XTR Birthday

Cindy got me a beautiful set of XTR pedals for my birthday. Things have been a little...tense between us this year. I have this uneasy feeling whenever we are together that she is going to take a baseball bat to my head so the pedals were a nice surprise. I am not really a new XTR kind of person, I am more of a very used off ebay vintage XT person. It was nice getting parts that didn't need to be re-built, re-packed, and re-engineered. I saved another 25 grams.

My Favorite Blogs

Emilie has dance practice tonight, Allison doesn't. Allie and I alternate between Starbucks and Jungle Java on Wednesday nights while we wait for Em. As I was signing in at Jungle Java, Allie saw a friend and suggested I get my computer from the truck. This was her sweet way of saying she would rather play with her friend. I spend a lot of time drinking coffee and waiting.

I cannot think of anything to post tonight so I decided to add a gadget that lists my favorite blogs. I have been reading blogs for about a year now and still feel a little creepy reading other people's blogs, like riding a bike at night and looking into the lit up picture windows of houses as you pass. I am going to take this one step further and comment on my favorite blogs. I don't even know if this is socially appropriate but I really do follow some cool blogs so I thought I would share. I suspect that most of these authors don't read my blog; I don't take it personally.

Morocity was the first blog I ever read. I started mine right after reading it. Di does a good job using pictures and crossing t's and dotting i's. She is a motivated girl.

CBGD is an insightful blog. Bob is living with this very sad, degenerative disease and his observations about losing the ability to do things we all take for granted causes me to whine much less than I normally would.

I like The Loneliness of a Part Time Runner because the author lives in Whales and, other than his use of some verbiage, he seems like a typical American endurance athlete. He is thinking about doing some crazy ass 60 mile running race through mountains this summer.

Surly Girl and MTB Vegan race bikes but they also seem to have such a good time with the social part of bicycling. creATE and athlEAT focus on cooking healthy. Even though I don't really cook, I do like to read about it. Podium Quest and Living the Dream are expert racers that I don't really know but I have probably seen at local races. They each have a killer bike collection.

Trainin' on a Prayer and Adventures and Excursions both live in Indiana and I believe they ride together. They are so young and so gosh darn chipper. I wish I took cycling as serious as they do when I was their age. Damn I would be fast.

The Sometimes Almost Fictional Life of Penny just cracks me up. She is a real writer from Ann Arbor. Lauren is a real writer too. You can just tell.

Danielle Musto, Dirty Picasso Ride, and BG Phone Home are the three best blogs in Michigan. They are all from the Grand Rapids area. Must be something in the water there. Single Track Chronicles is from the West side too, he is a regular guy, very refreshing.

Crossy...very cool.

Mary Sunshine...very motivated.

Breaking on the Wheel, one of my favorites. Matt works very hard to train without taking time away from his kids. And all his pictures are incredible because he lives in Colorado and you can't take a bad picture in Colorado.

Coyote Rolling. Wow. Smart and dark. Sometimes smart and really funny. Never know what you will get when you click on this blog.

And those are my nominations for blog of the year. Thank you.

Wasting Time

I think I got a BlackBerry just because I come very close to going insane when I have idle time. I can now keep it together waiting in line at Kroger's since I can check email and text the kids. I have four hours to kill right now while I wait for the girls to finish dance and even having my lap top hardly takes the edge off the fact I'm wasting time. I could go home but it is an hour drive each way; it's a judgement call. I have errands I can run so I guess I will stay put on this side of town.

I had to work really hard to get the kids out of bed in time for church this morning. I don't remember questioning the merits of religion with my parents like my kids do with me, but I'm sure mom and dad knew what I was thinking and they were just too horrified to discuss it. It's always chaos Sunday mornings and today the kids had to pack their bags for dance before we left. We went from church to dance and now I'm at Starbucks. This is going to be a long, drawn out post with no real point because I am board and jacked up on coffee. It will likely get buried with all my other unpublished posts that have no point, or make me sound bitter. I suppose there is always some type of a point and really, I'm not bitter, just anxious.

Alright, I now have only 3 hours and 45 minutes to kill. What is eating at me is I happen to be only 5 miles from my parents' house. They are in Florida but one of my bikes is in their garage here in Michigan from when I exchanged it for their car half way through my ill timed ride last Sunday. It is beautiful out. I could have very easily thrown some riding clothes in the truck this morning and rode after I dropped the kids off at dance. I haven't gotten the hours in riding this year as I did last year, and blowing chances like this is just unacceptable. Last night I compared screen prints of my February 2009 riding hours to my 2010 hours just to torture myself. I clearly need to work harder. I have long since given up my goal of placing in an Expert race but I don't want to embarrass myself. Hum...when one's stated goal for a race season is not to embarrass themselves, it might be time to reconsider what the heck they are doing racing in the first place. I started racing BMX 30-some years ago which morphed into road racing then mountain bike racing. I think I forgot how to just ride a bike.

Public Service Announcement

I just noticed http://www.iceman.com/ announced that online registration for the 2010 Iceman Cometh Race starts Monday, March 1st at 11:00 (EST). This is a very cool race I encourage everyone to sign up for. It is limited to something like 3,700 racers and it fills up quickly. And now that I posted this on the Internet, I’m confident the two or three people that occasionally read my blog will cause it to fill up that much faster.

In addition to the Iceman, I really wanted to do the Lumber Jack 100 this year. In December I told everyone who would listen I was going to do this race. I emailed people I ride with to remind them when registration was and posted something on Face Book to make sure no one forgot to register. I forgot to register. It filled up in just one day. That’s okay, I’m not sure I am capable of racing 100 miles anyway. I better not screw up registering for Iceman.

Losing Weight Part 3

Earlier this month Em let Allie and I hang out with her and her friends at Toco Bell. Anymore this is a honor. But Toco Bell didn't sound appetizing. For a bunch of reasons, I have no appetite at all, which is very cool because last year at this time I was starving myself like a high school cheerleader trying to get down to my racing weight. And the flu this weekend pushed me right into my ideal weight range. If only I can get the flu a few more times between now and the Yankee Springs Time Trial in April, I will have an excellent power to weight ratio.

This morning one of the mechanics asked me if I was working out because he said my shoulders looked broader. I am not quite sure how I feel about getting a compliment like this from another guy but whatever, I just want to do a good time trial.

Worse Day of the Year Ride

I was really looking forward to the Worst Day of the Year Ride yesterday. It was very nice out and I am trying to be a little more social. More people showed up for this ride than I expected.

I wasn't feeling great. I was achy all over but I worked out very hard the day before so this made sense. I think I have my riding clothes down to an art but I had the shakes. It was suppose to be just a social ride but I was really working hard to stay in the group I latched onto. Bill was the only person I knew in my group, but looking around I didn't think I should be trying this hard to keep up. It felt like I had the flu but that was impossible because I don't get sick. I haven't gotten sick since I lived at my parents home some 25 years ago. Sure, the kids had the flu this weekend, and I didn't bother to get a flu shot this year, but I couldn't catch it; I am immune to such things. About 15 miles into the ride I realized I really did have the flu. There was no way I was going to make it back. I was only a mile from my parents' house so I gave it everything to catch Bill, gave him the keys to my truck so he and Dan could get back, and told him I was going to get my dad's car and drive myself home.

I made it home, barely, and curled up and waited to die. So this is what it's like to be sick. Kind of sucks. The kids are just getting over the flu so they were content to just stay on the couch which worked out well for me because I was in no condition to interact with them. I was waiting for Bill to stop by with my truck so I could drive him to his house. I didn't know how I was going to do it, I could hardly move. I woke up around 8 PM and called Bill to see where he was at. He told me he dropped the truck off at my house and rode his bike home since he figured I was in no condition to drive. He was right and has no idea how much I appreciate that.

I called in sick for the first time in my life. I am watching Canada take on the USA in Curling. I have hit rock bottom.

Back to Normal (?)

I put my Yakima rack back on my truck. I am driving Bill (AKA $40 Bill) and Dan (AKA Cyclo-Dan) to the Third Annual Worst Day of the Year Ride. This is a 28 mile ride through Ann Arbor that somehow involves chili and beer. This ride was originally scheduled for January 23rd but it got rained out. Trying to schedule, in advance, an organized group ride on the worse day of the year is a fickle thing.

The weather has been great lately. Renee invited me to ride with her and a running buddy at Island Lakes today. They ran the trail earlier in the day. Whatever. The trail was great; snowmobiles pressed the snow into a perfect riding surface. The sun was out, no wind, and it was 28 degrees. Any warmer and it would be slushy, any cooler and it would get a bit dicey. Tomorrow could very well be the best day of the year.

Matt's blog inadvertently talked me into riding outside last winter. I had a great time and I think I was a better rider in the Spring because of it. This year I got a little soft and needed Bill and Renee to coax me off my trainer and onto a trail. I feel much better now that I am out and riding.

I know this sounds sappy, no, not even sappy, just stupid but putting the rack back on my truck made me feel...normal. I feel like I am my blindly optimistic self again.