Feelin' it

"Ride lots." -Eddy Merckx (greatest cyclist of all time)

Mountain biking is what I've been up to. And a lot more than usual. Past years I've been up to my elbows in track practice and meets, a completely hectic work schedule, and triathlons this time of year. O' Eleven has brought me a different set of circumstances. With no track to worry about, and as a result a slightly less crazy work schedule. An even more successful trip to North Carolina, and many quality base miles accumulating. A cold and fairly crappy bit of weather throughout most of spring making me prefer the shelter of the woods over nature's relentless abuse of riding the road. And a dead set desire to be riding at top level by the end of the season as I upgrade categories for the cyclocross season. When my first two WORS races of the season returned my best results ever, perhaps I can say I wasn't 'surprised' necessarily, but I certainly can't deny the huge amount of satisfaction, and fulfillment having put in the work, and actually seeing terrific results.

WORS IOLA- Pre-riding the day before, I knew I liked the course. Only one or two painful climbs, and otherwise lots of quick ups and downs, and extremely fast, super flowy singletrack. Definitely a suit that coursed me ;) After a good start, I really wanted to make sure I didn't attack too hard the first lap and not have enough left for the rest of the race. But I felt good, and I was up near the front, so I went with it. And as luck would have it, I felt better as the race progressed. It wasn't just a matter of survival for a change, I really felt like I was able to dictate my efforts, and control my pace. And bike handling? I felt like a pro out there! Fully committing to every turn, sticking a knee out and leaning the bike way over. I could definitely feel my preparations working for me. End result, crossing the line still feeling oddly fresh... On the podium with my best finish, 4th in my agegroup of 24, and 13th overall out of around 200 in the sport category.

WORS WAUSAU- With a solid few weeks of riding leading up to this race, feeling pretty good on the bike, and on a course now that I had ridden last year, and thought I had done fairly well with, I was actually very confident coming into the 'Big Ring Classic.' You hate to say before a race "I'm gonna win" or anything along those lines, because that's pretty bad karma and such a slim chance, but I knew how I was feeling, and I knew I was gonna do something special. Into the race, I had a great start, right up into the top 7 or so riders. After a few riders overcooking the first couple turns through the sand, I found myself jockeying in the top 3. Knowing I was in a pretty good position at this point, I didn't want to unnecessarily burn myself out with an unwarranted attack, but as we came to a hill, the leaders slowed, and there I was, first place. This is a place I've literally never been before. I maintain about the pace we'd been going, but what an unnatural feeling. I equate it back to high school football actually. Playing quarterback, the ball is snapped, and all at once, you've got about 11 guys chasing you. Except now I had more than 200 chasing me... My lead didn't last for much more than about a third of a lap, but only 3 guys were able to make it by. I raced HARD. This was a race I was not going to leave anything out there. I was racing angry. The last guy by me I chased relentlessly to the very end. Lap traffic being the only reason he gapped me at the end. After the race I had the tell-tail, throbbing lower back, and was pretty much hobbling around like an old man for a while, but GOD it felt good. What a race. 2nd place out of 25 in my agegroup! And 5th place out of 225 overall!!

Where do I go from here?!

Consistency, grasshopper. Consistency.

Oh yeah, then afterwards...

The Sunday prior, Dan and myself came to find that the local eating establishment, Bublitz's had in fact just recently created an eating challenge. Just a cheeseburger and fries in a half hour. Well actually, 4 half pound patties, and a pound of cheese, surrounded by no less than a pound of fries... Smartly, we decided the best time to attempt such a feat would be after the WORS race. We'll be majorly calorie deprived, and you always feel like you can eat a horse after a race. I felt like a rock star with everyone taking pictures and directing attention to my gluttony, haha. No real strategy involved, just eat fast, trick your belly, eat fries when the burger starts to get filling. Yea I started getting a mean case of the beef sweats, and yea I used every last minute of that half hour, but by golly, I was the 2nd ever person to do it, and won me a free t-shirt, hahaha(pictures to follow...)

What a day

North Carolina O-Eleven

This year's trip to Asheville, North Carolina was going to be different.

Last year I really had no idea what I was in for. I knew there would be climbing, but really until you experience it, it's hard to comprehend. This year I knew what was coming.

This year my best friend Dan wouldn't be along with me. I'd still be with a great group of friends, but no right-hand man. This year I wouldn't have the luxury of a hot-shit carbon fiber road bike, but instead a heavy as shit, cobbled together, old aluminum tank...

This year however, I did feel better prepared going in. I'd spent a lot of time over the winter getting to know my stationary trainer, and getting my living room very sweaty. I knew that other than having a week off to relax amongst beautiful scenery, and to inevitably create lasting memories with great friends, this was going to be fundamental training to kick off the long season ahead.

I had my own goals for the week, like not crashing, riding strong every time out, and of course having FUN, but I was also given a couple goals to achieve. Those being, make sure to follow a couple of the very talented mountain bikers I was out there with, study what they're doing, and pretty much, monkey see, monkey do. No problem. The other more compelling thing I was to accomplish, was to simply, "make it up the driveway." Hmmm. Well turns out the driveway for this condo happens to hover between a pitch of 20 to a supposed 30 degrees at it's steepest... Yes, I'm talking cars can barely make it up and it hurts to just walk up it...

As it turned out, our second day on the road, after a great ride the day prior, and at the end of terrific sixty mountainous miler, I'd get to try it out... Keeping in mind, the private road leading up to the driveway itself is no joke either! Struggling up one of the final gradients in my granny gear before the driveway, dying, I thought to myself, 'There's just no way...'

But mercifully, after that climb, the road actually leveled off a bit, and allowed me to recover enough to go for it. (and yes, in the back of my mind, I really didn't want to have to walk my bike up, because that would have taken longer, and probably would have hurt even more)

So back into the granny gear I shift as the pavement goes straight upwards in front of me. And I HAMMER, sprinting out of the saddle, as absolutely hard as I can turn the pedals. The front wheel occasionally coming off the ground. As I crest the peak onto level ground I let out a hugely satisfying, Ric Flair-esque, WOOOOOOOOOOOO!! What a way to finish a ride! And really what an absurd feeling of accomplishment, climbing the driveway, haha. But it felt great, and the 1225watts is all it took.

Onto the mountain bike. I only actually rode the fat tires twice this year. But both were of course, memorable experiences. We met former Wisconsinite, current Asheville resident, and pro mt biker/ cyclocrosser Meghan Korol at the Dupont Forest for her to show us around, and hopefully not kill us too badly... She took us on, what can only be described as, some pretty gnarly trails. Descents with the occasional rutted, two foot drop-off, lots of scary rock gardens, and some pretty insane climbs, including one that was crazy steep, on 'slick rock' the whole way up, no less. One of those aforementioned '2-foot drop-offs' caught me off guard on a descent, and I wasn't able to get my weight back far enough, soon enough. Of course resulting in a perfectly executed endo-cartwheel over the handlebars and into the surrounding nature. Having landed on mostly large rocks and a tree or two, I did a body check followed by a bike check and found that though scraped a little, and rattled a bit, we were no worse for the wear. Plus I didn't feel quite as bad when I learned that just about 75% of us hit the ground that day, and my boo-boos were among the least severe. But then this happened.

The trail came to a river crossing. From where we were to the other side was probably around fifty feet at the most, but through thirty something degree, very fast moving water... It was decided that shoes and socks off, bike on the shoulder was the best way to forge the river. After two or three were across with no difficulty, and the rest apprehensively waited for someone else to go, I went for it. Stepping in, my first thoughts were, "Oh my God this is cold water!" followed immediately by, "Oh my God, these rocks are the slipperiest things I've ever touched!" this may end badly... So shoes in one hand, bike in the other, I inched forward. With every motion I made, the rapid current pushed harder and harder on my struggling for traction feet. And then, ironically, right after declaring to the others, "Don't worry, if anyone falls in, it'll be me..." my foot slipped, I stumbled, stumbled a bit more, almost saved it, stumbled again, and down I went. Dropping my shoes and my bike as I fell, I quickly grasped for my bike as I became the newest river rapid, freezing water breaking over me. Luckily my feet got wedged on some rocks so I, myself wasn't washed away... Somehow my shoes got corralled by my bike, and thankfully weren't lost either... And so there I was, sitting in the freezing river. Now what!? Fortunately, since I only made it probably a whopping four feet into the damn river before eating it, I was able to hand my shoes, and then my bike back to the dry people on the river bank. Now without having to worry about the shoes and the bike, I was able to balance my lanky, not made for river crossing, body across the river much more successfully... Yea I still took my sweet ass time, but I earned it, and I sure as hell wasn't going in again. And after everybody and all the gear made it across successfully, with of course, no more disasters, we all laughed about it. For the next two days in fact, haha. But I believe as one of my housemates pointed out, 'if this is the worst thing that happens this week, it was a pretty damn good week.'

And he was exactly right, not just because there were indeed no more fiascos, but beyond being scared for my life momentarily, it was just another extremely funny point in my life :) I'll take it.

Now beyond the memories already mentioned, amazing food, amazing mountain views, watching every sunset, bonding with great people, night time flatulence wars in the man-cave/ bear room, laughing till we cried, sampling moonshine and growlers of local brew, what will really stick out in my mind from this trip will be the screaming, high speed descents. Last year as a result of crashing fairly badly, the very first day, on the very first descent, I pretty much lost my nerve for the rest of the trip as far as going down quickly was concerned. But this year, even though I was on a bike that I wasn't completely confident in, I threw risk to the wind, turned my brain off a bit, and just let gravity do it's thing. Flying along at over 40mph on a little metal bicycle with rim brakes, having little more protection than a measly helmet, flipping the off switch in your brain is really what you have to do. The what-if's can't be anywhere in your head. When letting everything hang out, and going for it, cannonballing at top speed, carving through hairpin after hairpin, switchback after switchback is when I truly found the most rewarding, breath-taking experience I've ever had on a bike. I've never felt more ALIVE.

So to conclude, I've realized it's not necessarily North Carolina that I love. Yes the weather was perfect and the scenery is incredible. But in the end, what I really love is cycling. I got to ride my bike, with my friends everyday for a week, and I love that. If I could do that all the time, it wouldn't matter what state I was in. Bikes are good. Yay bikes!

Ben in 'Ten

So a 2010 look back most of the way through February? Hey, better late than never.

Lets look at the most substantial stuff to happen to this guy, shall we?

Early in the year I went on a life/perspective changing trip out to North Carolina. A trip that would carry me mentally on the bike for the rest of the season. I loved every minute of it, the road trip, the fun with good friends, the pain and suffering, and the beautiful scenery. (read more about it? http://howiveben.blogspot.com/2010/04/north-carolina.html) Anxious to go again this year!

As spring was sprung, track season was upon me. For those that don't know, this was my eighth year of coaching track & field for West Bend East high school. A fairly depleted team as it was, I was still there to help coax as much success out of my athletes as I could. Success wasn't always there, attitudes weren't always great, and the reality started to creep in that the spark that always kept me going, got me out of bed after little to no sleep to make it to practice and meets every day, to keep me positive and keep my heart in it, was going away.

A huge amount of thought went into the decision, but the result always came back to this being the end of the line. I waited till the end of the season to drop the bombshell and it wasn't easy. And I know some people weren't (and still probably aren't) very happy with the decision, even I'm not when I think about sometimes, but in the end, I feel it was the right decision, and the right time if I was ever going to let it go. What I will take away are countless memories that will be with me for the rest of my life. Memories that will bring a smile to my face, memories that will encourage me and motivate me, and of course the memories of vicarious accomplishment. I have also gained, what I hope will be, some life long relationships with the great people that were a part of my coaching career. I really couldn't have done it with out them.

On to triathlon season. Very early in the year, at the Multi-Sport Expo, I was able to bundle all of the triathlons I planned on participating in in the upcoming season, pay for them all at once, and even get a nifty discount in the process. Great idea right? Well it was until I took that first fateful maiden voyage on my new 29er mountain bike in North Carolina and got hooked. Problem being, triathlon season and mountain bike season run simultaneously, and unless I was jobless and/or independently wealthy, I wasn't going to be able to do both.

So as it went, I begrudgingly raced all the triathlons I had committed to, and when and where I could, squeaked a mountain bike race in.

And I did say 'begrudgingly raced' just a moment ago, and I did bitch about how I hated the cold ass water, and having to wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning, and probably a few other complaints about how unhappy I was to be triathlon-ing on any given weekend, but the truth is, as soon as the gun fired, it was still game on. And oddly enough, with the fitness I had, the results were there. I was always in the top five of my age group, even grabbing a couple second places. I was getting trophies and medals and other swell stuff. (In a sport I was seemingly abandoning at the end of the year...) In fact, with the Midwest Sporting Events age group point totals throughout the season, I was sitting right in first place until the last race of the year. A race I didn't do... but another dude was able to get by me in the points. So I got second in the series, not to bad hey? I'll take it. (Furthermore, no, not completely abandoning. I'll make an appearance or two)

So my mistress, the mountain bike season. The sport that hath tore me from the swim-bike-run. A sport that has such an incredibly small margin for error, (trees, rocks, cliffs, etc), hurts so incredibly much by the end of the race you think you may actually be dying, but for whatever reason, is so incredibly addicting, has indeed tore me from the silly wet suit wearers.

I was able to fit five races in, and as I look back on it, I would rate my first season as mediocre to above average. I still need to work on the skill-set, but I know I was improving as the season progressed. I loved the festive atmosphere of the races, I loved riding in front of and even with friends. But I believe the biggest thing I'll take away from the season was probably hitting my low at Suamico, dehydrating and bonking to the point of feeling after affects for a solid couple weeks, to the next race, hitting my high point at Sheboygan, getting on the podium, and on my birthday of all days. Looking forward to fully devoting efforts to the off-road season this new year.

2010 also marked a milestone for me that I'm indeed not proud of, and in fact I definitely find pretty pathetic, but as of late summer, it made ten years, a DECADE, since I've had someone that considered me their boyfriend. Yeah, seriously. Years ago I gave myself a mental deadline, a day I said to myself, I at least better have some sort of a steady relationship by this point, or what the hell? That day was 10-10-10. Easy to remember. Birthday, and heck, it's three tens... Obviously that day has come and gone.

What have I seen over the years? -Anger? Oh yeah, originally it upset me, why doesn't anybody like me, what the hell? Why can't I find anybody, what the hell? -Depression? Oh yeah, sure not full blown stick me on medication and put me on suicide watch, but it sure didn't make me happy to always be alone. -Confusion? Heck yeah. Why does he have a girlfriend? Why won't she like me? What's wrong with me? -Anxiety? You bet. Will I ever find someone? Am I going to be alone forever? And finally, where I'm at now, -Acceptance. So be it. I'm not gonna loose sleep over it anymore. And I'm done worrying. I'm not going to stray from my morals, and I'm not going to stray from my standards.

If I find somebody, I find somebody. When I find someone, I find someone. That's it.

God has a plan for everyone.

Unblogged up until this point, cyclocross season. This just in, I love cyclocross. I got in a whopping twelve races this fall/winter, racing my planned to be final season as a category four.

In preseason preparations, along with the better than seasons past fitness, with help, I was finally able to get the hang of a proper cyclocross remount, and was really able to attack the barriers. It's hard to say how much this helped me mentally, but to put it basically, I finally felt like I was real a cyclocross racer.

I had a little better luck than seasons past with only two races ending as a result of catastrophic bicycle failure... And the results were there. I was very consistently finishing in the top ten, and though not generally duking it out for the win, I was at least near the front, duking it out with the lead group.

So many highlights to the season, but definitely traveling to Louisville, Kentucky with Dan and Ben to race in the USGP Derby City Cup ranks at the top. Awesome roadtrip, with awesome friends, topped off with cyclocross? That's a great weekend!

In the end I'd rank the season as 'good.' Simply by comparing results to seasons past I can see how far I've come, but even more, feeling how much stronger I was, and in general, more competitive.

2011 will be my first time 'upgrading' in really any form of cycling. (Technically I skipped Citizen and went straight to Sport in mountain biking.) But otherwise, this will be the first time I'll be stepping it up a level. And I'm trying to take it very seriously. 2011 will be about cyclocross for me. Any mountain bike race I do will be in preparation for cyclocross. Any road race/ criterium I do will be in preparation of the cross season. I can't wait for cross.

Let's see some other miscellaneous, but still worth mentioning items.

At work, I made the move from Module 1 over to Module 2. Essentially same job start to finish, but with many little differences in between... Still working nights, but now following my brother whom I work directly opposite of, as he's on the day shift, which is kinda fun. So far, so good.

Discovered a new love of cooking chili, topped off with the first annual Ben's House Chili Con Carnival, which was, in fact, a pretty great success, despite a Badgers' Rose Bowl loss.

Relishing being 'Uncle Ben.' Pretty awesome seeing my niece growing up, learning to talk, dance, sneak, sing flawless Lady Gaga songs. Unexpectedly sharing food, getting my house trashed, mystery stains showing up on clothing, all kinds of fun, haha!

Did you know the Packers won the Super Bowl? Sans Brett Fav-ray? Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers? Neat.

Brett and Me

Last night at work, I realized just how much my perception of Brett Favre has changed.
Because I missed the end of the game to go to work, but heard through the grape vine they had pulled off the win, I mentioned to a coworker, 'Hey I heard the Packers won huh?'
To which he replied, 'Yea, and that sucks, I hate the f*cking Packers.'
To which I said, 'Oh yeah? Why do you hate the Packers so much?'
And at this point I'm expecting him to say because he's a Bears fan or something along those lines. And I can accept that if you're a fan of a rival team, it makes sense to think negatively of the other team. But no.
His answer was, 'Because of what they did to Brett Favre.'
To which I instantly became incredibly upset, and gave him a bit of a tongue lashing... I don't usually feel the need to berate someone because of their beliefs, but I let this guy have it. So wow, why would this fire me up so much?
Lets start at the beginning.

It was of course 1992, Green Bay is in tight game against Cincinnati, and one of my favorite Packers of the day Don 'Magic Man' Majikowski goes down with a ankle injury late in the 4th quarter. Twelve year old me even thinks to himself, well there goes this game, as some scrub back up Brett 'Fav-rey' comes off the bench and into the game. But low and behold, this relative unheard of, drives down the field as the clock ticks, and fires a game winning touchdown pass. And as they say, the rest is history.

Years go by and the accolades are piling up for number 4, Pro Bowls, MVP's, galloping gobblers, he won them all. But more importantly, he was winning games too. Sure he made seemingly stupid mistakes, and threw an awful lot of interceptions, but we accepted it, we were winning. He was "just a good ol' boy, gun-slinger out there having a good time because he loved the game so much." And of course, the peasants rejoiced.

The man inspired me personally. His pure athleticism is what really appealed to me. In the mid-90's after kicking his pain killer habit (rolling my eyes) when he got in the weight room and became almost obsessed with his fitness, getting down to a rumored 1% body fat. When during one of the little side-show competitions at the ProBowl one year, throwing a ball 86 freakin yards. Breaking numerous wide receiver and defensive back's fingers, because of how damn hard he could throw a ball. This is the stuff that really got me. So what did I do, I learned how to throw a football. More specifically, I learned to throw a football pretty fricken well. The long bomb? check. The rifle, finger breaker? check. The deadly accurate touch pass? check. 'Hey I bet I can throw a football over that...' check.

Furthermore. October 10th. It's my Grandma's birthday, it's my birthday. It also happens to be Mr. Favre's birthday. I was actually pretty proud of that for quite a few years (still proud to share it with my Grandma). And in fact, for a few years, before he started looking like OldMan Winter, I was indeed accused of actually resembling the man. No, seriously.
So I wouldn't say I was just a run of the mill fan. Besides a Packer fan, I was a Brett Favre fan.
And then it started to go bad.
Mr. Brett started to have a problem with showing up to training camp. So what would he do? He'd speculate retirement. Then with a week left, 'Oop, no I'm not retiring.'

And the peasants rejoice...
And then do that exact same thing for the next three years, and the team might start to get a little annoyed. And they did.
They had a fresh new talented kid waiting in the wings to play, and if he was going to be the starting quarterback, it would be nice to know sooner than the preseason. So they gave Mr. Favre a deadline. Let us know by this date if you're indeed retiring, or if you're coming back and playing again. Simple as that. And he choose a tearful, heartfelt retirement press conference. Sure, I even felt a little emotional watching him call it a career. But there it was, a legendary career, that we all as Packer fans could be proud of, retired. And the peasants rejoiced.

And then it got worse.
But wait, then as the season drew closer, what's this? The Jets are picking him up? Huh? wtf?
Well whatever, fine, go finish your career "because you love the game so much you couldn't quit" with a mediocre season on some shitty AFC team, whatever. Woulda been a lot better had you had just retired a Packer, but whatever.
Lest we forget, Reggie White played a season for the Panthers, hell even St. Vince himself coached the *Redskins... (but in both cases, neither retired and un-retired to do so)

And then he shit on Green Bay.
First news surfaces that he had closed room meeting with the president of the Lions, telling him in detail all the in's and out's of the Packer's playbook. WTF?
And then of course after another unsuccessful retirement post Jets, the sonnoffa bitch goes to the Vikings!? And is happy as a damn clam to 'finally be a Viking.' It's one thing for him to go to an AFC team on the east coast, but to go to one of the Packer's fiercest division rivals? WTF?
The peasants are upset. The morons buy purple shirts and say they're Brett Favre fan's not Packer fans...

But now, he's shitting on himself.
And this is, I suppose, the happy ending to the story. He's made himself such a media whore through the years of will he?/ won't he's? bullshit that every little thing he does became, for whatever reason news worthy. He plugs a Fox television show on Fox football of course, by singing about his pants being on the floor. Hilarious?
No. But you know what is hilarious about his pants being on the floor? The fact that a steady stream of women are now coming out of the woodwork to paint a picture of just how big of a chauvinistic piece of shit this guy really is. 'I'm Brett Favre, I can have the sex with whomevers I want!' Mmmm, guess not Brett.
And let me just mention the elephant in the room that nobody seems to have noticed yet. Brett Favre and Mark Chmura, best buds back in the day aboard the Packers, right? Remember what Mr. Chmura got busted and thoroughly chastised for involving a hot tub and some under agers? Point being, you know Brett was pulling this shit in Wisconsin, but because he was Mr. SuperStar Quarterback of the Packers, the blind eye was turned. For the love of God, I hope more of these women come forward.

Bottom line:
Packer's legend, beloved by millions, to egotistical, narcissistic, sexual deviant, joke, douche-bag, ass-hole, beloved by hundreds.

He's completely dead to me.

I hope the Packers give #4 to a kicker.