Wednesday, April 29, 2009

The post that shall remain postless...

Until a later date.

I'm going to start writing this post to document the rides that I'm getting in this week, but I can't post it until the mileage challenge is over. The good news is that while you'll have to wait until Friday, your patience will be rewarded with a long winded, overly thorough, completely unnecessary account of the week that was. Right now, it's Wednesday, so I've got to back track a bit, but you'll get it all, I promise. Just what you always wanted. Yea.

Monday.

Wait, actually, I think I should start on Sunday.

Sunday.

Yesterday, Clint and I were back country skiing on the back of Mount Washington. We hiked into Tuckerman's Ravine, about a 3 hour hike with 2200 feet of vertical gain. Skied for a couple hours, then we volunteered to help hike out an injured skier on a Ski Patrol sled. We then had to hike back up to the bowl for our gear, and then finally, had to hike out to the car, cause they closed the trail that you can use to ski out. Needless to say, my legs haven't been used like that in a long time. It was a great day, and the only sour note we got was a phone call from Chad telling us the crazy mileage that he put in while we were gone. Great. So now having done all that stuff yesterday, I had to get off my butt and get in a ride. Oh, did I mention it was April 26th, yet for some reason it was 90 degrees in CT. Ridiculous. Luckily, I married a girl who also enjoys a good workout, and she helped motivate me to get on the bike. She went for a run, I went for a ride and we met back at the house to collapse on the couch together.

Monday.

No rest for the weary. At this point I have updated the Monday Mileage post and know that my lead over Chad has gone from 50 miles to a mere half mile. I also know, that he already got in a ride at lunch today, and Clint too, has been on the bike since the Monday update. OK, get home from work and get in a ride. Easier said than done. Today I have to go to NYC to do some work on the movie after work. Oh, I forgot to mention that this morning, Becky got up early, leaving me lying awake waaaay before I needed to get out of bed. Knowing that my brothers are crazy like me and will do untold things to win this challenge, I thought I should also jump on the crazy train and capitalize on this early rise, so I got out and put on an easy, quick 5 or 6 miles. By the way, I'm still no cyclist, but that easy 5 or 6 miles in the morning, was definitely the same 5 or 6 miles that I could barely finish a month ago. Little pat on the back for myself. Who am I kidding, this blog is the biggest, most self centered, 24/7 pat on my own back ever, kinda embarrassing, but your the one reading it. Anyway, back to Monday. After work I did manage to get in my sixteen mile loop, then a quick dinner with the wife, then off to NY.

Tuesday.

This was my day to ride this week. I mentioned that Becky had some plans for us this Wed. and Thurs. which is great but severely limits my crunch time riding. To help combat that I had to make today a banner day. This is what I came up with. I threw the bike in my car and took it to work. Today, lunch wouldn't be spent surfing the Internet and chowing on cold cuts; today I would get in a ride. This stupid hot weather in April has continued and my ride turned into sweat fest 2009. I got in about 15 miles, but my coworkers probably weren't too happy when I got back. It took me till about 4 o'clock just to cool off. Mental note, changing into jeans after a hot ride sucks. I head home, grab a bite with the wife, and hit the road once more. Yes, this is over the top, but who knows what my brothers are doing to log mileage. I did not wait long enough after dinner to start riding, turning my dinner into a rock in my stomach which made the next 20 miles pretty terrible. At least it was dusk so it was a bit cooler. P.S. My butt is really not liking my bike saddle at this point.

Wednesday.

Crazy train officially boarded. Wednesday presented a problem. It was mission critical to get in some miles, but Becky has made surprise plans for our evening after work, so a ride then is out. On Monday, while talking to Chad I joked that to win this thing I'm gonna have to bike to and from work. Not that funny except I live about 35 miles from the office. After I got off the phone with him however, the idea started to make a lot of sense. For the last hundred or so miles I've been able to maintain about a 16.5 mph average. So for 35 miles it should only take just over 2 hours. I don't have to be to work until 9 am, so leaving at 6:30 actually is doable. It doesn't take much for my brain to convince itself that it has a good idea, and before you know it, the alarm clock was buzzing and I was on the bike riding to work. Here's a map of the ride. 35 miles is way longer than 20, which makes me a little freaked out, cause 100 miles, is way, way, waaay longer than 35 miles. Yikes, I guess it's good that we are pushing each other to ride this much. The ride actually went pretty well. I underestimated how much hauling my laptop and change of clothes in a back pack would wear on me, and the wind seemed to have it out for me, but I kept churning the cranks and I made it. Luckily it was nice and cool, almost too cold when I started, so I arrived at work on time and not too foul smelling. As you can tell from the elevation map on the route, there were 2 significant hills. My first 2 hills ever really. The first was only about 2 miles from my house, I was still fresh and put it behind me without too much trouble. The second however was about 27 miles into the ride and was a doosey. It is a notoriously steep hill, and having driven up it countless times, so the whole ride I had a clear picture in my mind of the unpleasantness that awaited me. I literally had to to the "I think I can" thing in my head the whole way up, but I made it, no stopping, and I was paid off big time. The down side of the hill was great and I set a new max speed on my bike, 39 mph, sweet. The best part of this whole plan. Becky's surprise plans for us tonight include picking me up at work. Jackpot. I got in 35 miles for the day, and I don't even have to ride home.

Wed. Continued.

Becky's surprise B-day present to me was a flying lesson. Ridiculously awesome! Here is a picture of me after my first flight. It was a ton of fun and I hope to get some more flying in soon. Thanks to Mike and all those at Premier Flight Center in Hartford.
Thursday...D-Day

Today is the last day that counts towards April's total, so it's do or die time. We have agreed to all get on the phone and do a group update around 8 or 9 tonight. It will get the suspense over with, plus this will allow for personal verbal jabs and abuse instead of swapping emails of questionable content all day long tomorrow. There have been some emails floating around today and from the looks of it, we are all pretty close in mileage. Clint has gotten in 4 good rides this week, Chad three, with plans for a fourth tonight, and you know what I've been up to. I will be riding tonight. I'm hoping to get in about 20 or so miles to finish the month and hopefully that will be enough. Depends on how long their rides have been obviously so I still think it's up for grabs. We'll see.
Thursday, continued.

Just what you wanted more information. I just got in from my ride tonight and it was my first magical bike ride. Magical might be a bit strong of a word, or a bit but I'm sure you real cyclists out there know what I'm talking about. Tonight was the first time that I could just keep going. It was weird, I've had a few runs in my day that just felt great, and I had the sense that I could just keep running forever. It doesn't happen often, at least not for me, but when it does, it's awesome. Until tonight, I didn't know what that was like on a bike. It was pretty great. My legs some how just kept going. Even after all the riding I've been doing this week, I couldn't burn them out tonight. I set out to get in 20 miles, and wound up getting in 35 cause I just wanting to keep pushing it, to see how far I could go. I'm not naive enough to think this is going to be a regular thing, but man was it fun. I stopped at home, ready to end the ride, but I was only a few miles away from 250 total miles for the month, so I said Hi to Becky, told her the situation and that I was thinking of heading back out for a few more quick miles. She said go for it, and I was off again. Weird that I could just keep going, I really hope I feel like this come race day, cause it would be a big help. Anyway, like I said, I got in about 35 tonight so my monthly total has doubled in the past four days and I'm up to 251.1 total miles for April. If the boys beat me, they earned it for sure. This was everything that I got, so we'll see if it's enough.

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