Yes folks, the ToV ain't goin' so great for our dear Ian. I haven't talked to the man in person, but his voicemail message indicates that he's been spending a good deal of time in sufferland.

Looks like falling sick 2 weeks before your A-priority event doesn't make for such a good taper.

I can't tell you how bummed I am for my bro. I'm hoping a few days on the pain train might jolt his system into generating some X-Treme Maximum Watts in the later stages of the race.

On another note, WAHOOWA!

The UVA cycling team won the ACCC Championship title in West Virginia last weekend. Shazzam! Skidabaling! Choooo-choooooo!

Also Happy Rickshaw is steady ballin' these days. Look for us in front of your favorite C-ville bar this weekend.

love,

Christoph

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The Tour of Virginia starts tomorrow. It's my first big race of the year, and Rite Aid will have a smiling crew there. It goes from Tuesday through Sunday with 7 stages.

Stage racing really tickles my fancy. So many things need to go right in order to be successful. I guess I like that. This year I am going to try and channel my low-level anxiety about racing into enjoying the simple pleasure of racing and being there.

The best part about this race will be rolling through Charlottesville on Sunday. We start a block from my apartment and will parade through the University of Virginia and race on roads I've trained on for 7 years. Kick ass or get dropped, this whole race is definitely something special on my calendar.

I hope everyone who's local is planning on attending the final Sunday stage in C'Ville!

Start your engines, kids.

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I've done 3 hard rides this week, and was happy to find that my top end numbers haven't slipped. However, what did slip was my footing last night, and my dinner ended up on the floor. Crap. Still good.

I'll tall ya, there's no better motivation to get out and ride than watching migrant workers work away at a construction site. The building just across from me is being renovated, and I watch the workers from my window. As they haul old fiberglass insulation across the parking lot to the dumpster, I am reminded how great it is that I get to sit here at my computer and watch them while I contemplate when the best time of day to ride is.

Lets see, what else have I been doing. As I'm generally an over-prepared person, I've started doing some pre-prep for next week's race. I replaced my cleats on my shoes, and replaced the ratcheting buckle on a shoe. I made a little spreadsheet of what I want to eat during each stage of the race. I made post-race recovery nutrition modules for quick access to recovery pills & the like. I replaced the batteries in my powertap computer and HRM strap. I put a new chain on the rig so I'd have a few rides on it before the race. Yadda yadda yadda. I am basically the antithesis of a certain Mark Hardman.

I needed a paper clip the other day, and I was totally blown away by the fact that there is not ONE paper clip in my apartment. It was infuriating. How could I not have a single friggin' paper clip? I mean, usually those things are floating around all over the place... stuck in yo rug, under the couch cushions, in electrical sockets, and in desk drawers. Not here. No paper clips. NPC.

S'posed to be 70 degs today, and Happy Rickshaw will be out there this weekend. Christoph and I have been busting some hump to get the operation up and running. Here's us workin' away in the warehouse:

Wiring up moto-assist.

Christopherson on his cell while performing technical tasks. The kid's a dynamo.

Also, read this: Fruit cocktails- alcohol boosts antioxidant activity Nice.

That's enough.

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Heidi-ho, yo.
A bit scant on the blogs recently, ay. Well, that's cause I've been moderately deep'd about poor health and lack of training. The last 11 days of sickness add up to a moderately-sized setback in training. But, rest is rest, and maybe it was good rest. Who knows how I'll be rollin at the Tour of VA. Fitness can be a mysterious thing. (So can the injection of EPO I got last week.)

Having enjoyed several major setbacks in past seasons, I'm a bit more comfortable with dealing with crap. It's cliche, but... how you act during the shatty times defines you. I flipped through the rolodex of reasons to hate cycling many times in the last 11 days. I probably don't have the healthiest relationship with this sport, but I imagine that most don't. Todd recommended that I go out and buy the book "Body Mind Mastery" by Dan Millman. I think I might. For me, excelling in this sport is definitely about the mind. There have been plenty of times I've had my hand on the plug, ready to pull it... and each time I don't it's a victory.

So, I'll be doing a bit of triage-style race-prep in the next few days and seeing what the numbers look like.

I stumbled across an intriguing website as I was reading about 9-11 conspiracy theories a few days ago. (fun to read, but I subscribe to the official story) Anyway, I came across the website for the "Project for the New American Century." http://www.newamericancentury.org I read a whole lot of what's there, and it really adds up to a lot of writing on the wall for the Iraq war. I recommend you first read the 1997 Statement of Purpose- take note of the signers. Then, in the Publications/Reports section, DL and read the document written in 2000 titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century." Very interesting.

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Wowowow. There's a whole ton of bicycle advocacy going on in our little cycling paradise of Charlottesville, VA. A lot of peeps are involved, and ACCT (Aliance for Community Choice in Transportation) ringleader Alia Anderson has been crack-a-lackin' away. She has declared 2007 the "Year of the Bike" for C'Ville. Pretty cool.

I have made a small contribution to the ACCT's larger 5-point improvement effort in the "Old Lynchburg Road" section. With development slated for south of town along OLR, a bike lane would do a world of good for the highly-travelled road out of town. Anyway, I put together a little doc about why it's so important to get some bike lanes all up on OLR, as did the ACCT. Check it out: my contribution for make glorious bike lane on Old Lynchburg Road

In other news, I have finally successfully contracted an illness. After a week of wavering back and fourth between near-sickness and health, I finally completely broke down and am now working my way through the notorious 'Z-pack:' 5 days of soul-crushing antibodies. I am no stranger to sickness, and frankly, I embrace the fact that it will be more difficult to win the Tour of Virginia now, rather than the cake-walk it would have been had I been able to continue my perfect training straight into the race. Hallelujah! Hall-e-friggin-lujah!

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I haven't done a real race yet this year. So does that worry me? Well let's just say that it's gonna feel mighty awkward jumping into a 6-day NRC stage race 2 weeks from now. Granted, last year I broke my shoulder in February and the Tour of VA was my first race back and I did relatively well. But, the competition this year should prove to be a bit stiffer, I hope.

Anyway, for those who wrote or called with a 'good luck' for racing in the US Open this past weekend, I did not race- but thank you for your pump-up. I feel I owe y'all explanation, as it seemed to be a perfectly good race for me to do. The Rite-Aid DS decided that the course was not suited for me. Apparently, long, hard road races with hard, hilly finish circuits are not my type of thing.

Rite-Aid did score a breakthrough result, Alejandro finished 3rd, and Jake hung tough finishing 22nd. Good job to my fellow teammates who I'm sure had a tough day in the saddle. 2 outta 8 teammates finished- all reports say the race was super-hard. I heard, though, that some of my teammates had some inopportune flats- surely frustrating for those guys who might have finished. I assume that the team management won't take issue with me professing that it absolutely broke my balls to sit home and watch a huge race on national TV that was happening :50 mins away that I stood a fair chance of finishing well in. They obviously didn't sign a guy who likes to sit home. Anyway, the boss knows best and I remain more than anxious to race.

I've been actively fending off a cold/virus for the past 4 days, and am doing everything possible to stay afloat. Whatever it is hasn't taken full control of me... it is a battle royale between the worlds strongest immune system and the bug that's going around in local circles. So far, the symptoms are tiredness and amazing volumes of phlegm. I commenced a double-envelopment flanking maneuver last night in the ongoing battle, making use of the storied Pennsylvania-Dutch treats, knepp and pork & sauerkraut. Apparently, the knepp has joined forces with the pork, and has started a bonfire in my gut in an attempt to smoke out the virus.

Watched Anchorman last night.

"I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal... People know me... I'm very important. I have many cycling books and my apartment smells of bike tires."

You stay classy, 2skinnyreaders.

(Christoph was alive and well at my last check-in, he was shopping for a motorcycle helmet to buy. Is he predictable or what?)

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Finished off a hard training block on Sunday with a team win at the local Tyson's Corner circuit race. Deez skinny legs were pretty blown-out after that. I have a few days off and have been doing what I like to call Life Management. D-Gal, this post is for you- the undisputed king of Life-Man.

Life-Man is a critically important exercise. It encompasses the things that one does that promote one's own life- but cannot be easily categorized or described in a single sentence. Things that are NOT Life-Man include laundry, dishes, grocery shopping. Those things are clear, defineable chores. No, Life-Man includes things that you just don't want to bother to explain in full detail to your friends when they ask what you were doing. For example, spending time on the phone dealing with medical insurance and incompetent medical billers in reconciling disputed charges for services rendered in Feb. 2006 for a broken shoulder in Santa Cruz. Or, sorting through emails and following up on little this-and-thats that were not important enough to respond to when you received the email. Or, researching the cheapest way get new ink for your inkjet printer. Or, reorganizing music files and digital fotos on your computer, and moving around files that were temporarily saved to the desktop. Or, making lists upon lists of things to do and prioritize during the week so that you don't forget what is on the back burner. Dude, how about that back burner. I love the back burner.

Life-Man can suck extreme amounts of time from you... especially when one does not have firm time obligations during the day. Some of my days off the bike turn into Life-Man gone amok. The execution of Life-Man is typically very sinuous- where for example, the initial item to do is to download a file from the PowerTap head. So, I walk to my bike to get the computer, but then notice that my old Felt is still in the living room, needing to be sold. So, I ask myself, why haven't I sold it yet... oh yea, I need to buy a new chain, cable housings, and an H2O cage for it- so when I'm back at the computer, I go to write an email to Dad at the bike shop to order that stuff, but then I realize that I also need to email Dad about ordering some Thule rack parts for the P-Hen, which makes me go online to the QBP website to cross-reference the part numbers, which reminds me when I'm there that I need to get the part number for the replace H2O cage I need for the Felt. But, before emailing Dad that information I realize that I promised I'd burn an MP3 CD of all of Genesis's songs for him, so I go get a blank CD to start making it, but in thinking about burning a CD, I remember that two small screws fell out of the bottom of my computer, resulting in the loosening of my CD-RW drive, which reminds me that I need to write down on my to-do list to go to the hobby shop and try to match up some really tiny-ass screws to secure the CD drive.

Point being- Life-Man is a wild beast that is difficult to control sometimes. But, one thing is for sure- at the end of the day, ya feel like you did something. Even if the to-do is longer than at the start of the day, things were accomplished. Happy Rickshaw is even more of a wild, uncontrollable beast. Just when I think that I've got things under control and prioritized, training has kicked back up really hard and I'm a complete vegetable for 5 days.

Thankfully, I abuse speed. Speaking along those lines... how about that blood doping blog, huh? I thought for sure that we'd get more than 2 comments. I assume that you guys were just like: "duhhhhhh? WTF is this?" Well, whatever you took away from that posting, I hope it at least included a laugh and a disgustful shake of the head.

Spank you all very much for reading. Good luck with all of your own Life-Man.

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So, it's that time of year, folks. It's that time in the season that we begin to realize that no amount of "training" is going to help us win races.

And so, I thought I'd share with you a little secret known to all of us pros and all wealthy masters riders: blood doping. It's actually quite easy- I'll show you some of the steps. (i have my own lab for this, but if you're just getting into blood doping, you should probably use a friend's lab first)

1- get a hot nurse to draw a couple of bags of blood from your arm:

2- separate your blood into tubes that you can put into a centrifuge. make sure to label your blood tubes descriptively... here, for example, i labeled mine "Ian's Blood" and I dated it.

3- find one of these things

4- check to make sure that your centrifuge has a a high-speed setting, preferably, "7"

5- put your tubes of blood in the centrifuge and let 'er fly. while it's spinning, it may be a good time to enjoy some English muffins with raspberry jelly. mmmmmmm.

6- if you spun your blood properly, it should be separated into plasma and packed erythrocytes. you don't really need the plasma. you can pretty much just throw it away or refrigerate it for a good recovery drink.

7- put all of your red blood cells into a bag and freeze it. you will need to label it so that it cannot be confused with other pro or masters blood. here, i labeled mine "SKINNYPRO." the goal is to not use your actual name on the blood bag because it takes away some of the mystique involved in this sacred process.

Then, a few days before your big race, just re-inject that blood back into your arm, and, there you have it. Hematocrit of 49.92%. Remember: if anyone asks you for a DNA sample at any point in your future, just say no. And for goodness sakes, don't LOSE if you're doped!

APRIL FOOLS!

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