After a weekend of starvation and drinking dirty sink water at American University in DC, I felt pretty ok on my ride home today.


It always feels good to get out there in the sun and breathe.



I registered for the Mohican 100 this morning. If it rains again...I'll still race, but I'll be real pissed about it. I can't wait for the season to start so that I can get back out on the road.

stop sign sprints

Stop sign sprints are the closest thing to structured training that I do all year. They suck real bad, but they work the legs quick.

I don't keep track of zones or heart rates or any of that other witchcraft, but they still work. They seem like the best way to replicate the short bursts of power used in racing on east coast single track.

I leave my house and sprint up to the top of the hill without warming up to simulate the start of a race. Then I roll into a neighborhood, and every time I hit a stop sign I slam on the brakes and track stand for 10 seconds. Then I sprint as hard as I can to the next stop sign and brake again.

I do that until I feel like throwing up, then roll around for a few minutes of recovery. Then I start sprinting and stopping again. When I reach the vomit threshold, I slow down and soft pedal to recover. Then I go home and dig into the mini-marshmallows.

Or I used to dig into the mini-marshmallows until I saw this:

I wonder how many people died with a mouth stuffed full of tiny marshmallows before Kraft started printing this warning.

bare feet for white people

Vibram has built the most advanced shoes in history. This combination of abrasion resistant polyamide fabric, Hypalon straps, Chinese sweat shop labor, and antimicrobial microfiber has produced a shoe that feels like a bare foot. They're so sensitive that technical tree climbers can "tune into tree time" while wearing them.

Behold, the culmination of hundreds of years of rubber and textile technologies.


It's amazing. Vibram has managed to charge $85.00 for something that much of the world does out of necessity:

Look at how connected to nature that little barefoot starving kid is.

Sarcasm and the fact that the price of my pseudo-barefeet could probably feed that kid for a year aside, I dig these things. They're neat.

They don't really feel like bare feet. They feel more like a 2mm thick rubber sock. Because that's what they are.

I don't feel more connected to the Earth, nor do I feel all Zen-ey like I do when I "become one with my fixed gear bicycle", but I can feel sticks and rocks and other shit that I step on. I'm not sure why I want to feel all the little pointy things under my feet, but I do. I'll leave it at that.

They are very light and fun to hop around in. I wore them hiking for a few miles when the ground was melted, and they felt good. I tried to run in them a few days ago when the snow was still on the ground, and my feet went numb. So they didn't feel like anything.

Cool shoes. If you're not afraid of looking like a pretentious hippy douche bag, I highly recommend picking some up.