I've Learned A Thing or Two

A lot has gone on since last posting, but it isn't all my fault. Because not that much has gone on relating to cycling. After I didn't qualify for worlds this year, I really wanted to focus in on important life stuff. So I buckled down and had my best semester academics-wise since coming to Samford and spent a lot of time getting my resume together for a big-boy job.

After graduation it was back to WinShape for one more trip around, this time as aquatics director. I had the best lifeguards ever and it was a great summer. If any camp people read this, I know it sounds like I'm sweeping this incredible three months under the rug. But you know what a great experience it is, but you also know that there's no way to adequately explain it to someone that hasn't lived it. So I'll save the digital ink since I'm kind of pressed for time anyway.

Other happenings during the summer included girlfriends gained and lost, many frogs photographed and released, and finding a job. So once camp ended I shifted 30 miles down from Birmingham to sleepy Harpersville, home of the Coosa Valley Academy Rebels. It's a really interesting situation for an AISA school with kids coming from 3 different counties, some commuting as much as 50 minutes each way. My official/paid duties (that means there are lots more) there include head JV football coach, assistant varsity football coach, head boy's varsity basketball coach, scholar's bowl sponsor, and teacher of 5 classes: 8th grade Earth Science, 9th grade Physical Science, 10th grade Biology, 11th grade Anatomy, and 6th grade Computer/Keyboarding.

Working camp prepared me for teaching and coaching better than anything else I've done, but I've still had to learn a lot. Each class or activity brings its own special mix of lessons to the table, but the middle schoolers have contributed the most to my baptism by fire in the education field. Just a few of the things I picked up:

1. I was the hottest thing in school for two weeks. Then I was replaced by Justin Beiber.
2. Animal bracelets (aka Silly Bandz) are the stuff. If you have a middle school child and he or she does not have at least 20 of these, please buy some for them now. They will be mocked mercilessly by all the "cool" kids until you do so.
3. America can no longer spell. The upcoming generation has been hopelessly ruined by spellcheck and texting. Any elementary teachers out there, please emphasize spelling in your classroom, otherwise our children are doomed to be completely ignorant of the full beauty of the English language.
4. Varsity football players and cheerleaders, be good examples all the time. Kids are watching you and want to be just like you, good bad or otherwise.
5. Parents think the burden of education rests solely on the shoulders of teachers. This is simply not true. If anything parents are more responsible for how much their children learn. Teachers are only conduits of information, parents are the mind shapers and lesson reinforcers. Even worse, many parents have also passed the buck on moral training and discipline. People don't understand that they must take owndership of their child's future, or most kids will fall by the wayside as a headstone in the growing cemetary of wasted potential.

Next time I'll attempt to reflect on football season, make some comments on the upcoming basketball season, and start getting back into shape for cycling!

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love...of bicycles and frogs

This past weekend was a lot of fun. I got some work done on my senior biology project and headed home Friday afternoon. Just FYI, if I have any fans that are experts on gene therapy and pDNA vector detection techniques, feel free to offer your help on that. It was the first day I've driven and could really put the sunroof open. I did for just a second, but closed it up for better gas mileage. It was Samuel's junior prom back at WA Friday night so I wanted to be there to see that. Philip was home for the weekend too, so I got to see him.

Friday night after prom leadout Philip and I went out to Casey's camphouse. There's a pond out there and it's the first weekend that frogs would be out, so I went looking to collect for my vertebrate zoology class. It was still pretty early so a lot of critters still weren't active yet, but I found a turtle, either trachemys scripta or pseudemys concinna. That was nice, but I really wanted a frog, because most of the species are divided between the Appalachain foothills to the north of Birmingham and the Coastal Plain to the south, where Camden is. At one end of the pond the woods were really thick and it got really swampy, great frog habitat. I could hear them every once in a while but didn't see one in 1 1/2 hours of looking. So I just switched off my flashlight and squatted down and was gonna try to hear them first. After about 5 minutes I heard a chirping sound a little like a bird, but really sharp, not much tweet. Right there next to me was a tiny little frog (<3cm)
It looks similar to a cricket frog, but because of the continuous dorsolateral ridge and the ventral mottling Dr. Bakegaard decided it was a juvenile Rana catesbeiana.

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Saturday I rode out to Dry Forks and did hill repeats and got horribly sunburned. Upon returning there was just enough time to take a shower and watch Auburn absolutely dismantle LSU. Just a quick sidenote: Auburn got left for dead by the national media after losing to Xavier (with Rashim Barrett injured, I might add) but has been the best team in the SEC since Feb 1. No SEC team with 10 conference wins (as Auburn has) has ever been left out of the NCAA tourney, and if Auburn wins their quarterfinal tournament game against Florida or Arkansas, I think they have to get in. Still, no one at ESPN will even recognize them as a bubble team. Hopefully the real selection committee values a team's quality more than it's name, unlike those talking heads in Bristol.

Sunday morning I drove back to Birmingham. Due to the time change I left later than I wanted and didn't get back in time for church, so I used the time to pick up some groceries and get ready for the afternoon's bike race. It was the same course as the last race with and added summit finish atop Chandler Mountain. Thefield was huge at 65 riders, but the race unfolded great for me. Steel City controlled the front for the first three laps and we were flying around the course. Part way through the third lap I just sort of rolled off the front and got about a 30s gap at the hill of the back section and held it til just before the start of lap 4. It didn't stick but it was the big move that really softened up the field. The pace stayed relatively low through lap 4 until we hit the bumpy section where it got strung out and about 10 of us got a slight gap. 1k from the start line somebody went down and it gave 7 of us the chance to get away. At that moment I accomplished my goal: to make the final selection for the day. We worked together, all content to settle everything on the climb. If you have never done this climb, it's just a little appetizer of what European style mountains are like. Most American climbs are long and shallow, because our road desgners were smart enough to either make circles around the mountain or cut several switchbacks into the hillside to decrease the grade. This is in opposition to the ancient Alpine or Pyreneean roads that were originally built over animal trails and have far fewer switchbacks and can achieve absolutely ridiculous grades. Chandler Mountain follows this mold, ascending 550ft in 1mi. That works out to an average grade of 10.4%. Insane. My speed bottomed out at 3.4mph, I almost fell over there. The pure climbers took off at the first swtichback and I finished 6th, about 1min back, but just experiencing the climb and being in the mix was what I wanted. I really want to focus in on my climbing over the next few years. Even though it hurts so much, I love it more than any part of racing. Sometime when it's slow I need to do an entry just on climbing. I felt like Thomas Voeckler in the 2004 Tour de France, only without the yellow jersey.

Brazil is next week! I am so excited! Check out what Team 1 is doing this week here

What've You Been Doing Lately? (or The Epic That Wasn't)

"Epic" is a word that gets tossed around much too often in cycling circles. That ride you did yesterday, or that cheeseburger you ate after. There are few truly epic moments, events with suffering so great or circumstances so extreme that they could not possibly be duplicated by chance in another 10,000 tries. Andy Hampsten on the Gavia in the 1988 Giro d'Italia; Lemond winning the '89 Tour on the final day; Lance Armstrong winning the 2003 stage to Luz-Ardiden with a broken chainstay; those are part of the Mount Rushmore of cycling epics. The everyday cyclist can still have epics on their own scale. Clearly, Sunday could have been that day for anyone for the Alabama bike racing community. With the heaviest snowfall in a decade having graced central Alabama earlier that morning, a little taste of Thor Hushovd's Norwegian home lay before me. I fully expected to embrace the elements and race the second leg of the GSMR Training Series in Gallant Sunday afternoon, but less freeze-tolerant (and probably wiser) minds cancelled the race Sunday morning. After it stopped snowing around noon, the sun promptly came out and made for a good day to ride, and my chance at an epic experience will have to wait.

Training this week is going well so far. I did a good fartlek run Monday morning plus a 2000m swim that evening. I need to get a lot of schoolwork done, so time management is going to be key. I only got one workout in today, a hard 1 1/2 hr ride over the Ross Bridge loop, because I needed to be able to talk in case Mission to the World called to talk about opportunities next year. But the next entry for that. The graph for today's bike is below. Plan for the rest of the week is to fit swims in tomorrow and Thursday, with rides and runs in the other spots. I might head home Friday depending on how much work I can finish, but will definitely be back to do GSMR race #3 (now #2) that includes the climb up Chandler Mountain.