The B-log

Excruciating

2012-01-11T17:43:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was the annual race from Warda to Rocky Hill and then back to Warda.

The morning started early (4:00 early), on the road by 4:30 and at the gas station by 4:35. It was real foggy but that didn't slow me down, had to get to race!! The race started at 7:30 with a racers' meeting at 7:15. I got all ready to go only to realize I had lost my car keys... panic!! After about five minutes of searching I found them inside my collapsable lawn chair... WTF. Back to race, I rode around a little bit made sure I had everything, left my supply bag with my teammate's, James Webb's dad (So thankful for the support!). Put my bike down in the bike staging area and headed to the racers' meeting. I got to catch up with a lot of my friend racers while we waited for the start, the Le Mans start. Some anxiety some negative anticipation about how much the race was going to hurt and all of the sudden we were going.

After the Le Mans and some shuffling around I was approaching the entrance to the singletrack and then my rear tire came to a grinding halt and I had no idea why. Apparently the skewer had worked itself a little loose. Wonderful... I got it back on and got back on the bike, about 50 positions back from where I was, and in the thick of the mostly non-technical riders... ugh... I also noticed I gashed my finger pretty good while fixing my bike and the blood was flowing off my thumb like no other. After some slow singletrack and passing a bunch of people, and then some more people, it was time to get out onto the road for the first road section.

I started out with a pretty fast group that could not hold a steady pace for anything so we were constantly going from 23mph to 17mph with short hard accelerations in between. I decided it not worth the effort to try to stay in the group so I let them go so I could hold a more steady pace. Eventually, another group caught up to me and I joined in that group, a good friend, Tracy Jones, was in the group and since I wasn't really "in" my race too much I decided to ride with her the rest of the day. Just as we were about two miles from Rocky Hill Tracy flatted so, being a nice guy, I stopped to help her get it fixed, Stan's is great tire sealant!! Back on the road and almost to Rocky Hill, I was really looking forward to some food. Refueled, Tracy and I hit the trails at Rocky Hill, one of my favorite riding venues. I rode in front for a while, picking good lines, then I would let Tracy lead for a while, she did not pick good lines and I was too sheepish and followed her... then I would lead again for a while. A while later, about 20 miles or so, we came to the end of Rocky Hill singletrack, nothing very eventful happened at RH.

The road section back started with a big climb and then was reasonably flat all the way back to Warda, just a few slow grinders. Tracy and I and one other dude started a paceline and kept picking people up as we went. I noticed my knee starting to hurt pretty good about half way back, not sure why it was hurting. Kept on cycling through the paceline getting Tracy back into contention for the women until about 4 miles to go, at which point I was pretty much spent for the day. I didn't totally slack off but I definitely was riding a bit easier. After I was done I actually felt pretty good physically, except for my knee, that was killing me.

I ended up fourth in my age group, not too bad, and Tracy ended up as the second woman overall and first in her age group. Way to go!! After a delicious burger and a chat with my coach I headed on back to Houston. Way to go to my coach, by the way, fifth overall for men, Great Work!!

Now it's back to training.

Next weekend Sonia and I are travelling to rural Alabama to visit Sonia's Mom, Maria. I haven't been Alabama for a while and it'll be great to meet Sonia's mom so I'm definitely looking forward to the trip!

Rose City Triathlon

2011-10-28T16:58:00.001-07:00

A while ago, sometime in September around the 17th, Sonia and I travelled north to the quaint town of Tyler. We got up there early enough to meet up with Alan and Kathy for some dinner and beer.

The race was Saturday morning and early... why do triathlons, even short ones, start soooooo early? Oh well, my goal for the race: don't lose on the swim. Not long before the race we found out it was the South Central Conference Sprint Triathlon Championships (I think that's what it was called), so my hopes of actually getting podium went down hill.

Race:

The morning was pretty nice actually and the water was tolerable. We cut it close getting to and through transition and out to the dam to stage for the start. We were both pretty excited and, um, a bit nervous. My goal, don't die in the swim.
Before I knew it the gun went off and we were sailing through the water, in my case, splashing through the water. I managed a pretty good time through the swim and had a decent T1.

The bike was good, the hills were hard, I passed a lot of people as I anticipated I would. My T2 wasn't too bad.

The run was good, fastest 5k I've managed with a 6:54 min/mile pace. I ended up 11th in my age group which I didn't think was too bad since it was the SW Conference Sprint Championships.

The race was great, Sonia had a lot of fun, I think we'll be back next year.

Magnolia Hil

2011-09-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago was the last XTerra of the Texas series. "It was hot" could be the understatement of the century. I went up and did an easy lap on Saturday to get a feel for the new race course. It was good, tough, and loose. Some parts reminded me of riding in a sand box, with loose sand in it. Oh well. I headed home to get out of the effin' heat and rest.

Sunday came early, we got to the race plenty early cause I had to pick up my packet and Sonia was doing the trail run that started at 8. We hung out, I casually got ready, and tried to keep Sonia focused on the trail run.

My race started at 9, with an 800 meter swim, ugh! That's not actually THAT far, unless you swim like I do, bad. Just as we were getting ready to go I saw Sonia running in to finish so I cheered her on. After some encouraging and and direction she went to finish. (She got second in her age group, Congrats!!)

A quick good luck from Sonia and then the race was on. The swim was long and with about 150 meters to go my stomach started to cramp a bit, wonderful... I got out of the water, way behind, had a good transition and then headed out on the two-lap, 12 mile bike. The course was about as tough as I remember it AND I had to pass all the people that out swam me. I made up some positions on the first lap without killing myself. I passed some more people on the second lap and tried not to kill myself. I tried to get some fluids in me before the run, a move which I'm pretty sure led me to really hurting on the run. After a pretty good transition it was time to run.

I started running and then had to slow it down to a quick walk, and then just settled with a walk. My legs felt fine but it felt like I was running with a bowling ball in my stomach, no bueno... On my first lap of the two mile run course I walked quite a bit. I really thought about quitting. It was hot, my stomach hurt, and I wasn't going to place very well. "Just suck it up and keep going," is what I said to myself, so I did. I got around to the feed zone where race mom and Sonia were. They cheered me on, gave me some water and I kept on trudging along. Amazingly, about a quarter way through the second lap I started feeling a bit better so I started running with a little bit more intent of trying to go faster. I did end up catching three people before the finish, a tiny consolation for such a horrible run.

I sat around for a while but was really not feeling well so Sonia hauled me home. We had to stop on the way to get that bowling ball out of my stomach but that made things much better.

I did end up 23rd overall and 3rd in my age group, I'm really glad I didn't throw in the towel.

Here's some picture if you want to see me in action, some good, some not-so-good: http://www.backprint.com/view_user_event.asp?PID=bp%1E%7BFz&EVENTID=90286&BIB=23&S=230&PWD=

Can it be this hot?

2011-08-27T15:11:00.000-07:00

I guess Mother Nature is holding the magnifying glass on Houston this past month and a half. For some reason though, 108 degrees seems a bit extreme. Check out the weather here. We've already set the record for the most consecutive days in a row over 100 degrees, somewhere around 23 or 24 days I think, and there's no end in sight...

Tomorrow is my second every XTerra, in Navasota, Texas. I went out and pre-rode today, the trail is pretty good but it's going to be so damn hot! An 800 meter swim, 12 mile bike and 4 mile run and then I'll be able to try to rehydrate. Hopefully no overheating tomorrow!

Futile effort?

2011-08-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not really convinced anyone reads blogs anymore, let alone write blogs... but... what the hell, I'll keep going.

The past couple of... months(?) seem to have been pretty uneventful in the way of racing. The last race was the Yfreedom triathlon. First ever road triathlon, pulled fourth in my age group. Not bad considering my swim time was almost one solid minute slower than anyone else in my age group. Still suspicious of their timing... It was pretty fun though, not sure how I managed to do as well in the run as I did. And I pulled 45th overall out of 407 racers, not too bad...

Beyond that little effort, my time has been taken up by training for the upcoming XTerra at the end of August. On a ranch that is "event only". Should be interesting, at least we'll all be at the same disadvantage of not knowing the course. Then, three weeks after that, I'm doing my second road triathlon, the Rose City Tri, in Tyler, TX. This will also be Sonia's first triathlon!

Other than that triathlon business, the mountain bike races I'm looking to do this Fall include the 24 hours of Rocky Hill, the Waco race, and the Rocky Hill marathon race. I'm also throwing around the idea of a trail run half marathon at the Dirty Du in November... sounds painful!

What else is new? My Mom is coming to visit this weekend. I'm building a new, carbon mountain bike. I am going to sell my 29er Orbea Lanza. Work is good, busy as normal. It's hot here (on this note, it's only about 2 degrees higher than normal and now we are under a "Heat Advisory", what are we under all the rest of the summer?). It's shark week. Today, in 1108, Louis the VI was crowned, he was the "fat" one.

Rocky Hill Horror Show

2011-06-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

So somehow I convinced Sonia to come out to Rocky Hill to ride and check out some sweet singletrack even though both I and another one of her friends told her she would hate it the first time. I'm pretty sure that is what happened.

We went out on Friday so we could get out for an early pre-ride on Saturday. It was effin' hot and super humid!! I had originally planned on doing a short Cat II lap but was stupid and hadn't realized the Cat II and Cat I loop was the same 17.5 mile loop. So off we went, like I thought, Sonia hated all the climbing at the first part, I do believe the line, "I hate all of these stupid rocks on this stupid hill!!!" came out at one point. Then she realized why the course was Rocky Hill : )

Once we got out of the first part of the climbing and into the flatter, more flowy singletrack the riding became fun!! We were cruising along at a pretty good clip, stopping every once in a while. The ride was a great pre-ride. Then the ride started getting a bit long, I was getting some looks from Sonia saying, "How long are we going to ride for?" After a bit more riding I started thinking the same thing... Then we stopped and Sonia asked, "How far in are we?" to which I responded, "about three-quarters of the way," I had no idea...

We kept trucking along, Sonia being a champ, and giving me dirty dirty looks until we got to the spot I knew was getting pretty close to the end. I sent Sonia down the easier trail with another lady while I rode the rest of the trail, good thing, it was significantly different with a lot of sweet, new singletrack. I ended up passing Sonia and other woman on the way down to the finish, I stopped by the turtle pond so the turtles could cheer Sonia up a bit, she was NOT happy with me. But after seeing turtles and having ice cream things were a bit better. We met up with Kyle and Mom for dinner on Saturday, it was great to see them!

Sunday brought on the race, it was warm and a bit muggy. I got a good warm-up in and felt pretty good, the legs were a bit sore from the long-than-expected pre-ride but they felt ok. As I expected, it was a hammerfest up the hills, the singletrack was feeling pretty good until about mile 7, then the legs started going. I eased up a bit but the legs did not come back and I couldn't get the heart rate to drop. No Bueno!! I held a bit easier pace but I was toast. I settled with pacing it in feeling the legs the whole way and trying to enjoy the singletrack. It was a bit of a disappointing end to the season but I learned to check the race course before riding from now on. I got some food after the race, the worst decision I made the whole day. Thankfully, Sonia was there to drive me home. The next 28ish hours after the race were pretty ugly but I'm better now and back to training!!

I ended up 5th overall in the series, not bad for only having five races and forgetting to turn in my Paydirt.

Wisconsin again...

2011-06-07T19:47:00.001-07:00

Wednesday brought about some unstable weather. As Dan and I were out looking for morels as ways from home the thunder started rolling. It was coming fast so we B-lined it back to the house. Dan headed on back to Marshfield and I headed into town for my nephew's birthday party/cookout. I got to meet my new nephew at the party and I think he liked me. I didn't get pooped on or puked on and I held the baby so: SUCCESS!! We had a lot of fun, pinata and all.

On Thursday I ventured down to Grandma’s house to make her breakfast and so she could teach me how to make Cinnamon rolls and her legendary oatmeal rolls. It was loads of fun and we had some delicious cinnamon rolls.
Cinnamon Rolls:

Oatmeal Rolls:

After eating one more cinnamon roll than I needed I thought a bike ride would be a good way to burn some of those calories so I headed out to do some climbing. The original plan was to ride down to C, up Rough Rd. to Rustic Rd, down Denzer Rd. and then do another lap. I got to the part where I came down Denzer Rd. and noticed some storm clouds building and I didn’t know if I had time to make it all the way around again so I turned around and rode back up Denzer Rd., what an awesome hill! Then I flew back down and headed on towards home. I got hit with a pretty good downpour going through Denzer and by the time I got home I was pretty much dry again, since I was dry I decided to do some cyclocross laps around the field. Those cyclocross laps were hard but that was some awesome training!! Then I headed out to find a couple more morels, mmmm…

Friday

I had planned with Dan to meet up at Levis do ride some bitchin’ singletrack so I pulled in around 11 to meet up with Dan. It was cold and a bit wet but this made for nearly perfect riding conditions. With the trails a bit tacky and the weather just cool enough to hold of most of the sweating the riding was great. Dan was having a little trouble with his new chain and old worn out cassette so Levis was a little sandier than normal that day. Haha.

I hadn’t ridded a bunch of the singletrack at Levis but the stuff I hadn’t ridden was just as amazing as the trails I had ridden. What a great day of riding!

After a beer, a cinnamon roll and some trash talking with Dan’s friend we headed in to Eau Claire for some food… and a whole lot of beer. We met up with Laura, Dan’s fiancé, for food and then we headed back to the place we are the most familiar with, the Joynt. $3 pitchers of beer mean way more beer than one should consume in one evening... Thanks to our good friend Major for putting us up and taking care of us!

Saturday morning brought about a headache and fuzzy-headedness... After drinking a bunch of coffee and water I headed out to my Grandpa's Birthday party. It was a great time seeing the whole side of the family I don't typicall get to see! Post party I headed on back home with Katie and the new nephew. Then it was time to pack up for the trip back to Houston...

I got a late flight on Sunday so I didn't have to rush to the airport and I could have a little more time home. It paid off, we got to celebrate my, then upcoming Birthday with the most amazing cake ever created by human beings.

The German Chocolate Cake:

I packaged up a bunch of cake and headed to the airport, I got in pretty dang late and was very thankful that my good friend Sonia was there to pick me up!!

Wisconsin

2011-05-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

I headed up to Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago for the primary reason of getting the fields planted. I got in late Friday night and lucked out with an awesome day of weather on Saturday so I got the fields all worked and, with a little help, got all the corn planted. This is a good thing, meaning, I had a whole week to do whatever I wanted, AWESOME!!

Sunday was Mothers' Day and on the way into town to see mom I ran into my good friend Ryan who loaned me a sweet bike and then plans of some sweet rides in the hills came about. After chatting with Mom for a while I headed on home, went out on a short ride and then headed down to Grandma's for a good ole cookout! Food was amazing and it was great to see the family and all the little kids I hadn't seen in a while. The rest of the evening was nice and calm, perfect.

Monday I didn't do a whole heck of a lot, went for a good long trail run and then just relaxed a bit. I went over to catch up with Ryan and Lisa and have a couple beers until pretty late, good times.

Tuesday, my buddy Dan came down to visit and not long after he got there we headed out on a sweet ride. We headed down to Hwy C then up Orchard Rd. to Ruff Rd. then down the big Denzer hill. That was the best part of the ride, then we headed in to town via Swiss Valley Rd. to go see my Mom and visit the winery.

I noticed they got a new painted cow at the winery so I thought I'd take a picture with it:

Then the cow attacked me:

The Dan and I headed out to pick some morels:

Delicious!! The night finished with a good campfire and beers, Good Times!!

I want one

2011-04-28T04:21:00.001-07:00

of these:

Picture from here

Easter

2011-04-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well the week after the XTerra I wasn't feeling too great but I guess it was good enough to overtrain. What I was thinking... I'm not too sure. Lot's of running, swimming, and hard biking. I got into a pretty good habit of getting up early to run and then getting my swimming and riding in after work. Doing all of this, however, was not conducive to getting rid of the sinus infection/cold, whatever the hell it was, or to getting enough rest. That being said, Friday I took an off day in preparation for a long ride on Saturday. The ride was good, I went and pushed myself a bit with the shop ride and then met up with Sonia, did some viaduct intervals and then hit up the parking garage for some 'hills'. Good times.

After 4.5 hours of riding I took the best nap ever then went and celebrated my friend Johanna's birthday. A bit of laser tag and watching some go-kart racing followed by good food and a couple beers make for a good Saturday.

Easter came around early. I made it to church, first time in Htown, and then hit up some breakfast with friends. Delicious!! The afternoon was finished off with some nice relaxing slacklining at Memorial Park. Very relaxing, great Easter.

The swimming is definitely getting better.

Dipping my toe into the XTerra waters

2011-04-18T17:33:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was the XTerra triathlon in Waco. Five weeks prior to the race, at the Comfort mountain bike race, Alan, my old coach, talked me into committing to the XTerra race in Waco. Well, after four weeks of struggling to get a grasp of what swimming was, purchasing a wetsuit, and then trying out the wetsuit in my first ever, serious open-water swim two weekends ago, I decided to race the shorter distance in Waco. The race consisted of a 750 meter swim, a 16K mountain bike and a 3.5 mile run.

I'd never gotten ready for a tri before so I didn't really know how to go about it. It was also only the second time I had put on the wetsuit:

Then the announcer said 15 minutes until start, ugh: I had the goals for the race, finish Part 1, then finish Part 2, and then finish Part 3. The race: Part 1: Swim 750 meters is a long swim, at least for me it is. Two weekends ago I struggled my way through 1300 meters but in the race we were swimming in the river and there were other people there. I remember the first time I got kicked, not too bad, doesn't seem to bother me. Then, I remember sort of swimming over someone, also didn't seem to bother me. About three quarters the way through the swim I was getting pretty dang tired, the last 200 meters seem to creep by. Finally I got to the bank and got pulled out of the water and up the slippery bank by some great volunteers: Part 2: The Bike I knew I was behind and I needed to do some work, a lot of work. I knew most of the people in the race were out and gone in front of me as there were very few bikes on the rack in the Transition Area (TA) when I went through. Good thing the course was technical and fun, I did some work and passed lots of people. I wasn't satisfied until I passed three guys in my class that were all pretty close together. Then I passed some more people and then a couple more. I crushed it on the way back into the TA, had a good transition and it was time to do business again.

Part 3: The Run

About a quarter mile into the run we had the great pleasure of running up Jacob's Ladder, a steep staircase with steps ranging in height from 6 to 20+ inches. Did I mention it was steep? After walking/running up that there was only 3.25 miles left of up and down running through singletrack to the finish. I was feeling pretty good but I wasn't seeing anyone, wasn't quite sure how to feel about that but I figured I was somewhere around middle of my age group pack, not too bad I thought. Then, with about a mile to go I saw someone ahead, finally someone to race!! I picked it up a bit on the home stretch and passed four people on my way in. About a quarter mile from the finish we went back onto the pavement to the finish and someone on the sideline said, "Your in third place overall" I didn't think he was serious until I came into the finish line and they announced "Here comes third place overall in the sprint race!"

Whew, I finished! I honestly did not expect to do that well. I felt pretty dang good after the race. It was such a great race. Everyone was so helpful and encouraging throughout the day and the competitors were all so nice, similar to mountain bike racers.

Now, time to practice that swimming...

into...

2011-04-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

So I don't know why the blog thing wouldn't include separate paragraphs in the last post, I tried to fix it but oh well. Back to Ouachita: I went through the first checkpoint, ~ 16 miles in (on an extremely random side note: if your right hand is shifted one key to the left on the keyboard when you type miles you really get the word nukes, odd...), I was pacing with an older guy who had done the race before so I thought it couldn't hurt to pace with him through the hard hills. The first of the hills wasn't too bad, long and grinding but nothing too technical. The second hill was tough and super technical. Previously described to me as, "someone pulled up, dumped a load of baby-head sized angular rocks and then labelled it trail," I found this description to be pretty good. There were several sections deemed unrideable and there was a good chain of people pushing through the sections. Then the descent off the technical part was super-fun! Fast, flowy, borderline crazy. After the technical climb and the sweet downhill I had forgotten the third hill and once I got out on the road I thought I was headed to a checkpoint so I put the hammer down. After about a mile I rounded a corner and saw the sign pointing back into singletrack and I knew the third hill was coming. At least there wasn't much technical stuff but it was a looooonnnng, very grindy hill. One of those hills where you're already pedalling slow and you look up and only see hill continuing into the clouds. Maybe not quite into the clouds but I feel like there were clouds up there. Once I got up to the top there was one more technical section. I pulled up tried to unclip, no luck, tipped right over. My right leg, the one I could get out was under the bike and my head was downhill. Not a good situation, I definitely felt like a turtle struggling to get off it's back as the other turtles in the race all rode on past... Disappointing. Once I regained some composure, picked up dignity that I had dropped, I flew into another sweet downhill. I repassed some of those other turtles on the descent so I was feeling pretty decent. At the bottom of the descent the course jumps out onto the road that goes into the feed station. Thinking smart, I joined forces with a couple other racers and we pace lined into town. It was a great idea until the idiot roadie in front of me decided he would start slowing down forcing me to lock up the brakes, skid sideways to the right, skid sideways to the left, throw out my foot (Thank God the foot came out!!) and stomp it down to save the crash. Whew... A couple more road miles then it was in to the feed zone, two fresh bottles and a Payday and I was good to go. At this point the twinge of cramps were coming on pretty good. Took it easy for a bit, downed a lot of fluids and ate something hoping this would help. Pulled back through the feed zone, got some salt tablets and more water then continued on for the last 20 or so miles. "It's only 20 miles," I was thinking. Not long into the singletrack the cramps were starting to come on pretty good, "Uh oh," is what I was thinking. Drank a bunch, pedalled easy and prayed the cramps would go away. Luckily they did, for a little while anyway. Further into the singletrack I realized my food was not going to be coming out anytime soon, "Awesome," I thought. Having the foot not come out was good on the climbs but on the bench cut descents I was a little worried that I was going to crash downhill and just keep going crashing with the inseparable foot on the bike. "Oh well, don't ride like a sissy," kept running through my mind. On one of the long climbs I passed Keith, the only guy in our group that was in front of me, he wasn't having the best day on the side of the trail but I wasn't gonna stop half way up a long climb to see if he needed anything. This gave me a bit of motivation to keep going. I began to get quite frustrated on this section of trail because the foot thing was really starting to become an issue. There were loads of switchbacks in this section and since I was so tired I was struggling with them, not being able to put a foot down meant I just fell over every time this happened. I wouldn't normally have minded too much but this meant I had to get myself up and back going while fighting cramps from setting in. Definitely thinking, "Ugh, this isn't cool anymore!" Some distance of kick-ass singletrack later I pulled in to a feed station, filled up a bottle and kept truckin. I didn't want to stop long thinking the cramps might move in and my foot was still stuck in my pedal, no bueno... I pulled back out and quickly realized it was back into slow-grinding uphills. I got very comfortable riding in the granny gear fearing I was going to stall or cramp badly if I pushed too hard. Then there was some more sweet descents after I made it through the climbing but my thoughts were more along the lines of, "Where the hell is the road? This singletrack is brutal." Definitely something I never thought I'd say to myself. Finally, I got back out to the road, I was NOT done though. After several rolling hills I came down to the last checkpoint with a guy who was less-than-spectacular at being a corner marshall/checkpoint guy, I understand though, he could only see us coming from a half mile away... Then it was back into a short section of singletrack, OUCH. Figured out that my shoe was not going to clip in to my shoe anymore at this point, I'm not totally sure when it came out. Then back onto the road. Once I was back on the road I was thinking to myself, I could really use some plain water right now. I approached two guys (corner marshalls) and asked if they had any water to which they responded, "At the top of the hill." If only I had known what they meant I would have stopped and gotten some from them anyway. A mountain-style switchback climb up a marginally loose gravel road was all that stood between me an fresh water... That climb sucked, no prettying that up. Got to the top, got some water and I knew it was sorta the home stretch to get in. I have never really seriously thought, "I really don't want to be on the bike anymore, I don't know if I even care anymore..." This is not a good attitude to have, ever. At this point I thought back to all the riders who had done this route yesterday and how hard some of them pushed and this gave me a bit of inspiration to push myself those last several miles. I was rolling down and saw the steeple on the church which was right by the finish line. This also gave me a bit of inspiration, I didn't speed up but I moreso felt, "I'm gonna finish!" I rolled up, saw the finish line and pushed as hard as I could up the last hill to the finish line hoping my legs wouldn't cramp mid way. As soon as I finished the legs started cramping, not horribly but cramping is cramping. Then I changed clothes, ate some pizza and and orange and sat around waiting for the others to come in to cheer them on. Throw in an amazing nap and the day was great! I finished in 6:04:04, my goal was sub 6 which I think I could've done without the damn pedal issues. I also wanted top 50 but I ended up 55th, not too bad for the first time ever riding there. Dinner that night was amazing and the sleep, great! Monday morning came pretty early, a quick breakfast and then it was on the road back to Dallas and then back to Houston. We stopped in Dallas and I picked up some new mountain bike shoes and a tri suit for the upcoming XTerra and then home to Houston. Great weekend!!

Well, I dropped the ball

2011-04-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

a bit so a short summary of a couple races followed by a lengthy partial update of an epic race will have to do. Warda - hard awesome race. Rode hard, paced pretty well, sprinted a guy at the end but I couldn't quite edge him out. Comfort - long drive, good hanging out with some good friends and and awesome trail. Not the typical omnium as in years past but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The race was tough, rode hard up the climbs, felt pretty good. Saw a guy in my race gaining a little ground on me about 4 miles out. Put the hammer down and beat the kid by a couple minutes...sweet! Post race run damn near killed me, that's a long hill oh there at Comfort. Oh yeah, free ice cream guy was there, awesome! Solavaca - another long drive but this time I had a great friend and future mountain bike racer with me. Sonia made the drive go by much quicker. Rolled out to Solavaca for a pre-ride on Saturday morning and about 3 miles into the ride I tore out my sidewall pretty good. Walked the bike in then took out a Specialized demo bike to pre-ride the course. Much fancier bike than I normally ride with it's full suspension and tiny little 26" tires. Even though it was pretty sweet the handlebars were so wide I thought I was riding a full grown longhorn. With such wide bars I felt the need to tell myself not to catch a tree riding through the tight, twisty section, two seconds later I caught a tree in the tight, twisty section and went down pretty hard. Nothing like crashing a fancy $9,000 bike you don't even own. Got up, straightened out the seat and finished the pre-ride. The race was tough, 3 laps on an 8 mile course with no decent recovery area was tough!! I finished closer to the winner than I thought I was going to and I was having a pretty shitty race so I was marginally happy with that. Ouachita Challenge - EPIC. I took the Friday before the race off so I could drive up to Dallas and stay with the cycling parents on Thursday night and then drive up to Oden, Arkansas on Friday. An early morning and quick packing and we were on the way. Pretty long drive and we were in AR. The further we got from the TX/AR border the more we could hear the faint strum of banjos in the background. We got to the packet pickup area quite early so we decided to tour the checkpoints. Some beautiful scenery and weather brought back fond memories of a Sed Strat class field trip down to this area. Finally the registration was ready so we picked up our packets and then headed back to Mena to stay at the Queen Wilhelmina Lodge. Absolutely spectacular views and some good food made for a great night! The tour was on Saturday and since Alan (cycling Dad) was the coach of the Team in Training group we had the opportunity to get up early and cheer on all of the tour riders. The morning was really nice, beautiful sunrise and just enough fog to eminate the pervasive pink of the sunrise. Lot's of cows scattered about the countryside brought back memories of Wisconsin. The ride started at 8 so we watched everyone take off then we went to the first checkpoint to await our riders to support them. As the tour riders made their way through the checkpoints we followed them around making sure they all good to go. We ended up back at the finish line before we knew it awaiting the arrival of the tour riders. One by one they trickled in, only one rider did not make a time cut, very impressive! We all headed back to the lodge for a much needed pre-ride and dinner. The pre-ride was sweet, out along the road atop the ridge the hotel was on with a couple good climbs and some great descents. The chatty conversation of the dinner the night before was now a relatively quiet dinner with the stern concentration of the racers and the tired mumblings of the tour riders. After a good dinner it was time to get some much needed rest for the epic race the following day. Sunday started out pretty nice, much warmer than the day before but there were few clouds and little wind to begin with. Another early morning put us back in Oden with a little over an hour to get ready to race. Some hasty preparations and changing and it was time to get ready ride. A short warm-up and then it was time to line up. I got pretty close to the front to start but was still 4 or 5 rows back. At 8 we rode out. A quick tip from an Austin acquaintance showed me a good shortcut that may have been more than just a slight shortcut but it was sweet and put me up near the front. There was about four miles of paved road before the gravel road to get to the singletrack. On the gravel road my hasty preparations came back to bite me as the spare tube I taped under my seat fell and got caught between the rear tire and the chainstay. Nothing like locking up the back wheel while hauling down a gravel road with a bunch of other racers who are also hauling. Stopped grabbed the tube out threw it in the jersey then took off again. Riders really started getting strung out along the road, I made up some good ground I lost with the spare tube ordeal. There was a good climb right before the singletrack and once we got onto the singletrack the climbing continued. At least the pace eased a bit on the singletrack so I could recover a bit. I passed through some kickass singletrack sections, some good technical sections and one small brush fire. It was on one of the short climbs when I realized I was going to have some pedal trouble but I had no idea what I was getting myself into...

The Heartbreak Du

2011-03-08T17:18:00.000-08:00

Three weekends ago I travelled up to Tyler, TX for the Heartbreak Duathlon. Not something I would have ever heard about but the cycling parents told me they were going so I thought I'd give it a shot. Of course, Alan's trash talking further inspired me to go.

The race was on Saturday which meant I had no opportunity to ride the course which was previously described to me as "flat, smooth and mostly downhill with a persistent tailwind". The race consisted of a 2.5 mile trail run, followed by a 10 mile mountain bike ride, followed by a 2.5 mile mountain bike ride. I had been running but I wasn't sure how I'd do with the trail running/racing since I'd never run a race before. The first run was good, 19 minutes 24 seconds, good enough to leave me around 10th. The bike was interesting, I started out strong and passed a bunch of people all the way up to 2nd place. I couldn't quite hang with first and he pulled away. Not really wanting to totally destroy myself before the second run I backed it off a bit. With about 2 or 3 miles to go I got passed by the guy in 3rd. He pulled away a bit but I kept him in my sights. The second run was ugly, definitely tough to run after all of that but I had work to do. I took off and not long into the run I passed the guy in front of me putting me into second. I played some mind games with him which was kinda fun and then I kept pushing. Pretty soon I couldn't see third place anymore and I was split between killing myself to see if I could possibly catch first and playing conservative and just finishing as best I could. Not willing to decide either way I mixed harder efforts with slightly easier efforts. A couple times I saw the guy in first but I couldn't tell how close he was and I never ended up catching him. I took second overall by 1 minute and 14 seconds.

The race was tons of fun! Makes me wonder about Xterra...

Holiday Season

2011-01-09T07:12:00.000-08:00

The weekend before Christmas was the marathon race out at Rocky Hill. Fat Chuck's revenge is the name of the race, titled after one of the loose technical climbs on the course. I did the race as a training race as opposed to a serious effort. It was a good break from mostly road training rides. The race had a pretty chilly start but warmed up pretty quickly. The race was 42 miles and I knew I would have to pace in order to hold a good steady effort throughout. All in all it was a pretty good experience, I was definitely not in peak form but that's ok.

I decided to stay in Houston for the Holidays and Lauren decided to stay also. It's nice to be home with the family for Christmas but there are a lot of parties to go to and typically it's very exhausting. Also, the weather in Houston allowed for some training rides, outside, in normal riding gear not cold weather gear. We got a Christmas tree on Christmas eve and hung out for while. Seu seemed a little energetic so we went for a walk to check out the lights. Christmas was pretty relaxing, we watched some Christmas movies, including Nestor the long eared donkey, I understand if you have never seen this movie. Christmas was good, I got a sweet math clock, a pedal wrench and a sweet bow tie among other things.

Since I was around Houston I was working but it turned out to be a pretty good week to work since most everyone took off for vacation. I finally got caught up on some work that I had been putting off and got to catch up on a bit of geology.

We went to a friend's for New Years and played a little beer pong and flip cup, it was some good times and there was a pinata with candy!!

Other than the holidays I've been getting in some base mile rides, doing some trail running and I started rock climbing again. It's definitely good cross training and a good compliment to biking.

Rollers

2010-12-09T18:37:00.000-08:00

I got some rollers tonight, they are effin' sweet, I even rode for the first half hour ever and didn't fall off! Good times to be had on the good ole rollers.

Work has been pretty crazy lately. I've been working on a pretty big project the sorta finished up last Friday and before that it was 10 - 11 hour days. I did get all of my work done though.

I also recently finished building the fully rigid single speed. An Orbea Lanza frame with a Niner carbon fork. I took it for a good ride last weekend and it work surprisingly well. I was anticipating a couple of adjustments that would need to be made but overall it's an awesome ride.

For Thanksgiving Lauren's parents came down. Lauren and I entertained them and had Thanksgiving at my mansion. I was debating just making a traditional turkey but then I came to my senses and decided a Turducken was in order. Let me just say the Turducken was absolutely delicious!!

Then we went to the fine arts museum so I thought I was at least attempt to look the part:

Lauren just finished her first semester of Vet school today!! Congrats!!

A delayed report about that

2010-11-02T18:18:00.001-07:00

24 hour race is better than no report at all.

On October 23rd - 24th the annual 24 hours of Rocky Hill took place. I had decided about a month before to do the race since my racing travel buddy/support had a test and this race was much closer than Ruston, LA. The team consisted of three of us from last year (Steve, Simon and me) and a new racer, Vanessa. We raced 3 - 4 person Open Coed. Here is the tale:

Friday night before the race was filled with eager anticipation and last minute preparation. Slightly apprehensive about how I would do after racing the weekend before I just took it easy and relaxed most of the evening occasionally checking the weather report. I went to bed pretty early to try to get ahead on the sleep deficit that was inevitable.

Saturday morning I got up pretty early so I could eat a big breakfast, pack, get gas, and then get Starbucks on the way to the race. Looming dark gray clouds filled the sky as I drove west toward Smithville. Worries of muddy singletrack filled my mind as I passed through a pretty good rain storm but soon I was out of the rain to find relatively dry road. Finally, I pulled in to Rocky Hill and found the team. After the obligatory hellos and introductions I got the bike ready to go and then we convinced Vanessa to go first, Thank God! I really didn't want to do the Le Mans around the rocky drive way. The race started at noon and Vanessa threw down a pretty good lap. I was second and I had a little time to make up so I went after it. I pushed it pretty hard on the early climbs and felt it the rest of the lap. About 3/4 the way through the lap the ominous gray clouds decided it was time to pee on Brandon, and everyone else on the course, about the time I hit the only rocky/potentially slippery decent on the course. Since I was trying to haul ass I went down, pretty hard. No big injuries so I got back on and continued mashing pedals. The only victim of the crash was the buckle on my left shoe. Got back and had enough time to drink some water, refill the water bottles, duct-tape my shoe to my foot, and then go out again. The second lap felt pretty good and I set my fastest lap of the day, no crashes.

I got a good break while Simon and Steve took their turns on course. We had about a 1 lap lead when I started my third lap. I didn't go quite as hard on my third and fourth laps since we did have a lead but still had a couple of good night laps. I held under an hour both laps. After my fourth lap our lead continued to grow. I believe we were around 2 laps up when I got done. I was quite tired so I might be wrong. After some food and water I climbed into my car to get some much needed rest. In a blink of an eye it was time to get up again and get ready to ride. I wasn't planning on doing a third night lap so I hadn't charged my light and just prayed it had enough to make it an hour.

Our lead was pretty good so I decided to do and 'easy' lap, I even had time to stop on the course for a much needed bathroom break. Around my time mark I decided to try to beat an hour. Unfortunately, I hit 1:00:32, should've held the pee I guess. Oh well, the legs were starting to feel it a bit on the last lap so I was just focused on finishing without crashing. When I got in we were up around 4 laps so I said I was done no matter what the teammates said. Then I took the best feeling shower ever and just chilled while Simon and Steve finished the race. We were up 5 laps when Steve was out on his last lap so Simon decided to call it so we could pack up camp and get otta there in a reasonable time.

I decided to take off around 11:15 since the awards weren't going to be until 2 and I was struggling to not fall asleep sitting in my chair. A large mocha frappuccino did the trick to get me back to Houston where I could finally pass out.

The race was great, Terra Firma Promo did a great job organizing the race and the Redbarn Timing system worked great!

Results

Huntsville

2010-10-19T18:49:00.000-07:00

or should I say Hurtsville. Last weekend was the race up at Huntsville State Park. The course is pretty non-technical and fast and there really is nowhere to recover at all. I felt a little sore going into the race after I participated in a charity softball tournament on Friday.

Softball Tournament, our team was decent but we did end up losing all three games we played. In the first game I hit a double and a home run. In the second game I had a single. In the last game I moved to play second base and participated in the only double play our team had all day. It was a lot of fun to participate in and I'll likely do it next year, as long as it's not before the Huntsville race.

I went up to pre-ride on Saturday and met up with Lauren there. We hung out for a bit after the ride and then headed back to College Station for the night and to watch the Texas/Nebraska and Wisconsin/Ohio State games. Both the Horns and the Badgers won so that was definitely a great college football weekend. Still perplexing though how Ohio State is ranked higher than the Badgers.

The race started at nine on Sunday so that meant an early morning for Lauren and me. My legs definitely felt a little sore Sunday morning so I warmed up quite thoroughly. The race started fast and just kept going fast. I was definitely struggling to hold speed. I ended up fifth which isn't too bad but I should have been more rested for the race. Then I got to hang out with Lauren for a while.

Now it's recover time before the 24 hours of Rocky Hill this weekend.

Ouch

2010-09-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

That's kinda how my knee and shoulder feel right now after last night.

Last night I thought it would be a good idea to work on my night riding skills so I geared up and rode on down to Memorial Park. The ride down was good and the temperature was nice. The night was clear and I thought it was a great night for riding. The singletrack was good and I was feeling good until about 2 miles into the ride when I clipped a tree with my handlebars and bit it bad. Apparently when I clipped the tree my front wheel must have been off the ground and when I landed it must have been almost sideways. I heard the bead on the tire break as I was sailing over the handle bars and then the bike landed on top of me. I'm sure the crash was pretty awesome to watch. The I got up and realized I bent the wheel pretty good:

I picked myself up and walked my poor bike out to the entrance to Memorial Park and waited until my friend Josh arrived to pick me up. On my walk out I noticed my leg was a little sore and then I felt the large bump on my knee, from the handlebars? It was pretty sore by the time I got home so I just chilled and hung out with Josh for a bit.

This morning the knee was pretty sore but it feels considerably better now. The shoulder feels alright too. The wheel should be ok, the hub and spokes are all intact so hopefully I only need to replace the rim. Maybe a couple days off would be good too . . .

I had a great time

2010-09-28T19:15:00.000-07:00

last weekend going up to visit Lauren after a good ride on Saturday morning. The ride was definitely good, I hadn't been to sure about how the power training was working but I set five new personal bests and still felt pretty good after the ride. Then I headed up to College Station to hit up Spoons, er I mean Lauren! Lauren was studying up for some tests she has this week. Then we headed out to her professor's house for some bitchin' fajitas and sweet tea. This was only after the Longhorns sucked it up against UCLA.

Sunday I travelled down to Rocky Hill to ride with Dave and Joshua. Joshua helped to get me started mountain biking and training and Dave is a crazy randonneur. Definitely some good and fast riding. The riding was good prep for the upcoming 24-hour race out there on the 23rd and 24th of October, I love that race. On the way home I found out that the Kolache place no serves some great bacon cheeseburgers. Apparently I dropped an onion in my car though because it smelled richly of cheeseburger Monday morning.

I'm not sure I approve of the earlier and earlier nights, makes for some interesting riding. Fun night mountain biking though.

Since then

2010-09-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

then being Camp Eagle, I have been pretty busy. Work has been busy as I have been given more responsibility, I suppose that's a good thing. Outside of work has been pretty busy too. Two weekends ago I went up to Lauren's and hung out with her. I did some Paydirt, volunteer trail work for the Spring TMBRA series, and then went riding. I thought it would be good to ride the trail since there is a duathlon up there in a couple weeks that I am tentatively committed to. The ride was good until I got to the back part of the loop where I discovered my cleat was loose and I couldn't get my multi-tool into the screws. I kept riding and once I got into the wooded area I noticed a disgusting high density of spider webs spanning the trail. Not only were there webs but there were bunches of spiders too, including crab-looking spiders and orb spiders. Orb spiders eat finches, see below:

Just the sight of the spiders brought me back to an encounter I had another big spider, banana spider, during a past climbing trip, see below:

I was quite disturbed by the spiders everywhere to the point I crashed because I didn't want to go through the huge web engulfing the entire trail with a big spider in the middle. It was at that point that I got onto the open trail and avoided the uncleared single track for the rest of the day. Then I rode back into college station and got some yogurt with Lauren and went to the bike shop to fix my shoe. On Sunday Lauren and I went out to ride the horses and then got some frozen yogurt and I headed up to Austin to ride with a friend. We rode Walnut under nearly perfect trail conditions, good times. I miss Austin. I was in Austin for a recruiting event at UT Austin, had a good time, saw some friends, and recruited many. Then back to work.

Fast forward one weekend to last weekend, Lauren came down from CS. We didn't really do anything which was kinda nice and relaxing.

Camp Eagle 2010.2

2010-09-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

The race morning was good. Some good brefackst then a nice morning ride and finally some warm up. Some a couple of old friends during the warm-up and the dude that crashed and got medflighted back to Kerrville. He turned out ok and apparently just had a concussion, sweet ride home from the race though, pricey too. The start of the race was good and fast. I hung with Patrick for a little while and then took off. I was in either fifth or sixth so I knew I had some people to catch. My first lap on the South loop was ugly, I climbed very poorly and definitely lost some time. The North loop was good, the second pass at the South loop was much better, the climb felt good and I passed one guy in my class. The Cat 2's were out on course so I was passing a bunch of them which made it somewhat tricky to tell who I was racing. I thought I had passed another guy in my race and when I got in I was placed third. The race felt good and the legs still felt pretty good after the race. Apparently someone in my class had come in and they had missed them so I ended up fourth. Oh well, still felt pretty good.

After the race I went down to a friend's cabin down in Leakey (pronounced Lakey) which was about 45 miles away or so. When I got there we had some food and then travelled on down to the creek to put our feet in the water. It felt pretty dang good. Later in the evening we took a tour of the community on the golf cart and we saw some pretty big deer. Since Ben, my buddy, and his wife were getting up super early and going to a run I decided to get up and head on back to Houston. I got back to Houston around 10:30 and got some things done around the house.

It was a good Labor Day weekend.

Camp Eagle 2010

2010-09-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the first race of the TMBRA fall series. I was pretty excited about the race since I hadn't raced since the end of May and I'd been putting in a bunch of training miles. I also switched to training with a power meter about a month ago so this was the first test to see how that was going. Camp Eagle is a pretty technical course with some tough uphills and some technical descents.

I left work a bit early on Friday with hopes of beating the bad drivers out of Houston, I was doing pretty well until I got to the edge of Houston where five lanes of freely flowing traffic condensed into a two lane creep of winter molasses. Once I got far enough out of town traffic finally picked up and I headed to Buc-E's to get some jerky, I also got Lauren a present but I cannot post what it is since I have not given it to her yet. I arrived in San Antonio a little after 9 to stay with my friend Steve who I did the 24 hours of Rock Hill with last year and who is going to marry Lauren and I. It was great to catch up with Steve and meet his family!

Saturday morning I got up and had breakfast with Steve and family and then headed out to Camp Eagle. Two hours further West from San Antonio I arrived at Camp Eagle but not until I saw two deer-like animals fighting in one of the large ranches on the side of the road. I met up with Kathy and Alan and then went for a pre-ride of the south loop. The course was good and I felt pretty good so I tried not to overdo it. There is much more climbing at the Camp than in all of Houston combined. Then Alan, Kathy, and I headed in to Kerrville for some steak and a good night's sleep.

The race was Sunday, I'll write about that tomorrow.

This past week

2010-08-31T19:38:00.000-07:00

has been pretty boring I suppose. I went back to my normal job after three weeks of training. I also put on some training miles. I worked on my mountain bike and got everything honed in again. Good times.

Lauren came down last weekend and we hung out for a while and then our new friend from Canada (Josh) came over and we all went and got some new cowboy boots. Awesome!! Then we all put on said boots and went to my other friend's birthday party/housewarming party. It was Teresa's B-day and her birthday is actually today so . . . HAPPY BIRTHDAY T!!!!

First race of the Fall TMBRA series is this weekend at Camp Eagle. I hope all the training pays off.

I'm pretty sure...

2010-08-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

I've never heard it thunder for as long as I am hearing right now. I'm pretty sure it's been going at it for about 50 minutes straight. Guess I'll go for that run a bit later tonight.

I finished up with training on Friday after three long weeks of 8 hour lectures. The class was pretty good, we learned how to drill wells and evaluate formations. I learned a lot and my team won the final well-planning exercise. We got a "sweet" clock for winning, now I can tell what time it is. I wish it were time to go running but the continuous thunder is up to 53 minutes.

Lauren and I had a pretty good weekend. I went up to CS to see her on Saturday and we went to one of her classmates' house for a Slip N' Slide party. Lot's of fun but the Slip N' Slide was a little rough. We also saw a huge spider which was apparently an orb spider. It was huge, we threw some grasshoppers into it's web too, pretty sweet.

Sunday we got up and went riding at Lake Bryan for a couple of hours, good times, it was dang hot though. After eating some lunch and taking a good nap Lauren and I went and got some frozen yogurt. It was delicious. We were going to ride the horses but when we went to get yogurt the thermometer on the truck said 121 degrees, it only went down to 107 on the way to the yogurt shop so we scrapped riding the horses for going out and just brushing them.

Lauren started Veterinary school today, sweet.

Memorial Park Crit #2

2010-08-15T15:10:00.001-07:00

Last week Lauren inspired my to do the Memorial Park Crit so I was excited and this and did it. It was hot and I wasn't sure how the race would go. After a good warm-up I lined up and away we went. I was a little apprehensive because there was a pretty good sized crash the last time I did this race. The group seemed to be much safer this time though and the race went well. I typically use these races as a workout so I wasn't too worried about saving myself to the end. I attacked about half way into the race but it was covered pretty quickly. Then I worked on sitting in the pack for a bit to recover which also went well. Coming down to the final lap I was feeling pretty good but, unfortunately, I went a little too early for the finish. I finished around 11th or so. It was a pretty fun race all in all.

Here's some pics:

Warm-up

Somewhere in the race

Lauren and I went down to Galveston to spend a day on the beach yesterday. It was quite a bit of fun. Seu had a great time swimming in the Gulf. After a drink and some sweet potato fries we headed back to Houston. Once we got home we realized the old sunscreen Lauren had wasn't so good anymore and we both had some interesting sunburn.

Finally

2010-08-09T19:01:00.000-07:00

We set a date for the wedding. We are going to get married on June 11th, 2011. The wedding is going to be at Saint Croix Vineyards near Stillwater, MN. The reception is going to be at the Water Street Inn in Stillwater.

Last weekend we went to White Linen Night in the Heights. It was also Lauren's Birthday on Saturday so that was part of the celebration. It was a great night with ample hangin' with friends and drinks.

Here is a picture of L and I:

Here is a guy with a sweet bike with some huge wheels, puts the 29er to shame.

Here are a couple of pictures from Lauren's sister's wedding:

On another note, the TMBRA fall racing series starts in a little less than a month. SWEET!

What I've been up to lately

2010-07-31T16:39:00.000-07:00

Since I've been back in Texas I've been very busy. First and foremost I moved out of the two-bedroom house Lauren and I were living into a smaller two-bedroom garage apartment. I like the new place quite a bit, it's much more my size since it's just going to be me there but there is still plenty of room for Lauren and Seu. I have my own little yard that is all fenced in and a spot to park inside the fence. I will post pictures sooner or later. The inside of the house is pretty sweet too. There are two bedrooms, a decent sized bathroom, a decent sized kitchen attached to the living area, and a utility room with washer and dryer.

I've also been trying to get back into cycling shape. After almost a month of little to no riding my conditioning was noticeably down. I am coming around though, I went for a 75 mile ride this morning. I've also been learning to train with a PowerTap. It's pretty cool so far, it feels like I've been getting more out of the rides.

Last weekend Lauren and I travelled to Seattle (or near Seattle) for Lauren's sister's wedding. We weren't sure what to expect as the weather in Seattle can be questionable at any time and neither of us had been to a Jewish wedding with a large contingent of Russian people. It was a great experience. The weather was great, everybody we met was really cool, and the ceremony was awesome. It was great to see a different style of wedding and to see the associated traditions. On Saturday, the day before the wedding, we took a large group hike of family and friends from Cougar Falls to Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park. The hike was great. We gained 2,700 vertical feet in approximately 3 - 3.5 miles. Then we headed back to Houston on Monday to go back to work and school.

Work has been super busy getting all caught up on what I missed while I was out and getting ready to go to a training class for the next three weeks.

My Dad

2010-07-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

So I haven't written a blog in quite a while and a large part of that reason is because I've been in Wisconsin spending time with my Dad. Last year my Dad was diagnosed with cancer and after a tough round of chemo we thought he had beat it. In February he returned to Wisconsin with some medical issues to leard that the cancer had returned. He went through another round of chemo but this time things weren't as promising. He did respond to chemo the second time around. My Dad passed away on July 8th.

I'll never forget all of the things my Dad did for me and taught me through the years. He was a great guy who was always willing to help someone out and had the ability to make anyone laugh. I'm glad I had the opportunity to spend as much time with him as I did. I will always remember the positive person he was and I wish I had more time with him.

My Dad and I at the race in Ruston, La on October 25th, 2009.

Juan Pelota

2010-06-04T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Juan Pelota ranch was pretty sweet. The race and the weather were not so much. Lauren, Seu, and I arrive at around noon on Saturday to catch the start of the Pro race. It was effin' hot. We met up with Kathy and headed to the super-sweet, shaded viewing area to watch the pro race. It was a good spot for sure, especially after landscaping a bit so my chair was level and after the sun moved behind that tree branch. The pros were definitely pretty fast. We had a couple Texans do pretty well in the race too so that was sweet. We didn't sit around for the finish because it was like a sauna but a little drier but still like a sauna. We headed back to town to stay at the same sweet hotel we stayed at the weekend before and hung out for a while until dinner. We hit up Texas Land and Cattle for dinner and it was delicious. Post dinner Lauren and I were headed back to the hotel when she decided she wanted some ice cream. We stopped at the Exxon down the road from the hotel. After buying some ice cream, water, and a couple of lottery tickets we walked out only to see some dude getting guns pulled on him by the cops. I quickly realized the guns were also pointed in our general direction so I quickly grabbed Lauren and scooted off to the side. At first I thought the dude was getting busted for driving a convertible Volkswagon Beetle, who does that? Turns out the dude was doin' a little drug dealing. It was pretty sweet to see the cops bust him and pull out a pretty good sized bag of white powder, not totally sure what it was, that's probably a good thing. Then we went back to the hotel and you . . . know . . . scratched lottery tickets. I bought five dollars worth of tickets, two-two dollar tickets and one-one dollar ticket. We scratched the two dollar tickets first, I didn't win anything on mine, Lauren won five dollars on hers so she let me scratch the one dollar ticket and I won thirty dollars. Not bad for a five dollar investment.

Popo's:

The race was on Sunday which is normal and I got out and ready early. I warmed up pretty good and was feeling pretty good when I headed to the start. I hadn't ever ridden the course so I wasn't sure how it would go. The race started pretty fast and with the heat I knew I wouldn't last too long if I tried to keep it up. I was doing pretty good, about mid pack and recovering from the start and starting to feel pretty good. Then I went over a little descent and my front tire hit the one rock that was sticking up and I briefly popped the bead on my tire and I went down pretty hard. After getting up and giving my bike and then myself a once over I noticed my tire wasn't totally flat. I decided to try riding very gently. It didn't work, I soon flatted and I was left to walk it in. It was a nice hot hike to the start/finish area but I did get to cheer on all the other racers along the way, they looked pretty overheated. It was the first time I had a mechanical and couldn't finish so I wasn't terribly upset and after seeing how most people felt after the race I suppose this was the race to crash/flat out of. I still managed a fifth place in the series.

In other news, I started a new position at work this week. I will be working closely with geologists both supporting them and helping them with their work. It should be pretty interesting, I will be learning a lot and meeting some pretty cool people. I will have more details after I've been there a little while.

A week home

2010-05-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

Ryan's bike is sweet so I got out and rode as much as I could to take advantage of the elevation in Wisconsin. A couple of good hill climbing days was definitely good.

While I was home I also went arrowhead hunting a couple of times. The first time I went I didn't really find anything but the second time I went was much more spectacular. At the undisclosed location I went to I first found a Durst style point, pretty characteristic of the area. Then I decided to look one other place quick and found the best point I have ever found. The point I found is a Clovis point, one of the oldest styles of arrowhead in the US. Mine wasn't quite as big as the one in the photo and was made out of chert. There are no visible imperfections on the point I found and I'll likely never find anything that nice again. Phillipe, the local artifact expert, was pretty excited about the point and I thank him for the display case!! Check out Wollersheim Winery if you are in the South-Central Wisconsin.

It was a great early Birthday present since my birthday was the next day!!

Since my Dad and I and a good friend of ours all have the same birthday we decided to go out for dinner since we all were home for once. It was a great time, I got to see a bunch of friends and family so it was definitely a good trip home.

During this time Lauren was out in Colorado for her Brother's (Buddy) graduation.

I am definitely planning a trip back home for sometime this summer to escape the intense heat of Houston during the summer.

Last week or so

2010-05-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

In preparation for the Rocky Hill race Lauren and I went out to Rocky Hill a couple of weeks ago. I was excited just to get out to Rocky Hill. I love that place!! We met up with Alan and Kathy and Scott and Paul and Chris and went out to pre-ride the loop. It was nice to be able to ride nice and easy with some good friends. Unfortunately I forgot to wear my sweatband and I was stuck in my glasses due to an eye infection. The ride was great though. I learned stuff too:

Alan is really good at rocketing off jumps in downhill sections

Alan tends to pick pretty good lines through technical sections

I can keep up with Alan better than I think I used to would have been able to

Alan occasionally picks really bad lines around things

I had a lot of fun riding with them and look forward to more riding in the near future. After the ride we headed into Smithville for some good food at a restaurant with a name that I can't remember right now. Sure was good. Then Lauren and I went and rode the horses for a while.

I didn't actually end up racing Rocky Hill because my Dad has some health issues going on so I went home to spend some time with him and help him get some stuff done. It was a cold and rainy first two and a half days in Wisconsin. Some good thunderstorms rolled through the second night I was home successfully taking out the phones. I also didn't get any cell phone reception so the contact information I left for my co-workers wasn't too useful. Eventually the weather turned nice around Thursday (May 13th for reference) and I met up with Ryan for a pre-race ride. I was on his extra, sweet mountain bike so I tried my best to keep up with him. The wind definitely was a bitch too.

I'll write more later, time to finish weed whackin' the yard.

Solavaca Part Deux

2010-05-09T18:17:00.000-07:00

So we sat around on Saturday waiting for the race course to open up and finally about 2:30, as I recall, the course was finally opened to preriding. The course was sweet, I went out with Lauren and Jen and then we met up with Claire. We were taking a pretty easy pace and about 8 miles later we were back. Packed up our crap and then headed in to town to shower before dinner. Mmmm Italian with some BYOW (Bring Your Own Wine).

The race was Sunday morning and we were the first group off behind the Pros starting at 8:30. I wasn't sure how it would go since I hadn't raced in about a month and a half but I was feeling pretty strong. The first lap was rough, I think I went out a little hard and didn't get into a rhythm for a while. The second lap was feeling pretty good and I started feeling better and about 6 miles into the second lap I saw someone in my race. "Sweet, I can catch him," I thought. So I rode the third lap with what I thought was better technique but I couldn't catch the guy in front of me. I finished fourth, out of four. It was a tough race, I need to race more often.

Couple o' pics:

Solavaca Part One

2010-05-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

The second to the last race I did was two weekends ago in Glen Rose, TX. It was a pretty good drive so we headed up Friday after work. Besides the water smelling like sulfur and the pancake batter being bad on Saturday the hotel was great. Saturday I got up early and cleaned up the bike a little before going out to preride, a nice relaxing morning was good.

We got out to the race course and found out that it had rained and the course wouldn't be open until 1 0'clock. Bummer, so we did what all cool people do, we went garage saling. We headed to a couple that were back towards town a ways and Lauren got a pair of shoes, the only sweet score of the day. On the way back to the ranch (race course) we took a little detour down a little back road only to find out there was water crossing the road in pretty serious fashion.

The first water crossing was pretty wide but also pretty shallow and after a short examination of the local geology we forded the river. We did not caulk the wagon and float it across and we lost no oxen. A ways up the road there was a little more serious water crossing. Serious to the point the road was closed. After wandering around a bit and deciding it was about time to go I walked over a little bank only to see a 3.5 foot copperhead swimming in the water. It caught me by surprise and Lauren too, even after I was like, "Lauren check out this bitchin' snake!!".

Pictures:

Water Crossing #1

Water Crossing #2

Copperhead, Lauren would not pose with the snake so I had no scale. It was about 3.5 feet long.

All that Jazz...

2010-04-12T19:10:00.001-07:00

In New Orleans of course. That is where Lauren and I went to visit my Mom and Bob a couple of weeks ago. They were in NO for an Ace convention so we thought it would be worthwhile to make the 7 hour drive down to see them. The night we got into town we went to a benefit dinner/concert thing, it was great. The dinner was being held at the Mardi Gras museum. Picture this: every Mardi Gras float including many larger than life figures crafted out of something, plaster? All you can eat food and beer was good too, and the live music was great. After some dinner and a few beers we headed back to the hotel and then we all ventured on down to Bourbon Street (it looked just like that). We traveled to a couple of different places, saw some very interesting people, and ended up chilling and listening to some Jazz at a less crazy bar before heading on back to the hotel.

On Saturday Lauren, Mom, and I walked down to Jackson Square and the French Market. I got a sweet hat, we had some delicious food, and we got a little sun. It was quite a bit of walking around especially on the legs after running stairs but it was good to see more of New Orleans. Saturday night we all went to the convention center to help pack up some things to help Bob out. Pretty busy evening and the feet were still tired. Had a bunch of beef jerky and combos, mmmm. Then we headed back to the hotel, not a very eventful evening as everyone was pretty exhausted. We did get to see a guy get busted for falling asleep in the bar/restaurant at the hotel though. Sweet. When we got back to our hotel and were falling asleep the stupid people on our floor were being super loud and stupid, that went on for a little while and apparently I wasn't the only one annoyed because all of the sudden I heard 'N-O-P-D Open up!' I slept soundly for the rest of the night.

Sunday morning we met at a little cafe for breakfast and then headed up Royal Street to check out some shops. Apparently there was a road food festival going on with some pretty dang delicious looking food, too bad we had already eaten breakfast. Then we headed back to the hotel and Lauren and I headed back towards Houston.

It was a great trip and a nice weekend away from Houston. I will post some sweet pictures soon.

On a side note: The next door lady causes a stir in the neighborhood by having a little fire in her back yard. All I heard was "!! Are you back there? The neighbors are all out here and we all think your house is on fire!!" Then Lauren and I noticed like 8 cop cars and fire truck out front. Interesting.

Past due race update

2010-04-06T04:20:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago now was the Comfort race. I had never ridden Comfort so I didn't really know what to expect. I had heard technical, bumpy, rough, hilly, and hard. Sounds like a good place to race. I hadn't know this race was an omnium until I looked it up the Monday before the race, it was then I figured the race was going to be hard. There was a short track and time trial on Saturday followed by the Cross Country race on Sunday. This means I didn't have a chance to pre-ride any of the course except for the time trial part. Oh well I suppose...

The short track race was tough to say the least. The course was fast with some loose dirt/sand/gravel and one loose corner. I hung with the pack for a couple of laps then the race started to spread out. The last couple of laps were tough, the legs weren't happy but I did finish.

The time trial was later in the day so I went and chilled for a while to let the legs recover a bit. My time trial was pretty late in the order so I had a while to eat and cool off and then warm up again. I started second in our group for the time trial hoping to catch the front guy, Luke, but he's fast and I never caught him. I ended up third out of four in the TT so I'm happy I beat one dude.

A great steak dinner that night ensued...mmm

Sunday was the cross country race and the legs were feeling a bit worn. Since most of the guys in the field didn't do the omnium race I figured I was going to get wiped pretty good. That was pretty much the case. I held with the group for a while and then they pulled away. It definitely didn't help that I had never ridden the course. Oh well, I know what it will be like for next year now. The first loop had a bunch of climbing with some technical/rough rocky sections at the top. When I went through the feed zone I was feeling alright but that feeling was short lived as I got into the slow, long uphills in the second half of the course. I was struggling along on the second half feeling some cramps trying to set it so I drank and ate. I changed my mindset from racing to finishing and rode it out to the end. On the whole the race was tough. I did end up getting 3rd in Omnium so I won some money, Woohoo, first ever money won from racing! I also didn't feel quite as dead after the race so hopefully the conditioning is coming around.

Oh yeah and we saw the Kerrville Fighting Antlers. I think it should be the Fightin' Antlers but oh well.

Piece #2

2010-03-07T12:51:00.001-08:00

I was very unmotivated to ride today but I did. The weather is nice so the ride was good once I actually got out there. I was kind of just meandering around through the route I normally do and I did a couple of laps at Memorial. I was surprised because several cars actually gave me the right of way which is nice because typically they wait awkwardly and then I go and they go at the same time and they almost run me over. Some lady on a bike also told me I looked "profesh" so she let me by, I think she mistook me for someone fast. Other than the ride it's a pretty lazy day. Lauren is watching some stupid show about models or something on Lifetime, lame.

Yesterday was a good mountain bike ride and I discovered some crazy trails at Memorial, borderline unrideable but I tried anyways. Maybe it would be a good paydirt effort to get them into shape. While I was out riding Lauren chopped 9 inches of her hair off and she's gonna donate it to Locks of Love.

I'm not sure what else I was going to write, I while ago Lauren and I saw this snail crossing the sidewalk so I took a picture:

and we took a picture of the inside of Seu's mouth: and we volunteered at an animal rescue (Friends for life)and we ended up feeding ferrets, odd little animals:

Warda '10

2010-03-02T15:29:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was the Warda race and it was the first race for me as a Cat 1 racer. The weather was great and the trails were in great condition. It was nice to not have to get up super early on Sunday morning to make a 9 o'clock race time, 11 is much better. As normal the start of the race was a long open section until the single track, this was only true for Cat 2's, Cat 3's, and the Single Speeders. Thanks to all those Cat 2's that were still on the course that got us a shorter start. The raced started fast, kinda like I expected it would so I was set on not blowing up right away. I made it to the single track and I think I was in last place but I passed a couple of people but that was pretty much all I passed. The race was long and fast and I wasn't really sure what to expect. On the third lap out of four I felt a slight twinge of a cramp in my calf so I pounded some water and took it easy for a bit. The legs felt fine the rest of the lap. The fourth lap consisted primarily of staving off the cramps until the finish. I did succeed but the legs were pretty sore afterwards. No thanks to the neutral water feed that didn't really exist, could have used that. Oh well, I got 7th and I'm happy with that for a first Cat 1 race.

This weekend I also bought another Orbea Lanza from a friend of ours, I'm going to turn it into a single speed eventually. The conversion to a single speed might have to wait though until I pick up my Gary Fisher Cronus that I am apparently getting even though I was pretty much convinced the UT team wasn't going to order for me. Sweet!

Some Race Pics:

Other things that occurred:

Lauren got into Vet school at Texas A&M!! Yay for vet school! Boo for A&M!! She is excited and will likely start in late June taking an Anatomy class before the real thing begins.

Seu got to meet a cow, Longhorn none the less:

This will have to come in pieces (1)

2010-02-23T18:18:00.000-08:00

Most Important First:

Last weekend was the first and second time I have ever road raced. The Walburg race was on Saturday and Kyle's prediction of cold and rain were correct. The race went pretty well, probably went out a little too hard but overall it felt like it should I suppose. I was at the front right away and soon after the start I settled in to the pack. The race was faster than I thought it would be but I hung with the pack until the end. I slowed down for a near crash near the end and the front of the group got away a little but I finished without crashing (my goal). I don't know for sure where I placed, I've been guessing around 30th out of 50 so I'll just go with that. It was a darn good training ride too.

The Pace Bend race was on Sunday and I was hoping the weather would be a little better. The start was good and I was hanging in the pack until some tard barn decided to run into me. I decided it wasn't worth crashing and went off the road. I didn't have to stop and I got back on the road but the pack had gotten away a little. I worked hard and eventually caught up to the pack and started recovering a little just as some guys about 20 feet (6.15 meters) ahead of me crashed going around a corner. Yay, off the back again. I worked hard to keep the pack at a manageable distance but they soon started to pull away and I was done. I finished the race 23rd out of 30 I think. It was a little frustrating, I see how that race could be fun but oh well I didn't crash. The weather did get better right after our race. Congratulations to Kyle for getting 2nd!!

Mountain bike racing is definitely way better and that begins with the Warda race this weekend!!

Other random things that have happened lately:

Neighbors down the street moved:

Seu met a chicken:
More to come...

2010-02-12T15:30:00.001-08:00

I'm gonna write a blog this weekend...

Catchup

2010-01-20T16:07:00.000-08:00

It seems I am always falling behind on these things. Oh well. Since my last post not too much new has gone on. I did make the trip home when I learned my Grandfather had passed away. It was a tough couple of days but somehow I actually rested a little.

When I was home I got to go snowshoeing up by my house and it was amazing. The snow was deep and there is a good cliff area that always has some sweet icicles forming. I will soon post some pictures I took when I was there.

Training for racing season is well underway and the miles are adding up. I did get a PowerTap wheel. It's pretty bad ass.

We might move to a different house and here is why: The owner of the house we live in now has decided to come home from Australia. They decided they wanted to move back into the house we live in now. They offered us two months rent if we could move out by February 1st. Well, then the landlord said they weren't interested anymore in moving back in, until today. So now they want to offer 1.5 months rent less $100 dollars for some application fee. I think they better up that offer a little if they seriously want us to move.

New Year, new blog

2010-01-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

Last week was New Years and Lauren and I ended up hanging out with our friends Teresa and Cecilia and watching fireworks from the roof of their apartment building. It was pretty sweet, the whole horizon was exploding with little firework shows and every once in a while there was a great big one. Other than that I rode for about four and a half hours on New Years day, 2 hours on the road followed by 2.5 hours on the mountain bike. It had been way too long off of the mountain bike but it felt great to get back on. I think I also nearly killed Westley, a 16 year old I think I've helped get into mountain bike racing.

Here is a picture of the snow creation we fashioned:

Notice the crowd of little worshiper snow people. The theme god-figure was the giver of noses, notice the happy little snowman on the steps coming down with a nose and the little worshiper at the "feet" of the god-figure. The god-figure also has a "nose" in his hands but you can't really see it.

On Saturday, Jan. 2nd Lauren and I went to the first Saturday of the month activities and walked into this old junk pile between two buildings where a guy was selling things. I saw this sweet little sign and was gonna buy it but the guy wanted 5 bucks, a little too much.

Christmas and all that

2009-12-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

Lauren and I went back to Wisconsin and Minnesota last week for the Christmas festivities. It was an eventful trip starting with the flight home. I, and Lauren, thought we were flying out of George Bush Intergalactic Airport (IAH) and it turns out we were supposed to fly out of Hobby (HOU). Stupid that those airports can't pick symbols that might actually distinguish which one is which since that are both International Airports. Thankfully, the lady that helped us wasn't already bogged down by the craziness that Christmas brings to airports and she helped us get to Chicago from which we took a bus ride home.

Further excitement came from Christmas at my Mom's house with my sister and her two kids.

The day after that, Sunday I think, Lauren and I met up with my friend Chris and we went skiing. Lauren and I are both pretty good skiers and apparently Chris had never skied before. We showed him the ropes, and how to fall. It was good times and we had Chris skiing some Blacks before we were done. Chris actually found out that skiing without falling is much more fun than falling continuously.

Monday we left for the cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) although we pretty much hung out only in St. Paul.

Tuesday we toured some potential wedding venues but we have not picked one.

Wednesday we had a joint engagement party with Lauren's sister and her fiance. It was quite a bit of fun, got to meet lots of people and then drive home in lots of snow.

Thursday brought us loads of nice packy snow with which Lauren, Buddy (Lauren's brother), Sasha (Lauren's sister's fiance) and I built a remarkable scene. Something sort of like this but not really. I will soon post pictures of our masterpiece.
We also had a big family Christmas at Lauren's on Thursday night, everyone was awed by the snow sculpture.
On a side note: Lauren's Dad hooked us up with iPhones for Christmas!

Friday we had Christmas with Lauren's family in the morning and then drove back to my house for Christmas at my Dad's. Getting pretty exhausted of Christmas by now but I persevered.

Saturday we had the big Barber family Christmas and it was great to see all of the family. I also saw my Grandfather who is quite ill, I sure hope he starts getting better.

Sunday we were supposed to fly out of Madison early (6:30 a.m.) but the plane was held due to maintenance issues. Oh well, we had iPhones to play on. Finally we got home about 3:30 - 4 and I raked the back yard. Random, yes, but our back yard sure looks good. Then we watched Idiocracy, dumbest movie ever made!

Sure

2009-12-10T18:43:00.000-08:00

it's been a while since I've written and quite a bit has happened since then. The biggest news is that we got a sweet foosball table. It's definitely sturdy and I've been puttin' a whoopin' on Lauren ever since. Here is a picture so now, Mom, you can't say, "You never post pictures when you say you are going to!" anymore. Here are the pictures of the furniture we got:

Sweet foosball table!

Sort of a kitchen table

Big bookshelf

Little bookshelf and bike and desk. Need to organize a little maybe...

Other good news revolves around work, Seu, and Snow.

At work I've been in training for the past two weeks learning how to do geology, turns out it's pretty dang fun! Geophysics isn't so scary anymore and I found out people actually use Sequence Stratigraphy. Nice.

Seu, forcefully or not, was removed the breeding pool of dogs as of last Tuesday, he is still barking at a slightly higher pitch.

In case you didn't hear, Houston got snow last Friday. Exciting, right? We did actually get out of work early but not because the snow was piling up but because the already terrible drivers in Houston don't actually know what snow is so they drive around like the sky is falling, it could be also be caused when people see squirrels doing this. Chaos!

We did document this unusual occasion:

Notice Seu's look of displeasure, it's not from the snow or the cold.

Thanksgiving and things

2009-11-29T14:31:00.000-08:00

I went home for Thanksgiving last week and to go deer hunting. The weather was pretty warm which sucked because I like cold weather and all the warmth led to lots of fog on opening day of deer season. On the second day I went where my Dad had been sitting and I ended up missing a doe. The rest of the deer hunting season was pretty blah, didn't see a lot of deer and didn't have too much motivation to sit out too long. Other than deer hunting I went to see my Mom, Lauren came up, and we had some good Thanksgiving food. Lots of food.

Series Wrap-up and all

2009-11-13T17:26:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was the last of the TMBRA races at Rocky Hill. The race was one 21 mile loop that everyone had to do. Since I had the series locked up I decided not to race but Lauren still did.

I got out to pre-ride the course on Saturday and it was pretty good. Lots of trail I hadn't ridden before and it was fun.

Since I wasn't racing on Sunday I decided to volunteer and go out and hand out water bottles for the racers about 13 miles into the race. Lot's of people that were glad to see us. Some injured people and some fast looking people. Lauren came through toward the end of the time we were out there and I was glad I was out there for her. I wasn't sure she'd finish but she's tough like that.

About the time we got back to the finish line and since it was a TMBRA race it had to start raining. Then I encouraged Lauren to the finish and then went down for awards. After some heckling about not racing from the guys in my class I took the podium:

Lauren ended up fourth in her class, CONGRATS!!
It came at some cost though:
After the race quote from Lauren, "I need to learn to fall on my right side!"

Now a little off time before training for Spring racing. I'll be going back to Wisconsin for some exciting deer hunting next weekend and all of next week. Probably have to shop for Christmas sometime soon and plan a wedding. Please give tips for the wedding part!!

Lauren and I hope Kyle is doing well!! Speedy recovery!!

Halloween and things

2009-11-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

So I forgot to mention that my Dad came up and met Lauren and I at the race in Ruston last weekend which was really great. I think he felt a little out of his element with a bunch of mountain bikers but it was great to see him and I think he got to relax a little. Here's a picture of my Dad and I:

I was clearly celebrating Halloween a little early, good times.

Lauren and I partook in the annual festivities that include knives and punkins, yes punkins. This year, actually, I think I carved a rather large, whitish gourd but I'm still not too sure about the species of my jack-o'-lantern.

While carving, the masterpiece of Stanley Kubrik played in the background featuring Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, and Danny Torrance.

This is Lauren's happy cyclops thing
This is my whitish gourd thing, turned out well I thought. The outer shell was ridiculously hard leading me to use a hammer in addition to my knife to carve it. I actually ended up breaking the knife, sorry Lauren.

For Halloween evening we did the traditional Trick-or-Treat handing out of candy to all the little monsters and Michael Jacksons running around. We almost ran out of candy before we had to go to Lauren's co-worker's house for a little get-together. We had some pretty sweet costumes, I'll put up some pics once they become available to me. Halloween was pretty fun and I thoroughly enjoyed the "extra" hour of sleep last night.

Today Lauren and I ventured out to IKEA to get a shelf, a table, and a couple of chairs. Pretty sweet, I'll get some pics soon.

Ruston, Louisiana that is

2009-10-28T18:25:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the fourth race of the Fall TMBRA series in Ruston, LA. It was a long drive (five and a half hours) but Lauren and Westley (a high school kid) picked me up at work so we could head up from there. It was a good trip but long.

This race was a little different from most races as there was a short track and time trial on Saturday and the typical cross country race on Sunday. I haven't ever done a time trial on either the road or the mountain (No special bikes or cool pictures of BA mountain bike time trials) bike so I didn't really know what to expect.

SIDE NOTE: I've also never tried a tandem time trial, I'm gonna have to ask Lauren if she's into that kind of thing.

The short track race was the first race on Saturday but I didn't do it because it didn't count for the Cat 2 GC and it costed more money. The time trial was pretty much what I expected it to be, a painfest. I downed a GU and some drink right before I started which may not have been a good idea. Oh well. The race was pretty good. The first guy I caught was nice and got off the trail for me right before a slippery corner which I slid out in losing a couple second for sure. The second guy I caught was not so nice and he didn't let me by even though I was considerably faster than he. He did proceed to stall out on a switchback leading up to the finish making me stop and costing me a few more seconds. In the end I got second a mere six seconds out of first.
Here's some TT pics:

Racing, intensely

The cross country race was on Sunday and I was really looking for a win. I started out pretty fast trying to stay at the front and was feeling pretty sore from the TT and probably a little sore still from the 24 hour race but feeling alright. We stayed with the whole field for a while and then three of us (James, Josh, and I) started pulling away. I went back in forth from second to first to third and when I pulled back into second James took off. Neither Josh or I could respond and James built a decent lead. Josh and I took turns pulling until Josh tore off his derailleur. This happened at a good time for me since I looked back and saw a couple guys from our class closing in. I picked up the pace a little and held everyone off for second.
Here's a XC photo:

I ended up second overall in the GC to James but it was enough to solidify a win for the series. Yay!! I am not going to race the last race now but Lauren is so I'll get some updates.

Lauren did tear it up at Ruston, too:

She looks awfully perky though for racing. Game face Lauren!!

The awesome pictures are from KarmaBiker!

24 hours, whew!

2009-10-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

It was a fast weekend and a hard fought battle. We stayed in La Grange on Friday night so we were closer to the race on Saturday. The race started at noon on Saturday so we had to be out there around 10 for the pre-race meeting and to get set-up for the race. I also had to meet the rest of the team since it was a last minute team that got put together. The three guys on the team are all from San Antonio: Steve, Simon, and Micah.

Steve was the team captain

Simon is a professional trainer, triathlete, and nutritionist

Micah was the first time racer who had never ridden Rocky Hill Ranch

Simon was the first rider out for us and he did well. Steve was out number 2, I rode number 3, and Micah was number 4. We ran a lap schedule of 1,2,1,2,3,4,3,4. I think this gives more rest than running 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4.

Like last year, I thought I pushed it too hard on my first lap and wasn't feeling too great but I put down a 58 minute lap, fastest lap for the whole team. Second lap was good (1:01:32). My second lap was at dusk so I got to see a sweet view of a really good, orange sunset as I was cresting the last sorta big climb on the course, sweet. Night laps of 1:03 and 1:06 were pretty good night laps I thought. Since there were no overall standings we didn't really know how we were doing beyond knowing that we were in the top three. I figured we were in third due to some slow night laps. Thinking it was my last lap of the race I pushed it as hard as I could and threw down a 1:00 lap. Simon went out and was going to take the last lap but when he came in he told me to go. Great . . .

Thinking we were close to the team in front of us I hammered it as hard as I could to try to catch him but I couldn't, even with a 1:03 lap.

Turns out we weren't very close to the first place team but we did end up in second, not bad for a last minute team, especially with a first-time racer.

I felt pretty sick the rest of the day and really tired. At least this year there wasn't anyone yelling "Go Racer!" all night.

Here's some pics:

Going out on the second lap . . .

20 hours later,

Coming in at the finish, sorry, no mid-race photos

Not feeling so well, little cramping going on

Looking good with the team

MMMMMM! Pickle Juice!!

The team, our team name was 'The Justice League'. From left, Steve, Micah, Simon, Me.

The massage last night felt really good and definitely helped with the recovery.

Thanks to Lauren for sort of being support and getting off the cot so I could try to sleep a little.

Thanks also to Teresa and Cecilia for making the trip out so the doggies could play and y'all could hang out a little.

Update

2009-10-16T04:36:00.000-07:00

We did hit up bingo again last night, no luck though...

After some ups and downs I've found a team for the 24 Hours of Rocky Hill! First I started off on a four-person expert team then one of the dude's was having a baby. He was out. Then someone wanted to race solo. He's out. Then I was going to race as a Duo with my buddy Joshua but then he got the flu and we both decided the race after the flu. So I was teamless about a week ago then a guy contacted me about doing the race on his team. RIGHT ON!! So now I'm racing on a 4-man senior sport team. Woohoo! 24 hour race!

It starts tomorrow by the way, hopefully Rocky Hill has dried out a little and the weather is looking perfect.

Yeah, Bingo!

2009-10-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday was an off-day for me so I wasn't really sure what I was going to do since I don't get too many. Well that question was answered for me when my friend asked if Lauren and I wanted to go play bingo. Hell Yes!!

I wasn't really sure what to expect since thoughts of bingo typically bring about visions of suspender and bow-tie clad gents and dames with hair curlers still in place. Well, that was pretty much the case. There were quite a few younger folks, however, doubtlessly lured in by the cheap beer and popcorn.

The actual playing of bingo was relatively relaxing as the mono-toned gentleman calling the numbers had a very soothing voice. There was a raucous bunch of girls next to us who had clearly consumed more than just beer. I also found the pace of the game to be quick and somewhat frustrating:

Notice the dude in the back with a Texas hat on, way to go buddy!
I clearly once thought I was going to win! Hope dashed when some jerk in the back got bingo before me.

Maybe next time...

Bryan

2009-10-06T14:06:00.001-07:00

Well, rained again. That pretty much sums up the Bryan experience but I'll put it in a little better perspective. We left Houston on Saturday morning at about 11 after hitting up some book sales, garage sales, the bank, and somewhere else on the way up to Bryan (~100 miles away). Apparently the DOT decided to close down two of the three lanes on 290 which led to some serious backups and waiting in traffic. Once we got going again we noticed some ominously dark looking clouds looming on the horizon to the west and north (near Bryan) but we were hoping to beat the rain there. Approximately 10 minutes after saying, "It looks pretty light up by Bryan", torrential downpours struck. This demotivated me to pre-ride and slowed traffic considerably. We finally got to Bryan about an hour and a half later than I had wanted to but it didn't matter because the course was a real piece of muddy work so I didn't pre-ride anyways. Keeping my fingers crossed, that the rain would stop, I registered and then we headed into town for some food and later, sleep. Lauren somehow talked me into going to the Large Animal Vet Clinic at A&M, creepiest feeling ever!

About dinner time the rain started up again and, as far as I can tell, it didn't stop until about 8:30, 30 minutes before the Cat 1 race. Awesome, I thought as I peered into a couple of the large puddles we had to go through 20 feet after the start line. The course officials had shortened the course considerably after a pre-riding racer was consumed entirely by a large mud hole on the western loop, that's not actually true, but they did cut off that section of trail. The final trail length was 11 miles, "That's not too bad," I thought. Thinking I would catch some of the PSE riders coming up the final stretch before the start finish line, I waited around until I had to go get ready and warm-up. Something struck me then, "11 miles and the pros aren't even back and it's been over an hour," this could get ugly. After a good warm-up I headed to the start line. One of the race officials was saying, "Watch out when you go down the hill by the 'Slippery' sign because there is a large telephone pole at the bottom that you could crash into."

The race started slippery and fast, I got into the single-track in second and was right on the tire of first place until he slid out and off the trail on a wet bridge. Being in first, there was no one around and I didn't know how for ahead I was. Then, a rider that went to A&M caught me and apparently he had taken a mountain biking class out there so he knew every inch of the trail. We were pacing each other and then all of the sudden another rider from our class was on us and he was looking pretty strong. He got into first and I stayed with him for a while then I lost him on a short nasty muddy uphill in which the other guy passed me too. Now I was in third and I was starting to get tired. Having not pre-ridden I didn't know when to attack but this wasn't a big problem as my chain kept binding up which slowed me down quite a bit. I started to catch back up to the two in front of me and then I passed second place after he had flatted. I tried hard but I couldn't catch first. It was a tough race and I ended up in second.

Last hill, it hurt, I think my tongue is sticking out.

MuddyBike bath time, I think I dropped something...

Seu got it

Non-Yetticross Race Update

2009-10-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

Well the Harris County Flood Control apparently didn't want us to race again last night so the race was off. Apparently this time there were cops. Most people were out riding anyways but it was a little disappointing to have the race cancelled again.

Lauren still came out to take pictures though:

I'm winning for sure!!

This weekend is the third race in the fall TMBRA series up at Lake Bryan, hopefully it goes well!

I also got my new shoes!!! Super sweet!!! Can't wait to rock 'em!!! (Sidi Dominator 6 w/carbon soles)

Sunday

2009-09-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

It's hot again in Houston, that made the ride this morning tough. I got out for four hours with Lauren joining me for the last hour or so. It was a pretty good ride, traffic wasn't bad, didn't have to stop much, and it wore me out. There's a race next weekend in Bryan, TX and hopefully I can pull out a win.

Since I haven't written in a while, a brief recap of last week:

Last week was the restart of Yetti cross which is good, new route looks tough, can't wait to get out there and race again.

Went to Wisconsin last weekend for a good friend's wedding and got to see some of the family.

Lauren took the GRE, that test you have to take to get into grad school, tough test.

Seu is getting a little better at rolling over.

Lawnmower broke.

Went to training for work.

Went to the Astros game on Friday with some sweet fireworks afterwards.

Figured out I'm doing the 24 hours of Rocky Hill as a duo team, should be interesting.

Prediction of this week:
Will get my new mountain biking shoes!!!! I'm excited!!!!

Do Yetti cross sometime around Wednesday.

Race at Bryan on Sunday.

Ride horses sometime.

Huntsville

2009-09-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the Huntsville Classic. I was coming of a pretty hard week of training so I wasn't sure how the race would go. The pre ride was pretty good, wet, but good. There was a lot of rain and I wasn't sure how the riding would be, remembering back to Camp Eagle, but the course was good and not muddy.

I was feeling pretty good at the start of the race and they started us with the collegiate B's so there was quite a few people at the start. My goal was to not blow up on the first lap but still ride fast. I know, smart plan, right. Since the start was so fast and the course was so ... non ... technical I figured I would blow up chasing roadies. The first lap went pretty well as I led most of it pulling away in the technical sections and having the other kid catch up in the flats. Around the start/finish line the other kid started pulling away and some other kid passed me. I didn't know how I was feeling but apparently I was fading. I started getting a little tired and then it was more tired and then I was struggling to keep going. After a little recovery I kicked it in again to hold of the other Cat 2's at least. Just as the rain started to come I passed some Cat 2's from another class that had passed me earlier but my effort was a little too late and I ended up third about two and a half minutes out of first. Not too bad after a hard week and I got a super-duper trophy.

At the start of Lauren's race, where she ended up fifth, I ended up standing on a dang fire any mound and the little suckers got me about 8 - 9 times before I killed them all. Later that week Brandon's ankle would go on to get all swollen due to those dang fire ants but it is getting better now.

On a side note the Yetti Cross races are on hold as the Harris County Flood Control decided they don't want us racing down there. Lame but true.

Seu is learning to roll over.

Ugh...

2009-09-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

The second week of Yetti Cross was ......... ugh ............... yeah. We got a bunch of rain all day long before the race so the course was a little soggy. I wasn't sure how I would feel but Alan told me to get the hole shot so that's what I did. Then I blew up pretty bad. I didn't feel so good from about minute 10 until minute 45 and then for about an hour after the race. The mud served to really clog up the derailleurs and the tire a little. Tough pedalling. Even though I lost a lot of energy and didn't feel too well I ended up around 10th out of about 25.

Not too long after the start, notice face not grimacing

Any tips?

About to hit the hill, face anguished, not looking forward to the hill, wanting to be done with the race

The Hill

Post race, not feeling it

Huntsville race this weekend, hope it's better than tonight! I also should maybe get a cross bike.

The Camp Eagle Classic 2009

2009-09-08T18:02:00.000-07:00

was last weekend in Rocksprings, TX. It was an interesting Labor Day weekend event. The weekend started with Lauren, Westley (a young beginner rider), and I took off at 9 on Saturday morning thinking it would be good to get there early afternoon to pre-ride. Well, after a stop at Buc-ee's and about four more hours of driving, we rolled into Camp Eagle with about an eighth of a tank of gas, interesting.

We pulled up to the First-Time Racers clinic to say hi to the Johnson's just as the rain started. We thought it might end quickly but we were wrong. Alan jinxed us as well by keeping on saying, "Oh I think it's letting up" or, "It's getting lighter over there". So it rained for a while and we didn't end up pre-riding at all.

After a good pasta dinner, a good game of scrabble (somehow I beat Kyle), and an lovely night of sleep on a nice rubber coated mattress it was race time.

Westley started early, at 8:30, and the Cat 1's and 2's starting at 10:30. Westley started strong and ended up winning his race. Congrats!!

My race was interesting, there was a little 13 year-old who is apparently really fast. The kid was with us, or should I say, we were with him for the first, oh, ten minutes of the race and then he was gone. Crazy fast. I was in second with Ryan and we were holding a pretty good pace. The first loop was just nasty as the rain had made everything muddy and the rocks were all super slippery. I almost took a couple people out as I slid while passing them, they weren't too happy.

Ryan started to ride away from me and pretty soon I couldn't see him anymore, I was a little worried but trying to not blow myself up trying to catch him. I eventually caught back up to him on a long, steady, nastily-slippery hill climb. Going across a side-hill Ryan crashed and I passed him back for second. Seeing that, I rode a little more cautious and figured Ryan might catch up to me again. The trail was getting considerably better near the end of the race and my second trip down the old river bed was much better and faster. I ended up getting second behind the kid by about four minutes for second. I felt good and the race was good, now I have to take out that little kid since he got the prize that I really wanted. Here are some pictures snapped by Lauren:

Somewhere during the race

Finish! Rough race, in the bumpy sort of rough!

Podium, notice tiny kid on top.

By the way, the eighth of a tank of gas was barely enough to get us back to the only gas station out in that area of the world approximately 40 miles away. I love my car!

Racing Report

2009-09-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was a race at Stephen F. Austin state park and was the first race since I've been here from Wisconsin. I wasn't sure how the course was so I went out on Saturday to pre-ride and found out the course was pretty easy.

Sunday came around and Kathy and I had talked Lauren into racing. Early start but we made it with a little time to warm up. The start went out around a paved loop and then into the singletrack. I kept with the middle of the pack around the loop and then made a move to get into the front of the group right before the singletrack which was a good move since people behind me crashed and slowed everyone down. I was in the top five about two miles in and hanging on pretty easily. About a third of the way through the first lap (5 mile laps) I decided to go and was in the lead for the rest of the lap. At about the same point on the next lap two guys that were behind me just took off and I never saw them again. Stupid Cat 1 sandbaggers!!! I kept on though but I was hurtin' a little, some other Cat 2's had caught up so I was in about third and then fifth and then like 10th. I started recovering a little and then started passing some of the guys that had passed me and by race end I placed seventh. Not too bad, would have liked to place higher but I felt ok.

Tuesday I met up with a kid and rode Memorial Park. Forgetting the Yetti cross race on Wednesday I decided to push it and do intervals. It was a good workout and I got to scare some roadies and make them mad when I passed them "really close" according to them. Ha ha, there wasn't even contact.

Last night was the first Yetti cross race of the season. Running late, I spaced any money that would actually enter me into the race so I ended up just riding but at race effort. It was a hard effort after pushing it hard the night before but I didn't let up. 45 minutes is a long time to go hard, too. I started with the C's since I wasn't officially in the race and even though I wasn't contesting anyone I did end up lapping about a third to half of the C field. The barriers were certainly interesting, should probably do some work in that area, but it was still a sweet race. I definitely need to look into getting a 'cross bike (Lauren rolls eyes now) so if you have any connections or know someone selling a 54 cm let me know.

Crazy Afternoon

2009-08-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

So this afternoon was pretty dang crazy. Firstly, on the drive home, I was super-close to being in an accident. There was a car in front of me and we were going about 65 and all of the sudden the car front tire blew and the driver decided to slam on the brakes. That's not what you are supposed to do when you blow a tire. But anyway I saw the car at the last second and swerved around them. As I was going around the front of the car it was about 6 inches from my car. Whew!! Then I realized how lucky I was there wasn't a car to my right when I swerved and I'm really glad I didn't rear end them.

After I got home and calmed down a bit Lauren and I went to Memorial Park for some mountain biking. Not know for sure what to think as I've gotten several reviews on a wide range from "don't waste your time" to "you probably won't be able to ride it your first time because it's so technical" I wasn't overly impressed nor severely disappointed. We also showed up and didn't really know where to go so we ended up riding the "Black" loop, the most technical trail. Lauren had previously told me she wouldn't ride that part but since she didn't know I made her.

Lauren also pulled out one of Seu's baby teeth. Sick!

I hope the Dirt Derby is going well. If you ride a bike and you are in Austin or the surrounding area you should definitely go check it out!

Incubus

2009-08-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Last night some friends and I went to the Incubus show in the Woodlands, it was a grand time. It was rather eventful though because as soon as we left a big rainstorm hit so it took us almost an hour (normally ~30 min) to get to the Woodlands since people from Houston don't drive in the rain well.

We got to the concert only to find out they weren't letting anyone in because there was a tornado. They sent us to the parking garage across the street to "ride out" the tornado. Long story short, no tornado, angry Incubus-loving fans, show must go on. The show started late but it was great.

Go home late and go up a little late but now it's time to go to some garage sales.

Work Today

2009-08-20T14:49:00.001-07:00

The last few days I have been learning a geology tool called VoxelGeo and I've learned it's pretty dang sweet!

First off, the idea behind this type of technology came from the medical industry where doctors were compiling data to image brains, and other kinds of bodily things. Well, the same type of data is collected for seismic imaging of geology in the subsurface. This is why oil companies like this technology.

So we got to play around with a bunch of cool seismic data and learned to do some cool things in the class.

Anyways, the point of this story, since I got a little off track, is that being as it was the last day of the class today our "teacher" took us down to the 3D visualization class and showed us some cool stuff. The first thing they showed us was a 3D image of the Grand Canyon. Next, was the crazy thing, which needs a little background history:

Back in the day (50's or so) a man on death row decided to dedicate his body to science when he was executed. Doctors took full advantage of this by freezing the man's body and then slicing it in ~4 millimeter slices and taking pictures of the whole thing. Sometime in the future, after the "operation", someone scanned all of the images and put them into a spatial geoframe so each point was unique and computers could image and slice through the body they wanted.

Back to the class: Some bored geologists, likely on a very slow day, imaged this body with 3D visualization software so we got a tour of a human body by looking in the inside. It was pretty dang sweet.

Something like this but a little cooler maybe.

Lake Lake (according to some)

2009-08-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Well, being that it's so dang hot in Houston I feel like I haven't been out riding as much as I should be. I guess that's kinda true but the trainer keeps me in shape a little. I did get out and ride with a group shop ride on Saturday and we cranked pretty hard.

Sunday, Lauren and I went up to Double Lake near Coldspring to get some much needed mountain biking in. It was good to get back out on the trail. The handling skills were a little rough to start but after the first couple of miles they came back pretty quick. It was pretty dang hot and Lauren decided to let Seu follow her down the trail but Seu didn't quite know what to do so Lauren ended up going pretty slow but I think she had fun.

After riding we went out to the horse barn and rode the horses for a little bit until I thought I was going to be hear exhausted so we headed to Dairy Queen and then home.

I am hoping to go check out Memorial Park this week sometime.

House

2009-08-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of our house in Houston. The pictures aren't in any order and the rooms are certainly not too organized or clean, yet. We are in the process of furnishing...

Kitchen

Hallway

Bedroom

Big Closet

Bathroom

Dining Room and Seu's room, at least for now

Picture in the study

Messy Study, we're gonna get some book shelved and desk soon...

Living Room

Front of the House

Seu Update

2009-08-11T18:20:00.001-07:00

This is a montage of Seu attacking a soccer ball

This is Seu apologizing to the soccer ball.

They're friends now!

Houston Update

2009-08-04T17:27:00.001-07:00

Lauren and I have successfully made it to Houston. We are moved into the new pad. I started my new job yesterday and I haven't gotten fired yet so it looks like I might actually get to buy a new bike sometime. The house is sweet, 2 bed/ 2 bath with a couple other rooms and a backyard for Seu. Seu was kinda a pain in the ass as he was going underneath the house but with a little fencing and nailing he no longer has access. He is still mad.

We still haven't gotten cable/interweb or gas utilities so the updates are sparse and the showers are cold but I'll do my best.

I'll get house pics up and other thins soon.

Going to the Astros game for work tomorrow, sweet!

Some pictures

2009-07-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

Seu, our puppy

Yay water skiing

We decided to ride around the lake at Lauren's cabin and ended up crossing this small channel

Crazy dog, I was afraid...

Summer recapish

2009-07-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

Since the delay has been so long I will briefly talk about some things I've done and then perhaps elaborate more at some point.

A while ago now:
-Raced the Chippewa Valley Firecracker 500, got fourth out of 20 something, felt good, 37th overall out of 200 something. Lauren got 9th out of 12 in the race too, sweet!

-My dad came home and I got to hang out with him for a while. It was good, don't see him too often.

-Lauren went to horse show in Mauston, my uncle and cousin came to watch.

Slightly more recently:

-Lauren got me cowboy boots for my birthday!!

-Lauren's parents came to visit for a day on their way to the cities.

-I got a new car!! 2009 Mazda 3, awesome car!!

Really recently:
-Went up to Lauren's cabin for last week.

-Lauren and I got engaged!!

-Seu, our puppy, found a new rock that he really likes but it's way too big for him to pick up, dang funny.

-Team for the 24 hour race fell apart. Lame! Bigtime Lame!!

Predictions for the near future:
-Will go back to my Dad's tomorrow

-Going to move to Houston on tuesday, maybe monday night...

Houston and back in a day

2009-06-17T10:37:00.001-07:00

Tuesday I went to Houston to tour some houses for rent. I started in the cities and flew through Atlanta to meet Stony, the real estate lady. She toured me around six different houses. The first and second were pretty nice with small back yards. The third turned out to be my favorite. A little more expensive but quite nice. The fourth and fifth houses were ruled out almost immediately. Both had a funky smell and weren't too clean and not really finished off. They were both pretty nice house layouts and could be nice though. The sixth and final house was the most expensive but it was super nice and very well finished with a big gated yard but I thought it was a little more than what we needed, at least to start in. I'll post pictures when I figure out which one we are going to live in.

Our puppy, Sue, is getting pretty big and he is coming along quite well. He sits and is house trained pretty well.

I'll also post pictures of the puppy when I have them.

MS150

2009-06-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the MS150 in Minnesota. The ride was really great and there were over 3,300 people. The event started on Friday with a bus ride up to Proctor, MN, where the ride started off. We slept on the floor of a gym in the Middle school on Friday night with about 300 other people. There was one guy who decided to use his mechanical air pump to fill up his air mattress at one in the morning, much appreciated.

Saturday morning was pretty cold and we hit a little rain about 10 miles in which was cold, it may have been sleet. Then the ride got onto a long trail which we stayed on the rest of the day. We finished in Hinckley, MN on Saturday night for some camping at the Grand Casino. We arrived early and sat around for several hours, got a nice little massage, and then a pretty good sized storm moved and it rained for a while. The team I was "on", called Soar Buns, sat around under a tent and ate some dinner. Following dinner the weather was cold so Rigel, my friend who talked me into doing the ride, and I went to the casino for a little Blackjack. Thirty minutes after entering the casino we walked out with some bad yogurt and 75 dollars more than we entered with. Then it was off to bed.

Sunday morning was pretty chilly too but there were no clouds. After packing up and eating breakfast we headed out. There were a lot of people out already and we spent a while passing people. Rigel's crank came loose on the ride so I stopped and helped him fix it then we headed to the first rest stop where I told Rigel to have a mechanic fix it while I went to the bathroom. We got back out on the road and I soon noticed that Rigel wasn't with me so I turned back to find him. His crank had come loose again so he turned back to see if someone could fix it. Turns out he thought he could fix it himself and didn't have a mechanic do it. Then I got frustrated with Rigel and texted Lauren to remind me to not do events like this with Rigel ever again. After twenty minutes we were back out on the road and all of the sudden Rigel's crank was coming loose again. Come on Rigel!! I told him I'd wait for him at the next rest stop for a little bit but then I was going to go on. I got to the stop and Rigel didn't show up for like ten minutes so I went on without him. I decided to ride harder than I had been since Rigel doesn't ride as hard and the rest of the ride went good and fast.

The finish line was great with a lot of people and a big banner, and sort of sore buns, or Soar Buns if you will. Then we came back into the cities and I got a good steak dinner with Lauren's parents. Lauren went to a 4H horse camp so she missed out big time.

Race Report

2009-06-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

Well the race in Wausau was pretty good, still cold but at least it wasn't rainy. The race started pretty good with a long run out to the single track being the WORS version of the Big Ring Challenge. About 50% single track and 50% shitty muddy uphill double track.

I started out moderately paced and then a bunch of people raced by just after the start which didn't bother me too much as the race was 17 miles I was pretty sure I could catch them again. So after the long run out we finally got to the single track and I started to pass people without actually riding super hard. There was one technical muddy rocky climb which most people couldn't clear so I passed a lot of racers there since it wasn't actually that technical. I kept a pretty steady pace and kept passing people and I finished in 4th in my age group and 34th overall. My legs were a bit worn at the end but it felt good to race again.

The MS150 is this weekend so I'll give a ride report for that and put up some sweet pics early next week sometime.

Back in Wisconsin!

2009-06-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

Since it's been a while since I've written I suppose there will be quite a bit to put here, maybe.

I'm now in Wisconsin after a long drive up through Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and southern Wisconsin. We made the trip in about 32 hours with several stops for the new puppy and we stopped and slept for a while, too. So after about 7 hours of sleep in three full days I finally got to sleep and get ready to train.

I started a training program, put together by Kyle's dad, on Monday to make me faster than him (Alan). It's been going well, slight adjustment to training with a heart rate monitor but so far it's all good.

This past week was loaded with activity so it shall be summed up in list form:
Sunday
Max heart rate
Rode horses
Dinner with Mom

Monday:
3 hour ride
Grocery shopping

Tuesday
Intervals
Built horse fence
Friend's baseball game

Wednesday
Easy ride
Rock Climbed
Moved horses to my Grandpa's house

Thursday
Intervals (damn you Alan!!)
Arrowhead hunting
Weed whacked

Friday
Fun ride with Lauren and Mick, a guy we met while out riding
Bike rack from my truck into Lauren's
Lunch with Mom and errands

Today
Cold ass pre-ride for my first ever WORS race and it rained all day and still is (45 and rain)

Tomorrow
First WORS race ever, Wausau, Nine Mile Forest, sweet trails, hopefully it's not as cold and rainy as the pre-ride

This is the race course where there is a 24-hour race at the end of July. Yay!

I'll try to be more up to date with this... try

Graduation and Puppy

2009-05-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

Graduation was last Saturday and the parents were in town from Wisconsin. Since I don't "officially" graduate until August I wasn't overly excited about it. It was pretty good and didn't take too long so that was nice. The ceremony was nice and there was barbecue after so that was a definite plus.

Beyond graduation the exciting news is that Lauren picked up the new puppy the we named pseu, after pseudo after pseudotachylite which is a sweet rock. He's really friendly and we've already taken him on a pretty long walk, I think he's learning to walk on a leash pretty quickly. We also taught him to go up and down stairs. He seems to be smart, we'll start with 'sit'. Trying to get him to not chew on everything.

He's an 8 week old Australian Shepherd.

X-Bar

2009-05-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

Since I'm waiting for some laundry to finish up...

Last weekend was the last race of the spring TMBRA series out near Eldorado. It was Lauren's first race and my first race in a month and a half. The three and a half hour drive took about four and half hours on the way due to crazy downpours and rain about half the way there. Apparently the race site had rain as well since the course was quite muddy during the pre-ride.

I wasn't sure how the race would go so my goal was to finish around the middle of the pack since I hadn't been able to ride and train much. There were three laps to the race and my first lap was pretty bad. One endo and one mechanical put me in seventh or eighth and once I got going again I knew I had some work to do. The second lap was pretty good, made up some time. The third lap was my best, I felt good and I passed three people in my class and finished in fourth place.

I ended up sixth overall in the series which was pretty good I thought for my first year in sport.

Lauren won her race and ended up 4th overall in her class! Congratulations! Heal up and get ready for some more racing this summer.

Congratulations to Kyle for winning the Expert Class and good luck at nationals!!

I want to thank Lauren and Kyle for going to the sweet Bavarian restaurant in Fredricksburg on the way home and having Birthday dinner with me. I'm glad I could share my warm apple strudel with y'all.

A new-found respect for facebook negligence

2009-05-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

I recently had a friend who was celebrating their annual celebration of birth so I partook in the typical festivities by writing my obligatory "Happy Birthday _______!!" on facebook. I typically try to get all of my friends who I think would appreciate and be semi-grateful of my blessing on their special day.

It wasn't too long ago when I came to the realization that I go through pretty significant phases of facebook addiction and facebook negligence. I typically don't find myself as a person craving the knowledge of what all of my friends from high school are up to but I do appreciate keeping in touch with some. I am definitely going through a phase of insatiable facebook addiction, however, I'm becoming bored with it and I see a phase of negligence coming on meaning, I hope you like my profile picture.

The merging of these two thought-streams occurred when I returned to my friend's profile page and realized I was the only person with a kind heart that wished this person a Happy Birthday. Lauren, sitting next to me, then mentioned there were more warm tidings of birthday wishes at the bottom of the page.

It is true, there are more wishes of a Happy Birthday, from last year, including mine...

Sorry it doesn't show up too well, but that is me, twice. I am nothing but envious with a twist of jealous that I cannot bring myself to this level of facebook negligence.

The MS150

2009-05-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm going to do the MS150 in Minnesota on June 13th and 14th. I've really wanted to do the Texas MS150 but this semester was a little too crazy so I'm going to do the Minnesota version. If you are interested in supporting me a little I have set up a fundraising page:

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=6767717&pg=personal&fr_id=9641

Here is a link to the ride website:

http://bikemnm.nationalmssociety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=BIKE_MNM_150_homepage&gclid=CPGh0LSNvJoCFQhhnAodUG43dA

Thank you all for reading and looking.

Weekend Home

2009-05-13T07:51:00.001-07:00

Last weekend a good high school friend of mine got married so Lauren and I ventured back to Wisconsin for his wedding. The flight home was quite exciting and yet a little irritating. It started in Dallas when the plane I was on got in with plenty of time to make my next flight but we had to sit at the gate until a crew could come and dock us. Was it that they didn't know we were coming? "Oh, look! A plane! What's that doing here!?!"

So after we finally got unloaded I had to run to my next flight, on the other side of the airport. I got to the gate and everything was closed up. Not a good sign. Apparently I looked pretty mad because a lady rushed over and asked my name and where I had been and why I was late. After clarifying that I had run from my other flight she decided she could still get me onto the plane. Very nice lady! Then we waited at the gate for about twenty minutes until maintenance papers cleared...

The wedding was great though and the weather was cool (50's), it was great. Seeing some old high school friends and catching up a little with what they are all up to was nice.

Sunday was Mother's Day so I stopped in to see my Grandma but she wasn't feeling well so I ate lunch with Lauren, Grandpa, and my uncle. And then we had homemade ice cream. Delectable!

After lunch we went and spent time with my Mom and sister and her kids for dinner and gave my nephew a brand new kazoo, harmonica, and some squirt guns. Evil, I know.

Monday brought early flights at six in the morning and then meeting the new puppy.

This sunday is the last TMBRA race and Lauren's first race ever, exciting.

Summer Training

2009-05-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

So I'm thinking about equipping my singlespeed commuter bike with a fixed gear for training this summer. I'll be riding with Lauren, who doesn't like riding as fast as I do, so I was thinking it'll be a good way to get a good workout while not killing Lauren.

If anyone has insight as to whether this is a good or bad idea, let me know.

I also might need some supplies so if you know any good places to get components or have some you'd be willing to sell, let me know that, too.

On another note, all I have left for classes is one final tomorrow morning. Can't wait to be done with that.

On a different note, the Banff Mountain Film Festival was in Austin on monday night and last night and it was awesome. If you like to do outdoor adventurous activities such as rock climbing, mountain biking, slacklining, high-lining, basejumping, cliff jumping, skydiving, kite skiing, regular skiing, snowboarding and there are probably some things I left out, then you would definitely appreciate these films. For a little background about the festival go here. I definitely recommend it and I definitely will go again.

For a picture, in case you don't know what high-lining is:

What a week

2009-05-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

Well I just got in most of the first draft of my thesis yesterday. It's surprising how much work it is just to compile everything and I'm not done quite yet, but dang.

I did actually get to ride yesterday too, the second time since the Reimers race. That's pretty sad. I should be able to ride a little more now, at least enough to get back into good shape to beat Kyle's dad at the last TMBRA race.

I don't really think the Swine flu is that big of a deal

I'm getting close to being done with school, at least until I decide I can handle a PhD.

More later...

Stop Whining

2009-04-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

So in my class, Sequence Stratigraphy, a graduate geology class, there are a couple people who are whining because we have an up coming test and they have a field trip and another test. I understand that they are busy and they don't want to fail. Fail, in other words, they don't want to be stressed out and actually have to work and study on the field trip they are going on. In further yet, more understandable words, they don't want to have to study so they can sit around drinking at night on their field trip. I've been there, I know how this goes.

This is particularly disturbing to me because they should really just suck it up and do the work. They really don't have too much to complain about because they signed up for their classes fully knowing what they were getting into and now that it's the crazy end of the semester that every college student goes through, they can't handle it.

I would challenge any one of these kids to compare how busy they are with how busy I am (this is a little ironic considering I'm writing a blog right now but this has been kinda pissing me off).

...

2009-04-19T17:41:00.001-07:00

It's been a while

2009-04-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

So I've been super busy doing research and getting ready for my thesis presentation, which I gave yesterday. The talk went pretty well, I ended a little early but I did answer 6 or 7 questions which is more than anyone else. The thesis work is definitely coming along though and now I'll be able to focus on writing. By the way, I study natural fractures in rocks.

I've also been off the bike for two weeks as I've been putting in about 11 - 12 hours a day on campus. I really need to get back going and get into shape for Double Lake in two weeks. That will be Lauren's first race, too!!

We did go check out some little puppies today, one of which Lauren is going to get at the end of May. They are about three weeks old right now. We are getting an Australian Sheppard. They are pretty cool even though they are only little fur balls right now.

The Oregon Trail

2009-04-12T08:55:00.001-07:00

So yesterday I found the Oregon Trail CD that Lauren brought when she moved here and never told me about. Yes, I'm talking about "the" Oregon Trail game that never ceased to amaze and entertain all kids that were in grade school at the same time as I. Although it is a little more recent edition than the one I remember it is still awesome.

Older Version

Newer Version

Mac Version - NOT AS COOL

The upgrades between the two systems are quite nice and include:

1.) Map to show your progress

2.) Improved graphics

3.) The ability to change pace, allowing for faster trips across the country

5.) An improved control interface to make the game easier and more straight forward to play

6.) There is no 4.)

The older version did have a much better hunting feature though where you could move around instead of just aiming. See Below:

Old Version

New Version:

This is a great game and I think you should revert back to your grade school - middle school days and indulge in one or two games of the great adventure across the country.

The older version of OT can be downloaded here, in case you want to practice up:

Oregon Trail Download

Oh Yeah, Happy Easter!!!

2009-04-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

The pirates off the coast of Somalia are building quite a resume of ships they have captured and ransomed. These ships! There seems to be quite a force attempting to stop the piracy as seen in this figure from Wikipedia:

States with navies fighting piracy and insurgency are colored green, former in blue, states with navies contributing to Operation Atalanta in purple; states with an infantry presence only in red. Somalia is in yellow.

It seems as though the pirates would have a difficult time taking over a ship of this size:

With a ship ...boat ...dinghy like this

It does not seem, however, that these are pirates. I know if I were about to be taken over by pirates I would accept nothing less than this:

Now, if the pirates looked something like this, they would be much more fearsome and it is likely that only this man could stop:

This man could easily handle the Somali pirate situation as he has previous experience batting "Cutthroats".

Cutthroat: (kŭt'thrōt') Pronunciation Key n.
A murderer, especially one who cuts throats.
An unprincipled, ruthless person.
A cutthroat trout.
-->adj.
Cruel; murderous.

The Somali pirates, by pirating standards, are nothing Mr. Rule could not handle as they have been known to make deals which means they have principles.

This only means one thing, we need to find Mr. Rule...

The cartoon caption contest

2009-04-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

So this thing was on craigslist and it's not too bad. It's a weekly cartoon caption contest and you can win 10 dollars. Here it is.

Other novelty sites may include:
Image Labeler
Bubble Spinner
Helicopter Game
Line Rider
Ummmmm....
Penquin Toss
Flamingo Drive
Yeti Olympics

Yay!!

Some Pictures from Reimers

2009-04-06T19:13:00.001-07:00

Here are some photos Lauren took:

My Favorite:

Reimers Ranch Race!!!

2009-04-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

There was a race yesterday at Reimers Ranch. The trail is great with lots of good technical sections and some good legdes. My pre-ride at Reimers on Saturday was the first time I had mountain cycled out there and I liked it more than some other people who have said it was terrible. The race course was definitely more technical than the other courses up until this point.

I got a pretty good start going into the single track and did pretty well on the ledges and drops and felt like the first lap went pretty well. The second lap was much tougher, however, and the single-track beat me up pretty good. I had a pretty uneventful crash, you know, one of those that's mostly because you're tired and you stall out going over a small rock ledge and you can't get your foot unclipped in time and then end up falling downhill onto some rocks. It wasn't really that bad of a crash but the big ring got my right calf, my left knee landed on some rocks and was bleeding, my left forearm also landed on some rocks and, to add insult to injury, the handlebars hit me in the neck, which actually hurt. Beyond that crash the race was pretty good. I think this picture seems to capture how I must have felt:
I do wish/need to get more training in before the next race.

The thesis is coming . . .

Jupiter news

2009-04-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

So, in case you didn't hear the news today, the "Red Spot" for which Jupiter is known for has been shown to be shrinking. Unlike the popular belief that Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, the fact that Jupiter does contain the only "giant Red Spot" in the solar system is true. It is believed that upon the dissipation of Jupiter's famous "super giant Red Spot" the planet will cease to exist in our own solar system. It is likely that our own solar system will disown and possibly eject the "amazing super giant Red Spot"-less Jupiter, much like its own relative, Pluto, once a popular planet.Jupiter's status as a planet and a fixture to our own pleasant solar system is in further jeopardy as signs of discontent from neighboring Saturn have been spotted recently:

When asked about it's possible displacement Jupter was quoted saying, "There is always our neighbor system around Epsilon Eridani. It's a long journey over there but they've always been interested in a larger planet joining their system." Jupiter had indicated it has been censing some hostility and even some rude comments about its size from smaller, hotter planets like Mercury.

The "incredible amazing super giant Red Spot" is three times the size of the Earth and if it doesn't get its act together the future of the largest gas ball in the solar system is in doubt.

Warda

2009-04-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

Warda is a great little camping area with some sweet single track about an hour and a half east of Austin. Last weekend was the TMBRA race out at Warda. Lauren and I headed down on Saturday to pre-ride and then campout.

Being Cat 2 we started early in the morning. I had hoped to place well (top 5 maybe) but that isn't exactly how it happened. The start was good but super long, dang runout start. Once we got into the single track I started to make up some ground but I could only make it up to tenth. I wish it had gone better but I suppose I have something to train up to now.

Reimers ranch next weekend, hope to do ok...

Happy April Fools day, you'll never guess what I did today. . .

unless you are Kyle who also participated in the AFD shenanigans.

SPECIAL EDITION: The Bet

2009-03-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

Wrapped in all of the excitement that is mountain biking is this little thing that can bring any racer to pit the best of their skills against another. Bets, as they are called, bring about the fiercest of competition, even from mildest mannered and most well-behaved among civilized society.

Don't get me wrong, however, mountain bike racers are in now way "civilized" and rumor has it that some don't even know how to go to the bathroom inside.

I bring this up because Kyle's dad, Alan, made a bet with me for the last race, at Waco. I did successfully have a faster time than he, and thus won this.

On a side note: I don't want it to seem like I am saying I'm better than Alan, he has a lot more experience than I. I do look forward to further instances where Alan and I pit our own "best-of-our bests" in an all out, leg-deystroying, singletrack-dominating private contest, aka "a bet". I just wanted to make note of this bet since both Kyle and Kathy, Kyle's mom were wondering about it.

Waco Race

2009-03-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

Well last weekend Lauren, Kyle and I went to Waco for the mountain bike race. I was excited about this race since I was my one year anniversary of mountain bike racing and the race had also been rescheduled so I could do it. I wasn't sure how I was going to do after not having ridden as much as I would have liked to prepare and I was about mid way through a cold. My fork is also out so I was lucky enough to get to ride Sol's sweet bike (Orbea Alma, sweet bike)

We went up to the race on saturday to pre-ride and it was an interesting trip. I didn't really get any sleep the night before after Lauren was up all night coughing and then getting up early to go see Lauren's horses before leaving, so I was pretty dang tired. I did get some sleep on the way up, briefly waking up to see Temple (which Kyle and I renamed Tabernacle on the way home). The pre-ride was great and the course seemed to be good although I thought I might be sick.

Race morning came early since the sport class a.k.a. Cat 2 started at nine in the morning. I was a little unsure how I felt before the race but that time before the race still gets me for some reason. Oh well. The first lap I started a little fast and the legs weren't feeling to great so I had to back off a little and recover a bit and then get ready to go hard the next lap. The plan worked pretty good I guess, I did make up a couple of spots on the second lap and finished in ninth. That's not too bad for my first race in Sport.

Congrats to Kyle for winning his expert race!!

I think I'm starting to feel a little better from this cold so hopefully Warda goes better next weekend.

I guess I'll get some pictures up from my trip to New Mexico one of these days...

Spring Break!!!

2009-03-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

Spring Break for me officially started on Thursday at 11 in the morning. This sounds amazing, right? Well, it's not as great as it may seem. My spring break involves a four day trip to west Texas/New Mexico followed by exciting work and writing of the thesis. It's all good except I actually wish I weren't going on this field trip so I could do more work on the thesis which I really want to get finished.

I'm missing out on this:

For this:

There is one upside, however, I got to go to the super cool 37 month anniversary party at Austinbikes. Austinbikes is a great bike shop with some great people and random parties rock so their party was destined to be sweet. They had beer and it was great to hang out with people and meet some people I have heard a lot about but just never really met.

On a positive note: Due to the stupid rain that has "plagued" Austin during the latter part of this week, which seriously made me not excited about riding, the Waco race has been postponed until next weekend which means I can do it!! I am excited about this, probably more than I would normally be, because it marks my one year anniversary of mountain bike racing. I don't know how well I will do but I'm aiming to do pretty well, maybe win, maybe not get stitches this time.

On another note: I took my wheel into Bicycle Sport Shop today to see if I needed the bearings replaced and to my surprise one of the bearings had sort of popped loose and they didn't need to be replaced at all, yay!

Happy Pi day by the way! I unfortunately didn't get any real pie today, I did have pizza, but I think I will celebrate Pi day upon returning from the west.

http://www.bement.k12.il.us/images/apple%20pi.jpg

On a different biking note: We, Lauren and I, noticed a group of BMXers riding around near 29th street today. We not only saw them once but twice. It brought me back to the movie ET:

http://www.galacticsuiteprocess.com/blogComeback/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/gs-ET-ON-BIKE.jpg

Except replace all sweatshirts in that picture by black hoodies that are too small.

Yeah, I need to go sleep, Peace Out!

Trying out a photo post

2009-03-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

So I thought I would try to put a picture on here and this will be the post for today. I just did the Mas O Menos race in Terlingua, TX, a long ways out in the middle of nowhere and near Big Bend National Park. There was a photographer, or group thereof, and they captured some pretty good pictures of me while racing.

The characteristic of this race is that 1) it's a race in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere and 2) there is a really big climb, about 1200 vertical feet in around 5 miles.

Working up the Tres Cuevas

It was a pretty sweet climb

I don't think the Tres Cuevas was the worst climb but once on the top there are rollers that seemed to kill me. The best part is coming down to the finish

This is the end downhill to the finish and it was great knowing the finish was close. I definitely need to do the full marathon next year (100km) instead of just the half marathon. It was a pretty good race all around and I'm definitely going out early to pre-ride the course next year. This year I was out on the course pretty much blind to knowing anything about the course and there were a couple of times where I missed the trail and ended up losing time which sucks because I was less than 5 minutes out of first.

On a side note: I sold my old road bike yesterday, I'm glad I don't have to worry about that anymore but I think I might miss the Cannondale. Oh well...

Hipster Poser

2009-03-08T20:03:00.000-07:00

I was just out with Lauren and Joshua and we went to a yogurt place, which is pretty good, but then on the way home we were lucky enough to see the new fad that is soon going to sweep the nation, then the world... HIPSTER POSER. Now you don't actually have to be a hipster, fixed gear endowed and all, but you can actually have just a single speed with the cliche deep-Vs and bullhorn handle bars. Now the hipster generation will likely deny all acknowledgement of this new wave of sure fire coolness which will no doubt detract from their own coolness and potentially threaten all of which they stand for... which is ... ... ...

Potentially more exciting, the hipster poser poser, this generation of coolness will actually revert back to the original coolness that the hipsters currently provide yet they won't actually realize or give credit to this current trend which will lead to the unocstructed forgetting of the coolest hipsters of all and the ones that launched, undoubtedly, the greatest fixed-gear movement of all time... until the hipster poser posers arrive.

On a side note: the yogurt places around town the are actually like soft-serve wonderlands are quite amazing as anything deemed "soft-serve wonderlands" would be.

The fork problem

2009-03-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

Well I guess I just got a plagued fork on my mountain bike. The first time I went night riding with Kyle and the third time I was on the bike I blew the seals out of my fork and I had to take it in to get it replaced or rebuilt under warranty. After that, I rode for a while until last weekend when I went down to Rocky Hill with Dave. 45 miles later I was dead and finally done. It's amazing what those energy gels actually do for you when you are riding a long time. Anyways, I got done and then it came to my realization that my fork was leaking oil so now I have to take it back in and have them rewarranty the fork. It could be worse, I guess I am getting a new fork out of the deal. I hope the new one is good to go.

On a side note: When Dave and I got done riding we noticed a very large cloud of smoke to the east of where we were and wondered what was burning down. Well apparently it was a large portion of Bastrop and the surrounding area. It was pretty crazy and impressive to see. While on the phone with Lauren this conversation took place while trying to explain that Hwy 71 was closed and I couldn't go to the barn with her.

Me: Yeah there's a huge fire and the highway is closed. I bet you can see the smoke.
Lauren: Well I can't really see anything but a big cloud.
Me: You mean the long streaky one coming out of the ground?
Lauren: Yeah
Me: That's smoke from the fire Lauren...
Lauren: Oh, well I guess I can see it then.

That might not be the exact words but they are pretty close.

Well I need to take that bike in to the shop.

Why it's hard to write a thesis

2009-03-04T12:16:00.000-08:00

I am in the final semester of my graduate career (unless for some crazy reason I decide to go back for a Ph.D) and thus I am writing up all of the research I've done and trying to finish some final tests so I can focus solely on writing and finishing up. My goal is to finish May 22nd, graduation, so I can go home and race bikes this summer and just hang out in beautiful Wisconsin. I want to do this before I go to Houston and begin working for an untold amount of time. So the reasons writing is difficult are numerous, perhaps a list will work best. So:

1) The weather is beautiful outside and I want to be out there

2) I really want to ride my bike, pretty much everyday if I could

3) I like to race my bicycle and without riding I will surely get my ass kicked, even though I'm doing much better than I started last year

4) Sequence Stratigraphy labs take entirely too much time and they don't really make a lot of sense

5) I got an email that I haven't filled out my time sheets at the Bureau since November and now I'm gonna have to go up there and fill out those time sheets so I don't get into trouble

6) The internet has a lot of fun things on it

So, I'm sure there are many more than that since new things come up every time I sit down and try to write.

Alright, back to work then . . .

The first ever entry

2009-03-03T19:58:00.000-08:00

Lauren inspired me to do this because I lead an extremely exciting life . . .

Lauren is my girlfriend and she lives with me. She likes to watch hockey and ride horsies. I'm making her into a mountain bike racer but she doesn't know it yet. Since I've known her she's acquired three bikes, the last one being a mountian bike. I'm glad she got it. She likes to fix broken horses and other, smaller, four-legged beasts.

This is just a basis for knowing Lauren because I might mention her in subsequent entries.

Well I'm pretty tired, I'll try to keep this up to date.