Looking forward to this weekend when I head back up to Vermont and hit the downhill slopes at Killington...
Wow, I can't even lift my arm up today without a lot of pain... guess I shouldn't have tried to play Racquetball last night!
It was a pretty frustrating day at work yesterday, so I wanted to get to the gym after watching my daughters Chorus concert. I was going to do a Crossfit workout, but most of the usual Monday night Racquetball crew was there so I decided to jump into a game. I ended up playing for a few hours and got to run around a lot which was good. The other good news is that even though I forgot my ankle brace I didn't really notice any issues with my left ankle. The sprain is almost entirely healed. It's still sore, but improving a bit everyday. It's still noticeable when pushing off, my power is reduced a bit when cutting or jumping off my left foot, but I can make do.
I'm rather anxious to get back on my bike, it's been a while, so it's good that my ankle has healed enough. It's probably better for my elbow to use the bike to get my exercise as well. The other good news is that I've gotten into the Lake for a Swim twice already have been at least running with the Track club so I'm not a total slug!
This past weekend, I was thinking that it was getting close to rideable in the woods again with some of the snow melting, and a few weeks worth of other traffic. I'm guessing with the snow and ice we got today that riding point will be pushed back a couple weeks again. I'm in a bit of a lull with riding, spending time in the basement staring at the wall isn't all that entertaining even if I try a movie or training video... oh well.
Read more...I have a couple new projects in the works, both sport and other...
First, I'm investing in some property with my father and brother. It involves a rehab of a house, plus some lots to build on. They are in the building business, I'm purely in as the cash man! I just like saying that, it's honestly not a lot from me. I'm mostly looking forward to spending a little time working on fixing up a house and maybe working more often with my father and brother.
Second item, I still haven't built up my old mountain bike turned fixed gear road machine. I have any number of options from building a wheel from scratch and every bit of work done myself to buying much of it. I've started assembling a list of items that I will need, and may order some of it soon so that I can get started. I'm thinking of it as more of a bike to play around with when riding with my kids, and occasionally taking it off road. Think mountain bike frame with semi-slick tires, flat pedals and flip-flop hub (single-speed & fixed gear)
Busy weekend with my mountain biking buddy Josh getting married! What do you suppose the chances are that he's going biking with me anytime soon? Seriously though, congratulations to him and Carol.
Looking forward to tonight's volleyball game... or rather I should say that I'm looking forward to next session of volleyball since we're going nowhere with this team. I have a couple more weeks, and then probably a 3 week intermission as the playoffs happen, until I can start playing meaningful games again. Just going to use the time to have fun and practice what I need to do better.
More snow this weekend means that outdoor biking is probably delayed again... it was getting close to feasible, but it's pretty tough to ride in more than an inch of snow. I'm still game if someone is interested, but I tend to have trouble finding others crazy enough to go out with me in these conditions.
Lastly, I've settled on a style for the blog for now... subject to change of course!
As I mentioned, my front derailleur snapped off during my crash at Killington last week. I ordered a new one, and just installed it this week. It wasn't as hard as I figured, essentially you bolt it on, attach the cable while in the lowest chain ring and then tune the shifting with the two screws. 
It's a pretty good feeling to do more and more of my own bike maintenance! I'm ready to try it out a bit this weekend.
Signed back up for Volleyball again, it will be nice to have a little competition going... It's been a bit tough to get up early and hit the gym lately, hopefully after my long weekend away I'll be able to get motivated again.
Planning a mountain bike outing Saturday morning at Case Mountain, so I have that to look forward to at least :)
Just getting around to posting this, but I had a great ride on Saturday with my uncle Eric and Sean, who happens to be my dentist!
It's been a while, but since I have a good result to announce I figure I should do a monthly summary. This was a good month in terms of overall hours at least, and also good in terms of racing and general good times!
It was nice to see that I got over 30 hours for the month! This is composed mostly by over 20 hours of strength training! The rest is racing at Winding Trails, a bunch of mountain bike rides and my restart of running.
I almost forgot how motivating it was to see the numbers pile up in terms of hours that I've completed. I'm hopeful that September will be almost as big.
Fun week in general, I started my new lifting program thanks to my sister-in-law, and I got a ton of time on the bike in this weekend.
Rode to the beach with my uncle to go to my cousin's graduation party (55 miles) and then played volleyball for a couple hours. Yeah, I was shot at the end of the day! Today, we went for a quick mountain bike ride and then I sat in the hot tub to recover.
I'm headed back to the gym in the morning to start my next week's workout. Hopefully it will be as fun as this past week... it looks like it from what I've seen.
DNS - Did Not Start - As in no racing last night... why? Because I'm an idiot, that's why!
Last week, when attempting to take my bike of the rack on my truck, I broke the key in the lock and couldn't remove it. I spent a few days looking for the second key and after having finally found it I was relieved to not have to cut off the lock. So I got ready and headed for Winding Trails in order to race last night, but discover 1/2 hour before race time that I didn't bring the good key with me! Thus, I was all dressed up with my bike locked firmly to my truck! I supposed I could have lobbied for using the truck instead of my bike but I was out of the race!
Instead I headed for my uncle's birthday party a bit early and had some cake! Oh well... there's always next week.
We were on the beach for my cousin Carolyn's wedding on Saturday and I wanted to stay later while my wife went home to let the babysitter go. Unfortunately, she took the keys with her and so we had to leave the van for the night. This seemed like a good reason to take a long bike ride on Sunday since I needed to get the van and I didn't want to use the gas or someone else's time to make the round trip.
I headed out for the 56 mile trip at around 10 AM with everything looking pretty good except the weather seemed a bit shaky. I made it about halfway before the downpour started and I heard the loudest clap of thunder I've ever heard. I was pretty close to vaulting off my bike! I stopped to wait out the worst of it, but needed to get going so that I could get home for my daughter's birthday party. It was a hilly and wet ride, but ultimately a pretty nice route.
Next time I should probably check the weather, but I suspect I would probably have good anyway :)
Here's the route I took:
View Larger Map
Hope your weekend was great, the weather was beautiful around here!
We had a nice hike up in the Presidential Range in New Hampshire with my parents and brother and sister-in-law. We stayed overnight in the Joe Dodge Lodge at the base of Mt Washington. It was pretty nice actually, a fun atmosphere for the kids. 
On Monday I went for a long bike ride with my uncle Eric and we got in close to 40 miles. A very hilly ride, it wasn't very fast but I felt good when we were done, not sore at all.
Overall, a productive and relaxing weekend!
Rode my bike in again today... it really starts the day nicely. I have to make sure I hustle on the way home though, I have my uncle coming to talk about the bathroom project.
I need to remember how enjoyable it is to ride and do it more often. It's pretty easy to roll back over in bed and decide to just drive instead!
Sure, I realize not a lot of this is in the U.S. but I've also seen evidence (at least anecdotaly) that bicycling is increasing in popularity here as well. Bike shops are busier, I see many more bikes on the road, and gas prices have caused more people to consider biking at times.
This is definitely a good thing on many levels! If you're interested in commuting by bike (Jack, I'm talking to you), there are a lot of great resources on the net... start with http://www.runmuki.com/commute/index.html. An especially easy way to start is to bring all the stuff you need the day before, so you don't have to carry too much. Or even start by driving with your bike, leave your truck at the office and ride home then ride back the next day. This way you've split your commute across two days and reduced your ride distance for one day. Either way, I guarantee it will be fun and you'll feel good for the day as well as save a bit of money.
Read more...I meant to post this earlier, but this week is Bike to Work week, part of National Bike Month. After struggling to get my commuter bike back in shape I did bike in yesterday in spite of the somewhat threatening weather. It turned out that we got no rain, but the wind was just brutal on the way home and played havoc with my commuting time as there were moments when I could hardly coast downhill into the headwind.
I'm still looking for a good pannier, specifically a garment style bag to keep my clothes nicely, but apparently everyone else is as well since they seem to be sold out everywhere. Dave at Tolland Bike also mentioned that he's been very busy, clearly the high gas prices are having an impact.
It was nice to get back on the road early in the morning. Planning on 3 days a week if possible, we'll see how it works out in practice.
Good and bad, it's been a crazy week. Swimming practice started (good), I discovered more issues with wheels (bad), track practice has gotten my running back on track (good), running hasn't helped my knee any (bad).
I'm gearing up to start commuting to work via bike again, but I had trouble with my road bike the last time I took it out. Investigating a little further last time, I'm afraid that the hook on the edge of the rim that keeps the tire on is worn out. The tire doesn't stay seated on the rim correctly, and this has created bumps when fully inflated. Nothing like a constant steady thumping every time the wheel goes around to drive you totally nuts! I gotta run it up to the bike shop again and get it looked at a little closer. Hopefully I'm not looking at another new wheel! In other commuting news I ordered a garment bag that clips onto my bike rack for transporting my clothes. Hopefully, I can get some rides to work in starting next week.
The other problem that I mentioned is my knee bothering me which it tends to do with any significant change in running volume. I've learned that it usually goes away if I work through it and also increase my biking to help straighten the area, so I'm optimistic. Hopefully the swimming will also help as I work on leg strength without any pounding at all.
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