One week after the crash

I’m a sissy, OK.

The crash probably wasn’t a big deal compared to most, but I’m still going to say it hurt — because I still have a swollen hand and two fingers that don’t bend without pain.

But I’m healing. Aside from my hand injury I hit my shoulder pretty hard on the ground.

Here’s photographic evidence seven days after the crash that the impact was pretty solid. The bruising is a nice shade and got a few ‘Whoa, dude. What happened to you.” responses at the pool the other day.

I just tell them my wife hit me with a frying pan. It sound less sissy-like than telling them I did an endo while going five miles per hour on the BST.

In other news, I think I may have found a new favorite training ride when I don’t need or want a lot of climbing.

Friday, I hit the road — not literally this time — with a friend before the sun came up and we explored the new Redwood Road into Utah County. To avoid putting pressure on the hand and wrist (yes, the wrist is sore, too) I used the triathlon bike and kept in the aero position.

Let me tell you, this is a sweet stretch of asphalt. If they can just get a street sweeper out there frequently, it might be ideal. Nice wide road with very wide bike lanes and smooooooooth.

We traveled south and turned at Saratoga Springs toward Eagle Mountain and Cedar Fort. Time was kind of short and we turned around at Cedar Fort rather than go all the way to Tooele and around the mountain.

We still got 62 miles in and the temps warmed up nicely.

When I get the chance, I will be sure to use this route often.

Nice road, very few stop signs or lights, limited traffic and a town every 5-10 miles most of the way to use as refueling stations.

Cyclocross = cyclocrash

Feeling a little ambitious and deprived from riding, I got a wild idea to ride my cyclocross bike on the trails in Draper.

The idea was to drop the kids off at school and, weather permitting, get an hour or two of easy trail riding in before resuming daddy duty.

The downside to my plan was that I’m not a mountain biker so that trail system is foreign to me. The take care of that I posted a message on Facebook and twitter that I was hoping to ride and would welcome someone as a guide.

Brad Keyes volunteered and we hooked up at about 9 a.m. for 90 minutes of trail riding. I probably could not ask for a better guide. Brad is among the best mountain bikers in the area, is a cool dude and took it easy on me knowing I was a total newb. Brad’s expert guidance aside, the ride did not end as well as it started. Of course, my little booboo is nothing compared to some.

We started up from the Equestrian Center trailhead and meandered to the Clarks Fork trail and up we went.

The rain from last night left the trail damp but manageable for a while, but after the climbing began we decided it was too muddy and didn’t want to rip the trail up and we turned around and did a little BST-to-Ghost action. It was a pretty tough climb on the cross bike. Bard managed just fine, of course, but I’m used to a little standing when the climbing gets tough and had to continually remind myself to stay seated and back to keep the rear wheel engaged with the damp, sandy and semi-muddy trail.

After a while we turned around and I found myself riding the brakes and trying to keep myself under control. A new bike, on a new trail with slippery conditions had me afraid to let loose.

And for good reason.

What I did today

• Dropped the kids off at school
• Went for a mile swim at the pool
• participated in a teleconference with college football coaches
• went back to the gym with my kindergartner and hit a spin class — such a nice day outside, hate that I resorted to pedaling inside
• took my little dude to get his swin flu vaccine. Couldn’t get mine because I’m too old to qualify for the limited supply
• came home and did homework with the little dude and worked on a story for the paper
• ate too much junk food
• got the rest of the kids home from school and took them all to the clinic for regular flu shots. this time, I got one as well
• stopped for fast food for dinner because i felt lazy and really stressed
• got the kids home, fed them fast food for dinner
• helped melissa do some quick homework
• got emily dressed for swim team practice
• took emily to swim team practice where I typed away on the laptop to finish the story for the paper
• came home to do more homework with more kids
• bathed the kids
• dressed the kids in pajamas
• sat down to type this
• wished i had the time to ride in today’s 70-degree temps even if it was a bit windy
• exhaled

Hard to find motivation

I’m a dreamer.

I like to dream big and make big plans — and then not do a lot about them because I always have something else, something more important, to do such as take my kids to swim lessons, watch a high school tennis match or be a husband.

It’s one of my fatal flaws.

Technically, I suppose it’s not a flaw. It’s just the result of being a guy with a full time job, a full time family and a hobby that also takes a fair amount of time — time that’s not always available.

So it comes as no surprise to me that I occasionally find myself getting discouraged about training and my inability to do it as hard or as focused as I’d like. I keep telling myself life will get easier, more structured and less demanding as the kids get older.

That is, as many of you with children know, simply not a realistic belief.

So, when I get down, I struggle with motivating myself to create the time and the schedule needed to get done all the things I want to get done.

This morning, for instance, I had the bright idea to drop the kids off at school and immediately go for a ride.

Well, getting everyone ready for school, dealing with the morning routines and all that other stuff left me not ready for my ride when I finally closed the van door for the last time outside elementary school.

I came home thinking my ride wasn’t going to happen and made a feeble attempt to set up my rollers and see if I could balance on them. I chose to set up next to a wall so I could have one hand ready to brace myself at all times. Five or six attempts to get rolling left me fearing for my life — not to mention the scuff marks I knew were about to happen on the hardwood floors — and I summoned up the courage to go outside and ride while I still had 90 minutes left in my kindergarten time window.

My head was all over the place today thinking about work stuff, family stuff, personal stuff, etc., and getting outside was exactly what I needed.

I didn’t ride especially hard, but I rode hard enough to feel it when I got home. Most importantly, I was able to clear the noggin a bit and just enjoy the cool air and fairly open roads.

It was pretty chilly

Crisp autumn air

Friday I tossed on the Gatorskins, tossed on some arm warmers and a base layer and hit the road.

Sure, it was a little chilly, but really not that bad – especially once I got going.

As I did when I hit Millcreek, I took both Garmin units with me to compare data. Here’s ride profile from the 705 and here’s the ride profile from the 405.

I started at my house in Murray and started with a climb of Suncrest from the Salt Lake side. That little hill never gets easier, does it.

My original plan was to do the Alpine loop, but when my little fingers froze solid on the descent of Suncrest, I figured it would be even worse on the climb and descent of the Loop – so I chose to make my ride a long loop out to Saratoga Spring and then back home with little diversions wherever my bike took me.

I discovered Redwood Road is no longer a war zone. The road construction is done and, other than a lot of dirt, pebbles and crud along the shoulder, the ride was smooth and enjoyable. Once they get around to actually cleaning up the bike lane – Ha! – that will be a really nice road to ride. The shoulder is nice and wide and there is a painted bike lane most of the way into the Salt Lake Valley.

I moved over to 2700 West and eventually out to Herriman, then took a diversion to Daybreak to overlook the valley from the temple.

Never really pushed the pace, never really went all out. Just a long day in the saddle on a crisp Friday afternoon.

79 miles.

Because I don’t know when to say when

I’m registering for Ironman Boise again for the 2010 season.

Why? Not because I love the race particularly much. Two reasons, really.

1: To kick the course’s arse the way it kicked mine last year.

2: To sign up for Ironman Coeur d’Alene in 2011.

Yep. I think I’m going to get a full 140.6 triathlon in me.

Here’s the thought process I’m going through right now.

In some ways, a full Ironman is the ‘ultimate test of physical fitness and endurance’ or so they say. A 70.3 — like the two I did this summer — are certainly challenging in their own regards. But there’s something special, I guess, about a full Ironman. I want to do one.

But registering for a 140.6 triathlon typically requires months of advance planning and/or a little luck because these things are freaking popular. But they always seem to open registration a day early for participants in other nearby Ironman events. So I’m going to kill myself in Boise and try to cut a massive chunk of time off my 2009 result, then walk in to the finish-line lobby and plunk down my credit card to reserve a spot in Coeur d’Alene.

And it’s going to hurt.

One ride, two profiles

This morning, for an experiment, I road my bike up Millcreek Canyon.

The experiment was riding with two GPS bike computers — one the Garmin 705, the other the Garmin 405.

I have both and have noticed what seemed to be differences in the way they recorded my exercise data and wanted to see how they compared side-by-side on the same workout.

So I unloaded the van at the Park and Ride lot on Wasatch below Millcreek and began my climb after pushing the start button on both computers at pretty much the same time.

It was a casual ride. I had no desire to hammer it to the top — in fact, I wanted to stop and take a picture or two because the colors are off-the-charts amazing right now.

Up I went. The first anomaly I noticed was the 405’s autopause feature worked perfectly and the clock stopped when I did. The 705, on the other hand, kept right on ticking. It’s possible that the settings in the 705 aren’t set to utilize an autopause feature, so I’m not terribly worried about that. My point is it explains in part some of the statistical differences.

Here’s the link to the ride profile from the 705. And now the ride profile from the 405.

The distance and time — when taking into account the stoppage discrepancies — are virtually identical.

The big differences, though, came in the elevation, heartrate/calorie and speed readings.

Harvest Moon: I’m once, twice, three times a crit racer

First an admission: I slept in too late to make it to the start of the XTERRA Triathlon. This did not break my heart entirely because I was really dreading the idea of doing an offroad triathlon with a significantly large portion of it going uphill on a bike I was not familiar with and not comfortable on.

So I woke up, thought about my options and closed my eyes for three more hours of sleep.

Then I had a decent morning with the family, got my road bike gear packed and headed north for the Harvest Moon Crit in downtown Ogden.

I decided since I didn’t do the triathlon, I’d do two crits — the Cat 4 and the Masters 35B.

Well, my Cat 4 race was a typical crit for me. I missed the break, got gapped with four others, got dropped with those four others and as the main field got close to lapping us, got pulled from the race with those four others. I felt pretty stupid for thinking I could sit in the back and hang on. I really need to work harded earlier and stay with the front group. It’s just those crazy corners scare me in a pack of racers and I get nervous and squeemish until I fade off the back and end up paying the price with a really poor result.

After I was yanked from the course I sat there and thought about my race, my options and my attitude. And I tried to recover in time for the Masters 35B race with was about 50 minutes after the conclusion of the Cat 4 race.

I fueled up, found a place to think and talked myself into ‘rescuing’ the Masters 35 race. You see, only one person had signed up for it by the time the Masters 35B race was supposed to start. The guy racing was frequently checking in to see if anyone else had signed up and I, along with a couple of other fools that also raced the Cat 4 and Masters 35B races, decided it wouldn’t be the end of the world if we made it a triple header.

So I plopped down another $10 and grabbed another bib number.

The mountain bike and me

That’s right. I rode a mountain bike.

Because I accepted an invitation from the promoters to race the XTERRA Utah triathlon, I figured I better get some dirt riding experience and borrowed a bike.

It’s a pretty sweet bike, but not exactly the lightest thing on the planet. In fact, she’s pretty heavy and I knew going uphill on her was going to be a beast.

But going uphill is exactly what the XTERRA course is about — going from Pineview Reservoir up the mountain to Snowbasin.

And, as a mountain bike newbie, I figured I better get some experience on the fat tires before I died on the mountain. So I asked an experienced mountain biker or two for suggestions.

One, some kid named Robbie Squire, recommended I try the Pipeline Trail in Millcreek Canyon. And, because he knew I needed some climbing, Robbie suggested I start by hitting Rattlesnake Gulch to get to Pipeline and then enjoy the view as I roll along the trail.

He said it’s tough, but nothing too bad.

He is, of course, a professional mountain biker and has represented the USA in World Cup and U-23 World Championship races. So his idea of ‘nothing too bad’ and my idea of ‘nothing too bad’ are completely different ideas.

Still, I showed up at the Rattlesnake Gulch trailhead and, after taking a few deep breathes and getting some encouragement from three ladies about to embark on a hike up Rattlesnake, hit the trail.

Then the trail hit me back. (click link to see a profile of my ride, including the aborted Rattlesnake Gulch ascent.)

KOM Contest rescheduled

My sincere apologies.

I thought City Creek was open to bikes on all days after Labor Day. Turns out I was wrong. City Creek opens up after the last weekend of September.

Therefore, as an astute reader of I Ride, I Write pointed out we would have made it only as far as the gate.

We’ll have to do the race to the top for the T-Shirt the following Thursday.

Again, I apologize to my millions of readers — and by millions, I mean my dozens of readers — and will show up ready to throw down next Thursday.

Bring it.