Author: Michael

My Only Thoughts from the 49ers Super Bowl Loss

I couldn’t do enough to offset the curse. The 49ers lost anyway in what has felt like an extremely long week. After a painful loss (playoffs) to one of my sports team, I disconnect completely from information or analysis around the team. In this case, I’ve decided to disconnect from all sports news completely for at least a month. Over the past 5 years, I’ve disconnected from tech / startup news, and then news, including politics. Basically, I don’t know anything about anything and it’s been great.

On to my notes, and I’ve never read or listened to any other thoughts about the game or events surrounding it, though I accidentally heard that Steve Wilks had been fired and someone died or got shot during the Kansas City parade?

  • It was a hard game to watch, but it was a great game. I don’t know if there’s still doubt about Purdy, but he played fine relative to Mahomes.
  • Purdy was a bit low on a number of throws and I wonder if he felt rushed on them or was trying to avoid takeaways.
  • The McCaffery fumble reminded me a lot of the 49ers red zone interception vs the Ravens. They were on their way to a great start to the game and instead gave the other team a chance to reverse momentum and lead a route the other way. The 49ers survived it, but there’s still a what if the 49ers had led the game with a big score, given the offense’s inability (I assume credit the Chiefs’ defense) to push consistently.
  • The big decision I didn’t understand was with under 2 minutes to go and a third down with 4 yards to go, the 49ers went for a pass instead of run. The run would have cut another 30+ seconds from the clock or forced a Chiefs timeout. The Chiefs pass rush was very good at creating pressure in critical situations and that’s what happened here – Purdy had a quick incompletion. The Chiefs got the ball back and had extra time and timeout to go down the field. Which forced OT. Even if the 49ers had run for 1-3 yards, you set up a great 4 and short decision that could have put the game away. The thought surely should have been we have to keep the ball away from Mahomes to close the game.
  • Special teams return fumble. I don’t understand why McCloud went after the ball in a crowded situation like that.

The Loser’s Curse of Wearing a Jersey

I have a fairly extensive collection of sports jerseys from various sports, thought I rarely actually wear them. Of all sports, I think the soccer jersey is the best for wearing in normal every day life, especially as jerseys in other sports tend to be oversized for the average American male. Player-level (what they wear) jerseys tend to go as small as 40 (men’s medium), and I’d normally wear a 36 (small).

That said, I do like to wears jerseys to support my fandom, either going to a game (rare now) or watching key games from the team on TV. Unfortunately, I’ve convinced myself that my jersey wearing is strongly correlated (if not causal!) to my team losing.

I don’t remember a win while watching a game on TV with a jersey. Some of the brutal losses:

  • Warriors lose to Cavs in 2017 Finals, Game 7
  • 49ers lose to Chiefs in 2020 Super Bowl
  • 49ers lose to Ravens, this past Thanksgiving, the only time I wore a jersey this year.

I am sure there are a few more, because this guilt has been building over time. Am I typically superstitious? No. But last night went too far.

I wore my Patrick Willis jersey watching the 49’ers fall behind 24-7. I decided to take off the jersey, just in case.

The 49ers went on to overcome the largest half-time deficit in NFL conference championship history. It didn’t even take the full game, it took 12 minutes, less than a quarter. to overcome the curse.

No jersey wearing for the Super Bowl.

The Outdoors is Expensive

This year, our family committed to doing more in the snow. Lake Tahoe is about 2 hours away, and we wanted our kids to take advantage of winter activities that neither my wife or I were in a position to do from our youth until really, now.

I wanted my oldest son (5 years old) to start snowboarding so that I could learn as well, but little did I know what I was actually getting into. – I thought cycling was expensive, but it turns out most of the outdoors is expensive. Here’s a breakdown of the equipment we had to buy:

Keep in mind I spent over $2k for myself and him, even after over 30% in combined off-season discounts. This also doesn’t include the family pass ($450 for a season, considered to be a bargain) and one time private lessons at $200.

Going for the 1 Hour mark at the 2024 Mt. Diablo Challenge

A couple of weeks ago, I raced the Mt. Diablo Challenge for the first time. I finished:

I finished in the top 27% overall and top 23% in my age group doing 233 watts, about 3.45 w/kg. However, I don’t have any doubt I can finish in one hour with possibly a top ten finish. Before I talk about why, here are my impressions of the event:

  • Mt. Diablo is a well known San Francisco Bay Area Climb. But most of my riding has been in the South Bay (Mountain View to Morgan Hill) and Sacramento. It was my first time riding this famed climb.
  • Driving into the parking lot at 7:30AM reminded me of when car enthusiasts get together to show off their cars. Even though I’ve been to plenty of mass rider events, I felt such a strong concentration of “Wow, that’s a $10K bike! There’s another…and another”
  • The view going up and down was great. I really enjoyed the descent, riding with a hundred other people down the road, just awesome views and a happy feeling traveling with so many people. I don’t do a lot of social riding, and even then I’m not a talker, but just being with so many people not needing to talk fulfilled my togetherness quota for the year. As you near the finish line, those who finished before you are waiting to urge you in the final (super steep) section. That’s me below watching (yes, eyes are closed) the people climb up.

Now here’s why I am confident about achieving the 1 hour mark (you get a special shirt for it too!) next year:

  • I participated in the Sacramento Century (100 miles but less than 1000 feet climbing) the day before. While my IF (intensity factor) was a relatively conservative .64, this turned out to be my highest all time power for the 5hr 10 minute ride. My back was hurting during the ride and my legs were a bit worn even after the night’s sleep. Clearly, I didn’t come in fresh. I thought I’d warm up and feel good after starting the ride, especially with a boost from caffeine, but I felt the effects of the previous day throughout and I started losing a lot of power in the second half of the climb.
  • Why was I silly enough to schedule two events like this back to back? I actually didn’t know they were back to back until about a month prior – I had already been signed up for a few months at that point. I would have preferred to do Mt. Diablo first, but that wasn’t up to me. I decided to keep the century ride because I thought my pace would be casual enough so I’d be ok for the race. I knew there was a risk but I just wanted to keep both events since I’d never done either before.
  • The week before the race I had done 269 watts over 28 minutes on a simulated Zwift climb. People like to say FPT power is the theoretical max 1 hour power someone can produce. If you don’t want to do a hour hour test, they’ll take 95% of a 20 minute test. Using that 28 minute power, my FTP should have been at least 255 watts. My guess is that I am closer to 260 watts. This is BestBikeSplit’s guess for what I could do at that rate. Looking at this year’s results, top ten finishers are right below the one hour mark.

My own tips for next year’s race:

  • I’m not doing 100 miles the day before the event. Complete rest at least 4 days before the event, focusing on good sleep.
  • I didn’t understand the bathroom situation so I waited in a long line where I picked up my packet. A few miles away at the race start, there are plenty of bathrooms. No more stress next time.
  • I’m taking off all my bottle cages and not bringing water. I brought one water bottle this time, but I didn’t need it, and it’s really hard to go all out and drink without losing momentum. I’ll drink during the drive over and then pee at the race start. That’s a saving of at least 1.5 pounds, almost 10% of my bike’s weight.
  • I’m not sure how far I want to go weight weenie, but I could also go with thinner tires. I went with 25mm/32mm front/rear since that’s just my normal setup, but I could see myself going 25mm/25mm just for the mental benefit. I’m curious about this cassette to save another .2 pounds, but I think that’s overkill and I’m worried about its reliability.
  • I am highly dependent on my Halo headband to absorb sweat and like an idiot, I forgot mine in the car. I was already miles away going to the race start when I realized this. Since the morning was cool (around 55F), I didn’t get affected by sweat too much, but it was definitely a mental stress and I did have to handle it a few times. Again, when you’re going full out for an hour, every little distraction can kill momentum.
  • I didn’t use sunglasses to avoid sweat and visibility issues (and a little weight) and that was the right decision. I was good with my clothing choice, and didn’t use gloves.
  • I had two caffeine bars (around 160mg total) but I think one would have been fine as I don’t consume caffeine often. I’ll test this a bit over the next year.
  • Training – I’ll work on 1 hr climbing over the next year and if I’m consistent I think I could gain up to 10 more watts (4% increase) and lose 2kg. The power gain is fairly modest.