Cincy3 cyclocross races

Good news: my body did alright with three cross races in three days.
Good news: on a course that was not to my liking at all (all uphill or downhill), I had a decent result.
Bad news: I feel like my legs are not firing on all cylinders.
Bad news: I crashed a lot...

Mike, Patrick, and I traveled to Cincinnati last weekend for the Cincy3 cross races. My goal in racing the elite 35 plus was to go as hard as I possibly could until I was totally cooked, then go a little harder.

I definitely accomplished that goal and had some fun along the way.

I started at the back of the field all three days and practiced getting aggressive to move forward quickly. That backfired a little on Saturday when the rider in front of me couldn't clip in, and I ran into him, putting both feet back on the ground.

I finished 18th of 30-some on Friday on a hilly, tough course in Covington, KY that was probably the hardest I've ever done.

On Saturday, the field was stacked with some of the top masters riders in the country. I was the last rider at the start but managed to move to 30th. Great rolling course in Middleton. Some racers were saying it was too fast - the pros were doing sub-6 minute laps - but it was a hoot!

On Sunday, I raced with Mike and Patrick. It was a surprisingly muddy course in Harbin Park. Again, I was trying to ride aggressively. With a tired body, that meant I crashed big-time FOUR times! Two full-out ass over teakettle endos, and two slide-outs, one where I hit my chin on my stem so hard I couldn't feel it, and another where I hit my head and was grateful for my helmet.

Even with those crashes I still finished just a minute behind Heenan. I rode, despite the down time, pretty well around the corners and technical parts. I passed a lot of riders in the technical parts, and there weren't enough long power sections to make up more ground.

Heenan now leads the cross clash 4-2. Maybe it's 5-2. Not sure any more. I'm going to be racing 45 plus, back with the other old guys, so I may have to concede the contest. It's been fun, and seems to have motivated Mike a bit.

Off to Louisville Friday morning. Not sure how the serious working pros do this. It would have to be a hard life to work all week, then fly or drive every weekend to another cross race for not much money.

Summer Poems #2, #3

Mabel Loves Her Mom’s Cupcakes

When she makes the chocolate ones,

she adds a real-butter cream cheese frosting

on top, the kind Mabel loves. And Mabel,

being 9, doesn’t care about fat, only cares

that her mom sometimes adds chocolate chunks

to the cupcake batter. She lets Mabel use

the mixmaster to blend and a spatula to clean

the sides. She lets her husband lick the bowl.

And she always makes extra when she

has a party order and when those cupcakes

bake, she mixes the frosting with

one block of cream cheese,

one stick of butter,

a lot of powder sugar,

and just a teaspoon of vanilla.

Her mom has to make extra frosting since

Mabel will eat it right from the bowl.

That frosting is Mabel’s favorite part.

 

All My Eggs In One Basket

Half the eggs in my basket

cracked, spilling yolk off the cliff

until a whir of creamy river

cascaded into the valleys

of blackberries. My mother

ground the eggshells into a fine

powder, added it to a chocolate

milkshake. I drank deeply, licking

the inside edge for every last

drop, holding the remaining

eggs safely.

 

New Poems: Understanding the Human-Reptile Relationship

Understanding the Human-Reptile Relationship

There are leaves on that turtle,

he only eats them while

slowly making his way across the road.

Does he know he’s in mortal peril? Cars

race past, oblivious to the plodding pace

or the intricate design on his belly,

unaware that this turtle is a superhero

in turtle town, having made the trip across

County Highway G on four separate

occasions just to get upstream and float

down to his cheering pals. No, the humans

do not hear the cheering throngs

on this side of the road. Neither,

for that matter, does the turtle,

being, as he is, in the zone,

one step at a time.

Parts for Sale

Building up a cross bike? 

Parts For Sale List

Contact: Paul Warloski (pwarloski@gmail.com)

I can bring parts to races or meet you.

FSA Energy 42cm road handlebars $30

TRP Magnesium brake set $150

SRAM Force brake set $40

Specialized Phenom saddle 143 $40

3T ARX-Pro Stem 120mm $25

FSA OS99 stem 120mm $15

SRAM Force compact crankset 50/34 175mm $140

SRAM Force front clamp-on derailleur $30

Thule wheel holders with notch (4) $20 each. Nearly new.

http://www.thule.com/en-US/US/Products/Bike-Carriers/Accessories/13696

Make Offer:

Shimano 500EX brake set (well-used)

Fizik Arione saddle (well-used)

Dura-Ace crank set 53-39 172.5 (well-used)

American Classic seat post 27.4 (well-used)

Speedplay Zero pedals blue (well-used)

Dura-Ace clamp-on front derailleur (well-used)

Ultegra rear derailleur (well-used)

10-speed chains 2 (well-used)

9-speed chain 1 (well-used)

CBX Pro cowhorn TT bars with Profile Design brakes, profile design extensions with Shimano bar-end shifters. (well-used)

Three ancient but usable roof rack trays (well-used)

Yakima towers (4) for Nissan Versa (compact)

Yakima bars (2) for Nissan Versa (compact)

Yakima fairing

Front Wheel: Mavic Reflex Rim with Chris King hub that needs overhaul. (well-used and ancient)

Rear Wheel: Mavic Open Pro Rim with 105 hub (well-used and ancient)

Strange Winds

In Milwaukee this morning, it's beautiful. 70 degrees, blue sky, calm.

On the east coast, though, Hurricane Irene continues to batter people with high winds and heavy rain.

That kind of surreal difference is an appropriate metaphor for the Sunday before the start of school tomorrow.

It's quiet in my house, I'm drinking coffee and eating my oatmeal at a leisurely pace. Tomorrow I will be rushing to get on my bike in time to make it to school.

The kids show up Thursday, and by then I'll be out of my mind excited and ready. The first three days of teacher school drive me crazy. They're necessary - meetings, preparation, discussion - but that's only a cloud until the stormburst of kids shows up Thursday morning.

They'll be scared, excited, sad to see summer end and school start. The usual bundle of conflicting emotions. Little hurricanes.

Meanwhile, today, I'm watching the weather channel for updates. Good friends are riding the storm out, and I'm worried for their safety. The calamity of Katrina in New Orleans is still too fresh in my memory.

Unlike my students, there's not much good that comes out of a hurricane, especially one that crushes major cities like Irene.

For me today, it's all about waiting and preparing. The wonderful storm that is a new group of 7th graders starts Thursday. As I fine tune my lessons, I'll keep an eye on the weather and keep praying for the safety of the people on the east coast.

Cyclocross Saved My Life

It’s Always a Good Day to Ride – A New Column by Paul Warloski

Posted by robbie on 5/02/11 • Categorized as Featured,rider diary

Paul Warloski is back on his bike, re-learning the ropes. Photo: courtesy

Cyclocross Magazine would like to welcome new columnist Paul Warloski, who like many of us, has a passion for cyclocross. Only for him, this passion nearly consumed his life, literally. Follow Paul as he takes us along for a ride of trials and tribulations of a cyclocrosser with a refreshed perspective.
’Cross Saved My Life but Racing Damn Near Killed Me
by Paul Warloski

Cyclocross saved my life.

And at the same time, ’cross nearly destroyed what was left of my sanity.

I have been racing on the road for 20-some years, mostly in masters categories as a cat. 4 or 3. But when I discovered ’cross five years ago, I was hooked hard. I won several races as a 4, upgraded, did well in the masters 40 plus events, and started to work on getting serious about it.

In the fall of 2008, I was starting to overcome some asthma problems when I broke my collarbone in a freak crash in a ’cross race. I started training soon for the 2009 season, lifting weights, doing long base rides, and adding in some tempo.

And on a long March 2009 training ride from Milwaukee around Waterford, I was 100 yards from stopping at a local gas station for a break and to call my coach to tell him how ridiculously good I was feeling already in the season.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I was the only vehicle on the road, dressed in a red and yellow kit.
Next thing I know, I was on the ground, fighting for my life. In a split second, a young man in a large pick-up truck broadsided me as he turned left into my path.

I was thrown 20 to 30 feet, my shattered femur came through the skin and a hand-sized chunk of thigh skin and muscle was partially scooped out. I also broke my shoulder, tore the labrum and rotator cuff.

For some reason, I saw the femur and literally tried to push it back into my skin. That didn’t work.

I spent eight days in the hospital and two months away from my 7th grade students, first getting in-home therapy, then going to physical therapy three times a week. I know now I was lucky to survive. If the crash hadn’t occurred in front of a convenience store with many people there to assist me and stop the bleeding, or if the truck had been moving slightly faster, or a myriad of other what-ifs, I would have died.

My friend Mike and I went later to pick up what was left of my bike. I nearly got sick when I saw it.

The doctors did not expect me to walk normally again. And they cautioned me that I would likely never race my bike again.

’Cross season was coming in six months, and they told me I wouldn’t race again?

Right.

I managed about six races that first year, mostly to spite the doctors and have a focus for getting through rehab, until the pain in my knee, where pins still held the titanium rod in place, grew too great as I was trying to get up the stairs at the USGP in Louisville.

In 2010, though, I started to feel like a cyclocross racer again; but on some days, I grew critical of myself and upset at the lack of results, especially when I told myself I should do well at a particular course.

And now the pressure was greater because I needed to be back where I was before the crash. I’ve never been good with people telling me what I can or can’t do. I worked so damn hard in PT that they told me slow down. I needed to get back on the bike. I needed to race.

That has been my life-long “problem” with bike racing: I measure success in results, and then I become frustrated and angry with myself when I don’t do as well as I expect. The problem was that I needed to race to prove something to myself, to show myself and those around me that I could be successful at this. And so I put incredible pressure on myself to be successful, and I was one crabby, morose dude when the race didn’t go as I “planned.”

This column will not be the story of some kind of miraculous recovery, or a greeting card reminder of how valuable life is, or even a testament to hard work.

Instead, I will be documenting a year of training: not just my body, but my mind and emotions. I will be training myself all year to work as hard as I can and race ’cross as well as I can. I will train myself to work hard to ride fast and enjoy whatever success comes my way. I will work to eliminate the expectations and the “shoulds” when I get on the bike.

And that’s it. I will work to have no expectations of myself other than to race well and hard and have fun. I will work to celebrate any result, when, in the past, I would have beat myself up for not finishing on the podium.

So to start 2011, I’ll write this on a card that will hang on my mirror and stay in my race bag: Cyclocross is the most fun I can have on two wheels.

And thanks for reading. Drop me a comment with your hugs or hate.

Paul Warloski races cyclocross for the My Wife Inc. cyclocross team in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is 47 and a middle school English teacher. He was nearly killed in a 2009 crash when a large pick-up truck broadsided him on a training ride. In this column, he is documenting a year learning how to be positive and content regardless of results as well as physical training. He maintains an irregular blog at http://warloski.blogspot.com.
Photo Gallery:

Orange Hair and Peaking

Orange Hair and Peaking – A Column by Paul Warloski

In 2005, I was having a very good year racing on the road. My training seemed to finally come together, and I found myself in several breaks in 40-plus events. I wasn’t winning, but I was consistently placing top 5 against some very good company.

But as the season points added up, I could feel the pressure get to my head. I started missing the key breaks, missing out on points. The expectations I placed on myself caused so much inner turmoil that I freaked out on the bike, my legs and good form turning to concrete.

By the time Wisconsin’s Superweek came around in July, I knew I had to take a significant step to lighten the mood: so as a 41-year-old man, I dyed my hair orange.

Bright orange.

It still didn’t work. I had a few days of decent racing, but it was mostly a very frustrating experience.

Then, and during the following season, I realized I wasn’t having any fun racing my bike. Racing had become a battle against myself, a battle I was losing.

When I started racing cyclocross five years ago, I thought it was the answer. I was having a great time riding my bike in the mud and grass, falling over and laughing.

I was having a great time until I started to win in the 4s in 2008. By the time the state championships rolled around that year, I managed to build up enough pressure in my head that I had my worst race of the season, psyching myself completely out of the event.

I don’t think even orange hair would have helped.

And in 2010, one year after the crash, when I should have been glad to just ride my bike around in the mud, the same self-critical pressure returned. As soon as I finished well in the first races of the year, the siren of expectations dashed the “fun quotient” against the rocks. Races that I came in feeling physically strong after good training weeks were the races I finished poorly in, all because I expected to challenge for the win.

I expected results even though I hadn’t been able to train most of the year because I was still rehabbing my thigh and knee. I expected results even though I still run awkwardly up hills and over barriers.
And I had these unreasonable expectations even though I was just 20-some months away from a life-threatening accident where one of my legs was shattered.

Clearly there is an issue here for me!

As well-trained athletes, we expect so much of our bodies and our minds. We expect to bounce back after crashes and hard rides. We expect that if we put the training time in, we should get results. And sometimes we end up measuring ourselves by our results, and if those results don’t come, we are somehow lesser people.

And that is the point of this year of training. I will train my mind and heart to enjoy what I can do that day, to view whatever result I get as a success. Given my long history of beating myself up for failing to meet my impossibly high expectations, it is a challenging task.

My coach, who you will meet as Coach Crusty, wrote it down for future reference: “Warloski will work on staying positive all year.” I am getting some help and doing a lot of work to make this mental and emotional shift.

Whenever I have peaked for certain events throughout my cycling career, I have done poorly. So there will be no peaking to my training this year. I will race some road events, some mountain bike events, some time trials throughout the spring and summer. Each of those races will be good training and good days to be on the bike.

And by the fall, when the real season starts, when we again get to ride in mud and grass like kids, I will simply be able to ride faster than I could in the summer.

I am not going to peak for nationals, even though nationals are just down the road in Madison.  Sure, I want to do well, but it is just another race. I will prepare as best I can. But at nationals, it will be just a good day (although cold) to race.

Today, at the gym, I was tired. I could not lift as much as usual. So I had a chance to practice choosing my attitude: I lifted what I could today. I kept telling myself, it was a good day to lift.

And tomorrow, I get to ride my bike in the basement and watch movies.  Even in the basement, it is a good day to ride.

And I won’t need orange hair to ride anywhere.