Ok so I am not dead....

although you wouldn't know it from my posts (or lack thereof) lately. This has been a tough offseason for me and the motivation is not coming back like it normally does. I have figured out a few things though:

1) IF (the proverbial big IF) I decide to try another marathon I need to find a training partner for my long runs. 2 hours is about all I can take without getting bored out of my skull.

2) Never try to plan a big season when you have a 20 year high school reunion and a 10 year wedding anniversay smack in the middle.

3) There is a reason why you rarely run across triathletes that have been in the sport for more than 10 years. At that point you begin to get mentally and physically drained and it is hard to find the motivation to go ride outside in 30 degree weather.

4) I really hate cold weather....really I do.

I am going to make an attempt to blog more regularly but I have said that before....we shall see.

Train Safe!

2010 Season

Now that the 2009 season is complete and I have taken my obligatory 2 weeks off from training it is time to start focusing on the coming year. This is a tentative schedule for next year and events can (and will) be added or subtracted based on how they fit into the overall Master Plan for next year. First some goals for the coming season.

1. Run better off the bike-this has been an issue with me for many years and quite frankly I am sick of not running near my potential off the bike. I can run 1:26 for an open half marathon so I see no reason why I can't run 1:30-1:35 off the bike.
2. Become a better swimmer-tired of the swim being a liability and having to go hard on the bike to make up time. Going to Masters 2-3 times a week and swimming on my own another time should take care of this.
3. Raise my Functional Threshold Power to over 300 watts-besides going faster on the bike this will also set me up for a good run by going faster at a lower % of Threshold Power/HR.

Notice there are no "win my AG at such and such a race" or "break 5 hours at a HIM" as goals. If I take care of those 3 things then the AG placements and time goals will take care of themselves and even if they don't I will be personally satisfied with my performance if I feel like I raced to my fullest potential at my A races.

Now the "list":

1. Wonderful Days of Winter 5k (1/2/10)-great race put on to benefit the preschool at our church
2. Museum of Aviation Marathon (1/16/10)-flat 2 loop marathon around Robins AFB. Target is to Boston Qualify (under 3:15) and if I feel good maybe go under 3 hours.
3. Tybee Island Half Marathon (2/6/10)-going to run and support my wife for her first half.
4. Tundra Time Trial (2/20/10)-out and back time trial on the Silver Comet. Always a good indicator of preseason fitness (or lack thereof).
5. Jog for a Cause 10k (3/13/10)-flat 2 loop course around North Point Mall area. Target is sub 39 minutes.
6. ING Half Marathon (3/23/10)-hilly half marathon around downtown Atlanta.
7. John Tanner Sprint (4/24/10)-fun sprint tri to open the season
8. Gulf Coast Triathlon (Half Ironman) (5/8/10)-A race. I need to bring it for this one. Nuff said.
9. West Point Lake Olympic (6/?)-Fun Olympic race in Lagrange GA.
10. Peachtree Road Race (7/4/10)-world's largest 10k.
11. Alaskan Cruise to celebrate 10th Anniversary (6/20-27/10)
12. Chattanooga Olympic (7/?)-By far one of the best races in the Southeast. Target is to qualify for Age Group Nationals later on in the summer.
13. Age Group Nationals-(8/?)-This year was brutal, hopefully next year won't be.
14. Augusta 70.3 (9/26/10)-A race. I have a score to settle with the run course here.

The A races are Museum of Aviation, Gulf Coast, and Augusta. The rest are B and C races and will be added or subtracted as warranted by training.

Thoughts?

2009: A Season in Review

After a few weeks of doing absolutely nothing I am starting to feel the itch to get back at it and start training again. During the last 2 weeks I thought alot about this past year there were things that went very right and things that went very wrong. The good thing is that I seemed to have learned from both and I am ready to apply those lessons and have a great 2010 season.

Those of you who are fellow triathletes/endurance athletes know that the "season" doesn't exactly follow the calendar so my 2009 season actually started on Thanksgiving at the Gobble Jog in Marietta. Running off of residual fitness from 70.3 Worlds a few weeks earlier I was able to finally break the 20 minute barrier for 5k running a 19:50 and winning the M35-39 Age Group.

The first race of the 2009 calendar year was the Wonderful Days of Winter 5k the first of January. I had a couple of my Cross Country kids to chase (at least for the first mile or so) and ended up besting my 5k time carding a 19:15 good for 8th Overall and 1st M35-39 Age Group. The rest of the Winter/Spring race season was equally as good and I was able to set new PR's for every distance (10k-39:50 Jog For A Cause 3rd Overall/1st M35-39, ING Half Marathon-1:26:51).

As April started I was starting to feel very confident for Duathlon Nationals at the end of the month. I was hoping to qualify for Team USA and be able to race at Duathlon Worlds in Charlotte in September. I made some major errors that weekend that you can read about in my race report over to the right if you are interested. Short version is that it was hot as the surface of the sun and my race went very poorly. Needless to say I didn't make Team USA and my confidence for the rest of the season took a major blow.

Two weeks later was the Gulf Coast Half Ironman in Panama City Beach, FL. This was my first Half Iron in 2003 and I have done this race every year since except for 2005. I was looking to exact some revenge on this course for my poor showing in Richmond and felt confindent that I was going to have a good race. Again if you are interested in the details you can read my race report which is archieved to the right of this post. The short version is that the swim was either long or the currents were bad because everyone had a slow swim, to make up for the slow swim I went entirely too hard on the bike and then ran about a half mile out of T2, turned back around and turned in my chip for a DNF. What little confidence I had left was completely gone now after another poor showing.

The next weekend was the Brasstown Bald Buster Century ride in the North Georgia Mountains. While not a race, it is a very tough ride encompassing 11,000 feet of climbing over 100 miles and finishing at the highest point in Georgia, Brasstown Bald. The ride lived up to its billing and the last 20 miles were as tough as I have ever ridden, but I finished and reclaimed a little bit of lost pride.

West Point was the next event on the calendar and I was excited to get back out there and see if the changes I had made to my training plan were the right ones. Short story is that the swim was a little long (storm the night before blew the buoys off course) but I felt great on the bike and run. My finish time was almost exactly the same as 2008 but given the long swim was a much stronger effort.

My most sucessful triathlon of the year turned out to be the Sgt Audie Murphy Sprint triathlon at Ft Rucker Alabama. This is a small race (only about 200 people) that is put on by the Ft Rucker MWR at Lake Tholacco. I spent some time at Ft Rucker during my years in the Army and still have a few friends down there so it seemed like a great reason to go down. I ended up 2nd Overall and would have won had the Army not brought in their ringer from the All Army team. It was still a ton of fun and I plan on doing it again next year.

Due to the fact that I had run a sub 40 10k earlier in the year I was able to get a sub seeded number for the Peachtree Road Race. Normally the Peachtree is not what I would consider a PR type of course since it is a bit hilly and there are people you have to run around even up front. Fortunatly I didn't have to dodge too many people and was able to PR running at 39:41.

I had signed up for the Cardinal Harbour Half Ironman earlier in the year since we were going to be in Kentucky visiting at the time anyway. I knew that the course was going to be tough since it encompassed the majority of the IM Louisville bike course and had an upstream/downstream swim. Fortunately we had unseasonably cool weather roll in for race day and it turned out to be a fantastic race.

The TRI Peachtree City Sprint is one of my favorite races around. Kim Bramblett and her group do a great job of putting the race on, and the course is very fast. I felt like I was in great shape and was really hoping to get a Top 3 Age Group. The swim was fast, the bike was fast, and the run was solid. I was 1:15 faster than 2008 and ended up 17th Overall and tied for 4th AG, 25 seconds out of 3rd, 45 seconds out of 2nd and 1:01 out of 1st.

The week after PTC was IM Louisville and I went to spectate with a couple of friends. I had 4 athletes doing the race and many more friends who were doing the race also. It turned out to be a great weekend and everyone who competed had a great race. Even though I didn't compete I still had the "Ironman Hangover" and really had a hard time getting out the door to train. This wouldn't have been a big deal except that my season wasn't over yet and I still had Augusta at the end of September.

Augusta was a big disappointment but it was my own fault for not training properly leading up to the race.

Overall the 2009 season had more highs than lows and it's true that we all need to have bad races to truely appreciate the good ones. I hope to take the positives and the failures of '09 and build on them to have a great 2010.

My goals for 2010 are to become a better swimmer (going to Masters to remedy that situation), be more disciplined as an athlete (having a coach instead coaching myself should take care of that one), and run better off the bike (see previous statement).

Thanks again for reading. I hope that those of you who compete had a great 2009 and an even better 2010.

Augusta 70.3 Race Report

Ok here it is....the good, the bad, and the mostly ugly about my race at the inaugural Augusta 70.3.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon about 2pm and made it into the pre race briefing just as the doors were closing. The emails and phone calls that we had received in the weeks prior to the race stated that we wouldn't be able to pick up our race packets without first attending the mandatory pre race briefing, so naturally I assumed that there would be some important last minute instructions or something to that effect. In reality it was a rehash of the information that was already on the website, but the meeting didn't last too long so it wasn't a big deal. Packet pick up was relatively easy and we were out of there fairly quickly. After packet pickup it was off to the transition area to drop off our bikes. I was pleasantly surprised at how big the transition area was and how much room we had on the racks for our bikes and gear. One of my biggest fears coming into the race was that we were going to be jammed in like sardines on the transition racks since there were almost 3500 people registered for the event. After racking the bikes it was off to one of our friends father's house for dinner (you know who you are and thank you again for having us over!). Now this is where the story gets interesting, I was invited to stay at said friends father's house on Saturday night but had called the hotel to and made a general inquiry about cancelling my reservation and was told that I had to give 24 hours notice to cancel. Since I was already paying for the hotel I returned to Augusta and went to check in only to be told that they had no reservation for me. I checked with the other hotels in the area to make sure that A) I hadn't made an error and gone to the wrong hotel and B) to see if I could find a place to stay for the night. Well there were no rooms available at this particular cluster of hotels so I was about to call back over to our friends house to see if the invitation still was available, but it was after 9 pm and I thought everyone might be in bed already. Now if this wasn't already bad enough it had started to monsoon outside AND I was missing the Georgia game. About 9:30 I found a room at the Super 8 off I-20. It wasn't the greatest place but I was thankful to have somewhere to sleep. Since it was the Super 8 I didn't think that they would have ESPNU on their cable selection and I was right so I listened to the rest of the UGA game on the little clock radio that was beside my bed. The Dawgs won and I went to sleep.

Race morning started out well, I woke up in plenty of time and had my plain bagel with Nutella for breakfast. When I walked out of my hotel it was still pouring rain, but eventually stopped before I got to transition. I parked with no problem and walked down to transition and began to air up my tires and set up my transition area. I was one of the first people into transition so I was able to set up my area and then relax for awhile until it was time to catch the shuttle down to the swim start. I went down to wait for the shuttle to the swim start which was down about 1/4 mile from transition. There was a pretty good line already forming so I stood there and chatted with a few friends that were also waiting to board. The first few buses came and went and the line seemed to be moving at a fairly good pace, then for some reason the busses started stopping before they got to where we were waiting (which was by the sign that said shuttle bus stop), so we waited for someone to wave them forward but they continued to stop short of the sign. By now it was getting pretty close to swim time for me and so I walked down to where the busses were stopping and got back in line. The next group of busses went to the original sign (where I had just walked from) so I walked BACK down there and was able to get on the next bus. It sounds like a lot but it really wasn't a big deal and I actually remarked that if this was the worst thing that happened today then we would all be OK. I got down to the swim start, hit the port o potty for the last time and put on my wetsuit.

SWIM-The swim started off of a dock in the river at the Marina. The pro's dove in for their start but we Age Groupers had to jump in and put our backs against the dock until the horn sounded. I jumped in and was able to take a few practice strokes before we started the race. The water was a cool 69 degrees so the full wetsuit was a good call. The gun went off and we started down river, with the 1/2 knot current, in wetsuits, on an (allegedly) short swim course. If you didn't PR this swim you have some serious issues! The water was surprisingly clear with the exception of some river weed (you can't really call it sea weed since it's in the river) and I got into a groove and felt great the entire swim. The swim exit came up really quickly and I looked down at my watch and saw 26 minutes for my time (which is just ridiculous since my 1.2 mi PR is from 70.3 Worlds last year was 33 minutes). I ran up the boat ramp and around the corner to transition ready to have a great bike. Total Swim Time- 26:25

T1-Transition was good. Wetsuit came off easily and I was able to get in and out with no problems. T1 time-3:10

Bike-I knew the bike was going to be an adventure since my training for this event was less than optimal (and I am being kind here). My plan was to really hold back on the bike and have a good run. I thought that since I was undertrained for the race that I would experiment with some pacing ideas and see what happened. In the past I have had a pretty average swim, super fast bike, and then hang on for dear life on the run. At Cardinal Harbour in July I was forced to hold back a little on the bike due to the difficulty of the course and that resulted in a 1:40 run off the bike which is a PR by 10 minutes. Even though this course was not very difficult I knew that my bike fitness (or lack thereof) would not permit me to hammer out a sub 2:30 bike which is what I am always going for at this distance. The bike started off flat and on good road surfaces so I was able to settle in to what I thought was a sensible pace. I had let one of my athletes borrow my Garmin 305 so I had my 310XT on my wrist as my only means of speed/HR etc. It quickly became a pain to roll my wrist over every few minutes to check HR so I decided to go by feel and pace that way. I felt like I was holding back the entire ride and was very pleased at how effortless the bike was feeling. When we hit the hill in front of the Savannah River Nuclear site I shifted down and easily rode up staying in the saddle. I did this for every incline on the course and was feeling like I was going to have a great run off. The last 5 miles were kind of rough because of the headwind out of the west, but I was still holding a good pace and my legs felt good. I really enjoyed this bike course and can't wait to ride it again next year when I am actually in good shape. Total Bike Time-2:36:38 (21.45 mph)

T2-After I got off the bike my right hamstring cramped up, but it did that at Cardinal Harbour also and I had a great run so I didn't think too much of it at the time. I was in and out in a flash. T2 Time-1:28

Run-I exited T2 at an elapsed time of 3:04 which was the fastest I had ever done the swim/t1/bike/t2 portion of a 70.3 race (to be fair the swim was 7 minutes faster than my PR and 3:06 at Gulf Coast was my previous best). I knew that if I had even a moderatly crappy run that I would break 5 hours which has been a goal of mine for the last 3 years. I could not have anticipated what would happen next. I started off at a good clip (~7:20 mile) for the first mile and slowed to about a 7:30 mile for Mile 2. Then the wheels fell completely off and I had to walk at Mile 3. After those first two miles by body decided it was done for the day eventhough I had another 11.1 miles to go to the finish line. The run became less a matter of turning in a good time and more a matter of just surviving to the finish. The run being a two loop course was both a blessing and a curse. It was great to see friends on the course cheering for you twice, but at the same time it was a bit humbling to be walking in front of them. I thought my legs were going to come back to me about Mile 7 but that lasted for about 1/2 mile then I was done. Mercifully the run was finally over and I crossed the finish line. Total Run Time-2:13:49

Total Race Time-5:21:30

Post Race-Right after I crossed the Finish Line one of the medical personel asked me if I was alright. I told her I was but I don't think that she believed me so she followed me over to get my medal. I started feeling a little light headed and so I went over to the med tent and sat down. They took my blood pressure and found it to be 60/40 (which is evidently not good) so I had to lie down on a cot and elevate my feet. After about 45 minutes and an IV bag of fluid I was feeling much better and my blood pressure had returned to 94/60 which is normal for me. I went over to the NAMC tent and sat out in the sun for about an hour until I started feeling better.

Overall this race was about what I expected from a performance stand point. My monthly totals for September look more like weekly totals normally. I thought coming out of T2 that my run fitness would at least allow me to run a 1:50-1:55 but I guess I burned up too much energy on the bike. After hearing about everyone else's massive PR's on the day I was angry with myself for not preparing better and embarassed at how I had performed. Needless to say this is what is going to get me out of bed to go to Masters when it is freezing cold outside or motivate me to push a little harder on those Power Intervals in February. Never again will I allow myself to be that under prepared for a race.

The race itself was fantastic. I can't say enough good things about the city of Augusta, the production of the race or the race course itself. I highly recommend this race and will definitely do it again next year.

The Tour In Summary

First let me apologize to you all for completely dropping the ball on the last 3 stages of the Tour. I was on vacation and was having a hard time watching the Tour much less blogging about it. The race is over and we all know what happened and how each of the last few days played out on the road so recapping each day would be pointless. Instead I am going to offer my thoughts on what transpired over the 3 weeks and how I see things shaping up for the remainder of the season and next year.

First the Good....

• The revelation of this year's Tour has to be Bradley Wiggins. Wiggo was able to stay with the big guns in the mountains and while not TTing as well as he has in the past he was still good enough for 4th place. If he continues to work toward the Tour for the next 2 years as he has said he would, Garmin has two legit Grand Tour GC guys in Wiggo and Vande Velde.
• Lance's return-The guy is 37 and has been out of competative cycling for almost 4 years, yet still manages to return and finish on the podium. I think that his time away really hurt in the mountains where he was dropped by Contador and the Schlecks a couple of times and 10th and 14th in the two Time Trials would be completely unacceptable to the Lance of old. It will be interesting to see how he and Johan build Team Radioshack for next year and if another full year of training will make a difference in the 2010 Tour.
• No postive doping tests (so far). Was this really a clean Tour or did the next generation of undetectable doping product make its debut? I really hope it is the former and not the latter.
• Cavendish's six wins. The guy is virtually unbeatable inside of 200-250 m to go. He won on flat sprints, an uphill finish, and on Stage 20 where there was a Cat 2 climb near the finish. This is also a huge credit to the Colubia-HTC team for showing how teamwork and selfless dedication produce results.
• Contador winning his second Tour and making it 4 Grand Tours in a row overall. The guy is a real douchebag but you can't argue with what he can do on a bike. He out TT'ed the best guy in the world (Cancellara) and out climbed everyone in the mountains. That is a combination that is hard to beat.
• The "also rans" of the Tour. BBox, Skil-Shimano, and Agritubel all were very active in the breakaways and managed to get a few stage wins in the process. They all gave the Tour organizers exactly what they were looking for when they were invited.
• Rinaldo Nocentini-Pulled a "Voeckler" and wore the Maillot Jaune for 10 days. His career is set from now on.
• The Schleck brothers-Both had a great Tour and climbed very well. Andy did a phenominal job in the final TT to secure his second place position on the podium. No doubt Andy will win the Tour sooner rather than later.
• The Bikes-Giant, Scott, Specialized, and Trek all rolled out new TT bikes for the Tour and they were all HOT!! The Giant bike (Trinity SL) will be available to consumers next year. You can bet I will be riding one as soon as they come out.

The Bad

• Cadel Evans-One of the strongest individual riders in the Tour, his team let him down (are you reading this Contador??). This coupled with his incessant whining about how weak his team was really turned alot of people off to him as fans (myself included).
• Denis Menchov-Classic example of how hard the Giro/Tour double is to accomplish. A combination of not being recovered and just plain bad luck made this a Tour to forget for Menchov.
• Alberto Contador's "tactics"-he was obviously riding for himself and himself only in the mountains. To quote a certain 7 time Tour winner..."There is no "i" in "team". Without the team you don't win." And you certainly don't attack your own teammates twice!
• Garmin-Slipstream pulling back the Hincapie break to the point that George was out of yellow by 5 seconds. Easily the winner of "Douchy-est Move of the Tour" award. There was no reason for it other than to prevent Columbia from having the Yellow Jersey for a day.
• Only three mountain top finishes in the entire Tour-I understand that by design the race was supposed to be decided on Mt Ventoux and to a degree it was (at least second and third place were), however I feel like the organizers took too much of the sting out of the Pyranees and Alps by only having one summit finish in each. I would have liked to see another ITT in the second week also.
• Carlos Sastre-Paging Carlos Sastre, Sastre, S-A-S-T-R-E. Was he even in the Tour this year? I can't recall another year where the defending champion was more anonymous.

The Ugly

• Jens Voigts crash-Here's to hoping big Jens is fully healed and back on the bike soon. He is a great guy and a great rider. I got to meet him at the Tour de Georgia in '04 and he couldn't have been nicer.
• The infighting at Astana-even though publically it wasn't there, privately we all could tell what was going on. It is hard to have more than one rooster in the hen house.
• Levi Leipheimer crashing out of the Tour- Levi was riding strong when he overcooked a seemingly innocent curve and broke his wrist. Lance lost a valuable ally in the mountains and Levi may have lost a podium position as well.

The 2010 season seems to be shaping up to be a great one. The introduction of a new American team (Team Radioshack), Alberto vs Lance vs Wiggins vs The Schleck brothers, the Tour of California moving to May and competing against the Giro.

It will also be interesting to see who comes over to Team Radioshack with Lance and Johan. From everything I have read Levi, Kloden, Popovich, and Zubeldia are following from Astana. You have to assume that Chris Horner will do the same as will Jani Brakovic. After Jonathan (D-bag) Vaughters public statement of "all of our riders are under contract and loyal to the team, blah blah, yada, yada, meow, meow" it will be interesting to see if anyone jumps ship over to Radioshack. I don't see Vande Velde or Wiggins leaving since they are both team leaders on Garmin and would be support riders at Radioshack. I also don't see Tom Danielson leaving since Johan never gave him the opportunity to ride the Tour, but in fairness neither has Vaughters. Dave Z is the only one I could see maybe moving over, but again he and Johan didn't have the best relationship at US Postal so that one is a pretty small possibility as well. It could be some of the younger developmental riders leave and jump over as Taylor Phinney did last year.

All in all it was a great Tour and I really hated to see it end. For those of you who are newer cycling fans I encourage you to watch the Vuelta Espana (Tour of Spain) on Universal Sports. It is a 3 week Grand Tour like the Tour de France but without alot of the big names and not as good of scenery.

Until next time thanks for reading!

Goodbye to the Alps

The 2009 Tour De France said good bye to the Alps with and epic stage from Bourg-Sainte-Maurice to Le Grande-Bornand that featured FOUR (count'em FOUR) Category 1 climbs and a pretty nasty Cat 2 climbed sandwiched in between. This was the day that the climbers had to make their move to take back some time from the Astana duo of Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong who sat in the top two places overall. The day began with a large breakaway of 13 going clear almost immediately on the first climb. This group held until Thor Hushovd (who also happens to be on my VS Fantasy Team) came across and went clear on the second climb of the day. Hushovd would stay clear and pick up points on the two sprint lines to all but secure the Green Jersey. The real battle of the GC men didn't start until the 3rd Category 1 climb (Col de Romme) when Carlos Sastre launched an attack that had a small gap but was quickly nailed back by Lance. On the slopes of the Col de Columbiere Andy Schleck launched an attack that dropped everyone except Contador, Andreas Kloden and his brother Frank. The Schlecks traded pulls at the front trying to put time into the second group on the road which was made up of Lance, Brad Wiggins, Vincente Nibali, and Christian Vande Velde . Vande Velde gets the teammate of the day award for burying himself to keep Wiggins in contact with Armstrong and Nibali. Meanwhile at the front of the race Contador launched another inexplicable attack and succeeded in dropping only Kloden from the group. Continuing with the attacking theme Armstrong put the hammer down on Wiggins and Nibali after Vande Velde ran out of gas with about 5k to go to the summit. There was really no way that Lance was going to be able to bridge over to the leading group as he did yesterday, but it was important not to lose too much time to the Schlecks before tomorrows ITT. The Schlecks and Contador finished in the same time so there was no time gained or lost between them, however Armstrong and Nibali (who came back on the descent) were able to catch Kloden and actually pass him for 4th and 5th place. Wiggins was 3:07 back of the stage winners so the Schlecks will have a bit of breathing room for the Time Trial tomorrow.

The way I see things there are six riders fighting for the three podium positions: Contador, Armstrong, A. Schleck, F.Schleck, Kloden, and Wiggins. Sastre, Evans, Menchov and any other rider mentioned as a pre race "favorite" are done. At the end of today the standings look like this:

1) Contador
2) A. Schleck @ 2:26
3) F.Schleck @ 3:25
4) L. Armstrong @ 3:55
5) A. Kloden @ 4:44
6) B. Wiggins @ 4:53

After the TT tomorrow I expect them to look like this:
1) Contador
2) Armstrong
3) Kloden
4) A. Schleck
5) Wiggins
6) Nibali

I don't expect Frank Schleck to be in the Top 10 after the TT tomorrow. The time gaps are 1:31 from Armstrong to A. Schleck in 2nd position and :30 seconds to Frank Schleck in 3rd so I can't see where either of them can hold Lance off. The gaps to Kloden are a bit bigger (2:18 to Andy and 1:17 to Frank) but very doable for a TT rider like Kloden. Wiggins is the X factor here and one would expect him to crush everyone except for Cancellara, Contador and possibly Armstrong and Kloden. It will be interesting to see how much time he makes up on the Schlecks and what position he is in for the Mount Ventoux showdown on Saturday.

The route is doing exactly as the Tour organizers intended and keeping the question in doubt until the next to last day on the Ventoux. I still would like to see more mountain top finishes in the future and one more ITT in the second week.

Stage 16

Finally I am home and able to watch the Tour in HD as it was intended to be viewed!

Stage 16 started off with a nasty climb up the HC Grand St Bernard almost from the get go. Franco Pelezotti went out with 12 other riders from various teams to consolidate his KOM lead and did just that being the first over both climbs of the day. The fireworks started on Le Peteit St Bernard with Saxo Bank coming to the front and upping the tempo to an insane pace shredding what was left of the peleton and setting up Andy Schleck for an attack on Contador and the Maillot Jaune. Contador was able to respond to the attack along with both Schleck brothers, Wiggins, and Andreas Kloden. Surprisingly Lance Armstrong was dropped by the big acceleration and seemed to be in difficulty, but in typical Lance fashion he hit the remainder of the peleton hard on a steep portion of the climb and was able to bridge across to the leaders and maintained his second place. The big loser of the day was Cadel Evans losing almost 3 minutes to the leaders by the end of the stage.

Tomorrow is the last stage in the Alps and it is a nasty one with 4 Category 1 climbs and one Cat 2 climb sandwiched in between. It's time to separate the men from the boys!

Lumping It All Together

Forgive me for my less than steallar posting of the past few days. I was out of town and did most of my posting from my Iphone which is less than ideal. This is a post to tie the last few days together and prepare for the home stretch of the Tour.

Sunday's stage 15 to Verbier was a classic....unfortunately my wife's Aunt doesn't have the Versus channel so all I saw was the highlights :( All I saw was Contador attack and no one else able to go with him.

The rest day saw Alberto Contador in yellow for the first time since 2007 and Lance Armstrong in second 1:37 back,with the big surprise of this year's Tour Bradley Wiggins 2 seconds back in third.

Stage 16 has two large climbs but also has a 30km decent to the finish which should allow anyone dropped on the climb to get back or limit their time losses to a minimal amount.

You Can Be Competative Without Being A Douchebag

Stage 14 on paper looked like it would be a day for the sprinters and everyone expected a Cav/Hushovd/Farrar shoot out at the finish line. As with every stage the breakaway went and everyone expected them to be chased down, however something interesting happend. Big George Hincapie was away in the break and at one point was the Virtual Leader on the road. Everyone who follow cycling knows the career of George and how he was a faithful lieutenant to Lance on all 7 of his Tour wins. It look at the 10km mark like there was no way that the peleton was going to close the gap and George would be in Yellow. Then a funny thing happened. Garmin-Slipstream put three guys on the front for no real reason to do tempo in the last few k's of the race. For Garmin there was no tactical advantage nor was there a strategic mission for them to do work on the front of the peleton, other than to keep George from getting Yellow. Ag2r had already done all the work they were able to do and had shredded their team in the process. The gap still was at 6+ minutes when they pulled off the front so they weren't going to pull the time back on their own. Columbia still had intentions of leading out Cav for the 13th place points but were holding back as much as possible to protect George's lead. I don't know who made the call for Garmin to get on the front (Matt White or Jonathan Vaughters) but it was a douchy move to put guys on the front for no reason. I have lost alot of respect for Garmin who are the "we do it right we do it clean" boys. Well guess what...you didn't do it right today.

Mountains start tomorrow!

So I Was Wrong....

The rain and cold pretty much neutralized today's stage. The temperature hovered around 50*F all day with heavy rain at times. No one really seemed to want to race in the slop the breakaway was sucessful and Heinrich Haussler was able to solo to a 1st career Tour win.

Tomorrow looks like a day for the sprinters.

The Calm Before the Storm

Stage 12 was another low key stage. According to George Hincapie's Twitter "there were alot of tired legs out there today". The stage started quickly with the peleton covering 48 km in the first hour. Several small groups tried to get away but were brought back by the group until one group at 80km in managed to get some separation. The stage was lumpy enough that the sprinters teams didn't want to come to the front and close the gap, AG2R either couldn't or didn't want to bring back the group so the advantage swelled to over 6 minutes where it stayed until close to the finish. Nicki Sorenson attacked the break and was able to solo the last 5km and take the stage win.



The fight for the Green Jersey was exciting today as Mark Cavendish went out for intermediate sprint points on the course with Thor Hushovd right behind. Cavendish was also able to outsprint Hushovd and Farrar for the remaining points at the finish. With a lumpy stage tomorrow and the Alps starting on Saturday the chances for Sprinters to pick up points are dwindling.

I expect some shennanigans on tomorrows stage with a few Cat 2 and one Cat 1 climb in store. The GC men should come out to play on tomorrows stage.

It's Groundhog Day Again

It's Groundhog Day again! Another day another Cav win.

A Stinker In Every Bunch

Every year there is at least one stinker of a stage in the Tour and today happened to be that day. A 4 man break went early but never really got away and the peleton rode a very easy race until the last 20km. In cooperation with the UCI the Tour banned the use of two way radios during today's stage as an experiement to see if it would spice up the racing. Well from my perspective it didn't change the stage in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Cavendish won in a bunch sprint which was pretty much a foregone conclusion at the beginning and the GC remained unchanged.

Let's hope for better racing tomorrow!

Rest Day...What Have We Learned?

Lucky you (yes you there drinking coffee and surfing the net) today is your lucky day. Two posts for the price of one!

Today is the first rest day of the '09 Tour so let us take a few moments to reflect on what we have witnessed over the past 9 days of racing and look forward to what we can expect over the next two weeks.

• Armstrong is back! Any doubts about his form or how his body would respond have been answered during the first week. He was able to stay with everyone on all the climbs and has even chased down a breakaway on his own.
• Cav is unbeatable in the final 200m of a sprint. 2 stage wins already and a stint in the Green Jersey. I expect at least one more win this week with a couple of flattish stages on the menu.
• The Tour is pretty much over for Evans, Sastre, and Menchov. Their teams really let them down in the TTT and it has buried them so deep that barring a catastrophic occurance by Astana and Garmin they basically have no shot at even being on the podium.
• Astana really is as good as advertised, now can they keep the internal power struggle from imploding the entire team. The way I see it Contador's bush league attack on Stage 7 only helped to solidify the team behind Armstrong. Going in you could divide the team into Lance, Levi, and Popo on one side and Contador, Pauhlino, and possibly Zubeldia on the other side with Kloden, Murayev, and Rast being Neutral. Now I honestly don't know if anyone other than Pauhlino is on Contador's side. If push comes to shove it will be interesting to see how things work.
• Christian Vande Velde and Brad Wiggins are having great rides and I really hope that it continues for them both. Garmin is a great team and it is good to see them doing well.
• The French have to be ecstatic about how the Tour has gone for them so far, 3 stage wins, a KOM jersey and a Maillot Jaune (albeit an Italian rider on a French team).
• I am still sticking by my prediction that Levi will end up on the podium and could possibly still win the Tour. If Lance and Alberto are marking each other don't be surprised if Levi goes up the road and steals some time.
• Week 1 is in the books and no doping scandals (I hope I didn't just jinx it).

What to look forward to next week

• The semi mountain stages on Thursday and Friday (Stages 12 and 13). If Evans, Sastre or Menchov want to get back into the Tour these stages could be fun to watch. Also you could see Armstrong or Contador for that matter launch an attack to steal some time before the Alps start this weekend.
• More Cav wins. Tuesday and Wednesday should be bunch sprints.
• Stage 15...the Alps...mountain top finish...Verbier. Nuff Said!
• Another week of clean racing (could we be so fortunate?)

Thanks for reading my posts over this first week of the Tour, I have really enjoyed writing each of them and I hope that you come back for what is sure to be an exciting Week 2.

A Summary of the Pyranees

In lieu of doing an individual recap and break down of Stages 8 and 9 since nothing of real note happened I am just going to do a recap of the Pyranees in general. Stages 8 and 9 were very similar in that they featured huge climbs that were so far from the finish that they didn't cause any of the GC contenders to get any closer or drop any farther behind. Give credit to Cadel Evans for attacking early on Stage 8 (I can't believe I actually just typed that) even though it was shut down pretty quickly. On Stage 9 a large group went off the front early and were chased down by none other than Lance Armstrong himself, after that though the "right" break composed of 13 riders were able to get away and eventually the stage was won by Fedrigo of BBox in a 2 man sprint with Pellizotti of Liquigas. At the end of both stages there were no changes in the GC.

If I were giving grades for route design the Pyranees would get a D at best. The one stage that did feature a mountain top finish (Arcalis) wasn't all that hard of a climb as evidenced by the large number of riders still around at the end. Stages 8 and 9 featured some gnarly climbs, but they were so far away from the finish that they had no tactical significance at all. When you have an 80 man bunch sprint for 3rd at the end of a mountain stage then you know that it wasn't that hard of a day (by Tour standards).

Rest day on Monday and then a few transitional stages get us to the Alps.

And So It Begins............

Today the Tour started in earnest for the contenders, Stage 7 started in Barcelona and finished on top of the HC Arcalis. After an early morning break built up a lead of almost 13 minutes at one point, the peleton with Astana on the front started to pull back time. It was almost a given that the break would succeed and that barring something extraordinary from Fabian Cancellara, Armstrong would be in yellow at the end of the stage. Astana decimated the field and by the official start of the climb (which was actually 10k after the road started to pitch up) the field was in shambles and the breakaway's lead had dwindled to a mere 7 minutes. Young Brice Fellieu of Agritubel attacked and went clear of the break with less than 5k to go to the summit. By this time it was obvious that the peleton (or what was left of it) would not catch the breakaway and it looked as though the main contenders would ride to the summit together, however in an attempt to gain back some of the 3 minutes he had already lost Cadel Evans launched an attack which was quickly covered by Lance. Another Silence Lotto rider went off the front and it looked as though Astana was content to let him go when Alberto Contador launched a counter-attack and went over the top of the attacking Silence-Lotto rider. Andy Schleck and Evans tried to nail back the gap, but once Contador goes he GOES and no one was going to catch him. Lance playing the loyal teammate sat on Schleck and Evans to the finish line and lost 21 seconds to Contador in the process. Lost in all of the favorites attacking was the fact that Rinaldo Nocentini became the first Italian in 9 years to wear the Maillot Jaune.

Tactically Astana could not be in a better position teamwise. With Contador, Lance, Levi and Kloden all in the Top 7 they have all of their Aces yet to play. Kudos to Bradley Wiggins for a fantastic climb today and also to Christian Vande Velde for hanging with the favorites in the mountains. Cadel gets thumbs up for FINALLY attacking and not being a wheel follower as in years past (if he had done this once in each of the past two years he might be the two time defending champion). I will preface this next statement with 1) I am a Lance fan and 2) I want him to win his 8th Tour. That all being said in my opinion Contador gets the douchebag of the day award for the late attack. There was no reason to attack other than to put time into Lance plain and simple. The Lotto rider that went clear wasn't close on GC and posed no threat, Cadel had tried to attack and it had been neutralized, and Andy Schleck seemed to be in no shape to launch an attack. Contador went clear knowing that Lance wouldn't chase down an teammate and that he could at least take back the time he was behind and possibly grab the Yellow Jersey. If it were me I would put the hammer down on Contador in the next two days (assuming Lance is capable of doing so) just to show him who is boss.

Like sands through the hourglass so are the Days of Astana....the soap opera continues.

Stage 6

The rain showed up on Stage 6 from Girona to Barcelona, Spain. There were several crashes the most serious of which involved Michael Rogers of Columbia-HTC. At last report Rogers did not have any broken bones as was scheduled to start Stage 7. Here's hoping that Rogers is able to continue with the Tour, he is a strong rider and a great Time Trialist.

There were no changes in the GC on today's stage as the peleton finished together in the rain. The finish had a nasty little uptick the last 2km and it looked like David Millar of Garmin might stay away and win the stage, unfortunately he was caught about 500 m from the finish and the "God of Thunder", Thor Hushovd powered around Oscar Friere to win.

On a somewhat related note, Barcelona has to be one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. After watching yesterday's stage I really want to go to Spain and ride.

Mountains start tomorrow!

Thomas- Freaking- Voeckler!!!

Stage 5 looked like it might be a little squirrelly at the beginning with the crosswinds and narrow roads and true to form there were crashes and splits in the peleton. The day however belongs to the definition of "random French dude" Thomas Voeckler. Those of you who have followed the Tour for a few years may remember Mr Voeckler spending 10 days in yellow after snatching (or in reality US Postal gifting) the Maillot Janue the day after the TTT. We all knew that it was just a matter of time before Lance took the jersey back and that Voeckler was absolutely no threat at all to the overall GC contenders so it was nice to have the plucky little Frenchman scratching and clawing everyday to stay in yellow. One other note, Robert Gesink who was my pick to win the KOM jersey crashed pretty hard today and lost 10 minutes. It will be interesting to see if this affects his climbing at all when the High Mountains start in 2 days.

One more flattish stage tomorrow and then the fireworks start on Friday in the mountains!

Stage 4 Team Time Trial (or Astana's Smack Down)

I don't think that the outcome of this stage was ever in doubt, Astana came out loaded for bear and basically destroyed the rest of the peleton. At the beginning of the stage Lance was in second place 0:40 off the yellow jersey and at the end of the stage Lance was in second place in a virtual tie with Cancellara for the Maillot Jaune. Kudos to Garmin-Slipstream and Saxo Bank as well for a good ride in the TTT. Garmin shed 4 riders and crossed with the minimum 5 in second place 0:18 behind Astana, Saxo Bank (with Fabian Cancellara pulling the last 10km basically alone) came in third 0:40 behind.

I love the TTT because of what happened today, the riders with the strongest teams are the ones on top of the standings. Conversely the riders with garbage teams (aka Silence Lotto, Cervelo Test and Rabobank) are for all practical intents and purposes done. Barring some insane attack in the mountains that Astana can't cover (and I can't imagine a scenario where that would happen).

Tomorrow should be a day for the escape artists unless Cav decides he wants another stage win.

Stage 3

Boy I didn't see that one coming! Someone on here, on BT or on Facebook made mention that the winds might be a factor on this stage and I really didn't think that much of it. Today could have completely changed the race, all of the sudden Armstrong is sitting 3rd one spot ahead of Contador. With an Astana win in the TTT tomorrow (which I have no doubt will happen) Lance Armstrong, 3 years retired from professional cycling will don the Maillot Jaune once again. Now who does Astana back? Can Armstrong climb with Contador in the mountains (will he even have to?). Once again just when you think that it will be an average uneventful stage, the Tour surprises and gives a classic stage. Just goes to show that you have to watch every day!!