Yesterday, Ryan and I went to Shelby Farms for a quick taper workout on the CX bikes (I have a slightly sketchy short loop in/around the Spookycross course that I’ve been using for this type of practice). While we were warming up, we noticed three people in a grassy/wooded area holding a large cage with a little white bunny in it. We warmed up a little more, and the people took the bunny out of the cage and put it on the ground. We were almost done warming up, and they were walking away from the woods with an empty cage.

I realized what had just happened and confronted them about it.

Me: Did you just dump your pet rabbit in the woods?!?
Woman (smiling proudly): Yes, we let him loose back there.
Me: You know it’s going to die out here.
Woman (still smiling): Oh, No! Don’t say that!
Me: Yeah, he’s white, something will eat him. Probably today. Or he’ll starve.
Woman (still smiling like this is funny): No… that can’t happen, He’ll be fine!
Me: (ride towards the woods while they drive off)

I retrieved a tiny white & brown bunny from where it was trying to hunker down in a pile of leaves. By this time, Ryan was riding over. We searched the nearby information board for the number to the Ranger Station but couldn’t find one. I started cussing and wondering WTF I was going to do with the poor, cute little bunny.

BTW- For whatever reason, we didn’t take a photo of poor, cute little bunny, but it looked similar to this:

We racked our bikes and drove down to the Visitor’s Center. I expected the worst- I was fully expecting to walk in and the staff tell me they’d have to make a few phone calls, we’d end up having to take the rabbit to the humane society ourselves, and the whole thing would turn into a good-Samaritan-flavored pain in the neck.
Fortunately, when we walked in, the woman behind the desk melted as soon as she laid eyes on cute, poor, little abandoned bunny. I told her what happened and she immediately took it and hugged it up to her chest. She vowed to help it out or keep it herself in place of that cat she’d been thinking about adopting.

We GTFO back to the car before she changed her mind.

After that, my ride was good. Ryan’s ride wasn’t so good. Back at my sketchy course, we did a few hot laps. The final turn of my course is a left on some sketchy gravel. I was practicing riding like a jerk and making Ryan take undesirable lines around some of the turns & mudholes. We were head to head at the run-up stairs when he stumbled on a step. I took that as a cue to go faster. I heard him catching up to me a few seconds later, so I made myself large in an attempt to make him take the worst line possible through the sketchy gravel.

He wrecked really hard.

I looked over my shoulder and saw him sitting up, so I finished out my interval before riding back over to him. He was pretty beat up- I hosed the gravel and dirt off of his leg with a water bottle, and we finished out our workout. Luckily, he attributes his wreck mostly to excessive speed and poor course design.

Once we were home, I told him to think of cute, sweet little bunnies while I scrubbed the remaining dirt and rocks out of his leg and dressed it with gauze and tape. Cyclist luuuuv.

So, since the last time I mentioned going to the skatepark and busting my knee & elbow, I’ve been a few more times (without incident). Turns out, the skatepark is a lot of fun. I’m slowly learning fun stuff like dropping in over the coping, pumping around in the bowl, and hopping out.
My next goal is to clear the flat area at the top of the shallow bowl- I’ve watched Matt do it at least 50 times, and I started trying last time I was there. I think I jumped about 6 inches off the ground and cleared about the first foot of concrete before chickening out when I started to get that “floaty” feeling of being more than 6 inches off the ground.

I’m shelving that one until after Worlds.

I’ve decided that since positive reinforcement is a great learning tool, that each time I learn something new & awesome, I’ll pimp my bike out just a little bit. I’m thinking Euro style dirt jumper… so I purchased a Hope headset yesterday to replace the janky stock Ritchey one. Other future upgrades include anything else that Hope makes, as well as a new chainwheel. Here’s the starting point:

Other than the occasional recovery days at the park, my rides are generally easy commutes to/from work & errands or short, all-out, race-type efforts on the CX bike. Today is one of those days, and I’m eager to see how the power numbers will look since they’ve been steadily creeping upwards at a comforting rate. Someone commented on a previous post and asked what my power numbers were. Since that’d be like advertising my hand in a game of poker, I’ll just say that I can maintain between 200 and 300 watts for my 20 minute intervals.

(if you’re not well versed in wattage, that lands me somewhere between a beginner and Katie Compton)

Finally, on a “self marketing” note, my “webmaster” (AKA Ryan) has put some nice little links over in the right sidebar. You can follow Brickhouse Racing on Facebook and Twitter (@BrickhouseMTB) to make sure you don’t miss anything new and exciting.

Since the State Championship race, the weather in Memphis has been chilly and wet. I’ve taken to the trainer for my workouts both Tuesday and today (yesterday, I had a “fun with mud/gravel” recovery ride on the CX bike wearing road tires). In case you were ever wondering, road tires don’t work well on the greasy mud in Shelby Farms.

Yesterday, the recent deluge of training intensity finally started to make me feel a little worn out. Today, after a good nights sleep, breakfast, and some laying around watching reruns of American Dad on Hulu, I finally made it upstairs to the pain cave of awesomeness:

The South Park was just warm-up entertainment. Once I got to the real workout, it was straight Glitch Mob Radio on Pandora. Two hours later, I exit the cave, covered in sweat and trying not to fall down the stairs as my quads shake in surrender. I then proceeded to down a recovery drink, some leftover seafood pasta, and a couple of chocolate truffles before passing out hard for a solid 45 minutes. Upon waking, I realized that I’d drooled on my pillow and was being used as a bed by no fewer than 3 animals.

Post-workout power naps are the best.

Once out of the bed, I went to the mailbox and found that it had leaked on to some important mail:

(bonus shot of my medal from the weekend)

Luckily, the contents inside the envelope were still viable, and my “team vehicle” is now looking pretty boss:

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise- I’ve been riding Maxxis tires ever since I discovered the awesome-ly light/knobby Ignitor (the Ignitor front/Ikon rear has now been dubbed the “Andrea Combo” at the shop). I’m looking forward to “officially” repping them (along with Outdoors, of course) in the upcoming season.

That’s your brief report on adventures in rainy weather. Stay tuned for next week, where I’ll be switching from organized intervals to CX skills/intervals. Spoiler alert- they’ll be outside, regardless of weather…

Tuesday morning, I succumbed to peer pressure and, following my weekly trip to the chiropractor, went out to the new skatepark with the Voltage for its maiden voyage (unless, of course, you consider the laps around the in-house kitchen/living room track). Turns out, when the concrete is cold, and the air is less cold and very damp, it leaves a slick film of water on some faces of the bowls. I found out the hard way within the first 30 seconds of riding…

Yes, cute, I know. I’ve got a matching one on my knee and a bruise on the front of my right hip bone. Apparently, I’m bonier than I previously thought. You may also notice the red nail polish. I had to glam it up a bit for Ryan’s work Holiday Party. Now, I feel extra pretty  every time I stick my finger into the grease jar at work.

Training is otherwise going well. Despite racing my ass off over the weekend and busting it Tuesday morning, I pulled off some decent power numbers in my Tuesday morning 5x3x3 workout (5 repeats of 3 min on/3min off intervals). Hopefully, the trend will continue for tomorrow’s workout that I’m not ashamed to admit, looks a little intimidating. I’m reasonably sure it won’t kill me, though.