Sandbag the Clydesdales 2014!

Sandbag the Clydesdales 2014!

I’m a 6’4.5” tall guy.  I weigh, on average, 185-190.  I’m a pretty fast biker, averaging in the top 25% of the B’s in cyclocross.  And I’m debating on gaining 10-15lbs of, I hope, muscle, before cross season next year.  Why you might ask?  Well you probably wont ask, because you read the title to this blog.  I’m going to sandbag the Clydesdales!

Flash back to my 1^st year of bike racing.  I did pretty well in the beginners, after crashing or flatting out of my 1^st couple races, but then wining the 1^st race that I kept my wheels to the mud, and didn’t flat.  I was excited to try and win a big Portland beginner race later that week, but was quickly shamed by Spencer Bushnell.  He said and I quote, “there’s no honor in winning a beginner race”.  So I registered as a C in my 1^st more than 15 person cross race.  This one had about 110 racers.  I was very nervous, and rightly so, as a person who had put more miles on my bike in the last 3 weeks than I had in probably the last 5-10 years…  I was the epitome of a newb.

(I thought this was a bike race)

The race started, I was pretty close to the back, feeling tentative about passing, it took me almost 2 laps to hit my stride.  I was finally passing people and feeling fast and strong.  I was getting to the point where I was wondering how far off the leaders were, and if they were close enough to catch in our final 4 laps.  I was riding hard, and shooting for my new goal.  All of a sudden a strong and fast guy pushed passed me.  He was killing it.  How could this fast guy be so far back?  Did this guy have a mechanical?  Before I could ponder it further another guy blew passed me and then another.  By the time the race had ended I estimated that the top 5 guys had lapped me…  I felt like shit.  I felt ashamed…  I was this big fish in the little pond of Eugene getting 1-3^rd in little races, then getting lapped in the Portland big pond races.  What business did I have even coming up here to race?

Now I’m no slouch, I have been racing, running racing, since I was 14.  I have been to districts or state every year of high school, and I was going into this cross season after just finishing the Portland marathon, placing 75 out of thousands,  (second marathon that year) in under 3hrs.  I was no slouch to racing.  And I was ready to hang up my clip in shoes, give up this biking stuff, and go back to running…

(see I'm a skinney runner)

It wasn’t until hours later on the ride home with fellow teammate, veteran racer in the B’s Taylor Bushnell, that I was informed with a laugh that I was just getting passed by the Clydesdales!  I felt so much better.  But over the season it made me think, why are these fast guys racing in the Clydesdale race?  What’s the point?  Where’s the “honor”?  I couldn’t find an answer, but it kind of pissed me off.  I decided the category was even more of a joke than it was supposed to be.  So I started trying to pack on the lbs.  Mind you this was about half way through the season, so I didn’t have much time, and I was, coming off a marathon, where every lb counts, and running 70 miles a week, so I was a svelte 175.

I almost did it.  I gained 23 lbs in under a months (almost a lb a day!).  I had to try really hard too.  Luckily we (Tensegrity) were sponsored by Ninkasi, and we had all the beer we could drink.  So I would stuff my face meal after meal, plus drink protein shakes in the morning and then after my workouts, as well as drinking at least 3 pints a night.  But before I could hit that magic 200lbs the season was over.

  The next year I was doing too good in the C’s, winning some races and then being force upgraded into the B’s too frivolously put on weight.  So my plan was put on hiatus.  This year came and was a frustrating year, this time struggling with having the time to train, and a little miss training, kept me fighting to break into the top B’s.  I have decided to not worry about the B’s and have fun next year, so gain the weight over the next 9-10 months and join the Clydesdales.

Now I’m not sure if I will be able to beet those fast Clydesdale guys, but I will try really hard.  I kind of want to be heading for the finish line obviously in 1^st, and then at the last minute DNF.  Or maybe win and just rant about it… Am I just being a dick?  My goal is to hopefully get OBRA, or whoever make the decisions about how the categories are decided to completely reform the Clydesdales qualifications.  I mean as a 6’5” guy I could easily be 200+ lbs and have less than 10% body fat.  That’s not right.  I have been in races (as a C) with the Clydesdales that seemed super fun. Guys getting bacon hand ups, riding fat bikes, getting lapped 1-2 times by the top C’s (and Clydesdales).  This should be a purely fun category.  There shouldn’t be guys who could be winning B races in there.  I mean if you win the series your get a plate of hamburgers that could make Wimpy ask for a doggy bag.  Am I just being a jerk, and seeing a problem when there isn’t one?  I don’t know if it’s just the “fairness alarm” I got ingrained in my mind from my kindergarten teacher mom.  All I know is that I don’t think that it’s set up fair.  Do the heavier set fun loving bikers have a problem with it?  I don’t know…  Would some of them have more fun if they felt more competitive?  Beats me…  But I’m going to bull headedly jump in with both feet.

(Me feeling like a super hero!)

Here’s my idea of how to make it fair the easiest.  Do a height to weight ratio.  What’s wrong with that?  I’m pretty sure it’s on the honor system already if you want to sign up as a Clydesdale.  So if you put in a new system you don’t really have to do any work. Other than the Clydesdale national championships in bend where they actually weigh you, I’m pretty sure they can set up a ratio chart, and a measuring stick next to the scale.   I mean unless your under 6’ tall 200lb shouldn’t make you a Clydesdale.  Maybe even 5’10”, the average height for a man, should be the 200lb mark.  Have the ratio go 5lbs per inch either way.  So if your 5'6" you only have to weigh 180lbs.  I as 6'5" would have to weigh over 235.  Thats 50lb more than I weigh now.  Whatever it is I shouldn’t be allowed to race at just 200lbs.  So that’s why I will try to race as a Clydesdale next year.  Maybe this blog will get the standards changed before then, but I kind of hope not.  I mean who doesn’t want to try and live out an idea?  I will feel so unfulfilled if Kenji and crew fix the glitch before I get to play with it.  For all I know, as I write this, the rule could have already been changed.  I should probably check before I post this.

Long story short.  I don’t think some people should be able to do something, so I’m going to passively aggressively try to ruin it for them.  Who’s with me?

Cheers.

(I checked on OBRA’s sight, and they don’t seem to even recognize Clydesdale as a Cat, there for no rules, so I guess I’ll have to make my beef with the promoters!  Either way, I don’t think they are trying to keep the big man or woman down; I’m just too lazy to make a petition, or even email them directly.  I mean what are blogs for if not to bitch about stuff?)

The worst Poison

After the death of an icon, Nelson Mandela, my Facebook and I’m sure yours too, was flooded with many of his most memorable quotes.  So many were epic one liners about peace, and turning the other cheek, that none of us affluent people with Facebook could ever hope to grasp.  But one quote, not really born of different blood, hit me right in the glabella. “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”  The perfect quote for this Facebook nation we live in.

It’s so simple, and yet so powerful.  The energy I hold in my body, saved for that wonderful dark minute in every day when I skulk off to a corner and furiously flip through the rolodex in mind searching, calculating, then pulling out the names of those who have slighted me, burning holes through their eyes, and drawing horns, tails and pitchforks.  It’s the truest form of “poison”.  I hate!  You hate!  We all hate together, and now can share it on the Internet!  I mean look at that senator from _____!  What a jackass he/she is, trying to force me and all my like-minded friends to do that thing we so desperately don’t want to do!

Its sooo much work…  I just can’t do it…  I’ll rant about stuff as much as the next guy, but when it’s all done it done (as much as it can be for a human mind).  I can’t hold a grudge.  I don’t know if it’s just that I’m afraid to really admit to my emotions, or I just don’t want to.  I guess a lot of it is just from learning social sciences.  I mean I took a few 200 and 300 level psych classes, so I preeetty much have a doctorate in it, and I’ve learned that everyone has their shit.  I mean everyone has his or her shit.  We all have shit that were dealing with on a day to day basis, that chip on our shoulder that makes us short and snappy with whomever doesn’t cower at our feet.  So what?  We all have experienced things in our childhood that was not ok, and shouldn’t have happened.  We survived.  We all have toxic secrets that we hold deep inside that we avoid like the plague.  So why are we so quick to judge someone?  Why do we feel entitled to pass judgment, and spit venom on people for such menial reasons.

I’ve found that with little to no effort, I can replace my “resentment” with pity.  I try to live my life on the up and up, I do what I feel is right, and refuse to do things that I know to be wrong.  You got nothing on me!  I won’t try to hurt you, and if I do I will feel bad.  I’m not caught in any Hatfield/McCoy feuds.  So if someone does me wrong then it’s on their shoulders not mine.  After I get over the initial spurn felt, I clear my head and come up with about 10 scenarios that explain why the person is such a vindictive bitch! And then my resentment turns to pity.  We all have our shit.  And thats my rant.

A blog only a parent could finish.

Just like everyone else in the world, I’m starting a blog.

Just like everyone else in the world, I plan to write at least once a week.

Just like everyone else in the world, I will eventually fail.

            Now that we have that out of the way, what do I want to talk about? There have been so many thing happening in my life that I could blog about.  I just hosted my 1^st thanksgiving dinner at my house with my wonderful fiancé and her daughter, soon to be my stepdaughter.  I could talk about helping raise an extremely bright (I know everyone says that, but mines true) two year old.  I could talk about the meetings I’ve go to in trying to get a modified product patent.  I could talk about being unemployed “in this economy”.  I could just continue talking about what I could talk about…

            Well I’m and athlete, so of course I want to talk about that.  What does the word athlete mean to me?  It means I greatly enjoy using my physical abilities and testing them against like minded others.  I was a runner in high school.  I didn’t apply myself, so I was merely an above average runner.  I pretty much quit doing anything athletic from the end of my senior year of high school till I hit the ripe old age of 25.  I had pretty much been the same 6’4” 195lb guy that whole time, but then I stepped on the scale and it read 220… I was in the final months of a “wrong for me” relationship, and it showed.  So I did what anyone who has put on a few extra pounds does when they want to get rid of it, I went to the track to run.  Now remember the last time I had run was when I was young(er), fit and fast, so I jumped on the track and started to stride like I still was.  It 10 meters at 6min mile pace quickly turned into 20 at 7, then 50 at 8…  I barely made one lap around the track in under 3:30 (just over 10min mile pace).  I was thoroughly destroyed, both physically and mentally.  So I did what every person who is over weight and just hit a big hurtle does.  I quit.  A few months later I got a bike, cancelled my car insurance, and started commuting 3 miles (each way) to work.  It also happened to be a fixed gear, with no breaks.  With the one gear, I would kick my ass two and from work, each slight incline like a mountain to summit.  It only took me a month or two to realize that I was quickly getting in better shape.  I felt better and decided to try running again.

One of my friends kind of challenged me, and said I couldn’t run a half marathon, so I of course accepted, only to find out the one I had agreed to run was 2 weeks away.  So I kind of trained, and by the end of the 1^st week put in a 10 miler at a slow pace, with a few shorter runs in between.  So the day came, and I ran.  I finished, but at a cost.  I wore my trail running shoes with big tread, and got huge blisters on the pads of my feet.  I also had a mortifying last 3 miles.  I had been running strong and fast, too fast, up until that point, and I emptied the tank… I hit the wall.  All of a sudden I was going a mile an hour and everyone around me was going a mile a minute.  I look up to see a couple of fans staring at me doing a slow clap, and I swear they were talking in slow-mo yelling to me and only me, pointing me out in the sea of sprinters as the lone jogger.  “You can do it man!”, “Your all most there!”, “Just a little further!”.  It took me forever to get past them.  I don’t know if my embarrassment gave me a second wind or what, but I did eventually finish, and like the criminal who hadn’t paid for the organized event I had poached, I stepped into the crowed mere feet from where all the finishers were getting there pats on the back, and reward chocolate milk.  I wanted that milk, and I vowed one day to be one of those that got it!  No I didn’t really care; I just wanted to get home.  So I headed to my car, only to find I had left the lights on, so it was dead…  A few of the most excruciating pushing steps of my life later, and I got my car going and headed home.

After that race, I have run countless others; many 5ks a few 10ks, a smattering of 15ks, a handful of half marathons, 2 marathons, and one Olympic distance triathlon.  Due to a reoccurring injury in my right ankle, I pretty much retired from running, and joined the biking circuit.  I may not be as good of a biker as I was a runner, but I really like it, and I’m getting better.

Well for now, I guess that’s my 1^st blog… and I’m proud of myself, even if it’s a blog that only a parent could finish.  Hopefully I think of something better to write about next that gets people all fired up, and I can get some discourse in the comments.