The winter that won't end

This winter refuses to just.....die. I mean it was 51 on this past Saturday and this morning it was snowing on my commute to work. Winter has been giving us fleeting glimmers of hope, and then smashing that hope to pieces only a day or two later. It has made every ounce of bike riding pretty miserable. I still like bikes, however. I even found this photo on the interwebs to prove it.

The combination of an awful winter and being signed up for an early season race (Battenkill) is a dousy. I had enough foresight, though, to sign up for an indoor trainer class to keep me honest. Jorge over at E3 Training, www.e3ts.com, has held a class every Wednesday this winter over at Landry's on Commonwealth Avenue. Our last class is this week and we are doing a 20 minute power test to see if we achieved any real gains from the first weeks test. I feel better, but hopefully in a few days I can come back and say I AM better.

I am in the back with the teal towel.

I've taken the free time that I now have so much of since I haven't been doing a long ride every weekend to add some bling to the bike. I added a pair of red colored brake calipers that match my frame color almost perfectly. Sean nicknamed my bike the Red Rocket as a result. I like it and think I will stick with it in the future. It's not as awesome as my cross bikes nickname, Uncle Ron, but it works. I also gave the bike some ink, VeloInk. I opted to put them on the chainstays to break away from the norm........and because my top tube is shaped weird.

I cleaned the dirt off already, don't say anything.

In other news:

• I reached my goal weight of sub-135
• I am getting married in less than 90 days
• I brewed an all Massachsuetts ingredient beer the other day.

- Joe

The winter months

This winter sucks. Really really really sucks. I think by this time last winter I probably had at least 4 or 5 outdoor weekend rides and this year I have 2. I am determined to still get my training time in, though. I've been on the trainer quite a bit and when I was on vacation without my bike I even signed up to (gasp!) run a half marathon with Amy to get 2 hours of endurance stress in. 

There's my proof. Oh and by the way, see all those medals that she is wearing compared to my one and only? It's because she's pretty badass and ran 4 events over the course of two days to total 26.2 miles. Double the distance that I did, but physically worse as 3 events were on the same day. Imagine doing 2 crits and a cross race on a Saturday, then getting up to do a 45 mile circuit race the next day. All the breaks in between make it worse than just riding a 80-90 mile race in one fell swoop.

Last night Sean came over for a trainer date. I have to say that the buddy system works really well for training accountability. I never would have got on the trainer last night if he hadn't come over, and he admitted he wouldn't have either if I hadn't invited him over. So, if you don't have an accountabilibuddy, get one now. You'll be more likely to actually do your workout and you'll probably be more entertained while doing that workout.

We watched some of the TDU recap on NBC, then searched Youtube for some Battenkill videos. There's quite a few out there of people who recorded their race with a handlebar cam. The video we watched was pretty motivating, especially because there was nothing but blue skies and sunshine in the clip. Almost felt like we were there. This year, Tour of the Battenkill produced some training videos of the 2014 course. They look pretty awesome. They include notes about the climbs, show the elevation profile, and even show a map of the course and where you are on it. We couldn't find them last night because they were on Vimeo, not Youtube. Next time, though, we'll be watching those. 

Enough trainer talk. This weekend looks good for out door rides. I am looking forward to getting my face in the daylight for a few hours on Saturday or Sunday.

See you out there?