to modify my tracking file to figure this out.

So if my target is 168 that gets me pretty darn close to the calculated ideal weight, not too shabby.  To be fair I haven’t weighed that much since high school so I’m trying to stay reasonable.