Ho Ho Ho....What's This?

A new blog entry??

Sorta. First a story from the weekend. Hung out with a friend in Long Beach Friday night, and upon waking up, got an invite to play some flag football with some friends in Huntington. Hopped on the bike, rode south for an hour, and got there. I was pretty late, so had to wait for another guy to show up so we'd have even teams. 15 minutes later another dude came out.

Nice.

This is pretty much the only time of the year where I can do these stuffs. First play...almost intercepted a pass on defense. Merde! So close. Good times. I can actually run pretty fast if i'm into it. I played soccer in the decade before cycling, so some residual fitness resides. Football, however, I hadn't played since '85 at least. 2nd and 3rd plays were uneventful. 4th play...some odd tightness in my back came about. Like a spasm. Was okay to continue. 6th play....I actually heard an audible "snip".......hamstring....gone. DNF.

I'd say 7 of the 12 guys there I didn't know...and imagine...some dude rides his bike out there, half hour late, plays for 2 seconds, and done, injured. What a puss. Woke up the next morning with intense pain through the mid-back area, and very limited use of my left leg. 1600 watttttts! Nope. Not today.

Hi.

That said, my offseason is going remarkably well. I love that kind of stuff. The bike? I've been riding here and there, but nothing structured, just to and from the metro, to work, etc etc. All aboard what is quickly becoming my favorite bike of all time, this guy:

In this photo it has the wuss road tires, but generally i've got old school ksyriums (first-gen) with 42 wide cross tires and sorta theft-proof bolt on skewers. It eats up hollywood roads like nothing else, and often when I lock it up somewhere, I come out to an adoring gang of hipsters checking it out. "Uhh, yeah. That's mine. thanks, thanks." Full Rival 10 with 9 speed D/A cranks. Matching water bottle cage, and the perrier bottle from the photo looks pretty good here as well.

So yes: offseason. In spite of the world around us crumbling apart, my little piece of it is intact and swell. I haven't really taken any forced time off the bike this year. I can't. I need the bike to get to work, to get to the metros, to buy groceries. I don't really drive. That said, this is the first offseason during which I haven't had that weird moody depression that hits right around this time. It's good not to have that. Also, not coincidentally...I don't think i've put on a single pound since that last race. Good stuff. Gonna really tone it down this month (this pulled hamstring may have been a sign) and hit it hard during base....my first base with a powermeter! Really looking forward to doing 20,000 KJ weeks. That's a ways off. 'Till then...I'm focused on work and tripling the gallonage of the pond at my parent's place...

Currently sits at 600 gallons. Aiming for 2000g with better aesthetics...gonna be a daisy. You bet your ass i'm posting photos here.