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cycling / photo / running / Thursday — Comments Off
7
Aug 14

The difference between riding and running

I always watch other people ride and think “I wish I could be on my bike right now.” I’ve never watched people run and thought “I would love a great jog right about now.”

Maybe I just don’t run enough — and I thought about a run tonight, but I was too spent from my brief little bike ride. Maybe I haven’t jogged enough in the aggregate. Either way, the run is never is good as the ride. The road looks different, moves differently and feels different in every way.

(I’d never see the curves that way on foot.)

Maybe a good run just doesn’t teach me as many things as even a mediocre ride.

I dropped three riders on my first hill of the day. So I can be capable enough in my weakest part of the ride, if I know when to do it. I’m a fairly instinctive attacker. It felt great to swing out from that little group and go over them. I have something almost approaching a decent uphill sprint. I can be strong, in short bursts, even if I haven’t been using my legs recently. And it feels good to fly up a hill, to get to the top, look back and not see anyone there.

I struggled with my pedals, again, and had to stop to straighten the cleat in my shoe, again. So that means finding a parking lot, stopping, pulling out the multitool, taking off the shoe and tightening the screws. I think I learned why I got these shoes for a song. Those three people never did catch up. I must have dropped them hard. Unless they turned. But I take the optimistic view about these things on the bike.

I rode up and down my favorite parking deck, practicing the 180-degree turns at both ends. I probably enjoy that too much, the incline isn’t too bad and there’s all that descending to do.

I passed two other cyclists, but one of them was a kid on a sidewalk. Also, I apparently now own the top spot in one of the local sprint segments. This was all supposed to be a slow and easy ride, but my fast is so slow, I’ve learned, that I can’t tell a difference.

I did not run. There was nothing to learn from it. Maybe tomorrow evening.

cycling / errands / Monday / video — Comments Off
28
Jul 14

My neck, shoulders and back hate Mondays

The return of the neck and shoulder issues. Apparently they don’t like Mondays. This was the worst day of it since last Monday, after all. Odd considering the high quality massage I received — it hurt and felt so good — just yesterday.

Barely made it out of bed today, and then just staggered painfully to the floor. Things finally loosened up a little bit in the afternoon. I made it to the post office and got the lawn mowed. Most of the rest of the day I spent looking for some position that didn’t feel painful. It was an exercise in near futility.

After dinner with friends we stepped outside and almost everything returned to normal. I was so happy to only have a sore neck!

So I’ll leave you with this. Europcar rider Kevin Reza picked up the helmet and camera of a Tour de France fan. I haven’t mentioned the tour here at all this year, but this is an usual look at one tiny sliver of the three-week race.

Europcar finished fifth in the team race. Reza finished 73rd overall in his second Tour de France. He has 11 podiums and three wins.

Apparently, the owner of the camera contacted him online and the team sent the helmet pack. Now, I’m sure, this will become the thing to do. As if the selfies weren’t bad enough.

adventures / Auburn / cycling / friends / iPhone / photo / weekend — Comments Off
26
Jul 14

I well and truly bonked on my ride today

Saw this near the top, not at the top, but near the top. of the biggest hill I climbed today:

It seemed a cruel place for such a message. And I wasn’t even on the bike ride that needed the note. But, high sun, heat of the day, and there’s still more hill to go. Have a rest stop. Only you can’t, because this spray paint is old. That’s the way it goes sometimes.

On the other side of the hill you are rewarded, of course. It must be nearly a mile of descending:

And I bonked miles from home. That’s a lonely feeling.

This evening we were invited to campus to watch something historic:

It was just another sweet reminder of the nice people all over this special place we get to enjoy.

cycling / Friday / friends / memories / video — Comments Off
25
Jul 14

One does not simply tempt the sun

I don’t know what you were doing two years and two days ago, but I was having killer headaches and singing the praises of ice cream therapy.

Also, we dodged a solar bullet. How a solar storm two years ago nearly caused a catastrophe on Earth:

On July 23, 2012, the sun unleashed two massive clouds of plasma that barely missed a catastrophic encounter with the Earth’s atmosphere. These plasma clouds, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), comprised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years.

“If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado tells NASA.
Fortunately, the blast site of the CMEs was not directed at Earth. Had this event occurred a week earlier when the point of eruption was Earth-facing, a potentially disastrous outcome would have unfolded.

“I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did,” Baker tells NASA. “If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire.”

Who knew?

Rode my bike for the first time since the race last weekend. I needed a little break, I took too long of a break. So today I just pedaled through the neighborhood and then up and down the time trial course and over the back of the big hill, mostly mad at myself for being off my bike for so long.

It is always that way. I’m never disappointed in a ride, but I always regret not going.

It wiped me out, though, which was predictable and sad at the same time. I could have gone for a few laps in the pool, but I had no energy. My diet has been off, I think, because there is always something, or two things, that can be done incorrectly at any given time.

He said, while eating sliders for dinner with friends.

We went to visit Kim and Murphy. We took cupcakes, they made delicious tiny burgers. We watched QVC and no one really seemed to know why. But I can tell you all about the luxury deluxe makeup organizer. It comes in your choice of one of three colors and can hold 30 of your favorite lipsticks at a time!

I should have applied for a job at QVC years ago, surely.

Do you like blooper? Everyone likes bloopers. These were a bit difficult for me to wrap my mind around, because the show is so often grim, but here are what are apparently rare Game of Thrones bloopers:

Dear Internet: Let’s make a pact. If you embed every YouTube video that you find interesting, and I embed every YouTube video that I think you’ll find interesting, we’ll never have to go to the actual YouTube page and read those comments.

Hope you are planning a wonderful, comment-free weekend.

cycling / I do not know what is happening. / iPhone / photo / running / swimming / weekend — Comments Off
19
Jul 14

Chattahoochee Challenge

This morning we took part in the Chattahoochee Challenge sprint triathlon, a comparatively easy 500-meter swim, 13-mile ride and 5K run.

The swim is in the Chattahoochee River which, today, offered us the most mild current possible. (Our last two races have been in very quiet water. May the trend continue.) Last year this race was in the middle of the wettest summer a lot of people could remember and we raced down the swim course.

Somehow my time was a few seconds slower, though my swim seemed better. Must have been that current.

The ride is through roads and bike paths and Columbus’ scenic river walk. The race and the city block off an entire lane for most of the road portion, which is very nice. It is mostly flat, which is nice. I didn’t have a flat as I did last year, which was even better. My bike time was naturally much better without the flat, but it should have been better.

The run is through the historic and flat downtown Columbus district. It was during that 5K where I wondered about the wisdom of two triathlons in a row. Last weekend’s was longer, and both demonstrated my poor conditioning. I did meet a nice 50-year-old woman who was celebrating her birthday with her second triathlon. She was having a great run just as I was coming to that conclusion. (Happy birthday, Laura!) And, somehow, my run was two minutes faster than last year, too.

It rained before the race. It stopped raining long enough to get in the water. Someone thought aloud “Wouldn’t it be neat if we had a slide start?” and no one disagreed with them.

Someone should have disagreed.

We stood in line to get in the water for about 90 minutes. The first racers had finished their races while we were standing there bored, cooling down, burning off our morning fuel and feeling feet get achy on cement.

If you have the opportunity to do a slide start to a race: don’t.

This is a good race, but if they have this feature next year I’ll skip it.

It started raining again just as I finished my bike. I caught up with The Yankee during the run. Here we are at the finish line:

And then it rained some more. Everything we took to the race is wet, which is OK, but it made us proud to have left some dry things in our hotel room, and made that shower even better.

Here’s my bike computer after the race. This is my average speed which isn’t bad considering you have to walk your bike both before and after the ride for safety purposes and I was trying to save something in my legs for the run.

I should have pedaled harder. There was nothing in my legs by the end anyway.

As I said: The art, science, skill, talent and philosophy of triathlons is balancing the training and maximizing your minimums. I have no balance and many minimums.

But we had fun. Now we’re going to have ice cream, and rest.