It's heating up

Well, still no racing for me. The Gentleman's race got cancelled due to weather and I haven't had the time or the money to get away for any other races. That being said, however, I have stayed in the saddle the whole time. No real training though, but my base must be huge by now.

I quit the Emergency Room to work in the Cardiology Treatment and Recovery unit which was not only a pay raise, but day shifts. This works so much better with my class schedule as well as my racing schedule. Unless I work extra, I am off work by 9:30pm on Fridays which allows me to race weekends. It also gives me a consistent schedule to work with. Granted it is a very full schedule, but at least I can work with it.

So, that means that it is time to get focused on actual training instead of just maintaining a base fitness level. It also means that I get to watch what I eat a little better rather than just grabbing whatever I can. I have already taken off five pounds. I am also training for a marathon in December in Las Vegas. So I have to schedule runs with my rides. I have a plan for mileage each day with my runs and rides leading up to the race in December. We'll have to see how that works, though, as right now I have both my long runs and my long rides scheduled on the weekends.

The temps are really climbing. It's common to have heat indices of over 100 degrees most days. The race season is heating up too with the two biggest series' that Team Colavita/Parisi Coffee competes in coming up this weekend and the next with the Tour of KC and the Tour of Lawrence, respectively. I'll be racing in the Tour of KC, but not Lawrence. That's fourth of July weekend and I'll be at the lake!

I am looking forward to the Cliff Drive circuit race tomorrow. The Tour missed it last year because of construction and I heard that it is a really cool course. Then Sunday is the Power and Light Crit. This was a fun race last year with a course that suited me well. Steep and short climbs with sharp 90 degree turns, very cool. This will be my first whole year racing Cat 4 so I am not expecting too much especially since I haven't been doing any speed work this year. I figure that I'll just enjoy myself and get some more racing experience while using the races as a good hard workout.

The next races I have on my schedule are the Kansas State Games in Topeka in July and the Rapture in Misery 6/12 hour MTB race in August. I'd like to do more, but I am being realistic that with my schedule I might not be able to get anymore in.

That's it for now. Stay dirty my friends.

-Nate

New Season

Well here we are. 2010 and a new season of racing. I didn't get any Cross racing in this last year as the funds didn't allow for a new bike, but that's ok. It seems to me that the cross season was a little hard on folks and some are feeling a little burnout when it comes to racing. Maybe that's just my perception, but anyway.


Until recently I have kept my rear on the saddle all winter which is good, but I have noticed my fitness falling off a little which is most likely due to a lack of riding at higher intensities. Most of the winter riding was just getting out and doing something and commuting. It was a long and wet winter. I don't/didn't mind the cold. That never really bothered me (until it got below zero), but the wet was just plain irritating; that is probably the best way I can put it. All that crap on the road, then on the bike and me. Washing the bike after every ride just to get it nasty again, uhggg. Yeah, irritating, without a doubt, irritating.



These last few weeks though my riding has been sporatic at best. I just started Paramedic school and that has really screwed with my schedule at work and life in general. My schedule wasn't really easy to fit riding in before and now it is even more so. I have been trying to find a rythmn with my schedule and how riding fits into that. I feel like I am getting there, but it is still a process. What really concerns me is how racing will fit into it. As it stands right now if we have races on Saturdays I am out. I work Friday nights and get off Saturdays at 7:30am. Sunday races are cool with me, but that may mean more mountain bike races and less road races. That's cool too though. I just wish I had the money to get my custom Curtlo hardtail ordered before this season, oh well.



I did race in the KC Street Cred series this year (I won that series two years ago), but that hardly counts as real racing. I got second this year and ended up winning a really cool PBR messenger bag from Chrome bags. Other than that my first race will be the MWI Gentlemen's Race coming up on the 20th of March. I guess it isn't even a "real" race seeing as how it isn't "sanctioned", but it is close enough for me. It's a team race in that your team's time on the clock doesn't stop until the last rider on your team crosses the line. Team Colavita/Parisi Coffee's team will be made up of myself, DanO, Britton, SteveV, Eric S., and Joe A. Joe, however, is healing from a knee injury so we'll have to go with one of our subs, but as of this writing I don't know who that'll be. I'm looking forward to this race a lot. Not only because it'll mark the beginning of the season for me, but mostly because I'm looking forward to racing with the team and working as a team. I've said it before as well as have others, but the real sense of team is probably the best thing about Colavita/Parisi.



Lastly, I just wanted to get your thoughts on this ad that I saw last month, as well as this month, in both Mountain Bike and Bicycling mags. Kinda pisses me off a little. I mean, I know it's an ad put out there by some agency that has no clue. Still, you slap IMBA's logo on the bottom and it seems like IMBA endorses this kind of trail usage. Yeah, I know, the name of my blog is Stay Dirty and one of my first posts has a pic of me covered head to toe in mud, but read the post and you'll understand that I don't condone nor enjoy that. What Subaru should have done was show the guy, the bike, and the car covered in dust and sweat rather than supper muddy trail destroying conditions. It just seems like it reinforces the 'ole "Mountain Dew" perception of mountain biking that we've been trying to get away from. Not to mention what a land manager might think after seeing this. *sigh*

That's all for now...Stay Dirty (just not muddy).