Be Thankful

So on my Thanksgiving out here in Seattle, I got to go to the supermarket with my parents, get my hair cut by my brother (see below), go flying with my brother (see below, video next week) and have dinner with my family.

Spending the day with the family made me realize that I am thankful for my family. As much as my 4 brothers and sister-in-law pick on me, I am still glad I have them in my life and that I can spend one week out of the year with them. I am also thankful for my great friends. There are 5-6 people I am friends with that I know I can count on, so I am glad I have them. Finally (not really, but for conversation sake) I am thankful for my team.

I am not saying I am thankful for my team because this is a cycling blog. I really am happy that I have the great teamates I do. I just read Jamie's blog about how cycling is a team sport and left a comment about how our team is a TEAM. We win and lose as a team, we don't focus on individuals so much, which I love. I am glad our team bonds, it gives me a group of great people I can share my passion with.

So with that said, I am thankful for my family, my freinds and my team.

For the sake of getting a few comments,
How did you spend your thanksgiving? And what are you thankful for?

200

This is my 200th post. In honor of it...here are some photos from Seattle.

Where I am

I'll be home Saturday.

Testing

So one of the upper Exercise Science students approached me and asked if I would act as the subject for his class presenataion. He was describing and running a Charmichael test. I said sure. I had to follow a 15 minute warm up protocol, then ride a 3 mile time trial.

For the sake of testing, he hooked me up to the metabolic cart for data. (it wasnt necessary) So I came away from the test with some data. Its not bad right now seeing as I am 5'6", 136 lbs and its winter and I havent ridden in a while. Here is the data:

3 miles
7 min 37 sec
Avg Speed - 23.6 mph
Peak Speed - 27.0 mph
Avg HR - 184
Peak HR - 193
Avg Power - 281 W
Peak Power - 451 W
VO2 Peak - 65/kg ml/min

According to that data, my power to weight ratio at this moment is 4.55 W/kg

Bye Bye Teeth

So this morning as soon as class was over, I drove to Jackson and went straight to my oral surgeons office. It was the day every teenager dreads...getting my wisdom teeth removed (10am appt)

The surgery didnt hurt one bit, as I was not awake for it at all. I remember them putting an IV in, and my next memory is waking up when it was time to leave. I remember getting in the car with my mom, and my next thought is waking up on the couch at home at 2pm.

I stayed on the couch untill 3-3:30. Then drove back to school. Now I am currently on Vicodin, Motrin and Amoxicillin for pain and infection.

I have a lot of homework to do this weekend, and a friend from AZ is coming to visit. She and the rest of the group want to go to the club. I will let you guys know if its interesting (because ill be on Vicodin)

A cool performance

This is a video of a group called 'Blast!'. It is a musical group that consists of only brass, percussion and dancers. They have been to Jackson twice where I have seen them both times and I have seen them in Detroit once. It is a very cool performance based on the color wheel. Different songs reflect the different colors. The first video is representative of the color black and is called "Battery Battle", its mostly percussion. The second is the closer for the show, obviously the color is red.





If you get a chance to see this group live, you should.

New President

In other news, I am sure you have heard (it was on the news a little in the past few days) Barack Obama is going to be the new president of the United States of America. I know everyone has their own opinion, so I am not posting this to start an argument. Just thought it should be posted because there is a fun story from my end.



So at 11:03pm Tuesday night I was in my friend Liz's room on the couch with her. That is when we heard that Obama was projected to win. About 5 minutes later our friends Colin and Janis come in and said we had to go outside.

When we got out there, campus was going crazy. There are many many Obama supporters on our campus and they all got together to celebrate in the streets. Literally IN the streets. The police didn't even try to break it up and cars had to turn around because they couldnt get through. It was pretty cool to see everyone united about something, its all too rare these days.



So I thought that was fun. I am not partial to any cadidate. I would have been happy with either McCain or Obama in office. Becuase no matter who won, no one can change it, so we might as well enjoy it. It is like Cat said, "They would both have had great successes, and they would both have had many disapointments. Lets hope the success outweighs the disapointment."

Vets Park

Ok I know, I know, I know. It's Thursday and the races were Saturday and Sunday. "Why aren't you updating your blog Zack?" I know many of you were thinking that (or I hope you were.) Anyways, school has been busy and I have been tired. After taking an 8 week break from competition after Ann Arbor, then jumping in and doing two mens B cyclocross races at Vets Park back-to-back takes a lot out of the system. So when I havent been studying, in class, doing homework or eating...I have been asleep trying to recover. Which let me tell you SUCKS! Ace had me resting and not on the bike Monday-Wednesday and it was SO NICE outside and I couldn't enjoy it. Oh well, it's still nice today and I have to get in some intervals. Anyways...the cross races.



Saturday
So this was my first ever cyclocross race. I had debated doing the C race or the B race, but due to the amount of crap Joe L, Rob P, Rich S and Mark L would have given me for doing the C race, I lined up for the first ever time on grass with the Mens B field. I really had no idea what to expect, I had watched two cyclocross races in my life, attended two practices and had successfully jumped over a set of barriers once.

The whistle sounded and everyone gunned for the wholeshot(holeshot?) I didn't get a great start and was sitting about 18th or so back out of the 30 of us. We wound our way through the course and soon it broke up. I was in no form to stay with the leaders but there were these two guys about my strength battleling in front of me, so I stayed with them and eventually got passed them.

Comming through the middle section by the pit I took a corner a little fast and the front wheel went out and I went rolling across the ground. I got back up and hadn't lost a spot.



About halfway through the race John Marymor from U of M passed me. I decieded that I wanted to try and beat him, so he was my target. I eventually worked back up to him and passed him, eventually making it to the finish in 16th place. Not bad for a first timer. (and I made it over all the barriers safely and swiftly)

The coolest part of Saturday was that Ace and BB had brought a drum and Joe had scored a few flags of flanders. So the Southl Lyon team set up camp on the top of the hill where we could see the whole race and cheered on everyone in the race banging drums ringing bells running and waving flags. It was pretty cool.



Sunday
COLD! Sunday was just cold. The cool thing about Sunday was that the Specialized Demo Truck showed up. So people could test ride (and race) specialized bikes. On the downside, there was less cheering as Ace, BB, Joe, John R. and Doug (who said he was going Sunday) weren't there. However I was happy to see both of my parents show up, along with my trust soigner Nick and our friend Michelle.

Well I warmed up and lined up for the second time in two days and the second time in my life for a cross race. I was deffinitly feeling the effort of the day before. Again the whistle sounded and everyone took off. I got a little better start this time, sitting about 10th out of 40 ish people as we rode away from the line. I hit a hole and got tangled with a guy on a mountain bike for a sec, but we get away from each other without causing a problem.



As we cruised towards the middle section by the pit, it was a sharp left hander. I was trying to move up on the right side to gain a spot or two...which resulted in my losing 15. I went into the tape because I carried too much speed through the corner. I had to get off re-adjust and jump back in way behind the spot I was in. Had I not gone off course, I probably would have stayed with thr group of 7 guys that fought for 5th(?) place. Because I nearly caught them while I was making up spots, but never actually did.

Again John Marymor was one of the few people I was trying to beat. I had a nice gap for a while, but started tiring out and John caught up with me. With one lap to go he was sitting on my wheel. On the last time up the big hill, I put in a hard effort that hurt a lot. But it gave me a small gap on John that I barely held to the line. Again I ended up in 16th place.



It was fun racing cyclocross. I will deffinitly do it again as soon as I can. The problem, the next one in Michigan (other than Iceman) is three days after I get my wisdom teeth out. The next one is while I am in Seattle, and the next one is the day after I get back (yeah...I'll be at that one)

After the race, Nick tried one lap of the course on one of the specialized bikes. He said he would never do cyclocross, he doesn't like technical stuff, which is why he loves the road. Michelle said it was deffinitly more entertaining than road racing. After it was all said and done, my mom my friends and I went to Mongolian BBQ. Tasty.

Happy B-Day BB!

Happy Birthday to James "Bike Boy" Anderson! Turns the big 14 today! Now he gets to race in a harder junior category. Here is to another year of a wonderful life!

Painfully Fun

I did my first cross race today, went and raced the Bs at Vets Park. Finished 16th out of like 30 starters and crashed once. Not too bad. Afterwords I partied it up with the South Lyon guys (and BB) cheering on our teamates in a way we never have.




More pictures and a full report will be up tomorrow after the next race.