Happy New Years Everyone!!

I hope you guys have a great night tonight! Kristin and I are going to go run "The first Run" which is a 5k that starts at midnight. The weather man says it is supposed to be 24 degrees out at midnight. Kristin and I are stoked to do this tonight.
Take care guys!

That's his "Play Bark" (WTF?!!?)

Kristin and I went for a trail run today on Wildwood trail. This trail is a great trail in Forest Park (The largest park in any city in the US). We were happily running through the mud and the slop because it was raining out, and has been for a few days. We had made it out to our turn around point and we had not seen a soul because the rain kept everyone away.
On our way back we came around a corner and met two dogs, who barked. We both stopped in our tracks as they were barking, then another dog comes up from behind them, what looked to be a Pit Bull and Boxer mix. This dog went past the other two who had stopped and were just barking cause we scared them too, and this dog came at us growling and barking. I went for the nearest thing I could, which was a hand full of mud. The dog comes up to both of us growling/barking and looking to be the the Alpha. Kristin and I both yelled at him, waved our arms, etc.
About this time I hear from around the next corner as this lady with a baby on her chest who starts yelling at her dogs to come, sit, etc. then she asks us "Do you have a dog with you!" All I could think is WTF, does it matter, you are yelling at your dogs they aren't responding!!! You can see you have this dog growl/barking at us. Next to this lady is three more moderately sized dogs, which makes six, none of them have a leash or collar. Now we have six dogs, one acting agressive, what the hell do you do? The lady can't make her dogs do a damn thing.
Anyways, after this dog makes us aware that he isn't to be trifled with, he calms down, and when the lady stopped yelling he calmed a bit more. At this time I realized we weren't getting hurt, but Kristin hadn't quite calmed down. I started walking further down the path and told Kristin the dogs were fine and lets get going. The lady once she caught up said, that's his "play bark", we haven't been home for 2.5 weeks, so they are full of energy. Play BARK!!!??? What the Heck!!! Seriously a growl followed by a bark is a play bark! Had I had pepper spray on me I would have sprayed the dog. He was growling, barking and running at us and he stopped just short of arms reach when I would have thrown the mud in his eyes and then hit him!
Seriously, don't walk six medium to large dogs without leashes and colars who don't listen to you on a hiking trail. I don't mind dogs, and I don't mind well behaved dogs off leash, but dogs that don't listen and bark/growl, need to be on a leash!

Other than that one moment, we had a great muddy trail run in Forest Park. We both got our butts kicked and running in mud definately makes you work harder.

Sad story

This is a sad story, but an interesting point for me. Even world class athletes have problems, which they didn't know about. One of these athletes (Ryan Shay) died during this competition for the Olympic Marathon team.

It really brings some thoughts to the front of my mind, and I feel like sharing them with my friends and family.

The question for me, should he have never pushed his body that far, or should I be happy for him because he was able to do everything he ever wanted to? I started thinking about this for myself and as a husband of a runner. For me personally, I may have a unique perspective. I honestly feel that it is better to live a full life and do everything you could ever want, than to sit at home and never run a risk. Ryan lived a life doing something he loved, he was healthy and for 99.99% of us we would not run in to this issue, but it just happened to him.

For me, I will keep riding and running and take the risk of some odd problem, or person, or car, or natural freak accident taking me out. At least I will lead a healthier life that I truly believe in and have a great time doing it. It is good for my mind, body and spirit and I believe it has made me a better person to be around.

Also, thinking about it as a husband, I feel the same way. I would not ask, or expect, Kristin to stop running just to prevent potential problems. It is a risk we will take, and I will support her as she runs her first marathon this next year.

To me, these "risks" are far less risky than continuing to be a morbidly obese smoker who does not exercise, which was me. For other people in my opinion, it is better than obesity, smoking, drinking, partying or whatever bad things we do and spend time on in life. Not that we don't all do bad things (drink soda anyone?) but we can do things to limit our health risks in the future, and sometimes it has to be at the risk of more immediate problems we may not know about.

I think some people don't exercise, or do something, because they think they are so out of shape they are going to give themselves a heart attack. Trust me, I thought I was going to give myself a heart attack when I first started riding a bike and I hit a hill. Turns out our hearts are strong and they can get through some strain. So, if you are really concerned about your heart/lungs, go to a doctor and get their opinion, then get out there and start to make it hurt!!!

Amazing feats

I was sent another video of a pretty amazing event. It is the JFK 50 miler, ultra marathon (yes, that is a run). This 13 year old girl and her mom did it!!! To me, that is just amazing. Doing an ultra is amazing, but at 13?!? I wonder if this girl will try a 100 mile ultra or even worse/better the Badwater.

Plan for 08

For those of you who are interested, this is my planned event schedule for 08. There will probably be more events than this, but these are the main ones I am looking to complete this year.

• Worst Day of the Year Ride, February 11th This is just a fun ride to do and it is a good baseline ride for me.
• Reach the Beach, May 9th One of the first centuries of the year (100 miles) and a very well supported ride. This will be a good way for me to get trained up and in shape. I plan on doing this ride hard, so I will train that way. This will get my bike fitness up.
• The Havoc at the Hideout, May 17th This will be a 5-6 mile trail run/race at Hornings Hideout.
• Helvatia Half Marathon, Saturday June 9th
• Blue Lake Duathlon, June 15th (Olympic)
• Pacific Crest, June 27-29th I am not sure which event I will do, but they have everything from Half Ironman's to 5k runs. Most likely I will do the half marathon with Kristin. Our friend Tony will be doing the endurance duathlon (52 mile bike, 13.2 mile run), which is on Saturday and we will be there to cheer him on. If we do an event it will definately be on Sunday so we can cheer on Tony on Saturday.
• Hood To Cost Relay (197 mile relay run with 12 person team), August 22nd and 23rd
• Pints to Pasta 10k, September 9th This is a really fun race that Kristin and I love to run together. It is a very "happy" event with everyone in such a great mood.
• Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, September 23rd The goal is for my mom to be able to do the walk for the cure with me. I plan on doing the 5k run, then do the 5k walk with mom.

Running/Biking

As, I think everyone knows I am going to try doing duathlon's this year. Correct that, I am doing duathlon's, but I am going to try and be in the top half of the pack. It will take a couple years at best to be able to finish in the top percentage. To be honest, I am not sure I have the time and dedication to be able to be that good, but we will see.
Anyways, I am back to running again and I have worked my way back to running a 5k, so that is good. I am not running fast yet, I have been trying to just put on steady mileage with some good intervals here and there. Not only that I am getting strong on the bike again.
I am not saying I am as stong as I was in the summer, but for winter time fitness I am starting to build up for my summer time activities.
All in all, I am feeling really good and mentally ready for the rest of the year.

Long time

It has been a long time since I have blogged. Well... For my site anyways. I have been fairly busy on my mom's blog and documenting her fight with cancer.

I was sent this link to a YouTube video that I thought was really inspirational. You don't have to be an athlete to appreciate this one.

After looking at the video, you should check out the stats of this team.

Too Funny

This was too funny of a quote not to pass on. For those of you who know about Floyd Landis and his testosterone levels in the 06 Tour, you will find it funny (possibly infuriating). This was from Road Bike Riders weekly dispatch.

Overheard: "I mean, [the ratio] was 11 to 1. You'd think he'd be violating every virgin within 100 miles. How does he even get on his bicycle?" -- Dick Pound, WADA president, commenting in 2006 on Floyd Landis's elevated testosterone/epitestosterone ratio after stage 17 of the Tour of France.

Gonna be in MT next week

Hey everyone, I am going to be in Montana on the 23rd through the end of the month. In case you hadn't heard, now you know and if you want to get together, drop me an email.

Getting ready for the off-season

Well, work and life have been extremely busy and I think I can start up my training plan again!

I feel very out of shape and my run today really proved that. My heart rate was very high and it was very difficult to stay at a 10 minute mile. Ouch! I am confident I can get my running fitness back quickly, and my cycling should come back quick as well, but I need to work on it. I am anxious to get to Montana and take some runs out there!

The squirrel killer

One of the most unique squirrel incident's I have ever seen. Weaver and I were going for a drive in his new Jeep Compass and a suicidal squirrel ran in front of us and Weaver couldn't avoid it.

A little ways down the road, we pulled over in a parking lot to check for any damage, and we found this tail sticking out from underneath his car. We originally thought it was just the tail. Look at the picture below. We hoped it was just the tail, and by looking at it, there was no way it could be an entire squirrel.

After some further inspection, we found that indeed the entire squirrel was stuck in his car. From our analysis, the squirrel could have only gotten there one way, and that is by going in one of the holes in the bumper, where you see Weaver trying to free it from his vehicle with a stick. Evidently Weaver's vehicle has a squirrel vacuum attachment. I have never seen or heard of a squirrel getting lodged in a car before, but now, I have. So, I took pictures because it was so bizarre. Click on one of the pictures to see the entire set of pictures.

Go fly a kite! Really!

Okay, so we all remember flying a kite as a kid, right? Well, we ended up flying a kite that is meant for those of us who got bored with those old single string kites.

We went to my Dad's place for the weekend, which is in Ocean Shores, Washington, where the international kite flying contest was held this year. Dad and Nancy ended up going and watching, and realized that you could do amazing things with kites (which I never realized either). They ended up buying two acrobatic kites. We didn't know this on Saturday when we arrived, but they told us Saturday night that the next day we would go fly a kite. Kristin and I are pretty easy going so we were okay with this (thinking of the old single string kites we had as kids). We were good, and being on the beach rarely is a bad thing.

When we got to the beach they pulled out two kites, and they were in these nice heavy duty bags. After getting them out and putting them together, we noticed there were two strings for each kites. With these two strings you can make them do all kinds of interesting things. You can make them spin almost without moving the kites location, you can make them do big loops, dive, climb, go horizontal just off the ground, land them, take off from the ground (no running required) and this is for amateurs like us. The pros can do even more stuff, and no, we have no desire to be pro's. We were on the beach for a couple hours just flying these kites. It was a great time and an amazing amount of fun. To me it was funner than many of the things we do for entertainment. Of course, the beach, ocean and good people always helps too.

So, we enjoyed this so much, we actually ended up buying two, two string kites for ourselves. You should go out and try these, they are a lot of fun. If I happen to be around on a windy day, let me know if you want to go and fly a kite.

Holy Cow, life is busy

I know I haven't exactly been easy to get a hold of lately, so here is my broadcast of I'm sorry. Work has been hectic, long hours, sleepless nights (well almost) and a ton of stress doesn't exactly make me want to talk much, and most of the time I am working anyway. Then, as many of you may know, I have some added stress in my personal life as well. Not something I am going to talk about in my blog right now. Anyway, I am confident this will all work itself out and it will be okay in the end, but it will be trying for someone I love dearly. It is a marathon, not a sprint and we all just have to remember that.

Okay, so life is crazy right now, so I am trying to be a touch better about my blog. I don't have an Internet connection right now, but next time I get online, this should publish to my blog.

In Montana for a couple days

I will be in Montana this weekend. If you didn't already know, which I think most of you in MT do, now you know. I will only be there for a couple days, but give me a call and I will try and carve some time out.

How safe is your internet today?

This is a little applet to show the state of "danger" on the internet right now.

While Google takes over the Internet, I will enjoy it!

Okay, Google is always come up with cool stuff, way beyond their search engine. Here are some cool things that maybe everyone doesn't know:

• Email, a very new way to look at email (Google calls it GMail). The first to bring us gigabytes of email storage for free!
• 411. For those of you who are text happy, send a text message to Google (46643) with information like Pizza Hut 97007, this would find all Pizza Huts near my home zip code of 97007, instead of zip, you can do city and state. For more handy tips and tricks, such as movie times, flight info, etc. go to sms.google.com
• 411 for the non texters. Call 1-800-Goog-411. That's right, call google toll free and they will give you what you need to know. No more paying 1.25 for 411, google will give it to you for free!
• Google Reader: For those of us who enjoy reading the news and blogs, sign up for Google reader. This will put all of your favorite news and blog sites in to one easy to read, convienent website.
• Google Docs and Spreadsheets: This is like Word and Excel, but it works over the Internet and it works really well. If you have a GMail, you have access to this.

These are some of the cool tools I use from Google, and hopefully you find something good here too.

My first 10k and where to go from here

Kristin and I did a 10k this morning. This was my first 10k, and I was not as trained up as I should have been, but I was ready.

We woke up at 5:30 to get ready and to eat a light breakfast before driving down to the race. We parked at the Old Speghetti Factory headquarters, a great restaurant on the Willamette river. From there we hopped on a bus, provided by the event, to take us to the start line 6.2 miles away at the Adidas World Headquarters (Yep, we got both Nike and Adidas in Portland). I had never been to the Adidas headquarters, and it was a really nice campus. From there we just hung around, stretched and did some people watching while waiting for the race to start. It was great watching all of these fit people and all of the nervous things we do while waiting for the starting line.

The time finally came and we made our way to the start line. Kristin had been fighting with injuries, a pretty badly sprained ankle and then some severe lower back pain, so she didn't really want to run with me because she wasn't sure how she would perform with not being able to run for the better part of the last five weeks. We started together but shortly lost track of each other in the crowd. There were almost 1,400 runners and we took over the streets.

The first two miles are all downhill, and it was awesome, everyone was running fast and having a good time. I made the first two miles at a 9:00 mile pace, which is really good for me. I had lost track of Kristin early on, so I wasn't sure where she was at, but hoping she was having a great time too. We ran across the steel bridge in to downtown Portland and we ran along the water front. While we were running, we ran across the part of the waterfront where they were having the dragon boat races. Lots of people having a great time racing these boats that look like chinese dragon boats. Around this point, we were at the 4 mile mark and I was starting to feel the distance a little and my lack of running (I like riding too much and didn't stick to my running schedule like I should have), but knew not to kick in too much until mile 5. At mile 4 a lot of people were "whipping the dog" and I just held my pace, knowing that they weren't gaining too much on me. At mile 5 I kicked it up, and so did everyone else who hadn't previously kicked it up. I started catching some of the runners, and dropping others, and I was getting dropped by others, but everyone was happy to know we were on the home stretch.

I had a rather amusing thought at mile 5. I thought to myself, hey I only have 1.2 miles left, that is nothing and I can really kick it up, just focus and keep the HR up and make it hurt to the finish. It wasn't that long ago, when I could ride 200 miles in a day, but running 1 mile sounded really painful! Now, 1 mile is an easy run that can be done without worrying or dreading. I made it the last 1.2 miles at a good pace and finished at a 9:35/mile pace for a total time of 59:35. This was better than my goal of 62:00 (or 10:00/mile pace) which I had set, but really hoped to beat 60 minutes for my first 10k. I had a great time, and really enjoyed the challenge, and the people. Kristin finished very shortly behind me at 62:30. Considering all of her injuries, that is a great time and I am really proud of her.

Where to go from here?

Well, I am announcing it officially, even though I have talked to many of my close friends.

I have really enjoyed cycling, and I have learned that I like to run, although not as much as cycling, but it is good cross training for me and it is a nice break from cycling. I have decided that over the next 12 months I am going to focus on duathlons and bike races. My ultimate goal for next year is to do an endurance duathlon. An endurance duathlon is a 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile (half-marathon) run. The bike is a slam dunk for me (not saying I would win), but the run I will need to work on is twice as far as I have ran so far, then I have to put them together. This may be a lot harder than I think it is, and I already think it will be hard, but with plenty of stuborness and being smart, I am confident I can do it.

Not only do I need to train with running and cycling, I will also need to shed more pounds. Training for a Du will definately help me with this, and it will keep me on my feet. The more weight I lose, the less likely I am to injure myself, and the faster I will become. I am hoping to lose 15 to 20 pounds by spring and hopefully more during the summer of next year. It will take a lot of work to do it the healthy way, but it will require a lot of self discipline with the holidays during this time too.

Click on the map below to see the "geeky" details of my first Cat 5 Road Race. I won't know the results until tomorrow. I do know that I was definately not the slowest guy in the group. I learned a lot during this race and I look forward to racing smarter and hopefully doing better.

OUCH Time Trial Race Results

Well, I finished it, and my estimate that I could finish it in 90 minutes was right on. I finished it in 90:19.

Like I said in my last blog I was not planning on winning anything, but I wanted to see where I was at. The day was pretty muggy, but at least it wasn't pouring rain, although I probably would have welcomed a little drizzle for part of the ride.

I can honestly say I don't think I have ever sweated that hard for that long of a time. My HR was in the high 160's, low 170's the entire time. My plan was to be in the mid to high 170's the last few miles. I could not get my legs to go that hard when there were a few miles left. I was able to keep my HR around the high 160's and mostly low 170's. Even though I didn't do great, I am happy with my time as I did no training for the hills, so I think I could have done a lot better, maybe 5 or 10 minutes faster, maybe.

Overall, I had a great time, had lots of fun and enjoyed the event as a whole.

My buddy Tony did OUCH in 67 minutes, which put him as the 17th fastest of all the racers out there. Great job Tony!! I was passed by Tony (and many others) on the way up to the top and he looked strong and he was hauling ass. Tony's rabbit (Scott Springer) who started 30 seconds in front of Tony had just passed me when I saw Tony, so I gave Tony some info on where Scott was. Scott is a great TT artist, who holds a state TT record, so needless to say he is a good rabbit to chase. Tony was able to get within a few bike lengths of Scott, but Scott was able to keep Tony back, but Tony gave him hell.

My other buddy, Robert, who convinced me to do OUCH started 10 spots from the last person, or about 25 minutes behind me. The bummer for Robert was that as he was crossing the line, they were tearing down the timing tent, so we don't know exactly what his time was, but according to Robert it was about 96 minutes. Robert wasn't feeling so well for the last two weeks, and I wonder if he was feeling better and was able to get some training in to keep his legs fresh would he have kept up with my times, or possibly beat me. We have some more trips up there, so we will see how he does once he gets his legs back under him.

Damages:

Well, truth of the matter is when you do races your are openning yourself up to injuries and wrecks. You are pushing yourself harder than you ever do in training, no matter how hard you train, you always go harder when racing. And as far as wrecks go, well, those happen to. Usually you are lucky with some bumps, bruises and a little bit of road rash. Hopefully no serious road rash or infections from that road rash.

My damage is some muscle or tendon issues. As I am writing this blog I am sitting on two ice packs. I pulled some muscle I have never felt before. It is some muscle or tendon in between my sit bones and groin. It hurts to stand or sit, and I look like an old man when I get up or down from a chair. Tomorrow may be worse! I hope it is nothing major and a couple days of rest will get everything back to normal again. I want to get back on the bike soon, and I have a century (100 miles) ride this coming weekend. With Kristin's sprained ankle (it is black she sprained it so bad, and she is sidelined for at least two weeks) and my muscle problem, we are like an old couple now. However, I would rather we were getting sore/hurt from something we love than to be sitting at the house being couch potatos. I have gotten in to living an athlete lifestyle and being very active, and I really missed out on a lot when I wasn't doing anything, but I am working hard to gain it back.

I will post some data when I download it from my bike computer.

Oregon Uphill CHallenge (OUCH) Time Trial

As I mentioned in my last post, I am going to do something pretty gruelling this weekend (the weekend after STP). I will be competing in the Oregon Uphill CHallenge, also known as OUCH. The route is 3,816 feet of elevation gain in 16.5 miles. For those of you from Montana, or familiar with Going to the Sun Highway, this is more elevation gain than Going to the Sun highway from Lake McDonald. Also, the elevation is done in less distance than the ride from Lake McDonald to the top of Going to the Sun.

I have been training to go fast over flat roads for very long distances, so I have taken routes that intentionally avoid hills. This ride will be nothing but one big hill so my training has not exactly prepared me for this event. I plan on making the climb in under 90 minutes, which means my HR will be much higher than I am used to. I will not know exactly how to attack this hill, I am not exactly sure how I should be doing the negative split for this style of event, etc. We will see how this goes.

I was convinced by a friend to do this last week, on Tuesday (three days after STP) and we would go out and see how we could do. Since I trained so well for STP my legs were hardly sore on Tuesday, so I thought this would be a good idea. I agreed to do it. We then went up and pre rode the course on Wednesday (4 days after STP) and my guess is that on Sunday I will be able to do OUCH in under 90 minutes, based on some other guestimates based off my Bald Peak hill climb times. We left right after work on Wednesday and climbed up the route, my first crack, with no warm up or previous knowledge, I was able to climb it in 94 minutes. I am now feeling confident I can make this climb in under 90 minutes. The other funny thing is that I will be doing this climb twice within the 8 days after STP. In addition, my buddy Robert who convinced me to do this, and I are going to do this climb every Wednesday night until it starts getting too cold and dark to do the climb.

It turns out that my other buddy Tony is going to be doing OUCH as well. He is a great athlete and he will probably do the climb in 60 to 65 minutes. It will be great to see Tony at the race, and it will be nice to have another friendly face there. Tony has been great in helping me figure out what I need to do for my first race, and giving me some great pointers. It turns out that Tony, and all guys who are at his caliber will be starting after me. What this means for me is I will be passed by these guys who fly up the hills.

I am not sure how well I will handle it mentally because I don't like being passed, but it does bring out the most competitive side out of me. The thing that will be really cool is watching these guys go buy me like I was practically standing there. That part will be really cool. These guys who are Cat 1/2/3's are in amazing shape, and watching them from the sideline has always been fun, and now seeing them in comparison to me, it will be very eye openning and motivating.

I will let you know how it goes after I am done with OUCH!

Seattle To Portland (STP)

Well, as many, if not all of you, knew that I was going to do STP again this year. STP is a 204 mile bike ride, from, you guessed it, Seattle to Portland.

Weaver and I have been training for this six months, and we were ready. For me, my only concern was that with the temps getting over 100 degrees the week before STP, I was concerned with the heat and being able to stay hydrated. This years STP was 14 degrees hotter. Last year was 74 degrees and this year it was 88 degrees.

Weaver, Kristin and I drove up to Seattle to day before and due to some scheduling snafu's we couldn't leave until 2:30 in the afternoon on Friday. That, in hind sight, was a horrible choice. We ended up in rush hour traffic the entire way up, and it took us two hours longer to get to Seattle. Then there is this entire other story about the tickets, which I won't get in to, but I will remember to never wait until the last minute to buy tickets.

Because of our scheduling snafu, we only got five hours of sleep, which was not ideal, but I don't think it had too much of an effect on the overall result.

Last year my average speed for STP was 17.1 mph, and I was hoping Weaver and I could beat that speed and I didn't really care by how much.

Weaver and I started out the morning a little late (again the tickets came back to bite me in the butt!!!). We started at 6:00 rather than 5:00. As I would find out later, this probably had a fairly large effect on my end results.

The first 100 miles was pretty uneventful, nothing exciting, everything went as it should. Kristin was doing a great job running support, and being our cheerleader, and we loved it. We liked it so much, at times we were counting how many miles it was to see Kristin, rather than talking about the next stop.

At the 109 mile stop, Kristin met me there with my Dad and Nancy. It was great seeing Dad and Nancy there, and getting their support too. At the 109 mile stop, Kristin met us with some fresh watermellon, which was AWESOME and a great treat after only drinking liquid nutrition (think Gatorade, but 10 times better!!!). It was a nice snack and I think we both ate a little too much because we both had a little bit of gut issues after this stop, but it was well worth it.

On the way to the next stop the heat really started to increase. As we were riding along, it was hot, but there were sections where it felt like someone put a big engine in front of us. I swear it had to of been at least 5 to 10 degrees hotter in some spots, and it really felt like that radiant heat you get off of cars exhausts (minus the smell). To top it all off, it was a really humid day, so sweat was not evaporating very well, so keeping cool was a little bit harder. At the next stop Weaver and I took a break under a tree in the shade to cool off. Kristin's car said it was 91 degrees at that stop. We took some of the ice cold water and poured it over our heads and body to try and cool down a bit, and then we were off to meet Kristin, Dad and Nancy in St. Helens.

We made it over the bridge in to Washington and we only had 54 miles to go. That is nothing, my legs were feeling strong considering I had gone 150 miles, and things were going okay. This is where it gets interesting. At about mile 160 things went south really quick for me. I started feeling really hot and I told Weaver I had to stop. I pulled over and got off my bike and I felt like I was put in a oven. I sat there for a minute or two and then got back on the bike and started going again. At this point I couldn't get my heart rate (HR) above 130 bpm without feeling really hot and sick. So I just soft pedalled for a while and then we pulled over at an unscheduled rest stop where I took some water and poured it over my head, and tried to cool down. After that I wasn't feeling any better, and I was still having issues. A few miles later I had to pull over again and this time when I got off my bike I felt like I was going to collapse, and I laid down on the ground for a good 10 or 15 minutes on some grass on the shoulder of some side road. Weaver said I was walking like I was ready to collapse. We got back on our bikes and rode in to St. Helens, about 10 miles, to see Kristin, who I had already called and said to turn on the car and get that AC cranking so I could cool down. That was a very long 10 miles to get to St. Helens. I was in bad shape, but it was funny, I was still passing a lot of people, and I was keeping a pace of 18 to 19 mph. It was a little frustrating for me knowing I was so strong, but I was suffering so badly. I knew that I am a heavy sweater, at 90 degrees I sweat at 4 pounds per hour (I know this from previous tests I have done), so I knew I was a candidate for hydration. I was drinking as much water as my stomach could handle. My stomach was so bloated I couldn't take in any more water. After making the long and dreadful 10 miles to St. Helens, I immediately got in Kristins car to cool down.

I was feeling very sick, I was having problems riding in a straight line, and walking straight was a challenge as well. After sitting in the car for a few minutes I realized that if I continued on I took a very real risk of wrecking, and considering the last 29 miles was along a very busy and fast highway, followed up by crossing downtown Portland. Anywhere I wrecked had the possiblity of hurting me worse with all the cars, and other cyclists, as well as putting other cyclists in danger. So I made the decision that finishing the last 29 miles was not worth putting my family to deal with a situation like Ryan McKnab. I got out of the car and announced that I was dropping out of STP. I made it 175 miles, but STP was stronger than me this year.

One of the interesting and most revealing things that came during this long ride, where I have lots of time to think through things, I realized something about true friends. True friends are the people who are there for you when you need them, even if it is at their own personal sacrafice or discomfort. When I was suffering, Weaver never left my side, never got in front of me and dropped me, he was there with me every second, when I stopped, he stopped and waited for me and gave me words of encouragement. This meant so much to me and really just goes to show who your true friends are. I know if I would have chose to try and finish, Weaver would have stuck with me all the way to the finish as well, even if it turned dark, he would have hung with me the entire time, which is so cool.

On that same thread, Kristin was awesome to be there for us and run support for us. She was a great face to see at every stop and she is a great cheerleader and a great supporter. She did awesome and I can't thank her enough. I am very lucky to have Kristin in my life, not only because she runs support for me, that is probably the easiest part. I have spent over 200 hours on the bike this year, which means lots of weekends and evenings where I was missing. She has never complained, and if I was slacking she would get concerned. It is so great to have someone like her around who supports you and tenderly kicks you in the butt when you start falling behind. She is great in understanding me and the goals I want to achieve and making her own sacrifices to help me acheive and exceed those goals. I can't even begin to say how fortunate I am to have her in my life. Actually, I have been very fortunate in all of my life. I have a great familly and my friends are awesome as well!

So, this is where my ride ended, I dropped at 175 miles. Up to that point, I was beating my previous best time significantly. Last year I averaged 17.1 mph, and this year I averaged 18.0 mph, which I know with weather like last year I could have easily finished.

After Weaver left us, we went down to the finish line, as he had 29 miles to go. We waited at the finish line for him to Finish with Dad and Nancy and we met Amy (Weavers Fiance') and Samantha (Weavers Daughter). It was great seeing weaver get to finish STP and achieve his goal, that was awesome. He worked very hard for it and I am glad he was the one who finished. After Weaver finished and he got his feet under him we all went to our cars and headed to go get some real food and had some Mexican for dinner and then Weaver and I went home and slept.

So, since I didn't acheive my goals for STP, I have picked a "punishment" for myself. More to come on that, but this weekend, I promise I will hurt more than I did at STP. Three lashings for me! Of course I will enjoy it too! I have been told I am sadistic. :)

Pacific Crest Weekend

Kristin and I's friend Tony was planning on doing the Endurance Duathlon at Pacific Crest on June 24th. This endurance duathlon was a 56 mile bike ride and then a half marathon (13.1 mile run).
Pacific Crest had several events over the weekend ranging from a Half Ironman Triathlon and Endurance Duathlon (the two hardest events) to shorter Tri's and Du's along with some running events ranging from a 5k to a full Marathon. These events took place on Saturday and Sunday. Tony's event was on Saturday.
Tony and Joanne rented a Condo in Sun River, which is about 3 hours from Portland where the event was being held. Tony and Joanne invited us to join them in Sun River and we couldn't pass up the oppurtunity to go see Tony race and spend some time with Tony and Joanne in Sun River. For those of you that don't know Tony, he is definately the best athlete that Kristin and I know, so watching him race is always great to watch.
Kristin and I decided that we would do the 5k race on Sunday, as the run looked really fun. This would be my first actual race as an adult. Even my cycling events are not considered races, they are considered organize rides.

We took off Thursday through Monday from work to be in Sun River. I did my long bike ride before going to Sun River so that I would have that out of the way. After my ride we went to Sun River to meet up with Tony and Joanne. Shortly after I got to Sun River I realized I forgot my running shoes at the house. So... I ended up having to drive to Bend, which is bigger than Sun River and has a good running shop, and I bought another pair of running shoes. That was a big bummer.

Kristin and I found this amazing trail along a river, I think it was called Burnt River. This was a good break in for my new running shoes. The thing that Kristin and I noticed was with the higher elevation, it was noticeably harder to breathe, and to a certain extent, harder to control your breathing. Sun River is at 4,100 feet and where we live is at 200 feet. I am not saying it was impossible to breathe, or climbing stairs was difficult or something like that, just that it was noticable.

On Saturday, we woke up early and met Tony at the start line (Tony took a bus to the start line). The morning was definately colder than we had anticipated and there was some frost on the ground. At the start line we were able to see Tony before he started his warm-up on his time trial bike. While Tony went out for his warm-up Kristin, Joanne and I went to the beach by where the Duathlon starts. The beach is where all of the triathletes started with their swim. We laid out a blanket on the beach and the three of us chilled out for a bit while Tony warmed up. When it was closer to the start time we packed up off of the beach and talked with Tony for a while while he was waiting for his start. Due to the limited amount of storage on a bike, and the desire to be at the right temp once you get warmed up, Tony chose not to wear any arm or leg warmers, so while he was standing there, he was freezing and shivering. We watched Tony start his Duathlon, and then we went and watched the Triathletes start their swim.

Next, we went to a point on the ride that was about 30 miles in to the ride. At this point we set up some chairs and waited for the cyclists come by and cheer them on, and take some pictures of the riders. After this we went to the transition area where Tony will change from cycling to running and then we met Tony at the finish line after he ran his half marathon. This was an amazing event as it was truly an amazing effort that these athletes had to put out to finish the Endurance Duathlon and Half IronMan Tri. Tony did not have as good of a result as he was hoping for, but Kristin and I think he did really well for his first shot at an Endurance Duathlon. He ended up 26th out of 78 athletes. Considering this event was a Worlds qualifying event, so you had some world class athletes there, Tony did great. So, if he wasn't feeling right, I wonder what he would have done on a day he felt good?

After the race, we all pretty much just lazed around for the rest of the day and had some good food.

On Sunday, Kristin and I ran our 5k. My hope for the 5k (3.1 miles) was to do it in under 30 minutes. Tony and Joanne went to the start with us and cheered us on and they were our official photographers. After Kristin and I did our run, we went to a local coffee shop with Tony and Joanne and had some coffee. After we were done with coffee, I thought we should go and see how we did on our times. I already knew that I was under 30 minutes, and according to my stop watch, I was at 29:00 and kristin was a few seconds behind me, but I wondered how I did in comparison to everyone else. We went to see the posted times, and Tony noticed that I was first in my age/division and then we looked at Kristin and she was second in her age group. My age/division was small because I signed up as a clydesdale (anyone over 200 pounds), so I knew I was the fastest in my age group for a heavier guy. I got a gold medal and nice glass for it though, which was cool. Kristin recieved a silver medal and a nice glass for it. The cool thing for Kristin was the age group she was in had the overall female winner in it. So, she took second to the female race winner, in the age group. In the 5k, there were 235 females, and Kristin took 30th overall for all females, which was AWESOME!!! We were pretty happy. I was chuckling about mine though, I was not thinking I could contend for any kind of podium, and I really shouldn't have, but I knew I was in a small group. I know I am not considered a fast runner by any means. I finished in 29:00 and the winner finished in 17:53. After the times were posted online I realized I actually won in the clydesdale division for the 39 and under division. I also won the normal age group division that I would have been in if I hadn't put myself in as a clydesdale, which is 25 to 29. Not sure how it happened, but it is kind of cool that my first race as an adult I get a gold medal. :)

Okay, this blog has gotten way too long, again. I just wanted to share some of the highlights of our weekend with you.

Another cyclist is killed

This is an email I sent out to some of my friends, and figured I would share it here.

Last weekend a cyclist that was a member of the cycling club I belong to was killed on the club ride that is called the Saturday Signature Series. Here is the news story http://www.katu.com/news/local/7928067.html. Not only is Tim someone I have met, he is also a good friend of my neighbors Steven and Maria. The Saturday Signature Series is a ride I try and join every Saturday that I can, but this Saturday it did not work out. I ended up riding on that exact road with Weaver the next day (we did not know about the accident at the time). It really brings to light for me how dangerous cycling can be, and even if I have the right of way, does not mean I will win against a 4,000 pound car and I could end up dead. Even though I don't ride aggressively, nor do I think Tim was being aggressive, stuff happens.

Below is what our club has sent out, and some information about the accident, in addition some information about the legal process. It is amazing to me that you can kill someone, while having a suspended license, and driving carelessly and you still don't get charged with homicide! Even though this was a cyclist, the same is true for pedestrians, kids on their way to school, other drivers, etc.

I am emailing all my friends in the Portland area that may be interested in what is going, and who may be willing to write our polititians (info below).

Please keep Tim's friends and familly in your prayers.

Thanks,
Nick

Remembering Tim O’Donnell

On Saturday, 6/9/07, Portland Velo member Tim O'Donnell was struck and killed by a motorist while riding with the A17 group on our Saturday Signature Series ride. Portland Velo members Martin Obando, Michael Forester, Leslie Louis and Alan Jeddeloh were riding with Tim. A celebration of Tim’s life will be held on Friday, June 15 at 3:00pm at St. Patrick’s Church, 1623 NW 19th Street. Please come and support the family and your fellow club members who were with Tim. Please send your cards and condolences to Mary O’Donnell and Family, 17725 SW Sugar Plum Lane, Aloha, OR 97007.

Tim’s tragedy has struck us to the core; we have lost a friend and fellow cyclist. Tim was already an avid cyclist when he joined Portland Velo, but he really took to the sport last year when he joined our first (and only) development squad ride. John Ohnstad introduced Tim to the club, as Tim was a regular at John's spin class. Tim went from barely being able to keep a 12 MPH pace for 10 miles to riding regularly with the A19's. Along the way many of us got to know him as a super-friendly guy with a hearty laugh who would never give up on a ride, even the rainy, miserable ones. We will miss his infectious smile and his dogged determination!

Tim is survived by his wife Mary, his two sons and daughter and 5 grandchildren. And also by his friends and his cycling club. In the coming days you will hear our plans to keep Tim in our memory, and the steps we will take to ensure that this never happens again.

Write Your State Senator - NOW!

The driver in this weekend’s incident was cited for driving with a suspended license, passing in a no-passing zone and careless driving. Under Oregon State Law, vehicular homicide is only applicable in cases where a felony has been committed. Believe it or not, the above citations do not amount to a felony! We’ve seen this too often over the past 3 years!As cyclists, we have the right to ride our bikes safely and securely. One way to raise awareness is to write to your state senator immediately and urge them to pass HB3314, the Vulnerable Roadway Users Bill. While this does not address the vehicular homicide dilemma, it does raise the penalties for careless or reckless drivers who seriously injure or kill cyclists, pedestrians, or other vulnerable roadway users. It may seem small in comparison to what has just happened, but it is a start and we as cyclists need to support it. For more information contact the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA).
There have been starts and stops in efforts to change the vehicular homicide statutes and we are one of four states that do not protect cyclists under these statutes. This needs to be changed! Over the coming weeks we will be looking for ideas for how we can unify with the rest of the Portland cycling community and raise our voices to change the law.

In the meantime, House Bill 3020 seeks to get memorial signs put up at crash sites where riders were lost. It is a great way for us to memorialize fallen cyclists and remind the public of how vulnerable cyclists are on the road. For more information, please contact Lorna Kautzky, the wife of Eric Kautzy who was killed on his bike by another careless driver. You can contact our local representatives and senators as well – here are a few names: sen.kurtschrader@state.or.us, rep.marynolan@state.or.us,
sen.betsyjohnson@state.or.us, and rep.jerrykrummel@state.or.us.

You CAN make a difference!

Some Friends Suck!!!

Okay, so Kristin and I don't watch most reality shows seriously, but we love to watch the first few episodes of shows like American Idol and America's Got Talent and we stop watching once it gets serious. The first few episodes are filled with people who are in extreme denial about the fact that they are not good at what they do. Could they get there with lots of hard work and dedication? Maybe, but not right now.
This is where "some friends suck!" comes in. Why don't these people have family and friends telling them that they are not ready for "prime time", or just a simple, hey you suck! I would not go out there trying to win at any pro, college or high school sport, and if I had any illusions about this, I would hope that someone would sit me down and say, you are not ready for this.
It really makes me wonder, if people are so affraid of telling others they are close to that they are not good at something, and let them get crushed on national TV, would they say anything about more serious matters? Probably not...
However, if Bill Gates father told him he was smoking a pipe dream and he took it to heart, would he have bought a $5 diskette and then re-coded the OS on that diskette and made it run on a hard drive, this thing called DOS would never have been created and he would not have become the richest man in world. Maybe these people aren't telling their friends they are not good because nobody wants to crush someone's dreams.
I guess it is a judgement call everyone needs to make in their friends best interest. However, if I ever decide to do any kind of competition on national TV and I am not of the highest caliber, please LET ME KNOW!!!
P.S. let me clarify one thing, I was not talking about any of Kristin or I's friends. This post was about people I see on reality TV.

electric bicycle

Today I was out on a ride with Weaver and we saw a recumbent bicycle with an electic motor attached to the chain drive. I decided since he was going so fast that it would be fun to get a draft off of him. This guy was barely pedaling, but he was cruising! I told Weaver I wanted to catch the guy and get a good draft. I went sprinting after the guy, I was going about 30 to 32 mph and I was very slowly catching up to him, then we hit a very small hill and I was really closing the gap, then we hit the flat again. I was pretty well spent by this time, and the guy and his electric bike hit the flats again, and he was back to his 28 to 29 mph hour pace and I was not going to make an all out effort again to catch him, I still had 20 miles to ride.
It was really cool to see this little electric bicycle cruising at a good speed. It irritated me at first that I couldn't catch up to him, but then I realized that I may be able to go faster than him, but my legs are not going to beat a good electric motor.

Reach the Beach

I am noticing that most of my posts are around cycling, so with no surprise, here is another cycling post.
First a little background. Just as I thought I had gotten over my injury and I no longer felt pain, I woke up on Wednesday night with sharp shooting pain in my left knee again. Damnit!!! It was rather odd as to why it happened as Wednesday was actually a rest day, so I didn't do anything! The pain did not go away on Thursday so Friday first thing I called my doctor to get an appointment, and maybe a cortizone shot as a quick fix. I went in to see my doctor and after he did some testing on my knee, he could feel that my knee was loose. He then asked me if I would like to go see an orthopedic surgeon and get an MRI. I took it as a question, not a suggestion, so I told him NO! I asked if we could explore some alternatives first. He then referred me to get physical therapy. Before leaving I asked him if I could ride RTB this weekend, and he said he probably wouldn't. I told him probably didn't mean much to me, and if he said probably then I probably would attempt it. I could not force him to give me a yes/no and all I had was a referal to a PT. I left the doctors office a little more than pissed, as I have never gotten a yes/no from him, and he couldn't figure out why I was sick a while back. It is now 3:15 on a Friday, good luck trying to get an appointment with anyone. I was disappointed, upset, depressed and stuborn figuring I will just ride and see how it goes. This didn't make me feel great, as I could do something to my knee because my doctor was not capable of helping me.
I spent a few minutes in my car just figuring out my next steps and tried getting myself from blowing up at someone/something. I then started calling all of the closest PT places and they were all booked. I then was able to find one that just had a cancellation.
Ian, my PT was awesome. He spent a lot of time with me analyzing everything about my walk and run and both of my knees. He confirmed that I did have some play in my left knee, but he said it could be from anything, it may have been that way since my ACL surgery when I was 16, so it didn't mean much to him. He then was able to find some scar tissue in my left knee (bummer, but no biggie). He was not able to find any rips, tears or strains in my knees. He figured it was a joint injury that was brought on by impact exercise, such as running. He told me since cycling has never hurt my knees, I was good to do RTB. He warned me that if the shooting pain came back while riding I had to stop, and regardless it may take me a couple extra days to recover, but he didn't see anything horrible as long as I was smart about it. I left their offices in a much better mood.

Okay, that was much longer than I thought, sorry. Maybe just a little venting.

Weaver and I did Reach The Beach on Saturday. The ride is a 100 mile ride (Century) from Portland to Pacific City on the coast, and it supports the American Lung Association.

I was not able to do my usual day before pre ride that "primes the engine" so I was a little hesitent about how my legs would feel. Since I had to do the two Dr. appt's I was lacking time on Friday and Friday night as I was going to try and get a short ride in I found that I had a problem with my cranks. So, I had to cut out my ride and run to a local bike shop to get my bike looked at. Turned out a bolt on my crank was no longer at the spec'd torque and that caused the issue. Then I rushed the rest of the evening to get everything ready for the ride.

Kristin and I picked up Weaver at 6:35 Saturday morning and she dropped us off at the starting point. We were on the road by 7:20. As I had suspected with no riding three days before the event, my legs felt like they had lead in them. They start off the century had a good climb after only 10 miles taking us up over 1,000 feet. The views were awesome, but it just felt too hard, but I knew I would have some sluggishness, so the goal for me was to make it and do it without killing myself, as I didn't want to ride 85 miles after spending myself on the first climb.

After the climb, Weaver and I had a very fun descent with some tight twisting switchbacks, which were rather fun. The next 20 miles were rather uneventful, just heavy legs and the winds. Oh yes, the winds sucked hard core. It was a constant head wind the entire way. The winds were WSW, and we were heading right in to the winds. When we would normally be going 20 to 21 MPH, we were going 15 to 16 mph. So much for my thoughts about beating my previous best century times.

About 40 miles in we were passed by a paceline of about 12 to 15 riders. The first 6 to 8 riders were holding a good paceline to cut the wind and the ramaining 6 or so were not holding a good line, but I was tired of fighting the wind so I decided to hop on the back end of this ugly paceline. After we were on this paceline for about 60 seconds someone did one of the cardinal sins in a paceline and he jammed on his brakes when there was no corner or any other thing to cause someone to logically slow down. I overlapped his wheel quick and I had to jam on my brake for a split second to slow down so I didn't hit him and crash. Weaver who was right behind me and at the very back did not have his hands near his brakes and he had no braking option. I didn't know this at the time, but all I felt was him hitting my wheel fairly solidly, then I hear him clip out of his pedals and then hit me again and then I hear this weird grinding on the pavement, which wasn't him going down, then about a second later I hear him hit the ground. Of course I turn around and check on him. All I could think at the time was thank goodness nobody was right behind him in the paceline, otherwise it could be worse than anything I was coming back to.
As I turn around, Weaver is still laying on the ground, not really moving, but not screaming, which is a good thing, since I knew he wasn't knocked out. A guy who saw the accident from behind also stopped to check on him. He had pretty good road rash on his left calf and his shorts by his left hip had some holes on them. The guy then told me what Weaver did just before the wreck. When I heard the weird grinding noise, that was him putting his foot down and pushing down with his foot and pulling up with his hands a bit, causing a high speed wheelie. The good thing was the head wind, had there not been a head wind and instead a tail wind or no wind we would have been going at least 23+ in a paceline with no wind and probably close to 28 with a tail wind, which would have made his wreck much worse. The road rash, although not good looking by any means, it wasn't too deep.

Weaver wiped off the wound, checked out his bike and he saved his bike (now there is where I like to see a guys priorities)! He got up and we rode to the next check point. At the next rest point we went to the First Aid station and he put on some antibiotic creams. At this point he found out he was also bleeding under his arm warmers, and under further inspection he had banged up his forearm pretty good. I must admit I admire him getting up and riding the rest of the way, and he rode strong too, and I don't think he ever complained. I guess they do make them tuff in the Army.

Around the 50 mile mark my legs started feeling fresh (Finally!) and I was feeling good. We ended up making a small paceline with one other guy and we were cruising at 20 mph for quite a while. He had a beautiful Colnago bike. After riding for 10 miles or so at this pace the guy we were riding with said that we were killing him and he couldn't keep up with us any longer. This suprised me as he looked really fit and he had some pretty strong looking legs. We had to stop at the next rest stop and he kept on going. Then a mile after the rest stop I ended up getting a flat. The next 30 miles were pretty much same ol' same ol' other than Weavers bike making this annoying click every time he pedalled and a reminder of how bad bike wrecks can be. We saw the aftermath of a bike wreck where one cyclist was being carried away in a stretcher on a fairly scary section of road. We are not sure exactly what happened, but it was a little sombering. It was interesting too, even though it caused some serious traffic problems, the cars were really nice to us the next few miles we were on that road. I think it was a reminder for everyone how unprotected a cyclist is.

At the next rest stop I was insisting to Weaver that he get one of the mechanics at the rest stop to check his bike and fix that damn ticking noise. Not only was it annoying, I was wondering if he was wasting energy because something wasn't right. It turned out his saddle was REALLY loose and that is what the ticking was. Can you imagine what would have happened if his seat came off and all that was left was the seat post!!! Can we say OUCH!!! So, off we go again, that was our last stop before the finish line and we had one hill left, as far as I could remember anyways.

Last year that hill killed me, it is 80 miles in to the ride and your legs are not exactly fresh. I know I am in better shape than I was this time last year and my training has been solid. Last year this hill killed me and I swore it would never end. This year I wanted to see how hard I could push it, not just make it to the top. The hill sheilded us after the wind, and that was a nice break. I ended up pacing with this other cyclist, who was a female (nope I am not ashamed she was in damn good shape and there are many women who can kick my butt on the bike). I was pushing my Heart Rate in to my lactic threshold most of the way up, averaging between 17 and 19 mph the entire way up and I sprinted once I saw the summit. By my book, I crushed this damn hill I had a hard time with last year. As I was at the top waiting for Weaver I heard someone go buy and so, only heart-break hill left. Then I remembered there is one more hill left. It is a really small hill about a 1/4 mile long but it is a brick wall. When I saw Weaver I had to break the news that this was not the last hill, in fact there was this ugly short hill left at the bottom of the hill. Once we were able to see this hill, it was scattered with people trudging up this thing, some walking their bikes, others about to fall over because they were going so slow. Yes, it is that steep. Last year, I thought I was going to have to walk it. Again, wanting to prove I was stronger than last year I had to crush this one. At the bottom I shifted to my 34x24 gear (not my lowest) and I stood up this hill and made it with no problem and I could have done a lot more. It really helped me see how much stronger I was from last year. The remaining 10 miles or so was just fighting the winds coming off the Pacific Ocean. I will post finish lines pictures later as we forgot the digital camera and we have to get our film camera developed.

Kristin met us at the finish line. It is always great to see her at the finish lines. She is so supportive of my "addiction" and to see her at the finish is always a great thing as she has worked hard towards all of my accomplishments as well. She is definately my biggest fan and I am very lucky to have such a great wife. I know some of you understand what it takes to spend so much time away from the house for a sport, but if I can put it in to perspective. Imagine your significant other working a full work week, being on call pretty much 24x7, travelling from time to time, working late nights, etc. then s/he is also gone 10 to 20 hours a week working out depending on these mystical workout schedules called phases. Then the extra time maintaining the bikes, updating workout calendars, etc. probably adds another 5 or so hours a week. Then, when the person gets an injury and they can't work out, you think, great now I will be able to see this person more. Well, that is true, but they get really grumpy because they are going through a withdrawl of their habit. So, now you have more time but they are as grumpy as can be. Kristin is a saint for being so supportive and I hope I can repay her some day. Although I do tease her that she is getting a husband upgrade now that I am losing weight and getting in better shape, and she now has a running partner when I am not injured.

Okay, this was way too long and I am not sure anyone will read this part of the post!

Back on the road again

I went for a 11 mile ride yesterday, which I took fairly easy, it was short and no big hills. At the end of the ride I felt really good. After stretching my legs out I noticed that my left knee was inflamed.
I woke up today and my leg felt fine. Okay, it wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good considering what it had been. The swelling seemed to be pretty minimal this morning. I decided to put some Icy-Hot on my knee this morning to hopefully help with the swelling and some tenderness around the knee.
Since my knee was not worse than yesterday, and quite frankly it felt better, I decided to go for another ride today, this time a little longer. I did a 22.5 mile ride today, but I had a strong head wind all the way out on the ride, and I always tend to push harder when there is a headwind, so I may have pushed it a touch too hard today. At about the 7 mile mark my knee started to hurt a little. Kristin was in class tonight so I didn't have the option to call Kristin to come pick me up, which was probably the best thing, looking back. I rode the rest of my route and I noticed that it is actually the muscles/tendons around my knees that appeared to be sore today, so maybe I will be okay tomorrow, or maybe I just trying to convince myself that my joint is okay? We will see how it goes tomorrow.

Injured

Last weekend was a great weekend. On Saturday Weaver and I did a 70 mile ride that had 4,500 feet of elevation gain, mostly in two sections with a short downhill in between the two sections, ride profile on the right. This was a hard ride, but whenever I asked my legs to do more, they responded and they had more in them than my aerobic system could handle. I felt extremely strong after the ride.

On Sunday Kristin and I did a trail run around Tryon Creek State Park. I ran pretty hard around Tryon Creek, and I felt really good on the run, and really strong. I was having a little bit of knee pain at the end, and I knew at the time that I definately went too hard, and I maybe would be a little sore. After the run, I did a 22 mile ride that was flat and pretty easy, just to help my legs loosen up.

On Sunday night, my left knee started to hurt, so I took Monday and Tuesday off. On Wednesday my knee was feeling better, with the occasional discomfort during the day, but nothing big. I knew I wasn't running this week, but I figured since cycling is so easy on the knees I could ride the bike. I hopped on my cycle trainer on Wednesday after work, and after 3 minutes, my left knee started hurting again so I stopped. I decided since I have an audit all week next week I wouldn't have much time to see a doctor if my knee was still hurting. So I went to see a doctor just in case, and hopefully get some magic pill that would allow me to ride this weekend. Well, the doctor said there was no magic pill, but my knee was still solid and nothing felt loose. He said he could definitely feel the fluid on my knee and that I needed to wait 48 to 72 hours before I would be able to ride again.

It has been 48 hours now, and I am not sure I will be ready in 72 hours, but I don't think I will be able to ride Sunday evening, so I will have to wait until Monday evening (if possible with the audit).

So, long story short, I am dieing a little inside as I am sitting here looking outside where it is dry and a little bit of sun is peaking out. And next week is supposed to be in the high 60's to high 70's for the next week. I am just hoping my knee will agree with me by Monday evening so I can get back on my training schedule.

Kitten Pictures

Some pictures of our kitten. Kristin, Sadie and I were all tired and we were just lazin' around.
Click on the picture to see more pictures, and once in the photo album, click on any picture to see it larger.

Pictures of Sadie

Wanna lose weight - eat more calories

Yep, that is what I said, but you need to read the rest of this post before even thinking about eying that pint of Ben and Jerry's. But I do have a lot of people who are close to me who are not exactly skinny (including myself) and I figured I would post this for everyone to look at and make their own conclusions.

Our bodies are extremely adaptable and generally they are smarter than we are. I have been kicking up my mileage, i.e. my calories burned has become much higher. I was finding it rather strange that I was not losing weight and I noticed that muscles and joints were becoming a little "achy". So, I started keeping close track of my calories and noticed that my calorie deficit was too high. Anyways, I won't go too far in to my own details, but I did some searching on the internet and found out that many people who are not athletic also starve their bodies.

You see, when you eat too few calories, you send your body in to "starvation mode" and many things start to happen. Your body starts to shut off some of the lesser functions of your body and it starts to store fat reserves to "save up" for the famine. In addition, it will also start using your muscle to provide fuel, which means you loose muscle mass. Over time, you just eat less, and your body tries to convert more to fat and the cycle just continues.

Before upping your calories, figure out your BMR by following this link. http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ This will tell you how many calories a day your body will use if you did nothing. Then you need to figure out approximately how many extra calories you burn each day by walking, working, etc. There are some sites to get some good ideas, here is one. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calories.htm A healthy way to loose weight is to consume about 500 calories fewer than you burn each day. This will give you slow, and healthy, weight loss at about 1 to 1.5 pounds per week and this should not put your body in to starvation mode.

I am not saying go pick up the next tub of ice cream, or even start eating a donut for breakfast. If you decide to eat more calories, please do not eat donuts, or ice cream, find good foods, like banana's, apples, mango's, oranges, etc to increase your calories. No need to lose weight and increase your cholesterol.

Obviously I am not a pro at this, but I am just putting down some of my own experiances and research, and maybe it will be helpful for others.

1,000 miles

Over the weekend I passed 1,000 miles since Jan 1 2007 on my bike.

As the months go on, I will start putting in 500 to 850/900 miles per month leading up to STP.

We have a new kitten

This is about two weeks old news, but we have a new kitten. We have named her Sadie. She is part Egyptian Mau, and part British Tortoise Shell. Egyptian Mau's are known to be extremely loving and loyal cats, which is far different than Tasha. Not that Tasha is a mean cat, but she is not what I would call an affectionate cat.
Sadie has really gotten comfortable here and she is extremely loving. She is still a kitten, but if she is not playing, she is either on us, or sleeping right next to us and at least making sure she can feel us while she sleeps.
Tasha and her are not exactly getting along yet, but they get better as time goes on, and hopefully it will continue to get better.

Cycling legs are under me again

As many of you know I have been training for STP again after having too much time off over the winter, I had some work to do to get back up to speed again. This weekend was the first time I have felt really comfortable and strong on the bike since mid July 2006.
Weaver and I went for a 52 mile ride and it was windy, which is always harder on me, maybe it is just mental, but it is always harder. Even with the wind, I was able to push hard the entire ride and I was able to keep respectable speeds for the ride. It feels so good to feel strong on the bike again. I know I have a long ways to go and a lot of room for improvement, but it is nice none the less.

The little things

I have been cycling for over year now and I am starting to do a lot of similar training rides to what I did last year. Part of this is just trying to work off the winter fat and some lost fitness.
While doing lots of these repeat rides, I come up on hills, sections of road, etc. that I rode all the time last year and I remember them being miserable sections of road. Some hills I at first couldn't climb without at least stopping once, or I was dying at the top of the hill.
Fast forward a year and a winter of virtually no riding, and getting back on the saddle, but still some fitness left. These places that used to be miserable are no longer much of anything to mention. The hills I used to barely be able to make it to the top, I now like to use them to stand up and push hard to the top to get my HR up and to get some good muscle built up while pushing hard up them.

So, where am I going with this? Well, I get too much time to think while on a bike sometimes, and sometimes I realize very crisply something about life. So, here are one of my on the bike thoughts.

People do not magically achieve their goals, by setting them and just getting there. So many people love to say, look how successful you are, or look how much you have lost, or congratulations on graduating, etc. Although these achievements, that once were goals, are just the combination of several to thousands of small goals accumulating to one large goal. If you can achieve your smaller goals, you will eventually meet your ultimate goal. Without meeting the smallest goals, you will never meet your ultimate goals.

An example; for me, it was to do STP last year, which was 206 miles. All last year, I thought I had one goal in mind, which was to do STP in one day, it really took me achieving several small goals, to make it to my achievement. These goals were things like riding 150 miles in a week, then 170... Ending up at around 400 miles a week! Without achieving my smaller goals, I could have never have made it to my final goal. Yes, this is a very simple theory, and no it does not take a rocket scientist to figure it out. However, it made me realize that nothing in life comes without a bunch of small goals, that eventually end up to meeting an achievement or goal. For me, I hope to no longer get intimidated by large problems, if there is a way to achieve the goal with smaller steps, I need to set these smaller goals, even the smallest goals to meet the smaller goals need to be thought of.

Urban ridings affect on average speed

I usually do not like doing hard effort training rides around the city if I can avoid it. I have always hated all the stop and go's of the traffic lights, and it never really lets me judge my previous performances against that day because the stop lights and slowing down, etc. throw off your stats.
I did a training ride yesterday and since it was late and I wanted a fairly flat route and it was dark out so the street lights can be nice at times. It seemed I couldn't get a break with all the stop lights. I decided to run some calculations of my ride because I have a device that records all of my riding data and this is possible (and yes, I can be this anal at times).
During yesterday's ride I had to come to a stop 7 times (which doesn't include all the times I had to slow down) and my average speed was 15.8. I knew while riding my average would be lower than it should be because of all the stopping and slowing down. The number of stops and slow downs was much more than I usually have on this ride.
Although my numbers are not scientific, they are thought out. Each time I come to a stop it takes a minimum of 60 seconds (usually closer to 70 seconds, but I am using 60 to keep from making myself look too good. :) )from the time I start slowing down to the time I am back up to speed. I then took the amount of time it would normally take me to cover the same amount of distance at normal speed as I took from slowing down to speeding up and it takes me 19 seconds to cover that distance at speed. This means I lose 41 seconds every time I come to a stop.
After making some corrections to the numbers in my route to figure out how well I actually did I was able to determine that had I not had those 7 stops (again, not factoring in any times I had to slow down, it is too hard to calculate) I would have averaged a speed of 17.5 mph vs. the 15.8 that was recorded.
As you can see, there is a big difference between riding in the suburbs and riding on farm roads and the effect on your average speeds.
I know many of you don't really care about this, but several of us cyclists do. So there! ;)

How many miles do I hope to ride this year?

I have been working on my training schedule for the year, and I know some of you are curious about what I am up to with my training.
According to my training schedule, I should ride over 4,000 miles by July 15th, which is Seattle to Portland. After Seattle to Portland, I will drop my training miles to start working on speed, and getting my longer distances at 100 miles or so, instead of 200. I would guess that by the end of the year, I will have ridden around 6,000 miles.

Unleashed

Kristin and I watched a Jet Li and Morgan Freem movie this weekend and we weren't sure what to expect. The movie, Unleashed, was a suprisingly good movie. If any of you get the chance to rent, or watch it on HBO, Unleashed is a movie worth watching.

Black Snake Moan

So, Kristin thinks Black Snake Moan is going to be a horrible movie and she really doesn't want to go to the movie with me. My opinion, how can a movie with Samuel L. Jackon be bad? I really like all of his movies. Then, to throw icing on the cake you get to see Christina Ricci in very minimal clothing for what appears to be most of the movie. Great actor with a hot actress, how can a guy go wrong?

So, since my usual movie buddy is not interested, I am going to make this in to a guys night out kind of thing. I am going to see if I can find some guys who may be interested and make a guys night out.

If you are reading this, and you are a guy (and someone I know), let me know if you would be interested in doing a guys night out, hopefully this Saturday night.

The weather irritates me

So, I was going to go out and have a nice ride with a buddy of mine this morning, but when I looked outside, it was just pouring out and it really demotivated me. I called up my buddy and he was feeling the same as me about riding on such wet roads.

I know I should have went outside and rode, but I am sick of the rain so I rode my cycle trainer and kept dry. I can't wait until we start having sunny weekends!!

Trying out some new on bike nutrition

A week or so ago I found an alternative to the nutrition I have been using. Although I loved the long term energy on the bike, I can not handle the taste anymore. While I was on the Worst Day of the Year Ride I found myself not drinking enough liquids because I could not stand the taste of the stuff I was drinking. While riding I decided that no matter how good the nutrition was, if I could not stand the taste and I was not taking in enough liquids I would run in to big problems on my longer rides. This caused me to set out and search for something new.
I found a company that uses high quality ingredients for their powders. In addition, they allow you to make your own custom blend (Flavor, Carb Blend, Carb quantity, Protein, Electrolytes, Amino Acids and caffeine for those who like caffeine, which I don't care for too much). Their website for anyone interested, it is http://www.infinitnutrition.us/. This is going to be great for me because I will no longer need to carry extra electrolyte capsules with me and I can make the taste as strong or weak as I want, with three different flavors, depending on how I order it. I just recieved my order today, and I am very excited to try it out. I hope that it provides me with good energy, and a better taste.

The start of my Blog

Well, here I go... Since my life gets really busy at times, I figured it would be a good idea to put what I have been up to online, in a blog. As much as I want to talk to each of you, I don't always have enough time to call everyone (and some of you are in other countries). I hope this blog will help everyone up to date as to what Kristin and I are doing.
You will find many things, ranging from my ramblings, pictures of what we have been up to along with descriptions.