Extreme Carpooling

I wish I could have gotten a better picture of this, but there are 8 people in this taxi. 8!!!! You go with your green selves!

Favorite Websites

I've recently been very slow at work, and subsequently have an exhorbitant amount of time to spend surfing the interweb. What sites does everyone frequent these days?

My favorites at the moment are:

Hot Chick With Douchebags
TMZ
Worse Than Failure

After reading these and everyones' blogs, I kind of run out of steam. Help me help myself.

All Filler No Killer

My posts have been a bunch of random filler lately. Mostly because I'm not currently doing anything worth blogging about.

Whatever. Here's some shit.

I have the world's greatest, awesomest, wonderfullest sister-in-law. Not only did she contribute slave labor to my landscaping project, but she also bought us a tree.

Jessica Biel may play Wonder Woman. Fuck yeah.

Training for Nationals is going well. Tapering is strange...it seems so counter-productive to only do a couple rides each week, but I'm having faith that it'll make me faster. Less than a week till we fly out. I'll be live blogging from L.A.

My laptop battery is crapping out on me. I only get about 18 minutes out of a full charge now. I ordered a new one. Damn, those fuckers are expensive.

I just found out that I work with a 5-time world powerlifting champion with 2 national records. That's studly.

The Fruits of My Labor

I spent all weekend and most of Monday working on landscaping at my new house. It sucked ass, but I think it was worth it.

Shoveling wood chips is a hell of a lot easier than shoveling rock. This I know.

Team Sprint Name

Franz, DGC, and I need to come up with a name for our Team Sprint team for nationals. Any suggestions? As with all my contests, best suggestion wins $10.

What's in a Name?

It occurred to me that I'm not particularly tenacious, yet the name of my blog implies that I am. Ironic? Maybe. I just always thought that the band Tenacious D had a really funny name, and my name starts with a T, so there ya go. Never put much thought into it. Until now.

Tanacity implies being long-suffering, which I am not. When the going gets tough, I...uh...don't.

Anyways.

I'm considering changing the name of the blog, and I'm looking for suggestions. The best suggestion wins not only the distinction of naming the blog of the 2007 MN State Match Sprint Champion, but also gets $10. That's right, 10 big ones.

If all suggestions are stupid, you have to deal with Tenacious T forever.

Hey, I'm reinventing myself. I'm kinda like Prince. I mean .

I'll probably even register a real live domain name.

Wednesday Tidbits

I spent the majority of yesterday with my least favorite type of person: The Loud Nerd. You know the type, someone who's a huge nerd, but walks and talks like he's hot shit. The Loud Nerd is seldom seen in the wild, but they are prosperous and places such as the Microsoft District Headquarters. They can be detected by the way they strut around, usually with a quiet, snivelling sidekick, asking irrelevant questions while exhibiting unjustified confidence. Regular nerds (who are generally great people) tend to hate the Loud Nerd.

Fortunately, I got to spend the latter part of the day with my favorite kind of people: bike people. Pretty much the only people left at the track are those training for Nationals. Crosby, Big Bro Dubay, and Bergman were practicing Madison throws, Ted and I were sprinting, and Ferris was kilo-ing. Good times.

Some dirty messengers came up to check out the track. It's always cool to see someone's reaction the first time they ride the boards. I think I convinced them to come out and race next year.

Bergman still isn't sure if he's going to do nationals. He's already going to be in Vegas for Interbike, so I told him he should just ride to L.A. from there. It'd be a good Madison warm-up. He got a confused look on his face and replied, "I don't ride my bike to get places." Dude, I can relate. It's like every time I go down to the track, I ride and ride and ride, and end up right back where I started. Ya know, cuz it's an oval and all...

Where Am I?

Note: While "Hell" would technically be correct, it will not be accepted.

Team Kilo

Video credit: The DGC

200 Meter Record Attempt

Video credit: The DGC

Up Nort'

I took Friday off, loaded up the wife and pooch, and headed up north with my sister and her boyfriend to stay at his cabin.

We spent most of our time fishing and relaxing. Kristin was the firestarter.

It was below freezing our first night there, and Bandit does not deal well with cold, as witnessed here.

Casa de Hans

We're nearing completion of Casa de Hans.




I'm ready to move in, as life with the in-laws is getting to be a tad tense.

Many of you will be invited to a house-warming party. Many of you will not.

Ding!

The asshat in the red car dinged my door. WHILE I WAS SITTING IN MY CAR! This was the second time in one day that someone had dinged my door while I was in my car. What. The. Fuck.

I park at the gym, finish up my phone conversations, and THUMP. I honked at the weasly little dude who did it, and he just scurried into the gym. I followed him into the locker room and berated him.

me: "Nice mark you left on my car, douchebag."
weasle guy: "The wind took it"
me: "It's windy for everyone, buddy, but most people would have at least apologized."
weasle guy (looking really nervous and shifty): "I'm sorry, the wind took it, then I heard the thing, so I ran away."

Then he scurried off. In retrospect, I was kind of an asshole, and it occurred to me that he likely didn't know I was in the car. When I honked, he probably thought he had set my alarm off.

Oh well, maybe he'll be more careful next time.

CrapBag

I had a horribly shitty night of riding at the track last night. It was so cold that my nose was running, and I was slow and lethargic. Ugh.

I did, however, get the rare opportunity to sit on Ferris's bike, which is very very tiny.

In order to cheer myself up, I stole these photos of Radius #3 from Frye. Watchu gonna do about it, foo?


It's like Where's Waldo. Hey, where's Hans? Oh, I'm just standing in the way while everyone else dutifully mounts their bikes.

2007 Win Percentage

Since last night will be my last night racing in Blaine for the 2007 season, I wanted to calculate some numers to see how I stack up. I really had a stellar year and had a LOT of fun.

These numbers do not incude qualifying heats, and I scored that match sprints as one single race.

Races Started: 33
1st Place: 14 (42.4%)
2nd Place: 3
3rd Place: 2
4th Place: 4
5th Place: 5

By Category:
Cat 4
Races Started: 9
1st Place: 3 (33.3%)

Cat 3
Races Started: 16
1st Place: 6 (37.5%)

Cat 2 (Includes match sprints and team sprint)
Races Started: 8
1st Place: 5 (62.5%)

Thanks to everyone for an awesome season! Less than a month till nationals...

No Record, Puked, Awesomeness

Tonight was probably the coolest night of racing I've had so far this year. The team format was cool, and the races were great (except that 80-lap thing). It was basically a sprinter's omnium, which is always appreciated.

I started out the night with an attempt to break the district record in the flying 200, and fell short by 0.195 seconds. So close, yet still so very far away. I crushed my max speed PR on the track, but the headwind on the backstretch took too much out of me. In retrospect, it wasn't a good night to attempt the record (dry, cool, and windy), but it was something I had to do. I did set a new PR of 11.41, so it wasn't totally in vain.

I absolutely buried myself in the record attempt, and we lined up to do the team 200m TT less than 5 minutes later. I generally need about 20 minutes to recover from a flying 200. Ted and I set the fastest time of the day with an 11.5, and I promptly stumbled off the track to vomit. Lactic acid is a bitch.

We skipped the 20-lap tempo race because I was physically unable to mount my bicycle and bring it over to the track. Then I puked again. By this point, I was feeling much better!

Next up was the team 1000m TT. Since neither Ted nor I had done a kilo before, I was a little concerned with how we would do. We kept it at about 95% on the first 2 laps, then just gave it everything we had, and ended up with the fastest time - for about 2 minutes, when Tainter and Ferris smoked us by 2 full seconds. Ouch.

The last race of the night was a 360. Basically, it's a 1.5-lap race from a standing start. We had 10 teams, so it really was kind of a cluster-fuck to get everyone lined up. Since Ferris and Tainter had the best kilo time, they "won" the 10th position in the 360. Congrats, guys! Anyway...
I knew with that many riders it would be imperative to get a good start. I came out of the hole in 1st with Ferris on my wheel. We had a decent gap on the rest of the field, and I knew Ferris wouldn't want to come around me until the backstretch, so I slowed the pace a bit to conserve energy, then accellerated a couple different times. He almost came around me at the line, but I was able to hold him off. Barely.

Franz also won his heat, overcoming a big gap that Tainter put into the field at the start.

With that, we called it a day. According to various reports, we either got 1st or 2nd in the omnium, which is pretty good considering that there were a lot of really strong teams out there!

This was a really fun event, and I hope Smithers puts it on again next year.

Protein Powder Haikus

I am often asked what brand of protein powder to buy (OK, so I've actually be asked like once, but whatever). Here are my reviews of several different brands, in haiku form.

GNC Pro Performance® 100% Whey Protein
Ninety-six servings
Tastes good with a banana
Overpriced, but good

EAS 100% Whey Protein
Lumpy as all hell
Tastes like real live horse manure
Don't buy this, ever

BSN Syntha-6
Tastes like a milk shake
Holy shit, it costs how much?
May be worth it, yum.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Gold Standard
Tastes better than most
Doesn't get lumpy, foamy
We have a winner!

Fitness Labs Whey Fit Concentrate
You call this chocolate?
Why is it so lumpy, yo?
Hey, at least it's cheap.

Hmmmm

I just got out of a meeting, and I am 100% positive that the guy I was sitting next to was wearing womens' perfume.

What the...?

Since I'm not 12, I had never heard of "High School Musical" until about 3 weeks ago. Now it is fucking everywhere! Every time I turn on the TV I have to hear about Zac and Vanessa. Even on the nightly fucking news! What the hell?

I wanted to be "hip" and "with it", so I decided to find out what the hell the buzz is about. I discovered that it's a made-for-TV movie that only plays on Disney Channel, yet the kids who are in it are apparently wildly famous. How the hell does that work?

This must be the same phenomenon that allows all those losers from MTV's reality shows to live like celebrities. I don't get it.

Half Race Report

I wasn't planning to race tonight due to the forecast. I'm sick of driving all the way to Blaine, only to get rained out. I had planned to do a hard training ride after work, so I had my bike in the truck. When I left work, it was just starting to rain in St. Cloud, so that scrapped my plans. I called Skibby and found out that it wasn't raining in the Cities, so I hauled my ass down there to race.

The first race of the night was a 16-lap snowball race, with 12, 6, 6, and 8 points awarded every 4 laps. Tainter told me he was going to take the first sprint, but I had no idea he was going to go on the first lap. I was on his wheel, and he squeezed through a gap that I couldn't get through. He ended up lapping the field, and I ended up second on the last lap behind Crosby, to take 4th in the race. Tainter is still peaked from nationals, and is fast as shit right now.

One thing I've noticed about the Cat 2's is that they ride much closer to each other. This was a little disconcerting at first, but I think I'll get used to it quickly. There were a couple times I felt like I was just in the way. There's definitely a learning curve.

Next up were heats for the KOS "Sprint", which is basically a 6-up match sprint. The pace stayed relatively high for all 3 laps, and I just sat on Crosby's wheel to qualify in 2nd. I had a couple people give me shit for sandbagging, but the truth is that I felt like absolute shit tonight, and needed to save everything for the finals.

It turns out my saved energy was in vain, as the Sprint finals got rained out after half a lap. For the record, I was going to totally kick some serious ass! Donimator gave me a massive push at the start, and I was gonna ride that all the way to the finish.

I did manage to hit a new PR on the track during my warm-up, but I was cooked after that.

It was worth driving down to the track tonight because I got a good workout and more experience as a Cat 2. I am really sick of this fucking rain, though.

Slacker

I've been slacking off on blogging, so here's what I've been up to:

We dragged Max, kicking and screaming, to his first day of kindergarten on Tuesday. Things went much better on Wednesday, since there is a sweet playground there.
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Franz's bike is here.

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Our new house is coming along nicely. The cabinets are starting to go in, some of the doors are on, the retaining wall is almost done, and the stone is getting put on the front. We will be moving in a soon as I get back from nationals.
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I've been having some kick-ass workouts lately. Normally, this is the time of year where I get sick of riding and need some time off, but I just keep getting faster and faster! I had a couple PR's on Tuesday.
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I am getting a shot at the district record in the flying 200 on Sunday. The forecast calls for a high of 62 degrees, so it's not ideal, but I think I can do it.

Date Night

We got a babysitter and went out last night for the first time in about 6 months. It was fun, but we didn't really know what to do with ourselves.

We started out with some mini golf. I kicked some serious ass!


Then finished off the night with some girly drinks. Somewhere, Ray is proud of me.

State Keirin Videos

Here's the videos of the Cat 3 State Keirin. Franz has been bugging me all day to post them, so here they are!

First heat (I skipped the first few laps behind the motor, for your increased viewing enjoyment):

And here's the finals, featuring post-race comments from Bill Nicholson!

Nice job, all. Very close race!