It's a Christmas Miracle!

Check out Fisher is his first (but not last) Yellow Jersey!

So.....uh...ER huh....nice

So it's 4am and I'm sitting here in an empty ER.....We finished taking care of all of our patients a little while ago so I'm just sitting here listening to the ER staff's holiday woes and waiting for the next sucker to come in...sounds like fun huh. All we need is a big code or something....that would liven things up a tad.

New start

So last night I worked a 10pm to 6am shift in the ER, then I came home and slept till 11. After that I went for a 2.5 hour road ride with some friends, and now I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to bring this whole blog thing up to speed. So here it goes....

The summer was awesome, full on great weather, beautiful mountains, lots of biking, time with family and a pregnant wife. That last thing ended on august 5th with the birth of our fantastically awesome son Fisher (the boy Pirate). I hung around for about a month before jumping state lines to go sell my soul to some residency programs.

My trip over 3 months took me through 15 states and to 4 different residency programs in Ohio, Missouri, California, and Pennsylvania. Needless to say I'm glad to be back in Logan. It's no fun being away from your spouse and newborn son. But all's well the end's well and I'm back in Logan. I'm kind of on the tail end of interview season for residency so now its just sitting back and waiting for the big day, Feb 9th. That is match day and we'll know where were going for residency by 10am local time, mark it on your calendars.

While I was gone on out-rotations I managed to lose all of my cycling fitness. Perhaps it was the 12-16 hour days at the hospital, or perhaps it was the 3 meals a day of hospital food. But that's all in the past now. I started winter training at the beginning of December and while it is exquisitely painful it is also great to be training again and looking forward to the spring/summer cycling season. In fact we have a nice post-christmas family mountain bike trip to scheduled to St. George, so that will be sweet.

So since the rest of my 4th year is pretty posh, I should have the time and mental energy to post a bit more, so until then...

enjoy some pictures from the last couple months

What is this.....

As of late (very late) there has not been much sound from my blog.....well stay tuned cause tomorrow I will finally vaguely write about some of the things that have happened in the last 8 months. As for now, that's all.

First race of the year

Yesterday my brother K-dog and I rode the Tax Day road race near Pocatello, ID. It was the first official Salt Sea Pirate showing of the season. After this year's long cold winter followed by a cold wet spring it felt really good to ride outside and get a gauge on how much I slacked during the winter. This was also my first race riding as a Cat 4, so I wasn't sure what to expect competition wise. They ended up starting the Cat 4 & 5's together which made for a nice large pack, about 50 riders. Starting with a larger pack was actually kind of nice because there were a lot of legs chasing down attacks and closing gaps. Once the race began k-dog and I tried to hang out near the front as we headed out into a 1.2 mile neutral roll out. After that we continued up a gentle 4.3 mile rolling climb up a canyon to the circuit. We would do 3.5 laps on the 7 mile circuit and the finish would be atop the climb on the 4th trip up. I love mountain top finishes, it always makes it exciting on the last climb. The climb up the canyon wasn't too bad, it was about 3 miles in length and averaged only 2% or so. Every time the group hit the real part of the climb (the last 0.8 miles, 5.5% avg grade) we would pick up the pace and shed a couple people. I felt really good each time we hit the climb on the circuit. By the 3rd time we went over the climb the group had shrunk to about 25 or so (notably missing was K-dog who spent a whole lap heroically chasing to try to catch the group after falling off on the steep part of the climb).

To get onto the last 0.8 miles of the climb we had to take a sharp 120 degree turn onto another road. I knew it would be important to be on the front going into that corner. From there the road turns sharply upward into a 8% grade. We were on the final approach to the climb and the finish. A couple guys attacked on the approach to try to break it up a bit, but we still went into that last corner 25 or so strong. I was sitting right in the front going into that corner so I hardly had to slow down. As soon as I came out of the corner and the road turned up I opened it up. I accelerated away and quickly put a good 100 feet or so on the group. I tried to settle into a pace and maintain my lead. Taking a quick glance back I could see a few guys that were making some ground and bridging up. It felt just like last year in Pescadero. I was seeing stars at this point as I tried to keep my speed. One guy bridged up and passed me, then two more. I was suffering, I actually don't remember a whole lot of details at this point, all I knew is that I need to keep going as hard as I could. I kept thinking "top 5, top 5, keep going..." One more guy started to pass me. I hopped on his wheel as a 5th rider came up. At this point we were only 100 meters from the finish. The three of us were together across the road, going max power for the line. It was our own mtn top sprint for 4-6th places. We were all within a wheels length as we crossed the line. Final result.....6th place.


It would have been nice to have been able to seal the deal and take the race, but I had a good race. 6th place is a pretty good result for my first cat 4 race and the first race of the season. It was nice to get some racing in my legs, its hard to simulate race-pace in solo training rides. They had my official time as 1:49:35, one second off the time of the winner (it was more like 5 seconds or so). I had a good race and a great time. I was also pretty pleased of my position in the race. I was near the front almost the whole race which made life a little easier when it counted. I need to learn proper timing. If I had waited another 45 seconds or so to attack I probably could have pulled off the win. It did feel good, like it always does, to make a decisive move and blow the race apart. I just get really antsy and excited and I let it fly too early (same thing in Pescadero last year). But hopefully I'm learning when to let loose and when to conserve. I almost wish the climb would have been longer to break it up a bit and separate the climbers some more. Rachel, my sister-in-law, was there to support us and take some pictures and she got a great one of the 3 man sprint at the end. Next up is likely the Bear Lake RR (52 miles, rolling terrain, windy), not my type of race to win cause it usually comes down to a sprint but will be a great race.

iBike power file from the race. During my attack I put in 423 watts for just over 3 min at a max Heart rate of 193.....yeah it hurt

K-dog suffering at the finish.

My longest ride of the season

While 1/2 of the SSPs were tearing it up in the far reaches of the frozen north, a small group of pirates gathered down south for a nice spring ride. Scott, Kellen, John (sp?) and I met for a great little ride with some climbing. I left from headquarters in Sandy for a ride to American Fork. After meeting up with the guys we went back over traverse mtn, into bluffdale, past Camp Williams, into Lehi and wound our way back to AF. I left Kellen and John there and rode back to the house. I ended up with 83 solid miles and around 6700 feet of climbing in there on the 3 trips over traverse mtn. My longest ride of the season and one that I needed in prep for a race I have this weekend (Tax Day race). All in all it was a great ride with great company. For the interested I posted my iBike file below. The blue highlighted part is my self-timed traverse climb (the selection stats are on the left). I did pretty well. I was riding it at around 85% of my max effort and was only 38 seconds off my record time.

A great little video

Get out on your bike!

I need better weather

I can't wait for this place to dry out and warm up so I can spend some consistent time outside and away from my trainer indoors.
This is just great inspiration:

Finally there will be a precedent set.

Check out this article from the Salt Lake Tribune. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

drag race

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You will hear this from me many times from now until the end of June.
Please support me as I raise money for the MS 150 this year. Your donation will help the people who live with the same disease I was diagnosed with in 2004. I've been touched by the stories of those who live with Multiple Sclerosis and I will fight for them and for me.

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Something to keep my mind off the 6 foot piles of snow in my driveway

So I have this gut feeling winter is on it's way out. Maybe its the fact that its almost March, maybe its because I can't imagine it can keep on like this for much longer. More importantly the reason I feel the demise of the giant snow piles is soon is because the USA professional cycling season began today. The Tour of California began today with a short 2.1 mile prologue in Palo Alto, CA. I was envious of the sunny and 60 degree weather and cycling freedom. Its been snowing here since ohhhh.....early December (although i can't complain too much cause its good to have the snowpack for the states water). I've been on my trainer indoors since late last fall and I needed to get outside. The captain and I took a nice spin outside while were down in slc this last weekend. It was a little chilly but other wise good cycling, anything outdoors is good cycling for me right now. But I regress, the Tour of California is back and stronger this year. They have 5 current of past world champions at the race this year (Cancellara who won the prologue today, Bettini, Boonen, Freire, and the Lion King himself Mario Cipollini). It should be sweet racing. Levi will be racing with fire in his belly after his team got the shaft from ASO the organizer of the Tour de France. You can support him and this injustice towards the greatest cyclists in the world by going here. Finally, cycling season has begun!

On other (and more important) notes Eugie is trying to not let this super influenza that she caught get the best of her. She's been sick this whole past week and luckily her mom and sister have been in town to hang out while I've been up in Idaho on my Psychiatry rotation. I feel bad for my wife who hasn't had a break from feeling like crap since Thanksgiving time. Just as she was getting over the wonderful gift of nausea and vomiting given to her by the little blessing she's carrying, she found this bug floating around. Although if you look at her face in the picture below, she still has some fight in her...



Kiowa has even taken to mourn for Eugie as she tries to get better:

But as of now, it looks like we have a few more weeks of snowy times. Luckily I'm almost done with my Psych rotation. I think life will seem a bit more cheery when I'm not surrounded by people with chronic mental illnesses.


The Cancellara from the Tour of California is courtesy of Jonathan Devich on cyclingnews.com

My commute to the hospital is kind of like this....

with a few exceptions....