The Holidays Are Almost Over

Made it through Cristmas without incident. Drove up to ATL on Sat. for celebrations with Liza's side of the family. It was a good time, everyone behaved, and a good time was had by all. Drove back Sun. morning to be at work by 12:00. Monday my side of the family came down for Christmas. We all had a good time, good food, and presents all around. It was good to see everyone this holiday. Have to make it through New Years then regular life can resume again. We are going up to Asheville for a little hiking, artwork, and a cabin at Hot Springs for Liza's 2nd 29th birthday. Should be a good time. Only one week to go and I can get back to training. I've gotten to where I don't even bother trying to ride over the holidays anymore, everything is just too stressful to be able to fit it all in. Leaves me feeling ready to get some miles in come January though! If I don't post again before 2008( i'm sure I will though)- Happy New Years. Later- DH

Endoscopy?!

I don't like anything that begins with endo. Last time I endo'ed my bike I almost broke my face. Actally, I cut open my knee and had to get stitches. Anyways- I had my doctor's appt. this morning. He thinks it is gall bladder related. Sending me for another scan on the ol' GB and also scheduled me an upper endoscopy on Jan 2nd. He wants to go ahead and do all these tests, find out what is wrong , knock it out and let me get to training. I like this guy- I didn't have to wait at all in the office. He was standing in the hall waiting on me- got me in and out like that. I got some Nexium samples too. Hopefully that will help.

Got some news on the bike front too. Since I am gonna be riding a red Cervelo, I decided that I need some Red components instead of the old DuraAce parts. I placed the order today and should have my frame and my parts sometime before the turn of the century.

Have to get some sleep- gotta drive to ATL tomorrow morning to " celebrate " Christmas.
Later- DH

2008 Scheduling

Changed a few things for 08'. I wanted to race the NC Winter Cup CX series in January. I'm not tired of cyclocross yet and want to keep on racing. Problem is that I'm pretty out of shape. Since racing doesn't really get you in shape I decided to bag that and get down to training. Lotsa miles will do me more good than racing in January. Plus- I forgot how tore up my lungs were after nationals. Don't need that again for awhile. Sooo... I probably won't race till sometime in March or perhaps April even. I'd like to get all my base work done before I race. No high priority races until july so I'm in no hurry to go hard. So I'm gonna take it easy until Jan. 1st or so then get to it. From now until then I'm gonna ride when I feel like it and have fun. Later- DH

CX Nationals Photos

Back home

It's good to be almost home. Drove straight in to work this morning from KC. Long story short- Started the race after a #127 call up out of 168 riders. I was about 8-9 rows back at the start which led to about a 3 1/2 minute gap to the leaders after the first lap. 2nd lap was better as gaps were opening. The course was extremely slippery and technical due to ice and mud. Thank goodness for that. I was riding well and moving up 15 to 20 positions each lap till 3 to go. Apparently instead of pulling racers when they have been lapped the UCI pulls them when they are 1/2 lap down. Anyways, got pulled with 3 to go, finishing in 66th position. About 3-4 min. later Page and Tim Johnson flew by going at it. Tim pulled it out due to a dropped chain on Page's part. I felt bad for getting pulled till Liza told me that the race was so blown apart that they were pulling people off after the 1st lap. Anyways- packed up and left Mon. morning for the long ride home. I'll try to get some pics. up tonight. Later- DH

Raceday

Got out to the course yesterday for some practice. Got in 2 laps and my bike was unrideable. Completely frozen. Broke through the ice in a few spots and got muddy. The mud froze and then my levers wouldn't pull any cable, no gears, then no brakes. I couldn't even reach down and manually move the individual components by hand. Not even a micron. Then, my wheels froze. Wouldn't even roll. I grabbed the front wheel around the tire, rim, and a few spokes and yanked on it. Nothing. By this point my ski goggles were frozen up too so I called it and went back to the van. Snow continued to fall all day. Seven inches to be exact. Did get to watch one of the most exciting races I've seen in awhile. Bjorn Sealander and Jaime Driscoll put on quite a show in the U-23 race with Bjorn pulling out the sprint after a dramatic last lap comeback to win the National Title.

Today is raceday. It's 14 deg. out with a windchill of 5 deg. There's a ton of fresh snow and my legs are stiff and stale from not riding enough yesterday. Bring it on. DH

CX Nationals Update

Still trying to find a way to upload pictures. Got out to the course today to watch some races and see #1- how the course would change during races and how changing temps. would change it and #2- how the racers were handling the course. Got what we needed and left to get some lunch and run some errands. Got out for 3 hrs. on the bike. Headed north on some quiet rolling roads. Everything was completely white up there. Very cold out but it felt good to ride and after an hour or so I loosened up and started to roll out. Headed back to the hotel to shower up and go get dinner. The high looks good tomorrow- 21 deg. and another 3 to 7 inches of snow. At least the mud will be frozen instead of deep and sloppy! Got to go- I'll keep trying on the pics. Later- DH

We made it to KC

Well- we made it out here after 24 hours in the car. Made stops in NC and a 12-2am ride in TN. Got here and rode the course. It is the worst I've ever raced on. I've raced in alot of conditions in hundreds of places and this is by far the most miserable. Everything here is covered in ice and snow and it is 20 degrees out. The course is 10 feet wide and 6-18 inches deep in mud. I would say some sections are faster to run but it may actually be harder to stay on your feet than to ride. The bike doesn't roll at any point. You point it downhill and have to pedal pretty hard to move. The uphills are rideable but your tires dig in and scoop up globs of mud and grass and fling it. Every 4 th pedal stroke propels you forward while the other 3 fling crap all over the place. Don't get me wrong- I love racing in the mud. I race well in the mud. But this is gonna be something different. If the course doesn't improve the Elite National Champ will race for and hour and only ride about 12 miles in that hour. The course is that slow. We are going to go watch some races in a little bit to see how people are handling the course. Hopefully with the sunny weather and wind over the next few days will dry out the course and it will get a little faster. Faster in the straights that is. I hope the turns and off camber sections stay gross though, I am hoping for a technically hard racecourse to even out the fitness gap between me and the rest of the guys. I'll post again this afternoon. I have a ton of pictures that I want to get on here. Later- DH

On to the Gastroenterologist

Amazingly enough, the CT Scan yielded no solid results. It did however rule out any problems with my major organs and affirm that there is nothin' in there that is gonna take me out soon. Solving the problem of where my pain is coming from is another thing. I'm waiting to find out when my appointment with the Gastro Doc. is. By process of elimination, if it isn't gastro related then it can only be muscular. Getting closer anyways. Also not gonna kill me to train. Doc said if I'm ok with the pain then I can get to training. Copy that. To quote the great Swayze " Pain don't hurt."- Roadhouse. I'm looking forward to training, all my riding has been done so gingerly lately. I've been tiptoeing around. Time to roll now! I have however worked up to 5 hr. rides on the CX bike now, so I can't be too bad off.
Anyways- off to Nats in a couple of days. I'll keep everyone updated daily on that. Later- DH

Nastiness

I picked up my CT Scan "prep" kit this morning at the hospital. My appointment is @ 8:00 tomorrow morning. They gave me 2 big bottles of Barium Sulfate that I have to drink. One tonight and one tomorrow morning. I'm not looking forward to that. It looks like chalk. Who knows-I'll be optimistic- it may be the best stuff ever! Yeah- drinking dye- got to be good stuff right? I'll let you know. DH

Massive Excitement

Got to see a car on fire in front of the shop today. A rich kid rolling down the road in his brand new Corvette feeling all kind of important stops behind an eighteen wheeler in the turn lane right in front of the shop. Boom- bursts into flames. Kid runs out. We run out with fire extinguishers. We can't get across the lanes of traffic however because of the morons who won't stop and let us across. Instead, they slow down and stay near the fire instead of getting away from it. Finally we say forget it, the whole front half of the car is on fire now and I'm not going to get any closer cause that thing is hopefully going to blow up any second.
Enter mister official " I know what I'm doing here" guy from the Mercedes dealer next door. He strolls in to take control of the situation. I feel the authority in the air- it is almost palpable. Or maybe that was the melting plastic of the burning status in the road. Anyways we now turn to heckling Mr. In Charge as he walks up to the burning car. No more than 10 seconds later, a small explosion rips out of the front of the car sending Mr. In Charge fleeing for safety amidst the calls for a Darwin Award Nomination. Shortly thereafter the Fire Department showed up and there was nothing to see here anymore. The rest of the day will be a letdown now. DH

Plan A

Here's the hairbrain plan for Cyclocross Nationals next week: I am driving to Asheville to pick up Robert and head west next Wednesday. Here's the hairbrain part: we have decided to bring our mountain bikes as well and ride in every state we get to when we get there. I looked up some trails that I don't know and we have a plan. It goes like this:
Wed- I ride for an hour here in SC. Work all day. 5:00- drive to A-ville and get Robert. Ride Bent creek @ 10:00pm, knocking off NC. Head west- Nasheville at 2:00am knocking off TN. Land between the lakes in KY by sunrise then on to Vienna, Ill by 9:00 to take care of that state. On to Missouri- Columbia to be exact by early afternoon. Then finally rolling into Kansas City around 4:00pm to register and ride the Nationals racecourse. Probably crash out early Thur. night and sleep for a long time. Friday will be wide open all day with a couple of practice sessions on the course. Robert will race on Sat. and me on Sun. Back in the van and drive home Sun. night and Mon. I did a trip before where Me, Alex, and Scott rode in every state we came to. Did NC, SC, AL, GA with 3 races involved. This took place over 4 days and was a ton of fun with alot of good riding. This will be 7 states in 30 hours. That's alot to do in a short amount of time but it will be a good trip. I've been riding again for about a week so I'm not looking to tear it up in the race, if I get in 40 min. before being pulled I'll be happy. I might as well ride as much as possible to make this trip worthwhile. I'll post throught the trip on how it's going. Later- DH

Feeling a little better

Had a long weekend this time. Drove up to Asheville to build wheels for Cane Creek. My new track wheels were waiting for me along with some other goodies so I got those mounted up quick. They are very cool wheels, thanks for the support Cane Creek! Anyways, got to building wheels- long story short- got 64 wheels built. Also rode with Robert at the Mellodrome for a couple of hours Sat, then downtown for awhile too. Felt good to be riding again. Saw some very "interesting" college football Sat. night. Rode with Robert again on Sunday @ Bent Creek on a borrowed cross bike. Nice day out and the trails were in very good condition. I felt much better and actually got some pretty hard efforts in without hurting myself too bad. Got done there and made the long drive back to Charleston that night. Weekend over.

This week I have alot going on as well. Friday I get a CT Scan at the hospital. I go in on Mon to the doctor and hopefully they will be able to tell me what is going on. Cross your fingers! DH Out.