It has been a pretty busy month so far which always makes riding tough. But I think I can say a second major reason has been working in rides when the weather is nice outside. The forecast says sunny all day and into the night - what happens? Rain. The radar looks like rain and we get sunny and 75. This month seems to have been especially bad in regards to forecast accuracy where the weather has literally been the exact opposite of the forecast. So what does one do when cross-checking the weather between 3 sources is not working? Plan rides opposite to what the weather says.
This weekend offered a great opportunity to ride at Franklin, what better than to follow it up with a long road ride on Monday after work. Check the forecast and everything looks great, especially given the rain and thunderstorms forecast for Tuesday. While at work the weather was pretty nice all up until about 4:00 when clouds started moving in. The forecast still says no rain for the night and the radar is inconclusive. When I got home just after 5 I look at the sky and it says something very different from the forecast. I look one last time at the computer and the radar shows green all around Milwaukee. Decision time - ride with a chance of getting wet or take it safe and ride later. Looking at the forecast for Tuesday, I saw rain predicted all day. For some reason I decided to hold off on the ride and wait for Today.
While the forecast said rain all day, and the radar seemed to agree, there was hardly a cloud in the sky. Strangely, the forecast was finally changed to reflect the current conditions - Sunny and Gorgeous! By 4:30 a few clouds rolled in making me worry about postponing the ride to today, but I stuck with my original plan to ride tonight. I hit the road at about 5:30 and was greeted with some clouds in the sky, but by 6:00, the sky cleared up and the sun came out for some great riding weather! After being graced with beautiful weather and a good 40 miles tonight, I am feeling refreshed to finally get a good ride. I have also come to one conclusion - don't trust the weather man (in fact, sometimes you should do the opposite of what they say!)
Now to get some rest tonight and prepare for a fun race weekend in Franklin!
-Andy
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Mid season check up (Whoops)
I figured I should at least get a quick post up to let everyone know that I am still alive...
I was going to put up an epic length recap, but after some thought on how long that will take to write (and to read) I will save the gory detail and give you all the abridged version.
All the way back in May, I Graduated from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee with a major in Management of Information Systems. Literally right after graduation (about 5 hours later) I was on a plane to Florida to attend the annual convention for SAP (a huge software company). The conference was a cool opportunity that I was nominated to attend by the University. I found out that I was only 1 of 8 other students from the US to attend this conference, which was pretty cool! After that I have been working full time in Milwaukee at a consulting firm that deals with SAP so that conference was a big help.
More recently, I found a new place to live in Franklin (just southwest of Milwaukee) and will start moving in there next week. I have been trying to fit riding into my new schedule and now I just need to get into a good rythym. Racing comp this year has been a blast so far. I am finding the races to be very demanding, but very fun at the same time. Not that getting lapped by other riders is a good thing, but seeing the pros fly by on the trail is pretty cool. It really is motivating me to step up my game and get faster. The races I have done so far have shown me a big gap in my training this year was strength. I don't have the power I had last year and that is starting to hurt me a little in the races. My plan is to try and incorporate some strength and power specific training into my routine and use my newly free weekends to get in some quality long rides. I think today I am going to head out to Crystal Ridge in Franklin to ride the race course and get some good hill repeats in.
In the meantime I will try to start updating with race pictures and more of the exciting things to come.
-Andy
I was going to put up an epic length recap, but after some thought on how long that will take to write (and to read) I will save the gory detail and give you all the abridged version.
All the way back in May, I Graduated from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee with a major in Management of Information Systems. Literally right after graduation (about 5 hours later) I was on a plane to Florida to attend the annual convention for SAP (a huge software company). The conference was a cool opportunity that I was nominated to attend by the University. I found out that I was only 1 of 8 other students from the US to attend this conference, which was pretty cool! After that I have been working full time in Milwaukee at a consulting firm that deals with SAP so that conference was a big help.
More recently, I found a new place to live in Franklin (just southwest of Milwaukee) and will start moving in there next week. I have been trying to fit riding into my new schedule and now I just need to get into a good rythym. Racing comp this year has been a blast so far. I am finding the races to be very demanding, but very fun at the same time. Not that getting lapped by other riders is a good thing, but seeing the pros fly by on the trail is pretty cool. It really is motivating me to step up my game and get faster. The races I have done so far have shown me a big gap in my training this year was strength. I don't have the power I had last year and that is starting to hurt me a little in the races. My plan is to try and incorporate some strength and power specific training into my routine and use my newly free weekends to get in some quality long rides. I think today I am going to head out to Crystal Ridge in Franklin to ride the race course and get some good hill repeats in.
In the meantime I will try to start updating with race pictures and more of the exciting things to come.
-Andy
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