In full swing

The weather is cooling off and the time has changed. I am getting back into the full swing of training again. Today, I woke up at 5am and drove to Austin with my dad. He had a buisness meeting so I figured I would catch a ride up there and do some riding, where the roads have a little more undulation to them than Corpus.
When I arrived I called up Ryan Keels (new guy for 06), and we met up and rode for a few hours together. with about 5 minutes left in my ride it was time to go meet up with my dad and head back down south. The day involved alot of driving but was worth getting a chance to get out of town for a few hours and ride in some hills.

Matt "I like to go up" Seagrae

The base season begins tomrrow

行だLe demain est le premier jour de la nouvelle saison et everthing va être commencer frais. Vérifiez ainsi en arrière plus des mises à jour comme les jours roulent dessus.。更(Tomorrow is the first day of the new season and everthing is going to be starting fresh. So check back for more updates as the days roll on.)新があるように確認するそうたくわえ。行っているか。

Almost time to start back

Mi dos interrupción de la semana se acaba y estaré volviendo en la bicicleta y empezando al fuerte preparado la 2006 temporada que compite. La interrupción ha sido agradable, pero soy más que listo para obtener yendo otra vez.

Off the bike

Well the decision was made today. I am officially off the bike and doing other activities to keep myself sane. I have to say that all in all this season was productive for myself in that I came back stronger this year than I left the year before and had a few good showings. Today I also began working on some of my side projects that I have had to put off until the off season. So I will be trying to work diligently over the next two weeks to get those in gear.
I will keep you posted on how things are going for me over the winter.


M g
a a r !
t e a e
t s v

Over

Well, Now that my season is over. I am able to take a couple days and ride for as short or long as I wish. So today I woke up and rode my bike to church and back. That took about ten minutes round trip. Then wen I got home I installed a new digital thermastate in my folks house. Later in the evening I rode down to the seawall and rode my bike on that for a little while. I will be getting into the gym here really soon to begin the whole process of grunting and looking at myself in the mirror.
I would like to thank Andre for feeding us during the race this past weekend.


Matt "base miles" Seagrave

Celebrity Classic #2

Well, Sunday was different then Saturday in that it was dry the whole race. Sunday I wanted to have another good day but make it better and try and get into the top ten. The end result was good, in that I was able to achieve that goal. Yet, not without a bit of hard work. As usual the race took off pretty fast and so I sat towards the front and went with different moves and eventually ended up in a break that almost lapped the main field. While in the break I attacked a few time really hard from the opposite side of the road just to try and widdle the number of guys down since our group was racing for 5th place on the day. I was right in it until about the very end when I just did not have a sprint.
When the race was over, I had some of the riders from some of the pro teams I was in the break with come up to me and let me know they thought I rode really strong and put a good bit of pressure on the break. This meant alot to me.

Celebrity Classic

Saturday was the first of two days of crits in downtown Van Buren, AR. The course was a large "L" shape. I will give you the race stories in the order for which they occurred.
We arrived to the race course about 1.5hrs prior to the start of our race. I had ridden down from the hotel earlier in the day to spin out my legs and see the course at the same time. Shannon was in the midst of her race not to mention she just about to lap the field when I arrived. I did not get a chance to see her breakaway catch the field but I heard it on the speaks a block away, I thought to myself, that has got to be an awsome feeling. She ended up finishing 3rd on the day.
Now for the guys race. The clouds were looming while we were warming up. I did not think too much of this because there have been plenty of training days where the clouds showed up yet the rain never fell. We rode the course a few times before the race was officially stages.
The pace was quick from the gun and I was able to get towards the front from the gun. After about 20 minutes or so of the 90 minute race it began to rain and a large number a racers began to exit due to the speed and the wet roads. I got a message from Nathan over the radio to just take my own line and sit on the back, because the race was not a priority. This is exactly what I did, then when we came to the front side straight with about 35 minutes left the group bunched up and I kept rolling along with three other guys and then I put the hammer down and got our break off. I know I was supposed to sit on the back but I wanted to race. This four man break was sticking then a small group bridged up to us and we were now about 8 strong. Coming into the final straight my whole bike slid to one side due to the wet road so I decided since I wanted to be upright across the line I would not contest the sprint and take my top 20 placing.
When the day was said and done I was happy with my racing.

Check back for the second day of the Celebrity Classic

Arkansas

First I would like let Mrs. Rogut know that Nathan was in Arkansas with us and is now back in Dallas.
The racing started on Friday with the cavanal hill climb. This is a 5mile climb with some of the climb at 15% grade. We arrived at 4:30 thinking the race began at 6pm, well this was incorrect and it started at 5pm. Yes, we were in a hurry to get warmed up and ready to go. When it was all said and done I finished 3rd overall behind Scott Moniger and another rider from Oklahoma.

Georgia #3

The 100K Classic race report and other interesting happenings will be posted in the next day or so. So check back on the blog. Maybe I can dig up some pictures from the race.


Matt

Georgia #2

Ok, so the next morning we did not have to race until 11a.m., which is good since we did not get done racing until 10p.m. and off the bikes until 10:30 or so. This way we could sleep in a little bit and actually take advantage of the hotels breakfast. Instead of having to leave before they begin serving. As you probably guessed, no we did not get much sleep at all, since after getting back from the race, taking a shower, getting food and everything ready for the next days race we did not get to bed until around 1a.m., that right no need to rub your eyes and look at the time again, I typed 1a.m. This race was a 110km race, which meant that we had to do 10 laps of the course (whoo hoo!) Those you know me, know that I do not enjoy multiple loop coursed except for crits, because after a bit of time on a crit course everything runs together, but on a road course this is not so much. Well in the race we were working for Joe Miller because he was sitting the highest in the Omnium. That did not exactly exist, which we found out later on in the day when it came time to pick up race winnings. During the race I got myself into a break that lasted about 40-50 miles or so. This way Joe could sit in and not work so much. This worked and he was able to keep his legs fresh for the end of the day.

Check back

Matt

Georgia #1

We left for Atlanta on Thursday and drove straight through arriving around 2:30 in the morning and then slept for quite a while. Because the drive took about 15 hours instead of the usual 10-12 hours. You are probably asking yourself. Why did it take so long to get to Atlanta. Well, when you are driving through parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama where they are on a gasoline shortage it takes just a little longer. This is because when you do find a gas station that has gas we had to wait in line for at least 30 minutes just to get to the pump, then we had to cross our fingers that that pump was working correctly. We you got to the pump the limit was $25. When driving a Suburban $25 dollars worth of gas at $2.49 a gallon is not going to get you down the road very far. So this ended up happening a few times when trying to get to Atlanta. Now I am not saying this was negative part of our trip. No this was very entertaining, because you got a chance to see and be apart of something I thought I would not see for a very long time. That is having to ration gasoline. There was once when a couple of people pulled up to the pump after having waited a good while and then said had no money for gas. So the people next to them reached into their pockets and handed them money almost as fast as they could say they needed help. This was pretty cool to see.
Ok, well we finally made our way to Atlanta and the next day we had a twilight crit, with Shannon racing at 7:30pm and Nate, Joe and myself racing at 9pm. The races went well. Shannon put in some good attacks to try and breakup the field and get something going. While in the mens race Nathan took a flyer early on and I later in the race tried a couple time to get off with no real success. The last break a made was sticking for a while then my partner in the break broke himself. Joes was able to keep himself safe and came across the line in 8th for the evening.
One more little story and I will stop for the day. At the end of the crit I was very hungry and needed something to eat. Joe went to check results Nate later went and followed to check them out also. I was on my way to the same area when I found a very large Submarine sandwich that someone did not want. So I grabbed it and rolled off to check on the guys. I see Nate talking to someone so I roll up and don't say a word. Just sitting on my top tube eating my newly found sandwich.

Check back later

Matt "Can I have some of your sandwich" Seagrave

Georgia and Florida

Well, we are back from racing in Georgia and visiting Nathans family in Florida. I have some good stories from the race and everthing that went on around the racing. I will be filling you guys in over the next few days.

Matt

The Fam. 

Columbus Part 2

I did not mention that Columbus has a leaders jersey this year. Shannon had the chance to ride in yellow for the womens p1/2/3 road race. The only draw back was all they had was large so she had to pin the jersey so that it did not flap all over the place in the wind.
Okay, well here comes the part of the race where I walk into the door. The individual TT was about 3.5 to 4 hours after the finish of the road race. Seeing as I did not get much sleep the night before I tried to get some in between the road race and TT. Due to the high humidity and sheer heat we all did the bulk of our warmup in the hotel room. This helped cut down on the fluid loss. After warming up we rode over to the start and did our thing. I took off feeling good and kept my 30 sec. man in sight the whole time then I felt the roughness of the road with about 3 miles to go. Then I looked down and sure enough my tire was going flat. Watching my speed I noticed that it was going down, while my percieved exertion was going up. So I kept going but after a mile of flat, my 30 sec man was further down the road than before. I ended up losing time to the second place guy in GC, which moved me to 2nd in GC.
Sunday morning, the crit. well, I got alot more sleep for this race and I was happy. My legs felt good and I had some of my oatmeal (glue as nathan calls it) which keeps me from getting hungry. The race started off good. I just stayed up in the front 5 the whole race which kept the accelerations and decelerations to a minimum. Nathan helped out when a situation arose, where the guy in 3rd (GC) got down the road and I was blocked out of the attack so could not react. Nate helped to real the guys closer to the pack. I was feeling good all the way to the end, Carlos countered on of my last attacks and I just could not get up to him. Keeping me in 2nd overall. I have to thank those of you who were there cheering us on during the race. This definately helps.
O yea, Shannon was able to pull the "W" for the womens crit.
Hopefully there wil be some pictures that can be posted from the race.

Matt "I cant sleep" Seagrave

Columbus Stage Race

Well, I am back at my folks house. This weekend was like walking down a dark hallway that has closed door. Yes you will get to your final destination ok, but for the short time when you walk smack into the door it hurts.
Fridays evening was the Prologue (1.5miles). Everything was going good then fourth pedal stroke into it I pulled right out of my pedal. I made it into my rhythm and was moving well then on the fourth or fifth turn I started to take the turn too much speed and about took a small group of people out so I had to grab my brakes, (and for those of you who are familiar with my TT, yes I did have my brakes set so they would grab for the prologue) after that I got my self back up to speed and was off and was able to secure a descent finish and within striking distance for tomorrow.
Saturday, this was interesting seeing as I did not get more than three hours of sleep. So when I got up for the road race I thought to myself. Well, I really hope I don't let the guys down today. I was feeling good, but just questioned the lack of sleep. Since we were staying just down the road from the start we rode there. From the gun everything was good and staying together with a few breaks. I never initiated anything but would just sit on wheels that rolled. With about 1.5 miles to go in the 4th of 5 laps troy was on the front with me on his wheel just cruising at about 22mph when I hear on the radio "you have a gap" so I half look over my shoulder and then tell Troy we have a gap so I jump instantaneously. This last mile of the loop goes through winding roads of downtown Columbus so I think get a gap and out of site. So I make it through this section past the feed zone and am able to get a bottle. Then put my head down and go and tell myself "it is only 30km" I pretty much rode scared the whole time. Taking a mental survey of how my body was doing every 5-10 minutes and made adjustments accordingly. When I came back into town I told myself get to the bridge, when I got to the bridge I stood up and tried to get to the line as fast as I could. So with the gap I had over 2nd place and the main group I was now the leader of the race.
I will finish this in another installment tonight or tomorrow.

Trivia

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?

you can put your answer in the comments section, and I will post the correct answer in a couple days.

State Time Trial Continued

Ok, so Saturday mooning we get out the course around 7 a.m. and begin to unpack and get everything ready. My body was not waking up so I grabbed a Monster out of the cooler and took a sip. After a couple minutes on the bike and I was ready to get my warmup rolling. The warmup I do is anywhere from 45 to 55 minutes depending on the temperature outside. Nathan had figured out that from the car to the start line was about a ten minute ride. This was going to workout perfect for my warmup plans. With about 15 minutes until my start I get my bike off the trainer and put the disc on that Nate let me borrow for the weekend. Put the aero helmet on and put a fresh bottle in the cage and one more laying on my aerobars for the ride to the start line. Once I get to the start line I see I have about 8 minutes to go. So I double back and do two last very short pickups and then go to the start line with two minutes to go and wait. I am called up and ready to get this going.
I am off. 200 meters later a massive wind and downpour hit. I can not see a thing and my bike is being pushed all over the road this lasted about 12km or so. Once it stopped and I could read my computer I looked down to see my heart rate, I was good so I kept going at that intensity. A couple minutes later I looked down at my speed, because I was feeling really comfortable and saw 33mph. I was happy and at this point getting ready for the turn around. After the turn around I was able to catch a couple people. One guy I caught, I ended up going back and forth with for the rest of the race.
When the race was over a small group of us were asking each other what times we had posted. After checking with a few guys I had an idea that I finished top three, but was still not real sure. So the team waited around to find out what the official results were. I ended up taking the win. This what I had wanted, mostly because I have been struggling with getting comfortable on my TT bike and Saturday was the first day this year I was able to put a good ride together.

Matt

State Individual Time Trial

Today was the State Time Trial, and I have good news to share. Both Troy and myself took the state title. Troy in the U23 category and myself in the P12. I will give the detail later on when I am done eating.

Matt

A Wise Old Owl

A wise old owl sat on an oak,
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard;
Why aren't we like that wise old bird?

-Edward Hersey Richards-