been mashed and thrashed.

Last night I did a race called the Mash'n'thrash. This race takes place in the Six Flags Magic Mt. parking lot in valencia, ca. it is a grand prix style race and is held at night under the parking lot lights. My race started at 7:45 P.M.

My weekdays typically start at 3:45 A.M. with me putting my cell phone in a figure four chokehold trying to get the alarm to stop. I usually have my lunch made, dressed, and out the door by 4:15 A.M. on my way to work. The average work day for me is 13 hours of me lugging around my 500 LB (possible exageration) steel toed boots, but, yesterday i was able to go home in 11 hours in order to make it to the race in time. Definetly not ideal pre-race routine. I rushed home to pick up Laura and Ryan and load Ryan and my bikes on the car. The drive to Magic Mt seemed to take forever and we were all questioning what on earth we were thinking after realizing we wouldnt get home till just after 11 p.m. We arrived at 7 and were all ready to turn in for the night so we thought it might be smart to grab some caffeine and snacks. Once we finished registering ryan and i pulled out our(his) trainers to start warming up while laura headed off for her 5K running race. it was nice to have his extra trainer and truly be warmed up before rolling...i wish i had one for time trials.

Once on the line the regular small talk ensued between racers until the referee did his talk. Next thing we know the whistle is blown and we are off. There was quick acceleration from the pack as everyone took off. 2 tight 90 degree turns and one u-turn in the first 45 seconds made it very difficult to keep everything together. in the first 2 laps i was like a slinky off the back as i learned the turn heavy course. i believe it was about halfway through the third lap that the group truly split but it may have been sooner. I quickly found my self out of the lead group and into the chase. we started off with i think 7 riders that stayed together for the next 4 (or so) laps then finally our group of seven turned into a group of three with one floater. it was me and two other guys(who were there together). We had one other racer who would sprint up, get caught, get dropped, then sprint up again. At one point i felt we were going to catch the leaders (about 12 guys maybe) but in the final laps they made a SERIOUS gap between us. with 2 laps to go floater guy (whom i named tinker bell ) made a big move on a slight downhill and made a pretty serious gap on us. The three of us put in a lot of shared effort to catch him but i timed my effort in a bad way. When i came to the front about half way into the last lap i felt i could close the gap between tinkerbell and i. with a hard(too hard) sprint i surged up and got on his wheel basically launching the other two around him (boooooo me). tinkerbell then surged and got on their wheel. I didnt have it in me to do a double sprint and tried to slightly up my pace in order to gain ground on them. After one turn they took a little too slow i thought i would be able to close on them but i was out of gas. two turns later i watched from a hundred feet back as 2 of them sprinted it out (for like 15th place probably but thats not the point.)

At the end of the day i have to say, I am in love with this event. It is very challenging course due to the cornering. It is very challenging pace due to the skill level of the racers present and i feel it will be an event i can continue to improve at and have a distinct measure of that improvement. I look forward to that performance building and challenges.

nothin big just checkin in.

my bloggin is slippin' like slicks in the rain! pretty quiet race month. Qatar and Omman are over. Of course qatars been over for like a month and it is just airing on t.v. today! american television get your priorities straight. ive seen the same kardashian episode re-run advertised for the last 6 months yet i cant get two hours of a current professional race! whatever.

so all my race plans have been thwarted by work. boooo for making a living. only real ones that got changed were poor college kids road race and the mash series at six flags (which i hope to do in two days) again the only race i got in this month was the tgr time trial. i feel so lucky to have a venue like this in town so that i can at least be guaranteed one race a month. it went pretty well i suppose. i really need to make some improvements though. hopefully next month we will see some major changes. I am loving my aero jacket wheel covers. I am very impressed with the quality for the price. Well done wheelbuilder.com!

Yesterday i got to do the first leg of the Wall to Wall Cross Crountry Bicycle Ride with the Jeremy Staat foundation. Inspiring veterans not settling on their service and saying that was enough but instead finding more and more ways to serve. check them out at www.jeremystaatfoundation.org and www.walltowallbicyleride.com.

lastly i did a tubeless wheel conversion on my road bike wheels. hopefully the advantages are worth the cost. They promise nearly zero flats unless a glass cut and blah blah blah less rolling resistance. i just wish i could get it done on my aero wheels but apparently it is too hard to get a seal on the carbon fiber.

hopefully later this week i can give you a ride report on The Mash Series.

More news then this blogger can handle.

Oh me! oh my! So much news from the peloten where on earth do i begin!!!
DOPING I
I guess with doping so i can get it out of the way. I hate this topic and it pains me to even bring any attention to the subject. U.S. attorneys office has dropped all charges against lance armstrong claiming that he doped during his reign of the tour de france. why is the U.S attorneys office involved you ask? Because Lance's team was sponosred by the u.s. postal service he was technically paid by tax payers dollars. Therefore, IF he was doping he was using government money to do so. my guess is we will never know the truth about whether or not mellow johnny ever cheated or not. on one hand he is the worlds most tested, investigated, and watched athlete of all time with zero failed tests. On the other hand he was the best when all the rest of the best were doping. thats tough math. Either way i took this as good news and hope that the USADA's investigation shows the same results

DOPING II - two paragraphs about it!?!? :'(
ablerto contador (lovingly know as albeefo clenbutador) has been found guilty as charged for use of the performance enhancing drug clenbeutoral during his 2010 tour de france victory (the one where he beat lance armstrong). This has been a messy situation from the get go. i wont give the full history but to sum it up this investigation has been going on for a year and a half now. the original traces found were too small to warrant a guilty verdict, and, albeefo claimed that it must have been a steroid used on the cows which he later ate during the tour de france. the back and forth has ensued and the verdict was returned guilty punishable by a two year ban from proffessional cycling effective july of 2010 (but put into effect this month so really he is only losing 6 months off the bike) but, he has lost his tour de france 2010 victory and his 2011 Giro d'Italia victory as well as numerous other podium finshes. I dont like the guy but if he truly was innocent this must be heartbreaking. but also heartbreaking for andy shleck who is now the official winner in the 2010 tdf. he has publicaly said if he wins this year he will consider it his first win as he intends to win in a sporting manner. (tip of the helmet to you grimplette for your attitude) albeefo we will see you in august probably at the vueleta.

http://cyclismas.com/2012/02/farrar-blasts-garmin-barracuda-signings-and-team-tactics/

now this is a story (read the link above) i love.......something sick about me loves drama and tragedies such as this. now i already think that farrar is the peoltens biggest whiner and excuse maker. and ive really tried to like him especially since he is the only american sprinter. But c'mon girl! how can i deal with you after this. It will be interesting to see how team cuda' gets their act together if they do. But, in the meantime, im going to sit back and hope for more of these public displays of crumbling. oh ya and farrar,good luck in your next lead out i wont be surprised if your teammates give you a brake check 100 ft from the line. As J-Clar said last night farrars good but not good enough to back up these kind of statements. I will admit he is good, AND, hes never had a leadout out train the quality of Cav's, but plenty of guys weasel their way into superior teams trains and ride the highspeed rail to victory. But we shouldnt be surprised, right loyal readers. I did say in my 2012 team breakdown that garmin is too diverse and will have to figure out a way to work as a team in order to get anything done. However, i didnt echo farrar's concerns when i said they were a team of power names. We'll have to wait and see if he's right about who they signed come classics season.

In closing i truly believe that our sport has cleaned up it's act in huge leaps and bounds in the last 5 years. I look forward to a much cleaner and proud future for the pro ranks. It is nice to have these investigations finished and out of the way before going into classics season so we can focus on what matters............man and machine pouring it all out on the tarmac and cobbles just for the taste of victory.

I wish i had time to keep writing and include jan's "ceremonial" suspension cav gettting his first win in world championship jersey and news from qatar but as i said right now there's a TON of news from the peoloten