Thursday, March 29, 2007

Attack of the snooze alarm

So I'm a chronic snooze-alarm abuser. The average day is anywhere from 15-30 minutes of hitting (ok slamming) the little button every 8 minutes. I think my record is 2 hours. Occassionally, I go a step further and convince myself that I'm truly awake and I shut the alarm off. About half the time when I do that, I was not really awake and I wake up some time later in a panic. Today was that day. I'm supposed to be up around 5 for work. On a day I'm riding it's important I get up close to that so that I can be dressed, fed, and on my bike before 6. Today when I finished the snooze dance and then the I'm awake so I'll shut the alarm off but I wasn't really awake so I fell back asleep game, it was 6 when I jumped up in a panic. After much deliberation, and the temperature this morning didn't help, I bagged it and proceeded to sit in traffic for an hour+ drive in. I should have just ridden anyways. I know that the snoozing game comes down to habit as well as not sleeping enough. But a) how do you break a habit that's so ingrained that you do it when you're semi-conscious, and b) I don't have the energy to get into a discussion of how my life is an endless circle of not having enough time and therefore suffering on sleep. Anywho... Hopefully I can get out of here early enough to head out after work. I don't even want to guess at the mood I'll be in if I get stuck tonight and get home too late.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Mmmmm, food

Soggy and chilly ride in this morning. I guess more grungy than soggy. No rain falling but plenty of spray coming up. Temp was 38 and I had to stop 5 miles in for a second layer of gloves. Nice and toasty after that. New distance with the crappy road taken out is 28.6 and I made it in just a touch faster. Kept it in the fun ring for the last 12 miles or so so the speed was up some. Breakfast was a breakfast cookie and coffee before the ride and then a banana, oatmeal with walnuts added, a muffin, and coffee at work. Lunch so far is a meatball sub and fries (file under bad) and there's sure to be at least one snack later. Temps in the 60's for the ride home so should be fun. Need to decide how much to rest up before Tufts on Sunday. I'd like to make a better showing than last year, but you have to have a special kind of race to contend at that one. Debating skipping Thursday ride in, but we'll see how I feel tonight. It really gets down to business at Sturbridge so I could afford to train through this one. Back to work (and food)...

Monday, March 26, 2007

Mini rant on...

So I can sum up the last 5 miles or so of Friday's ride home in one word: suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Ok, maybe that's an overstatement, but... I was feeling pretty good about myself because the wind was dead in my face the whole way home and I had made it well past the 50 mile point for the day feeling ok. I was sort of counting the miles until I came unglued and sure enough it happened with about 3 miles to go. I talked myself through the rest of it which went by very painfully and I finally roll into the driveway after a little over an hour 40. I don't know what even made me check, but as I'm rolling into the garage I check the rear wheel only to find out that a spoke had gone loose as a noodle so the wheel would not spin once around without being stopped by the brake. Well, that was some unneccessary suffering. No idea when it busted, but long story short the wheel is trashed. My hope is that it goes back to the cross race where I dinged it up and it was worse than they thought when they trued it back. Worst case scenario is that the very minor bend in the seat stay on the Lemond shredded the wheel. I may find that out tomorrow if I wreck another wheel. Biggest suckage comes from the fact that the wheel is out of warranty, rebuild cost is about $10 less than the cost of new, and even a 105 hub with an open pro rim is about $140 which I really hadn't planned on spending. If anyone out there has a 9-speed Shimano they want to sell me cheap, feel free to let me know.

Oh, and the blinky thing is long gone. Either I missed it or it's on the really crappy road that I skipped. New one will be firmly strapped to the frame tonight for the morning.

Midterm tonight... argh.

/Rant

Friday, March 23, 2007

28.25

That's the official mileage on the ride in. Left home around 6:05 and it took about 1.5 hours to get here. Couple sections of road that I may have to rethink because the pavement really sucks, but I think the mods will add distance. Not sure I want to add more than a mile or so, but we'll see. Might try one change on the way home.

It ended up being an absolutely beautiful morning to be riding (I know G would say every morning is beautiful to be riding in). 2 thin long sleeve layers and a wind jacket and I was too warm. Almost lost the jacket at one point, but I kept hitting cold patches on the back roads so I kept it. I'll feel almost naked on the way home with the almost 60 degree temps. One mishap of the trip was that the brand new blinky tail light is gonzo. Had it clipped onto the loop on the seat bag and apparently that wasn't good enough. I've been telling people I hope it survived the fall and didn't get run over because it will make it easier to find on the way home :) I've accepted that it's $20 down the drain so we'll see if I get lucky.

It's going to take a while to figure out the ride day diet. Went with the standard breakfast which probably wasn't enough and I was probably low on fluids due to being overdressed so I just haven't felt right all morning. Just scarfed some pizza and gatorade and I'm thinking about where more food will come from. May hit the caf for round 2 or maybe go to the coffee shop for caffeine and fat/sugar. There's always the 4 pounds of trail mix I have left...

Ok, I'm supposed to be working through lunch to get out of here on time...

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Nutritional Information

OK, 2 reactions to this article: 1) Is anyone actually surprised by this? and 2) Did I really need to see the actual numbers? I know that my diet sometimes leaves much to be desired, but I have 2 theories on that: I'm content with categorizing foods as "bad" and "not bad" and making conscious decisions based on that and also one of my favorite book quotes "If the fire's hot enough, anything will burn, even Big Macs." To steal an offer from solo... free leadout to anyone who can name the book.

Time to get back to work I suppose. Need to go collect my free small iced in a bit from DnD.

Nutritional Information

OK, 2 reactions to this article: 1) Is anyone actually surprised by this? and 2) Did I really need to see the actual numbers? I know that my diet sometimes leaves much to be desired, but I have 2 theories on that: I'm content with categorizing foods as "bad" and "not bad" and making conscious decisions based on that and also one of my favorite book quotes "If the fire's hot enough, anything will burn, even Big Macs." To steal an offer from solo... free leadout to anyone who can name the book.

Time to get back to work I suppose. Need to go collect my free small iced in a bit from DnD.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

Ah, the joy of Monday morning. Being away last week and then being jet lagged, I think I had some excessive paranoia about getting up this morning so I was awake at 3:45, then at some point the middle one came in to inform us that he was going to the bathroom, then I was pretty much awake at 5 even though I lounged in bed for a while. Legs are pretty much cooked today from 4+ hours on the trainer between Friday night and yesterday. Climbing repeats during a 2 hour session Saturday and then a high cadence/increasing resistance workout yesterday didn't help. If all goes as planned, I'll ride in sometime later this week and then hit Wells Sunday. The bike is almost completely set up now... I'm just finishing up a light mount that I had to rig up because I couldn't get it to sit right on the bars. Pictures when it's finished.





Ok, Monday humor:



Snow cleanup actually sucked a little less than I expected Saturday. Got the oldest to help me shovel the neighbor's steps and our back steps so he got paid and he was thrilled. Of course his brother then wanted to be paid for dutifully kicking all the icicles off the cars... he was so cute about it we had to give in.

Anywho... I need to search for some productive energy. It wasn't at the bottom of my bowl of oatmeal so maybe it's hiding in the coffee...

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Oh the horror...

Well I've reached the point of blog neglect that I am starting to get all sorts of crap from both of my readers :) I guess it's time to update everyone. I'm actually quite pleased to say that I am currently sitting outdoors in San Jose enjoying the very pleasant 75ish degree weather. While 55+ back in Bahstun is quite nice for March, 75 and palm trees still wins. I'm not a big fan of the left coast in general, but this is kinda nice. Speaking of this other coast, flying in here from Vegas on a nice clear day I realized that I do have to come back at some point with a bike to ride. Looks like some beautiful roads up through the hills and farm land.

So what's going on you ask... well... training is going sort of ok and I've at least reached the point where I have a race schedule that my wife has bought into. It's all subject to change, but at least it's a goal. I believe I'm heading to Forrest Park Sunday, then maybe Wells the next week, then definitely Tufts for a good ole whooping. This past weekend I went all in with the long ride kickoff for the season and put in 72 miles between the 2 days with 46 of it Sunday. Turns out that once we hit midseason, Wells is a very tolerable 23 or so miles from home so I could legitimately ride down there, suck some wheels in the B's and then ride home. We'll see if that plan ever gets put into use. Sadly I am losing the weekend momentum as I am bikeless out here in San Josey so it's just running for a couple days.

At home, the next phase of the never ending quest to turn our shack into less of a dump kicked off yesterday with Dad replacing the staircase to the basement and putting up the first couple walls. I sooooooooooooooooo wish I had the stones to quit my job and go into business with him so I didn't have to hire him to do work like this, but it will probably never happen so I just have to admire his hard work while I type away.

Ok, so I should probably catch up on emails some more even though everyone at work is long gone. This trip is panning out well and I'm getting to see some friends that I see rarely. Lunch with one today and dinner with some more tonight. Tomorrow it's a long day with more conference in the a.m. and then the long trek home starting around noon. Maybe if I get bored in the Vegas airport on the way back I'll copy KL and throw something up here. Till then...

Friday, March 02, 2007

Blech!

What a crappy day. Actually I shouldn't be bitching because there's been lots of sun lately and the last two days were beautiful (for Feb/March). The issue is that my office window faces almost directly south so I currently get a very nice view most days of the sun going left to right over the buildings down the street. I also get here early enough that I get to see most of the cycle. On a day like today, part of my brain thinks it never gets past 6:30 or 7 because the grayness across the way never goes away. Add to that it being Friday and you get me posting blog stuff in the middle of the morning instead of being productive. How about some humor to try and make things better:



Ok, I feel just a little better. Anywho... I suppose I'll do something. Riding is going to be screwed up this weekend because we're going "away" (to Hartford) for a show Saturday night. I'll probably be on the gerbil wheel at odd hours trying to get some time in.