Silver Linning

Always a silver lining, eh? Despite the RacerMate1 software largess, necessitating total labor effort from the home office personnel normally assigned to RCV data merge, encryption and coding, the race season moves along. With or without us. Kinda like time, that way. The races, as time, do not stop and start at my convenience.

So it was a nice to get credentialed for the event billed as the largest bicycle festival in the world yesterday. That would of course be the Sea Otter Classic in Monterrey, CA. Just down the road a piece. They have added a gran fondo to their four day calendar of racing and that will be my main priority. Close second will be the Pro road race, the circuit race, the criterium, the mountain bike race and the stunts. Guess that would be close third, fourth and fifths, but you get the idea. Lot's to do and tons of great cycling action to shoot. Four days. Monterrey. Mountain of the Kings. OK, I'll go.

Day Two update: 0400, Dave's Killer Bread with marscapone (when I said yesterday that it was out the window I should have more accurately said down the hatch). I will waste no food. A particularly juicy 60 minute popcorn revival* in the HoM, subbing for Tony, and after a bowl of puffed Kamut with blueberries, peaches, soy protien and soy milk. Two cups of extra French roast joe. Interesting to note that weight this morning was at a twenty-five year low of 158. SOMETHIN'S HAPPENIN' HERE.

I am also going to invite one of our regular Saturday Spinners to join the fray as dietary consultant, as she is a RD, Pilates Instructor and very capable cyclist. That should keep it (somewhat) real.

Let us also keep in mind that the low glycemic test, despite all its initial signs of success, is but one part of the mix. I am after power to weight, not simply weight to weight. The power metric being the BAC15 CompuTrainer TT, and timed 1 mile runs beginning next week.

Pretty simple model: The less fat I drag around with me coupled with the added power I can generate in training, the faster I get to the race finish line, and hence the better I feel about the meaning of all this. It helps explain a lot.

And therein lies the silver lining.

*Popcorn is one song standing and one sitting, today pushing to max cadence on the two minute sits, as accompanied by the sounds of the British Invasion, and standing climbs of four-five minutes of more contemporary, yet classic, rockers. You know the stuff. The climbs finished with a ten second blast of explosive seated power. The Kinks meet OAR.

With a monsterous power to weight ratio, you get to affix a number 1 sticker to your seat post. In this case, on Javier Gomez's Specialized S-Works at the Los Angeles Tri last October.