Friday, May 23, 2008

If I seem cranky...

...It's only because I'm under-slept, under-resourced, under-sunned, and under-exercised. Good thing it's the annual weekend dedicated to singing flesh on the grill - it's just what the Dr. ordered. (Now, piss-off!)

Quote Du Jour

I love this quote...it is describes startup-ing and also reminds me of the modern day movie Gladiator.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
-- Teddy Roosevelt

Hat tip to Matt McCall

Monday, May 19, 2008

Just another day at the office...

104 inbound emails today (not including spam/news/form emails), 73 outbound (absolutely none of which are spam!).

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

From The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Department

This new product should do well in Boulder (I hope - I'm such an environmentalist).

And here's yet another reason why you married men should never sleep on the couch.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Product Marketing for the Social Web

Great presentation given at Web 2.0:

Super-Walker!

I needed a long ride today to prepare for Laramie. So, I opted for a Super-Walker, which in the jargon means ride from Boulder up Flagstaff, over the top, down to Walker Ranch, around Walker Ranch, and back to Boulder. This is around 4,000 feet of climbing, and, for me, is a strenuous 3.5 or so hours.

Because I rode hard yesterday, I was tired. For the whole ride, I kept thinking that I was too tired to do this, and that I would turn around at the next corner. But I kept on, and pretty soon I was at the point of no return.

Going counter-clockwise on the Walker loop, the last climb out is steep and hard, and I've never cleaned it, and not many of my friends have. I always try, but always get pooped out and start getting sloppy and make a mistake in one of the hard sections. Today, I made the first hard rock step...and then the sharp off-camber left-hand turn...and then the steep stretch into the narrow rock move. Those are the three hardest moves, and I had never made all three in one ride. So, I kept going...there were a few more tricky spots, and I cleaned them all...cool! I was going to do it. Then, at the second-to-last switchback from the top, on an easy turn, I got chain-suck! I had to dab to backpedal to clear my chain. I don't know why Zeus conspired against me: I rarely get chain-suck, and it only happened once on this ride, and after I'd done all the hard stuff - maybe it was my impure thoughts about Athena...

I finished out the ride feeling surprisingly good. Door-to-door, my time was 3:23, only a few minutes off my PR...my weightlifting is serving me well, and is almost compensating for a winter's worth of ice cream...

PS - Wildlife seen included tons of deer, some at near-collision distance, and a half-dozen wild turkeys (not the yummy kind in a bottle, but the yummy kind on 2 legs with 2 wings).

PPS - EBC Green disk brake pads suck - I put on new pads...coming down Flagstaff, they faded to nothing...I had a scary moment. Anyway, don't buy 'em.

Chalk Creek Race Report

OK, I wasn't going to race this summer. Then, I committed to do the Laramie Enduro. Now, I have a training program...

...and part of that program is a couple of hard efforts. I'm tentatively going to do three events before Laramie - not to try to win, but just as venues that will encourage hard efforts to serve as build up for Laramie.

The Chalk Creek race was yesterday. What I found was that because I haven't been riding much, I don't have as much work (aerobic) capacity as I have had in summers past. In technical jargon, my VO2 max is not fully trained and is lower than it used to be. Also, after hard efforts, I have far less ability to recover. The good news is that after a winter of weight training and a whole lot of skiing, I am strong, so that for brief anaerobic efforts I am faster than I have ever been.

The race confirmed all this.

In my class of 4 clydesdales, one super fast guy took off at the beginning of the race. 10 minutes later, I caught him on a short anaerobic climb that he walked, but that I easily rode. We reached the top at the same time, whereupon he took off, never to be seen again. I rode the first of 3 laps in second place at a moderate effort, with the third place guy right behind me. I was pushing myself, but not nearly as hard as I have at prior races.

Near the end of the first lap, I rode over a small log, and after, I stood to hammer and get back up to speed. My front wheel hit a root, and I tipped over into a huge bush. I tried to get up before the third place guy saw me (avoid humiliation) and pass me (protect my ego), but I failed - I was still clipped in, on my back, in the middle of a huge bush, and helpless like an upside-down turtle. Mr third place asked if I was OK, I said I was, so he floored it. By the time I got untangled and going again, he was a couple of minutes ahead.

Lap two I upped the pace and started to reel him in. I was closing and was sure I was going to get him, when, at the beginning of the third lap, I flatted. I had trouble fixing the flat (it's been a long time!) and it took me 20 minutes before I was under way again.

The final result was that the first place fast guy did 1:45, the second place guy did 2:03, and I took third in 2:25. (In previous years I did a 1:55 or so.) One fall, one flat, and I still got the third place hardware, because only three of us in the class finished the race.

Net result: a worthy training ride. Notably, because I viewed it as a training ride, I didn't have my game face on, and I wasn't prepared to suffer like real racing requires. Hmmm.

The Impact of Goals

These days, most of my riding buddies are a little burnt out on racing. After 4 or 5 years of spending a summer doing a race every other weekend or so, most of us have decided that this summer we just want to have fun riding. It's not uncommon: bike racing is grueling. Of all the sports I've done in my life, bike racing is by far the hardest. Quite frequently people race for a few years and then quit. They don't quit riding, they just graduate from racing.

A couple of my riding buddies have also noticed that without a racing schedule to prepare for, they have no obvious fitness goals, and subsequently their fitness has suffered. What will get them out riding when the weather is foul or when relatives are in town?

Enter my friend Mark. Mark decided that he needed a goal that would ensure he would be as fast on a bike as he was in the good old days, way back before he turned 40. Mark had heard me rave about the Laramie Enduro in summers past, and decided that this one 75-mile monster of a race would be the focus of his training this spring and summer. For most mortals, it's less of a race and more just a personal challenge: it will take me about 8 hours of hard riding to finish - if I'm able. Two weeks ago, Mark committed to racing the Laramie Enduro at the end of July.

I too needed a goal for the summer. I've been eating more and exercising less, and I needed some motivation to turn that around. And, I'll be damned if I will let my riding buddy do my favorite race without me. I really had no choice but to also commit to riding in the Enduro.

Other riding friends were apparently in similar situations. In a plainly evident snowball effect, John, Liam, Sasha, Jim, Steve have all now also registered.

Here's where it gets really cool: we're all friends, and most of us have ridden together quite a bit. Since we all committed a couple of weeks ago, we've had Laramie on our mind, and we've been talking about our training, and been getting out on more and longer training rides. Without the goal, there surely would have been less training and more excuses to not ride. The BHAG has been clearly motivating and focusing for all of us.

Thanks, Mark, for being a leader and helping us to adopt a worthy goal. It's been focusing and motivating.

I wonder what other personal and professional goals I should adopt.