Thursday, September 11, 2008

CX 101, second class

Picture sniped from here.

Today was more mounts, dismounts and some run-ups. I over-did it last week with the running and jumping and tonight my leg was killing me. Running was painful, but jumps were nearly unbearable. According to the drawing above, it's that longish tendony-muscley looking thing called the Sartorius: right at the top. It feels stressed, torn, ripped, lame.

I had to take it easy and kind of sit out and not ride much. That kind of made me grumpy.

On top of that, I was riding my Trek 720 set up as a single speed. I screwed up my black RB-T by doing my own metal work on it. I'm not really ready to talk about it yet. But it's at Hairy Gary's getting repaired. That made me grumpy too. There's no way I could do this stuff on a single speed.

Speaking of single-speeds, Travis showed up tonight on his single-speed Crosscheck. He's new to this too and he was rocking the obstacles by the end of the night. Really good sprint/jumping form. Dang. Some guys are naturals I guess. I've never been a natural at anything that requires coordination.

That's ok. It's still going to be fun. Once I get my leg and my bike back.

The coach du jour was talking about racing and how to get in your pack during the first 10 minutes. From there, find your pace and enjoy the ride and race against the few people that are around you. That's a cool way to think about it. That made me less grumpy.

I'm going to make sure my leg is better by next week.

This morning, as I rode to school with Maddie I did mounts and dismounts and some easy running. I think I'll keep that up. I'm also going to stretch daily and keep popping my vitamin I. Hopefully by next Thursday I'll be able to do some short sprinting.

Horn Tooting

If you're not in Spokane but you're curious about the state of cycling here as viewed from one local media source, check out the article that ran last week in the Pacific Northwest Inlander. It's horn-tooty because I'm in there, as is P2P and Liza. My buddy Alex suggested that even if it was horn-tooty, it still may be interesting to non-local readers of this blog as the article does a good job of laying out the story of bike progress in Spokane over the last couple years. So here it is.

6 comments:

Travis Nichols said...

John was a charger! As the evening progressed and the group fatigued, especially me and everyone else without a skin tight race suit, John was always the first one charging at the silly PVC obstacle. His muscle may have made him grumpy but I’m stoked to see him kill it this fall.

On my trip home I found myself looking for a reason as to why a person ride in a tight proximity and jump artificial barriers on a bike. Some sports have great historical reasoning: Dressage, a competition of horse control often considered frilly or silly by the casual observer, came from the need to control a horse in tight quarters during warfare the Middle Ages. Sports such as the Biathlon in the Winter Olympics came from the need to be extremely fast hunting in winter conditions to provide for a family’s survival before others get the meat. The Javelin in the Summer Olympics comes from spear hunting or even early warfare tools. What is the rationale for riding a road bike in mud during the Fall over fake obstacles in a circle… I’m hoping that there is some historical reasoning and that some silly British guy from the 1970’s is not playing a bad joke on me as I try to understand the way of the veteran Cross racers.

FBC Spokane said...

I may know the number of a good Physical Therapist that could suggest some stretches and strengthening stuff for that lame leg of yours.

Anonymous said...

If you quit eating muffins and scones like a pig you could have bypassed this problem. Shut your piehole, Chubby!

Anonymous said...

Obama 08-'Let's keep abortion safe and affordable-we owe it to our children'

John Speare said...

Anon: I'm tiring of deleting your posts from my blog. Can you please find something else to do with your anger? Or at least be less of a loser and make these comments with your real identity.

bleckb said...

Hey Travis. I've never done CX, but I think the man-made obstacles are because of a lack of natural obstacles on the courses here. I'm guessing that back in the day, and probably in most of Europe, the courses have these obstacles naturally, kinda like a less than "clean" mountain bike trail where you have to hop logs, climb steep muddy banks and the like. It still could be a cruel joke.