:: seanlangford ::

The weather is not favorable. The plan calls for “Lactate Threshold Stimulation” - therefore let’s suffer a bit on the rollers, shall we?

Happy New Years!!

Here’s a great recipe for walnut chicken Jen and I made the other night.  We used our new wok for this culinary experiment and were pleasantly surprised with the outcome.  It was our first attempt and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be.  Now to somehow remove the smell of ginger from the house…

Is it time for Spain yet??
;

this is a test

Went on a super fun nite time cross-country ski with chris and the dogs in the middle ofthe bug storm. The snow was deep and deepening quickly. Luckily we outfitted the hounds with led blinkers so we could keep track of them in the dark white-out. After a 2 hour circuitious route around the Bald Hill state forest, we were safely back home. Near the end of the journey, theodore froze up on us. In the great tradition of the United States Marine Corp we vowed in dark woods with the wind howling to “never leave a man behind.”. So chris unzipped his parka and held Ted against his chest to safely take him the last few meters up the hill. Epic.

Ok ok - it’s been too long. I will get back to the blog.

“Let the bodies hit the floor.” — Drowning Pool

So the Johnny cake this past weekend was going reasonably well for me until I hit the deck. I was half wheeling the guy ahead of me on the climb when he responded to something next to him by veering into my front wheel. I had nowhere to go except down. Luckily it was fairly low speed and the sliding on the pavement was fairly minimal. Serves me right for being that far back in the peleton. Some skin, a front wheel, a right hand glove and right kneewarmer were the casualties; as well as my hope of beating Gerard O’Shea to the line for the first cat3 finisher imaginary prize. All these things were crushed against the cold, hard Coxsackie pavement. This season incidentally isn’t shaping up especially well so far. Lets see: 2 midpack finishes, a DFL (which got logged as a DNF), a real DNF and a crash.   I am going to chalk this up to bad luck because objectively I am in the best form ever.  As coach CM would say, “You are in need of some results, man.” Well, the end result of all this is that I am motivated to bring CCB a good finish this weekend at Turtle Pond. I think I have some anger in the legs I need to work out. I also know I will have some excellent teammates there with me. And I think this course suits me to some degree. Finally, its meant to rain, which is actually a good thing for me as I do well in the rain. We’ll see how this all works out; stay tuned.

Yeah, I’ve been hiding the first half of the day hoping that no one would remember, but instead I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls and emails from friends and family, all of which I really appreciate.  My lifelong buddy John Hirsch even wrote a little birthday tribute too; thanks John!  And thanks everyone else for all my birthday wishes.

Old man Sean signing off…. 

Did the first Johnny Cake and then the Micheal Schott Memorial Circuit Race in Marblehead this past weekend.  The Johnny Cake was really hard; lots of wind and lots of fast men.  Was feeling in control the first 1/2 to the point of even going off the front a couple of times.  Didn’t plan my efforts very well so ended up off the back.  A similar thing happened at Marblehead this past weekend.  Strong at first, covering moves, then tired for the finale.  Definitely feeling some life stress plus I wonder if I’m eating and drinking enough in these races.  Anyways, tomorrow I am psyched for the Johnny Cake finale.  This will be a great race.  Hopefully it’ll dry off and warm up by the 11am start.  Here is a snip of me at Marblehead.   Thanks to MZ and BB of cyclingrevealed.com for the great shots!

Did the Plainville race yesterday. Carpooled down with CM; he is great.  Really helping me out with my game and the guy really loves the sport.  We took a chance as it was snowing and sleeting like crazy here in the morning.  When we got to Plainville though, the course was bone dry and it was reasonably warm.  We met up with AC which was also very cool: getting to race with coach.  The race was super short and extremely fast around a .5 mi industrial park loop.  The course featured a reasonably technical corner right into the finishing stretch where there was a serious headwind.  I found myself botching this corner quite a few times: being on the outside, not carrying my momentum through it fully and opening small gaps, and getting nudged and flicked into the wind.  This cost me a lot of wasted energy.  I thought I was good at bike handling; these guys are REALLY good at bike handling and tiny mistakes really cost a lot at these higher speeds.  By the time I got the corner fully dialed, and started to get my ‘touch’ back, it was only a few to go.  The pace these guys roll at was pretty amazing; very happy with myself that I was reasonably comfortable and aerobically capable at this level, even with my atrophied ’skills’.  Looks like I’ll do Johnny Cake next weekend in Coxsackie, NY.  I’m looking forward to this longer race.