Venable Racing Inc.

Good News

2006-06-23T23:18:00.001-07:00

Well today went a lot better for the knee. I was able to move it more then i have been and it does not hurt nearly as much. Some more good news came from the knee doctor. he looked and it seems as if a hole was just punched in my tendon, so i will not need any surgery or even a brace to make it immobile. i think my pain med. was making me feel really shitty, so since my knee does not hurt that much, i just stopped taking it, and now i feel great. i want to start riding my trainer some this coming week, or at least start walking around some more. also, everyone should listen to the music by a singer/songwriter by the name of mason jennings. he is from up in the twin cities and is really really good. well, i am going to get some sleep, i will post some pictures of my knee tomarrow for everyone's viewing enjoyment.
Paul

Good News

2006-06-23T23:18:00.000-07:00

bored

2006-06-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

setting at home sucks. all i do is sleep and get my iv and get my knee bandaged changed. JR on the other hand is getting some good riding in so i am pumped for him. Tonight he went and raced down at Waterworks. He did not do the time trial, i do not know why, but he won i think 2 of the prems or however you spell it. he was about to win a 3 but Kurt H. came around him on the second one. he is trying to be another clark pribe, winning all the prems. well, i think i need to start figuring out how to do some exercises. i am going to try to put wieghts on my good leg and work that. one of my arms has a picc jamed in it, so i do not think i will be lifting that while it is in there. i think i might do some crunches though, if that woerks i will be pumped.
tomarrow i go to have my tendon looked at, so i might know more about how long till i can ride after that. i have been able to bend my knee a bit more today, so maybe that is good too.
Ride your asses off, i wish i could.
Paul

knee update

2006-06-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

today was a day of tests. the doctors opened my knee up to get a better look inside, and that hurt a bit. they left it open, so i have to go in tomarrow to have it cleaned. i also have an iv tube in me now and twice a day for one to two weeks i have to get an antibiotic through it. i also got an mir, which was long and boring and involed getting iron injected in me. right now i am out for about 2-3 weeks, but with the mri showing the tendons, that might change. this sucks too, i hit my elbow really bad getting in a ospital bed, i hope that heals up soon. if any body is reading thi, post a ton on your blogs, i am really bored.
paul

I am still, still alive, kinda

2006-06-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well, once again it have been a long time since i have written on this blog. I have had a pretty good last two weeks with the exception of a recent set back. JR has also had an okay last few weeks, but i will get on him to write about it.

I guess two weekends ago we went over and raced in the dave babcook memoria stage race in and around omaha nebraska. I did this race last year and it was a blast so i was looking forward to it this year. the stage race involved a road race on saturday morning, a time trail on saturday afternoon and then a crit on sunday. We got the with plenty of time on sat. and i was feeling really good and excited to race with JR. i was hoping to get a good cat. 3 race in to see how i was feeling after a fast memorial day week where i mainly finished in the pack. then i learned that they were combining the field with the pro/1/2 field and i was pretty bummed out. that mean the i would proably just end up at best in the middle of the field or worse, off the back on my own most of the time. The race started out pretty good, after awhile terry benken got away with another guy and then clark pribe also got away. this mad me happy because then the constant attacks stopped and i was still in the pack. after cruising along for a few laps, JR crashed in a sandy corner and went down. he was alright, but since he the did not finish the stage, he was way off the back in the GC. then, all of a sudden, duane dickey from GP went on the hill and the rest of the pro/1/2 field went away. i was with dave lipold and all the msn/triton homes guys so i worked hard with them to catch the front group and put time on the guys behind us. it was a really hard effort. we brought it in and i was sitting about 4 on the 3's GC and 19 on the pro/1/2 GC so i was pretty happy.
Next was the time trial. i have kind of a love hate realtionship with time trials, sometimes i love them and to really good, other times i feel like i am just slipping and i hate them. this one i felt like the later. it was horribly windy and i was tired from the morning race, so it i did not do very well. i think the i was maybe 9 on the 3's GC and did not really care on the pro/1/2/3 on at all.
the next day was the crit. this just sucked, i really wished it would have just been a 3's crit, not a combined fie;. the course was a hill with a 150 degree turn at the bottom. the race startd and i was in the middle, but it just keep yo-yoing. just brake go, brake go. then a crash happened and the pack spilt. i missed the spilt and was chasing with JR. after a while i was pulled. i later learned that after the crash i should have gone and gotten a free lap and then i would have been put in with the back of the field, i guess you learn something every race. overall i finish like 9 in the 3's so i got a little money and then one spot out of the combined money, with kind blew. having a crit where 12 out of 40 people finish is not cool for a stage race. oh well.
the next two weeks i got some great training in. i was feeling super strong and was getting some good time in workng on my time trialing. on the tuesday night ride with midwest rolling thunder i had some great sprints. i was fast, my legs were fast and i was itching to race. Granted, JR was a boys state, so it proably would have been harder if he was there, but i take what i get.
Saturday morning we left for washington iowa to do the imbcs stage race. i was prety excited becuase once again i love stage races and this was my first time racing expert in iowa. after having some good sport races last year and a strong comp race in minnesota at the end of school i was pumped. The first event, the time trial went great for me. i did not make any mistakes and my average heart rate was in the 180s so it meant i was well rested. it finished 5th. cam, nate and jay were in front of me spaced over about a minute, which i was expecting, and then tracy was just 1 second ahead of me and pete about 4 behind me and then there was about a 30 second gap back to JR and a couple of people. I was pretty happy because the next event was a hill climb and i have been climb very good, so i was hoping to move a head of tracy and put sometime into pete. JR went in front of me and he came flying down the hill, i think he actually ended up win, so the is pretty cool. i started and hammered it standing up till the false flat where i shifted down a gear and sat down. then on the last section, i stood up again, just having a little bit of difficulty towar the very top of the climb. i rounded squirrels camp and shifted into my biggest gear and started to hammer it again, i was feeling great. i felt like my climb could not have been faster. but then on the left hand turn part way doen the climb, i hit some loose gravel and bit it. i could feel my left arm and shoulder hurting, so i jumped up to salvage what i could, then i look down and saw my knee and that the skin was hanging open. i think i saw my knee cap. so i layed back down and started yelling for help for help. long story short, i got nine stiches in my knee and now after this morning's doctor's visit, it might be infected. as of now i cannot walk, so as off now i do not know when i will bike, but i will return!

I am alive.

2006-05-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

Despite what people think, i am still a live, my little brother is too. I recently got home from school and have now started to work, so i will proably be posting more often.

My spring so far has been going pretty good. I have not raced as much as i did last year, but the racing i have done, i have felt pretty good about. My collegiate season went well, i mainly finished races pretty high in the bunch sprint. I have not done any subsataintial sprinting so far this year, so hopefully my sprint will develop as the summer goes on and by super week i hope to be feeling pretty good.

My first race with my brother this year was Erik's Spring Cup. The course was super fast and made up of about 4 miles of tight, fast, dusty single track. I ended up winning the 19-29 year old comp class, so i was pretty pumped, i then noticed i got 14th overall, there are some fast older guys up in MN. another thing to note was that i got some sweet swag. JR also did pretty good, i think he finished aroun 18th overall in the expert groups, which is an extremely fast group.

This past weekend we went over to the memorial day weekend races. Snake Alley was the first race. This spring i had been doing a lot climbing, so i was hopeing to do well, but as usual, i did not. i was feeling sick the whole week leading up to the race, and during the race i did not feel very good. I was climbing fine, but was getting killed on the flat parts in the wind. i just could not find a good group to work with. then i got pulled.

JR's snake alley was also kinda disappointing, so random rider caused a crash at the bottom of the snake on the first lap and as a result, he has to run up it the first lap (i think he had to run up it last year once too). so after a few laps, he called it quits.

As you can see, the venable family and snake alley do not have a good relationship. Jeremy has vowed to never to it again. I on the other hand, am going to start thinking of the snake a personal demon, and every year come back to fight it.

The rest of the weekend went pretty good, jr and i spent sometime at the front on both of the remaining races, but ended up finishing in the bunch during the sprints.

I definately need to work on my sprinting, it is pretty crappy right now.

On schedule for the next few weeks is the dave babcock memorial stage race in omaha this weekend, and the some mountainbike races for the rest of june.

so long for now!
Paul

Once again, a long time

2005-10-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

once again i am writting to say that i have not written in a long time. we are both a live and mainly just mehing around on ours and other peoples hucking bikes. i guess hucking bikes that are or were owned by russel anderson.
yo yo yo!
Paul

Long time

2005-09-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

I have not written in a long, long, time, so i have decided to write a bit. School has been going pretty good. Today i have been going crazy from all the homework i have. my friend nate and i have been riding quite a bit lately, basically pretty short rides around town. jr got back from CA last sunday, he got 19 in the under 18 race so that is pretty sweet.
go to go do homework
paul

School

2005-09-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

Well I am all moved in at school. I had my first class and it was okay, my room is also set up pretty cool. I think I am going to go out for ride this afternoon if it is not raining, I want to hit some of the gravel roads down by fort snelling. So what is up with Lance saying that he is going to ride the tour again. I personally feel that he should not, I mean I am really pumped for a race without a clear favorite. I also want to say that Noonan should expect some slow and painful retaltiatiion for his dis on my man russ. Chebacca was getting pretty crazy that night tambien. One other note, I don't know if my brother is writing any more after his two posts, I have not talked to him since I moved in.
Paul

24 Hours of Boone

2005-09-04T10:20:00.000-07:00

We have just finished the 24 Hours of Boone. It was a really good time. I roda 8 laps and JR rode 6, so we did not really hammer it at all. I really enjoy just hanging out with everybody up their. I actually did not even ride at all after 8 on Saturady, I tried to ride this morning but my fork was making a ton of noise and the top of my ankle really hurt for some reason. I am glad I was able to get some really good techincal singletrack riding in. There was a ton of off-camber loose stuff that really scared the crap out of me at first but after a few laps I was able to ride it fine. I only had one crash, it was on the first lap and I feel into a little creek "divot" on the side of a hill. Nextyear we diffinately need to show up earlier so we can warm up and preride a bit, but it is a 24 Hour race so I kinda question the need to do that.
I am going to take a nap,
Paul

Cross Country

2005-09-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

Last night was the first cross country meet of the season. It took place in ames by the now destroyed towers. the course is flat in the beginning and end with lots of steep long hills in the middle. as soon as we got out of school i started fueling up for the race. Once we arrived at camp there was still 2 and a half hours befor i ran, so i hung around camp and cheered on the girls. After several long waits to use the portapotites and eving longer time in them i beganne my warm up and streching. Warmed up, streched. Them the race started and i started to run. I felt good. I ran up the hills in the middle. then i started to pick up the pace in the last mile. I was running with about five of my teammates, good pack, then i got pased by three of them at the finished. i ate to much. all summer i had been fueling up for two to four hour races and this lasted twenty miniuts. i felt like i was carring hafl of hy-vee in my stomach. Aftrwards i ate some and drank some and walked around some. then i rode the bus home. once i got to my car i saw i got a parking violation for parking in a spot reserved for students taking auto classes. it sucks i think i get detintion and a ten dollar fine. today i get out of school early should be fun.
have a nice day
jeremy venable

Cyclocross

2005-08-31T19:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight I did my first cyclocross specific workout of the season. I ran for about 25 minutes with a few hill intervals thrown in and then rode my rollers for about 30 minutes. I felt pretty good running having not done so in about 4 months. I also finished working on my cross shoes. Russ in at Bike World and I epoxied some tyre treads to the bottom of an old pair of nike poggios so that if a course is dry, I can wear proably the lightest shoes possible. Grant it, my bike still ways a ton, so I do not know if in the big picture the will really make a difference. I liked making the shoes, doing stuff like that is one of my favorite things about biking, and the guys down at Bike World always have some good ideas.
Well I am htting the sack, JR runs his first cross country meet up in Ames tomarrow, so I am going to head up there to watch. The Ames course is super tough with lots of big hills, it would make a super cross course.
Paul

Gas

2005-08-30T20:41:00.000-07:00

Tonight we went on our regular sprint ride. I felt okay and had some good sprints. Justin Rumley told me I need to work on sitting while I sprint. When I think about my riding, I can see that my power while sprinting and clmbing has not been as strong as I want it and I think by sprinting sitting down in a harder gear, it will kinda be like muscle tension workouts and help build leg strength.
A sucky thing to note is gas jumped 10 cents while we were on our ride. Frankly, I am glad that I will be moving back to school soon so I will not have to drive. With gas prices rising, I hope cities start to expand their mass transit systems and their bike trails or lanes. The Twin Cities bus and Train systems are pretty cool. My friends and I can get to baseball games and the mall of america for free or at the most $1.25. I even was able to get out to Eden Pirarie by bus, even though I was kinda freaked out being in downtown Minneopolis late at night all alone in the rain. i have also decided that I will by a house that is near good bike trails or in town so that I can bike to work. For one thing, I am not too worried about the petroleum supplies running out, even though it will suck not to be able to travel by car, I think it will bring a more layed back, simpler life. I also believe that we should not ruin our final National Wilderness areas trying to find any little oil remaining. This is not solving any problems, it is just delaying them. We need to spend our money on finding new ways to "fuel" our world. I do not know much about altenative energy sources, but I hopefully will learn and possibly contribute my our skills toward fine tuning existing ones or creating new ones. I also feel that our cross country transit should be improved. I would be awesomee if we could jump on a fairly inexpensive, reliable train, and get out to Colorado overnight. My be the US Government should look at hope European Countries try to mimick their train systems. I think it would take awhile for Americans to get used to leaving their cars at home, but in the lone run, i think it could catch on.
I am also pumped to get back to Minnesota because I love riding in the Twin Cities. There are so many cool areas to go and most of te roads are pretty bike friendly. Fall is defanitely my favorite season, and the area around St. Thomas is perfect in the fall, lots of trees and squrriels. Fall is also cool becuase of cyclocross, or maybe cyclocross is cool because it is held in the fall. Mostly, I just like both.

Well, this has kinda been a pretty random post.
Also, if you read Dan Swanson's blog, he has a pretty cool bear story from his trip to Glacier National Park.
Going to bed,
Paul

Scorthed Earth

2005-08-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took a rest day after the long weekend planning to get some stuff done for moving up to school. After work, I went over to Kieth's house to talk about my cross bike and what I need to do for next season.
After Kieth's house, I went and got a hair cut. Thinking that I will not get a hair cut for awhile, I decided to get it pretty short, and now it is really short and I look kinda strange, I am hoping the it will grow some before I go back to St. Thomas. Another interesting fact, I was told by my girlfriend that if you enter the address for our blog but with .org instead of .com, it comes up as some sort of porn distribution site. I have not tested it, so I don't know if it is really true.
The rest of the evening JR and I played the classic MS-DOS game 'Scorched Earth.' This game is really cool with tanks that just sit and shot at each other. The first game of ten rounds was won by JR, but after about 30 games with 870 remaining, I was leading the second game 14-7. Needless to say, we did not finish the 870 rounds remaining.

Tonight we are doing our regular Tuesday night sprint ride. It should be fun with Jeremy and Justin really running fast lately. This will proably be my last really hard workout for the year. I plan to take a week or two to just spin and rest my legs. Lately I have been feeling a little burnt out, so I will just kinda relax a bit. Once things settle down at school, I plan to start running a bit and riding for cross season. I am pumped for cross season becuase I think it really fits my riding, with hills, open fast flat sections and running.
I am also getting pumped for the 24 hour race coming this weekend. It is always well run and just plan fun.

Crashes

2005-08-30T05:42:00.000-07:00

here are some of my more memorable crashes.
First MTB race. fort dodge terror in the tember 2002. first lap, first climb, hit tree rolled back down and banged knee. DNF.
Waverly 1st annual mtb race,2003, crash on easy turn, dislocate sholder, then relocate it, sat in huge fern crying, nice man carried my bike out of woods, then got ride back to start.DNF
Sleepy hallow race 2003. crashed on last lap into ditch, took nap.
fort dodge fathers day frenzie 2003, crashed on parade lap, broke seat, road lap on barroowed single speed, flat pedals, mustache bars, and too big, got my bike back did a lap. DNF
Iowa Games, fort dodge, and webster city, 2004. crashed in front of Maharry in first corner.
Afton Alps mtb race. crashed on sandy descent down face of hill, supermaned down hill, walked back up to get bike.
Last week at science center missed turn on rollar coaster, rode in and crached into ravine.

Womens Open

2005-08-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

Expert Class 30 Miles
Age Group Age
Class
Finish Racer Name
Finish
Time
Open 39 1 Cam Kirkpatrick 2:12;32
Open 23 2 Nathan Moenck 2:14:26
Open 24 3 Caleb Bonnett 2:18:25
Open 19 4 Sean Noonan 2:26:09
Open 34 5 Rob Houlihan 2:28:41
Open 44 6 Sean Myers 2:30:28
Open 29 7 Kyle Sedore 2:32:18
Master 46 8 John Newell 2:33:31
Open 32 9 Sky Chesterman 2:40:20
Open 30 10 David Krenz 2:43:46
Open 29 11 Dennis Grelk 2:55:04
Open Women 23 1 Megan Elliott 2:59:12
Open Women 2 Sally Logan 3:13:55
Open Women 17 Jeremy Venable DNF

looking at this, could JR have claimed that he deserved the 3rd place women's money?

i am really bored

2005-08-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

Alright, I think I have this thing working somewhat, does anyone know if you can post pictures with in your title block?

Well this past weekend we both raced at the Iowa State Crit. champions ships. My race sucked, the Pro/1/2 race, I felt good at the beginning, and even attacked, but after awhile, I felt dead so I just road right of the course and spun for awhile thinking about what I need to do. I think I just need to ride more.

JR had a pretty good race, he did the cat. 3 race. He was at the front and did some attacks. The last lap or two he bridged up to Justin Rumley with Brain West and the three put in a pretty good lap, but then the pack caught them and JR finish 18th I think. Oh well, road is okay I guess.

Yesterday we also drove to Waverly to race at Camp Ingawnis (as anybody who reads my blogs, which is few, will see, I am a very bad proof reader, I miss spelled my name wrong on Noonan's blog the other day). I race Sport and felt kinda like a Sandbagger, and JR raced Expert. I think JR was having a pretty good race with only one or two crashes, but then he flatted and I saw him standing on the side of the trail with dirt all over his face trying to hand me his water bottle, which was actually mine.
I felt okay, but like last week, whenever I felt good, I crashed. For some reason I kept washing out in all the turns.About halfway through the race, I was following Tracy down and up a ravine when I hit a small tree with my bars and flipped over. This pretty much ended my race for first, so I just rode tempo the rest of the lap with Kyle Sedore, which was a good time. My shoulder was also hurting by that time from clipping a tree with it earlier in the race. Another thing to note was that JR also hit the tree that dropped me. I told Kieth Wells this and he suggested that we take a hacket to that tree the next time we race there, I don't know how the bos scouts will feel about this.
Often when I am racing, I like to think that even if I crash, the guys racing with me will crash too and kinda even things out, but the more I race, the more I realize that I crash a lot more than other people, Jeremy crashes a lot too. I think I need to work on this.

Well tonight I am going to work on my ghetto cross bike with Kieth for awhile, then I might ride, but proably not, and I have to get my clothes and stuff together for school.

This blog Sucks.

2005-08-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Our blogs sucks so far, this is the exact same reason my last blog only lasted two days.

Picture of Jeremy

2005-08-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of Jeremy. His hair is really long, Cam Kirkpatrick I think calls it a "pelt", which I agree, it does look like JR ran over a small woodland creature and put is on his head.

First Post

2005-08-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

This is the first installment of the Venable Racing Blog. I am Paul Venable and my brother is Jeremy Venable. We both racing our bicycles in and around Iowa. We race mountain, road, cyclocross and track every once and awhile. I am starting this blog because when I am bored I rread other people's blog, especially Sean Noonan's. In this blog, you will learn our serects to both racing, training, crashing and other important life leasons, be prepared to be amazed. Here is a picture of me. JR might put up a picture soon. As you can see, we both ride for Midwest Rolling Thunder(palooza). And we both ride Giant bicycles.
Me (Paul)