summer schedule

I'm still not completely in my summer swing yet. Possibly part of that is due to Liz not starting work until last week. I've found that if I don't have a pretty riding structured plan for the week, I "forget" to get out and ride. I'm hoping that following this week, I'll get into a routine. 

I'm thinking about racing in Fort Wayne on July 11. I've never done that before and find it oddly scary. I'll probably see how my training goes over the next few weeks before making a firm decision. 

My bike was i the shop last week and I think they solved the clicking noise in the headset. It only took two times taking to them, but they are very friendly and helpful. The shop really does earn the loyalty of its customers. 

I really like Tony Kanaan, and they always have tv commercials of him doing these crazy pushups on tv. To cut to the point, when I try to do push ups Tony Kanaan style I pull some weird hip muscle which is annoying. I can still bike just fine, but it is annoying.

That's all to today

Here is a picture of Tony.

Bright Red

Liz and I spent a few hours tilling and planting our garden this afternoon. We are halfway done. All of the seedlings are in the ground. The other half of the garden will happen once the ground drys out from the rain showers we got today. 

While in the garden I got hot and took off my shirt. I thought that because it was already 3:00pm, partly cloudy, and raining at times there wouldn't be any problems. I was dreadfully wrong. My back is tomato red (minus where my overalls were covering my back).  Every time Liz looks at me she makes weird noises, so I guess I look pretty bad from behind. We got Aloe at Walmart, so hopefully it will do wonders. 

Stored KiloCalories

Liz and I went to visit her grandparents in Decatur yesterday and today. We ate a lot of food. I'm not sure I'll need to eat any time in the next few days. Food ranged from pies (rhubarb and coconut cream), baby back ribs, blackberry pancakes, bacon, eggs, potatoes, Burgers, Hot dogs, and more. It was all so tasty that I couldn't help but have second on everything (to be polite of course). I decided that this was really part of my bike training. If I'm going to ride lots of miles, I'll need to be able to consume hundreds of thousands of calories per day. 

I guess now that I'm back home, I'll have to start biking them off.

Saturday I went for a 45 mile ride in the morning. It went ok. I pulled a butt muscle (on the right side) of some kind at mile 17 so that slowed me down and made it a bit uncomfortable. It's feeling a little better today. I might go for an easier ride tomorrow and see how it feels. 

I have to take my bike into the shop again next week. My headset makes an annoying clicking sound that I hope they can fix. It's a little annoying since I already took it in once to have them look at it and give a a 6 month check up, and I think they didn't remember to look at the clicking problem. I'm also going to look a buying a fancy new seat with some of my birthday money that people gave me. The shop said that if I brought in my bike they would like me try it out before buying it. 

I've started riding early in the mornings to avoid the heat of the day. If I get out of the door by 6:30, I can be home by 8:00 ish which is just right for working at mfri. The regular cows, horses, and other far animals that I pass are more active in the morning than in the heat of the afternoon. It's more fun to watch them when they are walking around.

That's all from here tonight.

Paid in pain

I was so tired that I didn't go for my bike ride after work today, but I paid for it dearly when I had to use my spinerval dvd later on in the night. It is a solid workout, that really makes my legs scream. Liz supported my effort by napping on the couch. She would wake up once in awhile to ask if i was dying, and then encourage me after I promised her that I wasn't biking towards the bright light. 

I guess this shows that cycling indoors even trumps working on writing up my masters for publication. haha (but not really because it has to get done quickly and I'll only pay for my slacking nature later)

Just about bed time

Wow. It is summer time, and I still have been working full tilt on research stuff. At least I don't have to go to class for the next few months. Work at mfri has been stressful since there have been a series of deadlines that my team has had to meet. I think after next week it will get a bit better. 

The nice thing about summer is that there is certainly more time for riding. Contrary to popular perception, my lack of blogging does not mean I have stopped biking. Two days ago I went out for a 50mile ride. I ended up cutting 10 miles off because of a nasty wind, but I was still pretty happy with the ride. Yesterday I did a short but fast ride of about 16 miles. The Wabash river is very high so it is fun to bike along it and see what is flooded and what isn't. 

I took today off, but Liz and I went to play tennis. Liz has also been making me go lift with her in the mornings. Not exactly my cup of tea, but maybe it will help me somehow. I don't think it can hurt. 

I have to work at Alpine all day tomorrow so I hope I have time fit in a ride before dark. We shall see. Liz has gone to bed, and I think I'll follow suit.

Weekend ride

I got to go for a ride outside today. It was super windy. Going with the wind I hit 32 mph, but then I had to come back into the wind and I was struggling to go 12 mph. It was still a good ride though. I was glad that I went.

I have to take my bike into the shop. I think some of the bolts in my headset loosened up, so not I get some nasty creaking when I ride around. I was going to do it myself, but I'm not exactly sure what the problem is, and I guess the bolts all need to be loosened and tightened in a specific order. I'd rather just have someone at the shop help me. 

Now I'm doing homework and watching LOTR.

Two months later

Bwahaha.. I haven't posted for a more than a month, so here is the run down

I was training hard until I got sick over break (Thanks Liz....I'm not bitter..really). It may be in the top 10 colds I've ever had in all time. That set me back for a a few weeks. Then, this thing called school and a my masters came along. Oh... and it rained a lot. I was tired. The earth was spinning in the wrong direction, and flames were falling from the sky. Obviously, it was just impossible to ride. 

Anyway, I'm back on the bike now. I had a nice ride this morning. I didn't go far or very fast, but it went and that is all that counts sometime.