Afternoon ride

I got home from school today and decided to go for a 20 mile up tempo hill ride. I did two of the larger hills that can be found in West Lafayette. Nothing all that interesting happened with the exception of riding past the Purdue Club ride. I think they were doing a slower paced ride today for new group members, because I passed them without any problem. It was still the highlight of the ride. Liz is mocking me for not doing my homework so I should get to work.

Rest Day

I want to quit school and sleep. I had a planned rest day to help the legs rest.


Picture of sleeping baby.

Not much here

School has started with a bang (in so many different ways ;), but I have still been able to get out both Monday and Tuesday. On Monday I surprised Liz and myself by getting out of bed at the crack of dawn to make a 7:00am group ride on campus. Over all it was really fun, but I was so cold. There were times when I actually thought that I wouldn't be able to ride safely if I didn't tone down my shivering. Luckily, one of the group members was over prepared and let me borrow a sleeveless wind breaker. I was still pretty cold, but I do think that it helped. I may be purchasing a cheap long sleeve jersey (also much to Liz's surprise) so that I can keep going to the morning rides.

Today I went for a solo 30 miles. It had been a pretty productive day (with some of those bangs along the way), and I wanted to reward myself by leaving campus a half hour earlier and getting a nice hard ride in. It was windy, so I went out 15 miles into the wind then came back. The turn around point was the craziest part since you go from the wind howling quiet loudly in your ears, to pretty much dead silence since you are suddenly going with the wind.


That's about all from the bike realm.

Liz and I both went to the dentist for some dental work. It's funny how much money we pay for them to inflict pain on us. However, now I have a new cavity free filling. The hygienist also gave me my routine scolding for drinking coffee (because I'm sure someone who I see once every six months is going to get me to change a habit that I enjoy...Bwahahaha)

Sunday ride

My ride schedule is all messed up. I was planning a big ride on Friday but it rained all day and I just had a rough day at school. I then thought I would do in on Saturday, but liz and I ended up sailing in a regatta at lake freeman (we did pretty well considering how often we practice and race). Anyway, I got out this afternoon for a quick ride. I was going to go 20 miles, but then I saw another cyclist in the distance and went into chase mode. I got so busy chasing that I forgot to make a turn and ended up only going 16.5 miles. I caught him after about 10 minutes of power pedaling. He hooked into my draft and kept up with me after I passed him. When I stopped and waited for a red light, he decided to run through it and keep going. I turned right and decided that I had won. I'm going to try and catch the Purdue club ride tomorrow to see if it will be fun or not.



Here is the fictional medal that I won in my head by getting to the red light first. The other cyclist was disqualified for not following the rules.

Deer in the road

This morning I went for a relatively short ride. I think my legs may still be recovery slightly from my fun with the undergrad cyclists. I also am hoping to put in a longer distance tomorrow. Anyway, I went 15 miles which means I was only out of the apartment for 45 or so minutes. This means that I left after Liz left for her run and got home before she did. She's convinced that I never really left the apartment.

The only fun think that I saw was a deer in the middle of the road. I had to yell and make clicking noises at him to get him to wake up and move out of my way. I got pretty close to him. He had no friends. Also as a garbage truck was driving towards me it decided to pull onto my side of the road and park right in front of me. At first I thought it was going to run me down, but then it stopped. I had to stop too since I couldn't see around it and that annoyed me.

Picture of deer crossing road (West Lafayette doesn't have that many trees. In fact, I don't think that central/north Indiana has that many tree total.)

Oh the irony of it all

Of course the minute I break down and make a new blog they give me my old one back. I guess the 7th time I complained to them made the difference. Now I have to figure out which blog to continue to update. Please see the poll on the side and vote if you have a preference.

for everyone's viewing pleasure:


http://ironlegs85.blogspot.com/

No one owns me

Pictures from August 4, 2009 hidden so that not all must see them.

Here is a picture of my biking shirt. I have a blue and red one. Notice that there is no huge logo across my chest. This is really fine by me. I'm certainly not passively claiming to be on some pro team when I'm obviously not.

However, if someone out there did want to sponsor me, I'll gladly paste their logo all over my body. Seriously, I'll paint my face and claim their product tastes great even if it tastes like wet cardboard. Until that happens (or until someone buys me a jersey as a present someday), I remain a tabula rasa.




Tabula rasa means blank slate and often used by behaviorists in psychology. See John Watson

The Purdue Cycling Club

Today I took a fun little step forward in my biking goals. I showed up for the Purdue Cycling club rides. There were three other riders who were decked out in Purdue cycling gear. Thankfully, they were doing a recovery ride so I was able to keep up. I took second place on the hill sprint and fourth place in the flat sprint. For the flat sprint I kept up for about half of it, but they all of a sudden they switched into some extra gear that I certainly don't have. I ate their dust and had to work pretty hard to catch back up even after they had slowed back down. I was able to take my turn at the front and take some few pulls. Overall, it went really well (my legs are super tired and a bit sore now). They tried to recruit me onto the team and I basically said no. I don't think they believed me, but they were super nice about everything. I was glad that I got to ride with three riders who were all obviously stronger than me.


Here is the Purdue bike jersy. I don't find the design all that intimidating. I guess the rider in the jersey takes care of that. I couldn't find a picture of the corresponding Purdue bib/shorts but they exsist.

New blog

This is the new, almost as good, blog in the face of the losing my old one (a pox on blogger spam bot). Even though many of my posts have been lost, I'll just start from today and see what happens. I'm not sure the name is as good. It seems a little like a newspaper to me, but I really couldn't think of anything better. I'm really biking in West Lafayette, but that seemed a bit to long. Not being creative enough to generate a new title is partially why there was not a new blog sooner. The other was the chance that my other blog would be restored (a pox on the blogger spam bot).

Well I'm all out of poxs for the moment. I haven't ridden yet today, so there is a chance that there will be a followup post later in the day or tomorrow.

For those that were following my previous blog:

- I did make 300miles in one month
- I rode with a group of cyclists and had a fairly good time
- I've gotten up to 35-38 miles for my longest Friday super-long rides (at least that what I call them and how they feel to me)
- I joined the Purdue cycling email list but haven't gotten up the nerve to go ride with them yet