Winter Short Track Race 3 BikeSouce Team Recap

Expert Men
3rd Matt Moosa
7th Bobby Bryson
11th Chad Hollingsworth
12th Chris Audet

Sport Men 19-39
3rd Jake Arthur
19th Julius Ulanday
20th John Hennessy

Sport Men 40+
15th Wayne Holden

Clydesdale
1st Ryan Kelley

Expert/Sport Women
8th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
6th Daniel Lenis

Congratulations to Ryan "Coach" Kelley on his win in the Clydesdale division.

Full Results with team names
Full Results with fastest laps

Report Card Results 1/9 - 1/22

Swimming: B-

Biking: C+

Running: C

Other: C+

Overall: C+

I was actually a really good two week block of training, I didn’t get in any long bike rides (but I’ll me making up for some of that during the two week period I’m in now), but other than that I did really well at making sure I did the key workouts on my schedule.  I may also have to change some of the grading scales, they're very reasonable by themselves, but not when you factor in the other workouts.

Winter Short Track Race 2 BikeSouce Team Recap

Expert Men
1st Matt Moosa
5th Chad Hollingsworth

Sport Men 19-39
12th Jake Arthur

Clydesdale
3rd Ryan Kelley

Expert/Sport Women
6th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
8th Daniel Lenis

Congratulations Matt on your excellent win.

Full Results with team names
Full Results with fastest laps
Team Standings

ASU-NCRC VO2Max Test and Body Composition

Yesterday I went to Kannapolis for the first of several visits to participate in a study looking at the effectiveness of a juice during strenuous exercise.  The study is at the ASU-NCRC Human Performance Lab.  This first visit was a baseline to get our body fat percentage and our VO2max to determine the intensity of the cycling portion of the study.  After reviewing the protocol for the rest of the return visits for study Dustin had me get in the Bod Pod (looks like a little space capsule) which is a calculates your body fat and resting metabolic rate.  From there I went to the “fun” part of the session:  the VO2max test.  For this you get on an exercise bike (with your pedal and saddle position), it is initially set to 150 watts, every 2 minutes the number of watts you have to pedal increases 25 watts.  To start out with it’s not bad at all, the last 4-5 minutes are miserable though, but within 10 minutes after the test you feel almost back to normal.  In addition to the studies that Dustin runs from the lab he also does testing for people interested in getting VO2max, body composition, and muscular strength evaluated.  He's great to work with and is more than happy to answer questions if you are interested in gettting evaluated.  Overall it was a very interesting and informative visit.

ASU-NCRC Human Performance Lab
Fitness Testing Page

My results:
Weight: 142 pounds
Body Fat: 5.6%
RMR: 1583 (calories consumed daily with virtually no activity during the day)
V02max: 64%
Wattage at completion of protocol: 375

Overall I was really happy with my results, I’ve lost about 4 pounds since I was tested last year, but added 2 pounds of fat free weight:  I’ve lost about 6 pounds fat, and put on 2 pounds of muscle.  My VO2max is just about what it was last year, but I was able to get to 375 watts, where last year my wattage maxed out at 350.

Interesting Links

Cervelo P5 links that I thought were informative (I'll write more extensive thoughts on it next week):
Velonews
TriRig
The bike looks incredible, I'll be interested in whether the UCI will allow the "gussets" that are on the seat tube that make it much longer that is allowed.  The UCI have called a number of bikes (probably most notably the original Specialized Shiv) that met the letter of their rules (but not their) intentions illegal, wonder if this will happen again.

Lionel Messi's 202 goals for Barcelona in 12 minutes
An incredible display of soccer talent, not just his best goals but so many of them are highlight goals.

Kim Jong fake twitter account
Hillarious fake twitter account from the perspecitive of the new leader of North Korea

Winter Short Track Race 1 BikeSouce Team Recap

Expert Men
4th Matt Moosa
7th Bobby Bryson
10th Chris Audet
12th Chad Hollingsworth

Super Sport Men
9th Jake Arthur

Sport Men 19 – 39
9th Paul Cunningham
DNF Jake Arthur (broken chain)

Sport Men 40+
16th Jeff Smith
30th Wayne Holden

Clydesdale
3rd Ryan Kelley

Expert/Sport Women
11th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
7th Daniel Lenis
Full Results with team names
Full Results with fastest laps
Team Standings

First Ride: Specialized Epic Expert Carbon EVO R 29

Road my mountain bike, which I will refer to as an Epic Evo29er in the future to avoid having to type it’s full name, for the first time this Friday.  I’ve got to tweak the suspension a little, but overall the bike felt great and I’m really looking forward to riding it this year.  My initial thoughts:

-The Formula R1 brakes worked great, felt really smooth, very good stopping power, nice quiet.  I’m not really sure what else you could look for.

-It was surprising how quiet having a brand new drivetrain was (I guess that says I should take better care of that this year).

-I’m really excited how confident I felt on the Fastrak29x2.0 front tire that I put on the bike, last year I used a much knobbier and wider Captain 2.2. 

-I need to tweak the front suspension a little, it felt a little harsh (then again it was Francis Beatty, which if you’re not from the Charlotte area, is super rooty), but I don’t think that will be a big issue.

-The bike pedaled awesome, nothing different than last year’s model, but it always surprises me when I ride an Epic how well they do pedal for being a full suspension bike.

My New Bike: 2012 Specialized Epic Expert Carbon EVO R 29

2012 Specialized Epic Expert Carbon EVO R 29

First of all this bike might have the longest name I’ve ever seen, but what’s beyond the overly long name.  It’s built around an Epic 29er Carbon frame, with a 1x10 drivetrain setup, and is the 2012 version of the same bike I rode last year.  The three changes of note from the 2011 version was going from a Reba front fork to a SID (2012 is the first year that Rock Shox has made their race fork in a 29er version), switching from Avids to Formula brakes, and coming with a set of Roval Control 29er wheels.  All three of these things I see as upgrades over the components they are replacing, after riding I’ll have a better idea of how much of an upgrade we’re talking about.

I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like the paint scheme on the bike:  the online picture looked odd, but in person it is AWESOME, gloss black with neon yellow.

30th Birthday

Today I turned 30, I was sure how I would react.  When I turned 25 it bothered me a fair amount. . . I was no longer in my early 20’s.  Somewhat surprisingly a bigger milestone: 30 I haven’t really been bothered by it at all, I hope the same is true when I turn 40.

Today hasn’t been all that different than most other week day.  I ran for 1:20 this morning, it was relatively hard since had done a hard interval run workout last afternoon.  Worked until mid-afternoon, and then go home and ride on the trainer for about an hour.  I will go out to dinner with Sakshi (my wife) but it won’t be to anywhere fancy, right now chicken fajitas are sounding good but we’ll see.

Thanks to those that have wished me a happy birthday.

Random Thoughts

It's been a couple weeks since I've posted. Work was very busy for Christmas. . .everyone wants a new bike for Christmas. I actually got a new one just this week, more on that to come. Had a good Christmas and New Years.


Training report cards: I've been doing terrible filling them, but my training has actually been going really well, swimming, biking and running all seem to be progressing. The only thing that I may have been a little lax with has been my mountain biking, but that should get much better with a more routine schedule (no holidays), and having a brand new bike to play around on.

The "winter" weather here in Charlotte has been extremely mild this year so getting out and running has been much easier than it has been in the past. Most days we've had highs in the upper 50's or even low 60's this year. . . you can hardly call that winter, at least in my experience growing up in Vermont.

I've been getting a little antsy to race, I've only done 2 races since the start of September. In the past I've done cyclocross this time of year, but felt I was concentrating on it too much instead of focusing on swimming, biking and running (I would do a bunch of biking but little to no swimming or running). Also not having to travel all over North Carolina to go to races has been nice this fall and winter.