Amazing Beam Skills

I don't really work with the girls on beam ever. I used to coach beam but I find that when I don't work an event for a while I kind of get out of the grove on it. So now when I work with the kids on beam I am just mostly making sure they are doing what Laura the beam coach had assigned.
These girls though are something special! I have day dreamed about teaching some of these skills but thought they would never be done. Well, amazing athletes can always surprise you. Enjoy.

I hate teeth

Why? Because they do nothing but suck. Just got a temporary crown today, which means that I have to go back in again to get the permanent crown.....awesome. I guess I just really hate anything that has to do with my mouth. I grew up with sore throats all the time, had an evil dentist that told me I was a tough kid so he wasn't going to use Novocain when drilling out my skull. Lips chap, cold sores, burned tongue, the only good thing is you get to taste good food.
The start down this road started last year. I had a sore tooth that I had a cavity filled in. Once that was done I kept waiting for the pain from that to subside but it never did. About six months later I finally went back to the dentist and he said I was screwed and needed a root canal. SHIT! All I had ever heard about root canals were they hurt bad. Then I learn that it isn't a one time thing and you are done, noooo you have at least 4 procedures to go though. First they go in and drill out all the innards from your tooth. Knowing what I know now about the whole thing I don't really get that. Then you go back in and the dentist drills out the top of your tooth and puts some kind of cement or compound to hold your tooth together. Today he goes in and drills out the entire outside of the tooth so that he can put some kind of cap on it. What the hell do I even have any of my own tooth left now!? Why the hell didn't I just get this fucking thing pulled and they put in a fake tooth? For some reason I still feel pain in the damn thing too, there are not supposed to be any nerves but I have magical teeth that can still feel.
I am loving even more how much money all this shit costs. Almost $1000 buck out of pocket so far, and you never know what the insurance company will decide they are not going to pay for. Fuckin teeth.
I think that the James Bond character knows as Jaws had the right idea with the razor sharp metal chompers. Maybe I should look into that.

A good start, but a ways to go

We took the gymnastics team to Bloomington IL this last weekend to compete in the Horton Invite. It was a good meet, run on time in a well lit gym that had great viewing for the parents. Our team was by far the biggest team there. It wasn't what I really wanted, I want a lot of competition but it is early in the year and not all the teams are ready to go yet. Truthfully we use competition this early in the year just to get ready for our home meet. We want the kids to have a meet under their belt before they go against their families and friends back home.

The one team there that over the last few years has been a thorn in our sides was Midwest Twisters. It is a small gym with not a lot of athletes but they have a few groups that really compete very well. I was sure that our level 8 team had the competition sewn up but we were unable to take the day, losing to MT. Our levels 8s last year lost to MT as level 7s as well. It appears that those kids will be duking it out for the next 8 or 9 years. Our level 9 and 10 teams looked a lot better than we did at the intra squad about a month ago and that is all that I can be hoping for. Some of the girls still had a pretty tough time but that is going to happen. Those kids that really struggled had been sick a lot, and maybe they had not trained as hard as they could have. I know one of my top girls did not train as hard as she could have. She is a competitor and has always relied on her ability in competition. But she has grown taller, her routines are harder, and she has struggled with illness and injury. If she wants to have a year like she was having last year she is going to have to pick it up. And I think she saw that this weekend. She knows what it is like to win, and hates to lose. I think if I do not see a big effort from her in the gym over the next few weeks I will be very surprised.

I would have to say the quality of the athletes I have makes a huge difference. In the past I felt that I wanted "it" more than my athletes did. They didn't understand how hard it really was to be competitive. I guess that was because those athletes had never been expected to win. When mediocrity and failure is looked at as the norm, it is hard to change that mentality later on. The athletes we have are conditioned to know what it is like to win, and these girls learn to crave it. This is a tough attributed to instill in girls if not done early in life. I feel that our society tells girls that they are not supposed to compete and that everyone wins. For most of my early career I often found that girls would mentally pigeon hole themselves. They would see that they may not be the best athlete on a team, or in a competition, and instead of working harder to become the best, they would almost sabotage their training to remain in the same status.

The girls have a long way to go till they are going to be competitive on a regional, or national level. They have the skills and the ability, they just need to work harder to perfect what they have. The trick to gymnastics is making the hardest skills look easy. Some of our girls have routines that could end up being pretty competitive at the end of the season, but only if they are perfect, and perfection only comes after thousands of quality repetitions. It is a lot of hard work, but nothing worth doing is ever easy.

On the mend

I came down with pneumonia last week. I have no idea how one gets pneumonia and I have had a lot of people ask me that, but I don't know. I don't think I got it that bad though. The people that have talked to me about it have said they were laid out for weeks. Makes my one week off the bike seem like a cake walk. It started with me just feeling a little achy last Wednesday, by Friday I was hovering around a 102 degree temp and hating my life.

Monday I ended in the hospital getting my chest x-ray'd and breathing through this machine for about 30 min. Wow what a difference that, and a Z pack makes. By the next day I was back at work and went to the gym for the first time in six days.

The toughest park about being sick is getting back into form. I had been working out a lot and already could feel the loss in fitness and strength. I hoped that it was going to be good to have some time off but I guess it was too much time.It is funny how hard it is to remember that I will get back to where I was it just takes time. I work with my kids all the time after injury or illness. Half the battle with them is trying to keep them motivated. You can see how close you are to where you were but you also know how hard it was to get there.

Something that always seems to happen to me when I get sick is I get a real bug to do artistic things. It doesn't really matter what it is, I just want to do something. I have been thinking about designing a layout for a possible new gym that my organization has been mulling over. I have also been really enjoying writing in this blog and maybe I should do some more writing. I used to paint a lot but it takes a lot of work to get all that stuff set up. The hardest part is just starting or having an idea.

Is school a scam?

This article got me thinking. It is about a high ranking school official in one of the biggest school district in the country. I don't know where that is, or who this is so I am just taking it on face value. What he does is take a standardized test that is required of all the students in his district. He basically fails it. The article states that this guy has multiple degrees, lives in a big house, has control over a 3 billion dollar annual budget, an all around successful guy. So how could a man like that fail a test meant for a 10th grader? In my opinion, because it has nothing to do with determining how smart a child is, or how well they will do in the "real world" when they get out of school. What these tests are, are political weapons used by politicians, cash cows for businesses running the tests, and are not a good measuring stick for how good a school is, how smart a child is, or how great a teacher might be.

Something that I hear quite often from friends of mine who own businesses is that they always have to train new employees when they arrive. Not that they have to show them where to put time sheets and how the printer works. But they have to teach them how to be an engineer, or an architect, or a business man. Now why would you have to do that if you just spent the last four to even eight years learning how to do this? It's because school isn't really teaching you anything, it is taking your money and giving you a piece of paper saying you can now be an engineer. They are the trolls guarding the bridge and you have to pay the toll.
I have kids who everyday work themselves to the bone to learn all this information that one year out of school they wouldn't remember anymore. Why? Because no one uses it! Except for rocket scientists, who we need lots of, (not sarcastic) who needs calculus? Unless you are going to be a doctor, pharmacist, or a scientist, why put kids though years of advanced science classes? I know that there are people out there that need these classes. And without allowing kids to try them how would they ever know if they wanted to be a quantum physicist without the advanced classes? You still can.

How many people out there are in school now just so that they can teach exactly what they are learning to the next group of students, who will then teach the same thing? What is the benefit to society, to the human race, when a type of knowledge is only created to be kept in a closed loop? I feel that it is created for the benefit of scholar class, to make a university seem greater because of how smart it's professors are. Also what is the benefit of teaching outdated, or overly complicated ways to do different activities? Money, the more a school has to teach or can teach, the more they can make you pay them. What if it only took six months to teach someone to be a stock broker? That would only be one semester worth of tuition rather than the eight needed now.

In my area of study I had an entire year that was basically a waste. I was a fine art major at the U of I and majored in oil painting. Every artist's first year was taken up by basic drawing, photo, graphic design, and every other art discipline. I didn't give a crap about any of that stuff, I just wanted  to paint and draw. So I liked the drawing courses, and I know why we needed to take the art history classes, but every other class was just another avenue of revenue for the university. I had to take calculus, foreign language, what for? I have never used calculus, I use adding and subtracting, I balance my budget and pay my bills. I don't need to be able to speak another language to know what is going on in the world. I read the news every day, I read multiple blogs, news papers, and can't get enough about world happenings. 

I think those who are in charge of making these tests, and deciding where they think the american children have to go in terms of learning are all wrong. I think it is human nature to always do more every generation. So every year children are expected to know more and more, in less time. But quantity is not always better than quality, in fact I would say the opposite is the truth. That means kids should be learning more about what life is really like younger, get more kids into a craft. Specialize more and stop making kids learn so much NOTHING.

I don't know if I am talking out my ass and am a total idiot but it is how I feel. Schools fuckin suck, and kids are not getting what I think they should out of it. I'm out.

Am I a sickly athlete?

Ive been sick since Wednesday night. I feel like I have been sort of hurting for the last few weeks actually. Had headaches and sore throats, my body aches and I have had a fever for the last two days. I remember when I was a gymnast I had a lot of sore throats and would get achey quite often. Most of the time I would feel better in about 24 hours, this is the first time I can remember that I have had a fever this long. Ive been taking tylenol and advil and that helps but as soon as they wear off my fever goes up again. I guess if I can't get into work tomorrow I will go see the doc. It is surprising that I don't get sicker working with some many kids. And there was a good amount of time that I didn't get sick at all, like 2 years maybe.

So what was the difference between those two years, now, and back in my gymnastics days? I wasn't working out like a fiend. When I was a gymnast I worked out at least 20 hours a week, and in high school often more. Those couple years that I never got sick I was working out but maybe I wasn't pushing it like I do now. I am more on the level I was back when I was in college, and I got sick a lot in college. I have read that pro cyclists do wear down their immune system and can get sick, I wonder if that is what I have done. I have also had a lot of kids really sick at the gym over the last few weeks. Most of the kids that have been sick have missed long stretches too, like a week or more. So if I caught what they have I might be in for a few more days before I feel better.

I guess what I have been thinking is how funny it is that you try to do something that should make you healthier. But it could make you sick. I guess how they say you have to do everything in moderation, even the good stuff. That has always been my problem though. I don't do much in moderation and get pretty crazy about my interests and hobbies.

I hope this ends soon so I can get back to training and I can get back to the gym and work with my girls. I'm feeling a little better now, but I am a couple hours after taking some tylenol so that is normal. I will see in a few more hours.

Childhood Obesity Abuse

So last week a coach at my gym and I were talking about the problem of childhood obesity. Then this week I read a story about a two hundred pound plus, third grader who was taken from his mother and placed into foster care. Funny how that works, but not funny about how people can allow their children to get this way. I have no problem with how the authorities handled this case. In the article it says they worked with the family for 20 months to try and get the child's weight under control. I know that there are kids that are going to bigger and even some that will have medical conditions that caused them to get that way. But from what I see that is not the norm it is the exception.
There is a doctor in the article that blames society for kids being fat, and I guess you could say that but that is the easy way out. Kind of like saying being an addict isn't your fault, yes it is. Parents are in charge of what their children to, what they learn, what they eat, everything. And blaming McDonalds for your child being so obese that they are almost certain to become diabetic, have high blood pressure, and hundreds of other health issues, is also a cop out. I'm not blaming McDonalds, they don't make you eat their burgers or fries. That parent decided to give their child unhealthy food. Now if you had a parent that decided to not feed their child everyone would be all over that as abuse, but too much food?
It's all about people taking responsibility and not passing it off on others. No person ever has to look like and A&B model, but an eight year old that weighs as much a six foot tall grown man isn't right. And any person that is fit to be a parent should be able to see that. That same person should be able to also learn about how to not stay on the same path and help their child get back to a healthy weight. I think the only way to really start to make people learn how to be healthy is to make more immediate consequences, like the possibility of losing ones children if said child was morbidly obese. Obviously the threat of life long health problems isn't doing it for most people.
I hope this lady gets hit with some serious legal problems. People around the country really need to keep an eye on this one too, because unless people start to pay attention to their own children's health and weight they may lose them.

Not cool, funny, or healthy.

Success is contagious

This is something that took me a few years to learn as a coach. There is a hierarchy to competitions in gymnastics. Many times it is said that anyone that competes earlier in a session, or in an even final, or even on your team, they would get a lower score. This was because judges were said to be "holding" the big scores in case someone better came up later on. To help battle this trend coaches would normally put up the worst athlete on a team first. This is a tough spot to be in. I was normally a first up athlete in college until I was a senior. My routines were never the hardest, but I would always hit. I took pride in my coaches putting me up first. I didn't look at it as they thought I was the worst, I just told myself I was setting the tone for the rest of my team. Unfortunately that didn't always go as plan as my teammates weren't always able to keep their end of the job. But that is team sport, you can't do it on your own and you need everyone to do their job.

Then my last year things started to get rough. We were in the hunt for an undefeated season, ranked first in the country as a team and very high on just about every event. Some of our best events was pommel horse. This event is one of the most mental events there is. If you are off just a little bit there really isn't much you can do to save it. And we were missing a lot of routines. If we hit we would be unstoppable, and we were lucky early in the year that we won without all our hits. But late in the season we were coming up against some tough competition and something had to change. Our coach Yoshi Hayasaki decided that we were going to reverse the order of the athletes and put our best guy first. Boy was he pissed! But it worked, the first meet we made the change was also the first meet we hit all our big score guys. And the scores were at or very close to where they were supposed to be. Right then I should have taken note of what I was seeing. At the time I was coaching optional level gymnastics, but I was just not able to put the two together.
Later I started to mess with putting an athlete here or there up first that I knew was going to hit. But then I would go right back to putting my weakest athlete up. I guess I thought I was "hiding" my weak kids in between stronger ones. It never worked though. Then last year it finally hit me, I was going to make my lineup from my best hitter to my worst hitter. The kids, who I am sure had figured out how we were making lineups before, were a bit confused at what was happening. But our hit percentage started to shoot up. And in my opinion that is the most important thing for my kids. It is what I and they have control over. I can't control judges and their inability to see skills and connections correctly. So I don't even pay attention to it. The only meets I watch scores are state, regionals, and nationals. Other than that it doesn't matter to me. This is when our season really started to take off. For the last three or four meets of the year we had so few misses I really only remember two. That is somewhere around fifty routines with two misses. That is HUGE! And all because one kid hit their routine, and then the next kid hit theirs, and so on and so on.

Already this year I am seeing it again, more and more. We play little games with the girls to get them ready to compete. We try to put as much pressure on them as we can to simulate competition. And even in the gym I am seeing kids starting to hit one after another.

It is amazing how success, and even failure, seam to be contagious. Just like the cold or flu. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. It takes a tough kid to get the team off on the right foot, but it takes an even tougher kid to get you back on track once you fall off. This will be my game plan this year, and I am hoping    that the worst part is trying to figure out who is better at hitting their set.

There is a video of my alma mater's gymnastics team. These guys make my college team look like juniors.

Competition and Focus

Competition focuses goals and doubles efforts to achieve those goals. I am not unlike others who over state their position at any one time. I like to think I am better than I may actually be sometimes. Competition helps me to open my eyes to where I actually am.

I say this because this last weekend was my team intra-squad. And things went really about as good as they probably should have. But that doesn't mean I was happy about it. I need to win, and not just for myself. I need to win for these kids. They have a lot of time, effort, and money on the line. They are all working very hard to make their way to college teams. If they have anything less than a great year, it could be tough for this to happen.

For the most part the girls did great. Most events I feel like we are ahead of schedule and things are looking good. My toughest event is bars and we have been working very hard to increase the difficulty level of the girls. It is happening but it is slow going, and it makes it tougher to be consistant, and to get everything done every day. Another issue I am having to work with is a large team. I have never had so many high level gymnasts all at the same level and at the same point in their training. It is a good problem to have, I just have to get better at keeping the kids moving.

Our first real meet of the year is in Bloomington, IL at the Horton Invite. The last few years we have gone to the Justin Spring Invite. It was a very good meet, in a great building, and we had a lot of fun. We just could not find enough competition for our athletes. We won just about everything, and while that is nice it wasn't because we were dominant. It was more because we were the Goliath in the room. I don't like to be in that situation. I have always wanted to be on fair terms with my competition, and didn't like teams that would go to small meets to beat up on the little teams. We were now that team and I wasn't okay with that. I remember the Horton Invite from my days in Champaign. It always seemed that there was some good competition there. I guess we can always try elsewhere next year if we don't find it in Bloomington.

This weekend was also the first meeting of Quantum Mesa Cycles. Most of the team was able to make it and we had a great time. I ordered a bunch of pizzas, people brought their own beer, and I tried to get though the drudgery of rules and policy as fast as I could so we could have some fun. After we all kind of got into talking to each other, sometimes in smaller groups, other times as a whole. People were also trying on fit kit items. It was funny seeing guys and gals trying on items as small as they could fit into. Some guys liked it a little more than others I think. A few of us ended up staying pretty late, 10pm I think. After a few guys from the west part of the state stayed at my place for the night. In the AM we had a 60 mile ride in the St Charles, O'Fallon area of the STL. The weather sucked, and it was cold, but I think we had a great time.

I am too excited about next season. The thought of it has been a huge carrot at the end of the stick for me while I lift weights, or push though a few hours of tempo riding. My only worry is that I do too much too soon. It is sort of funny how often that comes up in cycling. Almost like people tell you that so they feel better about not training, I don't know. I do know that if I am ever going to catch up with someone faster than I am, I better be going twice as fast or twice as long, or I will never catch them. That was something I learned in gymnastics and it served me well then.

Big Day Tomorrow

Tomorrow marks the start of the competitive year for my girl's gymnastics team. It is a pretty big deal for our lower level athletes, especially our level 7 girls. It will be the first time they do their new optional floor routines with their own music and their own beam routines. Bars ends up being pretty compulsory still as well as vault. The reason we do it is to get the cob webs cleared out for the girls and how to compete. We bring in a couple of judges which makes it feel more like a real meet and a big group of parents come in to watch.

For the girls I work with (level 9 and 10) this is really just a reminder of what competing is like. These kids are some of the most worried about tomorrow. As they came up through the ranks of the team they had always had an easy time of competing at their highest ability. Now at this level though, that doesn't happen. Getting used to this is tough. It has been a struggle to get my girls to understand that it takes time to peak and the time to do that is almost 6 months from now. My assistant coach and I have been trying to tell these girls that we just expect them to try hard and be good roll models for the younger kids. We know what is going to happen tomorrow. It is going to be a tough day for our highest level kids. It is funny that I feel like our kids are looking better than ever but we are still not ready to kill it this weekend. I guess if we were, I might be a little concerned. One of my athletes is going to do her last year's bar routine this weekend. Her new routine isn't quite ready and I want her to have something to do. So when I told her, she thought about it and said she couldn't believe how easy that routine was, and how last year she thought it was supper hard. It's fun to be there when the girls have thoughts like that and I hope that she starts to look at other skills like she saw her old routine.

Tomorrow is also a big meeting for Quantum Mesa Cycles. The team has grown a lot since we first formed it a couple months ago but we are still within our goal of being a small elite team. When we agreed to basically become the Mesa Cycles team we said that we would invite most of the old Mesa team. That is how most of our growth has come over the last few weeks. The best part about it though is that we picked up all people filling categories, age groups, or disciplines that we did not have people in.

Everyone is really excited about the meeting though and we are planning to do an easy training ride on Sunday morning. Not everyone will be at either get together, but most people will. And when you are working with so many people, it is hard to expect perfection. I'm excited to see everyone, and meet the new members.

This is going to be a great year for both my gym, and my race team. Pretty cool that both are kicking off tomorrow.

Could this be the year for Illini Gymnastics?

I had the chance this weekend to watch a couple hours of the Illinois Men's Gymnastics team Wow was it amazing. I always forget how much a difference it is between JO and NCAA gymnastics. NCAA gymnastics can also be looked at as international level gymnastics. Two of Illinois best athletes right now are on the US national team. One just came back from world championships. I don't know that there is a single guy on that team now that wouldn't mop the floor with the best of the best from 10 years ago. It is amazing how these athletes just continue to get better and better. Skills are learned in half the time, the men seem to be getting bigger as well. At 5'8" I was one of the tallest on my team in 2005, now I would be average at best. I don't know why they are getting taller, generally the smaller guys do better. But these dudes look like football players.

The practice I saw guys were putting together what looks like about a third of their routines. Some guys were doing full sets already but they were not polished. This is early in the year to be looking this good, but better to be ready and back off than just trying to catch up. My old teammate and friend Justin Spring now leads the team as it's head coach. The University did a brilliant job when they decided to go with Justin. He was an amazing athlete and lead our team as our top gymnast and even a team captain. For a guy who had all he needed to be great on his own, Justin was the guy always looking out for his team. He impressed me over and over with his selfless attitude. Justin could have floated through his college career training when he wanted, competing all around to make his scores look better for his chances internationally.But he gave up those chances so that our teams score would be even better. Now he is not only in charge of the competitive future of this great team, but also it's traditions, which he takes very seriously.

For a few years the Illini have been making it a tradition of coming so close to winning a national championships. While I was there twice we came in to the NCAA championships ranked number 1. Both times we won the first day of competition, but when it all came down to it, we couldn't finish. Since 2004 that has been a recurring theme. Almost every year the Illini has been highly ranked and every year we just barely miss out on the big prize. Justin is getting close though, he wants it so badly. Everyday he sets himself to the single goal of bringing the championship back to Champaign. It is amazing the talent that he has brought together with the little money that men's gymnastics gets. He has a way of getting people to buy into an idea, or a dream. And you want nothing more than to be part of whatever it is that he is "selling". But he isn't pitching you, he just wants you to share in the excitement and see what he can see. I know that Justin will bring the Illini a gymnastics championship, he will most likely do it multiple times. It would be great though if this year was the year.

Champaign Bound

Going up to Champaign this weekend to see some old friends and take some time off of training. A lot of my old teammates from school will be there and it is Illini vs Michigan this weekend. Illinois fans like to think that his is some big rivalry but really Michigan generally just kicks our ass. Funny how we see it as a rivalry but you never read about Michigan thinking that. They look more at Ohio as their big rival match up each year.

I am going to lay off the weights this weekend also. One reason is because I will not be near a gym that I belong to, and another reason is I am really tired and sore. This week was supposed to be an easier week in my workout schedule but for some reason I feel just as sore or tired. Next week is some really tough lifting and I want to be able to really go at it hard. I have been off the bike a lot too and that is not feeling too good. Really missing it. I don't feel like I am losing any of my endurance or power, just miss whatever endorphin shot my body gives me from riding my bike long and hard. The weather has also not been very helpful in the bike department either. It is getting really cold and I just have not been able to get excited about riding the trainer for hours. Last year I could put in some long rides, 3-4 hours, on the trainer but I dread it this year.

So we are leaving for our old stopping ground soon. I better get moving or Katie is going to kill me. I am pumped to see my old friends. Really wish we all lived closer together but that is life right?

I'm out!

Haters are always gonna hate

So there is this blog that I read all the time. It is by a guy named Steve Tilford. I don't know how I found his blog but I read it just about every day and get pretty bummed when he doesn't write. I have never really met Steve either, I guess I am just a creepy internet stalker, fan, dork, or whatever. I have been to a few races that he has done and seen him race a few times. I have seen his dog Bromont a few times and am just as big a fan of him as I am of Steve's. I don't even know why I am a fan of Steve's really. I really like his writing I guess, and reading about the life that he lives. He travels around a lot and races. He visits a lot of great people and stays in some in some amazing locations. I also like to read about his views on the world of cycling. He has been around for a long time and I like to learn as much as I can about sports I am obsessed with. My only critique about Steve is he can read a little negative about his own racing, even when he wins. I don't know why he feels bad about how he does but I have noticed he seems to be trying to be a little more positive.

So Steve wrote these two (pt 1, 2) posts about domestiques, racing in the USA and in Europe. I didn't have a problem with what he said about the subject but there were some people that were not happy about it at all. There were some that even attacked Steve and his racing because of what he thought. His view on the subject is that too many people are giving up their chances at success to do thankless work for others. He worries that people that were attracted to the sport for it's independent attributes, are being asked to do something not suited to their talents. He is very harsh on large Pro Continental teams in the US that use very Euro styles of racing in the US to try and win races. I have never been in nor seen a race unfold like he talks about, but I think if they are happening like he says then yeah it would suck. Pretty much he says that these super teams ride so fast at the front that no one else in the peleton has a chance. There are too many of them and not enough of everyone else. Lowering the number allowed riders from each team would really help that problem. He also talks about the length of races in the states and how we have nothing over a week. This is true and thinking about that today, it will be very hard to grow a race to over a week and gain ground on the TdF, Giro de Italia, and Vuelta. Those races have been around so long. They could grew from nothing into something, where as a 3 week long race in the states would need so much more start up money. I think the Tour of California has a great chance, the Tour of Utah, and the old Coors Classic could also get there as well.

For those not in the know, a domestique in cycling are guys that do all the hard work for the leader of the team for the whole race. Then at the end of the race the team leader jumps out and wins. It is kind of like linemen in football. Those guys work so hard but no one ever knows who they are, their paychecks are chump change compared to running backs, and quarter backs. But without the linemen the QB would be fucked. Well same in cycling. The problem is that in the US a lot of these guys never learn how to race by doing these jobs. By the time the race really starts these dudes are so tired from riding as fast as they can for four hours, the race is now up the road and they are limping to the line.For guys in my level of racing you don't generally see racing like that. It is hard to do a lot of planning in races, especially with out being able to use a radio to talk to other teammates. That is something different about my team, we are a group of guys that want to put in some domestique work for each other. Not because that is our goal in life, but because we know that the work we put in for a teammate we will get in return.

The thing I don't get though is why these guys get so mad about what Steve has to say. He is right that the only way to learn how to win is to try and win. Young guns that are working their way over to Europe need the experience of trying to win races to learn how to win. Riding on the front of a pack all day long wont do that. But riding on the front can also be a great feeling for some people who share in the joy of a team win. I think there is the best of both worlds. I think you need to learn to ride hard, race harder, and compete smart. To be a great competitor in just about all sports you need a cocktail of talents, abilities, and experience. Without all that you just might not have what it takes.

Someone to look up to

My gym had a very famous athlete come by tonight. Her name is Bridget Sloan, and she was the 2009 world champion. That was when she was only 16 years old! She graduated this last spring from high school and after next year's Olympics she will be starting school for the University of Florida Gators. The last few years have been really tough for this amazing athlete but she is determined to train hard and give the 2012 Olympics a serious go.

It was great to give the athletes at Gym Centre the opportunity to meet such a great athlete. Talking with some others during the event, people were talking about how great it would have been to have someone like that come into their gym at a young age. Maybe this visit lights the fire in the heart of one of our young athletes.

It was really cool to see these young kids eye's light up when they saw this girl that really is a very down home type person. I have met a good amount of elite women over the years and most are very shy. I don't know if it's because they are in the gym too much and don't socialize enough or what. Bridget though, was a great speaker. When we offered her a microphone she said she would be fine without. Her speech seemed like she knew what she was going to say, but it wasn't like she had a set speech. She was also great when it came to answering questions from our kids as well. They were very clear and she did a great job of keeping all her answers very positive and let the kids know that hard work could help with any problems they might have.

There were lots of great gymnasts and other athletes that I looked up to over the years. Ryan Sandburg, second base of the Chicago Cubs was the first. Then there was Michael Jordan, Ned Overend, Hans Rey, John Rothlisberger, Blane Wilson, Ivan Ivankov, and even now there are still athletes that I look to for inspiration. I don't look to them like I used to when I was a kid, but in some cases I get just as giddy as I used to.

I hope this kids enjoyed the experience. Sometimes I don't know, they can look unimpressed but inside they are going crazy. As long as one kid got a big kick out of it, it was worth it.

Time for bed, I hope it is nice tomorrow, I would like to get on my bike for a while. Been lifting weights a lot and I miss being out on the road.

Bridget talking to the kids. They filled the entire 40x40 floor exercise area.

Love what you do, and do what you love.

This seems like a redundant phrase, but I don't really think it is. Loving what you do to me is loving your job. Not many in the world are able to say that they love their job. I am one of those few. I have a great job working in sports. I have always wanted to be involved in sports. As soon as I learned as a young child that you could do such a thing, I knew that was for me. Admittedly my first choice was to be a professional baseball player, but alas it was not meant to be. My 4'8", 12 year old body was not a sight that coaches wanted to see in their batting line ups. So into gymnastics I went, and almost as soon, I knew what I would spend my life doing. Again my dreams have changed over the last 10 years of coaching. At first I wanted to be an elite coach and own my own gym. Then I thought about being a college coach. But now that I have landed at the St. Louis Gym Centre as the girl's team director and head coach, I can't imagine going anywhere else. It is a great place, filled with people that all they want to do is coach gymnastics. This is not just a step on their ladder of life. I have been to many gyms where it is a revolving door of people just looking for a pay check. But the Gym Centre is more like a family. Many of the people there have been there for more than 10 years. They grew up there and now work there. I would be considered an outsider by their standards. But they welcomed me in almost three years ago and both the program and I have grown in that time. I have learned a great deal about myself, and the program has matured. I did not start this transformation, but I helped it continue. There was a great linage of coaches before me that started this climb, and like Issac Newton said, I stand on the shoulders of giants.

With all that said my passion, my drive, my "thing", is no longer gymnastics. When I was a kid, all I could do was gymnastics. Shit, I ate chalk once because I wanted so badly to be part of gymnastics. Now it is cycling, more specifically road racing. I have always been a competitive person. And early in my coaching career my life depended on the lives of very young children. Their goals, ambitions, triumphs, and failures, were all my own. An athlete's failure at a competition was taken as an insult to me. My mood depended on the outcome of a workout, or a competition. My self worth road on the whims of prepubescent girls, and their "stage moms". I was a fierce competitor myself and could only understand those that thought just like me. Anyone else was in the way and had to go. I had no time for them and their weakness. As I got older, and understood more about the business of gymnastics I chilled a little bit. But it wasn't until I started to ride that I was able to start to let go a little bit. Some gymnastics purists out there might think that this is sacrilegious. But it wasn't until I could let my self worth detach from the lives of these kids that I started to feel better about my life.

My bike is my outlet, and second to my wife it is what I love. Granted my job comes before my bike, but sometimes that line can get pretty fuzzy. Especially in the summer. Without this outlet though, I would not be a coach today. I still find it hard to be a coach even with the outlet of riding a bike. So without it I would have driven myself crazy. Probably destroyed my marriage, and burned a lot of bridges in the gymnastics world. With my bike I am able to let go at the gym and not let athletic shortcomings come between athletes and I, like they have in my past. No longer are falls off an even insults to me, but just falls that need to be worked on. I am able to see that there are more things that just the four walls of the gym, and that helps me to keep kids in my program.

I know that I am one of very few people that thinks they have just about everything they could want in their life. And I think that I am a very lucky person to be in this position. I worked hard to get here but I would be lying to myself if I didn't think that I met some people in my life that have been huge in my career and life.

I guess I decided to write this post tonight because today actually wasn't the best day at work. I have had worse, and there have been much better. But today was different, today might not have been great but it was a day things were getting better. And even on a bad day, I still have a great job. I still have great people that work for me, that love their jobs, and they want the same things that I want. I still get to be a coach, and I was once told by a great man that I look up to very much. That "being a coach was one of the greatest things you could do in your life". I knew it when he said that, and I am grateful for it today.

Mtn Biking and other stuff

So I don't know what happened to my last post, must have been lost in the magical internet void.

I was able to do some great mountain bike riding this last week I have not been mountain biking for over 2 years. Well thats not totally true, I did do some down hill mountain bike riding this last summer in Sundance Utah, So I should say it's my first time doing cross country mountain bike riding. And it was awesome! I don't have a bike to do the job so I borrowed one from the best bike shop in the city, Mesa Cycles.Chris from Mesa took me over to the Lost Valley trail another trail down the Katy Trail. Lost Valley is supposed to be a beginner trail. It is about a 5 mile loop I think, with some great single track and a good amount of fire road. I think the the single track in Lost Valley was really fast and had some really great technical points especially at high speed. After a loop there we traveled about 4 miles down the Katy Trail to another great spot called Matson. This set of trails were much more difficult with a lot of elevation change, huge rocks to traverse, and trees so close to the trail I was sure I was going to be taken out a few times.There was a very large steep hill that we had to climb to get to Matson, and I swear it had to be over 20% grade.
I was just amazed at the condition of these trails, the people that spend a lot of the free time working on them do a great job. I really should find some time at some point to help them out. I have always wondered how these guys and gals go about creating these trails. The lines that they take through the woods are just amazing. One of the areas we went though at lost valley was like the trail was just hanging onto the side of a steep hill. It would have been quite a chore to create that part of the trail.

I also took my wife Katie to ride at Castlewood on Sunday. We did about 10 miles and she was a trooper. Her bike is not really made for real off road riding but as long as we go slow it works fine. It is just heavy and more set up as a gravel path mtn bike than the one I was riding. She had a few tough spills and was a little upset at certain points, but she made it all the way to the end. I was really proud of her. She has been working really hard to try new things and be really involved in my cycling. After we were done we started a fire in one of the pick nick areas in the park. We brought some things to make smores, hung out for a while, and had a really nice time.

Castlewood is a nice ride but I think I liked the newness of the new locations. I also just don't think I am into mtn bike riding as I used to be. Don't get me wrong, it was really fun, but I think riding on the road takes the cake for me still. Just the speed, the easy of being able to walk out the door and ride, and everything else about the culture.

Life otherwise is going well, I just turned 30 a few days ago. My wife says I am now old, joke is she turns 30 in just a couple months too. It's funny how young I still think I am though. Most of the time I still think I am a teenager or a young college student. I still look pretty much the same as well. More facial hair now but that is about it. It's my goal to be 90 and look like I am a 50 year old. That is if I live that long, I have a history of long living people in my family as well as cancer though soooo it's a crap shoot. One day I hope to be good enough on the bike and old enough to start competing for masters nationals and maybe even worlds some day.

One thing that I don't get about riding a mtn bike is why the position? It is very un-aerodynamic. Maybe it was just the bike that I was on, as it was a demo bike from Specialized. I guess they are set up for the average joe instead of more of a racer. I also don't understand the super wide handle bars though. When I was a kid we would cut our bars down to something like 20". The idea was you could get though more narrow areas. From what I can gather the bars are wider now for leverage. But with the gearing on the bikes I don't know why you need to torque on the bars so hard. Whatever, if I ever buy a mountain bike again I will make it more my own like I do with all my bikes. The one new thing I really like, which isn't really new at all, just new to me, is the rear suspension. Wow does that make a big difference. More traction, more comfort, more everything good. Maybe it does add a little weight that not having it wouldn't but the smoothing out of your ride which then would save you energy could more than make up for that.

Got to leave for work now, coaching is going really well for the most part. This is the doldrums of the season for gymnastics. No more working new skills, working a lot of routines, which is really hard, but not competing yet. This makes everyone a little crabby some times. Most every day though I am really excited about getting into the gym and working with my kids. The kids have really come a long way and it is great to see them grow.

Not a fan of the cold

The cold has come and it brought rain with it. Rain or cold on their own doesn't bother me, but together I just don't want to be outside. For some reason I used to like days like this, but now that I want to spend most of my time outside and on the road I can't stand it. I used to love the cold and snow as well. I always said that all you had to do was put on more clothes to feel warm. Where as in the summer you can only take off some many clothes before you are naked, and even then that might not keep you cool. Now though I love the heat, I still can't sleep in it, but I have no problem working my ass off in the heat all day, and training in it as well. I just have to make sure I have enough cold water and I am good to go.
I guess I got sick of the cold over the few years after I graduated from college. Those were some real tough years from my wife and I in terms of money. We didn't have enough to keep our home warm enough in the winter to keep us warm. Just warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing and getting our landlord pissed at us. I remember nights where it felt like the wind was pushing right through our walls on windy nights.
Now thought I just think I am tired of getting all dressed up to go out. My power meter never works right when it gets bellow 30, and I don't know that I get as good a workout when it is that cold vs. training in the basement.
I guess I just think some day I need to move to a more temperate climate. I want to be outdoors and living in the midwest is just not the place to be for 4 or 5 months out of the year. One day when I win the 300 million dollar lottery I think I'll take off. Until then though I am stuck in the basement dreaming of the spring and racing with my new team, and my great teammates.

Quantum Mesa Cycles just makes me tingle

The new team has a name! (Quantum Mesa Cycles) I am so excited and we are already busy working on designs and putting everything in order.
A few of the guys on next year's team were able to come out and do some great rides this weekend. One was out in St Charles, MO, and the other was down in Columbia, IL. The ride starting out in St Charles was a very hilly ride and took place on a beautiful day. The ride was meant to be an easy one that would allow all the new riders to get to know each other. In order for that to happen we had to keep it slow. And really to all's surprise it did! The only point of the ride where guys really stretched their legs was on the big climbs. I on the other hand did not. Climbing is not my natural state of being and like being a ring specialist in gymnastics was for me, as soon as I stop working on it I lose it. I also was really trying to keep my watts low and wanted no part of the Cat 2s on the ride duking it out up the hill to see how was stronger. At one point this did get me lost in the middle of no where with no phone and no idea what direction I needed to go. Coming over the top of a long hard climb where I had lost contact with the others there was a fork in the road. I decided to to go right and see if I could see anyone. Shortly after taking the right and going around a bend there was another fork in the road and still no friends. Crap! I went back to the original fork and waited. Turns out I had chosen wrong anyways and one of my teammates came back from the other direction to get me. They seem to have gotten pretty far before they remembered I had no idea where I was. It was pretty funny to me, and I felt bad my friend had to come back up another hill to get me. We finished the ride it seems just in time as all of us were getting pretty tired. I had done five and a half hours the day before hitting a lot of St Louis' big climbs so I was really ready to get some serious food in me. We all went and got lunch together and the rest of my day was spent resting and working on team stuff.

Today we went down to Columbia and some of the riders changed from yesterday. We headed out on the flats  riding next to the bluff for most of the day. It was easy rolling with no wind. I don't know that I remember another time when the wind was so calm on the flats of souther IL. We rolled on south of Maeystown for a while before we headed up into the bluff to hit some hills. The amount of hills we did were much fewer but they were very comparable to what we road on Saturday. The guys took it a little easier today as well on the starts of the climbs but pulled away easily at the tops. Luckily I was the only one who knew where we were today so I wouldn't get left behind :-) The only bummer part was that the wind picked up when we were coming back and it was a head wind. Not a bad one just was one.

It was great to get to ride with these guys this weekend. Everyone is really excited about next year. I just hope we can all live up to our own hype. To do that is going to take a LOT of really hard work, long workouts, sacrifice, families that are behind us, and great sponsors like Mesa Cycles to help us.  I hope the next five months go quick!

A generation of worry?

So I was on a long ride today and I didn't have my headphones so I did a lot of thinking. One thing that I came up with is can a person be taught to be an anxious person or are they born that way? I don't ever remember as a young kid really ever worrying about anything. But I guess what kid does? All you have to deal with is what cartoon are you going to watch today and hoping you can go to McDonalds for dinner.

The first time I ever remember being anxious was on a family vacation. My two brothers and I had taken a small blow up raft onto Lake Michigan. Not realizing it, we drifted quite far out onto the lake. We could still see land and we were in a large bay type area so I don't think that we were ever really in any danger. I don't know. I even turned down the man that came out on a jet ski to help us at first. My brother and I had hung our legs out the back of the little boat and were kicking like mad to try and get back. Still I was not really worried. Finally we took his help though. Not until we got back to shore and I saw how upset my mom was did I realize how bad it could have been. Her and my Dad were putting away lunch when my brothers and I took off with the boat. By the time they got to the beach we were way out there. I don't know what it was but seeing her so upset changed me. It took me a long time to get over that event, I guess that might have been when I finally realized my own mortality. It might have also triggered what has become a big struggle for me with anxiety. I'm not really sure about that, I think that my family on my Dad's side, is kind of predisposed to this kind of thing. So I could have been dealing with this, with or without this incident.

I think about this a lot because I have a lot of athletes that seem to worry about a lot of things that they have no control over, things that are far from happening, and instead of dealing with what is in front of them, they worry about what might happen. They create scenarios that are so out there that you have no idea how they come up with these things.It makes me think about all these people who tell these kids that every decision they make now will effect their whole lives. Yes there are things that if you fuck up you could fuck up your life. But getting a B+ or an A- on some random paper will not mean you can't go to medical school eight years from now. Almost all of the kids I coach are super smart, very driven, type A personalities. I have some friends, that knowing where they were in high school, and seeing where they are now, I could never have imagined how great they would be doing. People that did nothing but party and barely get into college, turned into top members of their very high paying fields. Some are engineers, business men, entrepreneurs, even doctors, and not all were A or even B students.
In a time were it seems harder and harder to get a job out of school I think that things are only going to get worse. People are coming out of school with advanced degrees and looking for jobs for years. Parents are pushing their kids more, which puts more pressure on the kids, and creates anxious kids.

I guess the place to be right now is to open your own school, I see an awful lot of ads for schools or websites that will find you the "right school". They promise you more just because you have a piece of paper. To me it is a scam, just pay them your $50k and they will say you are now ready to be a graphic artist, or a nurse. When often times I hear employer friends of mine say that they get these guys right out of school that know nothing. They end up teaching these guys, gals everything they need to know anyways. Thinking back to my time in school I really don't know what I was taught? How many people do you know that moved from one job to a totally different job they didn't go to school for? Or how many got jobs not in their field of study? Biologists who are advertisers, or art majors who are stock brokers.

I guess I just want to try to get across to these kids that they are not closing any doors on themselves if they don't ace every test. And get them to enjoy this time of their lives. You grow up so fast and live a comfortable protected life with your parents for such a small amount of time. Once you are out of the house things only get tougher. If you are already stressed so much you never sleep at 13, things don't look good for your future. I guess I should have become a therapist, thats where the money really will be.

Slaying the Badger

So I am reading this book about the duel between Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault and their lives before. I am not very far in but already I really like the book. It has just talked about how both of these greats of the cycling world grew up and started in the pro peleton. For those who don't know Bernard Hinault was one of the greatest cyclists of all time. He is one of only 5 cyclists to have won all the grand tours, he is the only one to have won each one at least twice. He also won the Tour De France 5 times was second twice and won 28 stages. There are only four other cyclists to have won 5 TdF titles, Lance Armstrong being the only one to win more. Hinault was nick named the Badger early on in his career because of his ferocious attitude during racing. There is one paragraph in this book that peaked my attention and I have read it maybe 100 times, even out loud to my wife.
"The club Hinault joined, Club Olympique Briochin was quite an institution - and still is. Set up in 1947, a cycling section was created in 1951 under the guidance of Robert Le Roux, a former national champion - not as a cyclist, however, but as a gymnast. It was Le Roux who was still in charge two decades later, when Hinault began racing and whom Hinault credits as being his first coach and a huge influence. 'He was both a sound theoretician and practical man' said Hinault. 'He gave me my education and I owe him everything."
(Slaying the Badger pg26)
This was HUGE for me. If you have read my blog you know I am a gymnastics coach and was a gymnast at the U of I. I was not a national champion but I was a Big Ten champ and I was ranked on rings in the top 25 so I was okay. My love for cycling and its amazing culture has had a huge draw for me and I hope someday to be able coach cyclists as well as gymnasts. It is amazing how people don't realize that if you are a good coach you can just about coach anything. Sure I can't tell you how to shoot the best free throw, but give me a little time and I bet I could learn and have some kids doing it pretty well. That's how I see it with cycling. I am putting in a lot of time trying to learn as much as I can about being an endurance athlete, what it takes to be a smart cyclists, and how to run a team. I think the running the team part will be the easiest, it is just putting orders together and calling team meetings and stuff like that. The hard part will be if I ever get my coaching license and start coaching kids or other adults. I have asked some of my teammates if they would let me come up with workouts for them but they do not seam too pumped for that. I think coaching adults would be one of the hardest things to do. Coaching kids is easy comparably. Kids will for the most part do what you say. The don't know if you know what you are doing or just trying to act like you do. You have to be a very good coach to work with adults. My coach is great, and he has never coached anyone before. He was a great amateur cyclist who quit racing when he got a job and started a family. Twelve years later, I met him though work and he has been helping me for the last 2 seasons. I have made huge steps forward in my cycling ability and I have learned a lot from him on how to coach cyclists. I have even been able to use the knowledge I have gained from him to be a better gymnastics coach. I think that we help each other out a lot of times too. We bounce stuff off each other as we both started using power meters at that same time, and didn't know anything about them. That is how I try to work with my athletes in the gym. I try to work with them no just ordering them around like machines. Sometime yes I have to tell them what to do, but I want my kids to be able to think, and you would be amazed at how little they do sometimes.
I guess the biggest reason that I am writing this entry was because I was told recently how my knowledge as a gymnastics coach was meaningless in cycling. There were a lot of other un-nice things said about me at that point as well but no need to go into it. This paragraph was just great for me. It showed me that there have been dudes like me who did what I would like to do. I don't think that I will ever be involved with someone like Bernard Hinault but that's not what interests me. I just want to be a coach.

A new team

Mike and I have finally come up with a new team name. I want to get a logo and some kit ideas down before I let the cat out of the bag but it is a good name I think. I have spent a few days working on a name, it is unreal how hard it is to come up with a name. Also it is very annoying how every person you ask for advice gives you joke names. It's uncanny really. I think funny names are great for teams that only exist for short periods of time. Like you are doing an event and want a tongue and cheek name that gives everyone a laugh. But a team that hopefully is going to last for some time, you want people to take you seriously. There are no professional teams that have funny names or cute names. They are all supposed to invoke fear, respect, or the power and or wisdom of whatever the team is named after. We are giving ourselves a name and then having our biggest sponsor, being Mesa Cycles included in the name. Doing this will allow for any changes that may happen in the future to be minimized. For example if Mesa decides we don't do a good enough just promoting their brand and don't want to be a naming sponsor any more we will still have our main name. This is something that the pro teams have been doing for a while, basically having a holding company that takes in all the money and then pays it all out to the riders. We wont be bringing huge sums of money but Mesa will be making things very nice for us and allows us to help out the guys on our team with what is a very expensive sport.

I started riding again on Friday and I can still feel some pretty sore muscles at certain points. I don't remember a time that my muscle soreness lasted this long. I remember in gymnastics getting pretty sore at times but I think that lasted because I would go in and do the same workout again and get re-sored I guess you could say. Most likely I'm still so sore because I made myself hold a position that I was not used to for such a long time and rarely gave myself any relief. I just tried to power through. Mentally I think that ride will pay off in the future but I am paying for it.

Im going to try to make the Knucklehead ride tomorrow morning. This is a very interesting ride. It is about 70 miles long starting in the Moorelands of St Louis and heading out west to the Babbler area. The ride is mostly populated by cyclist who don't generally race anymore. The few times I have done it I have only seen a few regular racers, myself and Chris Connolly being two of them. The rest of these guys and gals are for real though. They will kick your ass and then go faster and laugh at you. This is their race and they take it seriously. I have been dropped on the first climb before on this ride. The last couple times I have done fine and hung at the front, but tomorrow might be another bad day. I don't have any miles and I think I might be a few pounds heavier. I am too scared to weigh myself, but I have been eating whatever I want and drinking too. Not a good idea to keep fit. I just felt like I needed a little time not caring for a while about what I weighed or how much I trained. The strangest thing about riding right now is that I have no structure. I remember last year feeling the same way about going back to just getting base miles. For a while Mike (my coach) just has me riding and enjoying the view. Soon enough I will be back on a schedule and I will be getting ready for an all new season. 5 months will go quick.

Is it time to compete yet?

This is the part of the year that I can't wait to get back into meet season. Some time around March I am going to be hating gymnastics and just want to stay home and sleep in my own bed. But right now I want the world to see all the hard work my coaches', athlete's, and I have put in this summer. In a few weeks region 4 (Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota) will be coming together at our annual training camp. There are two camps each year to help clubs from the north and south have a camp closer to home. This year Al Fong will be opening up his gym and hosting the rest of our region. I am really excited to go this year and see his gym and maybe learn something from him or another coach there. I am always trying to learn and there are going to be some great coaches and athletes there.
Things in the gym seem to be going in the right direction. Athletes are starting to put routines together, we are starting to get injured athletes back on their feet. I feel like we are getting better and better at getting athletes ready to compete. It has taken years to get to this point and I am starting to feel like I am starting to get some real momentum and I am feeling confident. I need to always try to keep my feet on the ground and not think that I am too good. Obviously I am not. I have no national champions and even a lot of the great coaches I see out there that I have don't appear to be "too good". Most of the guys, gals, I look up to in the coaching world are more that willing to help a young coach out. I don't know if I count any more as a young coach since I have been around for over a decade now. But if you know the right questions to ask, most of the time people want to tell you how they got to where they are. The hard part is knowing how to take what they say and use it to improve yourself and your athletes.
I have had plenty of coaches throughout my life ask me how I coach one skill or another. Then after taking sometimes hours to teach these people they go right back to what they did before they asked me.There is that and I feel that a lot of coaches have no imagination. I know I was stuck in a rut last year. I was so happy to just have kids competing routines that they hit 90% of the time I didn't notice that they all had the same freakin routines.Most of the time though I am trying to think of how I can be different. I don't want to be strange different, I want to be wow different. There are plenty of skills in the code that are goofy, like fly aways from the low bar to the high bar. Yeah I have only seen that once but no matter what it looks like shit. The hardest event to be inventive is vault. There just aren't that many high level vaults out there and there are even fewer of the "easy" high level vaults. Last year I would hear vault judges often complaining about the lack of variety on vault and they would give higher scores to vaults not often seen. In my opinion these vault weren't actually any better they just don't see them often enough to pick them apart like they do the normal vaults.
This year I think I have done a better job of mixing it up a bit. All the kids have just about the same level of skills and number. But each one has maybe one skill that is going to make them different than the rest. Also I am doing my best to come up with different sequences or changing up the order of the skills to keep everything fresh. Over the next few years I hope to keep adding to my portfolio of skills for my athletes to compete and being able to get those skills ready in time for season and while the athlete is still young enough.
Well there is still some work to do but everything is fast approaching and I can't wait! 

Dream big or go home

This was a post that I took down because I wrote it when I was really mad about something and also said some really ignorant stuff. I went through it again and now I think it is less stupid.

I don't generally listen to church shows but I stopped for a second and listened to that dude Joel Olsteen. It's like his smile just mesmerizes you and he seams to make more sense to me that someone saying that I have to follow some book that was in my opinion, written by men to control those not as smart as themselves. This guy every time I have heard him just says be a good person, help other people, help yourself, and try in your life. This time when I stopped for a few seconds he was talking about having big dreams. He was saying that sometimes having only small goals makes it so that you will never achieve all that you could. I know that small goals are good for moral, you need them to keep you going until you attain your large goal. I have big goals, and I have a general idea of how I am going to get to most of them. One of my big goals is to one day compete in a masters world championships, and by compete I mean be competitive. I don't want to just show up and ride my bike. These are things that I try to teach my athletes and that I have to constantly remind myself about. I really don't know why but there are always those that want to keep you from your goals. There is no reason for this, maybe they are jealous or just don't like to see other succeed. I even find myself sometimes telling people why it is going to be really hard to achieve some goal they want. Why tell them that, why not tell them how to attain that goal, or do something that would help them on their way? Especially if this person attaining their goal has no negative outcome on me.
There is a young guy that is working for me who is turning out to be a great coach in a very short time. This coach wants to one day coach elite gymnastics. At one time this was what I wanted as well but I have changed my goal in this area to sending athletes to college. I have my reasons for this but that does not mean that I should discourage this coach from trying to do what he wants to do. So I think I will be as of much help as I can. I have never been an elite coach so I can't tell him exactly what to do, but one day this coach is going to have to leave my gym to go to an elite gym. And when that day comes I will help him find a great gym that he can go to learn more. I wont be mad but happy for him. He will be one more step closer to realizing his dream. I will most likely miss him and his skill as a coach, but who am I to tell someone they can't have what they have worked so hard to have.
I think that maybe I am not the norm though. I often find those who would rather tell me why I can't do something rather than why I can or should. I know it will be hard, and that the odds are against me.  But if I work hard, plan, train, study, do everything that I can to attain that goal, I don't need you or anyone else telling me what I can or can't do. In fact, you telling me I can't, that I am a nobody, that I have no right, that pushes me even more. I love to prove people wrong, I have been doing it my whole life, and I will do it again. I have great things that I am going to do. I have a long way to go to reach my goals for life, but I will rise above and I will continue to work. No one is going to stop me, and I will do everything that I can to help all those that ask to get what they want too. I hope that is a step in the right direction.

A long Season Finished

Man what a year! Good, bad, winning, losing. Everything goes into the knowledge bank. Already I am planning for next year. This week though is off the bike. Did one of the hardest ride I had ever done on the 11th of this month. I was part of Illini Pride, a relay team competing at the Cedar Point Iron Man. I road the bike section and was able to help my team to a second place showing. I had never trained for such a race and was really worried about being able to compete at that distance. In the end everything worked out well and I had a lot of fun. I hope to be able to do it again next year.
This year I raced; if I wasn't at work I was heading to a race with my team. Katie was a huge help with my ability to race so much. She was often my support crew and even though she complains sometimes, I think she likes it. We are part of a community of people and we have a circle of friends. Without racing we wouldn't have any of it.
I hope that next year I am able to come close to the number of races that I did this year. I also hope to have more success in the coming year. Most of this last year was spent as a helper to most of my teammates. If everyone works as hard in the off season though I may still be a domestique. Not really a bad thing though if you think about it, it is great to be part of such a great group of guys.
2012 will bring in more change for my cycling. I hope that it will be a change for the better. Really I think it will be and will be the start of something really good. There is a lot of work left to get everything ready and to make it an enjoyable experience for the rest of the guys on the team. When things get more solid I will share but now I want to make sure things are ready to go.
Gymnastics is heating up now that racing is cooling down. Things are looking good, all the coaches are working hard and I think things are coming together better than ever. Still there is room to improve and if I ever think there isn't I should quit. The biggest hurdle I think we are working with right now is trying to get all our gymnasts healthy. It always seems like we have a lot of injuries but I think that is just because we have so many girls compared to what I have known all my life. My level 9/10 team is bigger than the women's team at the U of I when I was there.

Do you want to go doing what you love?

I ask this question because there is a rider that was doing a race I was in earlier in the year that will pass away in the next week or so from his injuries. He crashed during the sprint of I think a Cat 5 race maybe it was a 4/5 because I heard the rider used to be a Cat 2 and had just came back to racing. I did not see the crash nor did I go and see the rider lying on the ground after but I heard it was bad bad bad. The story I heard was that he landed on his face without putting his hands down and was going at a good clip. He was taken to the local hospital and the local cycling community really rallied behind this family and raised money, and donated food to help them in their time of need. My team donated some money as well and I hope that it somehow made the family's life a little better but I doubt it. How could anything make their lives better with their father, husband, son, friend laying in a bed fighting for his life. We were given daily updates on how he was doing over the local forums and I checked multiple times a day praying for some good news. But massive brain swelling has taken its toll and the doctors have see no improvements for some time now, and the family was faced with the horrible decision of "pulling the plug". My wife and I have talked about this happening to one of us multiple times, about what we both would like, and I am sure that this family has done the same. But still the final decision to say good bye has to be the hardest thing anyone would ever have to face.
I know that I have often said that I would love to go doing something that I love to do. Not wasting away in a bed of some cancer or something like that. I don't think that I mean in my prime though. When I say that I mean when I am 100 years old I want to be riding my bike in some group ride and my heart just explodes as I reach the top of some mountain. The sun shining, with the whole world stretching out in front of me. My last breath is a gasp at the beauty of the moment, and then it is over. To pass at such a young age leaving a family behind is not how I would want to go.
One of my teammates said that this crash made him think, he has his first baby coming in less than a month and has a lot of responsibility coming up. It makes me think as well but mostly that I have to be as vigilant as I can be while racing. Try to stay out of trouble and just ask God every time that I start a race that I, and every other guy out there makes it home safe that night. I know the danger involved, I have been in dangerous sports my whole life. I could die slipping in the tub. This just hits close, and I know that I will keep this with me for a long time.

A little over a month left

There isn't much road racing left in the season. There are only a couple big races left and I think I can feel my legs coming back. After my big block of racing earlier this year I hit a big slump. It was pretty much right after the tour of Lawrence. I got sick, couldn't ride much, and my fitness dropped quickly. The toughest part about it was the mental let down. You work so hard for this level of fitness and ability, and you want it to last forever. But it wont and it doesn't. Part of the reason for the drop also is that I had very few miles even with all the racing. These races are only about 30 miles or less on average and to be able to remain at that level you need miles and you need lots of miles and lot of intensity.
Well I am finally putting in both again. Did 80 miles on Monday with 30 of it averaging 25 miles per hour. And then I road over to Tuesday night Worlds yesterday where we averaged 26 and I ended up with almost 40 miles. I will probably get out tonight and ride around Forest Park for a couple hours in the twilight and dark to try and beat this crazy heat. I have had just about enough.
Not much to talk about today, maybe after I get back from vacation in Utah. Later.

708 Racing, a game changer?

I started Wild Card Racing STL, now 708 Racing with Mike Rickey because I didn't want to be just another rider in a group. I wanted to be part of a real team. I think a lot of people in the STL racing scene dont want to race as a team. Maybe they never were part of a team when they were younger and don't understand or appreciate the positives to it. Since I was a Cat 5 just about every race I have been in with others there has been a team plan. They don't alway work and we didn't always win but they made racing more enjoyable and filled my need to be part of something more than just me. Now that I have this great team around me and we always race as a team people are really noticing. Again we don't aways win, and we often have more than one plan, sometimes up to 4 plans, but they are there.
Racing a bike is different then running or triathlon because when we line up to race we are not doing it just to finish or get a personal record time. Most of us are doing it to try and win. The thing is that only one man can win and with bike racing it is very hard to win every race. But when you race as a team every rider has a job to do. Your job my be simple, it could be to make the first five laps of a race really fast, or it could be hard, go away on an all day break away. Some guys will have the job to chase break aways, some will have lead out duties, and one guy is going to be picked to win. And because everyone has a job everyone can win. You can feel fulfilled by your day's work because you did what you were supposed to do to help the team attain their total goal.
Our team also gives all our members their shot at their goals. We all have favorite races that we would love to win. And everyone at some point in the year will get all the resources of 708 Racing at their disposal. We do have a couple riders that if we worked for them at every race we would have had a pretty good shot at winning 3/4 of every race we entered or more. But what type of team is that? Sure as a pro you may be paid to race for the same rider at every race, the key word being paid. As amateurs we do this because it is our passion. We dream of riding across that finish line with our arms raised in triumph, and we make sure everyone gets their shot. My two shots I got this year I was not able to bring home the gold, but I was so grateful for all the help from my team that I have also buried myself for others on my team. It is that total sacrifice that separates 708 Racing from all other STL teams.
I feel like I have already started to see changes in the fields though. Other teams are starting to see that if they are going to keep up with us they are going to have to start adapting similar tactics. I think this is a great thing for bike racing in St Louis! If there are a good number of teams that learn to races with each other instead of just wearing the same kit St Louis could become a region know for great racing and maybe start to produce great young cyclists. Now that could be a big jump to make that just because a few guys who like to ride bikes together could change a whole cycling culture. But things have to start someplace and why not try to push things in a direction that could make us all better.
So even though I may be making it harder for me and my team to race and win, I am throwing out the gauntlet to those who suit up to race every weekend. Make plans, race as a team, I think that you will find that your passion for the sport only intensifies. And when it is all said and done this could be the start of an era, and you could say you were there.

Get better already

I am still a bit under the weather. I am feeling better than I did during the week but still not good enough. I have not done a whole lot of riding hoping that resting would be the best thing. I am not willing to give up all my fitness though so I am anxious to get back at it. On the other hand if I try to come back too fast I will just dig a deeper hole. Fuckin A!
Well today I did a ride to see how my body is doing. I was going to do a few hard intervals to see where my heart rate and power numbers are. Turns out they were great, so why do I still feel like shit? I was going to do a power test tomorrow but now I am thinking that I will hold off another couple days and hope that I am feeling even better. Now that it is later in the day though I don't feel so great again and I am worried that I will feel shitty again tomorrow. I don't know maybe I will feel even better.
I think that I am going to riding with my wife and just see how it goes again. She is getting better at riding. We did 25 miles today and she was riding pretty good until the last few miles. I just need to get her to drink more water and eat food while we ride. Especially if we start doing more miles. Man I would really love to get her into racing. She just looks good on a bike, and I could get her some good wins.
It is getting late, I'm going to bed.

Tour of Lawrence

Mike and I traveled to Lawrence KS this last weekend to race the 3 stages around the University of Kansas. Day one was a 200 meter sprint down one of the main streets in Lawrence. Day two was a circuit on the UK campus going up and down some very big hills on a 3.9 mile course. Day 3 was down on the same streets as the sprint. This was an eight corner figure 8 crit almost completely flat.
Street sprints are not something that you see very often. It is a standing start all out single elimination race contested over 200 meters. Every rider was given pretty much a free race on the first round. The organizers said that it was for seeding the racers but I didn't really see it doing a very good job. I don't really know a better way and I did like the free race to figure out how I would react in real race conditions. I was given some good tips for this race that I am going to keep to myself because you would never guess the best way to do these races. And I want to have another good shot next year. Every race I did I had a great start and didn't really have any problems qualifying to later rounds. My last round I was just too jacked up. I had the whole shot and was in the lead by a bike length right away. I got too far forward though and caused my rear wheel to jump twice. That was all she wrote. When you are going close to 40 miles per hour and power not getting to the road means you are going backwards compared to everyone else. I ended up being knocked out one round from the money. I was happy to be able to get so far and beat some top sprinter but pissed about the mistake I made and that I was so close but didn't make it.
One day 2 Mike and I were going to race with a new team member for the first time. Eric Finks came to us from Bicycle Shack located out near Clinton, MO. He is a guy we have been racing against all year and we were really interested in him coming over to our team. He is super strong and really nice cool dude. The course for the day was not suited for me as my memories of it was of me getting my ass kicked. I told Eric and Mike that I would do what I could to help them. There were two climbs on each lap. One was a gradual grind that took about 3 min to climb. It was never too steep and it was the kind of climb that I liked. The second climb was shorter but much steeper lasting about 2 min. It started out steeper than the first climb and half way up it kicked up more and then again right at the top. This was an out of the saddle climb almost all the way. This was where most of the day's attacks went. To my surprise I was able to go with every one of them and not go too deep ever. Don't get me wrong it hurt, but before those attacks would have put me off the back, not passing guys to stay with them. There was never a time that I thought I was going to be dropped, that is a first, EVER, in a race so hilly. With one lap to go it was only Eric and I left in the race, and there were only maybe 15 guys. I asked Eric how he was feeling and if he wanted to stick with the plan. He said yes to I was going to lead him into and up the last climb until I exploded. Then we hit the first climb of the last lap and the guys on the front were hammering. Gaps started to form and at the top Eric was letting a big gap open. I went around him to close it and hoped he would be on my wheel. Going into the last climb I couldn't find Eric so I started to think about what I should do. Then about halfway up the last climb Eric pulled up next to me and I knew what I was going to do. I pulled in front of Eric and started to steadily pull him up to the front of the pack. I went as hard as I could for as long as I could and then Eric went for it. He ended up 9th, and turns out I need to learn to count better because if I had just stayed on the gas I would have been 10th, instead I was 11th and out of the money. I am stupid. After the race I was soooo hot I jumped into the fountain at the end of the finish straight. That was nice.
On day 3 we lined up to race a great crit. I took 7th last year being passed by 6 riders about 10 meters from the finish line. This year the guys were racing for me again and I would try to do a little better. The race was never too hard for me. I stayed on Mike's wheel almost the entire time and never used too much power. At the end of the race Eric and Mike were going to lead me out for about half a lap into the last corner. When the time came Eric was off the front, I think he forgot he was racing for a team and was going for a flyer. I don't blame him it will take time to learn to race how we race. Eric did end up getting into the lead out but he used a little too much energy and when he started he couldn't hold it long enough or fast enough. When Mike took over he was sitting 5th wheel and me 6th. Coming into 2 corners to go we were slowed up but a rider that didn't know how to turn and we lost ground on the first and second riders. Mike kept the speed up though and I took off going through the last turn. I passed Mike and the slow rider but was passed on the left by another rider. I finished 5th and was very happy. We took away a good amount of cash from the weekend and met a lot of new great people.
I have this next weekend off and then I race the Wildwood TT and the Babbler State Park Circuit. I am also going to the Mesa Cycles TdF party on the 16th. If you are in the STL it is the place to be!

Glencoe, Webster the end of a great series of racing.

Man I am getting behind on these races. I happen to be under the weather right now so I have time to weave you a tale of pain, sacrifice, and glory though.
Glencoe IL hosted the IL state crit championships this year. It is an awesome course that weaves through a very nice neighborhood in the Norther suburb of Chicago. The roads are tight, but smooth, and with 9 turns this course was made for those with nerves of steel and bike handling skills to match. Mike, Mark, and I had raced this course last year and knew that the first rule of Glencoe is you don't talk about Glencoe.....no that's not it, it's that you have to be at the front. The yo-yo affect is crazy bad at this race with the hard turns, some at the bottom  of a down hill section where you are carrying about 40 miles per hour. All of 708 was able to get a good spot on the line at the start and we were comfortably at the front right away. I was the first break of the day, not on purpose though, I just took the tight section with some speed and took a huge gap going into the small climb on the course. And what is becoming almost comical at this point I went through the KOM (really? on a crit?) and the called a preem. I have probably gone one 15 breaks this year and maybe one or two have not been right before a preem lap. Maybe I need to go for breaks after the start line so I know if we are going to have a preem or not. Ok so anyways, I decided I would hold this break and win the preem. With the technical aspect of the course I was able to use my pure turning skills and stayed away for what turned out to not even be a preem but just a race for some stupid points, DAMMIT! Right after the KOM a rider from Rhythm Racing bridged up to me and we went for another lap together and were caught. I really don't know why I was putting in another lap. I was there to work for Mark and try to get him the W. When I was caught I went to the back and let Mike, Mark, and Keith patrol the front of the pack and that is when a rider from xXx got away. This is a rider we were watching and I feel like if I had not put in a unnecessary effort I would have been up there and been able to do more sooner to keep that guy close or chase him down. Instead I made it back to the front of the race with xXx off the front, and chase group behind him and my team chasing them all. I was able to help Mark bring back the larger chase group between us and xXx but after that effort I needed a rest again and did not see that we didn't bring back the lead guy. That is the tough part about racing on a tight course, once a rider is out of sight a lot of times that means he is out of mind. Well once we realized there was a man 25 seconds up the road Keith and I went to the front and put everything we had into trying to bring it back. There were a couple Rhythm Racing guys trying to help and a couple individuals in there but they never tried to start working into a rotation so we were never able to get a good rhythm going and start bringing the leader back. With 3 laps to go the pack knew that we were racing for 2nd and I knew I still had a very hard job to do. We hoped we would have 3 men left at the end of the race to lead our top racer Mark out. The idea was that I would start the lead out going up the hill at the halfway point of the race and try to take it almost to the 90* left hand turn. Then Keith would take it from there around the next 90* right hand turn. Mike would take over after that and bring Mark to about 30 meters from the last 90* right hand turn. The last turn was very wide and you could really hold a lot of speed through it. That meant that you needed to be in first at that turn to win the race. We knew if Mark was leading he could hold off all comers. So it turned out I was the only rider left to help Mark. I let him know that I was right behind him and that I would get him to the last corner. We got split going into the hill when I went wide and Mark stayed on the inside. We both blasted up the hill on our respective sides and met near the front at the top. It was to our benefit that we didn't make it all the way to the front as we were able to get a draft from some other riders. We were also luck that Rhythm was trying to lead out there man too so I jumped in behind their lead man on the front and took his draft almost to the second to last right turn. I hit the front and put my head down and told myself to hurt bad and that it would be over soon. Halfway up the slightly uphill straight I stood on the pedals to pick up the speed some more and when I sat Mark took off like a rocket, leading the race all the way to the line for his second 2nd place for IL state races.
The next day was Webster groves just 5 min from my home in Clayton. It would be a great way to end my 9 days of racing and traveling around the Midwest. This race was going to be for Chris Connally but Chris came down with a pretty difficult illness and was unable to race. It was really cool of him to come and cheer us on even though he was still feeling pretty shitty. With Chris out we made new plans for the day with Keith and I going for breaks or on chasing duty and Mike, Mark, and Matt on preem duty. It was for sure the hottest day of all the racing I had done. For those who don't know you need to train in the heat to compete in the heat, or you need to be pretty fit. I'm thinking my fitness was doing ok because I was hurting really bad pretty early in this race from the heat but was able to recover quickly and stick with it. I tried a couple digs to get away in the race on my own and tried to go with a few other breaks. All that work plus the previous week we almost too much and there were a couple times I thought about calling it quits. Mike and Mark did a great job picking up two preems that I had no idea were even on offer. The announcer was not calling the preems for the whole field so many times people won preems they didn't even know they were racing for. Matt did a great job mixing it up in the race as well. For a guy that spends most of his time on the trails around the STL he really can put the hurt on the road. So with about 4 laps to go I found myself on Mark's wheel and started to feel a lot better. Mark kept us near the front and we were looking very good. The pace was staying high enough that not many guys were trying to move up. But then with two laps to go Mark went to the front to start a lead out with me trying to tell him not to go. At the end Mark said all hear heard was go.....ok so he did a great lead out but not long enough and when he pulled up the rider on his wheel from Dog Fish just sat up! WTF! He has riders on his own team lined up in front of my and behind and he just sits up? I really don't know what those guys think. So with this all going on I now have to be ready for the surge that will for sure be coming. With 3 turns to go it came and I had to use a match to stay near the front. I knew I had to not go too deep but if I dropped too far back it would be all over. There were now 7 riders in front of me instead of 3 and they all were very fast. Coming out of the final turn I hit the power as fast as I could passing on rider who had tried his bid for victory too early crossing the line 6th. I was moved to 5th after Luke from Dog Fish was DQ'd for a pretty shitty ruling IMO. I felt bad but I'll take the points and money. Sorry Luke.
Wow, that was just a ton of fun and I really can not wait till next year to do it all over again. Next up ToLawrence Street Sprints, Circuit, and Crit. Fun Funner Funnerest!!!!