James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

seanrunnette

Brain Damaged Ray Romano
Team MTBNJ Halter's
And don't just shut this off as zwifter hater talk.
Nope, it's valid. The thing is, it may be a lil chilly at the line, but once the GO button gets pressed, the core temp hits broil and doesn't really back off, even with the wind and rain. Doing a hard effort 15 minutes or so before you hit the line, bump sprints while waiting for the callup, and being comfortable gettiing all your warms off when the 2 minute warning happens takes care of getting chilled. And dressing for 15 minutes into the race keeps you from the more likely of scenarios - overheating. The worst is cold hands. Once that happens it's like poison ivy - spreads everywhere uncontrollably. It's different than being cold on a long ride. There, it sort of insinuates itself and then suddenly you realize you're shaking and need to sit in a WaWa for an hour. Even with all this mud, it's still too violent an effort for the cold to really jam you up. I've gone as low as 30 with 50 degree gloves and the long sleeve skinsuit. I generally don't use the fleece lined one til below that. Embro always.
 

taylor185

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Adding my two cents. don't forget that fitness and fatigue trend similarly. you've been putting in some impressive work over the past few weeks/months. with all that fitness comes fatigue. i find it very difficult to predict my race performance when I'm racing every weekend and not deliberately tapering for say an "A" race.

I remember fondly feeling quite dejected after the last Lewis Morris H2H race. I was so fit and riding great but I went into that race with a ton of fatigue. three weeks of quality training, including lifting just caught up with me. DNF after one lap.

And no, not Egyptian. Part French Canadian, though. Maybe D and I are long lost cousins.
 

Pearl

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
I'm not sure I agree with this. Racing cross is probably some of the most fun I have on a bike. I love the competition and in race strategy.
I came in 7th out of 14. Not something to brag about. But it was a great feeling to beat the guys I did.
Shit man, both my Fantasy teams lost, the Jets lost, and the fucking red Sox won the world series.

Somehow I'm smiling today.

You’re having fun because you’re fit and can turn the screws to your peers. That’s the joy of it for me. Not being able to do that and getting hammered is horrible. I think that makes the most sense to me.

It comes down to the fact you wouldn’t do 45 minutes of CX by yourself, but would ride 5 hours on the mtb solo.

This was the score on the last drive the Vikings had in garbage time btw, I was having a mental break down.
69A6F252-EEBA-4570-B409-3CD221D9335F.png
 

Pearl

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
30 Minutes is such BS. The Cat 4/5 race I did in Richmond was 30 minutes and I found it infuriating. They're chopping 1/3 of the race off.

There's no reason to have a race so short unless it's for kids under 15. If the schedule doesn't permit a 45 minute race, either put the race in with another set of races or just drop it.

I agree our SS race should be longer, but I think they are trying to make it a fun type race. I agree it should be minimum 40 minutes.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I was going to say that my weekend disposition was packaged up in my 2 blog posts from this past weekend, dropped on a viking boat, set on fire, and allowed to float to its watery grave. But there's been a lot posted in the last 24 hours and I would be somewhat negligent to ignore it all and pretend I didn't read it. I did read it. And I appreciate the feedback. I'll get to that in a moment but let me discuss the non-race items first.

I booked my trip to Duke today. I believe I mentioned last week that this is a one-day hop. Wake up at home, fly in the morning, do meetings, grab dinner, fly home. I'll leave the house around 5am and get home around 11pm. Now, this in itself is an unremarkable trip but the coffee that @taylor185 has gifted us for our wedding is from North Carolina. So I think to myself, maybe I should see if they have a shop in Durham. Turns out that they do, and I had previously added it to my travel map but decided to visit a different coffee house last time. So, in between the meeting and the dinner, I will be going by the Counter Culture coffee house in Durham. Edit: shit, this doesn't look like a walk-up coffee shop at all. Goddamnit.

@Delish - I need you to re-recommend the place to eat in Durham.

Also, back to part 2 of the coffee box from this month, I've found that the kushikamana makes a decent Aeropress when you keep the water temp really low. But it makes an amazing espresso. I hesitate to use it for espresso exclusively as I will obliterate it in no time. But it's a legit.

Ok here's the bike riding part of the day. Since I took yesterday off I was ready to go today. Last week I went easy Thursday & Friday, raced Saturday, then took off Sunday. So I had plenty of gas in the tank.

I hopped on Zwift and did a 2 hour ride, just trying to keep a good pace the whole time. After this past weekend I think it's time for some volume. The weeks have been getting lower in volume as they get higher in effort. I want to take this week, which is week 2 of the Build, to just plow out some volume. I feel like this is what I need right now as a booster in this run to Louisville. I'll end the week with a race on Saturday then take a rest week next week.

This is my sort of "Paul Bunyan may not have cut down the whole forest, but he woke up every day chopping down trees" approach. So today, I got back to chopping down trees.

Surprisingly, I watched 2 episodes of Black Mirror today, and one was a normally-ok dystopian garbage dump while the 2nd one was actually, dare I say, good? I haven't seen the end of it, because this was 90 minutes. But after like 16 episodes I finally appear to have gotten a good one. Still waiting on the Star Trek-like one.

I don't think it makes sense for me to downgrade. First of all, like @Santapez says, throw out the mud races and keep going for now. Ok I am not quoting him exactly but I think the gist is there. I've done 3 races, 2 of which are by far the worst races I have ever done. Here is something I pulled off crossresults today. This is how I do based on the course conditions, according to the website:

Screen Shot 2018-10-29 at 9.37.28 PM.png

The bottom number is what you need to know. In wet conditions, I tend to lose 16 spots in the results. This means that on Saturday, with 14 people in the class, if it had been totally dry I would have come in -2nd. I would have gone so fast that I would have created a rift in space-time that would have resulted in 2 additional humans to finish between me and whoever the hell it was that won.

Ok ok, goofing off aside, if, at the end of this season, I have continued to get obliterated every week, I'll consider it. As a cat 2, I could only downgrade to cat 3 right now, which does me no good. In NJ, I already race with the cat 3s in the 7th race of the day. In the MAC, the class is a cat 2/3, so I could already do it. If I do another MAC race, I'll consider picking the class with more racers - Cat 2/3 or 40+ depending.

But to go from cat 2 to cat 4 and then do everything I can to upgrade to cat 3 ASAFP doesn't really make a lot of sense, I don't think. At least not yet.

* Before this year, the last time I finished in the top 50% of a race was on September 29, 2012.
* After that race, I did 26 straight races over the next 4 seasons (2012/13/14/15) and did not come in the top 50% even a single time
* Exactly 6 years after that last top 50% race, I raced Lucky Cross, September 29, 2018
* I rode my cross bike exactly 6 minutes outside before this race
* Otherwise, I used Zwift to focus on weight loss and fitness
* The race was not what you would consider a mudfest
* For the first time in 6 years, I finished in the top 50% of a race

While I know this is based on a sort of N=1 sample size, I do not think that Zwift is hurting me at all.

@pearl I'm not sure it's far to say I'm not prepared. Let's keep in mind what the focus of the season is: Nationals in Louisville. What good reason is there to focus on the first race of the season when the last race of the season is what I'm aiming for. The point of the season is to train to that point and not worry too much about results. Admittedly, coming in last 2 of the 3 races is not the ideal path to excellence and I admit it has given me reason to pause. But see the Objective Data above. Let's see how things shake out if/when I get to race in conditions that do not suck beyond suckage.

Also, to your point about DLF and better weather, you have to ask a few questions. First, would the class only have been 14 people Saturday and 11 Sunday if the weather was better? Also, would I have done as poorly? Would I have been pulled? Coming in last on the lead lap and coming in last -1 off the leader is different. There are a lot of things to ask, and none of them have actual answers because we don't know what would have happened if the weather wasn't what it was.

No. Not it was not.

Ok sorry, I've run out of time. I think I'm going to watch Galaxy Quest tomorrow. On that note, @seanrunnette and I did a podcast today. Objectively I think this one probably isn't very good. Sorry, they can't all be gems. I guess we should try to get a guest one of these days. Pearl?
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Also, to your point about DLF and better weather

this is what girls said to me in college. or something close.
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lots of good self aware there. i'll assume you made cat 2 in 2012 or earlier? did you have any really high finishes in cat 2 ?
i'm just curious, it doesn't really have any relationship to now, other than you should take advantage of that master status (is there a 1/2/3/ 40+)
too lazy to look.
-
good self assessment - but that seems to be something you are all about.
 
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MadisonDan

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Probably not helpful, since your A race is Nationals, but I’m sure I saw some races with 2/3/4 40+ classes, which would still have some fast dudes, but takes this fast AF Cat 1’s out of the mix. That’s all I got. I’m pretty sure I’ll be at one, if not both Supercross races, so you will not DFL there. :thumbsup:
 

taylor185

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
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jmanic

JORBA Board Member/Chapter Leader
Staff member
JORBA.ORG
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Hi Norm!
I don't have anything to add, but I am enjoying the informed discussion about the bicyclecross.

A few questions though:

On this infographic, what does the skull +18.7 notation indicate?
Is it that when you're cracking skulls, you beat 18.7 extra people?
original.gif


Also, the new NYC Zwiftopia:
I know when you climbed Mount Everest 18 times, you got a Tron bike.
If you do a certain number of Central Park laps, do you get a CitiBike?

And it would be cool if you were randomly passed by a Chinese food delivery guy riding an e-moped with plastic bags as bar mitts.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
@taylor185, I checked out the Counter Culture Coffee class and will keep it in mind for sure. I also admit I considered getting in touch with them to interview someone for the podcast. But that's probably a little too much just to get myself in the door for a cup of coffee. I'll figure out something. Last time it was Joe Van Gogh, which was good, and maybe a mile walk from where we met the Dukies. There's a place in Raleigh which serves Counter Culture, but it's not exactly in-line with my travel that day. My plan is to spend the vast majority of travel working on my book. I just finished editing chapter 26 which means I have 13 to go. My aim is to do 1/day then maybe print it out and do a full reading & mark-up that day. I admit that the first 18 are only partially edited. This is a really long process.

On the travel note, I was told we are a 95% "go" for the Seattle trip on 12/3, which is going to be a full 5 days, the week before Nats. It looks like I'll be resting that week and hoping it works out come the following Friday. The flight to Seattle is a real bear. Instead of staying with my BIL I may end up in a hotel and look for some spin classes. It's cool to stay with them but at the same time more tiring, as I need to literally be "on" from when I wake up to when I go to bed. Actually that's not true. They are incredibly laid back people.

I've picked up the Rubik's Cube again in an effort to relearn how to do it. The first layer is easy, and I picked up the second layer pretty easily today. Still working out the next few steps while I sit on conference calls. I solved it, but it was using the notes you can find online. I need something to keep me occupied on these work calls and this is as good as anything. I've tried reading books but it's impossible to split your brain like this.

@fidodie - I only ever raced cat 2 in the master's class, so I was always mixed in with the 1/2/3/4 crew. My first year of masters I was often in the top 5 in the NJ series. Week to week there was some combination of Kahl, Lombardo, Schlauch, and myself in the mix. I didn't beat those guys very often but on occasion I could. Now I see Schlauch destroying the 50+ class every week and it's hard to imagine I used to hang with him. The following year I raced only MAC and my goal was to break into the top 10 back when there were anywhere from 50-80 people in the class. I got into the teens a few times but never better than that. Those were some brutal classes back then. 2012 Charm City was probably my best finish ever, 17 of 96 in the 35+ 1/2/3/4.

96 racers in that class in 2012. This past weekend there were 25 on both days combined (14 & 11). That's a little sad.

Today I got on Zwift and rode 50 miles in Central Park. Chopping more wood. Have to say that after I do these rides I feel really excellent. Volume makes me feel good.

On the suggestion of @seanrunnette I watched Galaxy Quest, and it was worth the watch. I put it in league with Time Bandits in terms of target audience. It's on Amazon Prime so many of you probably have access to it. I'm not a big Tim Allen fan but this made me like him a bit more. Sigourney Weaver & Alan Rickman are really good, and Tony Shalhoub will always be one of my favorite actors ever because of Monk. He is brilliant in this, in his weird sort of awesome way. Bonus was Daryl Mitchell who we know from NCIS: New Orleans, a show I don't recommend at all, but we ended up getting sucked into it for a bit. On the topic of Monk, I really want to check out The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

I should also point out that before I watched this, I finished off the last episode of Black Mirror season 3, Hated in the Nation. This one was actually quite good, and I can recommend this as a standalone episode. I'll jump into season 4 soon enough and I just read that Netflix is in production with season 5 now. I also read that Amazon was working on a Galaxy Quest show but it's run into some road bumps along the way.

@jmanic the skull means, aside from racing in a graveyard, a more technical course. So, according to those ratings, I will fare best on a technical course that is dry. In theory that covers this Saturday's race all except for the fact that shocker, it's going to rain again Friday. We're now up to 1.08" the day before. I will steal a text that @Santapez sent to me today. "You choose the years to race cross like the Donnors decide to go on road trips." It's hard to argue that right now.

Tomorrow is the last day of October. Oh and people dress up and shit.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Today I went back to the Zwift well and knocked out another 2 hour ride. That's 6:26 on the week as I return to putting in some solid saddle time to tie up the end of this 2+ week block. I will wrap the week up Saturday or Sunday. Still working out the details of that which I will touch on below. But first the ride, and then a question. The ride was the Alpe climb, which I decided to do after 2 previous days of 4:26 total at a pretty solid clip. I have been feeling decent this week but I wasn't sure what to expect on this ride. How much would I have in the tank?

I felt ok to start, so I decided to hit the climb hard and try to beat my previous record of 73:13. Today I cranked out 69:19, an almost 4 minute improvement on the previous time. Ok...so...I've come to the realization that this Zwift training stuff is going to sound like white noise to many/most of you and nothing is going to stick until I actually do something tangible (e.g. not lose a race). That brings me to the question I referenced earlier, and maybe this is specifically for @stb222, since I thought of you today as I was finishing up. And no, I don't often think of you when I am sweaty and in underoos. Just today.

Asking for honesty - was my answer about riding inside not being a tangible detriment to my performance something that sounded reasonable? My take is that weight loss and overall base fitness are going to benefit me far greater than riding in a field at this time in my training. So the question I posit to you, or whoever wants to answer: Is my reasoning unbelievable, half-believable, or mostly/totally-believable? I specifically ask this question because of this dichotomy of reality that faces me as I get off the Zwiffer today:

A. I crushed my previous Alpe time on the 3rd day of a huge volume block
B. LOSING RACES FATSO!!!

I watched Black Mirror: USS Callister today, which is the Star Trek-esque episode. I will say this is another very good one, works very well as a standalone episode and I definitely recommend it. This is 1 of the top 5 along with Hated in the Nation, which I linked yesterday.

Coming to the end of The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. I'm really enjoying this book and I recommend it, absolutely. I'm also enjoying reading a book that doesn't demand I read it for an hour every day for 2 months, which in hindsight was a big ask while trying to write a book. I clicked the link you posted the other day @taylor185 but I don't have it in me to read another 900 page tome right now. Without doing any research at all, it reminds me of James Clavell's Taipan, a book a read a long time ago that I liked, but didn't exactly move the narrative forward at a rapid pace. I'll knock this current one out in the next day or so then pick up something else. I love new book day!

I got an impromptu evening off as the 2 older ones went to a friend's house for the candy orgy and D took Simon to one of his friend's and they went in another direction. After I dropped the older ones off I went home and edited chapter 27 which was over 3000 words. That's a big win and keeps me on target to be done before the Duke trip. I started 28 and I am hoping to knock that out tonight while D works later.

I don't know what the rest of the week holds but I am leaning against Bubble right now. If there was going to be absolutely no rain this week I might put it higher. I would have to blow off a day with the family to do this and I can't justify that right now.

Today ends October. I'll wrap it up tomorrow. Mark it Donny.

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Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
not sure about your outside/inside question - and i don't think bike handling in hub-deep mud is an issue, or
something you'd practice - maybe deciding when to run? which leads back to weren't having a good time,
no adrenaline surge as you hunt someone down, or hold someone off. only hearing complaints about conditions from the people
who raced before you. etc.

call back when stoke is high, and let us know how you did. and don't even think about dropping down into my class, as
I have very little class.

in a mixed-class race, do they score each class separately? when i look at crossresults or usa cycling, they are all glommed together.
fun to see @pearl and @Carson in the same field when JP was making a push up the ranks!

i have a question about the pronunciation of weren't, which isn't used in writing, but colloquially seems fine.
is it wurnt or wur-ent? Maybe @pooriggy would know?

yeah, i was up before 4am this morning.
 
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jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Asking for honesty - was my answer about riding inside not being a tangible detriment to my performance something that sounded reasonable?

Riding inside is fine. It's all I do during the week. And I do it far fewer hours then you.
I think you need to get skinnier if you want to compete. I say this with affection and love, but I think that is the single reason you're struggling. I have no doubt you have the leg power and stamina to be competitive, but the people you're racing are skinny.
Maybe grass crits like nittany would be ok, but now that we're in mud season and all the courses have elevation you are going to have a rough time.
 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
i have a question about the pronunciation of weren't, which isn't used enough in writing, but used colloquially seems fine.
is it wurnt or wur-ent? Maybe @pooriggy would know?

yeah, i was up before 4am this morning.

Google is your friend....


8C8EBD77-E44D-46A1-A42F-FB7DF8DA2D1E.jpeg
 

shrpshtr325

Infinite Source of Sarcasm
Team MTBNJ Halter's
not sure about your outside/inside question - and i don't think bike handling in hub-deep mud is an issue, or
something you'd practice - maybe deciding when to run? which leads back to weren't having a good time,
no adrenaline surge as you hunt someone down, or hold someone off. only hearing complaints about conditions from the people
who raced before you. etc.

call back when stoke is high, and let us know how you did. and don't even think about dropping down into my class, as
I have very little class.

in a mixed-class race, do they score each class separately? when i look at crossresults or usa cycling, they are all glommed together.
fun to see @pearl and @Carson in the same field when JP was making a push up the ranks!

i have a question about the pronunciation of weren't, which isn't used enough in writing, but used colloquially seems fine.
is it wurnt or wur-ent? Maybe @pooriggy would know?

yeah, i was up before 4am this morning.


off topic, (completely) but WTF are you doing up before 4am?
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Google is your friend....


View attachment 80032


type into google translate, and play. maybe translate is using new jersey english? (nujinglish)
seems closer to werent, which is very close to wurnt, like burnt. 1 syllable.

IMG_2482.PNG



This is kinda fun - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_vowel_chart_with_audio
in a geeky way.

off topic, (completely) but WTF are you doing up before 4am?

mind couldn't get off of the yanny vs laurel debate. :D

as a fun experiment, listen to that clip with headphones on, then take them off and move away from your ears -
see if it changes what you hear.

heading to home depot now, seeing if i can get a life.
 

pooriggy

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I liked it
think you need to get skinnier if you want to compete. I say this with affection and love, but I think that is the single reason you're struggling. I have no doubt you have the leg power and stamina to be competitive, but the people you're racing are skinny.

Yes this. It doesn't matter where you train, indoors, outdoors, as long as you have the motivation to give it your all.

In 2012 you did well because you weighed less. Since you added weight you are slower. To do well in racing you now need to lose 13% of your weight or gain 13% on your power. Ok, the percents are an estimate but the reality is that you need to do one of the two.

Anyone that trains with data has numbers to look at, which can encourage us or discourage us. Those numbers only mean something to us. When we race, our results can encourage us or discourage us. Those results mean something more because we are lining up with our peers and going head to head.

Like Jeremy said, I say this with love. If you where a woman I would say your butt doesn't look big in those jeans, however if you where going to race cx in them you may want to re-think it.

Oh, and I likes season 1 of Ms Meisel.
 
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