That said, I really hope I do well tomorrow. I’ve been looking at crossresults.com, and becoming increasingly sad about my athletic performance this season. Jumping into Excel, you can see why: of a dozen races this season, I’ve been in the top half only 3 times. The top half.

But you know, I’ll do how I do. I’m not gonna get mad or get depressed about it. At the end of the season, I’ll make a chart of my placings, and use it as motivation for the next 9 months while I prepare to rock the socks off 2012.

It was exacerbated by the fact that Lo was throwing up all week last week. Like, literally every night she’d vomit the entire contents of her stomach all over Amanda or I. But mostly Amanda. And she had maybe one good night of sleep, which meant we (read: Amanda) had pretty much zero nights of good sleep. (Hell, I was just standing around at a stupid tradeshow all week. Whee!)

So we thought there’s no way she’ll rally for Bend. Let’s just stay in and sew all weekend. But Thursday night she ate and slept and woke up like a million bucks. So we decided we’d go.

The first night in Bend was great. She was a delight. The folks we stayed with adored her and brought out all these old toys. There was much laughing and cooing. The first day at the race was super-fun, too.

But the second night, the wheels just fucking came off. Up every hour. Crying intensely. Waking up screeching. Very little sleep. Then we lost our car keys, which threw race prep and costume prep out the window. Expectations? Yeah, I don’t even know why we bother with them.

I’m typically a pretty organized and hup-hup sort of person, especially away from home. Keep things dialed in, have a plan, get places early, fold my clothes, do the dishes.

There was none of that this weekend. Laurel was all-consuming for Amanda and I, especially in combination with the races and costumes. Help with dishes? Ha! I’m trying to keep my daughter from destroying your living room. Help with dinner? Please, I’m making a bottle and trying to stop her from screeching like a banshee so maybe we can get some sleep tonight. Our hosts were the most gracious and kind folks EVER, and Jimmy and Annie were incredibly helpful. We could not be more lucky.

Still, I felt oddly helpless. And this quote (found by Amanda) about parenting explains a lot, I think:

I was having a conversation with a friend who had recently become a parent, and she reminded me of something I had forgotten about since my daughter was born. She was describing this what-have-I-done feeling – I just got everything perfect in my life, and then I went and messed it all up by having a baby. I don’t feel that way anymore, but the thought certainly crossed my mind a few times at the beginning. Eventually you just fall in love and forget about everything else, but it’s not a very comfortable transition. I compare the process to becoming a vampire, your old self dies in a sad and painful way, but then you come out the other side with immortality, super strength and a taste for human blood. At least that’s how it was for me. At any rate, it’s complicated.

This season with cyclocross has been watching the old me die, and the new me emerge. I like the new me. I’m way more focused. There’s way less drama. I am tireless. I will go toward that light in a race. I am fearless with my efforts. I will dig deeper and push harder than I ever knew I could.

The old me? All the stuff surrounding racing and a job and our relationship and travel? It would’ve been easier. We really did have things all figured out. That’s the part that’s hard: knowing that the other stuff could’ve been so much easier without Laurel.

But then we wouldn’t have Laurel. And on balance, that would’ve been a tragedy.

From CodingHorror.com

The post from Coding Horror reminds me very much about the way I related parenthood to a friend a while back. When I coached swimming, dealing with beginners forced me to break down into tiny segments all the things I’d learned and repeated a bajillion times. Pushing off the wall, streamlining, arm and shoulder position, calculating intervals. Teaching all those little things helps me re-learn them, and do them right myself. Having a baby makes me a better human because I get to re-learn everything. I get to consciously re-experience things that I learned, hard-wired, and forgot during those first four years.

Be prepared for crowds.

Needless to say, I got longwinded. Here, unedited, are the emails I sent him.

Random stuff to bring, other than the obvious stuff (bike, shoes, helmet, kit):

• A pump (you’ll want to run your tires pretty low)
• A complete change of clothes — you’re going to be filthy.
• A towel or robe for a hint of modesty while you’re changing
• Cash (for waffles and frites and a cowbell for your lady)

Get there early so you can get your number and pin it on. Numbers on the left — I think they have a mannequin that shows how they’re supposed to be pinned on. Since you’re racing beginner, the course will be open — ride twice at least. Try to ride it really fast at the end, because the start of the race is the fastest part of the race.

Pass as many people as you can at the start of the race when things get bottled up in corners. There will be openings on the left and right. If it’s faster to run, then run!

Push a big gear rather than spin in a little one — you’ll go faster and be more stable.

Hold your line in corners as best you can.

Laugh when you crash.

When you lift your bike, grab it by the top tube and keep your elbow between you and the seat. Otherwise, you can’t lift it very high.

The race will string out. If won’t be a huge pack for very long — maybe a half lap. When it strings out, just start picking guys off one by one.

In deep, loose mud, keep pedaling and look 10 yards ahead instead of down at your wheel.

You’ll bump into guys. Rub wheels. Get knocked off balance. Don’t stop, don’t stop pedaling. Don’t clip out. You’ll be amazed what kind of traffic and argy-bargy you can ride through.

If you DO get off your bike, especially at the barriers, don’t swing it around and block the way. Keep it pointing in the direction of the course. Turn it 90 degrees, and you’ll hit someone and they’ll probably knock you down (intentionally or not).

Open a beer when you get home, go outside and clean your bike. Don’t wait. Squirt the mud off with a hose, then wash it with a brush and a little dishsoap (or carwash soap, whatever). Don’t blast your bottom bracket or hubs with the hose. I use two cheapo plastic bristle dish brushes — one for the oily drivetrain, and one for the rest of the bike. Once it’s clean, put some lube on your chain, open another beer, and when you’re halfway done with the beer, wipe the excess lube off with a rag.

Pull all the grass out that gets wrapped around the spindles of the bottom bracket and the wheel hubs.

Wipe down your rims.

You won’t need knickers unless you’re going to Bend. You might consider knee warmers for warm-up, but you won’t need them for the race. You might be cold for your first warm-up lap, but you’ll be A-OK after that.

There are two types of carries:

• the “suitcase” is where you just pick up the bike by the top tube and lift it just enough to get over the barriers. That’s where you want to keep your elbow between you and the bike. If your elbow goes wide, it ends up over the seat and you cant lift it very high. It’s a silly thing to emphasize, but hitting your wheels on the barrier can spin you around and knock you off balance.
• Shouldering is for run-ups or any longer run (like on sand or a crazy off-camber section where no one has traction), and yeah, just throw it over your shoulder.
• You can also push your bike. LOTS of people do that, and it’s a good technique on a super-slippery off-camber section like we might face at PIR. When you push your bike, you can kinda use it for balance. Personally, I don’t like to push my bike on run-ups — I just feel faster and more bad-ass to shoulder it. On barriers, I just suitcase it.

Oh, and this’ll be obvious, but wash your kit within 24 hours. The funk from these courses is BRUTAL if you let it sit. I ended up tossing a pair of shorts last year that I didn’t wash soon enough after Astoria.

And I can’t emphasize this part enough: the race starts FAST, then normalizes. So if you’re red-lined within a minute, just hang on and push as long as you can. Eventually, it’ll string out and you’ll settle into a crazy hard pace, but one that you can hold for 40 minutes. And that’s why doing a SUPER hard warm-up is so important. You want to red-line a few times in warm-up to prime the pump. I just say that because it can be discouraging for the first few minutes of the first race to be like, “WTF? Seriously? Am I THAT slow?” You’re not. It starts insanely hard.

Have fun! Cyclocross should make you feel 100 feet tall, 10 years old, and bullet proof. That said, leave it all on the course — you can rest when you’re dead.

The first race was awful. The course has a lot of loose dirt on it, much like the CCX course at Sherwood that I disliked so much. And my balance was crazy — not left and right balance, but fore and aft. I’ve discovered recently how important it is to think as much about weighting yourself front and back in the corners. Also, the course was super rutted, and I stupidly ran my tires with too much pressure. I didn’t rattle my teeth out, but I did get 58th out of 70. Ouch.

Since then, it’s gotten a little better each week. My placings have gone:

• 58
• 50
• 42
• 34

I’ve learned to push as hard as I dare early on, because my bike handling gets more confident as the race goes on. And also, the first lap is impossible to make up any time. I’ve learned to trust the bike a little more, and that running my tires at 50 PSI won’t cause an instant pinch flat (but will reduce the fatigue in my arms and jaw). Next year I might invest in either a mountain bike, or maybe at least some fatter tires. Ha!

Anyway, tonight is the last night. I’m sure it’ll be competitive, and I don’t know if I’ll improve this last night because I’m still sore from a workout I did last week. But it’s been a blast, and I feel totally ready for ‘cross season to start.

Oh sure, there might be a little hiking too. But generally speaking, I expect rest. And naps.

And I think that’s the trick to staying motivated and energetic when re-starting a workout program: keep your eye on the rest periods. When you start to run out of energy, determine if you can push through to the rest period.

And then really rest. Do nothing. Put your feet up. Crash. Get intimate with your couch.

That’s one thing I’ll do wrong this weekend — in all likelihood, it will not be that restful. So I may need to take off the early part of next week to recharge. We’ll see.

The “Meet the Team” rides start mostly downtown. But none of the regular team rides start remotely near our house in deep SE. And with just one car, I can’t monopolize it on the weekends to drive to Hillsboro or Beavertron or whereever. And unless I want to add 20 miles to every group ride I go on (I don’t), I’m out of luck.

A while back, I shot an email to the OBRA list. I got one semi-legit reply, which was for a vegan, organic triathlon team. Which is somewhat ironic because I’ve been considering getting back into the pool and focusing on triathlon to help strip off some upper-body weight.

Finding a team in cycling has been one of the most frustrating aspects of the sport. In swimming, which is my native sport, teams fall all over themselves to make new swimmers welcome. They encourage them to come out, try to be social, organize car pools, the whole shebang.

In cycling, the indifference to new members is shocking to me. You ask, and you get shrugs. You volunteer, and you get blown-off.

I had one outstanding experience when I first started with Veloshop, in that the Calver brothers (now with GSC United way the hell out in Beaverton) were some of the most welcoming, nice, encouraging people I’d ever met. They have a passion for the sport that completely infects new riders. But then, a few months later, the damn team kicked them off. I couldn’t even tell you why, because it was so bizarre.

Anyway, Mike off-handedly mentioned that he might put together a CycleOne kit to promote his cycling coach biz around the Portland area. I told him I’d wear it. And though it might not be a “team” in the strictest sense, I would certainly use it as an excuse to organize rides out here in SE.

Since I’ve put on so much weight and hill-climbing is destroying my knees and back, I went ahead and bought a new cogset with a 12-27 cluster. That 27-tooth cog looks like a damn frisbee back there, but whatever; I am not a proud man. (I’m waiting for my in-laws to get up from their nap so I can go test the new gears.) The cogs mean the next time Paul wants to go tackle the west hills, I’ll be able to walk the next day, presuming that I don’t have a heart attack.

I also moved my HRM back to my summer bike (oh glorious summer!). Actually, it was more moving the speedometer over. So I’m hoping to try a little more exercise book-keeping (remember these workouts?), like time and distance and effort.

Which might be more interesting if I were training for something. But… I’m not.

I’m at a bit of a crossroads and I don’t know what to do. I’m kinda in this zone where I got a little burnt on all of the training. More specifically, other than Paul who I see approximately every 19 months, none of my friends are particularly athletic. And so I really struggle to go out by myself because, after a while, it’s super-boring.

And the other excuses are that I’m a little bored riding up here and I don’t really have the time to dedicate like I used to. And so I was thinking maybe I’d attempt a triathlon comeback (the idea being that running and swimming can be done over lunch). Or maybe even focus on skiing for fall and winter, just to take a break from things. That way, I could do a lot at the gym (core and legs), then have fun winter weekends up on the mountain.

I also just got a decent bonus at work, and was considering using it on a cycling/triathlon coach. In a way, that might help with the boredom thing (learning new things, having someone push me), and it might be a good way to meet other riders.

OK, time to go wake up the in-laws. This is getting ridiculous…

“Tell you what. Next time you’re in your car, get up to 50 mph, strip down to your underwear, then jump out the door. That’s what it’s like to crash in a professional bike race.”

I am a HUGE fan of Jonathan Vaughters and everyone at Garmin-Chipotle.

Specifically, Dave Zabriskie is hilarious.

“On the second leg of the flight, I got upgraded and things seemed to be looking up. I was watching the Golden Compass waiting to see those big bears with armor. Then, the stewardess announces that they are going to reboot the system because some of the movies aren’t working for people. Well, after the reboot, mine stopped working.

Now I’m reading Sky Mall magazine – I’m reading the details of an emergency generator. It can do everything – even charge your ipod. That’s what I would do in an emergency. I would charge my ipod.

Jonathan Vaughters is well-spoken.

David Millar is passionate.

And GC’s GC hope Christian Vandevelde is, from what I remember from Vandevelde’s 2004 Tour diary on Velonews, is all three.