Crit practice

Today the team held some practice racing. My few observations.

1. I am really bad at turning corners going fast. (I ended up in the grass twice)

2. I'm getting faster. In one of the practice races, I took off on a 3.5 lap solo breakaway. I ended up third.

3. I'm tired. Real practice with real riders = real fatigue.

4. Over the two hours, my corners got a little bit better. More practice needed.

5. Did I mention I was off the front in one of the races. It made my day.

6. I am a tall rider. Even when drafting, my whole head catches the breeze. It slows me down.

7. Practice races don't count for anything except practice. There aren't even bragging rights for winning(that I know of).

PBS

Now that the NCAA basketball tournament has pruned the field down to 4 teams, there isn't 8 hours of basketball a week that I can watch. Following the Duke game, Liz and I were left with a difficult decision of what to select from the Sunday evening TV lineup. The choices were slim. We ended up on PBS for the remainder of the night. We started with Men in kilts singing about Ireland. The crowd shots were amazing. Who knew there were people so into Irish music. Their were people so overjoyed that they expressed it by standing in their seats and twirling in circles. I would have to agree that it was more entertaining than Josh Groban or Andre Bocelli.

(Outlining that what they are doing is entertainment in the title? Questionable.)

This was followed by Nature. This is a program that I am very happy to watch. I was particularly pleased that it was about monkeys this week. I like the animal episodes above the location specific, end of world, or plant ones.

This was followed by a Masterpiece Classic starring none other than Sean Bean. I don't know who that is, but Liz seemed happy about it. I watched it, but I couldn't hear the dialogue so I was pretty lost. I believe it was about a British soldier (Sean Bean?) who was in India trying to save a girl. It was oddly gory for a PBS show. Many people were executed. My final thought is PBS may be the only channel that still has shows that require viewers to pay attention in order to know where the plot is going.

May I present Sean Bean and his weird coat (which he apparently wears in many different episodes)

Finally, I (Liz went to bed long ago) ended up with Life On Mars. My first thoughts were, "why is PBS going to run a show that was just canceled on ABC?" (Yes, it was that bad). Turns out that PBS was showing the original British version of Life on Mars. I guess ABC figured that if The Office was a hit, than any BBC series would be a hit stateside. Here is proof that this is bad logic. Sub-par BBC shows, I know since I've now see it, don't translate into suddenly great award winning ABC shows. CRAZY.

The nagging question is why didn't the channel ever get changed? I was on the bike (for what seemed like forever) and the remote was beyond my reach. I hate the rain.

Saturday

I went for a nice long ride today with some people from the Purdue club. We rode for just under 3 hrs. It amazes me how far I've come since getting my bike. I used to think spending 3 hrs on the bike was crazy talk, but it turns out that it isn't.

I felt really good on the few hills. I think that this is real evidence of the training plan working. I wasn't exactly flying up them, but I felt strong. All in all a good day without much homework but lots of riding.

I had to change my tire this morning so that is the picture. It's a bit redundant but I didn't want to lug around the camera for three hours.

Classic upside down bike. Liz wasn't thrilled that I was working on it on the carpet. She didn't by my excuse that I wanted to see the end of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

Not to much new

This week has been a hassle with the car. Liz and I always figure out solutions in the end, but there are times when 2 cars would make the machine run more smoothly. It turns out you can't bike in clinic clothes.

Liz and I have also started discussing our garden plans for the summer. So far we have agreed on having a garden, and planting beans, peppers, and some tomatoes. Beyond that we are having a heated debate about the presence of radishes, potatoes, egg plants, corn, and brussel sprouts. I'm making in sound more dramatic than it really is.

My training plan is going well. I made it through the first week. Today was another sustained sprint day. I did three 10 minute intervals. Oddly enough the intervals were not so bad, but the recovery ride home was tough. My legs gave what they had and were finished.

Here is a funny picture I saw today.

One of These is Not Like the Others

Yesterday, I got up early to get my ride done and over with. It was still below 40 degrees so I bundled up and got out the door. It was chilly, but after about 20 minutes my legs started to thaw out and I was getting happier about being awake and outside.

Then I heard a really metallic twang. I was pretty sure I knew what it was so I stopped to inspect my wheels. Sure enough, one of my spokes had snapped. It amazes me how quickly a wheel will go out of true when a spoke breaks. Anyway, I coasted home and watch cycling on TV. It was the first spring classic race in Italy. The Milan San-Remo is 190 miles long. Ouch. Liz and I got my wheel fixed later that day and I got my "real" ride in later in the afternoon. (What homework?)

Today it is supposed to rain. I'm guessing I'll end up having to ride inside. At least there is basketball to watch.

The culprit.

Annoying Video

I'm not sure why that degree commercial played automatically when you came to my blog. What I do know is that the videos that play automatically at espn.com drives me batty. I think it is a control thing. I want to pick what I want to listen to, and I don't want Liz to know every time I refresh the espn.com homepage. She never believes that I'm doing homework with the Sportcenter theme blaring out of my computer while I frantically push the mute button.

Anyway, my apologies. The video has been changed to a hyper link

Yesterday's ride

Here are pictures from yesterday's ride. There were a whole bunch of really good photo opportunities so I took two sort of boring ones.

The longer Liz and I have lived here in West Lafayette the more and more of these we see. I remember when I first started biking that it would take a 3 hour round trip to get to the farm, but now you get get out and back well within 2 hours.

It amazes me overtime how huge these things are. I would like to think that this is a complete solution to our dependence on foreign oil, but I don't think it ever will go that far. For now, I just hope that it continues to bring money into Indiana.

Overall, my ride was very hard but good. I hit the wind (the windmills are here for a reason) on the way home and had to spend a considerable amount of time trying to shut down my mind so I wouldn't pay attention to how hard I was working just to go so slow.

And in NCAA news;

Boiler Up! Purdue looked pretty good... most of the time... in the second half. The only thing that matters is that final score though. We'll see how they do next round.