a little off-season update.....

it's been a while since i've last updated. i haven't been up to much other then putting on a few winter layers around the mid section. all the holiday foods, plus not much riding may have something to do with it. i've just been working and playing a lot of hockey to stay in shape and get in a little cross-training. i haven't ridden outside now in almost two months? i really can't remember. the only biking i've done is riding the trainer for about an hour twice a week. i've really been away from the cycling scene since about mid september when a complete break was in order. i've been playing at least two times a week since then. my new skates i got last month are finally starting to get broken in.

the two teams i'm playing on down at brentwood are doing pretty good. we're in first place on wed. night, and i think third on thursdays. we had a hard battled come from behind victory a couple weeks ago against the second place team, o.b. clarks. they're one of the better teams from all three advanced leagues at brentwood. we didn't really beat them, but tied it in the last minute which felt like a victory for us. it was also nice since i knew most of those guys and played with and against a lot since high school and through the years. it's nice when you can take a spear to the back of the leg and then turn around and give him a smile instead of a two-hander.

last weekend was our francis howell high school alumni hockey game. it's amazing that i was a part of that team when it was just in it's infancy. just to put it in perspective, we were the only st. charles team to field a team and we even had to take a few guys from our sister school francis howell north. now you look at it and just about every team in st. charles county has a hockey team and some even have two or three teams. we also had to drive 30 minutes to north county for practice and now there are about 10 sheets of ice all within about a 20 minute drive of where i grew up. the alumni game was a lot of fun. it was actually pretty good hockey for an alumni game. i got to see some young faces and skate against some youngsters that graduated last year.

i hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and not packing on too many pounds. tomorrow i'm planning a two hour ride on the trainer......we'll see how that goes. hopefully next time i'm on here i can say i've got a few road miles under my belt.

GREAT SKATE ADVENTURE '08...

Well, here I sit in the Denver airport. This time yesterday I was sitting in the Chicago airport. Let me fast forward a couple days. I ordered a new pair of skates online the other day and when I received them they were defective. Now I've got to send them back, so in the meantime I've decided to get another pair. Since I've got abnormally narrow feet I can never get anything that fits good. I've always got to settle or make do. There is one pair of skates on the market that fit me the best and let me say when I received them in the mail I didn't like what I saw when going over the workmanship. So, Thursday morning I decided to fly to Minneapolis thinking that's the "state of hockey" they should have some quality hockey shops. Well, to my dismay, they weren't any different then shopping for hockey equipment here in St. Louis. Nobody ever carries narrow skates. I never even left the Minneapolis airport. I called about 10 hockey stores only to get the same answer, "NO, don't have that size". I then had the idea to fly to Vancouver. There was a store that had my size there and decided to fly out. I was hoping to make it in time to catch the Canucks/Coyotes game, but my flight was delayed in Chicago. I did finally make it only to get a hotel room. I got up this morning and got my skates, and they do fit like they were made for me. I guess it's like bike shopping for bike parts. Skates are like a good component group. Next pair of skates I'm goint to pay the extra money for a custom fit pair of skates. If I can spent several thousand dollars on biking stuff, whats $650 for skates.

It's too bad it was raining in Vancouver, it looked like it would've been beautiful. You could see the mountains right across the bay through the low clouds. Mt. biking seems to be pretty big there too. I drove down one street and I saw like three bike shops along with all kinds of outdoorsy type shops. Think I'll try to visit again and stay more then 14 hours to take in the sights. All the architecture and buildings made it look like some Scandinavian country. You know mt. biking is big when the magazine shops in the airport carry three different mt. bike magazines along with the usual bicycling. I thought I was at Borders.

a much needed update.....

it's been a while since last updating this. i've been doing a lot, keeping busy, but none of it on the bike. a few weeks ago my neck chronic neck problem that's plagued me for about the last 10 years reared it's ugly head again. i had been doing ok with it, but i started to get headaches and just felt like i had a lot of tension in my neck and head. well, i got x-rays and an mri. the x-rays showed considerable arthritis. the results from the mri were bulged disks in the c3-c4, and c5-c6 regions. i'm not too sure where i go from here. i'm supposed to go back for a follow up visit in the next week or two. i can fully function, but sometimes just have this ache and pain in my neck that just won't go away. i started playing hockey again after taking a year break and was not sure if the added strain was causing it to hurt, nonetheless i'm still playing. any damage is propably already done.

as for hockey i'm finally feeling normal on the ice again after a year and a half break, mind you i've always played hockey every year. even when i was in the marine corps i was at least able to play a little roller hockey. the two nights a week is going good although back to back nights can be rough sometimes. thank god it's not full contact anymore. i've even started buying some well needed new equipment. it's funny how out of date i am with the latest and greatest when it comes to hockey equipment. it's just like biking stuff, something better always comes along, as much as you resist the new stuff always wins. i'm old school with my skates though, but i finally broke down and bought some bauer vapor xxxx's. these are such a nice skate, i'm so impressed with them, but unfortunately i may have to get different ones since they don't quite fit right. i've got two new pairs, but i just don't want to spend the time to break in either of them when the ones i really want are the new graf 703's. i have such narrow feet that graf skates may be the way to go, plus i used to have a pair and they fit like a glove.

skates is doing well, he's getting bigger, but i would've thought he'd be much bigger by now. he'll hit his growth spurt soon and be as big as bailey soon enough. as it turns out, i wasn't feeding him enough. i was going by the recommended feeding on the bag and was told by my vet that wasn't enough. bailey is bailey, always wants to play ball, she's a good girl.

i've actually gotten on the trainer the last couple of days and did a few spinning classes. that's about all the desire i have right now to be on the bike. enough to get my heartrate up an break a sweat.

Season in review....

Well, it's been a while since I've posted here. I guess I should end the road/mt. bike season with some sort of season in review, so here it is. The goal back in March was to concentrate on the mt. bike races, and even go back to Indiana to do some Dino races, well, let me just say that went out the window. Most of the early mt bike races were either rained out or mud fests that I was not inclined to do. I also didn't get in as many races as I would have liked.

The best part of the season would have to be the road races early in the season. I got in the main races I wanted to get in and was in lead group for most of them. Dogwood was a blast. Hermann was another sufferfest, but a fun race. The state race really had me mentally and phyically abused. I was in the lead group until about the last 15-20 miles and was not recovering from all of the attacks before being dropped. I guess it was a blessing. I was able to recover and then solo'd a few miles by myself until finally catching the group and just missing the top 10 for 12th. That race really had it's ups and downs for me and I'm not talking about the terrain.

That brought me into July with a bit of a break from the road and got in some short track xc racing. Those were too much fun. Then in August came Jeff City and my first crit in about six weeks. I didn't think I'd do too well because of not getting much high tempo work other then a couple stxc races. Well, after suffering for the first part of the race I ended up getting a great line to the finish for 9th, my best finish of the season.

That would be my last good finish because the rest of the season was just a bad nightmare. Some of my old injuries from years of playing hockey started to flare up. Mostly my ankle tendons which were suffering from tendonitis and some neck pain which I'm now going to the doctor for. It turns out I've got arthritis in my neck and propably some torn ligaments, not good. I get an MRI in the coming days. Anyways, back to the races, several DNF's and a couple crashes pretty much brought my season to an abrupt end. Not to mention I ruined a set of Easton EA90SLX's that I still need to send off to get fixed.

That brings me to what I've been up to lately, hardly any riding at all. My legs would make sasquatch proud!!! I've added a new addition to the family, a siberian husky puppy that I name Skates. Speaking of skates, I've also laced up the skates and started playing hockey two times a week. I'm playing with and against some of my old beer league and Jr. Blues pals I played with years ago. It's nice to see old faces. I gotta say I've missed playing hockey again after a two year hiatus away from the ice. You would think that with all the riding I'd be in great shape, but riding doesn't do anything for your upper body and you've got to retrain those fast twitch muscles to start firing again. It's taken a couple weeks, but I'm finally feeling comfortable out there.

Although the bike has been pretty much put up, I'm sure in a couple of months I'll be raring to go. Hopefully this much needed break from the bike is just what the doctor orderred. That's about it, thanks for reading and see you next season.

Tour of Missouri, Stage 6

this weekend i took a couple days off to watch to ToM. denny had an idea to ride out to the schluersburg and then head back to st. charles for the finish. we met denny, dave, and brian at creve couer park to head out. let me just say after not riding the last two weeks and cashing out my legs playing hockey the day before i was in no shape to do a ride like these guys wanted to do. as we headed out we hit some nice big climbs that woke up the legs. as we got to the base of schluersburg my legs were in full cramp mode and just barely made it up. as i road i saw plenty of familiar faces from the local racing scene.

we waited around for about an hour before the first break of 11 riders came up the hill. you could just see these guys suffering. a few minutes later the main group came across. i made out hincapie and vandevelde in the top 10 just cruising up the climb. a few minutes later one sole tecos rider came through. i was inspired by everyone cheering this guy on and i had hoped he would make it back to the peleton. riding another 50 miles by yourself in these hills is not something i would wish upon anyone. i didn't know if he'd make it to the group or make the time cut, but i believe he was the tecos rider the dropped out of the race.

after they passed it was time to head back. we were down to three now since denny was going home with his wife. believe me, i was so close to heading back with him. i decided since i took the day off i might as well ride back. we took a combination of roads and the katy trail to get back. we timed it perfect and arrived about 15 minutes before the finish. cavendish completed the hat trick and missourian brad huff pulled off a 3rd place. we got in about 77 miles and got to see some real bike racers. excellent day!