Category: XCFeeds

My good friend, and general cycling expert, Cosmo recently tweeted about what he perceived as more GC (overall ranking) shakeups taking place in Tour de France stages with a downhill finish as opposed to uphill, mountaintop, finishes.  He then followed that up with a comment to that effect, linking back to my bumps chart as evidence.  Those charts do shed some light on this question, but if you read my first response I hedged a lot, since trying to visually assess which stages have the most jumbled, tangled lines in the bumps chart isn’t an exact science.

Of course, nothing I do here is really an exact science, but at the very least I owe Cosmo a better look at the data.  I’ll leave it to him (and others) to say what it means vis-a-vis mountaintop versus downhill finishes.

There are two ways we could measure changes in the GC rankings: by time or place.  First let’s look at changes in time behind the leader:

If I’d sat and thought about this for a second, rather than just diving in and making the plot, I could have predicted this.  Across all riders, the overwhelming trend is to lose time relative to the race leader which is why nearly every value here is positive.

So maybe changes in GC rank will be a little more illuminating:

Ok, so this shows quite a bit more motion in both directions, which is more what we’d expect.  (The numbers correspond to the actual numerical change in position so positive values mean you moved down in the GC standings and negative values mean you moved up.)  In terms of GC rank, the biggest shifts happened on Stage 2, followed by Stage 3 and Stage 7, which shook things up about the same amount.  After Stage 7, we saw smaller shake-ups in Stages 8 and 9.  Since then, things have been more stable.

However, this is really more complex and subtle than you might think.  As my first graph made clear, as the Tour progresses the time gaps between riders just get bigger and bigger.  This means that it will necessarily get harder to achieve large changes in GC rank later in the Tour.  If we want to look at where the big GC shake-ups happen, we should account for how big the time gaps are at the start of that stage by scaling the data:

Since I’ve scaled the changes in rank, the actual values on the y-axis have only relative meaning now.  All I did was to scale each GC rank change by a factor proportional to the median time gap at the start of each stage (i.e. at the end of the previous stage).  Things look radically different here, but all is still not well.  The problem is that the overall increase in the median time gap as the Tour progresses is swamping the rest of the data.  Notice how now the range of the boxplots simply get bigger as we move through the Tour.

Whereas before we might have suspected that Stages 2 and 3 were getting too much attention and Stages 14-16 too little, now it appears that we’ve swung too far in the other direction.  Our mistake was scaling the changes in GC rank by the same value, the median, for each rider.  Instead, each individual change in GC rank needs to be adjusted by the appropriate amount.  What is the appropriate amount, you ask?  Well, I settled on doing the following: suppose a rider moves from 5th to 12th in the GC standings between Stages 10 and 11.  We look back at the time gap between 5th and 12th after Stage 10 and that’s our adjustment factor (actually something proportional to that number, just to keep the values from ballooning into the thousands).  If that gap was really small, then moving from 5th to 12th gets less weight and if that gap was really large it gets more weight.  The results are in the following graph:

I stopped with the boxplots so that I could add another bit of information here using some color.  The y-axis represents the magnitude of each GC rank change, weighted by the relevant time gap for that rider.  I added some alpha blending to give you a sense of where the dots are denser.  Since a lot of these dots are exactly on zero (no GC change) I added the colors to give a sense of that gradient as well.

This seems more sensible to me.  The big shakeups in Stages 2 and 3 have been downgraded a bit since the time gaps at that point in the Tour were so small.  The biggest changes (so far) really seem to have been Stages 7-9.  Additionally, the movements taking place in Stages 14-16 are getting the respect they deserve now, after correcting for the time gaps the riders have to overcome later in the race.

Phew.

That was way more complicated than it needed to be.  But hopefully enjoyable.

Related posts:

1. <Tour de France Bump Charts (Updated)
2. <Tour de France Bump Plot: Stage 12
3. <Tour de France Bumps Chart: Stage 14

Another couple stages in the books, time for an update of the bumps charts.  Contador’s still in yellow, Hushovd is back in green and Chartreau is still in polka-dots:

Hopefully the gray lines are easier on your eyes.  As for Cosmo’s question about downhill finishes having more GC impact than the mountaintops, I’m not sure.  Which stages are officially considered mountaintop finishes?  A quick look suggests to me that Stages 14, 12, 8 and maybe 7 seem like the only candidates to me, but I’m not an expert in these things.  Then you’d have to decide what you mean by “GC impact”: impact at the top of the GC standings?  Overall?

Finally, you’d have to decide whether looking at ranks is really the right way to go.  You’re much more likely to see big differences on mountaintop finishes if you plot time back on the y-axis than rank (which I can do…).

A note about results data accuracy. Cyclingnews.com tells me that Bran Tankink didn’t start today, but they still list him as having some sprint points.  In the past, they’ve simply omitted riders who’ve dropped from the points and mountain classification in subsequent stages.  Perhaps they’ll update their results at some point and change this, but I was wondering what the rules are.  Do riders “keep” their points if they drop?  Are they reassigned to other riders retroactively?  Or do they, like the rider, just disappear?

As always, this is a good reminder that I’m perpetually reliant on others (to some degree) for the accuracy of my data.  Caveat emptor.

After my glorious successes yesterday getting some basic scatterplot animations going (Firefox doesn’t do animation with SVG, you’ll have to use Safari, Chrome or Opera), I thought I’d follow that up with something a little simpler. This shows riders who’ve dropped or been disqualified so far and their progress up until they packed it in. You should be able to mouse over the red dots to see who’s who. And unlike the animation, this appears to work in Firefox.

Related posts:

1. <Tour de France Bump Charts (Updated)
2. <Tour de France Bump Plot: Stage 12
3. <Tour de France Bumps Chart: Stage 14

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEXmzSNS4TI/AAAAAAAADYw/gYks5zxQBpQ/s1600/IMG_5475.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEXmzSNS4TI/AAAAAAAADYw/gYks5zxQBpQ/s400/IMG_5475.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496052689010876722″ //abr /Sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words.br /Paddy Caldwell hails from Lyme Center, NH. He has skied with the Ford Sayre program and he brought home a gold medal from the JO Freestyle 5 km last winter. He will be living with his cousin, his aunt and his coach this year and we all look forward to having him on the team.br /Paddy has two older sisters and he loves opera and ACDC (weird combo eh?). He is an avid gardener and may often be found pruning rose bushes. He will be in 11th grade and will ski as a first year J1.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4680416899705879324-2436583207869152398?l=smsxc.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

Take that vector graphics animation! For an explanation, see my previous effort.

Reminder: This should work in Chrome, Firefox and Safari. But consider it experimental. Reloading the page should restart the animation. I confirmed that this won’t work in Firefox, and that the one SVG plugin for Firefox has been discontinued by Adobe (although apparently it relied on ActiveX, so maybe that’s a good thing). So Chrome, Safari and probably Opera are your only options.

Actually, this is a hack. The translational arithmetic that was being used by the code I grabbed was, well, opaque. Once I got it to push the actual names of the teams around, it became clear that all the translations were off by some mysterious, unknown scaling factor. Trial and error solved that problem pretty quick, but the solution is just based on eyeballing the graph, so this is certainly not exact.

I wonder what sort of skiing data I can animate…

Related posts:

1. <EqPB: Test Run
2. <Tour de France Team-Nationality Guide
3. <Stand Back! This Graph Is Alive!

This was just too cool for me not to put up on the site, even though I’m not completely happy with it. The data are fairly simple: add up the sprint and mountain points across all riders on a Tour de France team for each stage. So for each stage, each team gets the ordered pair (mountain points, sprint points) where the points are cumulative.

The cool part is that I’ve managed to get it animated, so you can watch the team’s progress through the Tour. The bad news is that the animation tools I’m using are apparently limited to pushing dots around a graph. Otherwise I’d actually plot the team names and animate them. As it is, you’ll have to wait for the animation to end and then mouse over the dots to get the team name. (Unless you have stupendous hand-eye coordination and can hold your cursor in the same spot on a dot for several seconds while it glides around.)

Another hiccup is that you’ll notice sometimes the dots move down or left, which would indicate that a team lost points that stage. Actually what’s happening is that team lost a rider, who either quit or was disqualified. I’m going to treat those as “lost” points unless some cycling expert instructs me otherwise.

This should work in Chrome, Firefox and Safari. But consider it experimental. Reloading the page should restart the animation. Ok, I confirmed that this won’t work in Firefox, and that the one SVG plugin for Firefox has been discontinued by Adobe (although apparently it relied on ActiveX, so maybe that’s a good thing). So Chrome, Safari and probably Opera are your only options.

The truly glorious part (to me) is how little code this required. There’s a little bit of work shuffling the data into the right format, but once that’s done this is all I needed to do in R:

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doc <- svgPlot(plot(sprint~mountain,D1,xlab="Mountain",ylab="Sprint",xlim=c(0,300),ylim=c(0,350),pch=20))
addToolTips(doc,levels(pts_merge$team),addArea=2)
animate(doc,data=D,which=D$stage2,dropFirst = TRUE,begin=0,interval=3,labels = levels(pts_merge$stage))
saveXML(doc,"tdf_animation1.svg")

Sweet!

Related posts:

1. <Performance vs Age Redux: Grover’s Graph
2. <Tour de France Bump Charts (Updated)
3. <Week In Review: Friday July 16th

If you’re like me, you follow bike racing enough to grasp the basics and be familiar with most of the big names.  I’ll typically follow the TdF fairly closely, but other than that my cycling news consumption pretty much consists of whatever cool stuff Cosmo happens to write about.

That means that when the TdF does roll around, I’m embarrassed to admit that I have a hard time keeping the different teams straight.  They all have funny names built around foreign companies and people will often just abbreviate them.  And of course every few years, the sponsors change and so do the names.  Keeping track of which riders are on which teams is a bit much for me, but a more manageable goal is to have a rough sense of what countries the riders are from on each team.

Like everything else I do around here, that calls for a graph:

Yeah, Euskaltel-Euskadi being Basque only I can remember.  But there are always a bunch of “French” teams that just sort of blend together in my head: AG2R, FdJeux, Cofidis and Bbox Bouygues Telecom (Seriously? Bbox?).

Ok.  Lampre is primarily Italian, Milram is mostly German and Footon-Servetto is mostly Spanish.  Astana and Caisse d’Epargne are also mainly Spanish, but less than Footon-Servetto and Euskaltel-Euskadi.

Quick Step, Rabobank and Katusha are Belgian, Dutch and Russian.  From here immigration policies apparently get considerably looser.  Saxobank (not to be confused with Rabobank, dammit!) has a plurality of Danes.

Liquigas and Omega-Pharma-Lotto could be considered Italian and Belgian, but their immigrant populations are quite high: nearly half the team.

Then we have the open borders club.  The remaining teams have a plurality of riders from nations like GBr, USA and Aus, but are generally quite diverse.

Is this all a bit silly?  Maybe.  But it helps me keep the teams straight in my head, at least a little.

Related posts:

1. <Tour de France Bump Charts (Updated)
2. <Tour de France Bump Plot: Stage 12
3. <Reader Request: Tour de France GC By Team

I’ve fussed in the past about the weaknesses of FIS points in distance events, but they really are quite useful.  Sprint events, however, just don’t have an equivalently simple and useful numerical summary.  I’ve resorted to using the final finishing rank (i.e. what place you came in, after the elimination rounds), but I’ve never been particularly happy about it.

Currently, FIS awards traditional FIS points for the qualification times only.  After that, all that matters is what place you come in.  This means that I end up tracking three different values for each sprint result: FIS points, qualification rank and final rank.  None of these are particularly easy to combine in a sensible way.

For bird’s eye level analyses, just using the final rank is generally sufficient.  But when you start drilling down to the level of individual athletes, or small groups of athletes, it doesn’t work very well.

As an example, consider my posts looking at season to season improvements by individual skiers in distance events.  You’ll notice I haven’t given sprint racing the same treatment.  Modifying my script to do roughly the same analysis using finishing place in sprint races was easy, but the results didn’t make much sense.

The problem is that finishing place pretends as though each result (1st, 2nd, etc) is uniformly spaced along our range of performances.  But this just isn’t true.  The difference between 40th and 32nd may represent a legitimate improvement, or it may not.  You’d have to look at the time and FIS points, since neither result led to participation in the elimination rounds.  On the other hand, the difference between 35th and 27th is potentially quite large, since at least we’ve moved up into the realm of qualifying for the elimination rounds.

My ideal system would

• give you credit for being closer to qualifying, proportional to your percent back
• give you credit for qualifying
• give “bonuses” for each elimination round you survive

I’ve concocted something simple that does these three things.  It’s by no means perfect, so I fully expect tons of legit criticism.  But I do think that a measure like this is at least potentially useful for some specific purposes.

The way it works is this:

• Skiers not qualifying for the elimination rounds are simply assigned their FIS points
• Skiers qualifying for the elimination rounds are assigned “alternate” FIS points, evenly spaced from 0.00 to the qualification round FIS points of the 30th place skiers, with gaps inserted corresponding to each elimination round.

It’s much easier to show you this than explain it in words.  Here’s a table with the Men’s Classic World Cup sprint in Canmore on 2/06/2010.

An example of an alternative points calculation for sprint races using the men’s classic sprint from Canmore on 2/6/2010.

The columns should be fairly self explanatory.  Notice that the first 6 places have points that are evenly spaced; then there’s a gap, and then 7-12 are evenly spaced.  13-15 are evenly spaced, then a gap, and so on.

I realize this doesn’t perfectly reflect what happened in the elimination rounds, particularly near places 13-15.  But I can’t really reconstruct lucky loser information from the data I have.  Nor does it reflect how close a particular heat was.  For instance, the top six are evenly spaced, even if they didn’t finish with equal gaps.

Still, I kind of like this.  It gives me a number I can use that is roughly comparable across those skiers who qualified and those who did not.  The numbers get smaller as you move through elimination rounds, with a built in “bonus” that reflects the fact that advancing through heats is not really a linear performance function ^<1.  The numbers for non-qualifying athletes are proportional to how close they were to qualifying.  Even the values assigned to skiers in the heats reflects, to some degree, how difficult it was to qualify: if the 31st place FIS points value is very low, the values of the top 30 skiers will be more compressed, and hence smaller.

One (of perhaps many) downsides is that these new values don’t have much concrete meaning, other than “lower is better”.  If you finished 5th, and are assigned 3.54 “points”, this number has no valid meaning in terms of traditional FIS points or percent back.  Still, it will allow me to do some most improved/unimproved posts for sprint racing down the road…

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TETAjlE2BFI/AAAAAAAAAX8/3HuIVjDTVb0/s1600/email+-view+from+top.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TETAjlE2BFI/AAAAAAAAAX8/3HuIVjDTVb0/s400/email+-view+from+top.jpg” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495729162779231314″ //abr /span style=”font-style:italic;”Self-portrait from the top of Mount Bachey./spanbr /br / Waking up this morning, I thought I’d treat myself to a final morning on the slopes. So I – slowly – rolled out of bed, then loaded up my skis, a brand new pair of the beefy Sin 6’s Rossignol sent me at season’s end, skins, boots and headed twenty miles up to the base of Mt. Bachelor. A little over an hour of solid skinning and bootpacking later I was at the top looking down a chute for the final schussing of the season.br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TETAlG-S5GI/AAAAAAAAAYU/kLI7YvsBn0k/s1600/crest.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 348px; height: 400px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TETAlG-S5GI/AAAAAAAAAYU/kLI7YvsBn0k/s400/crest.jpg” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495729189058438242″ //abr /span style=”font-style:italic;”The climb to the sky’s final steps.br //spanbr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TETAkFmHJxI/AAAAAAAAAYE/dtkOcEHlt1I/s1600/email+-+high+cascade+panorama.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 113px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TETAkFmHJxI/AAAAAAAAAYE/dtkOcEHlt1I/s400/email+-+high+cascade+panorama.jpg” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495729171508700946″ //abr /span style=”font-style:italic;”The perspective from the top. Definitely worth it. And though this picture doesn’t do it justice, the skiing just below in the cinder cone was top-notch, not too sun cupped at all and the new skis ripped./spandiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2691525267872963085-8692918715377464042?l=in-the-arena-torin.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

Mondays and Wednesday afternoons are special days at ‘The Club,’ we get to go canoeing on the Namekogon River. Many of the kids have experienced canoeing in the fall on the lakes surrounding the club, but that doesn’t even compare to the experience of canoing down a river which eventually reaches the Gulf of Mexico. We have been going for the 3-4 hour afternoon float but I am already looking forward to the first kid who follows their dream of canoeing to Disney World.

A canoe trip down river requires many more logistical challenges than lake canoeing. Thankfully we have had the additional support of community volunteers and our summer teen staff to make

it happen. Thanks especially to my sister Tara, who was in town visiting and joined us for the day. Kiera and Shana had a great time sharing a boat with you sis. I have witnessed the kids talking about a lot of big ideas and dreams while we are out on the river and it makes me smile. The Namekogan flows into the Saint Croix River which makes its way to the Mississippi river, there is a lot of river to explore and adventures to be had.

My oh my…the summer is slipping by way too fast! It is already the middle of July and it feels as if summer just began!

The past couple weeks I have been enjoying some new modes of training. Despite my cautious timidity on a mountain bike, I’ve been biking more to work on getting over my fear of falling. Luckily, mountain biking is one of those things that the more you do and the more you work on it, the better you get! I am getting better at riding more technical trails and I’m actually riding over all those roots, rocks and stream crossings. I have yet to improve on my downhill speed though.

Along with mountain biking, I’ve enjoyed a few road bike rides as well. Now, just to give you an idea…there is one highway through town, so you have two options: 1) ride north OR 2) ride south. While the terrain options are few, I’ve learned that it’s a great alternative to running and roller skiing and helps to mix up the training. It probably helps when you are borrowing someone’s road bike that’s worth $10,000!!!

I’ve incorporated some swimming into my recovery workouts, although let me tell you….I got suckered into swimming with the masters swim team the other day, and they are FAST!!!! whew! It wasn’t much of a “recovery” workout. After a 500 m warm-up, we proceeded to do 5 sets of 3x100m and then 10x50m every 45 seconds! After swimming about 2,500m in an hour, I was exhausted! I am still deciding if I want to go back this week.

We tried some new resistance speed training at practice. Our speed workout on roller skis consists of a 30 min warm-up, then 3 sets of 6×20 sec speeds with various techniques. We tried something new this time…we put a bungee around our waist and then pulled our coach behind us on a skate board. While it sounds and looks a bit bizarre, it was a good way to add resistance while trying to keep the tempo up. Hopefully it will make us strong! Here’s a picture to give you an idea…

I am looking forward to a trip to Alaska in two weeks! A couple teammates and I am joining the APU team and skiing on Eagle Glacier for a week. Should be some good training!

Until next time!

My oh my…the summer is slipping by way too fast! It is already the middle of July and it feels as if summer just began!

The past couple weeks I have been enjoying some new modes of training. Despite my cautious timidity on a mountain bike, I’ve been biking more to work on getting over my fear of falling. Luckily, mountain biking is one of those things that the more you do and the more you work on it, the better you get! I am getting better at riding more technical trails and I’m actually riding over all those roots, rocks and stream crossings. I have yet to improve on my downhill speed though.

Along with mountain biking, I’ve enjoyed a few road bike rides as well. Now, just to give you an idea…there is one highway through town, so you have two options: 1) ride north OR 2) ride south. While the terrain options are few, I’ve learned that it’s a great alternative to running and roller skiing and helps to mix up the training. It probably helps when you are borrowing someone’s road bike that’s worth $10,000!!!

I’ve incorporated some swimming into my recovery workouts, although let me tell you….I got suckered into swimming with the masters swim team the other day, and they are FAST!!!! whew! It wasn’t much of a “recovery” workout. After a 500 m warm-up, we proceeded to do 5 sets of 3x100m and then 10x50m every 45 seconds! After swimming about 2,500m in an hour, I was exhausted! I am still deciding if I want to go back this week.

We tried some new resistance speed training at practice. Our speed workout on roller skis consists of a 30 min warm-up, then 3 sets of 6×20 sec speeds with various techniques. We tried something new this time…we put a bungee around our waist and then pulled our coach behind us on a skate board. While it sounds and looks a bit bizarre, it was a good way to add resistance while trying to keep the tempo up. Hopefully it will make us strong! Here’s a picture to give you an idea…

I am looking forward to a trip to Alaska in two weeks! A couple teammates and I am joining the APU team and skiing on Eagle Glacier for a week. Should be some good training!

Until next time!

My oh my…the summer is slipping by way too fast! It is already the middle of July and it feels as if summer just began!

The past couple weeks I have been enjoying some new modes of training. Despite my cautious timidity on a mountain bike, I’ve been biking more to work on getting over my fear of falling. Luckily, mountain biking is one of those things that the more you do and the more you work on it, the better you get! I am getting better at riding more technical trails and I’m actually riding over all those roots, rocks and stream crossings. I have yet to improve on my downhill speed though.

Along with mountain biking, I’ve enjoyed a few road bike rides as well. Now, just to give you an idea…there is one highway through town, so you have two options: 1) ride north OR 2) ride south. While the terrain options are few, I’ve learned that it’s a great alternative to running and roller skiing and helps to mix up the training. It probably helps when you are borrowing someone’s road bike that’s worth $10,000!!!

I’ve incorporated some swimming into my recovery workouts, although let me tell you….I got suckered into swimming with the masters swim team the other day, and they are FAST!!!! whew! It wasn’t much of a “recovery” workout. After a 500 m warm-up, we proceeded to do 5 sets of 3x100m and then 10x50m every 45 seconds! After swimming about 2,500m in an hour, I was exhausted! I am still deciding if I want to go back this week.

We tried some new resistance speed training at practice. Our speed workout on roller skis consists of a 30 min warm-up, then 3 sets of 6×20 sec speeds with various techniques. We tried something new this time…we put a bungee around our waist and then pulled our coach behind us on a skate board. While it sounds and looks a bit bizarre, it was a good way to add resistance while trying to keep the tempo up. Hopefully it will make us strong! Here’s a picture to give you an idea…

I am looking forward to a trip to Alaska in two weeks! A couple teammates and I am joining the APU team and skiing on Eagle Glacier for a week. Should be some good training!

Until next time!

My oh my…the summer is slipping by way too fast! It is already the middle of July and it feels as if summer just began!

The past couple weeks I have been enjoying some new modes of training. Despite my cautious timidity on a mountain bike, I’ve been biking more to work on getting over my fear of falling. Luckily, mountain biking is one of those things that the more you do and the more you work on it, the better you get! I am getting better at riding more technical trails and I’m actually riding over all those roots, rocks and stream crossings. I have yet to improve on my downhill speed though.

Along with mountain biking, I’ve enjoyed a few road bike rides as well. Now, just to give you an idea…there is one highway through town, so you have two options: 1) ride north OR 2) ride south. While the terrain options are few, I’ve learned that it’s a great alternative to running and roller skiing and helps to mix up the training. It probably helps when you are borrowing someone’s road bike that’s worth $10,000!!!

I’ve incorporated some swimming into my recovery workouts, although let me tell you….I got suckered into swimming with the masters swim team the other day, and they are FAST!!!! whew! It wasn’t much of a “recovery” workout. After a 500 m warm-up, we proceeded to do 5 sets of 3x100m and then 10x50m every 45 seconds! After swimming about 2,500m in an hour, I was exhausted! I am still deciding if I want to go back this week.

We tried some new resistance speed training at practice. Our speed workout on roller skis consists of a 30 min warm-up, then 3 sets of 6×20 sec speeds with various techniques. We tried something new this time…we put a bungee around our waist and then pulled our coach behind us on a skate board. While it sounds and looks a bit bizarre, it was a good way to add resistance while trying to keep the tempo up. Hopefully it will make us strong! Here’s a picture to give you an idea…

I am looking forward to a trip to Alaska in two weeks! A couple teammates and I am joining the APU team and skiing on Eagle Glacier for a week. Should be some good training!

Until next time!

I’m all about tradition. And if there’s a singular custom that holds true for the endurance athlete – whether they be skiers, cyclists, paddlers, whatever – it’s the Sunday long workout. This week was no different. Only today, instead of heading out for a semi-epic crust cruise that circumnavigated either Moon Mountain and Broken Top, or hitting all the neighborhood streets from West Bend to Tumalo, today it was time to get out on the road bike. br /br /The past couple seasons I worked with a coach who didn’t really believe in cycling. With mountain biking, he thought the chance of injury too high. With road biking, that it wasn’t sport specific enough. To mention the desire to get out and spin on the S-Works would invariably be met with a variation of the theme, “Skiers ski.” Anyways, today brought back how much I missed getting out on the roads and watching the miles click by while being powered solely on muscles, powerbars and the desire of a gluttonous feast consisting of cheese and bacon and guacamole topped hamburgers and greasy onion rings, all washed down with a chocolate-banana malted shake. br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TEO4gqtqfiI/AAAAAAAAAX0/P8_J7nTW3h8/s1600/McKenzie+in+Black.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 234px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TEO4gqtqfiI/AAAAAAAAAX0/P8_J7nTW3h8/s400/McKenzie+in+Black.jpg” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495438841683279394″ //abr /br /With my Bend days now down to single digits, I knew I needed to get in a least one decent ride in Bike Town USA. Sunday morning a group of seven professional athletes of either cycling, triathlon or skiing descent rolled out on the roads to the cowboy town of Sisters, Oregon. From here we made our way up McKenzie Pass. As the pace picked up and the gradient steepened, I was a tidbit nervous with my serious lack of cycling miles and with both the eastern and western climbs of McKenzie Pass looming. McKenzie is a fabled road here in Oregon, the original pass through the Cascades that connects the high desert of the East with the wetter West. Being so oldschool the postman used to have to traverse it on skis at the turn of the century, the road snakes and weaves its way along the mountainside, a two-lane path matching nature. It stands so much in contrast to modern road straightened through dynamite and man’s might. Certainly better for quicker driving from point A to B, but it’s like a friend of mine says, “Take the interstate if you want to go from one place to the next and get there absolutely as fast as possible, and see absolutely nothing.” Both have their place. I just seem to overemphasize speed and miss out on taking in roads that roll along with lava fields and country estates. br /br /Getting back into town, ravished, its time to slide into Sno-Cap for the aforementioned all-American culinary experience. But it’s a hot Sunday afternoon and the line stretches straight out the mom-and-pop burgershack to the street. We’re hungry, real hungry, so we head down the street to a café that specializes in all-natural vegan food. The wait was non-existent, but so was that malted milk shake. br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TEO4gCKFwLI/AAAAAAAAAXs/eTh9YFD8icY/s1600/sno-cap.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 345px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TEO4gCKFwLI/AAAAAAAAAXs/eTh9YFD8icY/s400/sno-cap.jpg” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495438830796652722″ //adiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2691525267872963085-856176621821765028?l=in-the-arena-torin.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

So I decided that updating these every day would get tedious.  Here’s the standard bumps chart after stage 14 and the corresponding average speed bumps chart is below the fold:

And the average speed version:

You’ll notice that this one looks a bit different.  I’ve added red squares that correspond to dropped riders.  The squares floating off in space in the Prologue correspond to riders who dropped after the Prologue, which is why they don’t have black lines at all.  Can’t draw a line with only one data point!

One bit of commentary I meant to include last time I posted this average speed graph was that I was mildly surprised at how near the top the Yellow Jersey line (Andy Schleck) is in each stage.  Serious cyclers may ridicule me for this misconception, but I think it’s an easy one for the very casual fan to make.  Namely that TdF winners will put in huge efforts on a handful of stages (mountains, time trials) but then they’ll sit back and not work very hard most of the rest of the time.  Now, that’s certainly true, up to a point, but clearly Andy Schleck isn’t exactly going slow on the sprint stages.  Probably most of the resting he gets on those stages comes from staying in the peloton and drafting.  But his average speed is still pretty high.

Finally, if anyone wants larger or higher quality versions of these graphs just let me know…

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENpCvOG8aI/AAAAAAAADYI/eweI50IOAfk/s1600/IMG_5479.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENpCvOG8aI/AAAAAAAADYI/eweI50IOAfk/s400/IMG_5479.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495351466078433698″ //aWe finished our weekend mini camp with a 3 hour skate/run OD. br /The skate started with a gentle 20 km roll up route 7 before climbing 5 km up the Danby Mt Tabor road to our exchange point where the Appalachian Trail crosses the road.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENojbedZxI/AAAAAAAADYA/fL2TrbN3Amw/s1600/IMG_5484.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 184px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENojbedZxI/AAAAAAAADYA/fL2TrbN3Amw/s400/IMG_5484.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495350928202360594″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENq8_iX_II/AAAAAAAADYY/vcSn-wPPMw0/s1600/IMG_5494.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 398px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENq8_iX_II/AAAAAAAADYY/vcSn-wPPMw0/s400/IMG_5494.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495353566402444418″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENn3q4Y–I/AAAAAAAADXw/J5ritTBZ6II/s1600/IMG_5498.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENn3q4Y–I/AAAAAAAADXw/J5ritTBZ6II/s400/IMG_5498.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495350176423410658″ //abr /The run/hike:br /The Green Mtn. Trail climbs up to the top of the ridge on the west side of Little Rock Pond and then drops steeply to the pond. The Devo kids and some parents got a little head start on the hike and the older kids tried to catch them.a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENlxyrTuII/AAAAAAAADXo/ULY0uyLfO_k/s1600/IMG_5502.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENlxyrTuII/AAAAAAAADXo/ULY0uyLfO_k/s400/IMG_5502.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495347876413552770″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENlU5GvpOI/AAAAAAAADXg/uNWcP1X-vR8/s1600/IMG_5503.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENlU5GvpOI/AAAAAAAADXg/uNWcP1X-vR8/s400/IMG_5503.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495347379923035362″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENkS3osX7I/AAAAAAAADXY/J6HHeCSILCs/s1600/IMG_5506.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENkS3osX7I/AAAAAAAADXY/J6HHeCSILCs/s400/IMG_5506.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495346245657190322″ //aThe Reward:br /Maddie, Sophie and Erika enjoy the view from the ledge. They ponder the jump…ponder some more… and then take the plunge (after Russell and Tess shame them into it).br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENjqjvLSuI/AAAAAAAADXQ/mwUf7mcV_GI/s1600/IMG_5517.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENjqjvLSuI/AAAAAAAADXQ/mwUf7mcV_GI/s400/IMG_5517.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495345553120905954″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENjNfRefHI/AAAAAAAADXI/cPOGgdZYZZM/s1600/IMG_5518.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENjNfRefHI/AAAAAAAADXI/cPOGgdZYZZM/s400/IMG_5518.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495345053706386546″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENuyVAqc3I/AAAAAAAADYg/_s1CIj0kwt4/s1600/LittleRock3.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENuyVAqc3I/AAAAAAAADYg/_s1CIj0kwt4/s400/LittleRock3.jpg” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495357781234578290″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENiaZfuTXI/AAAAAAAADW4/ho30ZD-AfEQ/s1600/IMG_5522.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 242px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENiaZfuTXI/AAAAAAAADW4/ho30ZD-AfEQ/s400/IMG_5522.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495344175982202226″ //aWatch out below, Paddy is coming!br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENh8vb7bZI/AAAAAAAADWw/opSGQXxpNVM/s1600/IMG_5525.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 216px; height: 400px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENh8vb7bZI/AAAAAAAADWw/opSGQXxpNVM/s400/IMG_5525.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495343666475789714″ //aThe lower rock is a great plunge for most of us.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENvDbq_nmI/AAAAAAAADYo/axEfYDaDzjY/s1600/LittleRock6.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENvDbq_nmI/AAAAAAAADYo/axEfYDaDzjY/s400/LittleRock6.jpg” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495358075080515170″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENhuuSoIII/AAAAAAAADWo/9en0i2XkLec/s1600/IMG_5533.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENhuuSoIII/AAAAAAAADWo/9en0i2XkLec/s400/IMG_5533.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495343425650172034″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENhX_fJ34I/AAAAAAAADWg/cl9ccnMJTM4/s1600/IMG_5534.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENhX_fJ34I/AAAAAAAADWg/cl9ccnMJTM4/s400/IMG_5534.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495343035129126786″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENg-eJwBMI/AAAAAAAADWY/7_P9mw4ptXY/s1600/IMG_5542.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TENg-eJwBMI/AAAAAAAADWY/7_P9mw4ptXY/s400/IMG_5542.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495342596684252354″ //aThe group.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4680416899705879324-5037480247139860567?l=smsxc.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHtaNTlvzI/AAAAAAAADV4/mzGbUC4aIvU/s1600/race_sophie.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 247px; height: 400px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHtaNTlvzI/AAAAAAAADV4/mzGbUC4aIvU/s400/race_sophie.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494934054872923954″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHtKju8fjI/AAAAAAAADVw/Eee0Mjlwj1M/s1600/race_rachel.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 400px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHtKju8fjI/AAAAAAAADVw/Eee0Mjlwj1M/s400/race_rachel.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494933786015333938″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHr80DQ5RI/AAAAAAAADVo/oVaMFgGerOM/s1600/race_walker.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 252px; height: 400px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHr80DQ5RI/AAAAAAAADVo/oVaMFgGerOM/s400/race_walker.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494932450365728018″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrvVmUDGI/AAAAAAAADVY/IeevOJE3ACo/s1600/race_skyler.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 248px; height: 400px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrvVmUDGI/AAAAAAAADVY/IeevOJE3ACo/s400/race_skyler.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494932218852936802″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHroZvBbGI/AAAAAAAADVQ/njd-1LYHkQY/s1600/race_izzy.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 234px; height: 400px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHroZvBbGI/AAAAAAAADVQ/njd-1LYHkQY/s400/race_izzy.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494932099704122466″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrhjZpySI/AAAAAAAADVI/hJCc6vH1Pq4/s1600/race_issy.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrhjZpySI/AAAAAAAADVI/hJCc6vH1Pq4/s400/race_issy.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494931982039763234″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrZ0mMThI/AAAAAAAADVA/-BC3SnoDnno/s1600/race_doug.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 234px; height: 400px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrZ0mMThI/AAAAAAAADVA/-BC3SnoDnno/s400/race_doug.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494931849216806418″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrRfdDjXI/AAAAAAAADU4/nlnLeDlCF4o/s1600/race_cooldown.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 247px; height: 400px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrRfdDjXI/AAAAAAAADU4/nlnLeDlCF4o/s400/race_cooldown.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494931706102386034″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrIV7nPqI/AAAAAAAADUw/VjEKrVcSxGA/s1600/race_cobb.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrIV7nPqI/AAAAAAAADUw/VjEKrVcSxGA/s400/race_cobb.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494931548927377058″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrB66IpsI/AAAAAAAADUo/u1_5MF_uIQU/s1600/race1.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 309px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHrB66IpsI/AAAAAAAADUo/u1_5MF_uIQU/s400/race1.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494931438594205378″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHq6ReiOFI/AAAAAAAADUg/Gf3ZqpgkHcI/s1600/raace_austinc.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 299px; height: 400px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TEHq6ReiOFI/AAAAAAAADUg/Gf3ZqpgkHcI/s400/raace_austinc.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494931307213502546″ //abr /br /