GASP! I'm posting more than once a season!

So let's recap.

Or don't, if you don't want to. I usually don't update this thing very often so there'll probably be plenty of time to come back and read my bitching and complaining.

March - Wife and I bought a house. Holy crap that's a crazy experience and continues to be, based on all the crap that needs to get done.  We unpacked, mostly, the weather started to get nice and our 2 trees out front attempted to procreate with everything around our establishment, which required many sessions of cleanups.  Ew..Tree spooge.  One major thing that didn't get unpacked is our garage.  I threw all my bike stuff in there during the move and of course added a few things - lawnmower, leftover items from the previous owners, etc.  So my bike workshop is not up and running.  It feels very wrong, but I can't do anything about it, being busy with all the other crap I do - 3 jobs, cleaning the yard, etc.

Along with all of this I became Calamity Mike.  I've had a bout of bad luck which started with severe gastroenteritis, sprinkled with being hit by a car and the after effects of that. Then most recently, I attempted to take off my thumb when changing the blade on my razor.

The razor is great, and the blades are super cheap, but just make sure when changing the blade, you hold the head with a folded over towel, rather than you bare hand when it's early in the morning and you're barely awake.  Otherwise you'll have a gusher on your hands - literally.

All of these are, again, excuses as to why I haven't been riding much.  I have flickering moments when I feel like I really want to be out riding, but that's usually right when I've slated the day to do raking, mowing, gutter cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.

GASP! Fred didn't post!

I don't know if Fred is on hiatus or what, but he was usually the first to post Thursday evening.  What's going on, Fred?!?!

As for me, it's been over a month since I had an impromptu gymnastic session with a car - cartwheeled over the side of it's hood very ungracefully - and I'm still not all that great.  My neck has limited range of motion, so I'm going to a Physical Therapist soon.  Hopefully I'll get the kinks worked out so I can possibly get back on the road bike soon.  I commuted on it the other day and the more aggressive position, compared to my daily commuter, was not very comfortable.  Plus the fact that I have to contort my whole body just to take a look behind me when attempting lane changes.

In other news: Man, adulting is hard.  We've been in our new house for a couple months and finding the time to care for it is difficult.  I can't even imagine fitting in kids and/or training.  Much respect, people with big families.  We have 2 trees in our front yard - a Tulip tree, as my dad calls it, and a Silver maple leaf tree.  The tulip tree had this amazing blooming session right when the warmer days started.  Those lovely blooms wilted and fell all over the front lawn, driveway, and front sidewalk.  Then the Silver Maple leaf started up.  It has those wonderful helicopter seeds - the ones you can throw in the air and they spin around like the blades of a helicopter.  We have thousands of them all over the yard, on our roof, in our gutters, in the neighbors yard (sorry!), IN OUR BACK YARD.  They are relentless.  So working 3 jobs is not helping the amount of work needed in and around our house.  There's some major things I want to do, but don't have the time and definitely not the money to do so.  But hey, the debt is getting eked away, and my wife will be starting an internship soon in medical billing and coding as part of her program at Metro Community College.  Hopefully that will lead to a good job when she graduates in August.  I'm so happy and proud that she's bettering herself and hopefully getting into a career she can enjoy.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Putting my Pants on, (Opposite) One Leg at a Time

Have you ever noticed that when you put on pants/shorts or even socks/shoes, that every single time you start with one specific side?  I've always been a left foot/leg starter.  It must be just like intertwining your fingers.  Quickly, clasp your hands together and intertwine your fingers.  Let go.  Do it again.  Notice how one hand always is the top pointer finger (usually your dominant hand)?  Now clasp your hands together, but focus on switching so the opposite hand is the top finger.  It feels really weird.

That's what changing the leg/foot order feels like when putting on pants.  I've had to do this since, well,  I got hit by a car.  All my bikes are fine, don't worry.

It was Friday before last and I was tired from my WNW solo slog, so I drove to work at UNMC.  I park (for free) in the neighborhood and walk a few blocks in.  I was crossing Leavenworth on 42nd as I had the walk light.  I almost made it all the way across, but heard something and turned around just in time to see a car making a left turn into me.  I did a little cartwheel over the hood and landed on my hands and knees, mostly on my right side.  I lost some skin on my right hand and banged up my right knee pretty well.

The lady admitted fault to the police, so the subsequent ER visit along with CT scan for a possible kinked neck and X-ray for possible wrist damage should be taken care of just fine.  I got the all clear from the doc so I'm just healing now with my neck being a tad sore and my knee not having full range of motion.

 But like I said, I now need to put my pants on starting with my right leg as starting with my left requires lifting my right leg more than it can go at the moment.  I'm going to start a regiment of bending my leg fully slowly and work my way back to regular complete motion.  I don't think I'll be on any WNWs rides for a while till I get back to full motion and strength.  Today was actually the first day I've ridden since the injury and it was ok, but I know I have some work to do.  My right leg has always been my weaker side in cycling, but now it's too weak to really contribute and that needs to change.

To top off the great luck, I got a bad cold right afterward and have this lingering cough that can keep me up most of the night.  So that's just peachy for healing purposes.

WNW Solo Slog

Being that the forecast probably scared most people, not to mention the 20-30mph South Wind, the group was pretty slim at WNW.  This, of course, meant that I was soloing it after the first hill, which I'm ok with.  The plan was, as the only B group rider, to turn on Northern Hills Road for a very shortened route.  I could break out the MapMyRide web page to figure out exactly how much shorter the route was, but I was just fine with not heading all the way up to Ft. Calhoun and then suffering against the wind around Boyer's Chute.  I made it back to the shop before it closed and picked up the stuff I left after I built one bike after I left my regular job.  So I count that as a full day.  I was thinking really hard about taking it easy tomorrow and driving to work, but I signed that pesky 30 days of biking thing.  I will ride to both jobs tomorrow and probably be veeerrrry tired tomorrow night.

Hopefully this will finally kick start my training.  So far, all I've done are the 3 WNW rides.  No weekend rides, no easy rides after my 2 jobs during the week.  So I need to change that if I want to ever get past solo slogging it.  It would've happened this past weekend, but Friday morning I had an involuntary "cleanse."  As in, I lost everything in me from both ends.  It was not a good Friday or weekend.  I'm still a tad weak and dehydrated, but I'm trying to drink tons of water and eat healthier.  That's one thing I noticed after the "cleanse."  Unhealthy food does not make my body feel good.  Beef and starch (burger and fries) makes my body feel heavy and slow.  If I eat a salad for lunch, I'm light and agile.  Well, I had to eat an energy bar before the ride tonight, but I hopped on the scale for the hey of it and found I'm down to 185 lbs from my all time high a week ago of 195 lbs.  I'm sure some of that is still dehydration from the "cleanse" and the difficult solo slog.  But it's the correct direction of the scale meter.  I raced at 155-160 lbs.  I don't think I'll ever get that slim, and I don't even need to as I won't be racing.  But it would be nice to get down to mid 160s.  That is probably my ideal weight.

So this weekend, even though I have 2 Easter things planned with families,  I will eat light and ride some.  Not sure where/when, but most likely morning for a couple hours each.  Let me know if anyone would like a super mellow ride either of the 2 days.  I'm up for it.

WNW Day 3, I mean, Day 2 report.

I achieved my first goal from 2 weeks ago, but I don't think it had anything to do with me.  We went up the same evil hill to 96th St and the group stayed together due to a blustery North Wind and almost double the group size.  I hung out with them for the first 2 hills, then went way too far into oxygen debt by the 3rd.  I haven't had the feeling of almost throwing up from going so hard in quite a long time.  Other lessons learned on the ride: I need to find which of my old cycling sunglasses work best to shield my eyes from the wind, and if it's ever below 50°, I need to do something about my feet - booties, chem toe warmers - something.  My tootsies were really hurting by the end of the ride.

The reason I didn't make last week's ride was this:

Bike boxes everywhere.  The shop was in need of some help, so I passed on the ride.  There's a bit of a dent in those mountains of bike boxes, but I sure hope the other builders step up and put in work.

I might attempt to join the GSV ride this Saturday, but I'm concerned I'll end up getting lost in Iowa since I know nothing about that area and will probably get dropped again.  Or I may just go on a longer solo ride at my own pace.  Maybe (re)starting out with competitive group rides after not riding at all for the past 2 years is a bad idea?

WNW day 1 report: Goal #1 - don't get dropped on the first hill

The plan was to head out to the Omaha Trace, then return on the same route. We took the shortened route out by climbing the evil hill up to 96th St.  (Here you go Fred) Randell and I used to do hill repeats on that thing before joining the WNW group.  That was when we were in uber shape.  Do hill repeats, THEN go as hard as possible in the group.  Those were the days.

On tonight's ride, I kept up for about half of that hill, then everyone just rode on away from me.  Brady was kind enough to stay behind and pulled me back up to the group on the next down hill, but as soon as the road turned up again, I was off the back.  Damn gravity.  I didn't get a chance to ride with anyone else after that.  Oh well, it was still a great evening for a bike ride.

So I have some work to do.  I almost wanted to join the GSV ride on Saturday, but I'm sure it'd be another repeat of my WNW lameness.  So I'll just go on a solo ride for a couple hours.  I gotta get my body used to riding for a couple hours at a time.

I'll keep showing up to the WNWs and keep getting my butt handed to me.  That's the way it was when I first started out 13 years ago.  I'd show up to the only Wednesday night ride in town - the Bike Masters ride.  I'd keep up with the lead group for about half the ride, then fall off.  Each week, I'd come back and get a little bit further, until I was one of the fast people.  I've hit the restart button, and that's what I'm going to do again.

I'm more than a little concerned.

I've ridden my road bike to and from work the past couple of days.  Last summer I thought about going on a small, easy group ride that Brady posted about.  So I looked at my road bike, which was in pieces, and decided to spend that weekend putting it together instead of riding it, just in case I decided to join some future weekend ride.  It got built up, then hung up for the rest of the year.

I'm going to join the Wednesday night rides this year in hopes of dropping some weight and forcing myself to ride more.  I will try to post up as the leader of the B group, but most likely, at first, I'll be sweeping the course.  The results from the last 2 days of commuting on the roadie does not bode well for the intensity and hills of WNWs.

So here's to hoping I don't make too much of a fool out of myself at tomorrow's ride, aside from the hairy legs and testing the tensile strength of the same jersey and shorts I used to wear as a cat 2 racer, 8 years and 40 pounds ago.

Steak Night!

Surprise Winter Post

"It had to be done. I was so tired of looking at that Summer Random Post title" -- fredcube

Hey gang how's they going?  Absolutely jiggly, I hope!  Well it's been a long time since my last post.  I know, but I've been busy.  Let me tell you about it ...

I used to be a bike racer.  They called me "The Munsonator." Actually, they just called me "Munson," then I'd say "ator" under my breath.  That's my favourite joke.  I always tell it with a British acceyent.

I member this one race back then, it was called the "Shiver Me Timbers" and boy howdy was that one a doozy.

So then there were all these things that happened and details, etc. and Jon Randell won!

Do you want to know how good Jon Randell was?  Well, I'll tell you anyway.  Very.  That's right, I said it.  Randell was "Very" good.  On the bike.  Need I say more?  No?  Well guess hwat?  That's right, I spelt 'what' wrong.  that's because I want you to pronounce it that way (with the 'h' first).

So - guess hwat?  I'm going to say more even though I needn't.

I member this one time cube was riding with Jon and I.  Yeah - I know it should read "Jon and me"  but I just think it sounds fancier the incorrect way.

So cube comes up and says, "Uh, you guys.  You want to slow down or something.  My breath hurts from all your crazy fast riding shenanigans.  So I'm all sincere and crap and I tell cube what he can do with his request.  I look right at him (I slow down enough to do this) and I goes, "Oh dude.  Sorry man.  Jon.  Let's slow down for the cubester."

Then Jon's all "screw that guy, h'huh!"  Well that makes cube laugh so you know what he does?  He attacks!  That's right.  He couldn't even keep up with us.  So then Jon quickly dispatched the cubester to his eternal home at Cat 4 Avenue. It was horkelley!  I mean totally horkelley!

Ah but alas, those good times are over now and do you want to know why?  No?  Well I'll tell you why (with a capitol 'Y').

Fact one.  My wrist hurts.  I'm not saying what it's from, but let's just call it a injury and leave it there.

Secondishesly: I am saving up to pay for stuff I already bought.  Your mom doesn't grow on trees, you know!  That's my second favorite joke.  I always tell it with a Irish acceyent.

Oh face!

In the third corner:  I'm a plaid flannel camping campfire coffee making bike rider now. I know what your thinking.  Your thinking "It's you're, ya  dumb butternut."
Your also thinking "Camping sucks."

In the words of the great Samuel Jackman, allow me to retort - "You suck."

Hey, this has been nice.  We'll have to do it again some time.  Not.


P.S.  Munson.  Please don't revoke my writing privilege to this blog.  If you had any idea how much fun the last 10 minutes of writing mindless crap was for me ...  Also - was that so hard?  Let's go. Start blogging riding again.  We're getting the band back together.  Good Job!