dj whitebread
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Race thoughts
This weekend was the Texas State race weekend. I opted out of the very short, but very steep hill-climb on Saturday morning and went down to San Marcos to do the "crit" on the 1.8 mile race track out there. That's kind of long for crit, and there were no real corners, so I really don't consider it a crit at all. It also had a really mean hill in the middle of it.
I started cramping on the first lap and had to drop back. I believe I was dehydrated. Regardless, it was a bad race for me. However, the team scored all kinds of points across the races, which in all honesty is the real goal.
The road race today started pretty well. I felt pretty good. Unfortunately this course also has a hill in it, and it did it's damage to me on the first lap. I was able to chase back on over the next couple of miles, and I stayed with the pack until we hit the hill on the second lap (we were doing three laps). I tried my hardest to maintain contact with the pack, but it was like a switch got flipped on my legs. I was climbing, feeling stressed but maintainable and then all of a sudden, boom, I could barely turn my pedals over. And backwards I went. I tried to chase back on, but I just didn't have the legs and the group was going a little faster at this point, so that was the end of that. I pulled out of the race at the end of the lap as I didn't feel like doing a lap all by my lonesome.
It turns out that was a good call as I was able to get three key feeds off to our A riders. We again ended up doing well in all of the races, so it was a good weekend for our team, and I hope it allowed us to stay in the lead.
This coming weekend is the conference championships up in Wichita Falls. I was originally planning on not going, but I just have this sinking feeling in my stomach about skipping it. I will never get a chance to be a collegiate cyclist ever again in my life... I'm just hesitant to pass up my last opportunity to do so.
So I'm going to kill myself this week to get as much work done as possible. I'm going to not drive in an effort to work on the trips there and back, and I'm going to completely skip the team time-trial and stay at the hotel and work in peace and quiet. I should still be able to get a decent amount of stuff done, but still get to enjoy the trip. Carrie actually put this in my head, and I thank her for doing it. I'm going to have plenty of opportunities to work in my life, I will never be able to participate in another collegiate cycling conference championship.
Labels: racing, Wichita Falls
7:25 PM |
Friday, April 18, 2008
An explanation...
So there's a quote about PhDs being more an exercise in perseverance than anything else. That is very much true. Good thing I am like way stubborn.
Yesterday's faculty candidate gave a presentation on research that is very close to what I do. And very good. And very well published. Oh yeah, and he helps people in the developing world have increased access to the internet, in his spare time. Needless to say, I was left feeling a tad bit inadequate.
I mean, there are technical difference between his stuff and mine. And they completely punt on a certain problem that is really at the heart of what we do. I won't get into anymore detail here, it isn't important.
I want to be a professor. That has always been my goal. The issue is that being a professor is very competitive. My CV isn't all that great; I just don't have enough publications. Now there are lots of reasons for this, but it is still hard to keep up the faith at times that I'm eventually going to make it where I want to be. And let's get this straight, I have no chance of ever landing at a top ten kind of place. Not that I necessarily want to; it's a pretty crazy life. It's just hard to keep the faith that there is a path that I can go down that will end me up with a quality academic position in a cool town.
Hence why my last post was sort of depressing. I am feeling much better today. I'm not sure why, exactly. Maybe it's the beautiful weather. It certainly isn't my performance at the crit last night, ;). My last collegiate race is this weekend. I'm going to try and turn myself inside out to help out the team.
As for my lookout on my job prospects, I sort of need to be able to put all of that out of my mind. I need to try to get something out of the door for OSDI in three weeks and then defend/turn in my dissertation. Those are primary. I am lucky enough to have the fall to focus on job stuff... I think I will get to the point where I'm a professor. I have faith. The path just isn't clear right now, but is it ever really clear? I guess for certain people from certain schools it is... but it is probably the lack of clarity at times that makes life more interesting. Change is scary, and there is probably a lot of that coming.
I guess on some level all this is good, because I don't like to have open issues, and this is forcing me to leave a really big one just wide open and still be productive and move on with the rest of my life. Tricky, this is.
But hey, it's Friday. I'm going to race hard and work hard this weekend. On Monday I'll keep on working. The best way to improve my chances is hard work, so I guess that's what I have to do.
Have a good weekend.
3:09 PM |
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Crit
This morning I had everything planned out to get a nice warmup before the crit, because at just 30 minutes I knew it was going to be fast from the beginning. Unfortunately, with 30 minutes until our start time I realized one crucial mistake: I had forgotten my helmet a home.
I frantically drove back home, grabbed my helmet and headed back just as they were opening the course for warmups for our race. So instead of like 30 minutes on the trainer I got 3 laps around the course. Lovely.
I was right, the race did start fast. An Aggie attack on the second lap and got himself a decent gap. I was up in the front trying to help pull him back, when I realized that I was done. My legs were actually shaking when I would stop pedaling. I got dropped, but was able to wait for a few other people who had gotten dropped before me and we formed a little group that stayed together for the most part through the end. Overall it was fun. I saw one of my teammates T-bone two traffic cones and not go down. He was right next to me... I have no idea how he did it. That being said, I was glad he stayed up.
So all in all it was a great weekend of racing for me. Yeah, I didn't win, and I got dropped twice, but I just love collegiate racing. And it was good to see everybody and get back into it. Most of all, it was just a lot of fun, and that's what hobbies are all about, right?
Labels: racing
4:18 PM |
Saturday, April 05, 2008
UT Road Race
Quickly, as I need to get to work. I hung on for the first lap, and right at the end of it I just couldn't get the bike to go as fast as everybody else. It sort of happened all of a sudden. Up to that point I had felt pretty good. I chased down an attack, and for the most part was hanging on just fine. As we are cresting the hill at the end of the first lap, the legs just said no.
I went ahead and did the second lap by myself, and by the end I was feeling kind of rough. As I was literally pulling over to the start/finish tent with the officials to pull out of the race at the end of the second lap, one our woman's b riders comes by with two other people. I had known there were some people behind me, but I didn't know who. So I decided to go along with Amy, and as we're coming up the hill right after the start I kind of drop off. But then I realize the other two people with her are a Texas State guy and a Texas State woman. Having our women place well in their races is important, as they are worth a lot of points. (The Woman's B races were racing with the Men's C b/c of lack of follow vehicles, so hence why we could work together, and hence why they are worth so many more points.) So I decide to chase back on to them. I pull a few times hoping to drop the Texas State girl, but she didn't seem to be that tired, turns out she just can corner to save her life and would drop back after every turn. So at this point I knew what we had to do and I was hoping Amy had figured it out as well.
The finish was downhill. With right around a K to go is a 90 degree right hand turn. As soon as we started the downhill leading to the turn I sped up, and when I saw Amy right behind me, I knew she was on the same page. We went through the turn decently fast, gapped the TX State girl, and then I told Amy to get on my wheel and led her out to the finish. If there is one thing I can do well, it's go down hill quickly. The plan worked beautifully and I think she ended up getting third in her race, which is pretty awesome.
Now I'm at school... parking is absurd because it's Texas Relays. Bleh. I wasted 20 minutes driving around, but then I found a spot by Crown and Anchor. Okay, back to work.
Labels: racing
2:59 PM |
Friday, April 04, 2008
Work progress, First road race tomorrow
I am making good progress with Lagniappe, I'm just hoping I can make enough to get something out the door come May 8th.
Tomorrow I am participating in my first road race of the year. I am feeling pretty good right now, we will see how that translates to actual race performance. Though I am making a major point this year to actually warm up. That is always my mistake. I want my legs to be warm and ready to go when they say, "go."
We'll see how this goes. Road race tomorrow and crit on Sunday. The crit is going to be a short and flat rectangle, so that should be fun if I can hold on.
10:11 PM |
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Work and bike
That's mainly been my focus since I've returned. Went for a ride on Monday, went to the MS150 logistics meeting at NI on Tuesday, and tonight I went for a ride and then attended the cycling club meeting regarding this weekend's race.
In between that has been work and limited time at home, which is unfortunate as I have a lovely, beautiful wife. I was able to cook supper tonight though, even though it was a bit rushed. I poached some fresh redfish in a white wine broth with mushrooms, broccoli, and roasted red peppers. We had that with some toasted Israeli couscous (the fat kind) that was cooked with some vegetable broth and spiced up with a little Tony's. I remembered that I actually bought the mushrooms for tomorrow's night supper. I guess I will pick some up tomorrow. The couscous could have been better, but like I said, I got all of that together pretty quickly so I didn't really have much time to think it all through.
I'm planning on doing a roasted chicken atop tagliatelle with mushrooms and leeks. I'm excited. The tagliatelle sauce is inspired by a Jamie Olliver show I caught recently. However, will be leaving out all the butter. ;)
Back to the bike, I'm feeling good. I went rode my hilly ride today, starting at campus, and I was able to push myself more than I expected. It's all about embracing pain... that's what I've realized. When it hurts keep pushing, your body will most likely keep on giving. I'm not talking about the kind of pain you get when something is messed up, I'm talking about the tired, I think I might vomit pain. That can be pushed through. I still have eons to go before I would call myself in shape, but I'm slowly feeling better and starting to realize that I may be able to get there one day.
As for school, the work is progressing. I've been productive this week. I'm just worried that I'm going to run out of time. I really need to get certain features implemented and ready to go by the end of the weekend. I have other stuff to work on.
Thanks again to all who have donated!
Labels: cooking, MS150, racing, training
10:25 PM |
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Some assorted thoughts really quickly.
I was going to try and skip the espresso this morning. Don't think that's going to happen. I've been hitting it kind of hard lately... but my bike ride high is wearing off from my commute in, and now I'm feeling sleepy. I think it's time for some caffeine. I think I am going to come down off of the triple latte though. That's just a bit excessive.
I'm sure everybody heard that Iran just doesn't have gay people. Us silly Americans with our homosexuals.
On the restaurant front: Portland apparently is representing the whole "seasonal and local" thing very well, how the front of house staff is really important, and a place is Austin that does Mexican healthy... and apparently muy delicioso.
Going to the crit tonight. Ha.
Labels: coffee, healthy Mexican food, Iran, Portland, racing
8:51 AM |
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Pain is apparently like crack
I'm heading back to the crits today. I'm going to try and do the second crit as well. There is some thought that it is 4/5 not just 5. But I think the 4/5 may just be for the 35+, but I don't know. Anyway, I'm going to try and weasel my way into it. If I can, I'll just drop out of the first race as soon as I get dropped in an attempt to do better in the second race. We'll see.
So I'm finally thinking of biting the bullet and getting the ol'Bianchi back to a usable state. There are several sets of 27" fixed gear wheels up on eBay right now, and that's really the only piece I need to get on my own. After that I plan on bringing it to the great guys at AustinBikes and telling them to order what they need to make it a kickin' fixie. What I realized is that, while the weather is still pretty warm, I can just ride to the park'n ride and park the bike there, as opposed to parking the car. Once the weather gets cooler, then I can just ride to school. I also want to be able to ride around the neighborhood to like pick stuff up at the store... but I'm not leaving my carbon racing bike outside the grocery, lock or no.
Labels: driveway crits, out of shape, pain, racing, the Bianchi
9:39 AM |
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Something I haven't done in a long time...
Tonight I raced my bike. So, okay, I only was in the race for two laps, but still... I paid an entry fee, toed the line, and took off. Then got dropped after two laps... but I knew that was going to happen. Something hit me today, I am not sure what it was. I wanted to be on my bike again amidst all the craziness and fun that is the Thursday Night Crit here in Austin. I rode there and back, so I got in some quality miles on the bike as well. Not sure if I'll keep doing it until they stop with the change back to standard time, but it was a lot of fun to go out there today. It was definitely worth it.
Labels: racing
9:48 PM |
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Quick Saturday Race Report
I felt really good at the time trial. The wind was absolutely ridiculous. I did the 20K in 40:36 and that net me a 12th place in the Cs and the 4th on my team which means I earned 1 point. Haha, I finally achieved my goal of getting a point. Sigh.
The crit went okay... I did get dropped, but I held on for a while. The wind was pretty brutal, if you got exposed on the headwind sections you paid for it dearly. The event was fun though, as one of our guys was a microphone doing play by play for the whole thing, which was quite entertaining.
Tomorrow is a road race at Pace Bend. I expect to get dropped, but I'm going to hope for the best and give it a good go.
Labels: racing
10:54 PM |
Friday, April 13, 2007
Weird week
Knowing that Harrick was coming in this evening and brining with him some kind of decision has kind of put an odd light on the whole week.
I gave a presentation on Wednesday on my work to the group. It went okay... mainly it gave me lots of feedback to help improve further versions of the talk, namely, my proposal.
This weekend is our race weekend. I'm excited on the one hand. On the other hand, I'm feeling somewhat not motivated. I don't know what it is... I want the team to do well, obviously, but I just question my effectiveness. On Sunday we aren't starting with the women's Bs, and that has really been my main contribution so far this season: helping the women. My main hope is to do well at the crit and hold on during the road race. We'll see how all of this goes.
I mean, the main reason behind this is my lack of training. I'm still really excited about Cheaha, it's the racing that I'm feeling a little burnt out about. I think mainly I'm tired of having to do most of my training alone. I think once I start getting to go to the crits every week again that will help. Maybe I need to start attending some of the other rides around town like the Tuesday nighter and the ATC hammer fest.
Mainly, I just want to know if I'm going to have an advisor.
Labels: racing, training, UTCC
10:33 PM |
Monday, February 26, 2007
Pace Bend
It went poorly. I'm just so weak up hills. How can these other 99 people be able to get up the hills with so much less effort than me? Argh. It's a great race though, I'm that much more disappointed that I didn't get to play. I guess I just need to stop complaining and train more. It just gets hard to keep my morale up when I so consistently get dropped so early in races.
I also had some mechanical issues as I was trying get back to the finish line to get pulled from the race. I was able to get all the bike issues fixed, though, today. Thank goodness. 4 weeks until the next race, time to get cracking.
Oh yeah, and I got a music bracelet for South By. Should be exciting.
Labels: pace bend, racing, slow
8:33 PM |
Monday, February 19, 2007
So that's what racing feels like
Sunday's road race was by far my best race ever.
No, I didn't finish with the group. But I made it 32/36 miles. Well, I'll tell the entire story.
The race started out slowly. Two of our guys decided to speed it up, and Aggie went with them, 3 on 2. I decided to jump on, and before we knew it, there were 7 of us (a UofH rider had also jumped in). We started rotating through a double pace line and had a good gap. There was some disagreement in the group over whether or not the break would stick, blah blah blah. The net result was that we did eventually get caught. I was very curious who was working to pull us back as we had good representation in the group. I knew none of our guys were that dumb. Turns out the entire Baylor team came to the front to pull us back. So we got caught, but nobody really saw Baylor again, so the break was successful in my book.
The rest of the first loop was pretty uninteresting. Well there was a crash, but that was behind me, so I didn't see any of it. Aggie had it in there head today that they were going to set the pace, and had a protestant work ethic going in terms of pulling. We were okay to let them.
So for the most part, the course was pretty flat. There were some small to intermediate rollers on the back side, and there was a large climb about 1.5 mile before the finish, and then it was mostly downhill to the finish. So coming into the large hill on the first lap, there is a decent stretch of downhill. I decided to attack. I took off and first time I looked back there was a gap. Ha, I'd never had that happen before. This whole plan was to make sure I was able to start the hill before everybody else. And, I couldn't believe it, it worked. I finished the hill in the middle of the pack and was able to easily move back up with the downhill section after the hill.
The second lap was pretty non-eventful. Right before the big climb I moved up to the front so that I could slide back during the climb knowing I could jump back on during the downhill section.
At this point in time my shifting was totally shot. I'm not sure what's wrong with it, but it is totally messed up.
When we hit the rollers on the back side, our team started to attack. While, I wasn't happy about this from a selfish perspective, I knew it had to be done. We had enough people and we needed to start trying to shrink the pack. Each attack took people off the group. Unfortunately, I was one of them. I fell off the pack at one point, saw that one of our Women B riders had also fallen off, and pulled her back up. At this point my legs were dead, and I just couldn't follow the next attack. But, I was happy. I had made it almost to the end, and I knew there was no way I would be able to make it up that hill with the group with people starting to fight hard at the finish. Anyway, I got up the final hill, hunted down a U of H guy in the final stretch. I was also able to catch a Baylor guy but I had no sprint left in me when I got to the line. But the cool thing was I helped get one of our women a 3rd place, and I felt good about that. I also mixed it up for the first time ever.
I am sore today, but I love it. That was so much fun. I know I'm not a climber, but I played to my strengths, and it helped me out. I need to shed weight. Having to push this much weight up hills isn't helping anything.
The team did really well again. We haven't seen the official point totals yet, but I will be highly surprised if we are not in the lead in conference. All of our teams did well, and we were the only teams with guys actively helping the women. The weekend was a ton of fun and it just makes me want to train harder. Hook'em!
Labels: racing, training, UTCC
10:22 AM |
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Crit Report
It didn't go well for me. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record over here. They took the course from the Tour of New Braunfels and reversed it. The bad news about that is that there was a now a really steep climb right before the finish. I actually felt really good when I wasn't on that climb. Unfortunately, I couldn't get up the climb fast enough and thus got dropped on the 2nd of our 6 laps. Oh well, the team had a great weekend taking 1st in every Men's race, and doing quite well in the Women's categories as well. Tomorrow morning is the road race bright and early. It is supposed to be decently flat by Austin standards, so I'm hoping for a good race. I think my overall fitness is improving, but I need to lose some serious weight and do some climbing to get this hill issue in order. Anyway, I'm going to bed, hook'em horns!
10:30 PM |
Friday, February 16, 2007
More ballet
Carrie and I both found the ballet last night impressive. The first part was light-hearted, at times silly, dancing to some Squirrel Nut Zippers songs. Very vaudeville. The second part was described in the program as, "A non-linear, abstract piece about limits." The first thought through my head was, "Wow, they are going to do ballet about math?" Then I realized it wasn't about math. This piece was beautiful, modern, and serious. At times harsh. The third piece was probably the most athletic ballet performance I've ever seen. Carrie said a better word was aerobic. It was impressive, however one describes it. A lot of running, shaking, jumping, catching, and general craziness. Very cool.
I'm very pumped about the races this weekend. We are bringing 39 people down both days to race. It is really crazy how many people are going to be wearing burnt orange. We have so many people that we've actually assigned guys to be domestiques for the ladies. (The Women's A and Men's B fields start together for the road race, and thus, are allowed to race together.) Only four people per team per category score team points, so making sure our women do well at the possible cost of some of the men is of utmost importance to the team. I love collegiate racing, and I'm really glad it's starting.
3:22 PM |
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Well, that didn't go well.
Remember how I said that I would drop out if I got dropped on the first lap. Yeah, that's what happened. I'm really frustrated with myself because I feel I would have definitely been able to survive longer if 1) I just made myself hurt a little more and 2) I had moved up in the pack. It was a big pack (70+) so the accordion effect around the corners was terrible. Of course, not blowing off my training during the month of December would have probably helped some as well. I'm doubly upset because this is probably one of the flattest road race courses I will race on all season. Argh. Knowing that they slowed down each lap makes me only more annoyed with myself. I almost made it one lap... oh well, coulda, woulda, shoulda. Tomorrow is the time trial and the crit, so that should be fun. There was a big wreck at the end of the race, apparently it turned into a total sketch fest at the end of the last lap. Oh, and I did mention it was really cold?
However, the day ended much better as I cooked up the best pot of gumbo I made in a long while. It had that good core flavor that has at timed eluded me. Plus, I was able to get it the right color without having to resort to kitchen bouquet. I made the gumbo for a party for one of Carrie's coworkers. Everybody seemed to enjoy it and we all had a good time. Even better, my time trial doesn't start until after 11, so I don't have to wake up at 5 again! Yay!
I am looking forward to the Super Bowl. It has been a long time since I actively cared which team won. Go Colts!
Labels: being a wimp, NFL, racing, Super Bowl, UTCC
1:57 PM |
