What a ride!

Well, I did the Assault on the Carolinas ride on saturday. Jenny, Kelley and I ended up having a nice day in the mountains. We had a lot of contingencies and backup plans, but the ride did happen. The specifics: 33.06 miles in 2:26:19 for an average speed of 13.6 mph and a max speed of 34.8 mph. There was a total of 3033 ft of climbing. Check out the elevation profile:

Can you tell where the climb at Walnut Hollow was? The truth was this was definitely the half marathon of challenging bike rides. The one huge climb was no more difficult than the Paris Mountain ride I'll do some sundays. But still, 33 miles is the farthest I've ever gone on the bike. It's the first time I've topped 3000 ft of climbing in one ride. and my first large organized ride of this type. So I was really happy with the outcome. More details?
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Brevard, NC is about an hour and a half north of where we live. I thought it was closer than that. It rained for the last 3 days before saturday. We have some relatives that live near Brevard, that told us about a rock climbing gym they go to. So if it was raining at the start the plan was to abandon and go indoor rock climbing instead.



Here I am with a little pre-ride fuel before starting. It's not raining now. The forecast was for the rain to hold off until about noon. Race starting at 9 am, so all systems pointed go. I got to talking to some old guy about half ironmans and we both ended up missing the start. So here I am trying to catch up to the main group. I got within sight of the main group but never really caught up.


Still, no rain at this point. The roads were wet, but I was still dry. Kelley kept the cue sheet, so I had no idea where I was going, just trying to follow the small signs and see if I could find another biker. The course was lollipop style. It went out for 7 miles through downtown Brevard to an aid station. Then it took a 19 mile loop back around to the same aid station, and backtrack the first 7 miles back to Brevard High School.
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The course was unbelievable. The loop was the coolest part, really. The first part was the Walnut Hollow climb, a 1.1 mile incline with parts of it at a 15% grade. That was quite challenging. I did have to hop off of the bike and walk up the really steep grade, but I made it about halfway up and was really grateful that I did all that hill work on the bike last monday. I made it a lot farther up that steep grade than I ever have before.
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Then it went into mostly rolling hills and more of a level grade than I was really expecting. Jenny has 2 chainrings and 8 cogs. So small/8 is the Glaven gear (a.k.a. the granny gear) and big/1 is the most powerful gear (53x11 or the Flynn gear). After taking Walnut Hollow climb in Glaven, I spent most of my power around the big chainring. THAT was totally unexpected. On the rollers and flat spots, it was mostly big/3 to big/5, and I kept the speed around 19-21 mph. the course followed a river for a large part, including some cool bridges across the river and back. There was a few waterfalls that we rode past. And it was just out in the country. I saw a sod farm, tons of cattle farms, cleared grazing land, and lots of horses. Plus, on the bike you get to really experience those things more than you do in a car. One of the cattle farms had just put out food, so there was maybe 50 cattle just a few feet from the road. The smell almost knocked me off of the bike it was so strong and awful. It made me think of what Glaven's house must smell like. But that's all a part of the experience. You don't get to smell that kind of thing from the car. Here's a few shots that Kelley took just to show what we were seeing along the route:

The fog came rolling in over the mountains about an hour into the ride

More fog in the mountains

She even found an albino squirrel!

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It started raining about mile 5. It did not stop raining until sunday. Since Kelley had the cue sheet, she hopped in the van and caught up with me. This was on the rollers about 15 miles in:




I was thoroughly drenched at this point. So in the first picture, the wet clothes are really sticking and my arms look huge and muscular! very cool. And you can see the fog and mountains that I was riding into in the second pic. The course was unreal pretty. The strangest thing was that my saddle came loose about 12 miles in! It got worse as the ride progressed, and in the end was shaking like a belly dancer. So I had no seat stability at all for the last 10 miles or so. How strange is that?

Then I came back around to the aid station and took the same 7 mile ride back to the high school. This section had a huge climb each way, and on the return trip I had to stop once on the climb and catch my breath before finishing. Here I am thoroughly drenched, happy, and glad to be at the finish point:



Certainly a little worse for wear. Cold (it was in the low 50's all morning), wet, and my legs were totally shredded. But my hydration/nutrition plan held up great, I didn't run out of water, and ended up with a great ride story.

I changed clothes and dried off some, then we went to a cute little pasta restaurant in downtown for lunch. Then we drove back home, I took a shower, and we both fell asleep for a couple of hours. Then we picked up the kids, got some dinner and that was Saturday. I burned over 2000 calories on the ride, so we hit a buffett for dinner and I put on a show. I don't think we're invited back. But I did stick with the healthier items on the buffet. Each plate had at least 3 veg. I just had like 6 plates. ha!

Sunday we got to play with the kids for a bit, and I had some work to do. Then Kelley and I went out to Furman for a run in the afternoon. The sun was out for the first time since tuesday, and we don't get to run together very often. We should not have run together this time, either. We tend to keep different paces, and she's strictly treadmill and first thing in the morning. I like outside and variable. My plan was to get 12 miles in, and I was feeling ok to do that. We actually got 1.6 miles in before she wimped out and we went home. oh well. It did end up a lot colder and with a really stiff wind blowing. So conditions were still not ideal. The trail parts were really muddy from all of that rain. Meh, we blew it off and went home to play with the kids some more.


So overall that was a fantastic weekend! We've got a really fun week ahead too. One question, though. Jenny is still covered in mud and road trash. What do you use to clean a bike with? Windex? Formula 409? I have no idea, but I have to clean her down good and tighten the seat up before taking her out again for today (or tomorrow's) training ride.

Thursday night meat punch

Actually, I meat punched a brick last night. It. Was. Awe. Some! I've fallen into a pattern that I'm really enjoying (shouldn't that pattern be defined by the training plan? whatever). Monday and Tuesday has a bike and a run. Wednesday is strength training, and a brick on Thursday. Friday is a rest day, then a long run on Saturday and a long ride on Sunday. I've also been regularly doing the Tri Power strength workouts 5 days a week, and yoga 2 or 3 days. And this pattern really seems to be getting the job done. Feeling fit and really healthy, I've taken another inch or so off of the waist in the last month(ish) and everything is feeling good. So what's missing? swimming. haven't quite figured that one out yet. and with the first tri of the year coming up in less than a month with a 750 meter lake swim, I need to figure something out fast.

So last night's brick was insane! It's been raining here steadily since wednesday, so I hit the gym. I started out with 15 miles on the bike in 45 minutes. I think that's the fastest I've ever gone on a stationary bike. Which is also funny because stationary bikes don't actually go anywhere. But the rpm stayed around 112 the whole time. Then I refilled the water bottle, took a gel, and hopped on the treadmill. I was supposed to do an easy 6 miles at a slower pace. But the pace ended up being faster than I normally can sustain for that distance, so I cut out at 4.5 miles. Still, I ended up pulling an 8:40 pace? What? those are Glaven speeds. I've never been able to keep that pace for that long before, especially after going that far on the bike. The interval workouts and all that time on the bike must be really getting the job done. It felt great, and I wanted to keep going but I didn't want to wear down my legs for the weekend.

Plus, yesterday was a really long day. I got up about 5:15 because I knew there was tons of work to get done. Did some yoga, core work, and the Tri Power workout early while Kelley was at the gym. Then I finished off some major projects at work, which everyone in Atlanta is currently amazed at. It's good, because I haven't done anything at work recently that deserved an 'attaboy', but there were plenty of failures. So to pull off what I did yesterday was a good thing that turned a lot of heads. The technical details, however, are quite boring. then I had dinner, got the kids to bed, and hit the gym for that brick. Finished the workout exactly at 10:30 pm, grabbed a quick shower and made it home just after 11. Then I slept in this morning.

So what does the weekend hold? could be tons of rain. Tomorrow is the Assault On The Carolinas bike ride. I'm doing the 60k distance (about 37 miles), but there are also 100k and 30k rides going on. It will be the longest bike ride I've done so far, and my first paid for organized ride that wasn't in the middle of a triathlon. Here's the ride details from their web site:

The 60K riders will get to test their climbing abilities on Walnut Hollow, which is a local favorite. Walnut hollow is a steep challenging climb that is sure to get everyone's heart pumping. The climb is 1.1 mile with grades reaching 15%. After climbing Walnut Hollow riders will enjoy a nice rolling ride home through the French Broad River Valley. The 60k has 2 fully stocked rest stops.

Packet pickup is tonight at a coffee house in Brevard, NC that is also supposed to be a social event. Coach Katie is also doing this ride, so I'm looking forward to seeing her as always. It's going to be challenging and fun. And since the small camera is working again, I'm looking forward to taking pictures and will share on monday.

The local tv says it's supposed to have strong thunderstorms all day saturday. As much as I'm looking forward to this ride, I'm not going out in a thunderstorm.

My folks are keeping the kids tonight so Kelley can come with me out to the ride site. We are both looking forward to a night of peace.

Sunday if it's not raining, Kelley and I are both going to Furman for a trail run. We know bad things happen when Kelley tries to run outside, like very little running actually occurs. But we're going to take the little camera and snap some photos. I haven't been out there for a run in several weeks, so I can't wait. The hope is to get 12 miles in, but Kelley hasn't been pulling those kind of numbers recently, so we'll see how it goes.

Have a great weekend! Good luck if you're racing. TFH is running her first marathon this weekend, good luch Sharmidi! MikeG also has a 5k tomorrow, that boy is fast. Have fun brother!

Results

I'm supposed to do the "progress assessments" every four weeks during the Tri Power program to measure how much stronger I'm getting. This plan is really getting the job done too. I feel much stronger, my core strength has never been better, my abs are starting to really shape up, and I can tell a big improvement in overall strength. But the proof is in the pudding. Here's the first (and only) set of numbers from 2/25:

Pushups (in 60 sec): 10
Wall Sit (sec): 30
Flex-Arm Hang: 11 seconds
Side Plank: 19 seconds
Side Plank Bent Knee: 25 seconds
Prone Plank: 20 seconds
Extensor Chain: 50 seconds
Core Strength: 30%

Now here are the numbers from last night:

Pushups: 15
Wall Sit: 49
Flex-Arm Hang: 20
Side Plank: 29
Side Plank Bent Knee: 54
Prone Plank: 35
Extensor Chain: 1:12
Core Strength: 40%

Just because the first set of numbers proved that I was weak like a little girl, I guess there was enough room to make serious improvements. So now I'm up to at least a middle school aged girl. Those numbers aren't quite so bad. Before, I couldn't do a chinup, now I can crank out 2. 15 pushups is at least respectable by Marcy's child-face-punching standards. And the core is nice and strong, I feel more balanced during the bike and run parts. Very cool.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about with Tri Power, it's just a book I found on amazon. Keep your body and your training in balance, it's the key to a sucessful season! I'll run these numbers again in four more weeks when I switch up to Phase 2 of the program.

Some Workouts

Finally a couple of decent workouts. Yesterday I slammed a project at work that was really tough, then took off around 5:30 and hopped on the bike. The total ride was 8.3 miles in 51 minutes, which sounds really slow. I can turn left out of my street and head into the flat(ish) land where I can practice avoiding cars and bike survival skills. There is some fun terrain out in the residential areas if I head that way, but you have to cross a 6 lane highway (Wade Hampton Blvd for you locals) to get there. Then cross back over to get home.

So last night I wanted to get some hill work in, so I went right out of my street. There's nothing but hills. Some are incredibly steep and long. Jenny preferes steep and long to fast and flat, I think. That's why Glaven could never ride her. But seriously, there's no flat spots here. I never had to take her out of the Granny gear, aka the Glaven gear. Check out the garmin's elevation/distance chart:

Geez, that's some serious up and down. Nothing anywhere close to flat. But at least there was not much traffic. I wanted to get some hill work in with low milage to prepare for the http://www.assaultonthecarolinas.com/ 60k ride I've got coming up on Saturday. This ride fit the bill.

I know that an organized bike ride is different from a race, but to me it's really not. I haven't been in a race since the half marathon Jan 3, so I've really been looking forward to this one. And you still have to pay an entry fee and get a t-shirt, I'll have the garmin on for distance & time, so I'm treating it like an event. The route goes through the mountains of North Carolina, but it does dip back into South Carolina for a bit. The start/finish line is about 45 minutes north of the house, so it should be a fun and challenging ride that I have had to prepare for mentally and physically. The web site says there is 1.1 miles of solid climbing with grades reaching 15%. what fun, huh?

The ride last night had some 15% grades, I think. it was 1183 ft of climbing, which is more than I was expecting.

Then this morning I made it to the gym for a nice run. I know I'm not supposed to, whatever. I did treadmill intervals, 4 intervals of 1k (.62 miles) with a quarter mile walk in between, and a 10min warmup and cooldown. I set the interval speeds at 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, and 7.4 mph. My normal distance treadmill speeds are 6.0 - 6.2, so getting faster for a bit felt really good. My shin felt fine during the run, but now it's starting to hurt a bit. i've got to call today and make the appt for the bone scan. I might ice it some too. But with no advil, it felt fine during the run! total run was 4 miles, 48 minutes, about 600 calories.

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Other Randomness

I finally got my small old point and shoot camera working again over the weekend! I wanted to get it up and going so I could take it with me on bike rides and longer runs. So of course when it started working, the girls stole it and started taking pictures of the cartoons on tv. But I'm glad I can finally take pics on the run now!

I didn't finish last in Steve's Tales of a Virgin Athlete contest! I beat the girl who locked herself out of a dressing room in tights. I know I have to use the Glaven mantra "It's an honor just to be a finalist", but that's really cool. The competition was really stiff, so thank you to everyone who voted for me! I didn't expect to beat the girl who overcame heroin or the guy that lost 365 lbs. But not last is pretty cool.

Then, I actually won something! Marcy had a book giveaway and she drew my name out of the hat. So she's sending me her gently used copy of the Cutting Edge Running book. How cool it that? I love winning, and not losing. But I'm sure Glaven has gotten so used to losing by now, it must not be that big of a deal.

Have a great day!

Good Gardening Weekend

Well, I have no fitness to report from the weekend. No running, biking or swimming. But I did get to spend the whole weekend with the family in the garden. So I'll call it a sucess. First, a pic of myself and Evil Genius from St Patrick's Day:

That Irish shirt with the lightning bolt is too cute. She's hard core, huh? I just stumbled across that one and thought I would throw it into the mix today.




All weekend it was warm (high 60's) and sunny so we were all able to hang out outside all weekend long. It was fantastic! We recently joined the Arbor Day Foundation, and they send you 10 trees when you sign up. Those came in on Saturday, and they were all less than a foot tall. So I'm growing them in containers for the first year or two until they get some decent size on them.



Bigun LOVED riding out with me to hit up Lowe's. We got some straw to mulch the veg patch, a couple of basil plants, and some cow manure and potting soil, but her favorite part was sitting on the cart letting me push her around. a couple of weeks ago, I published the "before" pic of the garden. Here's the mid-march update:



You can see the straw, we're going to mulch around the plants with that this year. The grass you see still needs to be removed. That's one task that didn't get done. Of course, around here we refer to things that don't get done by saying they were Glaven'd. So the sod removal was Glaven'd. And since that's where the potatoes are going to be planted, they didn't get in the ground either. That's called Potatoes Glaven. In the foreground, you can also see the cherry tree in full bloom. The bags of stuff are horse manure (insert Glaven = shit or Glaven doesn't get done joke here), that are going to get spread once the sod is gone. I did also notice that the peas I planted 2 weekends ago have broken ground too. I still don't think I will get too much of a yield from them, but that's ok. At least they germinated.

So the girls and I potted up all 10 trees, and put both basil's in a container for the deck. We also got some new containers and a pack of annuals from Lowe's. Bigun wanted to plant some pretty flowers for mommy (how sweet!), so we planted up some petunia's, and set some Cosmos and Marigold seeds in the same containers. One made it to the back deck, and one onto the front porch. They should produce waves of flowers, it's going to be really cool. And that was a ton of plantings for the girls! they crashed so hard when it was time to sleep saturday night

I mentioned last week that the people that back up to us had part of the lot cleared? Turns out it wasn't the neighbors, it was the local government! The water & sewer authority claimed that they had to work on a storm drain, and cleared out that whole section of their backyard even taking out their basketball goal just to clear the land! The worst part is that they didn't even work on the drain pipe. Just cleared and graded the land, then left. So not only am I surrounded by dumbasses, this town is run by dumbasses! I'm in a suburb that is not even an official city, it's only incorporated as a water & fire district. All dumbasses!
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This ties into the garden thanks to Sunday. Here's a "before" picture of what would be the berry patch.


You can see the table in the raised bed, and the fence running behind the tree. Notice all of the green behind the fence? All of that timber and undergrowth? Here's what the same basic area looks like this morning:



You can still see the table, fence, and tree. But the greenery behind the fence is now straw where the dumbass local government cleared away; totally exposing my backyard to the other street. It also exposes his driveway to us and our street.
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In front of the fence, you can see posts to the left of the tree, that's the grape vines and muscadine vines. To the right of the tree is the berry patch. It all got a fresh layer of mulch on Sunday. Bigun loves seeing the bulldozer that loads the mulch into the pickup truck, and she loves it when we borrow my dad's truck and she gets to ride up front and up high in the truck with me. This time, she discovered how to make the window roll up and down, and was actually riding with her arm hanging out the window like some joe cool kid. She's nuts.
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Also, I now have a couple dozen pepper plants that are about an inch tall in the seed flat. It's so cool to see something germinate that effectively. April 15th is our last frost date, so these pepper plants should be ready to go in the ground then.

Today the plan is to get out of work around 5 and get in a bike ride. Then hit the gym for a run tomorrow morning, just to see how it feels. With the sun over the weekend, I was craving hitting the trails around Furman, but just didn't get the chance too.

I hope your weekend was as fantastic as mine! happy monday. The office finished the trade show saturday with a ton of extra work for me, so I'm going to be cranking out code. Sorry in advance if I don't comment on your blog for a few days. I'm still reading, really!

End of the Week

Apparently I owe you an explanation about the length of the last post. Being a software developer, all I've done for the last 10 years is sit at a desk and write code. Well, that's not exactly true, I used to do pc repair, network setup, cabling, etc too. This has left me able to type around 120 words a minute. I can actually type faster than I can write, so a pen/paper thing has become very frustrating. That also explains any misspeelllings. So a quick post like that one was quick for me to type out (about 20 minutes total) and embarrasingly stream-of-consciousness. I've been all over the place mentally this week with so many ups and downs. I guess that just kind of vomited in bullet points yesterday.

After getting the good news yesterday that my liver was ok, I stopped work a little early to get in a workout. So naturally we all went and hit Moe's for dinner instead, then Target. I was going to take Jenny out for a ride after we got back, but it started raining. I'm so excited she's back and in fine form. no more strange noises, everything is clean and pretty. I also got her some bling bling. Two fresh new water bottles and cages installed, a bag for below the seat to carry stuff with the bike store logo on it, and I had to order a bike computer for it, he's going to call me when it gets here. I also picked up some chamois cream. I love this bike store, Gusto Cycles. It's only about 2 miles from the house and every bike you buy comes with lifetime free maintenance. The service is unbelievable too.

So after we got back from the running around, we put the kids to bed and I hit the gym since it was raining. I bricked 9 miles on the stationary bike in 30 minutes, and 6 miles on the elliptical in 51 minutes. It was a great workout, and I got to watch the tourney games the whole time. It was really nice to get a good sweat on, but I hate that it ran that late into the evening. I got up around 4 am yesterday, and finished the workout and made it home at like 10:15 last night. That's a long day. And my left leg was killing me. The shin thing hurt pretty bad when I was on the elliptical, but my left hip was hurting some too. So I'm ready to be done with this whole pain thing. Gotta call the doc today and schedule that bone scan.

I have to give props to Sarah the Sun Runner. Her Michigan Wolverines sort of stuck it to my Clemson Tigers last night. We gave away a large part of the game, it got really physical with tons of injuries, and one of our best shooters got frustrated, threw an elbow and got tossed. But UM built up and held onto a lead and walked away with the rights to lose to Oklahoma on saturday.

I went 13 - 3 in my bracket yesterday. President Obama went 11 - 5 with his picks. That's all I'm saying. Today I picked Tennesee to beat Oklahoma St and Arizona to beat Utah as my only upsets.

This is my last weekend that is not already planned for a while. The next 6 weekends are booked up! it's nuts. So this weekend I've got to get out in the garden, and get on the bike for some good long rides. This is the last weekend I've got to prep for the Assault on the Carolinas, so I need to get in a good 20 or 30 miles.

I have got a ton of gardening to do. The peppers are germinating nicely in the seed flat. Nothing warms the room like seeing a couple dozen 1" high seedlings. I've got to mulch the berry beds, wire the grape trellis, clear sod from the expanded veg bed, and plant the potatoes. The potatoes really should have been in the ground about 2 weeks ago. There's always weeds to pull, and I need to put some straw or grass clippings over the asparagus patch. I've also got to get the lawnmower into the shop for the spring maintenance.

And if THAT sounds like a busy weekend, you have no idea what's coming up next! Good luck if you're racing. I know Jess has a half marathon, good luck girl! Christine has a 5k... who else is racing?

The wrap up - UPDATED

< update >: I've been stalking the mailman, and the blood test results just came in. Liver enzymes are back to normal. Quite a relief. So now I guess I need to get a bone density scan. < update >

Life in bullet points: the Bipolar Posting Disorder (BPD) is going wild today so I can't pull together a chohesive thought pattern.

• THANK YOU for all of the well wishes about my liver and shin problems. I still haven't seen the blood test results, they should be coming in the mail today or tomorrow. I'll post the results once I get them.
• THANK YOU for all of the votes for me on Steve's "Tales of a Virgin Athlete" contest. You can still vote until saturday if you have not voted yet. And if you haven't read the whole story (longer than the 300 words I had to condense it down to) I have that posted here as the first message I wrote on this blog. Apparently the long version is more inspirational than the short version. Right now I've got 6.2% of the vote, and I'm only beating a girl with bad fashion sense that locked herself out of the dressing room. that's kind of pathetic, but not as pathetic as finishing in last place. The current leader is the guy who lost 385 lbs with his wife. I guess I'll have to concede the Drymax Socks prize.
• We finally picked a team name for the mud run. We're going with "Irish Mafia" because it makes us sound dirty and drunk. and instills a little bit of fear in the other teams. As much as I loved "the Bruised Taints" and "Dirt Digglers", they wouldn't cut the mustard with the girls. I also wanted the "Dutch Rudders" hoping that none of the race people would know what that was, but chose not to take the risk. Most South Carolina people have their head in a bucket when it comes to modern terminology like that anyway. Other name candidates were the Skidmarks, Elephantitis, and a few others.
• The Hinman trade show starts today. My company has a booth where they are selling some of my software, http://www.securedentalforms.com/. Last year they tried to sell the same product, but it was a very incomplete product. and a tornado came through atlanta and knocked out the busiest day of the show. It's been a fairly stressful time the last few weeks so I didn't have to make liars out of the salespeople, promising features that I hadn't written yet. but we got everything squared away in time this year. Sweet!
• March Madness starts today. Office productivity everywhere is going to slow to a crawl this afternoon as everyone who's ever seen a college basketball game before stops to watch the games. I can't wait. While I'm not a huge college basketball fan, the first two rounds of the NCAA tourney are riveting. If you were curious, I'm picking uConn to go all the way, with Kansas, Oklahoma, and Duke joining them in the Final Four. Everyone and their brother is picking UNC to go all the way, including Barak Obama. So there's no way UNC will actually go all the way. And I'm a decent fan of UNC basketball thanks to Coach Stu who is a Chapell Hill native.
• Since I haven't heard from the doc/lab, there has been no running since saturday. I did get the bike into the shop for a little tune up, and it's ready to get picked up today. I just wanted to be sure everything was going to be ready for the Assault next weekend. I did get a little bling installed too, some water bottles and cages, maybe a few other little treats like a bike computer or new saddle.
• I've been trying to name my bike for many months now but I haven't been able to think of a good one. It has to be female since I'm going to rider her so often this year. I think I'm going with Jenny, after the Forrest Gump character. I tend to stumble through these races like Forrest stumbled through life with Jenny supporting him. Many times "run Forrest run" has popped into my head during a run and/or race. Plus Robin Wright is kind of hawt when she isn't sick or coked out.
• So Jenny is coming back from the shop today, all clean and race ready. As a triathlete that's already registered and paid for many tri's and running only races this year, I'm struggling to come to grips with the possiblility that I might be off of the running bandwagon for some time, if not a long time. These are the thoughts that are going through my head: can I still run the half marathon april 25th; the doc might not be able to clear me for the marathon in june; i might not be able to run at all until the half ironman training starts in july; i might not be able to run the b2b?; give me a break. It's not a fun thought process.
• The one consolation for that? I am truly loving the bike right now. I'm having a tough time getting into the pool, running is completely shelved. So I might have to mentally change my approach from being a triathlete to being a cyclist. Change the marathon to a nice century ride. It's just a mental thing that I'm struggling with right now. it all makes sense, but is kind of hard to accept. Hopefully the tests/bone scans/whatever will provide a path for me to keep running, but I end up mentally going to the worst place while playing the waiting game like this. Actually the worst place is some kind of liver disease, but we don't want to go there. But I'm loving the bike so much that I can totally see myself getting about 12 Jenny's and riding all the time.
• I am still sticking to my yoga and Tri Power strength training program. It's still kicking me in all of the right places.
• My favorite bike name of all time comes from my good friend Sarah (Chasing Iron) -- she calls her bike Cupcake. Some people in her track group get it wrong and call her cupcake, which is actually quite insulting. She's one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, and I can't wait to see her ride Cupcake to turn Ironman next year. rock on.
• Do you have a name for your bike?
• I watched the Biggest Liar on tuesday night and didn't feel quite so lied to. The fastest contestant's half mararthon time was still 3 minutes slower than my half marathon PR. This makes me think that they are actually giving us actual times, not made up times or something including drive time. But we're really still supposed to believe that Dane broke 4 hours running 23 miles? i swear that had to be a 5:53 time just to come close to being in line with the other contestants half marathon times.
• The "people" whose backyard backs up to mine have gone crazy. Our hood is full of old growth trees that give us all a lot of privacy from each other. Last year someone bought the vacant lot on one side of my house, cleared away a large chunk of the lot to build a house, then didn't build the house. So now my whole backyard is visible from the street I live on. thanks for screwing that up. Now these people that back up to my lot have cleared the entire back side of their lot, exposing my entire backyard to their street as well. The only possible benefit is that it should let a little more morning sunshine onto my berry garden, and maybe some extra light on the veg garden too. but the extra exposure sucks!
• I think it's incredibly stupid that the first thing large real estate developers do is clear away all of the trees for the entire neighborhood. They replace a forest with a single 8' Bradford Pear, and that's supposed to be ok. Our subdivision here in the suburbs did not do that when the houses were built 35 years ago, and these stupid people are doing it now. stupid south carolina people. there are only 2 streets in my neighborhood, about 100 houses. It's a small development in a close community. I should also mention that our subdivision is called "Seven Oaks" even though there are no oak trees. I also find that humorous.
• Finally, a funny picture I stole from another blog:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Do you really think they care? I don't. Have a great day! Go tarheels!