Excruciation Exam

I've known about the Excruciation Exam for a few years now, but didn't expect to do it.  Then, a few months ago Devin told me I should give it a go because he and a few of my other AMCT friends would be out there.

Nothing more came of it until a few weeks ago, when Devin told me he thought I could break the course record.  Oh, Devin, you certainly know how to push my buttons....  He enlisted the help of Patty B in a coordinated G-Chat assault of coercion, and I conceded to ask my coach about it.

I thought it would take more convincing to get the go-ahead for an endurance mountain bike race in the middle of my base training period.  Here is our conversation on the topic:

me: a couple of my college friends are pushing me to race the excruciation exam on the 7th
David: do it!


With that settled, I just needed a bike that would work.  I had serious doubts about the ability of my ghetto mountain bike to withstand a 5 hour race, and I feared destroying my hands and my chances of winning by trying to do the race on my 'cross bike.  Patty B came through, offering up his full-suspension 26'er.  The size was close enough.


I arrived at the race site at 6am after an hour+ in foggy conditions, having awoken in College Station just a couple hours earlier.  I was force-feeding myself the breakfast burritos I had made the night before, trying to get as many calories in the bank as I could.  I don't normally have breakfast for another 2 hours, and didn't get as much down as I would have liked.


I registered, got my number, and began preparing my food and bottles for the race.  The race was set to start at 7:30, it was now 6:45, and I had yet to see the bike I would be racing.  Finally I set about trying to find Patty in the pre-dawn darkness, and was relieved to hear him shout my name.  He pointed me in the general direction of his car, and I set off to meet my partner for the next several hours.


The bike was a Kona Hei-Hei set up as well as anyone could have asked.  He had put brand new disc brakes on just days before, which were as yet untested.  I measured out the saddle height and setback with a rudimentary string with dots marked on it, and called it good enough for government work.


I returned from my morning visit to the loo, put on my kit, and stuffed my pockets with food.  It was now 5 minutes until the pre-race meeting.  I checked the tire pressure.  The tires had pressure, so I called it good.  I got on the bike, rode it a quarter mile to the staging area, and put it down.


The race director told us the rules of the race and how the checkpoints would work, during which time Devin, Patrick, and Matt made fun of my socks and pasty legs.


The start would be a Le Mans start, which means that every racer starts on foot and runs a couple hundred yards to their bike.  I made sure to put mine right at the edge of the road, ready for a quick getaway.  They ushered us to the start line.  You've gotta play the game to win, so I slowly sauntered over to ensure I was one of the last to arrive, ensuring my front row start.


The race is unlike anything I've done before.  After the run to the bikes, we would do a lap of Bluff Creek Ranch in Warda, then race 30 miles over roads of varying condition to Rocky Hill Ranch, where we would race a full lap before racing back to Warda for one final mile of singletrack.


The gun sounded, and I ran as quickly as I could while trying to hold the bottle and food in my pockets.  I just had to make sure to get on the bike quickly.  With a field this big, the holeshot heading for the singletrack is one of the most decisive ever.


I was about the 5th person to the bikes, and quickly got going.  There were just a few ahead of me, and the singletrack would be starting in a short half-mile.  So, for the first time in 2012, I turned the engine room to Full Steam Ahead.  All cylinders were banging and it. felt. awesome.


I slotted into second wheel.  I had started without my sunglasses on because of the heavy fog.  Now I was getting mud and cowpies slung onto my face and couldn't see, so I put the sunglasses on.  They were promptly covered in dirt and fog and I could see even less, and while I took them off again I was passed by a couple riders just getting into the trail.


Now would be a good time to say that--aside from the short two-hour ride at my home trail two weeks earlier--I have not been mountain biking since December 2010.  And I had just dived into singletrack following a handful of professional mountain bikers.  I would be making a large withdrawal from the good ol' talent account in this race.


A lead group of 6 was slowly pulling away from the rest of the field.  As we popped out into open field, another group of 6 started to catch us, at which point Payson McElveen moved to the front to string it back out again.  If there was going to be a split in our lead group, I was determined to be the one to cause it, so I moved into third wheel.


As I dove down Gas Pass at full speed in pursuit of Payson, on a borrowed bike, I imagine my face looked like this:





We finished our lap of Warda in about half an hour and popped out onto the road with a group of 6: Payson, Rick Wetherald, Scott Henry, Nathan Winkleman, David Hanes, and me.  Out of sight, out of mind always applies to breakaways, so we floored it for a few miles to establish a solid lead, then settled in for the hour's ride over to Rocky Hill.


I was eating on the ride over, making sure I wouldn't run out of energy later.  As it turns out, I should have been stuffing my face--but more on that later.


The first checkpoint went without incident--the volunteers put a colored ziptie on your handlbars, with a different color for each checkpoint.


We hurried through the checkpoint entering Rocky Hill, and everyone took off on their own.  David stopped to fix his slow leak in his back tire.  I was second out of the checkpoint, a few seconds behind Scott Henry.  I was soon passed by Wink, and was quickly in a sandwich between Wink and Payson.  This is great,  I thought,  just stay with these guys and you'll be able to follow great lines all day long.  You'll be fine.


 Not thirty seconds later, on the roller-coaster downhill right at the start of the trail, I was thrown off balance from the changes in the trail since I last rode it in the fall of 2010.  Payson complemented my nice save.  But I could only do it once.  The next turn, I ran out of talent, ended up too far outside and was met by a sizeable log in the ditch that stopped me too quickly.  I tumbled hard, just hoping that I and the bike would come out fine, and that Payson wouldn't run over the both of us.  As I was rolling, I began looking for the bike and--no joke--reached up and grabbed the frame by the downtube just before it came crashing into my head.  I set the bike down as Payson skirted by and inquired of my health.  Reassured that I was fine, he went on.


I put my bottles back in the cages as quickly as I could and began chasing Rick, who had just passed me.  I passed Rick in an effort to catch the group of 3 just 30 seconds ahead.  I settled into the fastest pace I could manage and set to work.


An hour and a half later, we finished the 17 miles at Rock Hill.  Rick and I had caught Wink and were only 1.5 minutes behind Payson and Scott as we began the final segment of the race.  I was running through tactical situations in my mind over how I could win, but was worried about how soon the bonk might be coming.  I had been able to keep up with the pros in the trail, but it had taken its toll.  I wasn't as smooth as them, so I was burning more energy to go the same speed.  Every faculty was focused on taking the best and fastest line, and in those 1.5 hours I had only managed to suck down a bottle of gatorade and a couple of goos.  My careful eating plan had been thrown off by the trail, and now I was in a hole that would be tough to dig out of. My stomach was upset from all the sugar without any solid food, but only sugar would hit fast enough to get me back on track.  So I was stuck.


The three of us began slowly closing the gap to Payson and Scott.  With less than 10 miles left, we were about a minute behind as we hit the final checkpoint.  I was fading fast.  Rather than stopping for the zipties, we grabbed them on the run.  These zipties were the smallest yet, and my clumsy gloved hands carefully tied it around the bar.  Sure that it was fine, I let go--and to my horror, it flipped open and dropped in slow motion to the ground.


NOOOOOOOOOOOO!  I had no choice, I had to turn around for it.  I quickly picked it up, but now had to close a 20 second gap to Rick and Wink.  I did it, but that was the final match in my book.


Just a few miles later, Rick surged up a hill and neither I nor Wink had anything left.  We trudged along for the final few miles together.  As we entered the final segment of trail, he took the lead from me, which is what I wanted.  I had just enough left for one final kick.  As we popped out into the field, Wink began to prepare for the sprint. He kicked as we got onto the road heading towards the barn, with only 200 meters left in the race.  I punched it and forced my way up the inside, just barely managing to keep him from shutting the door on me as we came flying through the barn.  We came out of the barn side by side, but of the two of us only I could hold it the last 50 meters for the hard-earned 4th place.


Scott had outsprinted Payson for first, Rick came in solo about a minute behind for third, and Wink and I were a minute behind him.  The five of us had blitzed the course record by a solid 15 minutes as I understand it, finishing in 4.5 hours.  We were 16 minutes ahead of 6th place.


It's always frustrating to lose a race that you know you could have won--especially when all I needed was some more food--but that's what keeps us coming back for more.  The others simply did better than me that day, and all I can do is look forward to next year's edition and take another crack at it.

Time flies when you're not in school

This was my first off-season that didn't involve catching up with school.  It was weird.

To pass the time, I've been involving myself with other things:

I posted a while back about our garden.  We had a pretty good harvest this year, and went out to pull everything in that we could before the first frost hit us.  I realize that not all of these pictures are necessary, I'm just trying to make Stephanie jealous because she has yet to mail me any of the sweets she bakes, or even blog about that time I met her and Devin in Longmont for an afternoon of entertainment.

our mountain of swiss chard

eggplant, tomatoes, broccoli

potatoes, jalapenos, anaheim chiles

zucchini log, normal zucchini, etc.

more punkins.  Did you know they're green before they're orange?  I learned that this year...

I'd include a pic of our fantastic corn, but we never got any because of the blasted squirrels.  Don't get me started on squirrels.  Gizmo hates 'em, too. Speaking of, today Gizmo got one treed up a telephone pole.  He kept the squirrel up there while I heaved snowballs at it for 15 minutes.  Despite hitting it twice, the furry monster wouldn't come down!

We didn't carve the pumpkins up, so now we've just got a ton of pumpkin puree to cook with.  Pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, pumpkin pancakes, and I made pumpkin scones.

Nevermind that they look like globs of orangish mud, they taste great.  I gave up on trying to make them pretty when I realized that the dough is clingier than Flick's tongue to a frozen flagpole (uh-oh, A Christmas Story analogy).

Ian made some pot-pie filling out of thanksgiving turkey leftovers, and this was my creation.

1.7 lbs of homemade bliss.  Suck it, Swanson.

To finish off what will be the last season of the Rio Grande Elite team, we got everyone together a week before Halloween for 9 holes at the local golf course.  Knowing that we'd be terrible, we all wanted to at least look the part.  So we all grew mustaches and hit the thrift stores.  When all you have is free time, it's easy to get carried away....  I even went to buy some used clubs, and where better to put them than a $5 genuine replica snakeskin golf bag with a pocketful of empties?

It's a good thing I can ride a bike fast, because I have no future in golf.  My score for 9 holes would have been decent for 18.  But I did look schnazzy in my used clothing and artificially-enhanced mustache.

Our mini-group of poseurs included Scott and Chris.  Isn't that a sweet golf bag?

Team Rio Grande 2011, in public, before Halloween.

I was able to go home for Thanksgiving, thanks to Ian and Gizmo.  All I had to do was keep Gizmo for the week with me at my parents' place.  As a bonus, the weather was supposed to be awesome--mid 60's and sunny.  Good thing, too, my legs are starting to look pretty pasty.

I was going to include a pic of my tanlines here, but then you'd see my legs and get jealous, and I don't want to seem like I'm bragging..

But wouldn't you know it, the weather psyched us out--Fort Collins suddenly became 60's and sunny for the length of our trip.  My first ride in McKinney was 47 degrees for 3.5 hours in fog with 200m visibility.  I got gypped. The remaining rides were also overcast and cold...so much for my tan-line tune-up.

I did, however, get to see my family.  My, what a difference a year makes.  A year ago, my dad was losing weight very quickly because the radiation to shrink his lung tumor had affected his ability to eat.  He had to take a pill 45 minutes before eating, to give him 30 minutes of slightly less painful time to eat.  This year he had no trouble stuffing his face like the rest of us.  Then we all sat around to watch the heartbraking loss of the Aggies to that team in Austin.

The day after that fateful game, Shane came back to McKinney and we got to work building up my new old mountain bike.  Anyone that knows Lee will recognize the frame....  Since my fancy schmancy Epic Marathon is busted, we transferred all the components over (but not without a healthy dose of Aggie engineering to make some stuff work right...).

To top it off, the only thing wrong with my position on the bike is that the reach is an inch or so too short--but that I can live with.

A while back, the mailman delivered this bike to me so that I can train on it through the winter and work towards my goal of being a time trial monster next season:

Between the TT, cross, and mtn bike additions to the stable, I've got bikes coming out the wazoo.  I'll be selling a couple this winter, because Shane certainly doesn't need a backup backup road bike or a ghetto backup TT bike....

Speaking of additions to stables, I got to name a horse.  It's not my horse, though.

Perhaps I should back up a bit.

Way back in 5th grade-ish, my family went to Disney World and on a Disney cruise.  There were moments where we had a lot of fun, but on the whole Shane and I were not overwhelmed by the magical place.  If you really want to get a rise from your parents, look up at them in the shadow of the Epcot Center and say two simple words: "I'm bored."

So then where could we possibly go for vacation? On the recommendation of our pastor at the time, we went to Wind River Ranch.  It's a Christian Family Ranch nestled at 9000 feet between Long's Peak and the Twin Sisters near Estes Park.  Every family gets their own cabin.  There's no internet, and no cell service. The only certain activities that are on the schedule are mealtimes and a nightly "fireside" sermon, as well as other events like the Hootenanny, square dancing, or grill-outs. Aside from that, every day was yours to do as you wish--whether that be trail riding on horses, rock climbing, hiking, etc.

The summer of the visors; my favorite shirt ever (which I'd still be wearing if my mom hadn't  retired it); our view from our cabin

Unlike the Disney kids club or whatever they called it, which sucked royally, the teen/pre-teen groups at WRR were fun, with fun people.  This was around the same time that Shane and I fought a lot at home, but at WRR we were first discovering just how awesome we were as a pair.  Over the multiple years that we went, I think Shane and I must have played 120--no, 173 rounds of disc golf (Shane, please tell me you got that reference).

Aside from all the fun we had, WRR is a truly amazing place.  It's hard not to be overwhelmed having Bible study around a campfire on a clear night looking across at Long's Peak.  If, for some reason, my cycling career is abruptly ended for whatever reason, I'm moving there and becoming a counselor/wrangler/cook/whatever.  Seriously.  I stopped by a couple of times on rides this summer, and both times was flooded with memories.

Well, WRR needed some new horses recently, and as much as WRR has given to our family, my parents wanted to help make that happen.  As a thank-you, we were given the naming rights of the horses.  One was named Haga, in honor of my dad's faithful battle against cancer.  My mom named one Angel in memory of our sweet dog.  Shane chose Honey[duke], and I named the last Tonto.  I got a pic of Tonto in an email last week, and my first thought (at 8am, still laying in bed) was, "Tonto is so cool!"

If I had my way, next August will play out like this:  My team rightfully gets into the USA Pro Cycling Challenge (let's be real, it's the Tour of Colorado), and I'm selected to race it.  I crush the final stage time trial in Denver on my birthday.  My parents and Shane are there to witness it.  During the recovery week that follows, they all stay in town and we go ride the horses at WRR.  Deal?  I thought so.

I tried 'cross. I wasn't very good.

After wrapping up the season in style at the Univest Grand Prix way back in mid-september, I flew back to Fort Collins and kicked off my first off-season as a non-student.  I went eleven days without touching a bike.  While most of my time was spent sleeping or eating, I did at least attempt to keep from getting fat.

With the fantastic weather, I took Gizmo hiking a couple of times.  By the end of the 3-hour hikes (which actually included a fair bit of trail running) I wanted to collapse and just lay there in the dirt contemplating my decision to be a pro in a low-impact sport.  My hips, knees, and ankles hated me and would hurt for days. I hurt as much from a hike as I did the day after US Pro Crit.... Gizmo seemed unaware of the agony I was in, as he ran even faster downhill.

I've also been running a bit.  Yeah, I'm even less excited about that than it seems.  Although, it turns out running is much more enjoyable less miserable when you have a running companion that is well heeled and running shoes that fit properly.  Who knew?  I can now run 3 miles without my joints complaining, so I guess that's good.

When it came time to start riding bikes again--just so I wouldn't forget how--I was in a pickle.  I certainly didn't want to ride on the road, because I'd just burn out.  My mountain-bike was broken and in Texas. The Colorado cyclocross season was in full swing, and here it's even bigger than road racing.  Only, I didn't have a bike for it.  Ah, sponsors.... Orbea and KBS-OH hooked me up with a bike that's better than I am.



For the uninformed, cyclocross is a special sport.  Basically, it's a road bike that's been modified for tire clearance and has a pair of knobby tires.  Then you race around in a field with various obstacles that force you to get off and run or to have some good bike skillz.  And as a bonus, half of the races are muddy slop-fests.

At least I'd be easing into this new sport, though, right?  Well, not really.  My first race would be the US Gran Prix in Fort Collins, an event that brings the top 'cross racers from the around the country and some international racers as well.  And because my road license says 'PRO', I get to race with the big boys.  So I needed some practice.  I built a set of barriers to work on my dismount and remount skills and it didn't go so hot.  Here are my tips if you ever find yourself in such a position (learned by yours truly in 15 minutes):

1)  Drive to the park where you will be practicing.  Although your homemade barriers may not seem that heavy now, they will be a mile down the road.

2) Don't rush the dismount when you are trying to pick up the pace through the barriers, or you might drive the pedal into the back of your right calf while running, giving you a nice bruise and launching the bike into the air out of your control.  Which brings me to 3).

3) Don't practice anywhere near the sidewalk, because when 2) happens, it might land on the sidewalk and bend your 5 minute old derailleur hanger.  Luckily it was minor and easily bent back later.

4) Finish the tubeless conversion on BOTH wheels first, because regardless how soft and fluffy the grass looks, there are evil thorns and you will flat the one without sealant.  Which brings me to 5).

5)  If you insist on practicing without sealant and did not do 1), make sure to have your cell with you to call your roommate so you don't have to walk a bike and 2 barriers all the way home in your cycling shoes when 4) happens.

Consider yourself learned.

Disclaimer:  To the photographers whose photos I've stolen, I apologize.  I don't have money to buy photos, so please accept my advertising on your behalf.  If this is not satisfactory, let me know and I'll remove them.

The races went about as expected.... I completed half the race before getting pulled in the nearly-freezing drizzly mud pit with the wrong tires.  I had fun, though, and even made a dollar!  And I only crashed twice!  The second one was an awesome crash, I hooked a fencepost and slid sideways for 30 feet down the hill in the mud.

Pausing to stuff my hard-earned dollar down my jersey

The aftermath

My skills slowly got better as I remembered my BMX and MTB heritage, but my legs had left me long ago for the season and I was intent on not training.  The good news is that Ian was in the same boat and we started every race together at the back, so every race became a battle between the two of us.  I ended up winning the series 3-2, so I'll proudly hang my hat on that one.

To sharpen my skills, I did a practice race here in Fort Collins.  The gracious host thought we could make use of his land, so a short series was held in his big back yard.  Shane, we're doing this someday when we have enough land between our neighboring houses to do it.  But ours will also include dirt jumps and such.

And here's video of us racing on it (I'm wearing Ian's helmet cam):

And here's a 20 minute video from another race. Again, I'm wearing the helmet cam, and Ian crashed in front of me twice.  Lotta fun!

http://contour.com/stories/mens-open-cyclocross-interlocken

And here's more random pics of me being a mediocre P/1/2 'cross racer:

incognito at an ACA race...muahahaha

those stairs sucked something aweful!

Who knows, maybe next year I'll actually have some fitness left over when 'cross season rolls around?

This one's about a piano and a song

I gave a brief history of me and the piano way back when, but I figure now's a good time to give the full version.

Music runs in my mom's family.  My Granddad was one of only 2 trumpeters (out of many many many that auditioned) to make the Army band and travel the world playing music instead of fighting.  He could play the trumpet like nobody I'd ever heard, and played big band jazz in the Sounds of Music Orchestra well into his 60's. My Grandma majored in music education in school with the piano as her instrument of choice. Her music repertoire could eat mine for dinner and still have room for dessert.  They had 3 kids that grew up with music.  My Uncle Brett was an accomplished trumpeter in high school; my mom plays the piano, flute, and handbells (although not at the same time...that's an act I'd like to see); my Uncle Barrick is skilled on many instruments and has made a successful career out of music--he has arranged music for Barry Manilow, Whitney Houston, Garth Brooks, and others that have seen their share of hit music charts (sorry Uncle Bear, but I had to name drop at least a little).

So there's a bit of a pedigree in regards to music.  When my mom encouraged me to take piano lessons, I did as any kid would do.  I resisted.  I felt like playing piano was girly, so if she could find a male teacher I'd start.  Finally, I caved in when she found a teacher I liked.  Ben directed the flute choir my mom played in at church, and I thought he'd be okay.

Naturally, we got started with the color-sequenced music books.  I guess music is like karate--you can't have numbered books or belts, apparently...it's gotta be by color.  Although there is slightly less kicking, punching, and screaming in piano lessons.  In fact, the book/belt similarity is where the analogy ends.

Back to music.

I was trudging through the first book just a couple of weeks into lessons. I was learning to read music and had just started playing with two hands at once.  Then my mom decided to play a prank on Ben at the next lesson--now there's an extracurricular activity I can support.  She had the sheet music to the Pink Panther theme song.  It looks more intimidating than it really is, if you can handle the jazzy rhythm of the right hand.  She set to work teaching me the song without reading the music.  I knew how it was supposed to sound, so I picked it up quickly.

I think you know where this is going.

At the next lesson, I sat down, plopped the Pink Panther music on the stand, and started playing.  If Ben's jaw hadn't been on the floor, he may have noticed that my occasional glances towards the music were only for show.

I was 11 when I started lessons with Ben

As it turns out, if you pull something like that off--regardless of whether you can really read the music--you get to skip ahead in the color progression.  It wasn't long before I was into real music. After a year or so of lessons, Ben left for Spain for missions work.  I started taking lessons from Vicki soon thereafter.

Vicki was just an interim teacher until either Ben came back or I found another teacher I liked more. The lessons stopped for a couple weeks for Christmas break; we'd resume after Christmas.  It was during this time that I was playing "Bumble Boogie" after church on the grand piano.  The music director asked if I had any Christmas music I could play in the Keyboard Christmas concert a week later.  As it turns out, I did not. At home, my mom went hunting through music and found a jazzy rendition of Deck the Halls.  In six days, I learned it, memorized it, auditioned it, and played it with only a single wrong note in front of 1200 people.

My first lesson back, Vicki asked how I enjoyed the Christmas break.  That was a fun game of catch-up.

After about a year with Vicki, we found Jim Harmon through a friend of a friend. He'd played piano as an opening act for both Liberace and the Johnny Carson show.  So I guess he'd be alright.

One of the first songs I learned with Mr. Harmon was the Hungarian Rhapsody #2 by Franz Liszt.  Many people recognize it as the concert piece played by Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry on their respective shows. It was a fun song to play, especially when imagining the cartoon playing along.  When I perfected the piece, Mr. Harmon made an off-hand comment that if he showed me the real Hungarian Rhapsody #2, I'd die.  When asked what he meant, he said, "what you learned is the simplified version" and left it at that.

Over the next several years, Mr. Harmon continued to challenge me with tougher and tougher pieces.  After establishing myself in church, I began playing more and more preludes and offertories there.  To date, I'd guess that I've played a few dozen times in church (keep in mind we're talking about a Baptist church in Texas--it's not a little church).  To mix it up, I started playing duets with my mom.  Piano-flute duets.  2-piano duets.  1-piano-4-hands duets.  Yeah, we were pretty much awesome.

I think this was the last duet we learned....

I tried a couple of times to get into a young pianist competition but wasn't quite good enough to make the cut from auditions.  I just never had the discipline to practice as much as was necessary to perfect my pieces.

At one of Mr. Harmon's recitals during my sophomore or junior year of high school, one of his younger students played the Hungarian Rhapsody #2 that I had learned years earlier.  I had forgotten all about it by that point.  But now it was on the forefront of my mind, and I wanted to play it.  How hard could it be?

Mr. Harmon still thought it would be too difficult for me.  He even had doubts about his ability to teach it.  But I persisted; in the 6 years I'd been taking lessons, I'd only ever picked out one other song on my own.  All others had been suggested by others.  Some I didn't want to learn at first, but now I love to play them years later.  The only song I had ever put on the radio and said "I want to learn this" was Mozart's Turkish March years earlier with Vicki.  I was determined to learn Hungarian Rhapsody; put the dadgum music in front of me!

Finally, Mr. Harmon gave me the music as a present.  He handed me the music book.  As I was forming the question of which page it started on, I had the sickening realization that the piece was the whole book.  Ya'll, that music was as much a gift as is a pipe-bomb filled with money.  You'll get your money, but first it's gonna make a mess of your face.  The Hungarian Rhapsody #2 is 24 pages of finger-mangling arm-burning music.  It may have saved ink to print the music in inverse color; cover the page in black except for where the notes go.

In summary, I was having second thoughts.

Nevertheless, we got to work with Mr. Harmon's special technique of learning music in reverse.  No, not playing it backwards.  Learning from back to front!  Most music starts with some melody and then adds to it as the piece goes on; the end of the song is just a harder version of the beginning.  So by learning the end first (although it is a bit more difficult this way, to be honest), you're learning the beginning as well and your performances will get stronger as they near the end. Ta da!

To say I had underestimated this piece would be an serious understatement; I nearly quit the piano altogether because of it.  It took 2 full years to learn this song and get it in a condition worthy of performance.  There were periods of multiple months that I would get so discouraged trying to play it that I would go weeks at a time practicing 30 minutes or less in a day.  Sometimes I would forego practicing altogether. My mom threatened to stop paying for lessons.

Once I finally got it "learned", Mr. Harmon and I went in for a lesson with his teacher--oh, snap!--to see what insight he could offer for tackling this musical beast.

For your enjoyment (although I must say (for my own pride) that the cartoon is a simplified and shortened version of the full version):

When I started college, I stopped lessons.  For the past 5 years, I've taken pretty much every opportunity to play a piano so that I could brush up and keep my repertoire somewhat fresh.  Thankfully I can remember all of my songs well so the cobwebs don't take too long to clear.  But I definitely got tired of "re-learning" my favorite songs every few months.

Fast forward to this year, when Ian offered to buy me a piano in exchange for maintaining the lawn and garden while he was out of the country.  Well, let's see...I accept.

Fast forward to last week, when I delivered a tv from a craigslist sale to a sweet old woman.  She had a baby grand in her living room that we got to talking about, and when I said I was in the market for a piano, she showed me an upright grand in the other room.  I played it, and liked it.  How much, though...?  $100.

Well, let's see...sold.

Now, then, moving it. In this corner, weighing in at an estimated 700 pounds, standing a whopping 54" high, the 101-year-old (not kidding) Cable-Nelson upright grand! In the opposing corner, Chad and his roadie friends whose combined weight is barely half that of the piano!

Turn's out it's not that difficult with the right tools, which can be rented for a scant $60.  We had it moved in an hour.

But seriously, I'm so happy to have a piano.  Not that my life is all that stressful, but bruising your fingers on real ivory (sorry elephants, but you make some pretty keys) is a lot of fun.

Here she is:

Oh, and it has a feature that I very much enjoy:

That's right, it's a lid-propper-thingamajig to MAKE IT LOUDER! My piano goes up to 11, fer realz.

And now I can resume work on my latest endeavor.  I currently can play from the 2:30 mark on, although admittedly not as well as Rubinstein....

For the aspiring bike racers out there....

While I'm working on a new post about everything I've been doing in the last 2 months, this is what I'm thinking about right now: money.

Since the start of the year, I've been 100% committed to racing bikes.  I waffled a bit on whether I should get a job--and even tried a bit--but in the end I know that not having a job outside of racing helped my racing immensely.  Recovery is every bit as important as the training, so being able to just sleep for 3 days after a stage-race trip, and getting 9 hours of sleep nightly, has made a huge impact on my racing.  In school, I was ecstatic to get 6-7 hours of sleep after a weekend of racing, and my "off" days usually included 2 hurried trips to and from campus on my fixie.  So yeah, proper rest has made a huge difference in my ability to stay on form.

But rest ain't cheap.

Since I moved to Colorado, I've been logging all of my expenses, whether cash or otherwise, so that I can track expenditures on various items.  Now is a great time to do this breakdown, as today marks 8 months that I've been living here.  35 weeks.

So here it is, in descending order:

Rent.  I moved into a great location for a great price. $3200

Food.  Gotta eat! My diet has been 80-85% good for you food, 15-20% good for my wallet food. $2800.  That's about $350/mo, or about $80 per week.  This would be a bit lower, but you've gotta eat out a lot on race trips.  It's also consistent with food costs at school, which were about $75/week.

Gas. $1150.  2/3 of that is from my 2 trips home for races and to see friends and family.  The rest is driving to/from local races.  Aside from going home or to races, I've driven maybe 400 miles in the last 8 months.  My truck spends a lot of time not moving, and it's great.

Bike stuff. I'm so glad I've reached the point in racing where I don't have to buy everything myself.  Excluding the $1500 for my time trial bike that carried me to 2 top-10's in NRC TT's and a top-10 at nationals, and several other smaller wins, I've only spent $200 on bike stuff, and that's mostly chamois cream. Also, I've spent $400 on entry fees to races that aren't official "team" races.

Entertainment. I don't go out a lot, because I can't afford to.  Over 8 months, I've spent $211 on movies/music/bowling/golf/etc.  And half of that was birthday money from my parents.  Books are much cheaper than movies, by the way.

Now, then, how about income?

I've been selling a lot of my stuff on ebay--predominantly sunglasses and helmets that I don't use any more.  I've also been selling a lot of stuff for friends on ebay for commission.  Also, I continue to make money off of the job I once had over 2 years ago, thanks to income tax returns, profit-sharing, and vacation time cash-outs....

All those combined account for about 40% of my income this year.  The rest is race winnings.  All said and done, this year I made about $4000.  And I didn't start the year with a ton of money in the bank.

It doesn't take much math to figure out that I couldn't have survived this year--or at least been nearly as successful at it--without the support of my parents.  And thanks to them, next year I'll be paid to race my bike; next year's financial wrap-up will be much more cheerful!

So, to all the aspiring bike racers out there, be prepared to live frugally and still run out of money.  But as I've told everyone this year, there's no more enjoyable way to slowly run out of money than to do it racing your bike around the country and [next year] the world.

Me and my faint heart

I moved to Colorado several months ago, long story short, for the simple purpose of going pro.  Now that I've made it, in an ironic twist that only life can deliver, I can't race in Colorado (generally speaking).  How does that work?  Well, the cycling association of Colorado is called ACA.  The national governing body of cycling is USACycling (USAC for short).

Many years ago, ACA separated from USAC, choosing to be independent and run their own show.  Now, in an effort to pull ACA back under their umbrella, USAC has begun enforcing a rule that says professionals cannot race in unsanctioned races.  Since ACA is not a Local Association under USAC, their races are technically unsanctioned, meaning that pros can't do them.  Promoters can permit a race under USAC if they choose (and therefore bring pros to the race), but everyone here has an ACA license.

There are a few races left on the calendar that I need to stay fit for.  As much as I enjoy my regular 140 mile epic rides, I was looking for any races I could do to keep my top-end fitness up (it's the point in the season where I really struggle to push myself on training rides as hard as a race can).  There was an awesome stage race just a couple hours away that I couldn't do.  I had to widen the search area.

I chose the Tour of Austin last weekend--good money, tough racing, a well-run event, and my family and friends are there.  It was 3 crits over Labor Day weekend, and if I got there on Thursday I could race the Driveway weekly series as well.

Fort Collins to Austin is a 16.5 hour drive with my marathon driving methodology: only stop when the truck needs gas.  Because I had stuff going on here Wednesday, but wanted to be in Austin by early evening, I devised a plan.  I would pack up Wednesday night, sleep for a few hours, then hit the road at midnight.

The best laid plans....  I had been running around for hours getting everything ready for the trip and was so excited about going home that I got into bed an hour later than planned.  And I couldn't fall asleep.

Okay, if you fall asleep now you can get 2 hours of sleep before you have to get up.


Okay, if you fall asleep now, you can still get one and a half hours of sleep.


Seriously, go to sleep.  Just an hour and fifteen left.


Dude. Seriously. 45 minutes.


20 minutes?! Well that didn't go as planned.


So I got out of bed, put my clothes back on, and hit the road at 11:38 pm (this is important because I nerdily calculate my average trip speed every 30 minutes).

The first few hours weren't bad.  Around 4 am I cracked open the Monster.

I made it through all of college without relying on coffee, energy drinks, or even sodas.  I hardly ever take in caffeine, so when I do I get really, really, hopped up.  So all I had to do was sip on the Monster regularly and I was wired.

As I rolled into Amarillo at 8am, I was finally starting to feel the fatigue of the previous day's yard work and the lack of sleep.  I pulled into the back of a gas station and napped for 15 minutes.  And I bought another, bigger, Monster.

Back on the road, re-energized, I had talk radio to keep me company and knocked out the rest of the drive without problems.  Strangely, I didn't feel tired anymore.

I finally made it through Austin's rush hour, met up with broski, and we headed to the evening's race.  I had not had more than 15 minutes sleep in the last 32 hours, had 24oz of Monster coursing through my veins, it was nearly 100 degrees, and I had just finished a 17 hour drive.  Boogity boogity boogity, let's go racing?

It was so bizarre.  My legs were sluggish, but strong.  My heart was in a serious tizzy, going through the roof at the slightest effort.  At the same time, I was down from altitude and could recover in half a second.  So the whole race consisted of a hard effort, a fantastic explosion, and half a lap later was ready to go again.

I left my truck in Austin and Shane drove me back to Aggieland, where I said hello to Mr. Lee (and Elizabeth) and proceeded to sleep for 14 hours.  After a fun day of hanging with broseph and co. (and a bonus nap), Shane and I were headed back to Austin.

A decent field turned out for the first race of the weekend.  I and Dahlheim from Bissell were the only pros in the race--the main opponent would be the dozen blue and white riders from Elbowz, comprising 20% of the field.  On the first lap, I let the initial break go thinking that it couldn't possibly stay away the whole race.  Dahlheim and I attacked many times, but the course wasn't hard enough to really break it up and we had underestimated the sheer number of Elbowz riders.  Every move we made was shut down immediately, and there were still a handful of blue guys in reserve to counter our moves.

So that race didn't go well.  At the end of the race I didn't care anymore, so I led Shane out the last half-lap.  He got 2nd in the field sprint, finishing 10th.

Sunday would be a much better day.  A cold front was blowing in on a tougher course.  The temps were down a little (only low 90's!), and the very strong winds would certainly blow the race up--this swings the odds much more in my favor. I was still refining my heat-management strategy.  I was wearing a mesh skinsuit that breathed like you couldn't believe.  I had 2 polar bottles crammed with ice water.  I had a 2lb ice sock on my back, and poured a half gallon of water on myself before the start.

The racing started in earnest.  Everyone knew that the winds would destroy the field.  Elbowz assembled at the front to echelon. Carlos Vargas, me, and Ian Dille attacked to put pressure on them and stayed away for a bit over a lap.  The field was already splitting up just minutes in.  We were caught the next go around, and I fought for position by riding on the upwind side of the echelon.

Not in any difficulty when the first attack was brought back

I was pretty much smiling, knowing that this was my race.  I felt fantastic and the conditions were right.

The next lap around, Elbowz crushed the pace in the gutter on the penultimate straight on the course.  We were getting slammed by a brutal crosswind and they were doing nearly 30mph.  I dove into the last corner of the lap, which was a tiny bit off-camber.  I was going a little bit faster than the leaders, as I had just sprinted to close a gap.  I tucked low and railed the corner, and then the gust of wind hit me hard from the side.  The wind got underneath me and just blew my front wheel away.

Just that quickly, I was on the ground.  Apparently I have crashed enough in my life doing bmx and mountain biking that I've trained myself well:  I don't like sliding.  As soon as I hit the ground, I pushed myself up so that I could tumble instead of slide, and did some crazy judo apparently to keep my head off the ground (my helmet hasn't a scratch on it).

Did not hit my head....

Popped up, looking for my bike

I was immediately up and back on the bike, but just as quickly decided I was not getting back in the race.  I had just reopened all of my wounds from US Pro Crit and added more, and frankly I was tired of falling off my bike, especially after having done nothing wrong.

I rolled to the pit, found the medics, and sat on the back of their cart as they tended my wounds.  Nothing bad.  I was missing a good chunk of skin from my knee, scraped off a bit of skin on my calf, and had a nice huge strawberry on my left hip where my old scabs used to be.  I had also ripped open the tip of my left middle finger and pulled my right thumbnail up a little.

The medics cleaned the big stuff first--my elbow, hip, and knee.  Then he non-chalantly asked if I wanted him to clip the flap of skin off my finger.

Hold that thought, we're going on a short detour.

I used to never have trouble with my own blood and gore.  I split my forehead wide open in a go-cart accident at my 9th birthday party.  I split my chin open twice, stitches both times.  Somewhere before the second time, though, an innocent flu vaccination in which the nurse apparently got points if the needle came out the other side of my thigh gave me a serious aversion to needles.  Enough so that I nearly passed out getting my chin stitched the second time.  Enough so that I did pass out my freshman year of college getting a flu shot.  Enough so that I nearly passed out getting a blood test earlier this year.

Also somewhere along the line, I developed a debilitating weakness towards finger injuries.  My shins and knees and elbows are covered in scars from my bmx exploits, and none of that ever bothered me.  But hands...I don't handle hands well.  Once when I was a kid, I cut my finger with a box-cutter.  I went to the bathroom and bandaged it up, and came to on the floor.  I once slipped with a small flat-head screwdriver and cut my finger pretty good, had to sit down and focus hard not to pass out.  A couple years ago in my shining moment of idiocy, I botched a shoe adjustment and got my hand stuck in my front wheel, darn near taking my pinky off.  After running to get help, I promptly passed out.

So back to Austin last weekend.  The medic innocently asked about the flap of skin on my finger.  Light switch.  I told them I was getting dizzy, and then I remember coming to and being walked to sit inside the medic's cart.  They told me I had passed out--twice--and I nearly started laughing.  I attempted to explain that I'm just a sissy, but they were convinced I was having a heat stroke.  They started packing ice packs under my arms and inside my thighs, and told me an ambulance was on the way.  Oh geez.

They were asking me state-of-mind questions.  I told them I hadn't hit my head (check the helmet), but answered the questions to humor them.  My name is Chad Haga.  I turned 23 last week. I'm in Austin.  Today is Sunday.  There are 10 dimes in a dollar.

I continued explaining to them how unnecessary this all was as they drove me out of the course--that I wasn't having a heat stroke, I simply pass out when I cut my fingers.  I then explained it to the EMTs.  It's not the heat, it's the boo-boo on my finger.

My name is Chad Eric Haga.  Maybe the inclusion of my middle name will convince them I'm fine?
Today's still Sunday, and I'm still in Austin.
I'm now 10 minutes older than the last time I was asked, but still 23.
Still 10 dimes in a dollar, although they're probably not worth as much as the last time as I was asked.

I defiantly walked into the ambulance under my own power.  I answer more questions.  They're concerned about my heart after passing out, so they're going to do an EKG.

"Okay, but you should know that you're going to find a right bundle branch block on there, so you don't get to make a big deal out of that--I know it's there."  Side note: my mom insisted on getting a physical before moving away to race bikes, and in my first physical ever that was found.  An echocardiogram proved that it's of no consequence, just something to be aware of.

Wouldn't you know it, they found a right bundle branch block and were unsettled by it.  Despite my arguing to the contrary , they wanted to take me to the hospital down the road and make sure everything was okay.  Matt Hattaway came along to keep me company.  As they shut the ambulance doors, all I could think was efffff  emmmmm elllll.  If there's a body-posture equivalent of rolling your eyes, I was doing it.

On the ride to the hospital, the EMTs remarked about my vitals.  "Wow, only 47bpm, you're really healthy."

Uh, dude, don't insist on taking me to the hospital to check on my well-being and then compliment how well I am.  I couldn't believe it was that close to resting, considering how worked up I was at the moment.

I was then wheeled in to the hospital on the gurney, where I proceeded to wait nearly an hour for "treatment". This wouldn't have been a problem normally, but remember, they thought I might have been having a heat stroke.  I was covered in ice packs.  I still had ice left in the sock on my neck from the start of the race.  I was still soaking wet with sweat and the water I poured on myself before the race.  They keep hospitals at -12 degrees.  My adrenaline had faded and I was getting pain shooting up my wounds.  Matt went and found some warm blankets to keep me from shivering too hard while we waited.

The hospital did another EKG and found nothing new.  After hearing me tell Hattaway about my history of finger injuries, the nurse said he was going to prick my finger for a blood-sugar test.  "Don't pass out on me," he said. Everyone's a comedian these days, I swear.

After hearing about my near-death experience (we would later "learn" I had hit my head and was carried away on a back board...), Shane found out the truth from friends ("Chad hurt his finger." "Oh.") and came to the hospital after the race ended.  They finally cleaned my wounds and sent me on my way.  Can't wait to see the bill for my finger boo-boo.

Shane had to get back to College Station for school on Monday--it seems most Aggies forget that we never got Labor Day off after we graduate--so I bid him farewell as I got myself cleaned up and headed to Wheeler's for some Aggie football viewing and feel-better ice cream.

The next day, I decided that, although this was a get-back-on-the-horse situation, I was tired of hitting the deck and was concerned about the course for the day.  There had been several crashes already that day on 2 particular corners, and in the P1/2 race there were more.  So I didn't regret the decision to skip the race too much.

Then I went home to see my parents for a couple days.  They immediately put me to work in the yard.  My mom fixed my favorite foods to make me good and fat--apple pizza, waffles, and my favorite strawberry belated birthday cake.

With that, I was on my way back to Colorado, but not without a stop in Amarillo for lunch with the largest Ian in my life.  Although the race portion of my trip was less-than-successful, it certainly felt good to see family and friends again.

Now if only my wounds would finish healing.  I'd really like to sleep on my left side again.

Also, I'd be remiss not to share this.  I'm not certain who's responsible for this, but it's pretty funny.

US Pro Crit

The next post will be a self-deprecating tale of my visit to my home country--err, state.  But first, I'll catch you up on the last race that I did: U.S. Professional Criterium Championships.

The race was in Grand Rapids, MI and was limited to professionals of American nationality, so the field wasn't huge by any standards.  With 58 racers toeing the line, 13 of them wearing the green and gold of Kelly Benefit Strategies, we were ready to go.  Aggressiveness was our tactic of the day; we had the numbers and we intended to use them.  The 80-kilometer race was fast the whole time, but the course was too easy to break the field up and too fast for anything to get away.

As the lap counter dropped below 30-to-go, the storm we'd been seeing on the horizon blew in with some serious rain.  This course had 16 manhole covers, 6 of them in the middle of turns--3 of them in a single turn.  The whole start-finish stretch (including the turns at both ends) was brick.  No, this wasn't a good course for rain.  Everyone had dry-weather tire pressure, so as soon as the ground got wet the crashes started.  I managed to keep my rear wheel beneath me through the turns but the guys ahead of me hit the deck.  I immediately locked up the rear wheel in an attempt to stop short. But me and my stinking balance kept it up as I began to rotate in the skid.  I'd managed to skid my way through 180-degrees of rotation, but still had speed...you can see my problem.  So my efforts to avoid crashing failed, and I simply went into the pile backwards.  Instinctively, I put my arm out.  Sprained wrist, sweet.

While I waited in the pits to get put back in on the next lap, I took the opportunity to let air out of the tires.  It helped...for a little while.  In the meantime, 15 laps had disappeared from the lap counter in an effort to finish before the worst of the storm.  Just a couple laps later, I took a bad line through the last corner (trying to avoid a manhole cover), got on the power a little too early and the back wheel was no longer beneath me.

On rain-slick bricks, you pretty much just slide forever.  That is, until something stops you. All, I could think at the time was curb, CURB, CUUUURRRR--and then I hit it.

I did my best to roll over it, but it still wasn't a pleasant experience.

2 crashes in a race...peace out, I'm done.  Free laps had ended and the storm was just getting worse.  Then a surprise for everyone--they stopped the race with 4 laps to go.  60mph wind gusts were blowing riders and course barriers over, so they sent us back to our cars for 30 minutes while they decided what to do.

In the end, they decided to put 30 laps back on the ticker (so the race would be long enough to actually race) and just restart the race completely.  I was suffering a serious case of nerves.  My wrist was swelling up a little and was only comfortable on the hoods.  So after the restart, it didn't take long to find myself tailgunning the race.  I was opening gaps through every corner, then sprinting all the way to the next corner as the field accordioned, single file the whole way.

I slowly regained confidence in my even lower tire pressures, and with 10 laps to go began to work my way to the front.  With about 7 to go, we finally got the green leadout train formed.  Then on the very next corner, a crash split us up and sent the field into a frenzy.  We never regained control after that, and Cando managed to freelance his sprint and finish 5th.  In the end, some people were more willing to risk collarbones and it paid off.  I finished without any more crashes.

After a delayed flight back to Colorado, I finally crawled into bed a 2am that night.  I needed to get up at 6 to re-assemble my bike to do the road race that starts--literally--in front of my house at 8am.  When the alarm went off, I found that I couldn't get out of bed.  I had bruises and scrapes on both sides of my body and was exhausted.  I went back to sleep.