Ohio Cycling Disorder (OCD)

You have to earn these the hard way. With my left ankle giving me some grief due to some Medial Ankle Post Tib pain and the possibility of attempting a full vEveresting in late July, if my beloved Burning River 100 is postponed or canceled, I wanted to take a shot at a Base Camp vEveresting (virtual Everesting). This is essentially hitting half the elevation of a full Everesting (29,029 ft) by climbing 14,514 ft of elevation. Easy, right? Oh heck no. Yes, this is legit bro. Ouch. I had been practicing the climb at 100% trainer difficulty leading up to this event (actually starts at 12 am but I took the day off cuz I want to ride outside on Saturday). I got used to the fact that my gearing is pretty hard on this climb and very hard on the AdZ climb so I stuck to this one. It ha a couple of nice breaks to spin during the climb and while you have a little bit of climbing to do on the way back down, I think for my first attempt it was the right choice. Here is the #epicfail moment...

It should come as no surprise that I like challenges and I see them as sort of bet. As in, I bet you can't ... <fill in the blank>. And I'm like ... "Hold my beer and watch this" (except the beer part because I really don't drink beer). When I decide to take on these adventures I don't like to broadcast it all that much. Why? Failure. For me, failure is really not an option and the simple thought of failing is fuel for me to push forward but failure does happen. It happens to all of use. Perhaps I deal with failure in a less than desirable manner than some (or most), so when it does happen I prefer myself to be the only one to have to deal with the aftermath. I struggle with, while kind in intention, the statements from those that knew of the adventure that I had planned. I take everything very personally, so the fewer people that know of my failures the better it is for me. I had seen a post on FaceBook as I mindlessly browsed one evening (been...

Given that all races, pretty much across the globe, are canceled through April and even as late as August due to the novel coronavirus athletes everywhere are struggling. What do I do now? Much of what I have read and listened to via podcasts are suggestions to do 60 to 80 percent of the volume you had been doing to maintain a strong and healthy immune system yet minimize the loss of strength and endurance that has taken months to build up over the off-season months. I agree with the logic, however for me, I love the process of training, sometimes more than racing itself since racing tends to come with added stress on the start line regardless of the discipline. I absolutely need to get outside for most of my riding and running otherwise, I would go nut, crazy, and totally mentally lose it. Being outside is my sanctuary. It is how I decompress, forget about everything going on in this totes cray-cray of a world, especially now, disconnect from everything, and just enjoy the me-time....

    The race season of 2020 has just now been severely impacted and not for the positive. In the grand scheme of things, racing is just something that most of us do for fun, to push ourselves against the best competitors willing to toe the line, and how we get that natural-high that many of us thrive on. Racing is not the be all end all to life, for sure. However for many racing is hugely social, bringing like-minded folks together to share stories, catch up with friends (practically family), and frankly to just be together. These gatherings can be small local events with  50-100 people and they can be downright huge at thousands of people, not to mention all of the volunteers and friends & family supporting their athlete. Therein lies the problem because at this very moment the COVID-19 virus has become a Pandemic, continues to spread, and spread fast. Unnervingly fast. What is the countries best defense against such an outbreak? Stop the spread! What is one o...

Or as my beautiful wife just informed me, " Talking to you during these times is like a Mental Mosh Pit " - Angie Coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose, body feeling beyond fatigued as in ZERO energy (lifting my arms was a chore), a general hot mess of a human being, yet I found myself in that all too common mental-ballet that endurance athletes find themselves in of deciding whether or not to attend a race that I worked so hard for and was slated for Sunday. This was my mental and physical state as of Friday, 2/14/2020 and after I already canceled the hotel room. Saturday morning I woke up, having fallen asleep after 1:30am, feeling so much better so what did I do? Naturally, I packed my race bag for the 50k that I was now going to race the next day.  #winning #notreally Leading up to this sad state of affairs was a high volume three week training block with more running than I had ever taken on. I am training for my first 100-mile trail running race set for the end...