Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Over the last couple of weeks I've been thinking about the students we have here at my local two-year college and some of the patterns I see. This is a difficult time of the year because there's a lot of stress due to unmet expectations. Pretty soon we'll be telling about 30% of our freshman class that they'll not be coming back due to their grades. Other students are finding out that certain attitudes and habits that once were successful are not working so well any more. The cognitive dissonance this causes can create a pretty negative vibe. I thought I might share of few of the observations I have with my readers. If you have any thoughts on these topics, I'd love to read them. Send me an email or, better yet, leave a comment for others to interact with.

Completing vs. Understanding

One of the biggest attitude differences I see is how a student approaches assigned work and what they are responsible for with respect to it. In my classes I see a large number of students who see assigned work as something that merely needs to be completed in order to earn a good grade. I see a lot of this because I do a lot of activity based learning and guided inquiry in my classes. Many of the students approach the activities I give them not as vehicles through which to learn the material but as something to complete and check off the "to-do" list. This leads them to spend as little time as possible and to do as little work as possible in order to get through the activity and then get a grade. Since these activities are the foundational tool I use to help them obtain an understanding of the physical concepts and ideas in the course, the student who takes the completion approach usually misses the learning that is supposed to take place. In a sense, they become technicians who know or complete a set of procedures in order to accomplish an end. What I want is for them to become scientists who understand the underlying principles needed to master the topic.

The reason this is an issue is that I think that many of the educational models now in practice in the secondary system allow the student to be successful even if they are only a technician. They learn that they can succeed if they complete a given task regardless of whether or not they really understand it. This certainly works well if the goal of the K-12 system is to produce either assembly line workers or technicians (which was its original intent) but it doesn't work well if they want to be successful in the university model which is focused on scholarship. When they get to us, the completion paradigm may work for a semester or two but once they get to their sophomore/junior level courses, the wheels come off the train. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what to do about this problem when it comes to my classes. Obviously, there needs to be a lot of thought put into curriculum design so that students are forced to work towards understanding in order to complete their activities but that takes time and testing.

Responsibility

Another big issue is the idea of who is responsible for the student's success. I maintain that the university model of education holds that the student is primarily responsible for their own success with the institution and its resources being in a strong support role. This is different from the historically different K-12 system which was established specifically to take responsibility for a student's learning (thanks to Michael Drake for that insight). When a student gets here, they think that it's still my job to tell them exactly what they have to do and to hound and remind them to do it. Of course, that's not how I see it. I lay out my expectations in the syllabus and then go over that syllabus in great detail early in the class. After that, I think it's the student's job to make sure they keep things straight from there. I need to be fair but I don't need to be their mother.

Again, I see this sort of thing crop up in a hundred different places here from students not having any idea of what they need to do to graduate to not knowing deadlines to not keeping track of what assignments are due and when. Again, I think that this is rooted in the K-12 system where schools can't afford to allow high school students to make mistakes because of the duel factors that students have to take so much stuff all at the right time and the penalty to making Adequate Yearly Progress is so steep. What this leads to is a large percentage of students who are absolute aliens and strangers to the level of responsibility we expect here at the university level.

Anyways, I'd love to hear what my readers (all three of you) think.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Cycling is a sport of highs and lows; days where you are the windshield and days when you are the bug. Yesterday I was the former, today the later.

This weekend was the Union City Omnium. I think I've done some part of this omnium at least 5 times and the whole thing three times. I won my first big time trial at this race about 5 years ago and I've always used it as a gauge of my fitness. This weekend, however was one I should have quit while I was ahead.

Saturday Morning: Time Trial. No mistakes this time and no panic. I warm-up well on a cold morning with student Ray taking pictures of Jake, Todd and I as we huff and puff and turn the pedals 'round. I feel pretty good warming up with a lots of power. I go ove the course and my strategy. Long rollers on the course. Not too steep when you're riding in a group but they really get to the legs when you're going hard on your own. THe key is not to go too hard early in the climb so that you don't pop before the end. I get to the start line and Tony from ATS asks if I'm going to win today. "That's the plan, but who knows what the day holds," I respond. Today's official, Steve, welcomes me into the start tent and counts me down. I stand and sprint up to speed when he says, Go!" As I settle into my aero tuck I see my :30 man. Go get him I think. I bring myself up to full power and start the mental litany to stay focused. I'm gaining and just after the 2 mile marker I catch and pass him. I'm cruising as I hit the first big roller. "Keep it at the limit but no more," I tell myself. I can see the next two riders. They're dueling a bit unaware that I'm closing on them. On the second I close down on my minute man and catch him before the turnaround. Three hundred meters later I get my 90 second man. That's all the cat 4 riders that started in front of me. I have to bridge a gap to the cat 5's but before I do that I have to get up the traffic light hill. This hill broke me last year so I'm careful to stay within myself as I start the climb. Going over the top I'm just on my limit. I see the last cat 5 rider and set my sights on tracking him down. I do so at the bottom of the hill and blow past him on the flats. The next guy is a ways up. I hit the last climb up to the finish. It's a really long climb but there's nothing I have to do afterwards so I start on the limit and go into the red about halfway up. Two hundred meters from the finish I stand and sprint. I'm cross-eyed as I cross the line, completely spent. Ray tells me later that he got a great picture of me coming across looking like I was going to explode.

It turns out that I've won but only by seven seconds. Seven seconds over 10 miles and 22:45 in time. Less than 0.5%. The sprint might have been the difference. Overall I finish 15th and would have finished in the top third of the Pro/1/2 field. Take those guys out and I'm 6th overall. My form is coming around.

Saturday Afternoon: Criterium. The goal was to get more racing miles. The field was 50 and I know that my chance of winning a field sprint in this sized field is almost zero so I used the race to do intervals. I did my season best 5 second and 30 second average power so I can't complain. The troubling thing was that my legs were super heavy when warming up but they came around for the race.

Sunday Morning: Road Race. It was supposed to be a 45 ride through the back country west of the ATL. I've done the course and I know it's full of rollers. The race is always decided by the last climb and field sprint so my plan was to sit in until the last short power climb, try to move up and get in a good position for the sprint. On the first real climb, however, I knew that I was in trouble. I got popped off the back and had to sprint up to catch the field. I had felt really tired heading up tot he race and I knew that it was going to be a tough day for me. I hung on for 15 miles until the KOM climb and then could hold the group. My legs had popped and there was no sense in trying to make them do what they no longer could do so I sat up and rode the rest of the course tempo in order to burn calories and get some more miles in.

So, I tried to race exactly one day too many. No harm in trying but now I've got a little break until Chattanooga where I hope to pay back a couple of teammates for all the work they've done for me. After that I get a good sized break with only a couple of time trials as the heavy crit season takes over with the Twilight, Roswell and Sunny King criteriums bringing national caliber fields and a break in the racing that will allow me to train and hone my form for the state championship races in the early summer months. I'm looking forward to letting the stress of racing slide into the far background while I focus on doing solid intervals that will bring me to peak form at just the right time.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Monday, March 16, 2009

And so that happened....

At the beginning of last week, the forecast was 70 and sunny. On Wednesday it was 60 and a little rainy. On Friday it was 40 and miserably wet. The Seige of Rome was EPIC, but not in a good way. Had the weather been good, the event would have been perfect but the weather was not good and so almost everything else stunk just a little bit too. Still, the Georgia Cup put on a mostly excellent event in really difficult conditions.

Here's a bit of a play-by-play.

Saturday Morning: We wake up to rain. Lot's of it. And cold. We're staying with teammate Robert who's recovering from a bad crash last week. He's slept poorly and we're trying to get him moving. He's hurting really bad but he decides to man up and try to ride anyways. The rain makes everything hard. We get to the staging area for the TT and it's really dark. I get my number and do the chip thing and set up and then realize I've left my shoes and helmet back at the hotel. A crazy trip back to get them leaves me with a 15 minute warm-up window. I just get a little hot and it's time to go. I get to the start house and the adrenaline is just wearing off. I never really get going but I'm solid. I struggle again with focus but by the end I feel pretty good. Robert gets back from his run and he's hypothermic. He can't stop shivering and there's something wrong with his right arm. We throw everything in the truck and head back to the hotel to get him in the shower. He's had a bad morning. He's slept wrong, pinched a nerve and has no strength in his right arm because of it. Once he gets warmed up we head to IHOP where we find someone who has a results sheet. I've won but with a bad time. I should have been able to do the 6.5 mile course 45 seconds faster but all that matters is that I beat the second placed guy. After a big brunch we head back to the hotel for some rest. We need it.

Saturday afternoon: A technical crit in the rain. Six turns with two narrow stretches; my favorite type of race. I love this kind of racing only slightly more than the kind of racing that involves riding your bike into a brick wall while wearing a helmet. But I've got to do it to stay in the overall so I suit up. Drew's come up for this race and he's looking for a win. Actually he looks like some sort of Terminator in cycling lycra. I'm pretty sure he's ready to crush this thing with his bare hands. Robert's out with the nerve thing. The race turns out to be a crashfest with at least four crashes in the 37 minutes of the race. One guy snaps his collarbone and his bike frame on a tree. I manage to stay out of trouble though I get gapped at one point. Drew is the awesome teammate and comes back to pull me back up to the field. I lead him out for a MAR sprint as a way of saying thanks. He finishes just off the podium for fourth and I manage a tenth place finish. He promises to "be back".

Sunday morning: More rain but warmer. 52 mile road race with a BIG climb that will decide things. Robert's back for an attempt and so is Drew. I'm hoping to hang on to the front group on the climb and see what I've got after that. It almost all comes apart when my rear tube explodes 5 miles into the race. Robert gives me his rear wheel and Drew pulls me back into the group. My race would be finished if not for my teammates. On the climb I can't quite hold the front group and they're gone down the descent before I can catch them. I decide to ride hard anyway to try and pay Drew and Robert back for their sacrifices. Drew's with the front group so I think we've still got a chance for a decent finish. I end up hooking up with a couple of other guys and we start time trialing as a way of catching any stragglers. A mile from the climb we're only a minute behind the lead group. It's sort of stunning to think we pulled back a much larger group. I ride my own pace up the climb on the second time up and end up tenth overall two places behind Drew.

Overall: With the win in the TT and the two tenth place finishes I managed to place third in the overall which is my best stage race placing since Union City last year. What's shocking is that I did it in an Omnium where the crit usually kills me because I don't win any points usually in that event. It's a good result for early in the season.

The Bottom Line: Two things can be taken from this weekend. One is that my form is better than it was at this time last year. The other, and much more important one, is that I have awesome teammates. Without Robert and Drew there is no chance I would have achieved this placing so the Truth this week is that the achievement is a team one, not an individual one. The result belongs as much to those guys as it does to me. Drew even managed to place fourth in the overall. I think if he had come up for the TT he would have been third and I would have finished fourth.

Next week is Union City and an appointment with the TT course that nearly killed me last year. I'm hoping to crush the thing this year with a powerful ride. After that, I'll see about working for my team to get them a podium.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Monday, March 09, 2009

Another weekend, another race. The theme for this weekend's festivities could be called, "The Long Haul."

Saturday's time trial was up in northwest Georgia in a small town called Adairsville. Like last week, the course was really, really great. Straight out and back with some false flats and a single small hill. It was supposed to be sunny, but it seems that we can't have a TT in this state without some form of precipitation and so it started drizzling just as I got on my trainer to begin my warm-up. It was cool and damp but that usually means that we don't overheat or dehydrate and that leads to faster times. I love time trialing. I've said it before but it bears repeating. You go as hard as you can sustain and you don't have to worry about other riders and what they can or can't do. There's no real tactics and there are no teammates. The race tells you the unvarnished truth about your fitness at whatever length and time the course is. It is the Truth. No blocking, no drafting, no marking, no soft pedaling down hills or chatting in the group. There's just the purity of power and speed. The Truth.



After last week I was determined to finish the race. I felt like I could have won last week with my fitness and I wanted to prove it this week. I had some trouble focusing during warm-ups but when I got to the start house I was ready. The start was a slight uphill which made things interesting. I could see both my :30 and 1:00 men as I went off. I was the first 40-49 year old man to go so I was racing a bunch of guys younger than me. It didn't matter. I caught about ten guys on the way out on the course. I didn't always feel like i was on the rivet but I did feel fast, especially after I got over the little hill near the beginning of the course. On the way back I crossed the gap between the 30-39 guys (yes, I caught the entire 30-39 field) and started picking off the women and juniors. On the return I was flying. I felt really strong and for the first time had the "coiled spring" feeling I get when I'm in the right position to produce maximum power.

In the end I ended up winning my field by over a minute and placing fourth overall to the three pro/1/2 riders. I was three seconds out of third overall and 50 seconds out of second. The winner crushed my by two minutes showing me that I have a lot of room for improvement if I want to win the gold at the state championships. Still, I feel like I'm ahead of where I wanted to be fitness-wise. I was hoping to average 24-25 mph on these longer early season courses and I did 26.5 which is a 56:09 40 K pace. That's over 2 minutes better than the last time I did the course the state championship will be held on. I have some work to do but I like where I'm at.

Sunday's race was in Albany in the southwestern part of the state which meant a lot of driving (with a wedding in the middle). I had agreed to race in a category I don't normally race in so that the team could have several riders together in the field so I lined up with the cat 4/5 under 35 riders. The feel was smallish with only 25-30 guys lining up and I felt like we might just avoid some of the silliness that this field is known for: lots of squirrelly riders and lots of dumb decisions that lead to more crashes than are necessary. For the first 20 miles, that was true. One of my teammates, Drew, got into an early break and so Trey and I marked all the moves to pull the break back and they stayed out for a long time. We never blocked and we never impeded other rider's attempts to bring the break back but we would sit on wheels and not take pulls. The interesting thing is that the break stayed out there and wasn't brought back until Drew popped on the KOM climb and came back to the field. Once that happened, Trey and I went to the front to bring the break back and we had them within three miles.

After that I tried a couple of attacks to try and get away but no one was biting and I got brought back before anything could get going. At that point the AVX team with one of the good sprinters in the field got to the front and set up across the road and blocked. There is nothing more frustrating that this kind of negative racing. It's legal but it's just really poor sportsmanship. "Boo!" on the AVX team, you guys should race better; race like men. Put a guy or two on the front and set up a train to protect your sprinter. That's how you race with class. Jump on breaks and pull them back and keep your guy fresh and out of the wind.

What was worse was once the riding got negative, guys started jockeying for position if a gap opened up (which it did because the team couldn't block well or because guys started jumping the centerline). This led to a bit of pushing and shoving which was completely uncalled for and I wish the official had either seen it or been more proactive in DQing riders when he did. After a particularly bad bit where I literally got shoved into another rider by a guy who wanted my spot I slid to the back to stay out of trouble and upright. I sprinted in but stayed away from the worst offenders to finish near the end of the pack.

My power numbers were good and I'm showing more improvement in m short-term power numbers which is encouraging. I won't be racing in that field again for the rest of the season so hopefully, I won't encounter that again. What I'm looking at doing is racing Masters 40+ in that series and cat 4 in the Georgia Cup until I can upgrade where I'll race Masters full time. I feel that's a much safer course of action. Next week is Rome and the really, really big climb.

Thanks for reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Another weekend, another race. Actually two, which was supposed to be three. But more on that later.

Saturday, Race #1: Georgia Cup TT Series #1-Gillsville. Woke up this morning in the pouring rain. Sounds like song lyric. It's going to be a wet day. Not a little bit wet like last week but really wet. I get to the school parking lot that's the staging site. Getting set up to warm up is a pain; everything's harder when it's raining. My wife's back at the hotel dry and warm and still asleep. I envy her. I start the warm up. Not as good as last week at Tundra. I don't know if it's physical or mental but it's definitely not a "no chain" day. But it's a more structured warm-up. No decisions about wheels today. I get to the start house. The take off is downhill. I love those. The countdown starts and I'm off. My legs feel strong but they're also my limiter. They hurt before my breathing gets ragged. Still, in several sections I feel like I'm crushing the pedals. The wind is pushing the bike all over the road and the water makes the wide, sweeping curves treacherous. The bike feels loose somehow but I power on. I feel fast. I catch my 30 second man. Then my 2 minute man. And then I hear and feel a little pop as I go past the eight mile marker and I pray that it was just a small rock getting shot out from under my front wheel. Thirty seconds later it becomes clear that it wasn't. I have a flat and my race is over. I cruise into the turn around just as the wheel goes completely flat. I talk to the marshal there for a about 90 seconds before I think to ask her the time. 21:30...If I subtract off the time lost as I slowed down and the time chatting with her I've done 9 miles in about 20 minutes. That's twenty seven miles per hour. Did I really ride that fast? I don't know for sure but I was flying. But the result is the same...DNF. That's bike racing. When I get back to the hotel, the tubular peels right off the wheel. The glue has failed. Maybe the flat was a blessing in disguise. I would have hated pulling a Beloki on a slick, sweeping downhill curve at 30 mph.

Race #2: TopView Cycling Classic-Dacula Road Race. The rain has stopped but the conditions are questionable. The field is small but I've got a teammate. Robert is lining up with me and we're talking strategy. We decide to make it hard. Attack from the gun. I go first. The field shuts me down after half a mile. Robert attacks at the catch. Perfect. They don't react right away. He stays out for about three miles before they finally pull him back. It doesn't look like anyone's interested in getting into a break or letting one go. We'll see how people are feeling on the two hills in the seven mile circuit. We'll climb them five times. The hills hurt and I'm not sure I'll make the whole race but I hang on. By lap three we've shed half the field and I think I'll be ok if I ride around on the back but I don't want to leave it to the sprint if I can get away somewhere. On lap four I put in as brutal an attack as I can on a long 2% uphill. At first I think I've got something but a big Iron Data rider who remembers us from last year decides he can't give me any rope and he shuts the whole thing down. Now it's survival. I don't know if I can hold on if there's a big attack up one of the climbs but I'm going to try. Who knows what will happen in a sprint finish. I nearly die trying to hang on up the hills on lap four. The attack has torched my legs and I can barely stay with the group. I duck in behind everyone and try to conserve my strength as we ride around the last lap of the circuit. I get gapped on the last climb but the group marks each other and I claw my way back. There's nine of us left for the sprint. Maybe I can finally pull off a top five. I mark the field and don't go to the front too soon. Robert puts in a big attack at about 1 K Cancellera style. It doesn't stick but the strong riders forget about me and I drift to the left hand side of the road where the lane will open up the last 200 meters and I'll get an unobstructed run to the finish. As the lane opens up I go hard. I keep expecting someone to come around me from behind but it's just the two guys I'm even with. They're stronger than me but I might get third. Just then I see Robert surging on the far right. He and I bike throw at the finish for third place. It has to be the slowest sprint in Georgia bike race history for the two best time trialists in the race to be doing a bike throw for third. I think he's won. He thinks I have. The results show that I beat him by 0.003 seconds for third place. Less that the width of a tire. Crazy. I still think he beat me...I'll buy him a beer after Lent.

Sunday, Race #3: TopView Cycling Classic-Winder Road Race. It's Sunday and it's wet again. But the weather looks like it might clear for a couple of hours around race time so I pack the car and we go. There's a threat of snow and there's lots of wind. Not much fun but the team's paid my entry fee and I need to represent. Still, I'm praying that the promoter cancels. As we get close, the sky opens up. It pours. Torrents of rain driven by wind gusts that rattle the car. Oh man, I think. This is going to be bad. I keep telling myself that if I race I'll be the team "flahute" and I'll have a story to tell for the ages. I'm not very convincing. I get to the start and there aren't many cars. The pro/1/2 race is going on though the start/finish and I feel really sorry for those guys. They look completely miserable. As I walk up to the registration tent it starts to sleet and I hear the official tell the promoter that this is the last lap. The rest of the racing is canceled and I'm off the hook. I breathe a huge sigh of relief. I would have raced I tell myself but I'm really glad I don't have to put that to the test.

So all-in-all it was a good weekend with good sensations and good results. But for a flat tire I would have been 3-for-3 on podiums this year. Next weekend is Adairsville and Albany. One end of the state to the other for another time trial and road race. Wish me luck.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |