Slightly Stiff Summary - Part One

Well... we made it. It took a hell of a lot longer than usual and longer than planned, but we did it... again. My 5th RTB is in the books and I have to say that it was as fun as usual. Here's somewhat of a recap and I'll post the leg summary in the next post:

Our start time this year was 11:20 a.m. on Friday which was unusual because we had a slower predicted time than last year, but this was almost an hour later than last year's start. I think it was partially due to the large number of teams and might have been because we were a veteran team so our risk of being really off from plan was lower. The drive up was uneventful and we arrived with plenty of time to sign in and get runner 1 ready. Funny story from the way up: We got close and we suddenly saw at least a dozen runners running on Route 93 S against traffic! Sucks when you take a wrong turn on leg 2 of the race. I wonder how far they got before they realized it was wrong. Oh, and their leg was already over 9 miles without a detour... sucks to be you kids. I was in van 2 so we headed out to get gas, kill time, and hang out where we were starting. We finally got into action at something like 4 p.m. and the fun was on. Lowlight from our first set was my lovely wife coming in with her leg covered in blood. Turned out she stepped in a pothole and went down, banging her knee pretty good. To her credit, she shrugged it off as a momento of the event and still ran every step of her 15 miles for the race.

We had about a 2.5 hour break at the next starting point for us and we all tried to doze a little until midnight when we got going again. It didn't really work, but we tried. Literally just as we were taking the handoff for our second set, the rain started (it wouldn't be RTB without it). I was probably the most fortunate as most of my leg was in sort of just a refreshing drizzle. A couple people got totally poured on. We finally finished up this set at sometime after 6. We hit a DnD for some snacks and then it was off to our "big" block of sleep. Hysterical story from DnD... we're in there and a guy comes in impatiently asking if he can cut the line. We notice he's wearing the wrist band (baton) from the event. Turns out it was his turn to run and he was cruising by and thought an iced coffee sounded good. He grabbed it and continued on and we saw him a mile up the road with a huge smile carrying his iced coffee. We headed off to our next starting spot and I had to pull over part way there to get someone to drive since I hadn't slept yet and was declaring myself dangerous to drive. We got there safe and then I finally got a massive hour and a half of sleep which, by the way, made all the difference.

By now the team as a whole was about 45 minutes behind plan due to a number of things including the rain, some murderously hard legs, and some digestive issues going on with some people in my van. This event really is a matter of, shall we say "plumbing management" and it can be a truly miserable experience if you don't keep your stomach and the ins and outs that are connected happy. We started up again at maybe 11:30 a.m. for set 3, but 2 of us still had 2 legs to go since the team was a runner short. By the time we got rolling, the rain had stopped, the sun was coming back out, we were getting close to done, and the conversations had just turned ridiculous as they only can with a bunch of really exhausted runners.

The way the last 3 legs were working was that van 2 finished our 3rd set, we handed back to van 1 for one leg, then they handed back to us for the final 2. It's all part of our carefully orchestrated plan to get the right people doing the extra work while taking advantage of the rules on dropping people. The downside is that if people get hurt at the end, the few who are left in are screwed and they also get very short rest. I basically finished my 3rd leg, toweled off, put dry running clothes on, drank and ate as much as I comfortably could, and then had to loosen up to go again. I think my total break was less than an hour and a half.

The sight of the ocean in this event makes you feel like you could run another several miles and this year was no different. I had the final leg and I was just waiting for that bend in the road when it's just there in front of you. The bad part was that as soon as I got onto the boardwalk I could also see ALL the way down the beach to where I had to go. I just tried to keep chugging and prayed every step that the twinges in my quads wouldn't go into full cramp mode. I did make it, but not without one final "event". Since teams like to cross the line together, they started giving the final runner a baton at the entrance to a chute that they set up so nobody could sneak across and pretend like they were done. Well I was hauling since I could see the line and when I got to the guy handing them out, he wasn't ready with one. I got by him and he yelled to take one so I had to turn back a little to get one. The problem was that the chute was along a sand dune and there was this shrub thing on the right side of it. Between turning back hurriedly and then spinning around again, I had wandered off the path a little and was literally in the shrub. I just high stepped it through, but ended up with scratches all over my right leg from it. Oh well... it'll be a longer lasting reminder.

Ok, fingers need a break and then I'll type up the report of my legs.

The most interesting RTB yet?

This year is going to be my 5th (and likely final) year at Reach the Beach. Every year has been fun and interesting for a different reason, but obviously all fun enough to keep me coming back. After a while though, the novelty of the event wears off and the magnitude of the prep work and the event itself starts to weigh on you. I think I've hit that point. That said, I can already see stories developing that I'm sure will be very funny later. We currently have 3 of the 11 who have informed the team that they are injured, out of shape, or otherwise unsure of themselves. We also have I believe the most lopsided "mixed" team I've ever been on. There are 7 women and only 4 of us guys and the way we split up the vans has me in a van with 5 women... for over 24 hours... who are all in great shape... Oh, and one of them is my lovely wife :) I'm actually very excited to have her there this year (and no I'm not just writing that because I know she'll read this). Her joining the team has been about a year and a half in the making and I'm excited for her to see first hand what all the stories are about. I'm actually very proud of her since she's a self-proclaimed non-runner and the prospect of doing something like this even 5 years ago would have been absolutely absurd to her. I'm sure I'll tell you 100 more times, but good job babe.

So bring on the lack of sleep, the inevitable "van smell", the sore muscles, the loss of all modesty, the port-o-john lines, the screwed up stomach, the main streets and backroads of New Hampshire, and the events that won't be funny until later. Oh yah, now I remember why I keep going back...

Teaser

Now THAT'S RTB Training Kids

For those not familiar with RTB it's a 200+ mile relay that goes from the White Mountains down to Hampton Beach. You have a team of up to 12 people and one person is on the road at all times once you start. What it equates to is 24+ hours of exercise laden nonsense with your friends. Because the race runs in mid September, the weather is a crap shoot. Two of the 4 years I've done it, we were in the remnants of hurricanes, one so bad that the after race party was basically cancelled because Hampton Beach was under water. Another year we had showers and I got poured on. Last year there was a brief sprinkle just to remind me that it was RTB. With our recent weather, I haven't run in the rain in longer than I can remember... until today. I headed out at lunch for a nice little stay-loose run and when I went out it was cloudy and sprinkling... it was kinda nice. It wasn't too cold so I was having fun. Well progressively over the 28.5 minutes, the rain got worse to the point that when I finished it was almost a little hard to see. Now that I got that out of the way, I am officially prepared for the race.

The perfect way to start a Monday

Hey Rich,

I am heading out to pick up your frame and I think your headset should arrive today. If your headset arrives I can have the frame ready to pick up tonight. I will let you know after 1pm if the HS arrives.

Sincerely Mike-- Mike Flanigan
ANT 24 Water St.
Holliston, MA. 01746508-429-3350
"Home of the Boston Roadster"
www.antbikmike.com

Holy S, I Locked My Son in His Pants

Funny story of the day from yesterday's back to school adventure...

I talked to my wife after the boys got out and I asked how they did. She said fine, except the middle one lost his belt. Lost his belt? Yup, he left it on the sink when he washed his hands and forgot it there. Huh? So then I start thinking... that's right, the poor kid has never worn a belt in his life before yesterday. It didn't occur to me when I was helping him get dressed that at some point during the day, he'd have to pee and suddenly realize "Holy crap, I'm locked in my pants." Evidently, he figured it out, but took the whole thing off in the process. The whole thing was actually a good lesson for the kindergarten teacher and she said maybe she'll start covering how to operate a belt with the boys during the first day or two :) Who'd have thought this would be a hazard of school uniforms.

Oooh look, updated sidebar --->

Did some updating last night in the about me section. I may occassionally have more people than my sister and in-laws reading here so I figured I'd throw some nuggets out there. Also planning some linkage updates to give proper call outs to the skyscraping freaks like myself. If all those little bastards are going to draft off us in every running or biking race we enter, then we need proper recognition :)

BTW, go check out the latest todcast. Ok, so maybe it's only funny to those who have met G and CTodd or ride bikes, but I was freaking rolling...

Just... dead... tired

Phew... I knew it would end up like this, but I'm just freaking tired from this weekend. Here's the short recap that my weakened brain can handle:

Friday - Got out a little early, went to hand therapy, got home early enough to get out for a ride. It was raining... I didn't care.

Saturday - Saturday a.m. my lovely wife let me sleep until I was good and ready to get up. It's been so long since I could just shut off all alarms and continue to roll over until I was just good and ready to get up. She took the oldest and youngest out on some errands and the middle one is actually quite good at being quiet. Funny thing is, I was up before 9 and that felt like an eternity. It was so nice to actually feel refreshed for a change when I got up. After that we did a couple things and then I got out riding. Unfortunately, I've had a chest cold since late last week and every time I pushed even a little bit it felt like my throat closed up. I cut the ride shorter than planned, but I still got out.

After lunch my wife headed up to Pepperell to solidify her title as SuperMom... that's right folks, a little skydiving action. She had wanted to go since she sent me three years ago and she finally arranged it. I took the boys to buy their soccer gear and then we headed up to watch. A great time was had by all and she made it up to and back from 14,000 feet in one piece.

Sunday - I met the tri crew at 6:30 for what was advertised as a 12 mile run at 8 minute pace. None of us believed it for a second and we were right. Ended up being something like 7:15's, but it was mostly comfortable. The breathing still sucked, but I made it through. After that I did some errands, went to the driving range with the older 2, and generally didn't do anything big. It was sort of relaxing, but I was still beat when I got to bed at 10:30.

Today - I have some friends who run North American distribution for Inov-8 which is a kick-ass European trail running shoe company. They were moving their warehouse and just needed bodies so I volunteered. So as not to miss out an on opportunity to ride I headed out for the 15 miles down to the old place this morning with a backpack full of work clothes. Worked from 8:30 to about 2:30 building shelves, moving pallets of merch around, stocking now built shelves, and generally whatever they needed. Then I hopped back on the bike for the 12.5 miles home from the new place. Long day of full body work today so I'm now completely spent. I'm sure the beer and Irish coffee for dinner didn't help, but let's call it the exercise :) Irish coffee is strange... I've always called it a wash and figured that the whiskey overrides the caffeine so you end up back where you started in terms of altertness :) At least I can tell myself that...

Gotta get some kids in bed...

Oh, final note... some photo evidence of me pretending to be a miler back in July. Two sidebars to this picture: 1) You can see the right leg fresh skin from the Wells crash, and 2) This is the day before I broke my hand.

Nature is cool

I sat down at my desk for lunch and noticed out the window there was a hawk sitting on the roof across the courtyard. Hey wait, is he holding something? Holy crap, he's eating something. Some poor bird or rat or something was just dismantled over there which I'm sure was fun for the landscapers down below who were getting the skin/fur/feathers rained down on them. Oh well... hope it was tasty fella.

A lot, but not much planned for the weekend. As expected, it looks like I'll be busy, but the only major event is my wife going skydiving tomorrow. She sent me for my 30th a few years back and has wanted to do it since. She talked a friend into going tomorrow. Should be fun. Otherwise it's a bunch of here and there stuff. I should be able to get a long ride and a long run in so that could be cool.

Enjoy the break folks.

Committed or Should be Committed?

This has been another insane week in the life of the tall guy who crashes a lot. I know I bring a lot of this shit on myself, but I still reserve the right to whine about it :)

Sunday I got up early and got out for a ride before the real nasty soupy weather set in. I got to swing by and laugh at the tri guys who were heading out for 15-18 miles in that slop. There was no way on earth I was signing up for that. After that the rest of the day was prep for the golf tournament and other chaos.

Monday shortly after my post I got a call that my wife had gotten called by the summer camp that the oldest jammed his finger playing hoops (let's hope he sucks less than the old man) and they thought he needed x-rays. So she runs off to get him, brings him to the ER, and while she's sitting there with him waiting, she gets a call from the daycare that the middle one is sick. She reminded them that I'm an hour away and said she was in the ER so we'd get there when we could. I went to relieve her at the ER, she got the other ones, and eventually we met at home. After some quick dinner I was commenting that I was still nervous about the tournament and felt like I needed more practice. My wife being the superhero she is tells me to get out of there and go hit the range. I asked if she wanted help getting them ready for bed and she just shooed me out... Yet another reminder that the whole I do thing was a good choice with her :) Hit the range and felt like a badass being the last one there hitting balls until it was almost dark. Fortunately I worked my shit out and sort of remembered what I was doing. Left there, went straight home, changed clothes, and headed out for a 5 mile run because I clearly hadn't done enough that day.

Tuesday's tournament was crazy and lots of fun. I had to be there at 6:30 to work sign in and set up. We headed out at 8. The group in front of mine was just stupid slow so it took us almost 6 hours and 45 minutes to play 18 (WTF?). Good news was that we put up a 2-under and finished tied for 6th. Unfortunately by the time I got back in, the other director was in a panic because most people were back and all the prizes were locked in my car. Got that worked out and finally left the clubhouse at 4. By then I was totally worn out, but we had to take the middle one to dinner for his b-day (his choice) so no rest yet. By the time we got home from there, I was ready for bed so no running.

Yesterday to repent for no training Tuesday, I got the great idea that I'd get up at 4:45, ride the trainer for 45 to an hour and then run at lunch. Somehow I actually got up and headed out to the garage, but I was in a total coma for the first 20 minutes or more. There was nothing stellar about the session, but I was out there so oh well. I also stuck to the plan and hit the Chalz Rivah for 4+ miles at lunch in the heat. You might think last night was another good night to just pack it in early and go to bed, but we had planned dinner with some friends last night so we headed there right after work and got home around 9:30. The good news is that I was so tired that I didn't have to watch the end of the freaking Sox game.

Believe it or not, we have NOTHING planned for the 3 days this weekend (unless you count an oil change for the car). Something tells me though that I'll find something to do...

Monday post

No clever titles today... I think I'm out of clever for the day.

Crazy busy weekend. RTB team meeting and training session Friday night so that made me feel like Saturday was Sunday. In the span of 5 hours at the gathering I ran about 12 miles, ate 1.5 servings of dinner, drank about 3 liters of water/gatorade, drank 2 beers and 1 mudslide concoction, and watched both the Pats and the Red Sox.

Saturday was a 5th b-day party for the middle one complete with gigantic bouncy moonwalk thing. I think I irritated my achilles jumping on it. Further proof that I'm getting old. I think my kids did about 2 hours in that thing. I was in it for a total of 10 minutes and I'm sore. The heat would have killed us if it weren't for the pool.

Yesterday was lots of general running around, but not before I actually went on a bike ride... and didn't crash. Amazing I know, but it's true. The SS did get sold yesterday too. The hooks are now bare waiting for the new rig and in that department I'll just say that hopefully very soon there will be news and pictures to back it up.

Company golf tournament tomorrow. Weather looks great and the course is swanky. I'll be happy when it's over since I helped organized and it's a lot of f'ing work. I went to the range yesterday to see if my hand would tolerate golf. It does, but the time off caused me to forget how to swing a club. This could be interesting.

Back to work. Maybe more later.

Oh, and check out Super Mom's page for funny pics of the kids and party if you're interested.

To be young and invinceable

Having 3 boys is certainly going to give me my share of gray hairs at some point (no I'm not that old yet) and my wife may not survive the pre-teen and teen years with them. I think I should just start a tab at the ER now because I'm sure I'll need it. I look at all 3 of them some days and you'd think I beat the poor kids. Bruises all over their shins, scraped knees and elbows, the occassional scrape on the chin... it's like they just came out of battle. In a strange way though, it makes me happy. The odds of bruising yourself or scraping a knee are pretty low sitting in front of the TV so it must mean they're doing something. The oldest took another bike spill last night... silly type of thing that boys do when they convince themselves they are better at something than they are. Sure, I can buzz the mailbox with one hand on the handlebars on uneven grass and then bang a turn... yah, until said mailbox grabs the bars on you. Ah well... out came the bandaids and ice pack and we were good. For better or worse, and even if you don't believe it, I've learned more about my limits so I'm less likely to have the reckless type of injuries at my age. Sure, knowingly entering into dangerous situations can be more hazardous, but at least I understand when there's a risk. It's just funny to watch the learning experience and seeing which incidents they store away to feed future self-restraint and which ones are blown off, only to be repeated with the same results. Wait, I think that defines them as insane... oh well, happens to the best of us.

Cross Training

With bonus shout out to the alma mater...

Wait, did he say healed or healing?

So I know the answer, but I can at least pretend he went with healed :) Report from the surgeon was very good today. He was overwhelmed by the mobility I had back in my hand at 4 weeks post-op and said that I can leave the brace off unless I feel like I need to protect it. I've been directed to go with 2 more weeks of "light use" and then I'm free to go nuts. I'm thinking that light use means road biking instead of mountain biking so I'll see you on the roads :)

Today was chaos at work and the rest of the week is not looking promising. Let's hope I can keep getting workouts in among all the days of getting up at 4:30 and getting beaten on all day. Is it bad when it's not even 9 and you're thinking of crawling in bed? G'night...

Character building

I posted up to the gang looking for someone to do 8-12 miles at 7-8 minute pace this morning. I left it pretty wide hoping to find some company. Well somehow me and the one guy who responded translated that into 12 miles at 7 minute pace. Not the extreme I would have chosen first, but these things happen. At one point we had the option to cut it to about 10.5 or go the long way. I gave him the choice and he chose the long way and said "It'll be a character building run." I wanted to throw him into the woods. RTB better feel like a cake walk this year...

Almost huge bike for sale

I'm pulling the trigger on the SS in anxious anticipation of the new cross bike. Here's my post from the MRC board. Post me a message here if you're interested:

The garage is out of hooks and space for more so I have to unload one...

61cm Bianchi San Jose single-speed cross/commuter bike
All specs here
For those thinking "Rich's bikes are huge", this is a pretty small big bike (tt actual is only 58.5)

Rear wheel, crankset, BB, and brakes are stock. Stem, handlebars, brake levers, front wheel, seatpost, and saddle have all been modified from original.
You will get a choice of tires (cross or commuter) and front wheel (Mavic Aksium or Mavic 32 spoke).
Keep it single-speed or pick up a new rear wheel/hub and you've got a fixie.

$325 or b/o.

Stock photo

Spoiled or Lucky?

Over the past couple of years, the oldest 2 had gotten bikes for birthdays or Xmas or whenever it was. One was purchased at Walmart and one at Target so we're not talking anything special here. Why go and blow a ton of money on the first bike they get that they will a) definitely grow out of quickly, and b) probably crash and generally beat on a lot? As of this summer, neither could ride without training wheels yet and for that matter, weren't all that stable with them. We partially felt guilty for not working with them more and partially were frustrated because both seemed unwilling to work on it. Still we persisted and kept working with them more. At one point, I made the promise to them both that when they learned to ride without the training wheels and showed me that they really wanted to be out riding their bikes, that I would take them to the shop and they could pick out a new "big kid" bike. Well as I noted, the older one is out there about every night now so last night he collected:

On one hand, I'm disgusted to have spent so much on a mountain bike for a 6 year old. On the other hand he loves it, seems to genuinely appreciate that we bought it for him, and seems to comprehend how much it was and therefore that he has to take care of it. It certainly helps him that I'm a sucker for a shiny new bike and I'm completely enamored by the fact that every single night he's asking if he can go out after dinner and ride his bike. Remember those days kids... when it was all about just being able to go out after dinner and tear up and down the street (and across the yard, and the neighbors yard, and over curbs, and...) because it's fun? He may have gotten spoiled, but who cares.

Oh, and now he's all set for cross season too :)

Withdrawal

I think I'm in withdrawal from bike racing. It's actually a combination of frustration and fear. Frustration because my hand feels good, but after the year I've had I just know that if I push it before I get the ok from the surgeon that I'll do something to it and be done for another 2 months. Fear because I look at the race results and see that the guys I will be racing in cross are flying right now. At one point I thought I'd be able to hold my own in open B races this year. Now I'm going to hope I don't get pulled from the C's. Fear also because I'm on the verge of dumping a bunch of money into a bike that I don't want to become a pretty ornament for the ceiling of my garage. Follow up is Monday. We'll see what he says.

Yesterday was an off day from running, but I rode the trainer for 40 minutes last night. The first ten minutes, my cadence was around 82 and it felt like 100. By the end I was comfortable at 92 so that made me feel a little better. Planning to ride Saturday morning but I don't know how much yet. I might try to find a long gradual hill to do some repeats, but I may be better off just getting some saddle time.

Oh, and I'm still in limbo/hell at work. Where the f did everyone go?

Stuck waiting

Nearly everything I'm doing at work is held up by someone else right now... waiting on tech support, waiting on the apps guy, waiting for IT... I'm an impatient person. There's a reason I do primarily individual sports... then I can only blame myself. Argh.

Like father, like son

The oldest had his first "at speed" bike crash tonight. When he was learning to ride, he was very very timid and was terribly afraid of falling down. The day he learned to ride it was like a switch turned on and he just got it. He then instantly turned into Robbie Kneival in the span of about 2 days and is tearing around trying to make hairpin turns without slowing down at all. Tonight I could see he was getting a little ahead of himself, but I just let him go and reminded him to slow up before trying to turn. He started racing his brother who was running and had once incident where he carried too much speed into a 180 and rode up a high grass curb (we don't have real curbs out here in the sticks) and almost launched himself. Next time he was flying again and was determined that he was going to make it so he leaned it a bit too far and caught the dirt/mud right at the base of the same grass section and slid out. Few scrapes on the knee and elbow, but he took it VERY well. The biggest change I've seen in him recently is that he's gone from the screaming meltdown at the first sight of blood to more of the rub some dirt on it mentality. He went down hard and took it well... I know at one point while I was cleaning him up he even said "Man, that was sick!" The summer camp has a skateboard camp going on this week so "Sick!" is his new word :)

Time for bed....

Jam packed weekend

Phew... nice to be at work to catch my breath :) We had a busy one this weekend, but most of it was pretty good stuff. Saturday I got sucked in by the MA govt's reprieve on sales tax and ordered most of the parts for the cross bike and then went and bought all the subfloor material for the basement finishing project (the new house project that will never end). I had to buy 90 2'x2' panels which meant I had to rent the Home Depot cargo van to get it home which meant I had to bust my ass to unload it since I had a time limit to get it back. Fortunately, I put the boys to work and got more evidence that the middle one has some work ethic. The big one walked off the job when his aunt stopped by, but the other one kept plugging away. He was paid accordingly and the older one was told he was paid less since he walked out early. Amazingly, I didn't get the "That's not fair" routine. Maybe he's figuring out what fair means finally :)

Mid afternoon I actually got to ride my bike. I finally said F it and I was going to find a way to make it work with the splint. Turns out that it's not completely in the way and I think I can make a minor alteration to make it work well. It was just a short and easy ride, but it was riding. I also threw in about a 2.5 mile run afterwards to make up for taking Thursday and Friday off.

After the workout, the family headed to the Hudson Hot Air Balloon Festival. They started this up last year as a fundraiser and it was a pretty good time. Watching the process of setting those bad boys up was pretty cool and I got to try and explain the science of it to the boys... ok, before I go on trying to act smart, heating up air ain't all that complex, but it's still magic to them :) We all took off from that a little early and then me and the older two went to catch the Simpsons movie. I thought it was well done and there were more than enough references that I was roaring about that the kids didn't get.

Yesterday I got out for 9.5 with the tri guys (yes it was supposed to be 11) and didn't drop dead so that's a good sign. We had a couple miles of nonsense in the middle of it, but otherwise it was pretty slow and easy. I felt it, but no more than you'd expect from running the furthest you have in almost a year. Later in the day was my Gram's 80th b-day party. If I counted correctly, 13 of her 15 kids (4 are stepkids) were there so it was quite the event. 2 of them are from way out of state and one of my uncles I hadn't seen in about 5 years so it was great to have the whole clan there. My grandfather (I think he's 81 now) even had enough beers to take an at bat in the wiffle ball game so that was great fun. I lobbed him a meatball and he got a grounder out of it :) Oh, and I got taken way deep by my cousin who's like 12, but we won't talk about that.

Ok, goof off time over. Stupid work.

So much for easing into things

I have said all year that in August I'd turn back into a runner for a while so that RTB didn't suck ass. I sort of assumed when I said that that I'd be in some sort of shape when August started. Well that ended up not being the case so much. Despite my unexplainable 5:16 mile last month, I have run very little this summer and it hit me this week that I've got about 5 weeks until the race. So in preparation, I've run the past 4 days. Hey, once a week at best to 4 straight days can't be that hard huh? Let's just say tomorrow will be a needed off-day. Oh, did I mention I'm planning to run 11 on Sunday with the tri guys? Yah... I think it's been a year since I ran that far... and these guys train year round for ironmans... should be a party.

So far, so good

When the surgeon sent me to OT after last Thursday's stitch removal, they basically just made a splint and gave me a couple pages of stretches to do with my hand and wrist to get the range of motion back. They didn't do a full eval of how I was doing because it had been only about 30 minutes since I got the cast off. They did however book me for twice a week therapy for the next couple weeks as a follow up. My goal was for them to basically kick me out after the first or second appointment because I didn't need to be there. Well I almost did it... I've been a cooperative enough patient (read: guy who leaves his splint off all day and sits in an office so he can do his stretches all day long) that they've already cut me back to once a week and even that may turn into just a couple checkups. There's a couple things that I still need to work on, but overall the girl was impressed that it's come so far already. The big downer is that she said typically with this type of injury and repair, it's 6 weeks post-surgery before the bone is "healed" and 8 weeks before you're unrestricted. The start of cross season is going to get f'd up a little if I decide to listen to them so we'll see. I gotta get the pedaling legs back going anyways so I shouldn't be worrying about racing yet.

Not a whole lot else going on I guess. Work is nuts. Home is about what you expect with 3 kids. We did do a bedroom swap with the boys so the oldest had his own room and the littlest has now taken this opportunity to decide he's going to get out of bed about 100 times a night. In his other room he'd go in for bed, we might hear from him once, and then we saw him in the morning. Something about the swap (maybe it's that the new room is where he's always gone to play instead of sleep) has made him parade out of the room as many times as he can get away with and then last night he came out 3 times during the night. He goes back pretty easily without throwing too much of a fit, but it's only a matter of time before he comes back. He's obviously screwing with us.

Back on bikes... I got word yesterday that I may only be 2-3 weeks away from getting the cross frame. Ordering the rest of the parts this weekend so I can stick it to the state and save my whopping 5% (on top of the sweet club discount of course). The timing will be perfect since nothing will give you more incentive to go out and ride than a pretty new custom bike :)

Someone turn off the heat or at least crank the dehumidifier...

10 Finger Typing... sort of

So the stitches came out today and the big post-op cast came off. It was quickly replaced with a fancy molded thermoplastic model which is far warmer since it's not breathable at all. The good news is though that I can take it off and actually have to to do hand exercises. I figure a bit of typing is a good enough exercise to get the fingers working so here ya go...

I don't have xray pictures of the screws yet, but I do have to say it's pretty cool. 2 screws in one side of the bone and one in from the other side. It turns out he wanted to do a plate, but the fracture was so long that it would have been most of the length of my hand and would have needed to be removed later. The screws only meant that I had to wait extra time to start using it, but oh well. Here's a lovely picture of what's left of the entry wound:

Yes that's my son's Batman place mat as a backdrop :)

On top of doing a fine job of putting the bone back together, looks like whoever pulled the suture straw in the OR that day did a nice job too. It was kinda creepy when the cast came off. I stared at my finger and tried to get it to bend at the bottom knuckle and it just wasn't going to have any of the that. Amazing how quickly everything stiffens up and you lose all muscle control.

My plan had been to get back out running tonight or on the trainer. Unfortunately I forgot that my wife had soccer playoffs tonight so by the time I got the boys in bed and remembered that it's about 87 in the house (no A/C), I figured it'll have to be one more day. I'll be indoors initially on the bike, but will try to get out soon. I think the new splint will allow it and I hope to shed that in two weeks.

Hmmm... what else is going on... New car is great. Basically doubled my gas mileage, lowered my payments by $100, and got something shiny all at once... woo hoo! A smaller car for me just made sense because I was sucking up so much gas and 9 out of 10 days, it was just me in the car. Waiting for the Q-clips for the Yakima roof rack to come via UPS and then the car will be race ready. Now if only I was :( Oh well... that'll come back soon.

Middle one had to have day surgery Monday. Nothing major, but it was general anesthesia, stitches, etc so it was kind of a big deal. I just wish I was 5 again... about 5 hours after he came out of surgery he was bored and wanted to go play. Within about 48 hours, he was running around and we were trying to slow him down so he didn't pop a stitch or something. I guess I shouldn't complain since I felt better pretty quick too, but he'll be fully healed in about half the time I will.

Ok, I think enough of the typing exercise for tonight especially since now I'm just rambling. Have a great weekend everyone.

Quick update

So the hand feels pretty good. I'm off the painkillers so if anyone wants to buy some lets talk :) j/k of course...

All the more environmentally conscious people may be happy to know that I traded the gas sucking Explorer for a much more reasonable Civic. Yes, someone will still be sucking the oil fields dry until that truck dies, but I'm trying to not be the cuplrit. Nothing like doubling your mileage all in one move. Still gotta pick up a new roof rack for the new ride, but (un)fortunately I have no need to transport a bike for a while so I've got time.

As far as Tour de Test Tubes commentary, I'll just say this: To answer the question of "If everyone's doing it is it still cheating?" my response is "Hell yah it is!" It's cheating all the rest of us. I think the appropriate response to those still getting caught is Here's your sign.

Have a good weekend all.

Bringin home the hardware

3 screws in the hand today. No pictures till next week. Supposedly no general anesthesia, but damn if they didn't turn the valium (or whatever it is) drip to high because I don't remember jack. More later... need meds.

The hand saga

So while a second medical opinion can be good, you sometimes run into the situation where they disagree and leave you in the middle. My ortho (yes I'm hurt enough to have one guy that I go to) had the initial reaction that my hand would be fine without surgery. I was skeptical based on the pictures so I asked to see a surgeon and also asked him to consult the other guys in his practice. The surgeon also thought it was ok, but scheduled a follow up for 10 days later and put me in a splint that he said I could take off to shower. The other guy from the ortho practice thought I definitely needed surgery. When I went back to the first ortho for my 1 week follow up, his initial reaction to the new xrays was that it was worse than he remembered. So if you're counting I'm up to 3 doctors and 4 opinions. Then I noticed yesterday morning that my little finger doesn't bend quite straight which is a sign that you need surgery. I called the first ortho to ask if he thought I should call the surgeon and he flipped when he found out I had been taking the splint off. Great, more disagreement. So today I talk to the surgeon's office and he says he should see it asap, but he's only available until like 2 today and not at all tomorrow. I was in Boston and on my way to Tewksbury when I found this out so asap is going to be Monday. The worry now is that it will have been 2 weeks of healing so if they do something now, they probably have to rebreak it to fix it. Argh. I'll be happy when this is cleared up.

More later... my 7 fingers are tired.

Quick update

Still on vaca from work and I'm typing with 1.5 hands so there'll be a lot of short ones for a while... 3 ortho/surgeon visits in 8 days and it's still not certain that I don't need surgery to set the break. If it doesn't shift at all for 1 more week I'm in the clear. Vaca was good but tiring. Class all this week and then back to the real world next week. Haven't run or biked since the latest incident. I'm going to get back on the trainer tomorrow night. Still holding out hope for a full cross season so we'll see.

The short story

Winsted MTB race, 3 min into warmup lap I slid my rear wheel into a washout and sorta fell over. Wouldn't have even counted it as a crash. Knuckle of my little finger on the left hand hit the ground and sorta crunch in towards my thumb. First thought was "I think I just broke my hand".

Rode the 4+ mile warmup loop anyways (denial) and lined up for the race. Was never in it and bailed after one of 2 laps. Got my 8 miles or so of riding in anyways and basically all of it was with one hand.

Appt in 30 min to find out the prognosis.

OK, fine, I can take a hint

Stupid biking. I'm going back to running.

One more...

Just a quick one of the race report variety... Today was the Colonial Road Runner's Club Marathon Challenge. It was basically a 26 x 1 mile (plus one lap) relay race down in Marshfield. I got sucked into this with the GFRC crew way back before I shredded my groin so then I was put on the possible list. Once running started going ok again, I said I'd do it with the expectation that just covering the 4 laps moderately fast would do. Now I'll note that I've run a total of 6 or 7 times total since The Crash. It's been longer than I can remember since I did a timed mile. I ran the leadoff leg and my goals were to not put us in dead last and to go out the first 2 laps in 6 minute pace then see what happened from there. I hit the first 200 in 38 so there went plan A. Plan B was to not die or re-shred my groin. Somehow I managed to run pretty even splits the whole way and made the handoff at 5:16. I got a little extra kick at the end by lapping a team. Apparently having some extra strength from biking and countless memories of running mid distance events on the track burned into my brain works.

Aw yah, bring on the ridiculously long cross sand pits, mud bogs, and unrideable hills...

Catch up before the dark days

Lots to catch up on before I check out for vaca. I'm definitely going to be unplugged for at least a week and the second week is debateable. It's been a crazy week so here's the high and lowlights:

Tuesday I'm riding home from work and making my way along the bike path down by Hahvid. There's this one intersection which is always packed with runners, bikers, walkers, cars, ducks, small furry animals, hippies, and anything else that strolls through. I'm rolling towards the intersection on the sidewalk/bikepath and there's this older guy running over towards the right of the sidewalk. I headed well to the left of him (again, going really slow) because the light hadn't changed in my favor yet. I get maybe 10 feet before the intersection and this guy suddenly bangs a hard left without looking and is headed right into me. I called out "heads up" and swerved but ended up just bumping shoulders with the guy. I know I said sorry because that would have just been my gut reaction and the guy angrily says "I think you need a bell on that thing!" So now I'm annoyed and I loudly, but calmly just said to him "Don't weave" and proceeded across the street (now had the light). Well he heads across the bridge, now on the other side of the street from me and screams back "Don't pass without warning ASSHOLE!". So now I'm just really amused at how angry he was and called back "Have a nice fourth." That didn't sit well and he kept on screaming something, but I was getting too far away to hear now. The whole thing amused me because 1) I consider myself to be a courteous bike path user, 2) as both a running and biking user of that path, I know what you should and shouldn't do when you're on the path in either mode, and 3) I think it's fair to say that while people have a responsibility to pass safely and give warning, people also have a responsibility to travel in a straight line and not change directions without warning or checking if it's safe. Ah well, I found the whole thing funny so I hope I did ruin the guy's night since he was a dick.

So Wednesday, we head up to bring the boys to a 1 mile fun run so they can get some energy out and have some fun. We get there a little on the late side and were parked far away, so me and the older 2 head over to register while my wife and the 2 year old lag behind. The 3 of us get all the way across this big field at the school and I hear something behind me so I turn to see my wife on the ground holding her rebuilt knee. Crap. We sprint back over there to find out she was walking down this little embankment on the side of the field, her good leg slipped out and all her weight forced her "bad" knee to bend all the way. Now bending your knee completely so you kick yourself in the butt doesn't sound that bad except that she hadn't regained full motion so that was about 15 degrees further than her knee had gone in a year. She heard some crackling and it just didn't feel right. Now the amazing thing is that from the moment it happened and throughout the ordeal, the 2 year old who can't sit still just parked himself next to mommy and played with the grass. It was like he knew that that's what he had to do right then. Anywho... so she's trying to assess how hurt her knee is and she didn't look good so I told her to lay down. She did for a second and then said she was more comfortable if she sat up. She sat up and I was asking her some questions when suddenly she falls back, out cold. Now we're in full freakout mode as the oldest is crying, the middle one was dancing or something, and the baby is sitting there while I've got an unconscious wife with an unknown knee injury... are we having fun yet? Fortunately some guy saw the whole thing and ran to get the ambulance crew from the race. After maybe 30 seconds, she snapped out of it instantly and tries to get up. I told her to stay down and that she passed out and she starts arguing with me that she didn't. She did that for maybe a minute and then goes out again. Yes, the fun meter is pegged now. She came out of it quicker this time and now the EMT's were there. The suited her up with the full neck brace and backboard outfit and loaded her into the "funny truck" (was trying to skip the word ambulance to keep the boys calm). Fortunately, I got my sister-in-law to meet us at the ER and take the boys while she got checked out. In the end, she just ended up with a sprained knee and no damage to anything that was fixed before. The passing out was likely just a reaction to the shock of what happened. Amazing how your brain can just say "F this" and check out for a minute when it goes on overload. I spent the rest of the day telling her never to do that to me again :)

OK... gotta get the ship in shape here before I disappear on everyone. Enjoy the sunshine. Keep the rubber side down. Be kind to Gewillis.

Bike tech question

Ok, one for the biker number geeks out there...

I currently ride 175mm Shimano cranks on all my bikes. Shimano don't make no longer and I've never made the Campy switch (remember, I'm new at this). I'm starting to prep for the new cross bike so I took a gander at Zinn's custom cranks as an option. If I do his math based on my inseam length that was measured for the frame, it says I should be on 215mm cranks. Yowza!

So option 1 is to go with the math and probably feel like I'm riding a clown bike for a while. Option 2 is to be more conservative and go with a 200mm crank (split the difference). Option 3 is to go with Campy and get 180mm cranks (still an improvement, but not nearly enough). I've never experimented with anything over 175 so I can only take his word for it that it's a HUGE difference.

Any thoughts out there? G, how bout some linkage love to get the short guys to throw their opinions in for us freakishly tall folk?

I think I need more coffee (like I really need to question that).

5 more minutes...

So I rode in Friday, then got a ride home. Saturday I went running. Sunday I did nothing athletic per-se. Ran again yesterday. This morning when I rode in I knew it was going to be a crap shoot on how I felt and it ended up just being weird. I was definitely rested from a biking perspective, but overall, my legs felt, well, not really awake. The best analogy I could think of was trying to get a teenager out of bed for school. You go in and tell them they've got to go now and the response is "5 more minutes..." Yup, that's what it was like... c'mon boys let's go... eh, maybe in 5 more minutes. Oh well... I kinda gave up hope of setting the roads on fire quickly and just enjoyed the ride.

By the way... can someone bring me a new calendar because I think mine's broken. Mine says July, but I was in long sleeves and knee warmers this morning. Now I'm all for cool nights and warm sunny days, but usually in September. Oh well... it could have been 92 at 6 a.m. so I guess I'll take it.

Since it probably is really July and that's the tentative date I got from Mike for my cross frame, I decided to start ordering parts. I haven't gone nuts yet, but I scored a couple deals so stuff should be on it's way soon. Mmmmm, frog legs...

No real plans for the 4th for us, but if the weather cooperates we may bring the gang to a local road race so they can do the 1 mile fun run. Both of the older two can do it easily and I'm almost curious how fast the oldest can do it. I may have the next great over-tall white guy runner in the works there, but running is something I definitely wouldn't push at too young an age. I'm completely willing to let him do as much of it as he wants (within reason), but I won't be suggesting anything that resembles training. That said, he's declared that he wants to raise money to do the 5k Race for the Cure with mommy in the fall. I think he'll be able to finish and it was kinda cool that he thought the raising money part was a good thing to do.

Ok, omlette waiting...

Had to share

For any complaint I've ever had about my house, I can never argue with the view in the backyard on a summer night. Enjoy (oh and sorry I'm a crappy photographer and got those overhanging branches in there).

Just because

That's right, this is a post for the sake of posting. I hate to keep both people who read this wondering where I've gone so I figured I'd throw something on here. The geniuses at the body shop managed to beat their estimated repair time on the minivan by 2 days... aim low, shoot high. It worked out for the best since it saved me from paying for another rental today so I could pick the boys up. Wife has a 6 o'clock game so I get pickup and dinner duty. The pool has gotten heavy use this week, but probably none tonight. My wife is the ex-lifeguard part-fish in the family so she's good with bringing all 3 of them in the pool alone. The older two are getting more confident in the water so it's ok. I, on the other hand, am a paranoid mess with the kids around the water so I don't think I could hack it. We'll see if it's ridiculously hot still and I change my mind.

Rode with a teammate out of work using a different route yesterday since I was headed to Natick to get my car. Commuting down Beacon St all the way from Boston out through Wellesley sure keeps the reflexes sharp. My favorite was how many people pull the "Oooh look, a parking spot" and jack the brakes on or pull right in without regard to what cars, bikes, small furry animals, or people might be around them. Hey, parking ain't free around the city so I guess a few cyclists is a fair price for a spot right in front of your favorite Starschmucks location. Anywho... it was fun commuting with someone for a change and the heat was very bearable.

Time for more of that work stuff...

Another reason cycling is expensive

Food. That's right... you think gas is expensive for your car? Try buying enough food to replenish the 1300 calories you burn riding to work... and the 2500 or so you burned yesterday... and the 2000 a day you need to just function. I tell ya... eating becomes a challenge sometimes and it sure does empty the wallet quick too. Definitely time to restock the food drawer in my office with a BJ's size box of oatmeal and maybe some Newtons (Mmmmm, bug infused fig paste). Anywho... skipping the ride home tonight and getting a Zipcar. Planning to ride home tomorrow night, but the wife is concerned about the fact that it's going to be about 100 degrees. Might ride half way and then get a ride. We'll see...

The pool was officially christened for the summer last night (without me... still need a couple more days before I pour chlorine in the healing skin). Turns out the oldest can stand in the pool now. Yes, he's 6.5 and he can stand in our 52" wall height above ground pool with his head above water. Granted the water is a little low right now, but c'mon. This poor kid will be singing the I-can't-buy-pants-or-bikes blues by the time he's 10.

Ok, back to work or something that looks like it.

Back on the horse

So last week I was genuinely disinterested in riding any of my bikes. I thought for a brief time about driving to VT yesterday to do the Root 66 race, but it was only in passing. My body didn't feel up to crashing again and my brain hasn't recovered yet from being sure that I'm going to every time I get into a pack. Saturday I took my mountain bike out for like 45-60 minutes and mostly just tooled around. Wasn't really going anywhere, but needed a short stint of exercise. Yesterday I legitimately went for a ride and it wasn't so bad. It was still only an hour, but the speeds are still up in the 20 range and I'm not really pushing. Today I had to leave my car in Natick and ride in from there which is about an hour. A couple times during the ride I was just enjoying being outside on a bike and making motor noises going around corners. I think I need a while more of that kind of fun and fortunately the calendar is pretty empty for the next few weeks. I have a fear that it's going to take some effort to line up again, but I need to. Multiple reports of sketchiness from the weekend do not have me feeling better so we'll see. I've got multiple days of riding in this week since we've only got 1 car for the week so at least I'll be getting the workouts in. There's still cross to be ready for.

I actually got a chance to do something manual and productive this weekend so that made me feel a whole lot better. We've been talking for at least a couple years about finishing the basement properly (it was really poorly done when we moved in and had to be gutted) to use as a play room and some extra space. After spending a year to do the bathroom, the thing holding me up from starting on the room was primarily cleaning. Saturday I managed to take a truckload and a 1.5 contractor bags of crap out of there and clean up what was left. That went quick enough that I was then able to do one of the first things on the project list which was finish off the giant storage closets I started building years ago. The upper level has been done forever, but the lower level was never properly framed or anything (yes it sounds backwards... long story). I managed to get the wood subfloor down in that part of the room and then go through and properly frame the supports and lower level of cabinets. It's about 16' long so I even have a dedicated Yakima roof box storage cabinet with room for other cabinets. Now that I can see progress being made, hopefully I can keep the motivation up.

Back to work... that is if I can find some motivation to do any...

Running is good

So it's now fair to call the torn groin/leg thing healed. 2 nights in a row of running and no problems (other than being out of practice). For those who don't know, I spent most of 18 years running fairly competitively with moderate local-level success. It's been quite a while since I toed the line, but it's been so long now that it really is second nature. Last night is a good example... 4th run since completely tearing something in my groin, 4 very hilly miles at 7 minute pace. Granted I was pushing at the end to beat the thunder storm, but still. I had said all along that this summer I would cut way back on biking in August to get ready for RTB and I probably still will, but I may also start my training a little earlier by throwing in 2 days a week of running between now and then. Even though I decided at one point that biking would be more sustainable than running because it's lower impact, there's a lot of times that I agree with Kerry and think that running is easier.

Anywho... enough pissing and moaning. Could be kind of a crazy weekend. My wife has an all day soccer tournament tomorrow so I'm chasing the monkeys. I have to find something the 4 of us can do to keep them entertained. It'll be easier in a couple years when the littlest can be more easily included, but there's some things now where he just needs to be contained and thrown in a stroller or something. A 6.5 year old and a 2 year old can't quite do the same stuff sometimes so that's always a challenge. Sunday is up in the air so we'll see.

Enjoy the weekend folks.

Getting there... again

I knew after my latest date with the pavement that it wasn't as bad this time and it seems that I was right. I've gotten to the point of only mild stinging in the shower and only if I'm in there too long. My cut on my elbow has also gradutated from triple-layer non-stick pads and tape to giant band aids (my wife is thrilled because I can manage a big bandaid with one hand solo). I wish the internals of my elbow were progressing as well so that's kind of a big TBD right now. I think the proper diagnosis is "repeatedly banging the shit out of it". I made it through mowing the lawn the last couple nights, but realized that any amount of jarring of that arm isn't so good. Kinda rules out mountain biking and biking on crappy pavement, but I'll probably test it tonight or tomorrow anyways. Haven't biked this week at all (partially due to pain and partially due to temporary lack of interest). I did run last night and it was the first run since the big accident where the groin/leg felt normal. That was a good sign so at least I know I can run for a while to keep the ice cream and beer from setting in too much.

Not much more going on at this point. I'm pulling out of both races this weekend so I'll have to come up with something to do. Maybe I'll finally get started on the next house project (basement cleaning so we can start the room). Might see if the elbow is healthy enough for a round of golf, but I'm not optimistic. Van goes in for repairs next week so I signed up for Zipcar to help get us through the 4 or 5 days they have it (still don't understand why it takes more than 4 hours to just replace the freaking rear gate). Combo of biking in and the short term rent-a-car service should work nice.

Time to be productive (and get more coffee)...

Stop me if you've heard this one before

Well things are finally back to normal in many ways, and unfortunately I'm not liking one of the "norms" I've fallen into. Hit the rewind and strap in...

Friday night my wife misses her connection in Dallas so what should have been a 9ish arrival at home turned into 11:15. Could have been worse, but it meant the 6th straight day I was getting to bed after 11 and then getting up early. What it also meant was that any thoughts of buzzing out to Monson and signing in for the Cyclonauts race were gone since it meant a 5ish in the morning departure.

I'll tangent here for a second and say that the boys really were great last week. The oldest tried very hard to be helpful and the youngest was more manageable than usual. It also gave me a good chance to remember how to be patient with them since it's so easy to just get fired up with them quickly and I just couldn't do that last week or I'd make us all miserable. I joked with them the whole second half of the week that they just had to tell mommy what a great job daddy did.

So Saturday instead turned into karate with the middle one followed by getting the pool hooked up and running (finally) followed by a graduation party for my cousin followed by 35 minutes or so if flying around at warp speed on my bike to remind my legs how to hurt followed by an overly indulgent dinner at The Melting Pot with the inlaws followed by a pint at John Harvard's. Phew... I was tired too.

Sunday I had planned all along to race since I wanted to use my Dad's Day free pass to get away for a bit. I was going to go to Housatonic, but then got shut out of the 4's so I figured I'd just go to Wells. Conflicts with t-ball meant I was driving down and doing the B's. So I get there good and early to do a long warmup and felt ok. I'll note that this was only the 3rd outdoor ride for the Guerch and first race. We get close to start time and they decide to combine the A's and B's. Well this should be interesting... I've never done above the C race at Wells or better than a semi-fast 3/4 anywhere and now I get to race against the big boys... Yeehaw! I'd hazzard a guess that it was 60-70 guys who lined up and we're off. Pace was very sane and I just wanted to spend a while hanging around. My plan going into the B race was that I would try to break away on an early prime lap, take the prime, and then see how long I could stay away before I limped to the back. Needed a new strategy since there was no freaking way I could sprint with the horses that would typically do A's so instead I decided to put myself in a position on every prime I could to go with anything that happened after a prime sprint. That worked well for most of the race and I was really pleased that I was able to put myself near the front almost every time I wanted to. There were a few sketchy guys in the race, but not really any major drama and only one near crash that wasn't that big a deal... just a very quick brake lock by one guy and he was smart enough to get off it. So we make it through basically the whole 40 laps with nobody getting away (or even really trying). I could tell that the official wasn't thinking this was a good thing since he rang 4 or 5 primes in the final 12 laps. I almost fell over when he rang a $20 prime with 3 to go! It was clear he wanted us to mix it up, but after every prime the sprinters sat up and it was back together. So at the end of lap 39, I bust up to the front and find my teammate sitting about 7th or 8th. I jump right on, tell him I'm there, and he starts motoring. Unfortunately, we got crossed up through turn 1, I lost his wheel, and ended up 3 spots back of him. So I just tried to stay near the front hoping for a top 10. We come motoring around the turn and there's 2 cars in the finish stretch so everyone calls them out and we sit up. Great, let's do it again. At this point my teammate who was in front of me just rode off the course and figured he'd had enough fun. So I hang into a decent position as it winds up again. I started sliding back a little, but still had aspirations for a top 10 since I felt good. I hung way wide left going around the final turn to avoid any sketchyness along the right curb and figured I was in a good safe place... WRONG! We hit the start of the straightaway and all of a sudden to my right the world explodes. I hear the unmistakeable sound of impending road rash and broken bodies and now there's bikes and riders spilling left right in front of my nice safe place. I got on the brakes and picked a line through the mess and felt like I was just about to get around the last bike in my way and suddenly I'm sliding on my right side. No idea if someone fell into me, I got hit from behind, or I ran over the mess in front of me, but I was down. The damage this time is WAY less bad than Sturbridge, but I still shaved off the front of my shin, the side of my quad, and my hip/ass. Worst of it was that I banged the crap out of my elbow for the third (or is it 4th) time this year and this time put a decent gash in it. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I'm now a road rash pro so I had the bandages at the ready. As far as the bike, it got off kinda ok, but still needs a thorough going over. To be honest, I've been too frustrated to check it out. It's also worth noting that I got out easy... two guys went home in an ambulance with what looked like pretty serious injuries. I think at least one of them will also be spending quite a bit of time at the dentist. Best to those guys for quick healing.

So now I'm again dreading the shower, messing up the sheets, and supporting 3M, J&J, and the generic factory that slops bacitraicin into a tube. As I was cleaning off the blood and gravel on Sunday I swore to myself that the next time I lined up would be cross season. I've calmed down a little, but I'm still considering just getting a refund on both races this weekend and staying home. I'm actually not 100% sure my elbow will take much abuse for a while because it's pretty screwed up. On top of it, I can't keep paying to fix bikes. I've got stuff that was brand new a week ago that may or may not be trashed. On top of that, I need to go to work on Mondays (unfortunately) so I can't keep doing this to my body. It sucks because mentally, I can't race if I know I'm not going to try to win. The moral victories of a prime or holding good position against fast people wear off quickly. If I have to sit up every time I'm not in a clear break or have a 3 man leadout train in front of me, I'm not going. I think I need to stick to mountain biking (and cross of course). At least then it's my own fault of I get banged up.

Ok, that was way longer than it should have been. Still won't stop me from maybe putting up more later.

Almost there

For those who have checked in, yes, I'm alive. We're all hanging in there and I think all 4 of us are starting to miss mommy (a lot). The 2 year old has saved me by not having a "I need mommy" meltdown. The 4 (almost 5) year old has saved me by just being so damn funny (he always is)... he's the type of kid that will probably get away with more than he should in his life just because he's got that thing about him that makes it hard to be mad or even serious with him. The 6 year old has been genuinely trying very hard to be helpful. Me and him have butted heads a couple times, but we do all the time because he's my clone.

Hell, I've even ridden the trainer twice this week so it can't be all bad. Probably racing this weekend... no clue where.

More when I can...

How do they do that?

Ok, I should be working since I was wikid frickin late (thanks traffic), but I had to share this...
It's day 2 of the solo daddy routine and we're hanging in there. I've decided I have an allotment of frustration this week and once I use it up it's gone so I'm trying to spread it out and stay calm as much as I can. This morning I got up a few minutes later than planned so I'm in the shower and the 2 older ones are up. One of them opens the door and is talking really loud so I told him to quiet down since he was right across from the 2 year old's room. He's still trying to tell me something so I stick my head out and there he is with the 2 year old. Apparently he was crying so they decided they'd be nice brothers and go get him. Yes that is nice, but it was 6:05 and he normally sleeps until close to 7. Argh. So I ask them to make sure he doesn't burn the house down and I finish getting ready. As I'm eating breakfast and trying to get all 3 of them moving in the right direction, the 2 year old comes over and just says "Poop". I was hoping he meant he wanted to go to the potty, but I checked the diaper... no luck. Great, now we're having fun. So I get him in his room layed down on the bed and I'm starting to dip into my bucket of frustration. Just then, outta nowhere, he just looks up at me, start clapping and says "Yeah Daddy ride the bike!" Damn, I hate when they get all cute like that. That certainly helped us finish getting ready in one piece.

3 mornings to go...

It's magic

With a simple wave of the hand and collision with a Sentra, I have managed to turn this:
into this:

Yes folks, that's a big damn bike. Components are a combination of new replacements from the crash and stuff that wasn't damaged and I could reuse. Goal is to go to 10-speed campy next year when I have some $$.

Have fun drooling tall guys.

Freaks rejoice

We too can now empty our wallets on some carbon goodness. Sad thing is I'd have to switch to Campy to get longer than 175 cranks in order to get down to an 89cm saddle height. I'm currently between 90 and 90.5 :( Anyone know why Shimano (or anyone other than Campy) isn't on the longer crank bandwagon?

Oh, and to steal one from the Gewilli rant machine, share the farkin bike paths and sidewalks people. If I have to make sure I pass you safely going 20mph on my bike or even 8mph on my feet, you should have to make sure that you:
1) Know which side of the path you're supposed to be on
2) Pay attention to where the hell you're going
3) Shut off the friggin deathpod so I don't look like a dick by having to scream "On your left!"
4) Don't waddle your asses 4 wide across the whole path at 1/4 mile an hour and act annoyed when someone is coming the other way or goes around you from behind.

Ok, I'm done.

Funk

No not like We've got the funk... more like in a funk. After having a pretty good week all around last week, this week has just been weird. From a training standpoint:

Sunday - race
Monday - walk around a golf course in the rain for an hour
Tuesday - nuthin (time constraints)
Wednesday - rode to work
Thursday - 90 minutes in the morning
Today - running
Tomorrow - TBD

On top of it the legs have just felt like crap the couple times I did ride. The wind on the way home Wednesday didn't help at all, but it's still just been bad. Options for tomorrow are driving to CT to do 2 races at the Nutmeg crit or a 3 hour ride to the mountain. Not sure yet... need to decide. Yesterday didn't help my mental state at all either because we had my son's kindergarten "graduation" in the morning so I got in late and worked late. The biggest thing that sucks about working late is that it doesn't mean you can go in late the next morning. It just means your non-working time gets condensed to the point of basically having dinner and going to bed.

Funk can also refer to funky (or maybe it's funny) events of this week. Since my wife started telling people this story herself, I can avoid divorce if I share... Tuesday night I get home from work and the guys are there putting the new liner in the pool. They have one side of the driveway blocked so I park the Explorer behind the minivan (don't start on me about the gas suckage of my cars... that's a whole different rant/conversation). Wednesday morning I go out to hop on the bike and saw that I never moved the truck. I was going to go back in and get the keys, but I got lazy so I figured it would only take her 2 seconds to move it out of the way. When the fam came out to head to school/daycare, she looked at it and said to herself "I'll just get the baby buckled in and then move it". Well as proof of how distracting 3 little boys can be, in the span of buckling in the baby, she forgot that it was there, got in the driver's seat, started it up, and put it in reverse. Now the truck was close enough that by the time she started rolling and looked in the mirror, she was already hearing crunching. Despite the slow speed and the lack of runway however the rear liftgate is pretty well trashed. There was a license plate holder on the front bumper of the truck and there is now a nice deep impression of said holder in the rear gate. The wrinkles also cascaded across the gate because it had to move from somewhere. I tried to take pics last night, but it was too dark. I'll post those later. Fortunately for both of us, my attitude about it has been "Shit happens". She's being hard enough on herself and is somewhere between amused and wanting to cry that she did $2k of damage to our car, in the driveway, by hitting our other car.

I may be going dark for most of next week... my wife is heading to Austin for a conference so I've got daddy duty on top of work and maybe riding on the trainer for a grand total of an hour. I should have lots of rambling to do after all that...

The long version

OK, start at the beginning... So back sometime in December of 1973 my parents were... wait... too far back. Fast forward to this past Saturday morning... My dear wife takes the 3 monkeys out to breakfast with her dad to give me some time to work around the homestead. I pick up the house and head out to do the lawn. I get about 10 minutes in and shut it down to empty the bag and notice smoke coming out from under the engine cover. I didn't think much of it because last year a little bit of dry grass got in there and just kinda burned up and stopped. So I keep going. About 5 minutes later I shut it down again and now smoke is pouring out of the engine. Ok, this isn't going away itself. Time to go get the tools. I start taking apart the lawnmower and the whole thing is still smoking. The thought did cross my mind that I had a full tank of gas and there's oil in there, but hoped for the best. I get the outer couple layers of cosmetic covers off and now I get the bright idea that maybe I can blow the hunk of stuff that's in there (still not being able to see said hunk) with the leaf blower. I go get the leaf blower, plug it in, and fire it up... fire was the appropriate word to use there. I look and I now have flames shooting out from under the engine cover. Ok, this is bad. Shut down the blower and got the flames to stop, but it's still smoking like crazy. I go back to disassembly and finally take out enough screws to find this:



Turns out that one of the friendly local mice had decided to build himself a nest inside my lawnmower engine. Now I'm all down with C Todd's be nice to animals shizzle, but the only redemption here would have been if the little bastard was still in there (he wasn't). Cleaned up the mess and went on my way, but that was an adventure I didn't need.

Saturday afternoon I figure it will be fun to go mountain biking nice and easy to get ready for Sunday. I posted up to see who wanted to go and one of only two takers was a guy who's about 1000 times better than me which is probably why I get hurt every time I ride with him. We headed down to Hopkinton State Park and got at it. The third guy who joined us hadn't been out much this year so he eventually bailed early to head back to the car. Before that however, we're riding up onto a bridge that has a granite step in front of it and I get the front wheel onto the bridge and then slam the rear right into the lip of the step. Pssssssssssssssssssssss... Damn, didn't feel like changing a flat. Get that taken care of and keep going. Other than riding through some crazy deep water at one point, there wasn't much adventure until about 10 minutes to go in the ride. We're going down this not very steep little nothing hill and I misjudged a little hump in it that dropped off right after (I do that a lot). I hit the seat ejector, go flying over the bars, and the bike gets thrown ahead of me. It bounces off a little concrete bridge wall thing and then drops down 5 or 6 feet into the stream bed. The whole thing looked pretty damn dramatic but fortunately the bike survived as did I... mostly. I managed to screw up my ribs again so I nursed that back to the car.

Sunday I felt ok from the crash so I decided to make the trek to Andover, CT for the Channel 3 Kid's Camp MTB race. Had to leave around 6 to get there early enough for a warmup lap etc. Made it down there plenty early, signed in, mounted up, and headed out for the preview. Course was nice and not ultra technical, but you never would have known it from watching me warmup. I swear I was off the bike more than on (not crashing, just getting off) so I was having bad visions for the race. Oh well, I was there to have fun and get dirty. Race kicked off and we headed up the first mild hill with me in 4th, but then one guy exploded (little early for that dude) so I was in third, but it was a distant third already. Most of that lap I spent pulling away from everyone on any uphills and then looking like that roadie who just bought a mountain bike on anything semi-technical. About half way through lap 1, I found one of the top two on the side of the trail putting his chain back together. Now 2nd was mine to lose. Fortunately, I started catching some of the group ahead of us and only got caught by a couple silly fast guys from the group behind. I still really sucked, but I was holding my place. Fortunately, I almost looked like I knew what I was doing by lap 2. There's even some proof here. Now what this doesn't show is that I immediately flubbed it after she took the picture and I almost rode off the right side of the bridge :) I did however finish the race crash free and in second place. I have proof of said podium-goodness as well. The day was capped off with an actual face to face meeting with the one and only CTodd. It was hard to tell if that was more exciting than the podium, but he didn't hand me any free schwag so I'll have to go with the podium.

Yesterday I polished off the weekend with what was supposed to be an ultra swanky golf tournament. I'm getting tired of typing so this part will be short(er). Despite the weather yesterday, some fool decided we should tee off. Let's just say the downpour started 5 minutes before we teed off and got harder for the first hour. Finally they drove around the course and pulled everyone back in... game over. We're rescheduled for sometime in September, but it was purely foolish to have us even try yesterday. The greens were like trying to play mini golf in the ocean with floating golf balls. I wasn't in work and the whole thing was a little funny, but it would have been better if they had been smart enough to just can the whole thing.

Phew... I'm tired now. If you lasted this long you must be tired of listening to me (ok, not listening, but you get the point).

Stories pending

So many stories, so little time. I've got flaming lawnmowers and MTB racing with picture goodness, a brush with greatness, and a sopping wet golf tournament on tap... it will take way more time than this to hit the flush lever on my brain though. Hoping for a long-winded story tonight.

It's sunny... go outside. Hell, even if it starts raining again... go outside.

Brain dump

OK, this may end up being a bit of a rambling Gewilli-esque entry, but I'm trying to catch up from a pretty long week. Last Thursday or Friday (can't even remember), my boss asked me to help him prepare a presentation for the president of the company. He wanted my piece by Wednesday. Friday was busy and nobody was around to get input from. Monday was a holiday. A summer student started Tuesday. A never-ending string of chaos ate up a good chunk of Wednesday. I got an extension to late today and finally got it done, but my white-board list which doubled on Tuesday hasn't been touched. Isn't work grand?

On to more fun stuff: biking. This was my first full unrestricted week back. I didn't really hold back:

Sunday - 2.5 hours
Monday - Cyclonauts crit
Tuesday - ran for the first time in 5 weeks, still managed 3.5 in somewhere under 8's
Wednesday - bike commute, 3 hours total, big-ring power hills the whole way home
Thursday - bike commute, 3 hours total, ambitious ride in and then survival ride home

Tomorrow the most I'm going to exercise is going to get more food and water. Saturday will be an easy MTB spin and then the Channel 3 MTB race on Sunday. First MTB race ever so that will be an adventure. My off-road skills suck, but the legs are firing right now so pray for non-technical uphills... long ones.

While enjoying my rides to work the last couple days, I thought of fun things I like about riding to work. So in no particular order... Fun things about biking to work:

- You can't execute a perfect bunny hop over a pothole in your car
- Your heart rate is above 140 for the right reasons
- Getting clocked on one of those roadside radar setups. Bonus points if you get caught speeding.
- Attacking nobody and then bridging solo up to the guy with the baby seat on the back of his bike (nobody ever said your target had to be fast... just start further away)
- Punching it and blowing someone away off the line in your car on the way to work makes you look like a dick. Doing it on your bike makes you feel like a badass.
- You don't smell the lilacs from inside your car
- The looks you must be getting from everyone you pass in the line at the redlight when they don't see you again until 5 miles up the road.

I had a couple run-ins with annoying drivers, but they were the types of things that would have pissed me off if I was driving or biking so they weren't really close calls. By the way, hooray for tail winds. I might still be riding home tonight if it weren't for that.

Oh and I'm thrilled for my buddy Jeff (no linkage goodness... even though he's the biggest computer/gadget guy I know, he's never set up his own site). He's always been sort of a moderately active guy and usually not afraid to at least try something. We did gym climbing for a while, he played some soccer, but never really latched onto a sport. Recently he got the inclination that running would be good for him. He bought a treadmill, hauled it to the second floor of his house himself (that alone is dedication), and got to it. He's up to 4 miles 5 or 6 times a week, just took his bike to get it tuned so he can ride that, and is thinking of joining a running club. I'm partially excited because he's into something that I love and he's starting to get it. It's also a bit of being impressed by his motivation. Lastly it's one more person up and doing something. Best of all, he did it because he wanted to. I've seen enough cases of all kinds of things to know that that's the only time something works... when it's for you.

OK, that's enough. Publish Post.

Argh

I've had so much in my head I wanted to post this week and everything just keeps taking over. In the mean time, here's a nice fancy lump of unobtainium to hold you over. If this thing ain't bike pron, I don't know what is.

Check and Check

That's right folks... recovery is complete. Saturday was an intentional off day after 3 straight before that just to be sure. Sunday afternoon I got out for 2.5 hours and generally felt good the whole time. Actually, I have to qualify that... last week at some point I somehow screwed up my back. Fortunately it's not that sort of debilitating lower back screwed up thing that leaves you flat on the floor afraid to blink. This instead was something in the back of my ribcage. It actually feels the way I'd expect a broken rib to feel except for the fact that it's not swollen and pressure doesn't hurt. What does hurt however is standing up on a bike and pulling on the bars ala steep climbing. So Sunday I avoided standing at all costs and was fine.

Yesterday I made the decision to get back in the game by heading down to the Cyclonauts Crit at the Stafford Motor Speedway. That's right folks, we're tradin paint and turning left... ok, so there was no paint traded and we rode clockwise, but there was a left turn through the infield chicane... you get the point anyways. So the best parts about this race in terms of a comeback race were that you have this huge wide track, pretty basic turns, no hills to change the pace and only 40 starters in the 3/4. I had actually intended to race the 4's in the morning, but decided to march in the townie Memorial Day parade with my son's t-ball team. Speaking of that, coolest callup of the season goes to yesterday's race: all active duty military, military vets, police, and firemen got the callup... well deserved too.

The race went off in pretty sane fashion, but after about 1 lap the attacks started. Finally a group of 6-8 got away and probably got out to maybe 30 seconds. The loop was < 0.5 miles so it's not like they were hiding from us. A few guys thought about bridging, but none of that worked so we just chugged along. I just sort of moved around and got used to being back in a group. This race was what I expected from a 3/4 unlike the sketch fest at Sturbridge... everyone was smooth through the turns for the most part and if you weren't careful, you were very quickly alone at the back. At the half way point, some guys up front dropped the hammer and the break evaporated in no time at all. It was back together with a little under 15 to go and not a whole lot was going on. About 10-12 to go and there's this roar from near the front as a guy yells out CYCLONAUTS and suddenly those guys swarmed like freaking bees towards the front. Not everyone was willing to let them just set up a 10 man 10 lap leadout so a few flyers went off and enough other guys mixed themselves in the front that the pace stayed high, but it wasn't just the yellow and black boys driving it. I headed up front with about 7 to go and ended up taking a short pull with 4 to go to finish off the last ambitious guy out front. Problem was I got lazy after I pulled off and -boom- I'm at the back again. I had some time to move back up, but never quite got there and when the Cyclonauts boys punched it with 1/2 a lap to go, I was just hanging on. Hung in there and rolled in @st so not a big deal. One other guy from MRC was in the field, but he and I both went in with a survival mindset so we never really had any chance to try anything together. He rolled in right behind me.

All-in-all, I'll call it a victory. Early predictions had me on the trainer still so to be racing again kicks ass. It was a brisk race too so it's not like I was slacking. Almost forgot... Funny Oh Shit moment of the race came with maybe 15 to go when I look to my left and I'm riding next to Paul Curley. I was like WTF... I had no idea this guy was only a 3. I just kinda always figured he was a 1 or 2, but I guess not. It was his second race of the day and he ended up 10th I think.

Otherwise the weekend kicked ass... great weather, lots accomplished, kids had a generally good time with everything. Praying for nice weather next weekend too for Sunday's MTB race and a Monday golf outing.

Back to work... virtual Mondays are harder than real ones...

Recipe for recovery

How to come back from what seems like a severe injury:

1. Rest - check
2. Easy short trainer rides - check
3. Easy short outdoor rides - check
4. Less easy, longer outdoor rides - check
5. Short harder efforts outside - check
6. Hard efforts off-road - check
7. Multiple days of honest efforts - in progress
8. Racing - TBD

So I'm almost there. Bouncing around on the dirt and rocks went pretty good last night. Put in some almost race-like efforts a few times with no issues. Tonight I ride home from work, tomorrow I ride back in. Other than that, there'll just be jumping into a race and seeing if I've turned into a pansy. I think I'll just be planning to sit in the first race and will be backing off if things get even a little hairy.

Back to work. Enjoy the sunshine everyone.

Progress

Got out last night for about 55 minutes, avg 20mph. I'm going to call that good :) I can tell I'm still not pulling up with as much force in the bad leg, but I think the hip muscles still need some more rehab. I'm most likely going to shoot for a mountain bike race on the 3rd so we'll see how that goes.

Crazy week all around. Lots going on in and out of work (more out) and our schedules are all messed up. I'd so much rather be sleeping right now. Putting patio chairs together until 11 will do that to you...

Crib free

So it was a momentus day in the household yesterday... the baby crib has officially been decommissioned. After breakfast my wife got the idea that maybe the 2 year old was ready for a big boy bed and he got all fired up about the idea. Ended up having to make a run to BJs for the finest $99 mattress on hand (we've still got potty training to get through... that's the best he's getting). Amazingly, he did stay in it for his nap and through the night, but we know it's only a matter of time before it occurs to him that he can get out at will. Hopefully that takes a while even though we know the routine so it won't be a big deal.

Rode Saturday for about 35 minutes and the muscles that are taking over for the pulled stuff in the bad leg were tired. Took yesterday off and I'll head out tonight. I hope to ramp back up to riding in near the end of this week especially with pre-holiday traffic on tap. It will be fun to pass everyone on the way home while they sit in line... always is. Also have to try some mountain biking so I can decide if I can race on the 3rd. Looks good now, but I have to try it first.

Back to work. I've been battling a bad case of the Mondays all day and it's getting a little late to get over it at this point. I think it's time for coffee.

It was the beer talking

This just keeps getting funnier:

Stupid Beer

How many times could we all say that?

It's a matter of perspective

The weather this morning at 5:15 a.m. was about 42 degrees and raining... and I went out for a ride. Now if this had been a normal week and today was a scheduled workout, I would have either written it off as a rest day or set up the trainer tonight. The weather was hideous for biking. Instead I got out of bed a little on the early side, got dressed, happily jumped on my mountain bike and went riding around on the town bike path for about 30 minutes. By the time I got home, my legs were completely pink, bordering on red, and numb. I had my rain jacket on, but everything not covered by that was drenched. I had a great time. It was a combination of just enjoying riding a bike and a small sense of accomplishment for being back on one in less than half the time originally predicted. Plus now I am able to take my son to see Shrek tonight and not feel like I missed a chance to ride.

The other night I had seriously considered whether it was wise to jump into Wells this Sunday even if I just rode a few laps and then bailed. I had decided that not having been on a bike outside yet disqualified me from going. Despite having been outside this morning I think it's still a bad idea. I am however starting to take a close look at the upcoming schedules to see when and where I'm racing. I was going to wait until Housatonic on the 17th, but I may go to CT for some mountain biking before then if I can prove to myself I won't hurt myself worse.

Busy day tomorrow, but then quiet Sunday. The youngest turned 2 on Wednesday so the family is coming over tomorrow to have cake and give him more toys that will get piled onto the toy store we already have in the house. I beg them every year with every child to stay under control, but they don't listen. I'll just have to start loading up the truck and dropping the excess back at their houses :)

Oh, and I'm now keeping track of the Floyd case for pure comedic value. The testimony of the lady who did the testing is total crap and LNDD looks like a bunch of lying idiots. And what the hell with Lemond... I think I've finally given up on having an opinion on that guy. You never know what the hell he's going to throw out there...