Christmas Bugs

     We are settling into the new house and so far we like it. It's so much better when it comes to space. We aren't so cramped now. One drawback to the house has been crickets. Crickets are everywhere! They are in the basement and occasionally scutter across the floor of whatever room you are in. It seems the yard is just full of them. Harmless crickets are much better to see than cockroaches or termites so I'm not complaining, just making an observation.

     The basement is a real plus to this new place, and so is the fireplace. I've never had a fireplace before. It had to be cleaned before we could use it as it was full of 30-year old petrified firewood.We fired it up Christmas night for the first time and got to take a late evening nap on the couch with heat pouring out on us.

     The change in roads around the house has been a welcomed refresher. Our old house was in a place where I know all the roads, but for some reason I like it better here at the new place. It's my old training roads from when I was younger and it feels like coming home on the bike.

     I decided to scrap the rest of my season after the last Cross the Way race at Lock 4. I feel like races are getting in the way of riding during the week and keeping me off rhythm. My current method of training isn't working so I'm throwing it all out the window and just riding for a while. I'll do what I want for a few weeks and a pattern that works for me will emerge. So far it's working. I've put in a few 15 hour weeks just on the bike with some running, core strengthening and yoga throw in. I've discovered some new roads up near Adams, TN that go out into the country and then roll next to a creek deep in the woods. It feels more like I'm mountain biking than road riding.

     Keith and I have tried to do some riding, including one frigid night ride two weeks ago. It was 40 degrees when we left out in the dark and a moist 34 when we got back over 2 hours later. It was one of those rides where your face gets so cold that you look to the left and your eyes are slow to follow because they are so cold.

     I mentioned yoga earlier. Shannon and I have been doing it every morning. I like it for a pre-work activity. It makes me work on core strength and stretching, two things that I am terrible at and never want to spend time on. I've been doing it for almost three weeks now and can definitely tell a difference in my flexibility and overall strength. I've been running at lunch too, just to take advantage of free time. It's fun to get out of the clinic for a while, even if I do run the same stretch of road every day.

      Crickets aren't the only bugs running around our house lately. For the first time in my life, I came down with the flu. It sucked. I missed a whole week of riding and a day of work due to feeling like crap. I had the body aches, massive headache and fever. Did I mention it sucked? I was still a little sick when we went up to  Indiana to visit Shannon's family for pre-Christmas Christmas. We had to work on Christmas Eve so we made our trip north the weekend prior to Christmas and then came back. We had a good time in Indiana despite me sleeping through one day of festivities and Shannon then coming down with some sort of sickness too. I was hoping to ride during the trip, but I was far from in any condition to be out on the backroads of Indiana on a bike, especially considering it snowed the first day and the temp was in the 20s the whole trip.

      The only good thing about coming back before Christmas was that we also got to do Christmas with my family. They're weird sometimes, but entertaining so it's fun to go to the family dinner. Between having the flu, the warm weather here in Tennessee and the pre-Christmas trip to Indiana, it just never really felt like Christmas this year. I got back on the bike on Christmas Eve, getting in a fairly long night ride in drizzly rain. Then Christmas Day I got in a nice morning ride with my lovely wife, followed by a hilly ride to the family dinner with my Dad. I got in over 3 hours of tough riding at 34 degrees. I got in another long, frigid ride this week as well. I finally have the cold weather gear to be able to get outside in the 30s without suffering the entire ride.

     The year is pretty much over now. It was a good year overall. I've enjoyed building a good life with Shannon, but I can't say I'm happy with my riding. I still feel like I'm not at my full potential yet and I won't be happy until I get there. The year ahead brings more opportunities to get to that full potential and I'll keep working hard to make it there.

Running the Streets

     My sinus infection worsened after Cross the Way #3. I may have felt good beforehand, but the infection was definitely not gone. It was a tough few days full of sniffing and coughing. Of course, the weather was warm. I probably shouldn't have ridden all week, but I just couldn't resist. It was just too warm to pass up. I got drizzled on most days, but I got in some slow 2.5 hour rides to at least keep the legs going while not making my sickness worse. My GPS finally croaked this week. I thought my repair had worked, but apparently it was just temporary. I guess the impact with a tree was just too much for it in the end.

     I got to feeling better by the end of the week, just in time for Rudolph's Red Nose Run 5K in Nashville on Friday night. This is always one of the best events we attend all year. There's big crowds, a nice course, and fast runners. With it being on a Friday night, that always means getting there by 6pm is a challenge. It's sort of a race before the race for us. I got off work a little late, which made it even harder for us to make it on time. Traffic was a total nightmare with over 1400 runners trying to get in to park at LP Field. Keith and Misty were there so they were nice enough to grab the race packets for me and Shannon. We had just enough time to pin on numbers and lace up the timing chips before the start. We had a whole minute to warm-up as we ran to the start line from the car.

     The crowd at the start was huge. They tried to get the faster people up front, but it didn't work. It drives me crazy how many walkers and children were on the first few rows. I was shooting for under 23 minutes, but had to start 200 people back. The gun went off and we started to walk through the start chute. It took about 45 seconds to walk up to the actual start line. Even then, it was a few more steps before I actually began to jog. I was so thankful for chip timing so that my race time didn't start until I crossed the line instead of when the gun went off.

     It was a mess the first few hundred meters. People were walking and others were trotting. I weaved my way through groups of 8-10 year olds and past strollers. I am all for having all types of runners at a race, but I think it is disrespectful to fast runners for you to start in front of them when you have no intention of running fast...or even of running at all. Come on man!

     I finally got into the clear about 1/4 mile in. The race usually starts on the west side of LP Field and crosses the Woodland Street Bridge immediately taking you into downtown. After a quick out-and-back through downtown Nashville, we always finished with a lap of LP Field. This year we began on the east side of LP Field, doing half a lap around the field before crossing the bridge into downtown. That meant just a half-lap left after returning back over the bridge at the end. That gave us a flat start and flat finish. I liked how it spread things out before the first hill. I was still in traffic and weaving around, but it wasn't slowing me down too much. Now the concern became not going too hard since I didn't get in a warm-up.

     I paced myself well, picking up my heart rate right to the point of getting chest ache, but not delving too far into chest pain. I found myself just off the back of a big group as we began the first descent down 2nd Ave. I basically fell with my feet underneath me all the way down the hill. I was totally out of control and am still not sure how I managed to move my legs fast enough to keep them under me. I not only caught the group ahead, I went straight through the group and off the front. There was another little pack ahead of me as we turned onto Broadway and started climbing again. I also caught this group, but only passed a few people. The hill killed me and I had to back off my pace. Our group split into pieces as we reached the top, which was the halfway point. I got there in 10:53 and started down the hill again. I saw Shannon running up Broadway as I trotted my way down.

     2nd Ave was now uphill and I suffered like a dog up it. I held my position, but it was tough. I was drooling and had snot hanging out my nose like a savage. The sickness was hurting my breathing a little, but did not make me cough like I had expected. At the top of the hill, I mustered up enough breath to at least blow the snot off my face. I then started gaining on a group ahead of me. I passed 4 people as we descended the Woodland Street Bridge. One passed me back once the road flattened out as we circled LP Field.

     The finish was so close! I dug deep to hold my spot, then opened up my sprint the last 200 meters, gaining a few more spots in the process. My time was under my goal of 23 minutes, as I clocked a 22:01 on the line. That was good enough for 5th in the Male 25-29 class and 51st overall out of 1492 runners. That was a 7:07 average pace per mile. Shannon had a great run. She hasn't run as much this year, but still ran a smooth 33:32 to take 64th out of 162 in the Female 25-29 class. That was just 8 seconds slower than she finished last year with a lot less training this time around. That just shows you how much riding has helped her cardio.

    Afterwards, we grabbed some bagels and bars in between rounds of mini-cramps. I had some spasm, but never fully cramped up. That's the hardest I've run in quite a while, especially with no warm-up. Keith and Misty walked the course since Misty is pregnant. She's due in January so running wasn't happening this year for her. The Nashville Christmas Parade follows the run. We watched the fireworks that kick off the parade, but didn't hang around for the parade itself. Instead, we went to Springfield and had dinner at The Depot, courtesy of Keith and Misty as payment for our house-sitting services. Thanks guys!

Fireworks over Nashville that signal the start of the Christmas Parade

     The day after the run brought some real soreness. Hooray for delayed onset muscle soreness! We had a lazy day. Rain kept me from riding outside. We had two kids from church, Tessa and Shelby, over for making gingerbread houses. Tessa has been sick and started to feel bad again so she had to go home. Shannon and I then finished her house for her. It turned into a gingerbread farm, complete with a pond and animals. It was funny because I didn't want to make anything with the gingerbread, but by the end of the day I was sitting there for 3 hours making a snowman out of vanilla wafers and a duck out of tootsie rolls.

Nilla Wafers for the roof shingles

Gingerbread farm

It was a little kid's dream on our kitchen table

A farm is not complete without a pond and duck

My snowman

    It has rained the  past few days and it has let us discover a secret about our new house. The basement floods. Our landlord mentioned it "gets damp" down there with heavy rain. I wouldn't call an inch of water standing across almost the entire basement floor "damp."I was able to brush out all the water, but not before some of my tools and boxes got soaked. It's raining again as I right this so I'm guessing I'll be brushing out more water again tonight. Yipee.

     I've been working with several soccer players at work. It's a lot of fun to work with athletes, both through their rehab back from an injury and afterwards when they just need training to become a better athlete. I haven't mentioned the glute training in a while, but I'm using it quite a bit at work. I still want to do some more on myself to compare to last year, but only as time permits. I can tell my glutes are way stronger than they were a year ago and I definitely use them more on the bike and also with running. I want to develop more programs in the future that focuses on athletes. I wouldn't mind getting into some coaching. The off-season sure is a good time to get my USAC coaching license...

Soccer training at work. I love getting paid to play soccer!

Peninsula Cross

     Moving is complete now...at least moving everything from the old house over to the new is over. There's still plenty of boxes stacked in every room that we will have to unpack, but I'm glad to have all the heavy lifting behind us. I have been doing some afternoon runs around the farm. There's lot of paths through the fields and some woods that I will explore soon to add some singletrack to my new backyard. The first day I was wearing all black and running up and down the hill by the pond. The landlord saw me as she drove by the house and thought I was a burglar. She pulled a U-turn in the road and came flying back. When she realized it was me, she laughed and fussed at me at the same time. She said she should've known better with knowing how crazy I am (she's a runner too). She was planning to kick my butt once she ran me down. It was a funny way to start our stay here.

Moon rising behind the shed at the old house

One last campfire at the old place

Sunset behind the pond at the new house

    We took full advantage of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals to stock up on bike stuff for next year. We were in desperate need of new mountain biking gloves and Shannon has been wanting her own helmet for quite a while. I also scored some good deals on replacement parts for drivetrains. Got to love all the wear that racing, mud and long rides puts on your bikes.

    We spent Thanksgiving moving the rest of our stuff and house-sitting for Keith and Misty. I have done this several times for them and for some reason this time I was allergic to both Lucy and Vivian. I sneezed my head off the whole week. It was still a good time though, as I got to take Lucy out on the trail with Snoop twice that week. They had a good time running together, both on the trail and through the pond.

Lucy

Snoop

Time for a drink

My tree-climbing dog

Lucy wading through the pond

     The symptoms of the dog/cat allergies hung around the next week and ended up developing into a sinus infection complete with sore throat. It really hit me on a Friday night as I was doing my first commute home by bike to the new house. It's a longer route now, going up to 27.0 miles from 21.9. That'll be good for me to squeeze in a few more miles each week.

    I felt worse the next day. I was supposed to get up early and do the Jingle Bell Jog 5K in Clarksville, but I felt like I had been hit by a bus when I woke up, so I went back to bed. Later that day, I tried to mountain bike on the backyard trail. That didn't go well as I felt awful and weak overall. I ended up bailing early on the ride. The last Cross the Way race was the following day so I felt it was better to stop early to get some rest instead of running myself into the ground.

Shannon and Snoop after a lap on the trail

Colorful sunset on the farm

     My throat was feeling better on Sunday. Shannon and I went out for an early spin and the exercise cleared my sinuses right up. I was hopeful for a good day at Lock 4 for Cross the Way #3. The race was originally supposed to be held at Two Rivers Park in Nashville, but they had to change the venue to Lock 4 earlier this week.

      It was a warm day for cross racing. That has been the theme of this cross season though, warm and dry. I felt good during warm-up. The course was faster than previous cross races at Lock 4. The course is fully on the peninsula of the park that juts out into Old Hickory Lake. The grass was deep in several places along the course and the mountain bike tires just seemed to be too fat to roll good. I actually felt faster on the singlespeed in practice.

Cross the Way #3 course on the Lock 4 peninsula

CX 3 Men

Shannon Mathis during the CX 1/2/3 Women's race

The wind shuffled the leaves around covering the bikes in the pit

Mike Edens

     I made the call to start the CX 1/2 race on the singlespeed, which went against my original plan. It was a poor choice. I got smoked on the uphill start, dropping off into the grass last in the line of 9 riders. I liked the initial set of tight turns, but it was a mess in traffic. The singlespeed is only fast if you can use momentum. Stop-go riding just makes the big gear work against you and that's exactly what we were doing. It was deja vu again when Jeremy Nagoshiner washed out in a corner right in front of me. That's three times in three races. Lucky for him, I had time to swerve and not run him over.

     Jeremy's crash put a gap in the line. I made another quick pass to move into 7th. The group was about 5 seconds ahead of me already just halfway through lap 1. Andy Reardon was already off the front and driving the pace high. I just didn't have to legs to keep the singlespeed going, so I opted for a bike change after lap 1. I had a quick exchange in the pit and was now on the mountain bike, which was much faster through the turns.

CX 1/2 group on lap 1

Reardon out front after the first set of barriers

Boomer Leopold

Me on the singlespeed the first lap

Jumping the small barrier

     I thought I could catch back up, but the sickness was taking its toll on me. I couldn't reach my normal high heart rates and just couldn't match the pace of the lead pack. I tried my best to get back up there, eventually crashing in the same corner that took Jeremy down. I busted my knee and hurt my back, which was finally starting to feel better after straining it two weeks ago during the move. I was forced to back off the last 20 minutes of the race, but held onto my 7th place. I got lapped by Andy before the end. It was a tough race, but I was surprised by the outcome considering how little I've trained lately.

Matt Schupp stayed near the front on a mountain bike

Swiftwick's Michael Crouch

On the mountain bike now

Grabbing a drink

Reardon way out front

The three-man chase group

Leopold and Jeremy Chambers chasing Reardon

Shannon Williams

Chambers outsprints Schupp for 2nd

    I had a short break, then it was time for the Singlespeed event. Again, the position on the singlespeed bike is much more relaxed and doesn't aggravate my back pain at all. I had a better start, dropping off the pavement in 6th out of 9th. Again, traffic made the big gear tough, but I hung in there with the group. It usually takes me a lap to get going in the second race, then I always move up.

Junior rider

Matt Thompson and Jim Simms battle for 3rd

     The Juniors started 30 seconds ahead of us and that made for some slower traffic for us to negotiate at the end of lap 1. It's hard to pick through Junior traffic. Some of them go really slow and you don't want to interfere with them when you go by. They're always trying so hard! I got held up behind them for almost the entire second lap. The gap from me to the rider ahead went from 5 seconds to 45 seconds before I could blink my eye. I was tired from the previous race and there was no hope for closing down a gap that big in just 2 laps. I did my best to cut off some time and to also maintain my 6th. That was my worst finish in Singlespeed since my 7th place at the TN State Championship here at Lock 4 last year. I added 2 teeth to my rear cog, but it's still not enough on this type of course. Or maybe I'm just too weak! I was glad to see Pump Track Jim Simms outsprint Matt Thompson for 3rd. Jim is riding well now and deserved a good result.

A Junior followed by the two SInglespeed leaders

Junior climbs up to the pavement

Ouch say the legs

Photo by Rick Harris

Video highlights from Cross the Way #3

     Shannon and I took the scenic drive home, exploring some new roads for future road ride adventures. Next event for us is another try at a 5K. It'll be next Friday night at Rudolph's Red Nose Run 5K in Nashville. It's always a fun and huge event. We can't wait!