Merry Christmas

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!

Christmas in North Carolina

I am so happy to be back in NC for a little bit to see my family and friends and get some rides in while I am here. We will see if the riding in the wind in TX still translates to decent climbing.

Thankfully the NCDOT did a nice job keeping the roads clear so the drive here was not too bad.

Now I have to see if I can get all of my Christmas shopping done pretty quickly!

The Flamme Rouge/ The Sprint to the Finish

The Flamme Rouge (the red kite) is the marker for 1KM left in a bike race. It is the sign for the racers that they only have 1 K left. If you are off the front you may be praying to hold on and not let anyone catch you and beat you to the line. If you are chasing you know you only have a short amount of time and road left to close the gap. If you are simply in the pack and just ready for the pain to end you know that the pain will end soon.

The last week or two of the semester tends to feel a lot like the end of a race for me. If I am ahead of where I want to be then it is a matter of getting to the finish quickly before something else creeps up that I have to do. If I am keeping up and just holding on waiting for the semester to be over then I just want to finish. This semester however, I still have things that I want to finish but I am quickly running out of time. Fortunately I am finished with everything that I have to do, but it feels like the winner of the race is up the road and I need to catch him/her before the finish line approaches.

This semester has been productive for me and I have been able to accomplish most of the goals that I set out at the start. As far as school is concerned, I have run several research studies (4 to be exact), submitted one for publication, and have drafts of all of the others in some stage of revision. I have had fun teaching this semester and I have my fingers crossed that I get good reviews.

As far as riding and my personal goals go I have done ok. I have been able to make sure that I spent more time with Nici and did not stress about school the whole time that we spent time together. I did not do a great job getting the miles in on the bike in September or October but November was much better and December has not been too bad. I have been able to lose a lot of the weight that I wanted to lose. I went from 154 at the start of the semester to 141 at the end! Now I just have to make sure I still have power on the bike rather than just being able to ride for hours.

I have not been as good about updating this blog as I would like but it is always nice to have something to work on.

Now to grade a final, submit grades, and head to North Carolina. I am really looking forward to seeing my family and friends and getting some rides in while we are there. Let's hope I can still keep up on the hills!

The Importance of Understanding Science: Why we all have to do it.

Today I will take a short break from talking about school, life, or biking to talk about something that is important to me. Science. (sorry about the length of this. It is really important to me.)

Science is important for everyone but sadly most folks do not properly understand scientific methods, conclusions, or why it matters to them. As I tell my research methods class it is important for everyone to be a good consumer of research and understand how to evaluate scientific claims for themselves. I wanted to share this will everyone in light of two studies that have been released in the past few weeks. One of these studies has received a great deal of attention this week but sadly even the "experts" in the field are not responding in way that suggests that they are really following the science. The second study I will discuss really just shows folks that even people who should understand and follow scientific research typically ignore it and do what they think is best.

The first study and the one that has received the most attention were released just this week. The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, made up of a very large group of highly respected scientists at primer medical institutions across the country has released new guidelines for schedules of breast cancer screening. These guidelines have met with an extremely large amount of resistance from individuals and groups both within and outside of the medical community. One part of the new guidelines that has been most controversial is the finding that mammograms for women below the age of 50 is no longer recommended unless you have a family history to put you at a higher risk. This new recommendation comes from a very impressive study that found that mammograms were not as effective for women below the age of 50 and actually carried higher risks (false positives and increased radiation) than they had benefits. Now let me stop to say that I care greatly about this issue. As someone whose mother is a breast cancer survivor increased screening should be good thing. I personally would do anything to make sure that my wife, mom, and sister are around and health for as long as possible. This issue matter to me and has impacted my family.

However, as a scientist I cannot ignore the result of this study. So much has been made about the results of this study increasing the likelihood of cancer detection not occurring early enough. But what struck me was that the results of this study suggest that standard mammograms do not work as effectively for women under 50. This should be a wake up call for researcher to develop better techniques for detecting cancer in women under 50.

What really bugs me is the number of health experts across the country, including our current Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius does not even seem to understand the results of this current study. She has stated that women should "Keep doing what you have been doing for years: talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions and make the decision that is right for you." So it appears that even someone who should be careful to understand the science behind this panels report has decided to dismiss the results because they are either not politically desirable or they are not what they wanted them to be.

Medical science is not alone in dismissing sound research because they disagree with the findings. At least they listen to the science. Clinical Psychology is largely guilty of not even bothering to listen to the science. Of course, this does not mean that all of clinical Psychology ignores scientific research but rather than a large part of it does. If I were the only one saying this then I could be ignored. However I am not the only one or the first to say this.

The second study that came out recently was published in the Association of Psychological Science's journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. The article has received a great deal of mass media attention from Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/id/216506) to the Washington Post (http://ow.ly/CKUN ). The article suggests that there is a widening gap between scientific research and the clinical practice of Psychology. It is critical that individuals believe that their doctor (medical or psychological) is up to date on the latest research and understands and USES the most effective treatment. Sadly this is not the case. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has received a great deal of attention recently given the number of combat troops who are experiencing traumas as a result of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. PTSD has a relatively effective treatment (exposure therapy) however clinicians not always or even typically use this type of treatment. The medical analogy to this would be patients with a bacteria infection being treated with Aspirin rather than antibiotics. This is a direct result of a lack of understanding of Science.

If we ignore scientific findings and we simply go with what we think is right then we might as well be back in the stone ages. We cannot only take the scientific findings that we like and ignore the ones that are counter to our beliefs. Science should take the emotions out of the situations and look at the facts. As Joe Friday from Dragnet used to say "Just the facts". Sometimes results of studies are controversial and go against our personal beliefs but if we ignore them then we might as well never do the research.

Exciting News

Well my life has officially changed forever. My wife and I are now expecting our first child in May! We are both super excited about this news and can't wait for may. From talking to friends who are either pregnant right now or have had kids recently I feel good in knowing that we are feeling the same things that other folks are feeling. It is odd to go back and forth from really excited to terrified all in the same 10 minute span. Fortunately, I have been told that this is perfectly normal and probably a good sign since we are actually thinking about everything enough to think about the scary stuff!

So now I have even more reasons to finish school ASAP and to get as many miles in on the bike as I can before may so I am super fit and can take a good chunk of time off without starting back at a zero level of fitness. All of that said, I guess I had better get back to writing a paper so I can send to to a journal and get out of school!

Midday ride

One of the few perks to being a graduate student who works from home a couple of days a week is the ability to sneak out for a midday ride. I have not been taking advantage of this perk for the first couple months of the semester but in the last few weeks I have been able to meet up with a friend for some nice miles. The ability to go out during the middle of the day, when the temperature has warmed up, is very nice. So I should not gloat about being able to get miles in during the day. There is a trade off for the time taken off during the day. It means more hours working late into the evening. All well worth it!

Ok so back to work. Still getting work done at 9pm, but then I did get 42 miles in this morning!

Fall 2009- Here goes nothing

The next few months are going to be very busy and it's not like things up to this point have been calm and slow. This semester I still have a lot to get done and if I want to graduate in May or August deadlines are fast approaching. So I could simply bury myself in work and make things a little easier but then I would miss out on all of the wonderful things that life has to offer. I figure that having a plate full of work, life, and family stuff will make life a little crazy but worth all of the trouble! So what am I doing over the next few months? I figured that I would be better off if I share my plans and goals with everyone and update folks along the way so that I can get harassed by everyone if I start to not meet all of them. I will break my goals up into school (work), riding, and family goals to keep it clear.

School goals

-       Finish at least 3 studies

-       Finish and submit 3 papers to journals (for my remaining coursework)

-       Comps???

Riding

            - Actually get on my bike and ride

- Ramp up my mileage and follow a training plan (get in some 100 mile rides on the weekends)

- Be in shape by the time spring riding season starts so that I am keeping up with all of my racing friends.

-Finally lose the weight that I have been working to lose for the last 2 years

Family

-       Spend time with my wife, dogs, and cats!

-       Actually update this blog a few times a week rather than once a month!

Yes I am trying to take a page out of the fatcyclist.com book but it seems to have worked for him. By the way if you have not visited the fatcyclist blog it is a must for all cyclists out there.

Wish me luck, harass me, but hopefully I can get it all done asap!

Balance

It is amazing how a few things can change everything very quickly. At the end of August I crashed and started the Fall semester. That plus a week of rain lead to a very low number of miles ridden in September. 257.2 miles low! There were weeks this summer that I put in more miles than what I did in all of September.

Cycling seems to be a great metaphor for life sometimes. Keeping the wheels rubber side down and not losing your balance. Keeping the pedals turning and moving you forward in the direction you choose. The basics of cycling are learned pretty quickly otherwise you stop riding. But if you keep it up and you keep trying you master how to not fall and to keep moving forward. As time goes on and the riding becomes more compitative you learn how to push through the pain and pedal harder. As life gets more complicated sometimes keeping our balance and pushing to get where you want gets harder. It is easy to let work or other things get in the way and make you loose your balance.

This semester is going to be a very important one for me if I can get everything done. This semester I have 3 more independent research projects to finish (and submit to journals), comps to study for and pass, a dissertation proposal to work on, and a post-doc to line up. All so I can still graduate in May or August.

So I have a lot to do but I have to keep the rest of my life in balance to make it all worth while.
I have a list of goals and plans to get those goals accomplished which I will share shortly but for now the first thing that I will commit to is posting more often and more consistently. So hopefully once a week or so.

Thats all for now but more to come soon.

Hotter'n Hell take 2

I completed my second hotter'n hell last Saturday and while I did complete it faster and with fewer stops than last year but I did not enjoy it nearly as much. About 15 miles into the ride I was in a line of riders that shifted to the left and I had no choice but to shift with them which put me off of the road in the dirt. While my transition to the dirt went relatively the transition back to the pavement did not. A gap between the pavement and the dirt appeared and grabbed my rear wheel sending my down. I am told that I was out for a little bit but I got up angry so my friends were not too concerned about me. I did finish the ride with out another stop but the crash tore my bib shorts, scuffed the edge of my saddle and cracked my helmet. Not to mention the road rash on my hip.

I already have a new helmet, I have retaped my handle bars, and I am looking to see if I can get a new saddle cheap on ebay. My only real issue at this point is that my team has no extra bibs or jerseys. So I am somewhat stuck. I may be able to get a jersey from last year but no bibs. So the delema is this....do I just go with a jersey from last year and some black bibs, find a kit from a non-local team that is not too expensive to last until March, or option C go back to my last team kit for 6 months.

Ideas, suggestions, team offers????

2nd half of summer

My summer has really been divided into two halves plus a little at the end. The first half was spent writing a few papers and getting ready to teach. The second half was very busy and spent finishing a paper and sending it to a journal and teaching. Tomorrow I am heading to NC to get Nici and head back to TX with her. It has been a long summer with her working in NC and me working in TX. It is amazing to think that we just had our 4th anniversary on Thursday. It seems like yesterday that we got married.


While I am not looking forward to summer being over I am looking forward to Nici being back in TX with me. I will still have 2 weeks until I have to start teaching in the fall and about a week until I will have to be back in the lab full time.

I had hoped to get 1000 miles in on the bike and a tt and a MTB race but I settled for 800 miles and no racing. It is odd that about the times that the races came around my legs were feeling pretty weak but afterwards they were feeling better. This last week I was able to make it to the KOW ride (race) and I stayed on the lead group much longer than usual. I was able to stay at the front and watch a bunch of cat 1 and cat 2 racers play out team tatics. Amazingly I am a member of one of the two teams that was controling the ride. When I saw a teammate being pulled back to the group form a break away, I came very close to attacking and trying to form a break of my own. I quickly realized that I was doing everything that I could to simply stay with the group so attacking was out of the question. At least my head knew what the right thing to do was, even if my legs could not do it.

Hotter than Hell is coming up and despite my plans to not do it this year I am ready for another shot. Hopefully I can finish in under 4 hours this year. I was very close last year so maybe with my legs starting to come around I can do it.

Well I am off to North Carolina in the morning and I can't wait to see my wife and not have to just talk on the phone.
North Cakallacky here I come!

A tale of two rides

It is amazing how different two rides in the same week can be. A few weeks ago I was planning on doing my first time trial as a way to get back into racing in a way that would be very unlikely to result in a crash. The weekend before I had done some very good hard rides and my legs were feeling good. I was unable to do my usual Monday night recovery ride because I got stuck on campus later than I should have been. By Wednesday I went out on my usual KOW (king of Wednesday) ride (race) and my legs felt horrible. I got dropped much earlier than I had wanted. After a slow ride home I decided that it was not worth the $40 and getting up at 4am on Saturday to drive 2 hours to go to a 40K time trial just to come in dead last.

That Saturday I got up to do my usual ride and felt much stronger than I expected. In fact I stayed on to the lead pack about 10 miles longer that usual. My best Saturday ride the year!

I was disappointed with not racing that day until I looked at the time for the cat 5 racers and the winning time was around 1 hour. I know that I could not have finished in 1 hour so I felt ok with my decision. Hopefully some consistent training over the next couple of months will put me in good shape for a possible TT in the fall.

I have decided to give the Hotter than Hell another shot. After last years ride I figured that I had checked it off my list and was not planning on going back but I am getting than itch to go again. Plus a number of my friends are planning on going so I can't pass it up.

One of my riding friends is planning on making his racing come back (to a cat 3) next year and will be training to do so. I am going to try and put a training schedule together for us and get my self in back in racing shape so when I can start racing again I will be able to get to a cat 3 in a season.

Enough for now, time to go to sleep and attack the last week of being in TX without Nici.

Back for 2nd half of the summer

I had a very very nice trip back to NC last week. It is amazing to think that the summer (atleast the way I am breaking it up) is half over. The plus side is that I have made it half way through the summer and am closer to having Nici back in TX with me.

My trip to NC was great. I was able to get in two nice rides with friends. Thank you Terry for letting me borrow your Madone! After my usual 4th of July ride Nici and I made a short trip down to the beach to see my sister and brother in law. We had a very nice time at the beach, grilling out, playing cornhole, and playing Mario kart on the Wii. It is a good thing that I am a better bike handler ( and driver) than I am at Mario Kart. It was pretty ugly. Other than a rainy few minutes at the beach after taking the time to get our stuff out to the beach we had a lot of fun.

I am back in TX and prepairing for teaching during the second summer session. I am still working on a few papers and have several undergrads collecting data for other studies but I will need even more focus during the second half of the summer to get the papers out, teaching done, and miles logged. While I came pretty close to hitting my 1,000 mile goal during the first half I am even more determined to hit it this go around. Fortunatly I have an extra week to get it done so I should be ok. I do have 1 race ( Time trial) planned and so we will see how it goes.

Well enough for now. I am heading back to have a slice of pizza and watch the end of todays tour stage!

End of the Month

While I have not done as good a job updating my blog as I would like I have been very busy here. In the last month (since I have been back from NC) I have ridden 896.4 miles, Written 1st drafts of two paper (which should be sent to journals soon) and I have stopped drinking as much Dr. Pepper as I had been. While I had been drinking 2 per day I am not down to 3 per week. Not bad. So I have gotten a good number of miles in, only 100 short of my goal for the month, and I have gotten a good amount of work done on papers. I have plenty of new goals for the second half of the summer as well as my first race in a year and a half coming up soon but for now I am focusing on my trip to NC. I leave tomorrow and I will be in NC seeing my wife, family, and friends and I can't wait! If any of my NC friends want to catch up for a ride or coffee let me know and I will see you soon.

So while I am really really excited about going to NC tomorrow everything seemed to go very badly today. I had one of those days that makes you question everything about what you are doing. I was in a really bad mood and not trusting any choices that I had made (except getting married to my amazing wife). Maybe it was being in TX with my wife in NC for 4.5 weeks and not having her here to talk to but today was headed to being one of the worst days I have had for a few years. Until I decided to go for the recovery ride that I really did not feel like going on. I was ready to take a nap on the couch and then pack for my flight tomorrow. I decided that getting on my bike had never been a bad decision and so I would go. As usual riding today turned today into a pretty good day. The time on the bike simply chatting with friends about my NC trip or the up coming Tour or just stuff made me feel so much better. It is amazing that a few hours on the bike talking with people who you know about anything is great. I don't know if it is the rhythm of the motion, or talking with people that you spend early morning weekend hours with, or hot days or freezing in the winter, or maybe it is because you learn to trust these people riding so close at such high speeds but sometimes the folks that you ride with who may not know what you do for a living seem to know you better than anyone else. Riding friends have become some of my closest friends both in TX and in NC. That is one reason why I miss my NC riding friends and why I look forward to spending time with them when I am back in NC.

Well it is late and I need to finish packing and getting ready to leave. I have to get up early tomorrow and the beer is tasty but probably not helping but at least it is tasty. Well I hope to see some of you in NC over the next week and at the Spin Cycle 4th of July Ride. I have been going to that ride since I started road biking and I am so excited that I get to make it again this year! My first 4th of July Spin Cycle ride was July 4th 2003 so this will be my 6th time of the ride. I am really glad that they are keeping the ride going.



Ok time to go to sleep. See y'all in NC tomorrow!!!

Crazy Week

This week has been a very odd week. I have gotten a good amount of work done in the lab and have a new study started. I have almost finished a 1st draft of a paper on stress and executive functioning/working memory. I have started getting more miles in the legs but I did miss a couple of rides this week because of the weather. Now a little rain during the summer is no big deal but around here we don't just get a little rain. The storms that came through Wednesday night and Thursday morning did quite a bit of damage. I was lucky in that we are only missing a few shingles and our fence is leaning a little. Many of my neighbors did not fair as well. A ton of trees came down. Many of them either came out of the ground or were torn apart. Here is a pretty good example:

So I feel very lucky that nothing like that fell into my place or on my car. Huddling in the bathroom with the dog and cats was not a ton of fun but with 70-80mph wind and a tornado confirmed 3 miles away I was not about to take any chances.

Now that the storms have passed the heat is here. The highs for the next several days are forecast to be 96,97,98,98...... Basically the same until it goes over 100 and then cools down sometime in say...October. At least the humidity is low!

The sunsets have been absolutely amazing for the last few days, at least what I can see in the city. Last night the sky was all purple and tonight looking outside it looks orangish. Crazy.

Well, I am cheering the Pittsburgh Penguins on and then heading to bed for some good rest before tomorrow mornings ride. Several of the Metro VW elite guys are coming to the Mad Duck group ride tomorrow. Should be lots of fun and very painful.

Summer adventure

With the summer starting, even if the temperatures have not really gone up yet, I am excited about the possibilities that are ahead. I am not really looking forward to my wife being in NC all summer for work but I am trying to make the best of it and get a lot of work done and a lot of miles on the bike this summer. I am spending the 1st summer session working on a few papers and the second summer session I will be teaching and finishing the papers that I have not finished during 1st summer session. Teaching for the first time this summer will be fun and I am looking forward to it.

My goals:
4-5 papers written and submitted to journals
1000 miles before July 1 and another 1000 between 7/7 and 8/13
Do a great job teaching

And all of this by 8/14.

We will see how things go.

Semester Done!

I have actually finished the semester. There have been days this semester that I did not know if I would make it to today. It is here and now it is time to head to NC for a few weeks. Then back here for riding and lots of writing papers for publications. It is now summer time and I and going to be very happy to get a little time to relax and get some miles in with friends back in NC.

Finishing strong

At the end of last week I finished two more studies that did not have the best results from a quick analysis. I still have a lot more analysis to do and there is a hint that I might have something significant to write about but as usual nothing is clear and easy to see. Atleast I have been able to get two new IRB proposals and hopefully the process with the IRB will go quickly and we will have everything taken care of that they need and I will have two more studies to run this summer which should be even more likely to produce significant results.

I have finished everything this semester with the exception of 1 final that I have on Thursday. After that it is time to head back to NC and see some friends and family for a few weeks before I have to head back and get back to work. Atleast this summer I will have to main things to focus on: Riding and Writing!

Now to study for the final and get everything taken care of so that we can leave.

Light at the end of the tunnel

So on the first Wednesday in many weeks I had time to ride today but of course the forcast was for some nasty storms so I figured that staying in and finishing up some stuff from the semester was the best bet and of course no rain has come and I would have had time to ride. I guess from now on when debating the answer is always to ride. Rain or Shine.

Atleast the semester is almost over and the number of things that I have to do are much lower. In fact at this point the majority of my big tasks are at the point that I just need to put some finishing touches on three projects and I will only have two finals left! 7 classes left for me to attend until I am only on the other side of the class (teaching that is) and getting paid to be in a classroom!

In addition to the end of the semester coming soon I only have a week and 2 days until two studies that I am running are complete. If things work out then the last two years of work will all pay off. If not then we will see. Maybe some exploratory work will provide some publishable material when standard analyses have not.

Plus at the end of the semester I get to head to NC and see some old friends. With the little amount of riding I have done lately I have a feeling my friends are going to make me pay for it.

my day on 4/16

What a difference a few weeks can make. Just two weekends ago I felt like a real person. I got to ride on Saturday and Sunday, my wife and I spent time together on Satruday and Sunday afternoon and we got to sit outside and grill on Saturday night. However, since that time I have done nothing but work work work. Now I don't mind working hard. I like to work hard. It lets me feel good about playing hard when I get to but what I don't like so much is working hard 7 days a week all day and never getting time to spend relaxing with my wife. This semester should be over within a matter of weeks and the list of things that I have to do just keeps getting longer. Many of the things on the list I don't mind and I am looking forward to doing because I know that they are important to my career and they are the reason I am here any way. I really want to work on this journal article that I have been needing to get to for the last month. But instead I am spinning my wheels doing pointless work that will not benefit me professionally. At least this is the last semester of classes that I have and from now on the work that I will be doing (research and teaching) will be the reason that I am here.

This morning I am fighting with the computer in the lab that I use. It is on it is way out and not starting for me. On top of that my laptop won't connect to the internet thanks to this schools weak wireless network so I can't even use my laptop to get the work done that I need to do! So I figured that taking a minute and writing this so I could post it when I get home would be the best way to try and restart the day.

Crashing

I hate crashing! Today I crashed on the road for the second time since I have been riding seriously. I should feel luck that in 6 years I have only crashed twice but the first time cost me the frame on the bike my wife got me for Christmas. This time the only thing that it cost me was a new saddle and a new team kit. I had been looking at replacing my saddle for a while and luckly I just found the saddle that I wanted on sale and got it pretty cheap (75 bucks). Now I have a sweet looking selle italia SLR! The thing that kills me is the loss of my brand new team kit. I am hoping that I can get a another one since these were the most comfortable shorts and jersey I have ever worn!

I am still working on figuring out exactly why I crashed. I was taking a corner quickly but no faster than normal and suddenly my tires lost their grip and I was skidding across the pavement. I either leaned to far into the turn, hit some gravel, or a bump. Either way the result was the same. Hopefully getting back on tomorrow will not feel to bad. In fact sitting on a saddle will probably feel better than sitting anywhere else considering where the road rash is. Now if my pinkey finger will return to its normal color rather than the blueish color it is now!

I guess crashing is part of the game and the pro way is to get back on.

NEW TEAM--FCS/Metro Volkswagen

My new team kit is finally in and I can't wait to put it on and go for a ride. The new team has a club level team (the one that I am on) and an elite team (the big boys and girls). The elite team women are all working for a shot to go to Europe this summer and race over there. It is nice being on a team with an elite squad of young folks who may make it to the big leagues one day! Just trying to keep up with them provides all of the challenge I need.

Go Metro!

Austin Pictures

While we were down in Austin/San Marcos we made it down to the Alamo and Nici was not really all that impressed. She was so unimpressed that the only pictures that she wanted was a 140 year old live oak tree outside the Alamo:




On Sunday we managed to make it to Gruene and the we had a great lunch at the Grist Mill. It was a little cool but sitting out on the patio looking over the river was very nice.
Here is downtown Gruene:





After lunch at the Grist Mill we drove out to Wimberly and got to see some more of the Hill Country.






So hopefully it is obvious why Nici and I are ready to leave North Texas and either head to NC or down to Austin if we can't get back to NC

Austin, TX

We just got back from a wonderful trip to Austin, San Marcos, and San Antonio. I am already missing the hill country and wish that we lived there. While the weather was a little cold on the first few days it got better the last day. We made it to the Alamo and Nici was only somewhat impressed. Really more interested in the cool live oak that was outside.

We got to see an old friend of mine, do some shopping at the outlet mall and get some lunch at the Gristmill in Gruene. I will post some pictures when I get a chance. The hill country is beautiful. Nici was ready to move down there after only seeing a little of the area.

SPRING BREAK

After tomorrow morning I will officially be on spring break. Or atleast what passes for spring break for a grad student. My wife and I are taking a much needed long weekend and heading south to Austin and San Antonio and taking in the hills and nice weather. Hopefully I will be able to convince her that there are atleast some nice parts in the state.

While I did not like watching NCSU lose tonight, hopefully the NCAA tourney will be fun to watch.

So for spring break, aside from the usual work that I want to get done I have a short solo training camp to get myself back into shape. To make things even better I found out today that my some of my new team kit is in. Hopefully the bibs and jersey will be in and I can wait for the arm warmers! I will post some pics of the new kit when I get it!

Non-significant results

In the research world putting a lot of effort into planning a study, collecting the data, and then scoring it and doing the analysis is what we do. Research takes a lot of work and a lot of time if you want to do it right. When you have a lot of effort tied up into this process and the theory that you have built around the hypothesis that you are testing then non-significant results are not what you want to find after all that work. Out of all of the lines of research that I am working on the one that is most important to me involves working memory and executive functioning. Three studies that I have conducted in the last almost 2 years have taken between a month to collect and a year and a half depending on the project. In the last 3 months they have all wrapped up and repeatedly the analysis has come back with findings that I am not happy about. No significant difference!

Then again all data tells us something, even if it not what we want to hear. Atleast for now I have a alternative hypothesis that might just have a decent impact on the field.

Last Blast of winter???

Well after a very nice week of warm and slightly windy weather the cold front hit us. When I woke up to ride on Saturday morning it was 33 and we had a 30 mph wind. I had gone to sleep the night before thinking that it was only going to be in the low 40's and I had prepared myself to be ready for knee warmers and a jacket but 33 degrees and a 30 mph wind would take much more than knee warmers and a jacket. So with the wind and cold I decided to work and free up sometime on Wednesday to get a few extra miles in. Little did I know that waking up on Sunday it would be 29!

I can't really complain after looking at the weather back in NC. In fact the whole east coast seems to be a little on the cold and snowy side.

Today may have been cold but for the next week it is going to warm up nicely.

I am keeping my fingers cross that this is the last blast of winter.

2 More weeks of classes and then spring break! It is always nice to have spring break at the same time at the ACC tourney and the start of March Madness.

lots of work, a nice ride, and great weather

Even with having a really busy week and skipping both rides this weekend to get all of my work done I was able to get to a good point today and get out for a 2 hour ride. Not super long but just enough to get the legs moving again. I was able to get out and ride with a friend which made it even better.

For the first 5 miles of my ride I was sure that I had forgotten something at the house. I went through my usual checklist: helmet, yes, keys, yes, phone and cash, yes, inhaler, yes, tools, yes, water and gel, yes. So what am I missing? Then it finally dawned on me, my jacket, arm warmers, hat, knee warmers. It was such a nice day (minus the wind). It was in the mid 70's and sunny. One big plus to living in Texas, nice warm weather at the end of February. One minus, 15-20 mph wind. I guess you can't get it all.

Now back to work. I should be done collecting data on another study by Friday and I am really hoping that this one will work out! I am getting really tired of non-significant results and little to publish.

So much to drink

Getting ready to leave for campus this morning I heard on the news that new research has shown that drinking green and black tea (hot tea) has important health benefits. Specifically, if I remember what I heard prior to my morning coffee, it may help in the prevention of strokes or reducing the damage from them (like I said I heard it prior to my morning coffee). I do remember that the recommended daily intake was three cups.

So adding up the beverages that I should drink on a daily basis I now have:
-lots of water
-3 cups of tea
- glass of red or white wine (good for heart and lungs respectively)
- a little coffee (I am sure that I remember it being good for something).

I have to pee just thinking about all of that.

Tour of California/ Rock Racing

My wife and I were watching the Tour of California this last week and listening to the commentary as Rock Racing was working on the front of the field to save Mancebo's leader's jersey. Good ole Phil Ligget made a very sound comment about all of the duty being on Rock Racing's shoulders. My wife looked up to watch the race and her reaction was priceless.

"They sure do, they have a doodie all over that kit"

I would agree with her:
Great Job Tyler in doing some good work on the front but Micheal Ball needs to realize that cycling kits need to look nice not crappy like modern tattoo fashion.

What a crazy last month and a half

The last month and a half have been abusolutly crazy and busy. The weather has gone from nice in the 70's with little wind to mid-40's with rain and wind and back and forth every few days. Atleast it seems that way lately. In the last 6 weeks I have gone from having a good amount of time to train and get some work done to being back in school and having no time what so ever. I made a trip down to Austin for the first time in about 15 years and had a great time at a conference down there, had some good BBQ at Stubb's and made it to Mellow Johnny's bike shop (Lance's shop).

Mellow Johnny's is a really sweet shop with several very nice bikes on display from Lance, Popovich, and Hincapie. The folks were really nice and while I did not get a chance to try any coffee it smelled great!

Now that I am back in school I am taking three stats/reseach methods classes one of which has a lab and I have several studies going on. I am really looking forward to having a few studies finished and if all goes as planned several more papers to work on! The training is coming along and my legs are begining to feel a little better. I was able to put in some good efforts on my own this last week and I was able to stay with the Saturday group a lot longer last Saturday than I have been lately. With all of the work that I had to do this weekend I ended up not riding at all this weekend but I have done enough work in advance now so I should be able to get some real training in this week.

So what I am training for? Well I am not doing any more road races or crits until I can get a used bike that I don't worry about crashing and not having a bike to ride until I get my PhD. So the alternative is finding a free bike to race or...the Time Trial! Fortunatly with all of the racing that goes on in the state there are several TT's that I can do within a short drive. The first TT of the year is the Horse Country Time Trial Series on March 7th. We will see how it goes. Fortunatly it is only 20K and still early in the season so when the 2nd and 3rd race of the series come around in May and July I should be much faster and able to really do well.

So hopefully I can make sure to schedule everything a little better so that I can do well in school, train so that I am flying on the bike, and find time to do a better job posting on here.

Things to look forward to.....my new team kit. Hopefully it will be here soon.

80 degrees and riding with the big boys and girls

For my first group ride back in Texas I was excited because the weather was really nice for January (high of 80) and while the wind was crazy (25mph) at least I was betting that the warm temps would bring out a big group so I was not fighting the wind by myself once I got dropped. Yes, I assumed that I was going to get dropped. Saturday was the last day of the Metro VW elite team camp and all of the new team members were there for the group ride so I was pretty sure that it was going to be a pretty fast ride. My assumptions were met pretty quickly once we got out of town a little. I was able to hold on for longer than I thought that I would and after taking a short cut to get back with the group I still was not able to hold on and simply watched the big boys blow by me. I had a little more luck when the girls past me and I was able to hold on for a little longer but not much longer and soon I was by myself again. In total it was not a bad day on the bike and getting to ride with some folks who are far more talented than I will ever be was a blast.

The great weather Saturday does seem to come at a price considering that it is 31 outside with freezing rain. I guess that means that I get to take care of stuff around the house today so I can spend more time on the bike later this week.

A New Year

So looking back at this last year and thinking about this next year I am excited about all of the things that I hope to do this next year. Between finishing classes and being close to graduating, joining a new road team and getting stronger on the bike I am really looking forward to the new year.

As a tradition I went for a ride today and it was great to be back on my bike riding. The 20mph wind could have been a little weaker but it showed me exactly where my form is and where I need to be over the next few months to be able to be fast this spring. I am looking forward to the next few weeks and the time that I will have to get in those much needed miles before classes start and my riding time during the week goes down and I have to hit the trainer.

I hope that everyone had a great New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and has been able to get some time on the bike and enjoy some good football games.