new bike

I bought this beauty today from my teammate Rick (who got a new Felt this year). Folks better watch out this summer!

The iPod question

I typically work out on my lunch break at Flex (the gym across the street from work). It's a habit that I started when I was going to night school to get my MBA, about 5 years ago, and am now to the point where it's pretty rare for me to not make it over there at least four days a week. Sometimes this means staying late at work, but I feel that I'm more productive, focussed and energetic in the afternoon after taking a step back and exercising.

Anyways, there are a few other people that I work with that also make it over there occasionally at lunch (including a group of women who have made a pact to exercise more and eat better, and have been doing great - this is no flash-in-the-pan new years resolution, they're committed!). While I was running on the treadmill yesterday, I was asked by a co-worker why I didn't wear an iPod. I wrote about this a few months ago, and explained that sometimes you need a pick-me-up to get through some workouts. However, I was thinking about it, and that day back in October was the last time I've worked out with an iPod. I've probably been averaging 10-12 hours a week of cardio since then (mostly skiing and some running), plus 1-2 strength workouts a week, and haven't touched my iPod except for airplane rides (haven't even thought about it).

In general, I have a personal policy which states that workouts over an hour alone dictate that an iPod is acceptable, and workouts over 2 hours alone, it's all but required for sanity's sake, however, it depends on how mind-numbing of a workout is planned for that day. I think the following things have been factors recently as well:

- It's ski season and I love skiing

- I've done a lot more training over the past couple of years than I had done previously and maybe I'm just getting used to longer workouts mentally.

- I have some awesome training buddies, who enjoy training and racing but are also certifiably insane, which keeps the conversations flowing (always a key part of any workout over 2 hours)

- I've been enjoying the workouts I've been doing - even the hard ones and even the "boring" ones.

I think the last one is probably the most important. While it can be a pain to fight traffic after work, drive an hour to bristol mountain or harriet spencer, and not get home until 9pm, it beats roller skiing circles around cobbs hill in the dark and or running with poles, or almost any other workout that happens in the fall in Rochester. I still stand by my previous post though, that when needed, using an iPod is OK (because without those fall workouts, the winter is nowhere near as enjoyable), but when it's not needed, all the better, it's amazing the things you can think about during a 3 hour ski with some peace and quiet.

Harry Eldridge weekend and honeymoon

This past weekend, I raced in two cross country races in Lake Placid. Saturday was a 7.5k individual start skate race and Sunday was a 15k mass start classic race. Both days had pretty stacked fields (at least for races in New York) with a lot of folks making the journey over from New England to compete. The races went ok. Saturday, I felt really good during the race, skis seemed fast, technique felt good, felt like I pushed as hard as possible. Upon review of the results sheet, it seems I'm missing a top-end gear that some of the other guys have, I honestly felt like I nailed it, but there were still guys faster. I'm defintely faster than last year, but for the first time since I started skiing again after college, I'm not A LOT faster than the previous year. Which makes sense and I knew would happen, but is still a little frustrating. There are still a lot of races to go this year, and my big goals are the two marathons in February, which will be a completely different animal compared to the races I've been doing.

Following the race on Saturday, Jason, Chad and I recruited JackedUp to give us a tour of the Lake Placid Loppet course (which we're doing in two weeks). About 500 yards into the "cool down", I snapped a pole. There must have been a hairline crack or something because I didn't crash, the pole just snapped, which was a bummer (I really liked those poles).

After grabbing another pair of poles, we went back out on course and had a fun ski on the porter and east mountain loops. I'll tell you one thing, the Loppet course is no joke, that sucker's going to hurt. I feel confident that it will hurt us all less than everyone else, but we'll see!

Sunday, was a 15k classic mass start (picture above of the start). Not much noteworthy to say, other than it was an improvement over the previous weekend, however, I still have a long way to go with my technique and general approach to classic skiing! It was a fun race though. There were some big guns in the race (including last year's NCAA champ), so it was impressive to see how those guys operate. Frenchy, Chad and Jason all had good races, including Jason going all "Petter Northrug" on last year's Section V champ (from Jason's high school) and dusting him on the final uphill.

Overall, it was a fun weekend. A lot of the RNR juniors (that Jason coaches all summer) punched their tickets to JO's with some solid performances. A few of them also cooked us dinner on Saturday in exchange for the use of our kitchenette unit at the Jack Rabbit. That's a trade I'll make any day!

Now, I have a weekend off from racing. Then it's back to back weekends in Lake Placid for the 50k Loppet on Feb 6th, followed by the NorAm Cup biathlon races the following weekend.

In other news, among all the nordic skiing updates going on with this blog recently, Nancy and I picked a spot for the honeymoon - Aruba. That's right - the one in the Caribbean - sandy beaches, sunshine, and cocktails with little straw hats in them!

Classic ski racing still undefeated lifetime against Marty

Saturday I competed in a classic 10km race out at Harriet Spencer. It was nice to race close to home, and the snow held up really well despite a recent warm-up that has melted the snow everywhere else in the Rochester area.

We got up there early and tested a few different kick wax combos but ultimately settled on hard wax instead of klister...I think it was the right decision. The kick wax was not the issue, it was the operator! I was a complete train wreck technique-wise. There wasn't one section of the course where I felt in any type of rhythm striding, and the only thing that got me around the course at all was excellent glide and a lot of double-poling, which brought about the following analogy from Jason:

"Think of classic skiing like bow-hunting for a bear. It takes some precision. Of the three major classic techniques, here's how it would relate to trying to kill a bear with a bow and arrow:

- striding - trying to shoot the bear with the bow and arrow.

- kick, double-pole - trying to kill the bear by throwing the arrow at it.

- double-pole only - trying to kill the bear by throwing the bow at it."

I think that pretty much sums it up! One of these days I'll figure it out, and considering I'm doing a 15km classic mass start on Sunday, let's hope that day is soon!

Rochester Brooks Sprint Biathlon

On Sunday, the Western NY biathlon club hosted a very successful sprint biathlon race. Overall it was a great day. It was great to see a good turnout and to see some new faces come out and compete from the scholastic ranks! Also in the field was a member of the junior national women's team (Silke Hynes) and 2-time Olympian Duncan Douglas, fresh off his trip to Alaska for xc nationals. We had a lot of great volunteers that made the day a big success! Thanks to everyone that came out.

Here are some pics courtesy of Frank Wojick.

Frenchy shooting offhand.

Darwin Roosa, who is (as far as I know) the first member of the Saratoga Biathlon Club to compete at Rochester Brooks. Hopefully he can convince some of his teammates that there's nothing to be scared of on our side of the state! We also had four competitors come down from Ontairio to add a little international flavor to the event.
Some of the high school racers that came out. All of these skiers raced the previous day as well either in a local high school race or in the JOQ in Glens Falls. They are looking fast, that's for sure!
Jason shooting offhand. Jason was second on the day, right on the Jacked Up Old Man's heels.

This weekend is a classic 10km at Harriet Spencer. After this weekend, I'll be on the road for races or work almost every weekend until late-March. Due to this, I'm also going to make sure to enjoy some football on our new HD TV this weekend as well as ski. I will say though, after doing classic intervals last night, I have never been this pumped to do a classic race (which probably isn't saying much, but I digress), Saturday should be a good one!

Slowly back to reality

Today I'm finishing up a full week in the office. A nice perk about my company is that we shut down almost completely for the week between Christmas and New Years every year. So Monday, everyone was coming back from vacation, which creates a much different atmosphere than when you come back from vacation and everyone else has been working and you have loads to catch up on. Additionally, most of my customers celebrate Orthodox Christmas, which was this week, so it was a little slow on that side as well. Things slowly picked up throughout the week and by next week, we'll be going full throttle again.

I'm leaving for Glens Falls in about an hour to do an xc skate race tomorrow, then it's back to Rochester to host a sprint biathlon at Rochester Brooks on Sunday. Hopefully I'll catch some football as well this weekend.

It's a winter wonderland in Rochester right now, and the forecast looks pretty good with more snow and cold temps.

2009 photo recap

2009 seemed as though it flew by. Obviously the personal headline was Nancy and I getting engaged.

Here are a few other stats from the year:

- foreign countries visited - Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Romania, Germany, Georgia, France, Canada

- states other than NY visited - Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Minnesota, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia

- athletic events (I think this is accurate, but I tallied everything quickly) - biathlon (10 races), xc ski (8 races), running (9 races), summer biathlon (4 races), cycling (11 races) - 2010 will definitely have a lot more bike races (less running, more biking in 2010!), 1 baseball game (alumni game and I roped a double in my first AB in like 6 years, it went downhill from there though).

Here are some pics from the last year in chronological order.

January - Vermont NorAm Cup race weekend. First races of 2009. It was super cold (below 5 degrees cold). Races went really well.
February - RNR podium sweep at a race at Prospect Mountain in Vermont. This pic was one of several similar pics from Winter 2009. In total, Jason (left), Chad (middle) and I combined to at least finish 1-2 in at least 9 biathlon/xc races last winter, with a few 1-3 finishes mixed in there as well. Frenchy also had an awesome season winning the overall NYS points title for his master's class, and had several wins and top 3's. Hopefully 2010 has plenty more of those with a few bike race wins as well!?!

March - This picture was from the Romania Program Review that I hosted down in Washington DC. I spent an entire week with this crew in DC (3 days in the office and 2 days taking them site seeing and shopping). Great guys and developed some great friendships since with several of these gentlemen. Many of the sites we saw were firsts for me as well as them, including this shot in front of the Iwo Jima Memorial.

April - didn't touch my camera. Apparently nothing exciting happened.

May - a bunch of buddies from Rochester flew down to Charlotte to visit Andy (on the right) for some golf and college-type drinking. Kurt (on the left) made the drive down from DC.

The first night we were down there, we got off the plane and we went directly to the bar, where dan and kurt won several stuffed animals. We then proceeded to drink more beer and eventually play dodgeball in the parking lot outside the bar with all of these stuffed animals while we were waiting for the cab to pick us up at roughly 2am. Apparently we are all legends at this bar in Charlotte now...great weekend and some great stories!
June - Kevin (right), Scott (middle) and I went to Phish shows in Boston and Camden, NJ. Byrne (left) and my buddy lucas were there for the Boston show. Good times for sure and brought back a lot of memories of going to shows with Kevin and Scott.
July - Summer biathlon nationals in Lake Placid. Left to right - Chad, Sam (Chad's roomate from Clarkson and one of the top biathletes in the country), Frenchy and Jason. We all stayed together at the Jack Rabbit. Sam won the event and Jason finished 4th. Both competed in the world championships in Oberhof, Germany later in the summer with Sammy finishing 10th in one race and Jason being the 2nd American in every event.
Nancy took this shot of me cresting the hill before the range in the pursuit race. I finished 11th overall, didn't shoot that great, but it was a great time. Thought this was a cool shot with the flags and mountains in the background.
August - Great Race - Frenchy, Jason, me, Chad. Jason ran the 10k for us, I did the 19 mile bike leg on Frenchy's TT bike, and Chad and Frenchy did the canoe leg. Nancy, Libby, Jane and Beth also competed in the women's event. We didn't finish as high as we hoped, but we gained some valuable experience for next year!
Also in August I took over the republic of Georgia account. This is Ivane (who owns our dealership in Georgia). I went to Georgia for the first time in August and Ivane took us to this church that was build in the 4th century (he also force fed us several pitchers of vodka!). Ivane has become a great friend over the past few months.
The day after I got back from Tbilisi, Nancy and I flew out to Oregon to visit some of her extended family. This was taken at Mt. Hood. We had an awesome week of hiking, site seeing and beer tasting. I could definitely live in that area. Can't wait to go back! Nancy and I were engaged just a few days after this picture was taken.

September - Nancy and I got engaged labor day weekend. This pic was taken the night we got engaged.

October - On my 2nd trip to Georgia, we had a half day of down time and Lasha (middle) took Kevin and I out to a cave city build about 3000 years ago.
November - Andy (dead center) was inducted in the the RIT athletic hall of fame. The rest of the crew in there were all teammates of his.
Also in November - my sister-in-law gave birth to my first nephew Colin (trust me, he looks even more like a catcher at 5 weeks old!).

December - Jason and I flew out to Minnesota to compete in the Olympic trials. Great experience (other than the Minnesota state troopers that I ran in to).

Once I got back from MN, Nancy and I had a great holiday season with our families and friends. Which brings us to today - 1 January, 2010.

Speaking of 2010 - I hear there's going to be a kickin' party at the place pictured below on June 11th!