Happy Halloween!!!

A cabbie picks up a Nun. She gets into the cab, and notices that the VERY handsome cab driver won't stop staring at her. She asks him why he is staring. He replies: "I have a question to ask you but I don't want to offend you." She answers, "My son, you cannot offend me. When you're as old as I am and have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just about everything. I'm sure that there's nothing you could say or ask that I would find offensive."

"Well, I've always had a fantasy to have a nun kiss me."

She responds, "Well, let's see what we can do about that: #1, you have to be single and #2, you must be Catholic." The cab driver is very excited and says, "Yes, I'm single and Catholic!" "OK" the nun says. "Pull into the next alley."

The nun fulfills his fantasy, with a kiss that would make a hooker blush. But when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts crying. "My dear child," says the nun, "why are you crying?" "Forgive me but I've sinned. I lied and I must confess, I'm married and I'm Jewish."

The nun says, "That's OK. My name is Kevin and I'm going to a Halloween party."

Results.. season over.

just got a call from the docs. positive for lyme disease.
i dont want to say im happy about this... but it certainly explains alot.
4 weeks of antibiotics... then they test me again after 6 weeks.

i felt like such a whiny pussy the last month... but damn, i have been soo tired, unable to train.. dropping out of races.. it was getting pretty discouraging/demoralizing/depressing, to say the least.

probably no point in racing... right now, i am only good for 10-15mins at race pace anyways. they said i caught it early & should recover fine.. but basically to take it easy until things clear up.

so if anyone needs me to pit for them... let me know :)

thanks to John Hanson for suggesting i go get tested!! He went thru all this shit last year.

Race Report: Canton (10/28/07)

great course... too bad i was only on it for 1 lap.

Dan Blakeslee's Halloween Show

From Dans show in Manch the other night. For some reason, the video locks up towards the end. I will fix it soon. He is playing again sat night at the stone church in newmarket, nh. along with elsa cross, and hot rod fury.

tests & more tests

after taking a week off the bike, i though i would be all revived & ready to go. but instead, i have that "not so fresh feeling". i rode wed & even an hour at L2 felt hard. I got blood work done for my iron levels, which came back fine. yesterday, i went back to the docs & explained what is going on, and he ordered up more tests including mono, thyroid, and lyme disease (i got bit this summer).

im not sure whats goign on... im constantly tired.. my legs feel like i just rode a century, even if i havent ridden.. i have to force myself to get up & go to work.. i have no desire to ride, or even race. if my training volume wasnt soo low over the past month, i would be inclined to think overtraining... but given the amount of rest i have had, and even time completely off the bike, makes me question that.

anyways. i went out last night & forced myself to do a 4min effort & a 15min effort just to see where my power was.
4min = 404w, 15min = 320w ave. the 20min effort was only up slightly from where i was last year (after taking the summer off)... and given the fact i have put on a few lbs, my w/kg levels are about the same... ugh.

although, i gotta say i felt like shit during the test, and my ave speed for my test was quite a bit lower thant what i normally do my 15min intervals in (same stretch of road, same wind conditions). I always do my 15min threshold intervals in the same location, so its easy to compare (w/o PT) how im doing. and last night was one of my worst intervals. i was hoping after the first 15min, that i would be ready to go & do a couple more. no go. i was toast. completely toast. like "maybe i need to call someone & have them pick me up" toast. for the 45mins back to my house, i averaged 130w. my L2 STARTS at 167. anything over 170w felt tough.

i got home, showered & just layed in bed watching TV... slept for almost 10hrs last night (2hrs late to work..ooops).

im signed up for canton & i love that race. i really want to go.. but im debating if i should & even can. i should find out the rest of my blood work tests today or monday... hopefully that will shed some light.

on the positive side: 30 Rock is the funniest show on TV. :) although, maybe The Office is. "ohhh D"

i love craigslist.

got an extra ipod?

blood work...

you would think after 5 days off the bike, i would be feeling less tired. but i still am just kinda 'blah'. gave my doc a call & he ordered me up a blood test.
gonna check them iron levels. will hear back tomorrow.

dan blakeslee TONIGHT at the Bridge Cafe in Manch.

ouch. my head hurts. bad.

another day off the bike.

while others were getting ready for a weekend of races......

back to plan A

after Glostah, my legs were feeling fine by Tuesday. Rather than give up a week of training, i thought maybe I had enough time to train, then rest the early part of next week. I had alot of personal stuff going on in the next week, so I thought I could figure it all out.

Well, Wed i took the cross bike out and did some 5x5min intervals. yesterday, I hit the road for some threshold intervals. I normally do straight blocks of 15-20mins. but I wanted to mix it up a bit - the first one, i did an "over/under" set. ouch. very ouch. the next set was a 5on/1off. not too much different than a straight block... but allows you to go just a tad over your LT. I started the 3rd block, and just popped.

so, i wasnt as fresh as I had hoped. I think it really is time for a rest.
so here is my sched for the next week:
fri: easy / play video games - maybe download HL2:EP2
sat: easy ride / hang out with allie
sun: allie's 5k / no ride
mon: easy ride
tues: easy ride
wed: no ride / Dan Blakeslee's Halloween show
thurs: back to training!!
fri: easy
sat: open up for canton
sun: kill it at canton

so that plan will give me 5 days of rest. i hope/think that will help add some snap back into the legs ;)

just in case you were wondering... this is what i would look like if i had amy winehouse's body.

this was posted in our office... and a service guy just came in and did a double take... then looked at me. then my co-worker unknowing ran down the stairs singing "its raining men, hallelujah". i have never laughed so hard.

we have lots of fun with putting each other heads on various pictures.
i love photochopping.

haha

i just found this while looking for shows to go to when me & allie head down to NYC next month. we only have a couple days... but hopefully we can find something to go to.

new N95?? Should I?

yes, im a mobile phone dork. I love my N95, however there are 2 things that bug me:
1. battery life
2. lack of free RAM

well, now they have the N95-3 that just came out, and it solves those 2 problems.
hmmm. do i sell mine, shell out an extra $100 and get the new version? or do i just suck it up and deal with these minor problems? hmmm.

recent conversation

after seeing the most beautiful white zank this weekend:

justin: oh man, if i had a ton of money, i would buy 2 of those
allie: aww. one for me, and one for you?
justin: umm. ok, i would buy three of those.

Race Report: Gloucester (10/13-14/07)

Me and allie both took Friday off from work. It was a long week leading up to it, and we figured it would be nice to be "stress free" for a day. well, that part didnt happen. it was alot of running around, errands, packing, banking (yes, banking), and cooking. we left the manch around noon & headed down to the Newton shop to pick up some supplies, before we headed to Zank's pad in gloucester.

Friday night was a blast with mike & the rest of the crew. I wont get into too much of it, as this is a race report. but lets just say that the time off the bike was much more fun :)

Saturday: got there early & did my warmup... lined up 3rd row. Whistle blows. I am still sketched out at some of the starts, so unfortunately, i moved back quite a bit. ugh. i felt like i was riding hard... but i guess everyone was riding harder.
i just kept moving backwards. lungs started hurting at lap 2.
finished mid-pack. ugh. my worst result since my first year in Gloucester :(

saturday night, my lungs got worse... started debating even starting. no sense in destroying the lungs just to finish 70th.. ya know?

Sunday: got up & the lungs were a tad better. figured I might as well start & see how it goes. I knew i was taking corners too slow on saturday... so my only goal was to rail the corners. no worries about anything else. just push the limits on the corners. eary enough.

bike is perfect in warmup. line up 2nd row. whistle blows. what?????? my bike is constantly mis-shifting. the whole sprint im between gears. how the hell did that happen. i knew if i pulled over on the first lap to fix it, i would be all done... so i baby'd it for 2 laps.. allie yelled out i was in 30th. hmm. nice. but i still cant stand & pedal, so i head to the pit. loose some spots. stop again. loose some spots. stop again. loose some spots. still not right. ugh.
at this point, im soo far back that im totally out of the race. the lungs are ok, and figure its best to quite while im ahead. no sense in risking the lungs just to finish in 100th place. oh well.

bike problems aside. the legs felt much better than the previous day.. and i felt like i could have had a much better result if i hadnt have had the mechanical problems. oh well. nothing you can do about that. happens to everyone at some point.

got changed & me & allie had a great rest of the day cheering for the elite races. stopped for some delish mexican food on the way home & topped it off by chillin out in front of the TV. weekends dont get much better than this. :)

drew is funny

this cracks me up.

im stoked for this weekend. Im still at work... and will be for another 4 or 5 hours. no riding for me tonight. but thats ok. im taking tomorrow off to get my poop together. aww yeah.

i gotta stop eating. im out of control. i keep this up, and i wont fit into my skinsuit.....or at least you wont want to SEE me in my skinsuit. eating a ton was ok when i was on my bike 3-4hrs/day. but these 1hr rides aint really helping.

Rat in mi Kitchen

not a rat. but a mouse. got up the other night for a drink from the fridge. he looked at me. i looked at him. eh. too tired to try & catch him.
we made a deal though. he dont bug me. i dont bug him. win-win.

Race Report: UNH#3 (10/10/07)

This really aint much of a race report, but im adding it in here anyway, for consistency's sake.

I debated most of the day on if i wanted to drive up there. I have been pretty tired & unmotivated. But after taking monday & tuesday completely off, i figured i needed to do some sort of training :)

Basically, I didnt want to do too much before Glostah. Hard first lap, made the front group with Keegan & Fleming.. stuck with them for a lap... backed off a tad... then Mr. Crossnut came up & we rode hard for a couple laps. After 3 laps, i sat up & rested for a lap. Went hard for another lap... then sat up again. rode to my car, grabbed my jacket & went for a little cool down.

Fun time. I cant believe I actually have mud on my bike. yikes. remind me again how to get that stuff off??

Super long day at work today. Super psyched for the weekend. not even the racing, so much as the whole atmosphere & hanging with friends ;)

strawberry fields....forever.

I LOVE this stuff...and it just happens to be on sale at Shaws for 1/2 price.
i bought a ton last week. a ton last night. and i just went to the Shaw's down the street & bought another 8 boxes. I have no idea what I am going to do with the several dozen boxes of cereal I have bought. Especially, since i did the same thing with the oatmeal that was on sale last month.

seriously, i could survive on nothing but cereal for about the next 2 months.

rusty seeds.

last night, i spent some more time getting rid of the rust on my $18 Motobecane. man, its soo bad. every little speck of rust turns into a much bigger spot once i get the paint off. I took the bottom bracket out last night & it was soo unbelievably rusty in there. oh man, was it bad. i pulled out these rusty "thingys" that at first i thought were the ball bearings.. just totally rusted into an odd shape. but nope. i broke one open and it was A SEED. haha. all rusted over. soo funny. no idea how that got in there...but there was a few of them. ill try to get some pictures soon.

still trying to get the seatpost out. ugh. that may not happen though.

I'm thinking my plans of racing UNH tomorrow. actually, re-thinking.
I'm kinda tired. As much as I'm not overly concerned about Glostah, I also dont want to be dying, either.

Best. Tshirt. Ever.

on friday, this is what i stayed late working on.
sent it off to Tee Shirt Bodega & i should have it printed up by tomorrow.

I am beyond stoked.

for those of you who have no idea what im talking about... read this

Race Report: Downeast Cross (10/07/07)

Allie & I made the voyage up to New Gloucester, Maine this morning. We were both pretty psyched because this is such a cool venue... plus with the leaves changing it was a good oppurtunity to get in some folioage scenery.

After my race at UNH wed, i was feeling good & followed up Thursday with some threshold intervals. Lungs still feeling good as of yesterday, so i was really looking foward to this race. dare i say: confident. my luck has turned around, and i was hoping (umm...expecting) a good result today.

Front row position, with about 35-40 other guys. Unfortunately, I didn get the start, i wanted, and immediately was back a ways. Made up for it by running the first "tech" section, making up a few spots.

It didnt take long for the lungs to start burning. Im spewing mucus out of every orifice of my head. ugh. I kept going, but was bummed at how bad I was doing. Josh was on my wheel for a lap, then opened a gap when the guy in front of me fumbled on the off camber stuff... I could see him for the next lap, about 5 secs up, but i just couldnt make contackt. nice job josh. bad job justin.

I was solo for a bit, then suddenly had 5 guys on my wheel. ugh. Again, I figured I was back mid-20s (or worse). My legs are tired, and my lungs are burning. They pass me, and I got no answer. Next lap, allie yells "you're in 15th!" this was after i just let those 5 guys walk away from me. oh well. didnt matter anyways. i was hurting too bad to do anything, even if i did know i was in 10th place just a lap ago.

anyways, i "held on" for 15th.

The course was awesome. when i think off-camber, i think of new gloucester. and they didnt dissapoint. the venue is sweet, the course is great. and they mix it up every year. and i hate to admit it, but i even liked the runup, even tho i almost started crying after the 5th time up it!!

/end race report
--------------------------------------
/begin personal babble

not the result i wanted. not. at. all.
damn. i felt so confident I was going to place well. My legs & lungs appearantly felt otherwise.

Its frustrating to train soo much harder this year than in years past, but still get similar results.

I gave it some thought on the way home and came up with a few things.

1. the asthma sucks this year. its hit or miss on an attack. fine one week, bad the next. or (like today), sort-of bad during the race...then a delayed problem that night. not a damn thing i can do about this. Mark text'd me on his way home from LI to tell me he had the same problem.

2. The one good result I had so far was at SBC. What was soo different? well, the course suits me better.. but more importantly, I was RESTED. hmm.

3. I have been racing UNH on wed. Then threshold intervals on thursday. While i may be recovered by the weekend, I'm certainly not fresh.

4. Some may say "duh... stop training so close to the weekend" yeah. but its back to problem #1. I race, then either drop out due to asthma, or loose training time due to asthma... so when im feeling good, like the past couple weeks, I feel I need to train to make up for the lost time... this results in poor result on the weekend... and the cycle continues. The earliest races were even worse, as they were during my intensity phase, with even more training during the week, even the day before the race.

5. I told myself a while ago, that I didnt care about results until after Gloucester. Training & preping for Canton, UNH, Plymouth, etc is more important..
So why am I setting myself up for this dissapointment, by expecting to be killing it right now? i dunno... but i am.

Ok... here is the new plan. Basicaly what Steve told me to do a while ago.
STOP training during the week! I gotta scale things back a bit, to make sure im ready to go when its important.

This is the last week of UNH. and by racing, i may be tired for Gloucester. i realize & accept this. That race is soo huge, im not really concernd about results (someone remind me of this statement, when/if i do poorly). So I think i will still go... but this will be my last week of "training"...


the week after glostah, REST. allie has a 5k on sunday...and rather than try to cram a cross race in on saturday, i think i will skip it & do something fun & fall related with her :) maybe carve some more pumpkins.

After that, I am going into a straight 'race & recover' mode... moderate cross workout on wed. thats it. easy riding otherwise. Lets see how this works.

ok.. i need to hack up some mucus. and then head to bed.

/end personal babble.

Race Report: UNH Cross #2 (10/03/07)

My lungs seemed to heal up much faster than expected. Given how i was feeling while laying on the ground after only 3 laps on Sunday, I kinda figured I was gonna loose a week of training. But Monday I was feeling OK. Last night, I went out for some skills work, but felt soo poopy all over, that I bagged it & went home.

Tonight, I decided to test the lungs (and legs) up at UNH again. Its amazing how big these races have gotten. Just a few years ago, there was only a handful of people total racing. Tonight, I think both the A's and the B's each had close to 20 racers each. Nice!

Got there early & did a nice warmup, then helped a little with the course setup. Lined up in the A's along side Keegan. He goes fast off the line & I jump on his wheel.. nice start, i should do this more often. As we head up the first hill, Josh Austin & Ryan Kelly ride by... we jump on board... Then corey masson swings in...
We stick together for about a lap... then it splits up to ryan & josh... then 5-10secs... then keegan & corey... then 5-10secs... then me (alone)... then 10secs back to the rest of the field... Stays this way for about 4 laps, until Josh flats.

Ryan is out on his own... corey & keegan are right in front of me... but i cant seem to make up tht 10secs. Additionally, i got some dude breathin down my neck.. i still got a little gap, but i wasnt out of his reach.

anyways... some kid who flatted jumped back in for the last 4 laps & sat on my wheel for 2 of them... this was kinda of the motivation i needed to make sure i didnt get caught.

with 2 laps to go, i can see keegan right there, but just couldnt make contact.
i pushed hard on the last lap & finished in 4th, about 10-15secs back from 3rd.

Overall, a really good night.
* lungs hurt.. but not too bad & now a few hours later, im still not wheezing.
* i got a good start
* i rode hard, but still had a good punch when needed
* i rode the wooded section better than i have before.

im hoping this is the start of things turning around for me. I finally felt good racing... .and HAD FUN. :)

it was nice to officially meet Josh. He killed it in the B's... then was riding very strong in the As until he flatted. :(

my new favorite site...

although it doesnt always show, i cant stand clutter. thats not to say that my place is always spot clean, but at least it drives me nuts when its not.

so here is one of my new favorite sites:
unclutterer

one thing with living in a small place, is i have to be very careful about obtaining too much 'stuff'. its about time i went through & threw away a bunch of stuff. i think i have already ebay'ed everything of value... so i doubt i will make any money on the next purge.. but who knows.

I'm (still) lovin it..

i cant stop listening to the new MIA. its sooo good.

Power to the people, ya'll

so anyone with a PowerTap wanna let me borrow it for a day or two, so i can do a threshold test? or maybe you would wanna come up to Manch & go for a hard ride?
i got a sweet, relatively flat (rolling) section of road that works perfect for a 20min threshold test...

Pumpkins!!!

guess what me & allie did last night?

Race Report: Amesbury (09/30/07)

DNF - asthma attack