Looking for focus

It's been a while since I posted about anything specific to training and racing, so here goes an update on that front. My intent is not to come across as negative, I'm having fun still, but as the first sentence of the next paragraph might imply, I'm not exactly tearing it up on my road bike, and as any competitive person knows, it's always more fun when you're winning...

The past two weekends I've had bike races with relatively underwhelming results. One was a long time trial and one was a circuit race on the Watkins Glen race track. Both races were fun unique and something new, but I walked away still not sure what to make of my own performance.

I don't really have a good explanation, I just wasn't great in either race and I'm not sure why. I feel like I'm training a lot of hours and having productive training sessions, but I'm just not going that fast. At the finish line Saturday a former teammate of mine, who noticed that I was absent from the front group for the last several laps of the race, asked "what happened?" I really had no response other than to just shrug my shoulders and say something to the effect of "you guys were just too fast for me today"...not really something that's too fun to admit.

I think part of it is that I've still been running, lifting and roller skiing and not focusing just on biking. That's sort of a catch-22 that I'm in right now. When I'm on the road for work, I have to run to stay in shape because I can't exactly carry my Felt road bike on a trans-atlantic flight, but running shoes, shorts and a singlet fit very nicely into my "never check a bag on a business trip" policy. The puzzling part however, is that I don't think this has changed drastically since last year. One of the great parts about having a training log is that it's really easy to look back on last year and see what you were doing, etc. Compared to 2010, I'm doing almost everything the same, slightly less biking, slightly more running, but overall hours and intensity is pretty similar, a little higher this year, but not drastically higher. Maybe I'm reading too much into a few races where things didn't go great for me, but between the crash and a general lack of continuity, it is getting frustrating. In the winter, it's always really cut and dry - GO SKI, and the only thing I might be guilty of is skiing too hard or too much.

So, I'm not really sure where this leaves my training goals right now. I'll be on the road a lot over the summer, which means I'll be running more. Maybe I shouldn't fight it and just try to do some focused running training. It's not like I dislike running (like most of the guys I bike with do), I enjoy it. Who knows...For the next few weeks though, I'm not going to stress about any specific racing, just train to have fun and be fit and take some time to figure out what I can realistically focus on given my current career choice.

I am looking forward to all the travel coming up as well as all of the great weddings that Nancy and I will be invited to and involved in.

Ever Better

Given that I graduated from the U of R over four years ago, it's somewhat embarrassing that I just learned what the school motto (Meloria) means - "Ever Better".

I could blame that on being a part-time commuter student, but that's just as much of an excuse as the co-worker of mine that told me he's been too busy to work out for the last 7 years. Hmmm, seven years? That's a cop-out dude. The truth is, I really didn't care. I'm a lot different than I was four years ago, and even more different than when I graduated from RIT eight years ago. I never cared about school motto's or what they might mean or what significance they might have. When I finished my last final, I was more interested in getting down to the St. Patty's Day parade to meet up with my friends and have far too much to drink, than I was about digging deep into how I could be more successful in business or in life or any type of tradition from the school I just graduated from.

Anyways, last weekend was Nancy's official graduation from the Simon School and since I did not attend mine (for some of the reasons mentioned above), I was pretty curious to see what it would be like. It was a great ceremony (although it was not short). The three main speakers were all excellent. They did all speak of the typical cliche advice to graduating students like "Dream big" and "The future's ahead of you" and "Don't be afraid to fail" that I've heard in every commencement type address I've been to.

They all did provide a unique perspective however. One speaker was a Simon School alum who's now a very successful wall-street executive. He spoke of the importance of risk taking, but also of the progress that comes from failure and to take things step by step (I hope my Georgian friend Ivane reads this, he's been telling Kevin and I that for years now), success doesn't happen overnight unless you win the lotto. Another of the speakers was an entrepreneur from India that inherited a real-estate business and led it to grow 125x (not a typo) over a ten year period. He didn't go into much detail about how he drove that growth, but his underlying dream is homeownership for every Indian and that seemed to be the major thing driving him, which was pretty inspirational - his goal wasn't to make a ton of money (although I'm sure he's not complaining), his goal is to make home ownership a reality for as many of his compatriots as possible and make money as a bi-product of that over-arching goal - which seemed like a unique concept.

The headline speaker for me was Louis Zamperini (pictured in the middle above), the subject of the book Unbroken, which I just recently read. If you don't know about his story, I highly suggest that you read this book. Trust me, it will make tomorrow morning's alarm clock going off seem like a blessing. His presence alone was a jaw-dropping testiment to what will-power and perserverence can accomplish. He didn't really need to say much, his life story did all the talking for him. He did tell a few stories and crack a few jokes, which was very inspirational. I hope I'm that active and sharp when I'm 94. While introducing him, Dean Zupan (pictured on the left above) mentioned that he just quit skiing four years ago at the age of 90!

All of the speakers had clearly overcome a lot of adversity in different ways, but none of them were all that interested in talking about their past accomplishments, they were truly looking forward to the challenges that lay ahead and how they would react to them, grow through them and become more successful and better people through them. That was compelling to me. So what I took out of it was Meloria - Ever Better (not just a clever latin word to print on the scotch glasses in the bookstore I guess).

Alright, enough of my nonsensical diatribe, here are some pictures of the real stars of the day:

Nancy getting "Hooded". Another thing I did not know is that each Master's discipline (Arts, Science, Business Admin, etc) has a different color hood associated with it. The other ones are all very colorful, Business is "Drab". Yup, welcome to Corporate America graduates, here's your drab hood, don't worry, it'll match the light gray cubicle and the dark gray Dell Laptop you'll be assigned your first day on the job....

Nancy showing off her new degree!

Left to Right - Meghan, Nancy and Laura. These three took almost every class together going part time while all working full time. Not a small achievement by any stretch of the imagination. The day before the ceremony, we had a joint graduation party for these three. Great time for sure. Congrats again ladies!

0 for 2 at FMV, Roller coasters and NELLIE KANE!!

The last week has been sort of an up and down week, much like a roller coaster, literally and figuratively.

First, last weekend's bike race series ended the same way that the Full Moon Vista Grand Prix weekend did for me last year - with me on the pavement wondering WTF just happened. Friday's race went ok, it was a criterium in Genessee Valley Park. Crits are great for spectators and it was so cool that friends and family were able to come out and watch me race right here in town, which is pretty rare for any of the stuff that I compete in. I'm not a great sprinter and don't really have any desire to be a better one, so crits are tough for me to really do well in. I did stay with the front group which ended up lapping the majority of the field. The race was hard, but I felt pretty good. The last few laps were really fast and it was really tough to move up and fight for position, so I ended up finishing near the back of the front group of about 15 riders. Overall though, I was feeling pretty good that I stayed upright and was looking forward to Saturday's hilly circuit race in Powder Mills Park. Saturday's race was going pretty well until about 2/3 of the way through the race I crashed on a downhill section. I'm still not sure exactly what happened or what I could have done differently, so I'm trying not to dwell on it. I avoided any serious injuries and my bike is fine, really frustrating nonetheless but could have been a lot worse I guess. So, I sat out Sunday's race. I have been able to ride a few times since then and generally speaking, I'm back on track.

Tuesday night my buddy Scott drove up from Philly to go to yesterday's Phish show at Darien Lake. Nancy and I both took the day off and went to the 6 flags resort which was open only to phish ticket holders. I don't think I'd been on a roller coaster in like 15 years, but it was a good time. After a couple hours in the amusement park, we got a good tailgate going in the parking lot with Kevin, Brandi, Scott and two of Scott's buddies from Philly. It was great to hang out with all of them. I've been to a lot of shows with Kevin and Scott, but unfortunately, I don't get to see either of them nearly enough these days, so it was really cool to just hang out and catch up with them both. It's pretty wild to think that the three of us became friends working in the Outdoor Apparel department at Galyan's 10 years ago. We went to Bonnaroo together 8 years ago this week, wow, I feel really old. Kevin is (among many things) a freelance photo journalist, and was shooting the show for a magazine, so he was in front of the front row for the first 3 songs. The first set was amazing all around - in fact, I'm not sure I could have picked a better setlist based on my favorite phish songs, but the highlight was that they opened with Nellie Kane. Nellie Kane is a bluegrass song which they rarely play, but I have always joked with Scott and Kevin during every tailgate that they would open with Nellie Kane. It became a running joke between the three of us, especially in recent years since I listen to a lot of bluegrass and "twangier" music all around. Kevin played guitar during the cocktail hour at our wedding last year and learned how to play Nellie Kane specifically for our wedding because of that. Needless to say, when they opened with that, Scott and I had one of the strongest hi-fives we've ever executed. Kevin was still up front at that point shooting, but claimed that he could hardly hold his camera steady with excitement. Overall, it was a great day all around and great to take a step back and just chill out for a change (although I did get scolded twice for reading work e-mails at the tailgate).

Left to right, Nancy, Scott's buddy (also named Scott) and Scott at our tailgate.
Nancy and Brandi are sitting down, then left to right is Kevin, Kevin's buddy Luke, Rick and Scott.

Scott at the show.

Looking ahead, Nancy and I are celebrating out 1st anniversary Saturday. She's also graduating from the U of R on Sunday, so some serious milestones this weekend for sure. Difficult to believe that we've already been married a year, time is going really fast. I will say, it was a really eventful 12 months and a lot happened, it's just difficult to take the time to step back and realize all of the stuff that's gone on and the places we've been lucky enough to see. I guess that's why I started a blog in the first place though.

Fire alarms, Babies, Half marathon, Sam Adams, Bike Racing, and Phish

I think the title of this post is pretty self-explanatory, however I will go into further detail.

Fire Alarms - Last week I went down to DC for some meetings and stayed overnight in the capital region. This is the 2nd year in a row that I was down there the week leading up to Memorial Day. This is basically for the same reason, there was a large delegation from the Georgian government in town to celebrate Georgian independence day and have some bi-lateral discussions with the USG about the two governments cooperation. This is also the height of tourism season and a time of year when many schools in the east do a school trip to see the sights. For the 2nd year in a row, some punk 8th grader yanked the fire alarm in my hotel. What are you gonna do...for all I know, he was probably from Penfield.

Babies - Last Friday, my buddy Andy was in town from Charlotte with his wife Erin and baby Jack. This was Jack's first visit to Rochester, so Andy's parents threw a party for all of their friends and family. This was also an opportunity to meet my other buddy Dan's 6-week old son Grady. There were a bunch of other babies running around, but Jack and Grady were the headliners. It was great to see everyone and also a little alarming that I'm to the point where there are a minimum of 3 children at almost every social event I go to...

Half marathon - last weekend I ran my first half marathon in Buffalo. My good friend Jeff was in town visiting some family and the race happened to coincide with his visit, so I figured why not give it a shot. I've been running a decent amount since I've been on the road a lot recently, but this was the first running race I'd done in almost a year and the first one longer than 3.5 miles in almost 2 years, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I arbitrarily set a goal time of 1:25 (~6:30/mile pace). This was based largely on some of the treadmill workouts I'd done on my last work trip - basically, that pace felt comfortably hard for longer intervals. So, anyways, I started out pretty solid at that pace, at 10km in, I was almost dead on that pace, at 15km I had slowed a little, but was still just over an hour, then I sort of hit the wall a little. My legs got really heavy and I'd say I ran the last 5km or so at a 7:30/mile pace and ended up with a 1:29. So, not the best way to finish a race, but aerobically I felt really good and now I have a time to beat at that distance. I think the next time I do a half marathon, I'll pick a time of the year when I'm not also juggling bike racing and really focus on getting some more mileage in leading up to the race.

Sam Adams - After the half marathon, Nancy and I stayed up in Buffalo to hang out the rest of the day. Jeff and his girlfriend both work for Sam Adams, so needless to say, the BBQ hosted at Jeff's brother's house was basically sponsored by Sam Adams. It was a lot of fun and great to see a lot of really close friends from the Buffalo area that I hadn't seen in far too long.

Bike Racing - oh yeah, it's still bike racing season. This weekend is the Full Moon Vista Grand Prix, which is 3 races in 3 days, all local. I'm really looking forward to getting out there and racing these courses (even the crit), and I'm looking for a little redemption after last year's debacle.

Phish - a week from today, I'm going to a Phish concert with Nancy and a bunch of other friends, including Scott and Kevin, who I've been to a lot of shows over the years with. So, I'm really looking forward to that as well.

So, that should clarify the randomness of the title and provide a small snapshot as to how all over the map my life has been.

Oh, and on top of that, I'm switching jobs at work and am pretty psyched...possibly more on that later...or maybe I'll just write about biking, running, ski racing and general adventure, that's more interesting anyways, right?

Please let us know if this works...

A week ago Saturday, I left for Georgia for a few days of meetings. It was the usual type of stuff there - long, drawn-out meetings that are as organized and coherent as a herd of cats, followed by long dinners with many, surprisingly concise, coherent toasts, followed by not nearly enough sleep, hopefully a workout, then rinse and repeat. It was a good few days though and we got a lot accomplished.

Thursday morning, bright and early, I headed to the airport and flew to Vienna, rented a car (my first time driving in continental Europe) and drove to a trade show in Brno, Czech Republic. As this was my first time driving in Europe, and the signs aren't in English in either Czech of Austria, I made sure the rental car company gave me a GPS. Upon receiving the GPS device, the rental car representative said the following to me (believe me, not making this up) - "You're the first person to rent this model, so we're really interested to know if it works." Hmmm....well, if I end up lost in rural Slovakia, I'll be sure to give you some good constructive feedback. More on that later...

I made it to Brno without a hitch. Driving across the border was a total non-event, it's more of a production to drive across the New York, Pennsylvania border. The "Welcome to Czech" sign was smaller than the "Welcome To Osceola" sign in the Tug Hill. Overall, it was pretty underwhelming. Brno was a cool looking city, even though I was only there for a day and spent most of it working. Our local partner there, took us to dinner Thursday night at a touristy, medieval restaurant where we had some good Czech beer and ate some BBQ ribs. The ribs weren't much to write home about, I'll stick to Dinosaur, but the beer was all Czech beer is cracked up to be.

Back to the GPS...the following day after spending all day at the trade show, then breaking down the booth and packing up our equipment to ship back, I drove back to Vienna. I was supposed to stay at a hotel near the airport (our travel department told me it was within a mile or two of the airport), then fly home the next day. My GPS couldn't find the hotel name, but did find the street address, so I plugged it in and started the 1.5 hour drive back to Vienna. Once I got into Vienna, Mr. GPS started taking me through downtown Vienna, lots of traffic, strange traffic patterns and a stop light every 35 feet or so. Having never been to Vienna, I didn't really have much of a choice. Anyways, after about 45 minutes of stop and go traffic, I arrive at my destination...only it's a random house, not a hotel and I'm in a residential neighborhood, no hotels even close. So, I type in the airport in as my new destination, it's gotta be close, right?...recalculating...estimated 40 minute drive away, WTF??? I'VE HAVEN'T GOTTEN A DECENT NIGHT OF SLEEP IN 7 DAYS, FEEL LIKE CRAP, HAVE ALREADY BEEN DRIVING FOR 2.5 HOURS, AND I HAVE TO DRIVE 40 MINUTES BACK THROUGH ALL THAT STOP AND GO BS!! I'm not sure if I actually said that out loud or not, but I was pretty close to a total meltdown...anyways, I drove back to the airport and couldn't find my hotel after a lap around the airport. I do a "Close Hotel" search on my trusty GPS, find a hotel by the same name as mine 5 miles away, not too bad, not 1 mile, but whatever, I just need to get some food and sleep and everything will be ok...drive to hotel, which takes about 20 minutes with traffic, park in ramp garage, lug all my stuff up to the front desk...Sir, you're at the wrong hotel, you're hotel is by the airport....AHHHHHHHHHHH...lug all my stuff back to the car, drive back to the airport and finally find my hotel. It turns out, it's not only on the airport's complex, it's the very first thing you see when you exit the arrivals hall in Vienna, the walk from the rental car drop-off to the terminal was longer than the walk from the hotel. All in all, the GPS and my own stupidity turned a 1.5 hour drive into a 4 hour drive...morale was not high at this point...

Adding to my morale issues is that I picked up some type of bug somewhere along the way that hit me pretty hard Friday, which also made the trans-atlantic flight home the next day not exactly one to remember, but I made it home and the worst seems to be over. I'm already to the point where I can look back on this trip and remember a lot of really positive experiences and not the lovely Hertz agent that asked me how the GPS worked out for me.

New stuff...

I finally broke down and added a mountain bike to my collection of training tools (they're actually toys, but "training tools" sounds more legit). For several years now, friends of mine have been telling me that I would love mountain biking and couldn't believe that I didn't have one. So, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered this bad boy through our bike shop sponsor Towpath Bike.

Based on my first two rides, that's the last time in this bike's life that it'll look that clean, but that's the point. My second ride was quite the trial by fire, I went with three other experienced riders, two of them (Jason and Duncan) I've skied and road biked quite a bit with and they assured me that the ride we were set to do was tough, but wasn't super-technical, meaning, you'll be going up and down a lot of really big hills, but you won't be riding over logs, through creeks and through narrow single track with big trees on both sides of you. That might have been the original plan, but Duncan's friend Andy came as well and called an audible. Instead of the previously planned route, we ended up going to Stid Hill. The first thing we did after entering park was ride through a creek, which I got about halfway through, panicked, stopped pedaling and promptly fell over. After about an hour of trying to keep up with these guys, but also continuously falling off, coming unclipped, or having to run with my bike because there were too many "obstacles" in the way, Jason finally came clean that this particular route was as technically hard as any single track area around here. So, that made me feel a little better, because up until that point, I was struggling to stay on the bike at all! All three of the guys were extremely patient and helpful and by the end of the 3+ hour ride, I feel like I was monumentally better than when we started and had a blast. I still have a ways to go to really improve, but it was a great time and I am very excited to now have this option for days when the weather might be suspect or when I just don't feel like eating the constant wind that you're exposed to road-riding in this area. Additionally, it seems to be a killer tough workout almost all the time, especially on trails like we rode on Sunday, you are constantly working your entire body just to keep the thing upright.

On a different note, I'm headed to Georgia tomorrow and may end up going to Czech Republic as well during this trip, which will be a first for me in that country. Should be an interesting adventure...

This is absurd

Last night I helped out at a little league practice (9-10 year olds) for a team that a friend of mine coaches. I worked with the pitchers and catchers and overall it was a lot of fun and great to be around kids playing baseball. Sometimes, it's easy to forget how huge a portion of my life baseball was for so long. Anyways, we were forced to practice in a parking lot because the fields are still too wet to play on. They're too wet to play on because every day the temperature has gotten above 45 (about 3 days so far) it's been pouring rain with 35mph winds. Last night's practice was 40 degrees and very windy and the ridiculous part - that's the best weather that team has had to practice in so far this year, and that's April 21st (theoretically a month into Spring). It's difficult to teach 9 and 10 year olds how to catch when you have to spend 10 minutes re-adjusting the chest protector to fit over their SNOW SUIT. My former college baseball team has had 9 out of the last 10 games cancelled and basically will have to play 4-5 doubleheaders a week whenever the weather breaks (hopefully by June?).

I had a bike race on Sunday and Tuesday. Sunday's race didn't go great and Tuesday's race went really well, but in both cases, I finished the race colder than any ski race I've done in the last few years (other than maybe the Fischer Loppet 3 years ago when I made some unfortunate apparel choices). The 10 day forecast looks pretty dismal and I have still yet to go for a bike ride without 3 layers on top and bottom, and this is supposed to be my "summer sport". Tomorrow I'm racing in the Binghamton Circuit races and according to the weather forecast, I might be better off bringing a snorkel than my bike.

So, Mother Nature, you've shown us once again, you're the boss, now knock it off...April showers can't bring May flowers when if I'm still wearing a down jacket everywhere.

I would say this blog post could be filed among the "howling at the moon" category.