the Cadaver Calculator

such fun! I am actually worth more than my road bike.

MAX $
Congratulations, your dead body is worth $5025!
Doesn't that make you feel great?


$5025.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth



http://mingle2.com/cadaver-calculator

Blood moon Rising

The lunar eclipse last nite was captured on amateur photo. This australian blogger got a nice photo session with just a 'point and shoot' camera with a few captions.

did anyone see it locally? Was it red for us or just for those in Australia? I think we can still see it tonight.

http://kamigoroshi.net/general/blood-moon-rising

getting better

WELL. I missed another weekend of racing but I am on my bike again, feeling better. got that song in my head..... 'yeah I'm feeling better now". ....

Going again to train but no racing. I missed the city (XXX) crit and feel kinda chumpy. It was a tribute to Beth K. I thought the race was today and I was going to at least go watch since I am in NO shape to race just yet. But then I realized I goofed it and the race was yesterday. man. I am out of touch.

BUT...to end in a cheery note. I saw this site has some REALLY cute halloween costumes. If you need a laugh this is a nice sight to visit.

http://www.prankplace.com/costumes1.asp?id=supercoffee

must keep pedalling......

My life is centered around breathing and coughing productively.

I am weak, coughing and feel stupid. Home sick today.
I didn't sleep from coughing and have little tickles in my lungs from the crap that snuck in there after saturdays training ride. yup. I have another bout of Bronchitis to contend with. relapse

Willpower 0 ; Sickness 2 for the final score.

I think the bottom line is that just because you think you KNOW your body doesn't necessarily mean that every time you get sick the same protocol will work. The weather is probably a contributer.

Like this book. Some two guys pedalled to Hawaii. I mean. People are just crazy ok? Some of us just do'nt know when to stop. Though . ..... it might not be a good idea to stop pedalling for these guys.... Actually check this out, the dialogue is FUNNY!!!

sample Dialogue:::

'Guess what?'
‘I can’t. What?’ Jason asks
‘You’re never going to believe this, but…I’ve never spent a night at sea before in my life.’

http://www.gonomad.com/market/0509/pedalling.html

SO. I don't feel so DUMB NOW , huh????


Might I share the wonderful things I surfed up today??

I google'd up Kevlar Gloves and discovered that Police tactical gloves which are made for combat use and holding a weapon, look cleverly designed for cycling. Hmmm. They seem to be well made and reasonably priced and sometimes even cheaper than yuppy biking gloves.
Kevlar outer shell, cool max inner lining,. padded palms, able to withstand punctures but breathable and water resistant, quick drying,. Ergonomically designed palm to resist bunching hwile gripping. 26-40 bucks retail?? damn. I might get some police gloves to ride cyc'X in.
Some even have metal knuckles so I can beat the crap out of anyone that tries to T bone me. heh heh.

http://www.copsplus.com/prodnum5228.php

I Dared!

HA. I did the Dairyland Dare...on a WHIM.

Hank, my boyfriend and monster masher coach person, was not happy that they only had a 30 minute crit for him at Elk Grove, and with 140,000+ guys crammed onto the course, he decided he didn't want to do the race...He wanted to start up his fall training a bit early. I hesitated.. I LOVE the Elk Grove race. But I also love to just 'ride' and I have always wanted to ride the hills of the Blue Mounds area. I knew if I did this ride with him that I would most likely not be able to race. He wasn't expecting me to go with him. But I have been racing since Hillsboro ( March) and was just ready to do something fun.

I was torn. There are some weekends when everything seems to converge at once and you have to pick and choose. I surprised him and told him I wanted to go. A nice long 'low pressure' ride! I am glad I went. It was truly a fun day, rain and all. Training is cumulative and you will always benefit from long hard hills. :)

After all that talk about Elk Grove. ...(My FAVORITE race I have ever done, by the way!)) ...I made a decision to do a huge hilly .....((don't laugh))....COOKIE RIDE!
OK....its not fair to call the DD a cookie ride because it was really hard. Extremely hard. And after a summer of racing crits and road races I really felt the hilly miles. Oh...and throw in the THunderstorm complete with lightening and a huge 20+ mile an hour wind with gusts just hitting you hard in the face... it was exceptionally HARD. It was pretty much an epic day.
I really recommend this DARE ride and the entire area to anyone interested in some hill work. This ride was timed. The course was open but hardly any cars to contend with. The food was very good. All kinds of food.
They had cheese, though.
cheese. Does anyone eat cheese while riding? I mean. CHEEESE. in your tummy..going up hills....((only in wisconsin)) but then,....the super savvy-fast top elite gals on the XPlane/Team Revolution were at super week eating burrito's from taco bell only hours before the races and swearing up and down that they were THE best pre-race food there is.

((pause for effect))

yes I am serious. And you thought racing elite meant a strict diet of organic grains, malto dextrin and whey protein isolate. HA! wrong. It is a dollar ninety nine BEAN Burrito Supreme from TACO BELL!!
seriously.

((ok back to original post))

I did the Dairyland Dare. 100K. You get to wear a chip and time yourself. Not bad! I was kinda stoked to workout and time myself on a hilly course.
I was going to do the 200K, signed up to do it, but the wind and 'soaked- to- the- bone' shoes and chamois made me think twice. They let me switch to the 100K mid-race. That was nice.
Early on, We had hooked up with some rather good endurance fellows. Our pace was well tempo'd. Tim Trudeau and his friends were leading us up the hills and we shared in pace lines on the flats. Hey and a few others kept going. I talked to him when we saw cracks of lightening . He told me he was in the 100 miles of Vail during a thunderstorm at 14 thousand feet and they were the most conductive things around atop the highest hill. ((scary!)).

But after a few really tough hills and another cookie stop. I was so soaked. It was not what I was expecting the ride to be like. I swear to you I did NOT whine! I did not cry.
Ok ~once I cried. But you really have to ride these hills to understand that crying only happened at mile 60 when I was climbing for 5 minutes, only to feel the hill level off...but then look up to see more steeper hill coming up ahead of me...and also more rollers of greater looking steepness long long long ways ahead of me. never ending. brutal. brutal hills. Who made this road ? I was wet and cold and about to cramp up .....ok. You get the picture. Epic.

Hank said he was worried that the storm would get worst.....Hank hates to ride in rain....and I was particularly afraid that my shiny metallic 'magic' shoes would attract lightening......so we came back. ((is carbon a good grounding medium?)

The endurance guys forged on and we turned to the 100K course and headed back. We rode just the three of us, Me Tom and Hank. Hank leading us onward.
THEN... Our buddy Tom got a flat but we never heard him screaming at us in the 900 mph head wind so we left him for dead. When we got back, we didn't know where he went. Did he miss the last turn? Did he fall over and land in a ditch? Did he eat the cheese and have a massive gastric intestinal blockage? At less than half a mile to go he was right there in front of me ....then I moved in front of him on a hill and then... ..then he was just gone! We looked back for him after we crossed the final chip 'ding' thing ((it makes a dingy sound when you go over the wires) He was gone! I was too tired and shivery to ride even one more pedal stroke so Hank went back, but never saw him. He didn't know where Tom went so he came back and we decided to drive the truck to find him. But he then showed up.

glass. He ran over some glass. He showed it to us. He showed us the slashed tire. It was for real glass.
A REAL flat .

If it was any other ride I could race tomorrow and be ok. But the hills on this course were amazing. Just amazing. I dont think I can race pace . hmmm. Hank thinks I can. But ..nah. I will save it up for Downers Grove.

I have never trained at the Blue Mound Wisconsin park up near Mt. Horeb and Dodgeville. I hd no idea they were THAT steep and constant. If you have trained there, you would know that THOSE are some Mighty fine hills there. Long too!

ok....I WILL do Downers. Maybe all this training will help me score a higher place in that race than last year. I certainly hope so!
love you all!
:)

Elk Grove jitters

Alexian brothers race is pretty impressive. We women kind of grumbled amongst ourselves last year that we didn't get a fair shake on the prize money....well..NOW we do! check it out! We are EQUAL to the men's top payouts. ((when you compare the actual payouts it appears to be the same) This is really cool for any sporting event to have an equal payout with the men.
THis race had 500 dollar primes last year. Dairyland should be all over that!! haha! :) If Super Week had a 'Queen of the Primes' jersey, then Dairyland would have been in it. THey won more at the SHorewood crit than any other team did.
Actually wouldnt that be cute? a prime jersey. Have a glittery silver jersey.

Check this out:
http://www.tourofelkgrove.com/event_schedule.cfm

Prizes::
1st. 4000 bucks
2nd 2000
3rd 1500
4th 1000
5th 600
6th 400
7th 250
etc. all the way to 20th. even those places get your entry fee back.

so I guess. Gear up, sleep, eat. get ready to RUMBLE. its going to be a really fast tough race for us. weeeeeeeeeeeee!

Illinois Cup?

Is there an Illinois cup? We have these USCF races we go to, but because they are part of a 'cup series' the USA sight won't record them for 'points' towards the USCF over all. Either that or my races are getting the big N/A for points because there are simply not enough women to fill the field out.

However, I think the people running the Illinois Cup series have given up , at least on the website. It is probably not fair to compare it to the well organized and long established Wisconsin Cup series. But Illinois has a lot of top atheletes so it would be nice to get something truly running in our own state.
How can the fledgling Illinois Cup improve? The races are sometimes phenomenally ran. The courses are well thought out and safe but challenging at times. We certainly have a population pool here , where are the women racers?
At least, the biggest events being Hillsboro Roubaix and the Quad city criterium draw a nice crowd.

The site which manages the cup series has not been updated since 2006.

http://www.illinoiscycling.com/?page=illinoiscup

As much as I think the folks running the races do a class act job, I think they are missing the final point. We want a series! Fast results and a chance to compete for points for the final glory of winning the Cup Series. I think its a big deal but somewhere the point is missed out. Is it possible that no one running the Cup Series cares about updating the website for the cup? Where do we stand? Who is winning? Is there even a series?
Maybe they need some people who will be willing to do this. Maybe instead of blogging I could dedicate my time to posting results for the Illinois Cup HA! The POWER that would give me..I"d love to mess up results and get nasty emails from people. mhuuahahhaaa!!

The races are all actually well done. In my opinion, the people running the races really have a job to do and it is done with great penache'. I especially love the Fox River criterium with its snake alley-esque hill and swooping neighborhood descent. And the Wheaton criterium with its cobbled streets was rather fun, a bit scary but fun.
They give out actual trophy's, flowers and other class act awards not to mention some sweet prize money. But wow...sometimes NO women show up at ALL! Even the cat 4 field is small.

I go because the races are so close. Why not honor the races simply because they are in your neighborhood? I did get really dissappointed when only 3 women were at Wheaton, and last year not ONE woman was at the Fox River criterium. (in the open field) SO I raced with the 40+ men.
The men's fields seem to be rather full and the guys are challenging. Last year Greyslake was big. I hope it is this year too.
All I can think is that 'the points' seem to be important for the women. Perhaps someone should investigate this and let the people running the races figure out how to enhance the actual REAL series. Give it some prestige.
I imagine more people would attend and it will become inviting. Resume building seems to be the key here at least for the women. I could be wrong but I can't think why the races have such small fields of women. Its still a workout and its FUN! I personally get a bit tired of driving for hours to race up in Wisconsin for 30 minutes. Its nice to have the races in your neighborhood.

This weekend is Greyslake. I do hope there will be some women showing.