The Carefree Way

First race of the season!

2012-02-14T18:44:00.000-05:00

That's me in mostly dark gear on the left, Alan in the middle, just as the race started.

This past Sunday was the Bushwhack Mountain Bike Challenge. I competed in it along with my friend, Alan.

The race was 1 mile on pavement (to separate the field some) then a 7 mile loop of the Lake Crabtree County Park singletrack. Then off into Umstead State Park for 18 miles of gravel trail. Then back into Crabtree for another loop. And then for some reason, another mile of pavement. The total distance was almost exactly 34 miles. Click here to see my race data.

Note that the average temp was basically 30F. The wind wasn't as gusty as predicted, but was pretty constant at about 15MPH. The problem with gear selection for a race like this is the singletrack is slow and wooded, but the gravel stuff was fast and open. And in the middle of the race. So while the singletrack was reasonably well protected from the wind and by nature we were going slower, it wasn't quite as cold. But on the gravel trail we were much more out in the open and able to go a lot faster, which meant the wind was a big factor.

The race took from 9:30am until nearly 1pm. So 25F to start, 35F at the finish.

I chose my gear poorly and overdid it a little. One too many layers on the bottom, and too heavy of a jacket on top. I almost had an additional core layer (fleece vest), but in a short trail pre-ride to warm up and show Alan one of the tech features, I was already getting hot, so I got rid of that. Good thing I did, as only three miles in to the race I was unzipping the jacket and trying to get the vents on it open. A note here: PRACTICE USING YOUR GEAR. ALL THE FEATURES. With gloves on I had a heck of a time getting the armpit vents open, and it cost me a lot of time trying to do it on singletrack. But I was boiling. After the race it was still not much above freezing, and when I took my jacket off, my inner layers were completely soaked.

I used a Smartwool balaclava, but that was too much, too. A similar cap that covered my ears would have been sufficient. Clear glasses are important for helping keep the wind out of the eyes (well, that and there was mud flying here and there, too, especially on the second lap of Crabtree as the sun did the thaw thing to previously frozen parts and made things a bit interesting). I had Smartwool glove liners on under some medium winter mountain bike gloves. That part was good...anything less and my fingers would have been very cold. I have some Lake winter mountain bike boots. I hate them because they are so heavy (and in size 14 this is magnified), but those with some thick Smartwool socks, Sugoi winter sock liners, and some chemical toe warmers that hunters use all kept my toes from freezing. Not sure on this day I could have gotten away with less here. But those boots are heavy. Normal bike shoes are very light, but also well vented.

I was very lucky to have thought as I got my gear ready that morning that I needed to add an insulated tube to my Camelbak. Alan wasn't so lucky, and suffered the consequences. The water freezes in the tube and you can't drink. Fortunately he had also brought an insulated bottle with fluid so he had something. I would have had nothing until it thawed, which according to Alan was not until a little less than an hour left.

And then there was the race itself. I am dumb dumb dumb. Alan has always been faster than me. What's more, he has an insane ability to start out a race really fast without hurting himself. Me, not so much. I know this. So when I found myself on his wheel all the way up the road and back, well, I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE SIGN. But these dudes on a TANDEM mountain bike passed us on the road and he didn't give chase. For some reason I didn't either, even though I was pretty sure those guys would be holding us up on the singletrack. So I sat on his wheel, but was very annoyed about it. Maybe subconsciously I knew I was already going too fast for my own good.

So we head into the singletrack, and of course we stack up in a bit of a conga line behind the tandem. We get to the feature I showed Alan, and everyone strangely goes straight. Except me. You see, if you turn left, there is a fairly technical rock pile to climb and you cut off about 15 seconds of trail. And it was a legal option in this race. Why in the heck everyone else went straight, I do not know. Especially Alan, because this was what we went to check out in our little pre-ride. I rode there two days ago and knew this was an optional section so I checked it to see which was faster. The rock pile was so much faster it was worth the small risk. Alan has as much tech ability as me, so I assumed he'd hit it. Especially to pass the tandem. But he didn't.

When I did, I passed everything and set sail a little. But then I started looking at the computer. Whoa, my heart rate is near red-line and power average is around 275W. Well shoot. My Functional Threshold Power is only 250W (that's the maximum amount of power I can sustain for a one hour period before I give out). And this is a 34 mile race. I'm not near averaging 34MPH, and not even going to be near half that. Uh-oh. Try to take it easier. Breathe. Breathe. BREATHE DAMMIT. Oh, stop yelling at yourself. You are breathing. But apparently you're just going too fast. So I slow down. At this point that conga line, minus the tandem, catches me and I let them cruise by, including Alan (they must have all passed the tandem somewhere in between). We're about four miles into that first seven miles of singletrack and I'm overheating and redlining and wondering how I got so stupid so fast. But fortunately, after the conga line there's nothing for a long ways back. So I take my time and start trying to vent my jacket. That goes poorly, but I get it done without crashing after about a half mile of fiddling.

I put it back on cruise control a bit to try to get the heart rate down. Crud, it's not working. Back off a tad more and just try to use my bike handling skills to keep up the momentum. I pre-rode this on Friday and know there are no more technical features coming up, so I just tried to use the force. You know, let it flow through you and all that. Seems to be working as I'm not pedaling much and I'm going kinda fast. The group in front got away, but still nothing back (and I know there were a LOT more sport-class riders back there somewhere). Check the heart rate. Oh, great, it's still jacked. Wonderful.

Exit Crabtree and head into Umstead. Sadly, it's all climb all the time for the next ten minutes or so. I decide there's not much I can do but gear it down and spin my butt off but not go very fast. So that's what I do. The hill levels out some and I click up a few gears but keep the cadence up. Oh, waffle time. Wow, Honey Stinger Waffles are difficult to chew at 45F. But it's not 45F. It's 30F. They are IMPOSSIBLE to chew at 30F. They just sort of break off and all you can do is hold them in your mouth for a while until they soften some more, and then you chew. It's sort of like trying to eat frozen leather. Well, what I imagine frozen leather would be like, anyway, since I haven't actually tried it. Not awesome. Next time I have to ride when it's this cold I'm going to try some sort of Chews or Shot Blox or whatever and keep them in my Feed Bag(tm) with a couple of those chemical hand warmers to see if that will keep those soft enough to eat. But for this race I had to tear through four waffles on about 30 minute intervals (I gutted out the last 45 minutes without one...note to self, you owe yourself a free waffle).

On the plus side, I was able to open and hold and attempt to eat the waffles while maintaining speed and while wearing two pairs of gloves. That's got to be worth something. Oh look, a cookie...

So I get to some downhill and start thanking the Maker for answering what had to be the worst prayers ever. Only the downhill doesn't last long enough. My heart rate is still going right back up. Wunderval. At this point it looks like I might as well just see if I can make something around my Lactate Heart Rate Threshold work for 2.5 hours. That's smarts right there, since it can't really be done.

Another buddy of mine was taking pictures at the only water crossing on the route, which is in Umstead about half way through the race distance. Right before this point, a female rider passed me. I'm not sexist about these sorts of things...honestly. I think "more power to her" and figure I'll just ride my ride. But as we head to the water, she starts to slow a lot. I decide she's going to have to pass me again, because I'm bombing this water like a bad-ass. It wasn't to impress her, nor to make her feel bad. My buddy was taking pictures! I mean I couldn't be immortalized in digital imagery tip-toeing through a water crossing BEHIND A GIRL! Okay, NOW I'm being sexist. I admit it, I was wrong, I apologize ladies. But you'd do it too. Search your feelings, you know I'm right.

That's me in the water crossing.

It's okay, though, because she got her revenge on the next climb. My strength coach, Jonas Sahration, has a saying...it's something like "You know Newton has a lesser-known third law of motion...FAT DON'T FLY." In my case we can amend that a little for cycling and say FAT DON'T CLIMB. And it don't. So off the lady went. (I outweighed her. See what I did there?) She slowly and steadily pulled away from me in Umstead until I could no longer see her. There were also some other fellows who passed me, some of which I re-passed back. I'd say that all-in-all, I probably got passed by about twelve riders once we got on the trail and maybe got about three of those back. I do not like those numbers.

As I was getting near the end of Umstead I was thinking "It's going to be so nice to turn after the airport overlook...it's just all big soft downhill all the way back to Crabtree." Well, that's true. But what I didn't know was that the stupid 15MPH wind was IN MY FACE that entire way from the overlook to Crabtree. I do remember thinking "well, my heart rate might be jacked, but this climb is going well....my speed is really good at least" on the way into Umstead. Why, oh why, didn't that make me realize that it was because I had a stiff wind at my back?!? Stupid, stupid ego. I just thought I was that good...

So I pedal on and head back into Crabtree. It looks like the "expert" class riders must have finished somewhere around 30 minutes ahead of me, because I actually saw some of them and had to let one pass me on the small section of the loop that overlaps on the return trip (you really do like 1.1 laps of Crabtree upon re-entry and only like .9 of the loop on the way out). So I pass what will eventually be start/finish and head around to complete the loop, pretty much on my own now. Haven't seen anyone ahead or behind me for a while. Crabtree does do some switchback kind of stuff even though there isn't much elevation change, and it's not very dense forest, so it's easy to see for long distances both directions sometimes. Not much going on, until....

Oh shoot, some dude is catching me. sigh So I turn it up half a notch. Okay, good, that's working. He's still back there, but isn't really catching me any more. I work my way around and get headed back along I-40 on the back side of the loop. Crap, the sun has thawed out what were apparently LARGE frozen sections earlier this morning and now it's pure mud. Well, only one thing to do...keep going fast! I was mud slinging and sliding around, but apparently I have better bike control skills and the dude behind me, because I never see him again even though we still go through some really good places for visuals. Oh, snap. I'm catching someone too! So I dial it up a half notch....oh crap, DIAL IT BACK. Don't need the half notch. This rider is toast, apparently. Oh, it's the female rider from earlier! She says "come on by whenever" as I get to her wheel, and I respond with "passing on the left" and try to pass on the left. Only she forgets to actually, oh, LET ME BY and I have to make my own trail through the woods.

She realizes her error and does yell an apology, and I say no worries and pedal on. We are only about a mile from the end of the singletrack, and she picks it up a notch (she probably wasn't familiar with the trail, and it's WAY easier to pick it up a notch when you are following someone than when you're solo on unknown singletrack) and loses ground only VERY slowly through to the end. I was probably 50 yards ahead of her when we got back to the road, but then she really was dead and I pulled away on the road section by another 200 yards or so.

The road section was literally an out-and-back that required a U-turn IN THE ROAD. At the start they had someone stationed there sitting in a chair that you literally road around. At the finish? Nothing. Just paint on the pavement. I almost blew right past it! Saw it just in time, thankfully. Oh, and Alan? I figured he blistered me. Turns out while he was ahead of me, it was only by around three minutes as I passed him going the other way just as I was heading out on the road.

But this was a learning event, not so much a goal race for me. What did I learn? Well, I'm still building base, which means I don't have much speed nor much climbing power. That means I need to moderate attempts at those, or I might kill myself. I learned a lot about gear. I learned a little bit about trying to eat food in the arctic. I learned to practice using my gear. I learned that you probably SHOULD be cold before a race starts, not toasty already. Most of all, I learned to pay better attention to what is going on early to keep from going nuts and hurting myself early. Wait, I knew that. Crap, I hate re-learning things. Especially the hard way.

A quick view of the data shows 202W average. I've done that on two hour TRAINING RIDES. sigh On this day I just didn't have any more than that, though. I had figured I'd be in the 215-225W range. Could have been, too, I think. If I could have pulled off 225W I would have been maybe 15 minutes faster. That may have been a little bit of an ambitious goal, hard to say. I think I finished about 40th and Alan 35th or so (out of about 90 riders total). I covered the distance in 2:45, though my goal was closer to 2:30. Now, about that cookie...

Here I am at the glorious finish.

Zero to 60 in just under five hours

2012-02-07T19:57:00.002-05:00

So it's another Leadville training milestone. My prescribed long ride today was for 4:45, and without going over I was able to go 60.9 miles on all gravel trail. In fact, my coaches exact words were "Ride EASY, keeping everything zone 3 or lighter if possible." Looks like I was able to make that happen quite well.

Not only was it further than I've gone before, but it was also faster than my last two long rides at the same location. It was definitely near perfect temperatures and a beautiful day. I really couldn't have asked for more from myself.

It Just Got Real

2012-01-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

Just a quick reminder...help me help cancer survivors and have some fun in Leadville at the same time! Click here to donate and send a cancer survivor to what might be the most important week of their lives.

Altitude. It is the natural enemy of endurance sports. The reason is simple...oxygen. The body needs oxygen and needs it in great quantities just to function normally, let alone to participate in an endurance activity. Our bodies can do some pretty great things without food and even without water, but try to go more than a minute or two at rest or even just a few seconds while working hard without oxygen and things go south in a hurry.

What's that got to do with altitude? Simple, there's less oxygen available due to the air pressure reduction that happens the higher we go. For every 18,000 feet above sea level that we go, there's half the oxygen available as the previous level. Most humans will start to feel the effects of altitude at around 5,000 feet...simple things like a little shortness of breath just going up a single flight of steps!

If you've been following this blog, you already know that I'm training for the Leadville Trail 100 MTB Race. In case you've forgotten, it's 103 miles of distance to pedal, but the real issue is that the entire race happens between 10,000 and about 13,000 feet. On top of that, there is 14,000 total feet of climbing. So as you can imagine, that means there are some very serious hills in terms of both grade and distance, and with them being above 10,000 feet, the altitude will definitely be a huge factor.

So what can someone who lives basically at sea level do? You can either move to altitude and train and live there, or do what some consider to be a better alternative, and that is "live high, train low." What that means is you find some way to spend at least a third of every day at altitude, and do all your training at sea level (or near it). The theory there is that you only need about a third of each day at altitude for your body to acclimate to it. So it boosts the EPO in the blood (yes, the same stuff that performance enhancing drugs help with, except in this case it's completely legal since there are no actual drugs involved) and you get the benefit of that higher level of EPO while training with plenty of oxygen. That keeps your body from breaking down as easily from the lack of oxygen while working hard.

Altitude Tent

So how do you achieve that? The most common way is an altitude tent that you sleep in. There are a variety of tent styles, but I chose the one pictured, which is a full enclosure. The air supply for the tent is an air unit that's in another room to suppress the noise from its compressor. What it does is scrub a set percentage of the oxygen out of the air that it feeds to the tent. So it's not exactly the same as going to altitude, but it's the same effect.

So I'll start sleeping in the tent at a simulated altitude of about 3,500 feet, and move from there every week or so on up to 10,000 feet (the limit of my air unit). Now, my wife refused to sleep in such a contraption, but fortunately there was enough room in our bedroom to setup an additional double bed and put the tent on that. So we'll be sleeping apart for a while. Obviously not ideal, but sometimes you have to do some extreme things.

Oxygen Sensor

In my case, this is probably a little more important than for most people who do a race like this, because I seem to be more prone to altitude problems. I've had altitude sickness just from two days of snow skiing in Tahoe (which is 10,000-13,000 feet as well), and can feel the effects pretty significantly at anything above 3,500 feet.

Pulse Oximeter

In an attempt to monitor what's going on, I have an oxygen sensor, to make sure my air unit isn't scrubbing too much oxygen. After some testing, it seems to be working fine and I'll start to use it for the first time tonight. I also have my own pulse oximeter so I can monitor the oxygen content of my blood. So between the two, I should be fairly well covered medically. A plus of the pulse oximeter is that it gives you your pulse easily and quickly, and my resting heart rate is down to 42! That's pretty good.

Zero To Rollers In About Five MInutes

2012-01-24T21:05:00.000-05:00

For those unfamiliar, what you see here is a set of bicycle rollers. You put the back wheel of the bicycle between those two rollers close together, and the front wheel will sit on top of the other one. When you pedal, the back tire spins both the rear rollers, and the middle one has a belt that connects it to the front roller. So your rear wheel spins the roller that drives the belt that spins the front roller and thus spins your front wheel.

Only yeah, you have to balance well and keep the bicycle centered. Those rollers are only 15 inches wide, and even the slightest of movements will cause the bike to move sideways quite a bit. So any lean makes you move sideways. Any steering input makes you move sideways. You can even just move your bottom on the saddle enough to move the rear of the bike and cause the whole thing to move sideways. Guess what happens if you look sideways? Yep, you move sideways. Small breeze? Move sideways. Solar flares? Move sideways. Okay, you get the idea.

So what's the point? Training. Unlike a traditional "trainer" that you mount the rear of a bike in with a resistance unit spinning against the rear wheel, on rollers you're actually balancing yourself constantly. It's a much more active exercise for the body than just the spinning motion of a trainer. It also forces one to work on pedal smoothness. Ultimately, I'm told a rider with a lot of roller experience can ride on these with no hands and never move.

That's ultimately, though. To start with, one has to learn to ride on rollers at all. It turns out it isn't very hard to do, it's just hard to convince yourself you can do it. And I've heard all kinds of stories about funny crashes and such, though I'm told the worry about crashing is overblown. The thing about rollers is while it feels like you're moving (and can feel like you're moving fast), in reality you aren't. So a "crash" is really just a "fall over sideways with your legs spinning." So the key is to not worry about crashing.

Easier said than done. So as you'll see in the video below, I put big foam crash mats beside me. I wasn't worried enough to buy these, but I had them sitting around. The double bonus here is that they effectively raise the floor beside the rollers a good bit. That's nice because these rollers are about five inches above the floor and thus stepping on and off is a bit of a pain without some sort of aid. But as you can see in the video, it wasn't that bad thanks to how thick the pads are.

Also, I want to give a shout-out to Victor. He convinced me to try rollers, all the while scaring the heck out of me when I saw his rollers. They are the same as mine except they are only 10 inches wide instead of 15 inches like these. I still don't know how the heck he rides those! Aside from convincing me to try rollers, he also built both my road bikes and some of my mountain bike wheels (look him up at his company website, Bicycle Lab).

Now, if you've read this far, you have intestinal fortitude that's off-the-charts. That's good, because this might be the most boring video in the history of man. This is video of my first time ever on rollers. By the end I was to the point I could ride about as long as I wanted to without flying off. Enjoy!

Another Milestone

2012-01-22T21:30:00.001-05:00

Okay, it's not huge compared to the last milestone, but it is my first ride over 50 miles. It was pretty epic given that it was very near freezing (I think the temperature gauge is off on the Garmin by a little and it wasn't quite as cold as it said).

This one went a lot better in terms of my friendliness with the saddle. In that 48 mile ride I really couldn't have gone another minute or two. In this one, I was still doing okay, though I'm not sure I would have made five hours. But that said, I rode all of this with my front suspension locked out (and thus doing nothing). In the 48 mile ride, I only did about an hour of it that way.

Mentally, it was certainly nice having company on this ride. That 48 mile ride was completely solo. It's also better when it's not misting on you for large chunks of the ride, but it was really only enough to make having glasses on annoying.

Anyway, it was a fun ride. The first thirty minutes are always the hardest, but once I get that first Honey Stinger waffle in me, well, I perk up! Although by the time we finished today those things were getting so cold they were really hard to chew!

Nutrition Station

2012-01-12T19:27:00.000-05:00

(If you haven't already, don't forget to donate to my effort to help cancer victims!)

Back when we remodeled our house, we added a dedicated theater in the basement. Outside of the theater we put a kitchenette in so we could prepare snacks and to be able to clean up afterward. But we don't entertain a ton, and even if we did that's a very infrequent use of that kitchenette.

So now that I'm doing all this crazy training for the Leadville Trail 100 MTB Race, I find myself preparing a lot of nutrition products. While actual meal food is prepared in our normal kitchen (and usually not by me!), any sort of shakes and smoothies are prepared in my nutrition station (ie. the kitchenette). It turns out I have almost everything I need right there already. As you can see below, we have a refrigerator, drawer dishwasher, and sink:

The drawer dishwasher is great because it's very easy to load and only half the size of a normal dishwasher. Since my loads are small, that keeps energy and water consumption to a minimum. Don't worry, blenders and even the very tall bicycle water bottles fit just fine. Notice I have a single blender but two actual pitchers for it. Turns out the cheapest way to do that is just to buy two blenders, so I have a spare motor I keep in the closet. (Note: That's a normal Braun blender, which I like better than even the incredibly expensive Vitamax type blenders. Some of these powder based nutrition products will aerate far too easily if the blend speed is high, and units like the Vitamax are just too fast.) But this way I can wait to wash one until both are dirty, or I can prepare two different drinks at the same time and not have to wash one by hand.

Below you can also see what's on the other side of the sink...a small ice machine:

These aren't very expensive and are half the width of a dishwasher. You can actually pair one with a small refrigerator that is the same size, too, if you like. If I had this to do over again, I'd add a half-drawer freezer under the dishwasher, too. For the frozen stuff I have a small dorm freezer just around the corner in another room, which is only mildly inconvenient.

The ice machine is great because a lot of what I do is fill water bottles and Camelbak systems with ice and water. The ice the machine produces is relatively small cubes and you just scoop it with a big scoop. These days most refrigerator ice is half-moon shaped and comes out of a dispenser, and there's simply no good way to get a lot of it into some of these different vessels as efficiently as the small cubes.

So what do I use this for? My regular pre-workout breakfast is actually a homemade smoothie. I blend ingredients like spinach, yogurt, milk, orange juice concentrate, a variety of frozen berries and mango, protein powder, fiber powder, flaxseed oil, fresh banana, etc. My post workout shake is a product called Cytofuse. Often I'll blend that before my workout after I make my smoothie. I then put it in a Nalgene bottle and put that in an insulator designed for Nalgene bottles. These will keep drinks cold in extreme conditions for quite some time, so they're great. I also use these special caps on the Nalgene bottles if I'm going to be drinking directly from the bottle. Much less chance of a mess!

Near the kitchenette is a closet, and that's where I keep my nutrition product stash:

I keep all my Nalgene bottles and other bottles in the cabinets above the kitchenette. All my actual Camelbaks and spare bladders are in the closet you see pictured above. I can easily hang a Camelbak bladder on the cabinet knobs above the sink for it to dry when I clean those, too.

So while I know most people can't just re-purpose a kitchenette or build one from scratch, I point all this out in case you are remodeling and are an endurance athlete, or in case you do have a similar setup you could be using. Yes, it's quite a setup, but when you're training six days per week, sometimes multiple times per day, it's really nice to have everything for your nutrition in one neat and organized place. There are a few tips in here that I hope will help even those who can't do something as self-contained, too! Oh, and a lot of the above applies to making frozen liquor drinks, too. Adapt as necessary.

Pump up the jam!

2012-01-03T17:56:00.001-05:00

No, not the 80's classic by Technotronic. Thankfully. No, it's the pump track that we added at the ranch! This isn't a great video, but Kevin shot it with my iPhone while I rode a little over a lap.

So, what's a pump track, you say? Well, it's a small BMX-like track where the object is to ride laps continually without pedaling. That's right, you can't pedal. You make the bike go by getting a small start with the pedals (or ride in from outside with just a little bit of speed) and then you use your entire body to pump down the back side of each little hill. So you're simply moving your body up and down with your legs and arms in rhythm with the small rollers (or hills) so that you are putting energy into the downhill side to generate forward speed.

It's very cool. And useful, too. When biking on the trail, you sometimes need to be able to pump in places to generate extra speed, especially in places where the terrain may not allow for much pedaling. Or sometimes in a race there are places where you can gain some "free" speed on folks who aren't pumping. I wasn't really cornering with great technique here, but the bowls on the ends of the track are very good for working on better cornering technique, too.

And ultimately, you can start actually jumping the front side of the rollers and pump as you land down the back side. All with no pedaling. So cool, fun, and good for mountain bike skills work!

We've got plenty of dirt stockpiled to add on a little more length, and the plan is to add some other skills features around the pump track in the form of wooden decks, jumps, platforms, etc. Fun stuff. Oh, and it works great for racing remote controlled off-road cars. I'll try to get some video of that soon, too. And some first person biking video.

Want to run more this year?

2012-01-02T18:34:00.001-05:00

So you've made your new year's resolutions and one of them is to run more (or at all!). But as soon as you do that, the weather turns frigid. It's just not fair, right?!? But you made the resolution, so you begrudgingly dig out what you think is "just enough" clothing to get the job done. You know, that fine line between freezing your patootie* off until you warm up and then hopefully not so much that you boil in your own sweat. It's a tough one.

(* Patootie is a highly technical term, sometimes referred to as your "tuckus", "tushie", or the Englishman's "bum.")

A common method that helps with this is to wear a jacket or sweatshirt that you can remove once warm and then tie around your waist. This is often referred to as "dressing in layers." This has its own set of problems (from fashion nightmare all the way to the potential for it falling off and tripping you and causing death-by-faceplant). Nope, not a good idea.

One possible scenario here is that you push through it with as little as you can stand in the clothing department and avoid becoming a patootie-popsicle. But you get warmed up, run for a little bit, and then start to get too warm. You fight through that for a while, maybe do the dangerous sweatshirt-turned-skirt trick, and ultimately change your running route so you can quit early. Yeah, that's right, you went to DEFCON-SCREW-IT. So much for that resolution since it's going to be even colder tomorrow.

But there are alternatives. I've recently started doing what I call "dressing in segments." Now, I'm fairly lucky in that I seem to have no problem getting the lower half of my body covered in such a way that I don't need to change it during a run. Thin Smartwool socks are the norm for me no matter the temperature (because let's face it, I don't have to exercise in sub-20F weather in NC very often, if at all). Anything below 48F or so and I wear CW-X running tights (light insulation), but above that and it's just running shorts.

But it's the upper half of the body that's the troublesome part. Above 48F and I generally just wear a dri-fit shirt and headband and suffer a little until warmed up. For 35F to 48F is where the segments begin. At this point I usually wear a Smartwool short sleeve shirt, insulated running gloves, and Smartwool arm warmers. On the upper end, I may still wear just a dri-fit headband, but on the lower end I switch to a dry-fit type (or Smartwool) full head cap. I've recently considered putting a headband in my pocket to switch to if the full cap gets to be too much (which means it's soaked in sweat). On the upper end, that's all I need. On the lower end of this range, I wear a fleece vest on top of all that.

With that setup, I can generally be pretty comfortable at the beginning of a run. As I get warmed up, generally I notice my hands are starting to sweat and at that point I remove the gloves and put them in my pocket. Depending on the temperature, at some point my arms begin to get warm. If it's far into the run, I might choose to push up the warmers a little, but generally it happens early and I remove the arm warmers while running and put those in my pocket. I usually find a point where I also start to unzip the fleece vest, and even move to unzipping it almost all the way.

But what about below 35F? At this point I think it's good to have a thicker cap on the head, but carry a thin one to switch to. I would also probably just go with a long sleeve Smartwool and a thin or thicker sweatshirt depending on just how cold it is. And the fleece vest over that. I'll still use the gloves, but often I still need to remove those, even pretty far below 35F. But at this point the arms are usually fine.

So none of this is rocket science, but the big revelation for some may be the arm warmer trick. That's something that mostly only cyclists use, but I think they're great for running, too. And notice that everything I've mentioned should be things you can easily stuff in pockets rather than having to tie things around your waist. I'm just not a fan of that, but if it works for you, great!

Hopefully this helps you keep that resolution and stay out there running this winter!

Leadville Milestones

2011-12-22T15:58:00.001-05:00

Okay, I think I had a pretty great milestone today...longest ride on a bike ever, and it was by a lot. My previous best on a mountain bike was 34 miles and was basically an all day affair in Pisgah with the boys. My previous best on a road bike was 41 miles and happened at the Outer Banks while riding with Alan (and I'm pretty sure involved at least one reasonable break and him doing a lot of pulling).

Today I went 48 miles on my mountain bike. I did it with one VERY brief stop to take a leak. Otherwise, no stops. About nine miles of it was on pavement with the rest on gravel road. Yeah, I know, that's not very interesting, but in my attempts to be environmentally friendly that was the only real option as it is very wet right now. In fact, I was lucky to fit this ride in at all without getting rained on. It did start raining on me on the way home, but never anything significant while riding.

My route included two trips up and down the greenway in Cary that runs from Oak Hollow Apartments (where Ashley and I used to live!) to Lake Crabtree. That's all paved and pretty flat and totaled just over nine miles of the 48. The rest was just riding pretty much all the gravel road in Umstead State Park. I had to do a few pieces of it three times and most everything else twice to get that distance.

I'm pretty stoked about the ride. The data summary goes like this:

47.99 miles
3 hours and 46 minutes
12.7MPH average pace
almost 2800 feet of elevation gain
129 bpm average heart rate
185W average power output
64 degree average temperature (three days from Christmas!)

Not too bad. I'll take it! I consumed about 70 ounces of water and five Honey Stinger waffles while riding. I blame Fatty for turning me on to the Honey Stinger waffles, too. You want to go ride 50 miles just so you can eat a bunch of them! That was a tough enough ride that I know I'm not ready for Leadville right now. But I've got eight more months, and things are happening at a rate that I'm very comfortable with right now.

I need your help!

2011-12-09T21:40:00.001-05:00

I need your help. Well, technically, young adult cancer fighters and survivors need your help. I've signed up with team First Descents to do the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race. I've already blogged a bit about the race, but to summarize I'm going to try to do 103 miles of mountain biking in under 12 hours. Oh, and there's 14,000 feet of climbing and it all happens above 10,000 feet of altitude. You know, easy stuff like that.

So how can you help? Donate through my page to Team First Descents! It's really that simple. It's a great organization that helps cancer fighters and survivors learn how to live and how to have the confidence they need to continue the fight. I'm really excited and honored to be able to help out such a great cause, and I hope you can spare a few bucks to help, too.

The Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race

2011-11-17T13:40:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I've gone and done it now. I don't know what possessed me, but I've gone and got myself all wrapped up in the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race. The 2012 version happens on August 11 in beautiful Leadville, Colorado.

For those unfamiliar, this is actually a 103 mile race that happens at 10,000 feet of elevation and above, and includes a total of 14,000 feet of actual climbing. Because it's an out-and-back course, that means there is also 14,000 feet of descent. The weather is known for being quite unpredictable, and the course has some very challenging spots, particularly if it's raining. So, in a word, it's brutal. But another word, and the one I'm going to focus on, is epic.

Epic is the reason mountain biking exists. I'm sure at first it was just some kind of experiment in riding on hiking trails rather than on the road or on a BMX track, but the challenges faced when riding those trails is what caused people to continue to push the envelope in terms of skills as well as machinery and turn the sport into what we have today.

What we have today is a wide variety of types of "mountain biking", and this race even pushes the limits of that to something I'd call "ultra-endurance mountain biking", I guess. There are only a handful of races in the entire world that are significantly longer than 100 miles, though there are a bunch of races that are basically this same length now. Well a "bunch" as in probably 10 or 12 in the US, anyway. More common is the "6 hour" endurance race for mountain bikers, and often those are on MUCH shorter courses and you just do as many laps as you can within some cut-off time (usually around 5.5 hours).

So why do something this extreme? Because this particular race is considered the pinnacle of mountain bike racing in North America. To be considered a finisher, you have to complete the course in 13 hours. Complete it in 12 hours and you get a small, but very cool, belt buckle. Complete it in 9 hours and you get a large belt buckle. I know, most of you are thinking "what the hell would anyone go to all that trouble for a belt buckle for?" Yeah, me too, in a way. I'm certainly not going to wear the thing, but then again I'm sure most people who win them don't wear them, either.

It's really about completing the thing and being able to know you did it. It's kind of a bucket list item for many folks who like to ride mountain bikes. Most of us ride a few hours per week, and often do one ride per week that's 2-3 hours long, and that's it. If I train my butt off between now and then (and I'm already in decent shape), and have a GREAT day, I might get close to that nine hour number. Realistically, my goal is 10 hours (and that'll take a very good day). If I manage to finish in 12 hours by even the closest of margins, I'll still be VERY happy. If I squeak the 13 hour mark, I'll be happy. If I don't make 13, it won't be a good day at all for me.

What can screw it up? Illness. My body not cooperating with the altitude. Mechanical failure. Not following my hydration and nutrition plan. Crashing. Oversleeping. Not training well enough. And probably other things. I've got plans to deal with all those things (well, except maybe illness...I don't think there's much I can do about that!) and then some, however, and over the course of the next year I'll bring you all up to date on what they are. I plan to blog fairly extensively about it (and given recent history, that may mean I don't blog about much else...who knows, though, maybe this will rekindle my blogging fire on other topics, too).

My next blog post will be about how you can help. That's right, you can help. How? Well let's just say getting into Leadville as a first timer is very difficult. There's a lottery system and first timer's have a less than 10% chance these days of getting in. But there's a couple other ways to get in now, and one involves raising money for charity. That's the one I chose, and I feel pretty great about it because it's a pretty great charity. More on that in a few days.

For now, it's nearly time to get myself ready for a rainy day long run. That's right, a run. I just wrote a huge blog entry about mountain biking and I'm going for a run. Why? Well, cross training is good, and apparently running is becoming widely accepted as a very good compliment to biking. Which is annoying, because I don't love running nearly as much as I love biking, but that's okay. On this rainy day I've got a running partner, and that seems to make running so much better.

I plan to give a shout-out in probably every one of these posts to my awesome coach, Sage Rountree. She is, without a doubt, one of the world's leading authorities on athletic recovery. But you don't get to that point without being pretty great at how to become an extreme endurance athlete, so she's a great coach for this in so many ways.

So hang on, it's going to be a fun ride...

The Great Marriage Debate

2011-09-16T14:18:00.003-04:00

As most readers of this blog already know, the NC General Assembly has placed a referendum on the ballot at the upcoming Republican primary election to add a state constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. This would simply be a stronger position supporting the state law that already says the same thing, and would certainly make it harder to change that law in the future.

This has caused a lot of backlash, most notably with this def shephard blog post that's been making the rounds. It's good reading, even if you disagree with the stance. I have a much different take, however.

To me, this boils down to an argument between those who prefer marriage to be defined as a union between one man and one woman and those who want it defined as a union between any two people.

But why? There are lots of reasons that the LGBT community wants legal marriage status, but the only ones that really matter are the ones that are government influenced (as far as this discussion is concerned, anyway). Things like tax breaks for married couples, insurance issues, etc. Otherwise, it's really just about "recognition." Now, I think the folks who want this change are attacking it from the wrong angle. I'd personally rather see, and would support, changes that take the government out of marriage entirely. No tax breaks for simply being married, no link between insurance and marriage, etc. No laws whatsoever governing "marriage." It would simply be something that churches or other entities can recognize. Why does it need to be anything more?

The ultra-conservatives would say that taking away this government recognized system is further eroding some sort of moral fiber. I say hogwash. People already do what people want to do, and the fact that we have gay couples living together in NC and ready at the instant the law is changed to become married (or those going to other states to do it), is proof of that. Just because the government stops telling people NOT to do something does not mean the government suddenly supports DOING it. It simply means the government doesn't have any interest in it, and in this case, I don't see why the government needs to have that interest.

The last question is fairly simple...for those who believe allowing the LGBT community to marry, why draw the line there? Why is polygamy illegal? What's so special about the number "two"? I don't personally care about polygamy, but it is just another line in the sand...

Anatomy of a perfect day

2011-07-17T22:11:00.004-04:00

A perfect day starts with a trip to the North Carolina mountains. Do whatever prayer or sacrifice or other bribe to the weather gods that you have to do so that you get a 75F partly cloudy day. Next, mix in plans for a completely empty day to start with breakfast at the Dan'l Boone Inn with some good friends you haven't seen in a while. From there, plan to take the kids to the park in Blowing Rock, but stop by your respective houses on the way to get appropriate gear for a short hike to a swimming hole. Meet back up at the park.

From there, it gets interesting. First, I decided while at home to add my motorcycle to my "gear." Yeah, I threw my hiking gear in Ashley's car and went my own way on the bike. It's a new-to-me 2009 BMW G650X. For those that don't know bikes, it's a street legal dirt bike that is just perfect for mountain exploration. Anyway, I hadn't actually even had it out on public roads yet (we trailered it up here). So, back to the park...

We let the kids run around and play while the adults did more catching up. Then we loaded back up and headed from downtown Blowing Rock toward Globe. Our intended stop was the China Creek trailhead off of Globe Road. Well, it was our stop, but unfortunately we found that the China Creek trail had been closed by the park service for a year! It's due to reopen in a few weeks, but given the penalty for hiking it was six months in jail, we decided we should head to choice number two, Huntfish Falls. The only reason it was choice number two was that it's a good bit further of a drive, but it's a better swimming hole anyway, so off we went. It's worth noting that I wasn't crying at all, since I got that much more chance to explore the limits of my new bike on twisty dirt roads.

So a short while later we found ourselves at the Huntfish Falls trailhead:

It's six or seven miles of dirt on The Globe Road, and another ten miles or so of dirt between Highway 90 and Pineola Road to get to the Huntfish Falls trailhead, but let me tell you, it's stellar riding. Particularly today and particularly for someone on this kind of bike that's new to them. Why? Because it rained a good bit yesterday. I had every surface type imaginable to play on. Loose gravel, occasional large rocks, that really awesome tacky clay, soft mud, and occasional soup. Sometimes you even had weird mixes of those. And yet I never over-stepped the limits of this fine machine. I am impressed, and I am looking forward to a lot more seat time on this thing. Back to the day...

The family and friends caught up, and we headed down the nearly-a-mile-long trail that's pretty much straight down. It lands right at a very awesome set of waterfalls with a large swimming hole that leads to a pretty decent sliding rock (at least for small kids). The best part? There's a pretty decent rock ledge about five or six feet above the water that you can jump off of and into about five foot deep water (so you have to be careful to only cannonball, but it's still great). The water temperature is quite brisk, but you do get used to it quickly. Or at least I get used to it quickly, anyway, but maybe that's because I get addicted to that ledge jump. I think I did it ten times today. Both kids did it, too, and even one of our friends, who apparently had never done anything like that!

After an hour or two or three (who keeps track of time in a place that wonderful?), we headed back out. The hike back up isn't so wonderful, but it's tolerable enough. We grabbed some snacks and headed back toward civilization with a plan to meet at the friend's house to grill some supper. Notice we had missed lunch, but between the awesome breakfast and the snacks, I don't think anyone cared. I left first on the motorcycle...hehehehe.

I did some more limit-seeking along the ten or so miles of gravel road back to the Parkway, where I started to notice gray skies. Uh-oh, might get wet! And sure enough, as I rode the Parkway back to the house, there were occasional showers. Never enough to soak the road, but just enough you knew it was raining and not drizzling. I didn't much care as it was just warm enough it was no bother, and I was still damp from my swimming excursion anyway. I got home, showered, watched the US lose the World Cup, and we headed back out for our supper engagement.

We found our friend's fairly-new-to-them house with no problem, and enjoyed a great meal and conversation. They have a wonderful place that I'm sure they will enjoy for many years to come. They even busted out some sparklers that had been intended for July 4 festivities, but were rained out. Much to my surprise, my children had yet to experience the wonder that is dazzling fire on a stick that you can hold in your hand, so much fun was had by all. Sadly, the sun decided that it was time to end the festivities, and we called it an evening. But it was quite a nice way to cap what was a perfect day.

What a long strange trip it's beeeeeeen...

2011-06-01T17:16:00.003-04:00

Today's ride was an interesting one. My coach had me scheduled for a 90 minute road ride. Unfortunately with other stuff I had scheduled today the only time I could do it was in the hottest part of the day. Thankfully the humidity is finally down to tolerable levels and even though it was definitely hot, it wasn't as stifling as I thought it might be. The sweat could actually evaporate for the most part, which made things tolerable.

I decided to try a new variation on the route I've been riding lately, and boy did I screw that up. You can see the data here, which includes a nice map of what I did. As you can see from the map, I did about four miles on highway 87 north. That was NOT intentional. For some reason I had it in my head that Mt. Olive Church Road went straight from Chicken Bridge Road to Old Greensboro, but in fact you have to turn right on Mandale to do that, which I missed. And then I stupidly decided that it probably wasn't but a mile or so up 87 to Old Greensboro, so I'd just go that way instead of turning around.

Oops.

Want to know the worst part about all this? I have a GPS on my bike with full mapping and navigation and I didn't use it! Talk about dumb. I'm so used to leaving it on the data screen that I didn't even think to hit the map button and see what I was doing. Turning around would have been no big deal to go to Mandale, but riding four miles on 87 sucked big time. It's not fun getting passed by semis and logging trucks at 65MPH, that's for sure. Especially with traffic going the other way, too! And all this the day after a post about crashing. Seriously, that's just not bright. It made me want to quit riding altogether. Okay, not really.

Along the way, I also had my first bad dog encounter. Okay, I say bad, but in reality it was basically as bad as you can get without actually getting bit (or crashing). It was a black mutt that appeared to have a goodly amount of Chow in him. I'd put him at about 85 pounds and you'd have to say Mr. T has a sunny disposition compared to this creature. He came out of a yard to my left, but I never saw him until he hit the road running and around to my right side. I was probably doing about 16MPH at this point and it was basically flat. I sped up a little, and he matched me, barking ferociously the entire time. Then I noticed he was staring at my ankle appearing to be timing my pedal strokes and easing closer. I figured an attempt to kick him would just result in a crash, so I took the other option and put the power down.

My data shows I peaked at nearly 1,000W for about five seconds. Not too bad. As I hit it hard, I pulled in front of him. I looked back to see him try for another gear, which he did have, but he only stayed with me another second or so before my continued acceleration got the better of him. He pulled up and turned around. I have to say that was quite annoying. I've never been scared of a dog while on my feet, but at speeds over 16MPH while clipped into a road bike, I felt a lot more vulnerable to a beast like that. He'd inflict some damage, but I know I could inflict more in a straight fight. My problem was the fear of the crash he was about to cause on top of it. Hmm, now we're back to yesterday again.

But I've learned that lesson, too. I will be better prepared on my road rides from now on, and dogs who do this will not like the outcome, that much I can assure them. I have a right to pedal on the road without fear of being injured by a furry beast, and I intend to exercise that right. Trust me when I say I'm truly a dog person and always have been. I know when a dog is in "attack" mode versus just "get the hell out of here, I'm protecting my turf" mode. The latter will be tolerated, the former, well, no. Today was the former. I could see it in his eyes and in his actions.

The last interesting thing was near the end of the ride. A truck approached from ahead and slowed and rolled his window down as he met me. A gentleman stuck his head out and warned me about a "fox" around the next bend that I should watch out for. I said thanks and gave a thumbs up as I rolled by (I slowed, too), and thought "what kind of moron bothers to warn someone about a fox? You barely see one and then they're gone. Oh well, he was being nice." Then as I rounded the corner I see a critter on the left shoulder. He sees me, hops to his feet, and jogs slowly back into the trees. As he did that, I realized not only was he a coyote, but he had been hit and was injured. So the guy who warned me was actually probably the one who hit him and saw that he was alive but too injured to flee. Now it all made sense. Still a bit odd of a thing to happen in the middle of the afternoon, but on this day, nothing was completely out of line, apparently.

Crash and Burn

2011-05-31T20:49:00.005-04:00

Just read this article about crashing while road cycling and the mental effects it can have.

I'm twisted, but I kind of had to chuckle a bit. No, not at her pain, but at the exploration of this phenomenon and the somewhat obvious conclusions. Well, obvious to me. But then I realized why it seemed obvious.

I have a lot of experience crashing.

Now, let me start out by saying while I do have a lot of experience crashing, I actually have yet to crash while road cycling (though I'm sure it will happen...and the article just reaffirmed that quite nicely). So what is this experience I am speaking of?

I have vivid and very complete memory of my first bicycle crash that resulted in an injury of significance. I was in the fifth grade and was riding the badass black Schwinn Stingray that my Dad basically built for me. I don't know of any surviving pictures of that bike, but it looked a lot like this:

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was making a left turn off of a sidewalk at my school onto a dirt trail. Somehow the front tire caught a big rock that was semi-embedded in the trail and just sort of threw the bike sideways and me onto the ground. Unfortunately, my left knee hit right on top of another jagged rock and cut it open pretty good. I think that was the first time I ever got cut open like that, and it scared me. Big time. I screamed and screamed as I rode furiously home. Blood had run down my leg and stained my sock. I'm sure I scared my Mom half to death, too.

Now, I was a kid then, so there was no thought of not riding again. But of course, it's not the same. I think the problem is I learned pretty quickly that if I was going to have much fun on this earth, well, I was going to have to take a few chances. And occasionally, or maybe not-so-occasionally, those chances were going to cause me to crash. It's always just seemed part of having fun to me.

Fast forward through a lot of dumb kid stuff. What else have I crashed? Mountain bikes. Heh, that's so often the stories aren't even interesting any more. But in every one of them I'm like the guy in the Times article I linked above who crashed on ice and realized it was his own dumb fault. I'm the one piloting that bike and choosing to do it where and how I do it, and when I crash, no matter how "out of my control" it is, well, it's my fault. No doubt about it.

Race cars? Yep, more than a few times. At triple digit speeds. First big crash was just a rookie mistake, honestly. I took a corner faster than I thought was going to work (it would have worked if I had trusted myself) and then did a classic panic for a half second. Blam, I went sideways at 60MPH+ into a wall. Minor concussion, lots of bent metal, but I was able to race the next day (thanks to Reid, the best crew chief ever). I'm sure at the time I wasn't so quick to just blame myself, but nobody else hit me, there was nothing slick on the track, and I just made a mistake. So deep down I knew it was just something I did wrong.

The last big race car crash? I made a TINY mistake and just did a little half-spin with two wheels off the track...I'm not even sure I ever came to a complete stop, in fact. I kept going around that corner and down a LONG straightaway where I built speed to over 115MPH while catching another race car. I pulled out to pass by braking later than he did. Oops, no brakes. Five presses later (sometimes after going off track you can experience what we call "pad knock-back", which means you get one press with no brakes, then they come back) and some major league awesome driving to NOT hit that car I was passing, I was leaving the pavement and done for. My last ditch effort after making sure I cleared that other car was to attempt to point the car in a direction that would have been a hell of a downhill ride and would have missed that first wall, but all I was able to do was get it turned a little. As soon as I left the pavement it spun quickly and slammed the wall at almost exactly 100MPH (we have it on data). Another minor concussion, a lot more bent metal. That car does race now, but it wasn't racing the next day, that's for sure.

I lost brakes because I hit something in that little spin that resulted in the two wheels off track and bounced up and cut the brake line. Never knew it. Was that "my fault"? Was that "fair"? It was absolutely my fault, and absolutely "fair." Always check your brakes. And I shouldn't have made that mistake to begin with.

I've crashed bicycles, motorcycles, race cars, street cars, gokarts, golf carts, and probably a lawn mower or two. I've crashed while skiing, tubing, sledding, and even while just chasing my child around the house (that one resulted in 12 staples in my scalp a mere 36 hours before getting on a plane to Hawaii!). Heck, just the other day I fell YET AGAIN while running. I decided to run down a huge log skinny feature that we built for mountain biking. I've done it before, but never when it was wet. I knew it would be a little slick and was prepared for it. Almost. It was way slicker than I thought possible. First step went out from under me and I went straight down on my butt and hands. And slid like I was on a sliding board. For a while. Ouch.

I could go on (and probably have gone on too long already), but I just couldn't help but chuckle at the analysis and publishing that came from one bicycle crash. One could say that perhaps most people are more skilled than me at what they do and don't have my vast experience to draw from. I'd buy that. I just found it funny that I live so far on the other end of the spectrum and yet can't recall ever having a "I'm never going to do this activity again" kind of moment. But I always try to make sure I learn how to "never have this particular accident again." A more interesting article, to me, would have been a slant on turning the "I'm never riding again" reaction into "learn from your actual mistake and move on" kind of thing. Because there were several things you could change...don't mix with slower (or unknown) riders, don't draft quite so close, pay more attention to your surroundings than your data (NOTE TO SELF HERE!), etc.

One thing I do know, injuries suck. But making them worse with knee-jerk reactions to them doesn't help. Learn from it and move on.

The most important training day is...

2011-05-30T10:27:00.003-04:00

If you ask my coach, she'd probably answer off-the-cuff that the most important day in your training plan is your recovery day. But I was thinking this morning that there is one easy day to single out that's the most important. It's not recovery day, or long distance day, or hill day, or film day (you professional ball-sports athletes get that one). Nope.

It's today.

I know, it seems simple and cheesy, but I've got a deeper point to make. Okay, maybe just slightly deeper, but bear with me. My point is it is easy to look at your calendar and think "I need to save up for that day" or "today's workout isn't as big so I can take it a little easier" or "today is my last day before recovery day, so maybe I can get away with a little less and get more recovery that way." Don't fall into the trap. Here's why, in a nutshell:

Today is sacred. Whatever you complete today is all that will ever be done today, and all that you have to apply to the future. Make the most of it for once it is gone, it is gone forever.

My run today wasn't stellar, but it was better than it would have been if this hadn't just sort of hit me this morning. I got everything out of that run that I had. I hope to apply this idiom every day from now on. Even on recovery day. Endurance athletes, you get what I mean here...we don't always make recovery day everything it could be in terms of recovery. Hydrate better. Do a little more recovery yoga (get those legs up the wall!). Make time for a massage. Spend time just relaxing with your pets or taking in an episode of Phineas and Ferb with the kids. Then on workout days, well, you know what that means. Get after it. Own it. Make today special. Every day.

I promise you'll feel better for having done it.

The epic that wasn't and then it was again.

2011-05-21T22:06:00.003-04:00

Sometimes a friend just has a stroke of genius, and sometimes it's not exactly how you'd expect it.

Today was the last day of a four day mountain bike trip with eight other guys (plus one for today only). Thanks to the weather, we waited for our North Fork Mountain Trail ride until today. It was supposed to be the best ride we would do, and today was the only day where there wasn't a chance of rain. So it seemed obvious, even though we were told it would be our longest and hardest day (which you usually wouldn't save for last), that we'd do it today. It would be epic.

It took a little bit of work to find the trailhead, but we found it and headed out on our last great adventure of this trip. Little did I know just how adventurous it would be. The total trail distance was 24 miles, but that's only if you have a bike capable of going that far. On this day, well, it just wasn't to be. At just 2.5 miles in, and going down a long downhill section, a stick popped up into my rear wheel and derailleur. Poof, many parts were destroyed. Now, my group plans pretty well for this kind of thing and we had every part and tool needed to replace the chain, derailleur, and hanger. What we didn't have, unfortunately, were any spokes to replace the two broken spokes in the wheel. Considering how close we were to the beginning of the trail, we considered this terminal. There was just too much riding left to risk injury or more bike damage trying to ride a wheel missing those spokes (and thus now very warped as well).

I assumed my day was done. I might as well walk back to the trailhead and just go back to the cabin and surf the internet. But Steve had a better idea. There was a way to get to the middle of the trail by car (or very close to it, we weren't sure). But we didn't know how, and I needed a bike. But it seemed that I might just have time to find the answer on where to go AND go to the cabin and back to get a different bike, if I hurried. We hatched a plan that even included an elaborate communication mechanism in the event that I got to the meeting point too late (no cellphone coverage worked up here with any carrier). And fortunately I brought a spare bike (or two).

So I hoofed it pretty hard back out on foot. Took exactly 40 minutes to do 2.6 miles while carrying 3.5L of water and another five pounds of gear on my back and pushing a 32 pound bike over rocky singletrack. I got in Bob's truck, and headed down the valley to a store where I'd find my answer on where to go. Only they had no answer. In fact, the kid behind the counter said "I've lived here all my life, and I've never heard of that trail." Damn. I then inquired with the guy at the deli counter. His answer? "The kid up front should know." Ugh. But just then another customer piped up and pointed me to the Seneca Discovery Center across the street, which was really just a state park visitor center! Voila! Eureka! (Why that didn't occur to me to begin with, I don't know. I was in a hurry.)

I headed over and found a very nice ranger lady who whipped out a map and proceeded to show me exactly what to do. I jumped in the truck and headed to the cabin for the spare bike. I might have driven a tad briskly, but I got there, got the bike swapped and offloaded some of the gear I now wouldn't need since I was only doing half the ride. Then I may have driven a tad briskly again to my new trailhead for the day. This involved a good bit of two lane highway before I passed where we had dropped off our other truck to run shuttle. Then it was a TIGHT two lane paved road for about ten more miles, complete with switchbacks and miles of guardrail. And then another four miles of gravel road almost straight up ("High clearance vehicles are required."). Oh, and I ate my lunch while driving there. Briskly.

I tell you, it was a great sight when I rounded a bend in the gravel road and saw Alan on his bike strolling down the hill toward me. I picked him up and we headed back up to where everyone else was waiting. Turns out they had been there almost an hour and I was on the clock for another six minutes before they were out of there. So I geared back up, grabbed my new sled, and off we all went for the other 12 miles. Wow, that felt good.

The trail itself was amazing. Some of the best views ever, and some of the best riding around. A great mix of terrain all ending in an epic downhill. Sure, there were a few more technical issues, some sight seeing, and just a ton of fun. We really killed it out there today. I would have certainly loved to have done the entire thing, but sometimes you have to learn and grow in different ways than what you expected. On this day, I learned the true meaning of rally. Sometimes you rally up a hill. And sometimes you have to do something a little bigger. It would have been easy to just pack it in for the day. It would have been easy to have wondered "why me?" It would have been easy to eat some lunch and take a nap.

This trip isn't about easy. It's about epic. And it almost wasn't.

I'm a Warrior!

2011-05-15T20:42:00.003-04:00

Today my buddy, Matt, and I did the Warrior Dash in Mountain City, Georgia. This was supposed to be pretty similar to the Rugged Maniac that I did a few weeks ago...all are basically obstacle course races that are about three miles in length and feature a fairly festive atmosphere. Events can vary pretty wildly from location to location due to the nature of what they have to work with, but I have to say, this particular event has a very interesting course. I don't think it was but a little over two miles in actual length, but the obstacles made up for that!

The course started out, somewhat ironically, with an annoying pavement and gravel road run. I think that allowed me to go out even harder than I planned and may have cost me a little. The first obstacle was simply having to jump into a lake and wade around fifty yards or so. And I should mention that it was nearly neck deep for my 6-2 frame in places, so some folks really had to swim! Oh, and it's Mountain City, Georgia, in May, which means the water was still pretty darned cold, especially at 8:30am!

It's hard to explain, but I took a slightly longer path through the water which got me closer to shore and through much more shallow water for much of it, which let me pass three people. Then we hit the tire area with the cars to climb over, which was really treacherous. They had it totally covered in mud. It was coming out of here that I noticed my legs seemed sort of non-existent. It wasn't a burn, it was more of a strange "you can ask for more, or even demand more, but there simply isn't more" kind of feeling. Can't recall having that. I don't know if it was the energy spent wading through the water or if it was being in water that cold for that long or a combination of the two, but it was odd, I know that.

Then I realized I had a shoe untied! I have no idea how the heck that happened, but I double-knot my running shoes and have for a while now, and am especially diligent about my shoe laces at races like this. But hey, these things happen, I suppose.

There were some run-of-the-mill obstacles like small walls to go over alternating with walls you had to crouch under. Then we hit the BIG wall. It had huge ropes hanging from it and some rungs that stuck out on the front, so while it was probably 12' high, I went over it quickly and easily (and passed folks here, too). Then we headed up onto the "mountain" trail, which was also very wet and muddy and had a good deal of slick climbing. There was a very annoying crawling feature in darkness (a tiny headlamp would be smart on these races, I think, but it would need to be small, waterproof, and cheap for the likely event you break it) and a huge cargo net feature that was thankfully more of a balance beam feature.

After leaving the mountain trail, you headed into the finish section. This started with a HUGE slide down a hill on plastic with running water on it. I was a little annoyed because as I approached there was nobody on it and four chutes and I was directed to the FURTHEST one away, with each runner behind me getting a closer path. SAY WHAT? I should have ignored the direction (I do not believe they would have DQ'ed anyone in this race for nearly anything) and taken the first one, but I did what I was told and ended up passed by one guy and maybe another just because they literally each had to run maybe 12 fewer steps than me! Ugh.

The proctors also yelled "no head first" as you approached. Hah! This thing was so long, fast, slick, and bumpy that it didn't matter. Go how you want, you're going to end up how IT wants you. I almost spun backward, but somehow found enough control to get my feet back forward. That was good, because the "end" simply slid you into a big area of straw that workers were constantly "fixing" with new straw as it got pushed down. So it was evident I could just put my feet down and pop up into a full stride, which is what I did. Matt said he actually did a complete 360 degree spin and did basically the same thing.

You ran through the straw and then into another water feature. It was just over knee deep with floating logs and chains of barrels to cross. That went fine until the last section of barrels. As I was crossing them, I put my hand on top of them to push over. My middle finger on my left hand slipped between two of the barrels right as they smashed together. Wow, serious pain. I jerked the finger out and it gushed blood from under the nail. And it's been seeping all day. Bye-bye, fingernail.

But I soldiered on, jumping over the row of fire and through the finish in 23:54. That was good enough for third quickest so far in the two heats of the day in my age group, but I'm sure will drop some as more waves completed. My target was to be top 5% of my age group for the entire event, and I think I probably did that. But I did not feel like I had anywhere near my best day, and I'm not entirely sure right now why. I haven't looked at the data close (I have GPS and HR data), but I will and I think I just need a day or two to let it all soak in. I definitely didn't make the same mistake as the Rugged Maniac...I paid no attention to my watch during the race!

I can say I had a lot of fun, and I hope they do that event again at that site next year. Compared with Rugged Maniac, they seem to have tougher obstacles and more of them (and way tougher than the Muddy Buddy, but that's really a different kind of race). The festival is also a little more impressive, though the medal and shirt weren't quite as good. I dunno, both were well done and I recommend both, but I'm looking forward to the Warrior Dash in Charlotte a little more now.

Muddy Buddy Race Report

2011-05-01T16:13:00.004-04:00

So today Alan and I competed in the Muddy Buddy race in Richmond, VA. The Muddy Buddy is a two man team race where you use one mountain bike and play "leapfrog" with it. Both start at the same time with one running and the other biking. The biker goes ahead and gets to the first transition point and drops the bike, does an obstacle, and starts running. The runner arrives at transition, does the obstacle, and grabs the bike and starts riding. Then you rinse and repeat a few times until the end, where you have to pair back up near the finish for a few more obstacles (including the mud pit), and through the finish line. It was a great event, but I'll start with our race planning...

My coach is wonderful about making sure I train like I'm going to race, or at least attempt to approximate it as much as we can without knowing EXACTLY how an event will go, and for that I'm very lucky. That said, sometimes you can't quite get it exactly right until you've done a particular event before, so there were unknowns. Like the fact that this is called the "muddy buddy" even though the percentage of actual mud on the course is less than 1%. If you'll recall my recent post on the Rugged Maniac, you'll know that one was mostly mud, so we expected a bit more.

After some better research, which was mostly going through picture albums from previous years on the drive up (Alan did that while I drove!), we decided that this wasn't as "muddy" a race as we thought it was going to be (especially with no rain in the forecast), so we decided to change from one of my bikes that I had prepped for this to his 29" mountain bike. It's a great bike, but it's on slightly less knobby tires than what I had prepped. Which was great for this course, but wouldn't have been as good if it had been really muddy.

So, on the way up we decided to go hit the XTERRA course Alan had raced on in the past. It's in downtown Richmond and would give us a chance to get some light work in on the day before the race, which contrary to popular belief really is the best thing to do. (I actually take the day before that off.) We did that, including some bike swapping so we both got some time on his bike with our trick new pedals. They are basically some HUGE platform BMX pedals that I borrowed from Reid with Power Grips added to them. I have big feet, and with both of us needing to wear trail running shoes, we needed something with a MUCH wider footbed than a typical bike platform pedal, and this was JUST the ticket. It's not quite as good as being clipped in completely, but definitely a world better than just riding on platforms. Still allows a good amount of "pull" when you need it, which you can't do on platforms alone. Also keeps you more stable on uneven surfaces, where platforms are easy to bounce off of. Note, too, that our bike of choice was a "hardtail", which means no rear suspension. To make matters "worse", we locked out the front shock so we had almost no front suspension. This course was pretty smooth, so we went with the setup that provided the most pedaling efficiency. We were averaging around 15MPH on our bike legs, so it was fast for a "mountain bike."

After getting our light work in, which was longer than my coach prescribed already, we headed over to the race site to see if there was anywhere we would be able to park my RV overnight. They have an awesome campground at that site, but we decided too late in the game to do this race at all to get a reservation and it was fully booked. But we hoped that wherever they were planning to park everyone who was driving in would be available to just park overnight as we didn't need any particular facilities anyway. They were unwilling to open that parking area, but the lady at the office said someone had showed up who had reserved two spaces but only needed one. She sent us to see him, and he promptly sold us his extra space with water and electric hookups! SWEET. Had we not arrived almost exactly when we did, that would have never happened. It would have been a Walmart parking lot about 4 miles away instead.

So we got in the campsite and got setup and decided to jump on our bikes and go find the course. Of course once we found it we found that we were allowed to check it out, so we started riding it. And rode all 6.9 miles of it! We took it very easy, and this turned out to be a GREAT idea. We planned where we'd leave the bike at each transition point, and got to see the obstacles enough to know they were going to be very easy, technically. We also learned there was no "mountain biking", just fast off road gravel racing and running. The only "technical" element would have been the creek crossing, except for the fact that it wasn't able to be ridden at all. The only way to KNOW that, however, was to see it the day before. Except you can't see what you need to see as the water was a bit too murky. So I took off my shoes and socks and waded in. I'm very glad I did that.

So we went back to the RV and had supper and planned things out for the race. There were five legs (with four transition points), which meant one of us had to do three runs and two bikes, the other two runs and three bikes. We decided it made the most sense for Alan to do the three runs, which turned out to be a great strategy. We also made sure we communicated as the biker passed the runner during the run leg, so the runner would know the bike would be in transition, as there was a chance the bike may be later arriving at middle transition points. This didn't end up happening, but was close on one occasion.

We got up race morning and got our nutrition in and headed over to the start. We did a good job of staying at the front of our wave with the bike, but we did learn one potential problem...they were starting the runners a full two minutes behind the bikers in each wave. We also realized there were a lot of casual competitors in all the waves, and our wave was next to last. That meant a LOT of passing would be happening, which is less than ideal, but the same for everyone in our age group, anyway.

At the start, I was lined up in the second line of bikes. I took off hard, but not quite true sprint speeds. I quickly found that trying to ride Alan's riding position and bike wasn't ideal and should have been trained for better. Next time. Well, and next time we'll probably do more of a "compromise" position instead of me fully adopting his position, especially since I was doing more of the biking than he was anyway. I noticed most of the guys ahead of me off the line seemed to be sprinting and only a few were pulling away any at all. So I kept my pace and before half the leg was over I was in the lead of our wave. I kept on it pretty hard and got into transition and over the first obstacle (a small climbing wall) and headed out on the run. It's worth noting they had water stations at every transition, but I rarely get much water out of a cup into my mouth if I'm trying to run hard, and with my total run being a one mile leg and a 1.35 mile leg, I wasn't willing to "take it easy" so I could drink. I knew we'd be under an hour in this race, so hydration just wasn't necessary (the winners last year were a mid 47 minute time in our age group).

So I started at a pretty good clip and ended up running that first leg at around a 7:50 pace. I thought I could pull a little better than that, and I may have and just can't pull it out of the data exactly. It wasn't better than a 7:30, though, which was about where I thought I'd be. I thought if I ran that hard after a really fast bike leg that I'd have to wait just a little for Alan at this transition, but he ran so fast to start that he ended up passing me back right before transition, which was basically ideal. So we both did the "frog maze" at the same time and headed out again (a "frog maze" is a small maze you have to crawl through that's got solid walls and is covered, so it's fairly dark...but it was so easy there was no getting lost).

I started to feel the legs pretty good in this stint, but dug hard and got to transition. I chucked the bike where Alan could find it and took off through an inflatable "obstacle course". That would have been easy, but there were people "stuck" in there that made it a little dangerous and definitely slowed me down by 20-30 seconds just waiting. There's just nothing else you can do if you hit the obstacle at the wrong time like that. And it's not like I could have just beaten those people by being faster...they were slower people from previous waves.

Took off on this run, but was really struggling. I think this was more of a 9:30 pace stint. Couple hills got to me a little, and my legs just felt a little heavy. I think I just need more experience feeling like this, though, to know I can power through. I also need a little more work doing short distance running for speed, too, but for other reasons I've needed to get the base miles in to get my distance capability up, so that kind of thing will come. Alan passed me a lot earlier than I would have liked here, so I knew I was holding up the team just a little. He got the bike to the final transition and I got in there and got through it and took more time finding the bike than we hoped, but got it and got through. The problem there was simply the time gap meant a lot more bikes came in after he left, so it was "buried" a little deeper than I was expecting.

At this point, we were in the final leg. What I needed to do was catch him, but didn't really need to pass him since we had to finish the last obstacles together anyway. The creek crossing went very well for him thanks to my recon work, but it didn't help me as much because again, I got there with traffic in the way. It was a narrow area we were allowed to cross, and I was behind a clump of people. You can't really just squeeze between people when you have to carry a bike, which we did thanks to the rock ledge as you went into the water. But I got through, got past the clump, and took off. From here a lot of it was uphill to the finish, and I really felt burn in strange places in my muscles thanks to the odd riding position that I wasn't used to.

I actually never did catch Alan, but it turns out he only had to wait maybe 30 seconds for me, so I didn't hurt our time too much in those final two legs. I dumped the bike and we hit the rope wall and then plowed through the mud pit and to the finish. We were fairly certain we had done very well, but decided to head back to the RV to clean up. As we talked more about who we saw where (each wave had a color coded wristband, so it was easy to know if you were passing or getting passed by people in your wave, which likely meant they were in your age group), we realized we really did probably do very well, so we hurried back over and checked the results. Turns out we won our age group by over a minute! And qualified for the Muddy Buddy World Championships in December! YES! Our time was also nearly two minutes faster than the winning time from last year. Supposedly the only changes to the course were to add two hurdles to the running legs, so it wasn't any easier than last year. So, needless to say we're really proud of our finish!

Today was a great day. Thanks to running?!?

2011-04-12T19:24:00.005-04:00

Me (blue shirt) near the Rugged Maniac start.

I recently blogged about the Rugged Maniac race that I did this past weekend, which was mostly gushing about how much fun I had, including a mention that I will do more races like this. In the time since then I’ve been researching and planning. There are definitely more of these in my near future! So today was my first scheduled training run since then, but today didn’t start off so hot...

To back up a bit, I’ve had to get up early a few mornings in a row, and I haven’t been getting to bed as early as I should (my own fault). My schedule this week is such that I couldn’t do strength training on my normal Monday/Friday kind of plan, so yesterday I got my strength coach (we’ll call him J as I’m not sure he wants any more clients...let’s just say I’m pain enough for him!) to let me work out again today. Only catch was I had to be in at 8am (I usually see him at 9:30 or 10am). So I had to get up even earlier (I always try to get up about an hour and a half before a workout to eat breakfast so that it has time to digest before I start). So when the alarm clock went off at 6:30 I struggled. Bad. I had a million excuses in my head. But I fought through all of them and got up and got my breakfast.

Gingerly I went up and down the steps. I was sore. I think this past weekend and yesterday’s three workouts (lower body weights, swimming, and some riding on the trainer) got to me pretty good. Sigh. But J had promised me we’d do core and upper body today, and I was mostly only sore in the lower body, so I pushed on. J could tell I was kind of beat today, but I think he sensed it was sleep more than a truly tired body, so he kept after me and we got a really good workout in. As much as he doesn’t really care for endurance sports (he’s an athlete builder, but prefers the muscle and power side rather than the endurance thing), he knows what I need and tailors things very nicely. At the end, though, I was pretty well spent.

I headed home, got a shower, and then went back out for my haircut. The lady that cuts my hair (we’ll call her A as I KNOW she is full up on clients right now) was even out of sorts a bit as she recently had surgery on her wrist and I don’t think it’s healing quite as fast as she had thought it would, so she basically worked one handed. I know what you’re thinking...and you needn’t worry about it. My hair is fine (well, as fine as it has ever been, anyway). A is more talented with one hand than most hair people are with two. That’s why she stays booked up. She’s also quite an awesome person and we joke that she’s my “life coach”, but it’s only half-joking as she really is one of those people you learn things from with every conversation.

So after that I went in search of cheeseburgers and a shake. Yeah, I know, I suck at the nutrition thing, but dammit, I needed cheeseburgers and a shake today. So I went to Char-Grill and had a couple hamburger steak sandwiches, and then to Chick-fil-A for a shake (Chapel Hill needs more good shake options!). That did good things for my mood, but I went home and found myself on the couch in a near-nap state for a couple hours before I needed to go pick up Kevin from school (Ashley was gone on a school field trip with Zach’s class to the zoo). I was dreading pick-up time...not because of having to do it, but because I knew that right after I needed to hit the trail for today’s scheduled run. In my near-nap state I had another few million excuses come up as to why I couldn’t run, but again, none of them were good enough. So when I got home, I prepped my gear, which includes getting my iPhone and starting Pandora. I’m kind of addicted to Pandora during my training runs these days, so I put it in my mesh fanny-bag-thingamajig and went outside to stretch. As I was doing that, the clouds were swirling and it was spitting just a little bit of rain. But it had been doing that all day, so I didn’t really think much of it.

Then I recalled a recent conversation with my endurance coach, Sage Rountree, where I asked what she did with her iPhone to keep from damaging it on her long runs (she had mentioned using the new Training Peaks GPS software for run tracking on her phone). She runs for hours and hours and hours and hours at a time, which can mean having to run in weather that’s sometimes less than palatable. Anyway, she said she basically just wraps it in cling-wrap and puts it in a mesh fanny-bag-thingamajig (that’s my own technical term, please do not steal it...I will hunt you down and punish you severely). I remembered that and decided to run back inside and wrap my phone just in case.

Good idea. The minute I began my run the bottom fell out and instantly soaked me.

But you know what? I took that as a bit of a sign. See, if you want to compete in adventure races like the Rugged Maniac, you have to be ready to run through mud and muck and whatever they decide to throw at you. And it might rain to boot. I had already been thinking about running through the occasional puddles and streams I used to jump over or go around, and this was just reinforcement that it was time to begin that. Today. Now. So I did. And boy did it feel great. I don’t know why, and I don’t know if it will last, but it felt GREAT. The rain ended quickly, but I ran through a stream instead of doing my usual rock-to-rock dance. I ran through a big puddle. I took a trail that I knew was soft even when it was dry, so today it was mud. And it was awesome slick mud goodness. Then I got to another stream and just started running IN the stream. Splash splash splash. Around downed logs too big to hop. Over the others. Avoiding the rocks that looked like they’d probably be slick. Splash splash splash.

I continued on for my prescribed thirty minutes looking for all the soft spots I could remember having to avoid in the past when the ground is wet like this. And I found them, one by one, and I relished every squishy step. I was also thinking about where I’d do the next part of my prescribed workout...strides and skips. Strides are just a quicker pace than the normal training pace (about what I’d run if I were racing a 5K) and 20 seconds of them. With perfect form. Then immediately I was to do 40 skips (20 each leg). Sage was funny in her instructions in that she quipped that I was lucky to have so much “private” land to do these skips. Little does she know that in each of the last couple summers I’ve been a part of some pretty cool outside workouts with J and some big-time athletes he trains and they always include skips (and those happen very much out in public!). J likes to yell at us, so not only are they skips, but they have to be HIGH skips. Slack off and you get yelled at. If nobody slacks off, he just finds the guy who skips with the least amount of amplitude and yells at him (which might sometimes be me, I admit...okay, it's always me). So I pretended J was there (he doesn’t yell but a handful of different things, so it’s pretty easy to hear him in your head) and I did my skips with amplitude.

I wanted to do these six sets of strides and skips out in the open, so I did them in a small field that wraps around a pond we have. It’s “private” out there, but the ground is also very uneven, slightly sloped, and can also be really soft in places when it’s this wet. Perfect training ground. You HAVE to pay attention. Heck, there are even groundhog tunnels that create problem places to watch out for. In the interest of full disclosure I will admit that I used the slope to my advantage and did the strides downhill today. I will not always do that, but today felt like a good day to do that. I did the skips on level ground, then walked back up.

I can’t explain why, but something struck me during that part of the run. I felt great. Sure, I was tired. But I felt GREAT. Alive. Free. Somewhat moved, even. And when I finished that last skip, I immediately started back into the last ten minutes of my run. No walk back, no recovery. It wasn’t necessary. I felt great. And I finished my run thinking the entire way about everything I’ve written here. And how I somehow needed to write it.*

* I don’t know why, but I also came to another realization. I’ve always suspected it, but I am a writer. Probably not much of one, mind you, because I’m not much of a reader, but I think anyone who has things in their head that they feel they MUST write is, by definition, a writer. At least by my definition. Not every blog entry of mine is something I have to write, but many are. That answers why I blog, I guess, which is another question I get from time to time.

So I finished up my run and stretching, picked up some packages that had arrived for me, and went to the house to get my recovery drink and have a shower. One of the packages wasn’t something I was expecting, so I opened it up to find one of the most thoughtful and unexpected gifts I’ve ever gotten. It’s not a story I want to go into here (I’ve rambled on long enough), but I’m truly blessed to have such great friends in this life. Then it was off to a wonderful dinner with my family and our “exchange student”, Chris. I tried to make up for the cheeseburgers and shake by having the blackened salmon salad, but then went awry again with a mixed drink. Now we’re home and I have my legs up while I finish this. For such an awful start, it sure was a great day...thanks to running in the rain and mud and doing glorious skips and a wonderful unexpected surprise.

"You don't use bookmarks?!?"

2011-04-11T21:04:00.006-04:00

I got this question tonight after a friend asked me about syncing such things like bookmarks and contacts and email and finding out I don't actually use bookmarks. Apparently this wasn't considered normal. Worse is I had to admit I haven't used bookmarks in at least 12 years.

But how could this be? How does one live without bookmarks?

Well, it's no great secret that I'm lazy. But strangely, it's my laziness that causes me to not use bookmarks. Back when I did use them I remember being constantly annoyed at having to file them into usable groups and then remember or figure out which group I had put them in. Then I needed to cull the no-longer-necessary ones or things still got out of hand. So ultimately they did get out of hand and I just stopped using them.

But how? Well, mostly because of Yahoo! search, and then Google once it got better and faster (and, coincidentally, it was around this time that my old company, Red Hat, actually had meetings and attempted to buy Google long before they went public). If I couldn't remember the URL I needed, I just did a quick search and clicked on the result. These days it's even easier, as your browser caches the places you visit and can do "auto-complete" for you if you type any small part of the URL. Now, I don't often go places where I can't remember some word in the URL, so this makes life easy. For example, if I'm looking for the twitter page for the Warrior Creek race:

Then I just click the down arrow twice and hit enter. Boom. No muss, no fuss.

But do I do that for all the pages I visit multiple times per day? Nope. I simply leave those open in my browser all the time. Firefox (and Safari and probably other browsers) now do tabbed browsing as well as session management. This means that you can open multiple web sites in different "tabs" in your browser. And if you quit your browser those sites come right back into the same places when you start it again. And now Firefox even has what they call "application tabs", which let you make certain sites use tiny tabs with no words. It is even smart enough to highlight things like the Twitter tab when there are unseen tweets. Check this out:

To explain further, from left to right, we see a Twitter tab (with unseen messages), a Facebook tab (no new notifications), a Tarheel Sports Car Club forum tab, another useless racing forum, then a "page not found" tab, etc. So I actually do generally have anywhere from ten to thirty different tabs open across different Firefox windows.

So, to ease my "no bookmarks" pain, I simply leave everything open I use often, use the cache to type part of a URL that I've visited before, or failing those, a quick Google usually gets it in a click or two. So the only real pain is when I'm using a new device for the first time, but that's not terribly often, and definitely not enough to go back to the pain of maintaining bookmarks.

How rugged are you?

2011-04-09T13:06:00.003-04:00

Well, I don't know how rugged you are, but I'm feeling pretty rugged right about now. Just got home from the Rugged Maniac 5K in Asheboro. Wow, that was fun!

Got there in time to watch the start of a wave before our start, which was incredibly useful. Much like our bike race last weekend, there was a choke point near the beginning that caused a long line of people to have to almost stand and wait. So we made sure we got near the start line for the start, and we bolted pretty hard at the beginning.

The only problem with that was I was worried about it spiking my heart rate, so that made me watch my heart rate, which made me slow down in the middle of the race more than I really should have. I learned my lesson there...I really can go in the 170's for a 5K and even navigate obstacles just fine. But we never got choked at any obstacles, so it worked out pretty well.

Obstacles? Oh yeah, OBSTACLES! They were AWESOME. Early on there was a water and mud pit covered in barbed wire you had to crawl through. I mean completely soak yourself in muddy water awesomeness. Then there were all sorts of other obstacles including MANY walls to scale, tubes to crawl through (which were also all muddy at this point), rope ladders to climb, fires you had to jump over, and long "skinnies" you either ran across or waded through water beside. Even just the trail part was SOFT mud that caked your shoes instantly. At the end was a huge slide you went down into a water pit with floating pipes you had to go over, then you had to scale a 4' vertical mud wall and off to the finish.

There simply was no way to do this without being completely soaked and nasty. The tips I have for a race like this are to start at the front and start fairly hard, wear GOOD trail shoes, and wear as little clothing as you can get away with because it will be instantly soaked. Oh, and keep an eye after EVERY obstacle to make sure you don't lose your number since it has your timing chip on it. Many competitors lost theirs, and many had to just run holding it.

Alan finished in about 24 minutes and I think I was about 25 and a half in our wave. I forgot to start my watch right at the beginning, but didn't miss too much of it, I don't think. Less than a minute, probably. The data is here. You can see I actually lost my Garmin cadence pod off my shoe about 12 minutes in. I'm not entirely sure about the 189 HR spike in there, but an average of 172 is pretty high for me, but maybe where I need to be for a race this short. But I do know I really could have pushed harder in the middle than I did...I kept trying to get my HR back down in the 160's for some stupid reason, and that cost me a good bit of time.

I really don't feel burnt out for the day, either. I really think if I took a few hours to rest, eat, and then warm back up well, I could actually go out and do that course again even faster just from knowing the obstacles better. I did pass a lot of people thanks to obstacles, but I also felt like I could shave a good bit MORE time on my next race like this. And there will be more!

Training at the ranch by running on my trails, even on rainy days, was a HUGE help. And it made me want to put in some optional obstacles. Muahahahahahaaaaaaaa. Anyone know where to buy huge rope nets?

Want to see me race a mountain bike?

2011-04-05T20:33:00.005-04:00

I used to wonder what I looked like, but now I'm a little frightened by it. I mean why couldn't I have my mouth shut? Oh, right, I breathe through it. Then why couldn't I be doing something cool with my tongue like Michael Jordan? In case you forgot:

I wanna be like Mike, really I do, but I guess it just ain't happening. At least we both had the red thing going. That reminded you of Mike, didn't it? Just a little, even? No? Damn.

Warrior Creek Six Hour Mountain Bike Race Report

2011-04-02T19:16:00.005-04:00

Well, I've been training for it for a while now, and today we headed to North Wilkesboro for the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek. My friends Alan, Bob, Michael, and Tom all shared a pit space, and Reid and I partnered up to do the race as a team (the rest of the guys went solo). The way the race works is there is a 13 mile loop and you complete as many laps as you can complete before the 5.5 hour cut-off when you can start one more (which also must be finished in under seven full hours). The first lap is 13 miles but has nearly a mile of pavement first to help string the field out, but all the rest of the laps are trail only.

If the mile of pavement was supposed to string us out, I can't imagine what would have happened without it. The big problem was the area got a reasonable amount of rain overnight, so as soon as people hit the trail, it was stop and roll city for several full minutes thanks to soupy mud. Things settled out to where you could ride finally, and then it was just sloppy and nasty and crazy. There were steep hill sections where one person would spin out and cause a huge pile-up behind of riders who had to walk because once you lost your momentum, there was no re-starting in the soup. Some spots were so slick you couldn't walk your bike up without being VERY careful. I saw several walkers fall, not to mention a bunch of riders falling here and there. Heck, I had to slalom a few downed folks once.

One problem I found was a little too much of a willingness to just ride behind people that I would catch rather than bothering to try to pass. Passing on these courses is kind of bad as it is, and in this soup it could be downright dangerous. But I still could have been a good bit more aggressive in going around people instead of settling for their speed instead of mine, and I worked on that later. But this first lap was more about survival, and survive I did. It was pretty slow at 1:26 (I had done an "easy" ride about 10 days before that was 1:21), but I had no crashes and only had to walk up maybe two very slick hills. Tom apparently did a 1:08 on the first lap, but that was in huge part thanks to lining up on the front row (I was a minute back in the pack) and doing a huge sprint on the start to be up with the experts when he hit the trail. So no big traffic, and he's just fast. Alan was second out of our group at about 1:25, I was third, and Michael was right behind me (I actually didn't pass him until the last climb when he had a minor fall in a slick spot). Bob was a good ways back, but he hasn't been able to train like he would have liked and riding solo was really just taking it easy.

I passed off the team duties to Reid, and he went out and did about a 1:30 lap. That was pretty good given his level of training (and bike choice, which was a little bit limiting), and apparently the mud did a LOT of drying during his lap. In fact, I chose ten minutes before the start of the race to switch from my 29" bike with fast rolling but small knobby tires to my 6" travel full suspension bike that had big knobbies on it. Excellent choice given the slop (I knew it had rained, but I thought it was just a small amount that wouldn't affect the awesome clay at Warrior Creek...thankfully I came to my senses!). But what I didn't know was how well it dried...so I went back out on the same bike. Bad move. That bike is heavier and robs a lot more power via the rear suspension, and my 29" bike is a hard tail. And has fast rolling tires. And the course was now just good and tacky, which would have been perfect. Oh well, didn't cost but maybe a couple minutes, I'd guess.

The second lap for me (and third for the team) started out kind of weird. Even though I trained a few times by doing hard rides, taking a long break, and going hard again (thanks coach!, I wouldn't have done that without you and it would have been worse), it still took a mile or so to get back in the flow. But when I did, wow did it feel good. Unfortunately, I didn't keep myself in check and I really started flying. I was passing aggressively (but nicely!) and really rolling well. But I sort of just blew out early thanks to that...I was at the six mile marker in just 35 minutes, but died on the second half. I could have done a third lap thanks to the break, but it wouldn't have been much fun.

I got back in and handed it over to Reid (just in front of Alan!), and he did great for about four miles, but then he blew out, too. His final lap was right around two full hours, and we missed the cut-off to start a fifth lap. I really feel like we would have made that if the conditions would have been perfect from the start, but that first mud lap really sapped the energy and killed my time (I was hoping to be under 1:10), and I think Reid's first lap (even though it was drying up) did the same to him.

My real goal, having never done anything like this before, was to simply have fun for the entire ride. Unfortunately, it was all but impossible to enjoy that first lap, but even so I didn't hate it, either. I sort of felt like it was kind of neutral, which was kind of a mental achievement in itself. If you had told me the course was going to be that muddy I might not have raced at all, but having done it I don't think I'd shy away next time if I really felt like it was going to dry out like it did. The second lap was one I really did enjoy, with the only exception being most of the climbs on the last half of it (which aren't terrible, honestly, so it's not like they ruined my fun or anything). It was a lot of fun stepping up the aggression level and having it pay off in terms of passing, too. My big fear in doing that is always that you over-do it and pass someone that's just in a little rest zone or something and then you have to let them go by you when you die on a climb, but that never happened. Which makes sense as once people are that spread out on a course, if you catch them, you ARE faster than they are. And as a team rider, there were a LOT of solo riders who were kind of starting to die pretty hard on their third lap (to my second!). So I got to do a lot of passing.

One of my bigger fears about mountain bike racing from the beginning was passing. By design most of these trails are fairly narrow, and since you're racing you'd think it would be hard to pass. But racers generally have a lot of respect for one another and if you catch someone they will often OFFER you a place to pass. And even if they don't, all you have to do is "claim" a pass by letting the rider know which side you intend to pass on (verbally....a simple "pass on the right") and they will almost always not only move over, but slow a bit to let you get it done easily. It helps to pick your passing spots well, too, so it doesn't slow the other rider much, or simply make sure you have the legs to BLAST by. I really like that part of this sport. I'm sure once you get to the top levels and you're nearing the end of a big race, the etiquette dries up a little, but that's to be expected.

Anyway, we completed four laps and had fun. Tom completed four and barely missed the cut-off to do another (thanks to a heinous flat tire early in the race that cost him 20 minutes!), and Alan was second in the group with four as well but right at six hours. Michael did three in under the cut-off, but chose to stop there thanks to some big cramping issues. Bob did three in just under six hours and was really happy with that. The laps were almost exactly 13 measured miles, but the berms and switchbacks always fool the GPS into thinking it's shorter and show only 11 miles or so. You can see my data from the ride here.

So, long day, but a lot of fun. I'm a little bewildered that my power average was only about 25W higher than where I have been training, but honestly I did go 26 miles. That is further than I typically ride, too, by a decent amount, so going longer and a significant amount harder is still a nice accomplishment. I have no idea how we finished relative to everyone else, and don't care too much, either. I'll look at the results whenever they get them available online, but for now I'm just gonna recover (plug!) and look forward to more riding and more fun and getting even better.

What do we learn by teaching?

2011-02-23T18:04:00.004-05:00

A string of recent events in my life have led me to ask what do we learn by teaching? There are a lot of general answers to this, and I'm sure there's a lot of study about it. First I'd like to share some anecdotal evidence of things I've learned by teaching.

The first thing I noticed when I started doing high performance driving instruction was how much I learned about how to be a better driver from teaching. One of the main things is the most obvious, and that is it simply reinforces those things you already know. You hear yourself telling your pupil what you want from them, and it helps solidify those things in your own mind. Their questions and struggles might be things you've questioned or struggled with yourself. Even if not, sometimes it's enlightening to see what others do struggle with and relate that to how you might have been struggling and not even realized it. But either way, this all relates to getting better yourself at the things you know how to teach.

Another thing we learn by teaching is what we don't know. Sometimes we can teach things we can't actually DO ourselves, but most of the time that's much more difficult. If you can't do it yourself then you find a need to learn it quickly, or at the very least recognize it's a skill you lack and lack the ability to teach and might want to learn before you take on another student. But teaching can be a good way to learn your own shortcomings. Well, it's good for the teacher, maybe not so much for the student!

Something else we learn by teaching are valuable attributes like patience. Coaching kids on sports teams is really a lot of teaching, and it's an environment where you are required to have a lot of patience. It's really not acceptable to do it if you can't have the patience to keep from getting angry or upset when the students don't get it as fast as you'd like...or worse, simply won't bother to learn it because practice is too close to bed time, they haven't had supper yet, or school was simply a complete drain on their cognitive ability for the day.

Okay, so those are some things you learn from teaching. Today I got some nice praise by being a good student, and that got me to thinking about why I might actually be a good student. Now, don't get me wrong, I did pretty well in school. I attribute that to a reasonable IQ along with a fear of getting in trouble for not doing what was expected of me (for the most part). But what about now? Is it just those things? Is there something more? Yes, I think there is something more. Something much more. There has to be something more, because I think I'm a much better student now than I ever was. I think that difference comes from my experience as, you guessed it, a teacher.

Having had a variety of experience now as a teacher (and no, I'm not claiming to be very good at being a teacher...far from it, but that's not the point here), I know the feeling you get when a student has an epiphany. I want my teachers to have that. But not necessarily because I just love my teachers or anything sappy (I mean I do, I do love you teachers!), but also because that epiphany feels good. It's a mutual thing. I know they are in it at least partly because they enjoy that feeling of seeing a student succeed, and I'm in it because I want to succeed, too. So while I'm only doing things I want to do and be good at, I also enjoy seeing my teacher have that sense of success that comes with me succeeding. It's really what we're both in it for, after all.

Okay, so this is no great revelation. But what I couldn't help but wonder is how do we get our kids to become teachers themselves at an EARLY age? How do we maybe give them some of that experience of being successful teachers so they'll better understand what their own teachers go through? I've got some ideas, but I'd love to hear yours. What I know is that my kids often learn things that I don't know and next time that happens instead of saying "show me" I'm going to try to demand that they "teach me." We talked at the dinner table tonight about the difference in showing someone something and teaching someone something, and we're doing to try to adhere to that. And when they struggle with the teaching part, we'll try to help them. Nobody just inherently knows how to teach. It's a skill. But it's a skill that can be built at an early age, that much I'm sure. Maybe not all the intricacies of being a great college professor, but enough basics that they can more effectively help their peers, siblings, and at times, the parents.

It's never too late to learn, and often teaching is learning.

Why am I working out so much (or so hard)?

2011-01-17T20:20:00.000-05:00

For the last 9 years I've worked out with a professional strength trainer. At times it's been as many as five days per week, but for most of it I'd say the average was three times per week. Otherwise I was occasionally mountain biking and playing basketball. I've gotten a lot stronger and more explosive in that time, and both sports have seen the benefit of it. But a few months ago I dropped back to two days per week of strength training and added a professional endurance training coach to also get me running and biking more. How much? Three days of running and three days of biking. Each per week. And I take one day off completely, so that means two days a week I'm doing both strength along with running or biking. Oh, but there's more...I recently started a church basketball league, so while that's going on I also have two days a week where I'm playing basketball along with the running or biking.

So, why am I working out so much (or so hard)? I get this question a lot. Often times it really means different things. Sometimes it is literal because the person asking it doesn't know I play basketball and wonders what I'm training for. Sometimes it's more philosophical because they know I have a goal or two but they wonder why I have those goals. Sometimes it's something in between, I think. And sometimes the question comes with an incredulous tone...like "why would anyone want to do that?!?" That's the one I least understand because that one has some strange caring undertone. Like I'm crazy and they are concerned for me, which I find odd. There are plenty of people out there who are truly obsessed with training, and believe me, I'm not even near THAT scale.

At any rate, I do have some real goals. First, well, I want to live longer and be more healthy. Strength training alone won't do that. Second, I love playing basketball and want to remain good at it (and even continue to improve) for quite some time. Third, I want to be a much better mountain biker (I want to ride for longer periods, I want to conquer bigger hills and obstacles, and I want to enjoy killer days that much more by being ready for them). Last, I want to try to see if I can do triathlons.

Whoa, what? Triathlons? Those are a big deal. What's up with that? Well, I've done a couple now that were "adventure" triathlons, which meant they were kayak paddling, mountain biking, and trail running. Unfortunately, those are hard to find. What there are a good many of, however, is XTERRA triathlons, which are open water swimming, mountain biking, and trail running. I used to run cross country and track in high school, though for a time I was a self proclaimed "hater" of running. Probably because at some point (ie. most of my life) I was really bad at it.

The bigger problem, though, is that swimming thing. Now, don't get me wrong, I can swim. I have no problems jumping in a big bad lake from my boat and swimming around after my kids. But I've never done any kind of endurance swimming, and the few times I've tried to do it, I've failed miserably. And I'd say at some point I considered myself a "swimming hater", too.

So what the heck am I doing considering triathlons if I "hate" 2/3 of the sports? Well, that's just it. I don't really hate them. In fact, I'm finally starting to enjoy running some. Probably because it doesn't make me feel like I want to vomit and/or shoot myself for 95% of the time I'm doing it. I think I would hate it if I were trying to do it all on the road, but since I can do most of it on trail, well, I like it more. My mind stays engaged the entire time and can't wander to thoughts of being bored or how much something "hurts" or whatever. You have to watch out so you don't trip or break your ankle or whatever. There are surface changes to contend with, slippery roots, and the occasional snake who doesn't appreciate being awakened from his nap.

I'm just getting started with the swimming thing, but I'm treating it like some foreign task I've never done before and want to be really good at. I'm getting top notch coaching and trying to pretend that, other than being able to save my life if I screw up by using my instinctive swimming ability, I've never done this before. It's a completely new challenge in a completely new environment. It's giving me the opportunity to meet some new and interesting people, and honestly, I've found that a coach/athlete relationship is kind of awesome when the athlete is completely willing to throw themselves into what they're doing and the coach is doing what they love doing. It's a perfect mix, because both parties are going to see serious results.

My biking and my running have improved by a lot in four short months. I've got a little over three months to get my swimming passable before my first XTERRA triathlon. Now, I've got no real goal about how I finish. I have no idea what to expect, honestly. But I do have a friend who will be doing the event with me who has not only done a good many XTERRA events, but has done very well in them. So I don't have much to worry about with how the event itself will go. Sure, I'll make some transition mistakes and maybe worse, but the first event will be all about seeing what they are all about, learning how things go, and getting a good taste of it all. Will I do more? I have no idea. I'd say the chances are good, but I have to get better into this swimming thing first. I believe I can, though, and I know I have some GREAT coaches around me. I not only enjoy seeing my results, but I enjoy making them proud, too. I don't know why, but that part is something that helps me, too.

What else is there? Mountain bike races. Trail running races. And, not to be forgotten, the Krispy Kreme Challenge! Four miles broken up half way with a required consumption of a full DOZEN glazed hunks of awesome. Go big or go home, I always say! I am not ruling out an occasional traditional triathlon, though I don't generally enjoy road riding and find road running a little harder on my surgically repaired knees. But sprint triathlons may be an option as I do have a nice road bike on the way from Victor at The Bicycle Lab. It seems a waste to only use that bike for a trainer and two weeks at the beach (where there is no mountain biking, but there is a really great highway for road biking fairly safely).

The last reason for all this? Curiosity. I'm genuinely curious how far I can push things and how well I can do as a result. That's certainly only a small part, but it's also something out there. The handful of races I have done reminded me of something I had forgotten from my days of high school cross country: I race way better than I train. I think back then I thought that was just because I didn't like to train and was lazy. But now that I'm not so lazy, I find that I still race better than I train. I wonder if I'll find a point where that's no longer true, or I wonder if there's something inside me that will always let me beat anyone who I'm still near as a race nears its end. Competing in bigger and bigger races will answer that. Might as well go find out...

We need more bike lanes!

2011-01-13T15:16:00.004-05:00

And we need them where people ride for recreation! But no matter how you feel about it, click here and go fill out a survey about NC biking and walking on our roads. The more data they get, the more likely they are to do what the citizens want. Me, I hate mixing bicycles with traffic on 55MPH two lane twisty roads. However, if we had large beautiful loops with a reasonable bike lane in those areas, I'd be much more excited about it.

My thoughts on Puerto Rico

2010-11-21T20:26:00.005-05:00

So Ashley and I have been in Puerto Rico for the past few days and return home tomorrow. I'm kind of torn about this place. I really wanted to like it because it's an island that's easily reachable from the east coast and it's in a great climate. Turns out there are many things to like, too. The only rainforest in a US National Forest is El Yunque, and it's less than an hour drive from San Juan, the most english speaking of the Puerto Rican cities. El Yunque is truly a beautiful place, too. The picture above was taken from atop the second highest tower they have there. You have to hike up a very cool trail for about twenty minutes, but it is definitely worth it. A word of advice, though...definitely take rain gear or be prepared to get wet. We didn't get wet, but only because the rain came while we were at the top and we had a dry place to wait it out.

A couple days ago we took a drive from San Juan to the southeast corner of the island. That required a very long drive on a very narrow highway through the mountains. The mountains themselves were quite amazing, with the incredibly large stands of bamboo, some of it more than six inches in diameter and shooting up at least fifty feet. The coastal area was also quite amazing in it's beauty. This island has many rock cliffs to the ocean, but also amazing beaches in between.

The big problem is what the people have done to this place. Almost all buildings are built of concrete and have a flat roof. I'm guessing that's for hurricane protection. But apparently crime is also so bad here that everyone not only has bars on everything, they have tiny (or no) windows and usually concrete and/or steel fences. Many communities are gated with large walls. Even through the mountains, houses are small fortresses. Businesses, too. There's never anywhere reasonable to park, so people just park in the street. And then double park. Oh, and the streets...my my my. Potholes so big I'm sure there were people and cars lost in them. No signs on anything. Road names change on a whim, including major highways (and their numbers!).

There are various groups trying to push tourism in Puerto Rico, but that's a joke. They want tourist dollars, but from what I can see they aren't willing to make any kind of investment to get it. The first "overlook" we saw on the entire trip was inside El Yunque, and even those were a joke. The cabs are stupidly expensive...you're in for $10 minimum, and usually $14-19 for just an average ride of maybe 15 minutes. And good luck finding a cab unless you're at a big hotel. They don't drive around looking for fares...they go park at the nearest hotel and get out of the car and go hang out with the other cabbies somewhere sort of nearby.

Restaurant service? The food is good, but the service is terrible. Only once during the entire stay did we NOT have to ask for drink refills. That was at our own resort, where we did eat several times and did have to ask on every other occasion. And the service in general at the resort was stellar compared to everywhere else we visited. The highlight of our trip had to be eating here:

That's El Churry, a food stand in a truck. It was made famous by the TV show Man v. Food. Jonas saw it there and we had to go hit it. They make this churrasca sandwich that's pretty incredible. Just trust me and go get it if you're ever there. Notice you just go order, pay, and they hand you food. No opportunity to screw up the service there! Oh, and you are eating along the main coastal drag, and on a Saturday night that was an event in itself. Saw plenty of Fast-n-Furious wannabes, but the best was when we heard this thumping sound coming. Yes, it was from some major bass in a big stereo. As we looked for the source, we saw a minivan coming...with both front doors open and the driver and passenger BOTH standing in the doorjam (I guess he had the cruise set and was just reaching in for the steering). As we watched them go by in awe, we saw the source of the bass...both rear doors were open, too (held open by something, I'd imagine) and there was a rear wall of speakers pointed out the back. Heck, for all I know the thing was being propelled by the bass.

We even saw two natives go by on a Polaris RAZR. On a public street.

All in all, it's not a bad place. You do have to worry about crime, but it does have amazing weather and some amazing sights. The two forts and Old San Juan are stunning. El Yunque is kind of profound. The coast is beautiful. You just have to be in a little different mindset about some things. People say they drive crazy here. I don't think they drive crazy, but they do have a bit of oddness about how they drive that takes some getting used to. Oh, and the road signs are in Spanish. That's not as big a deal as you might think, though, because they all look like the same signs as the US, so you get used to that quickly. Our fairly new Garmin Nuvi GPS did have the roads, but the names did NOT match up and the GPS was VERY bad at routing via major versus minor roads, unlike in the US.

The biggest drawback? They don't have Mountain Dew here. I never once saw it in any store or at any fountain. Plenty of Pepsi and even 7-Up, though.

Two Days, Two Podiums!

2010-10-17T15:08:00.004-04:00

Hot on the heels of yesterday's team triathlon, I went back to Dark Mountain for the duathlon. It's never advertised with exact lengths, and that's because they seem to like to mix it up. Last year it was a 4.5 mile run, then 10 mile mountain bike, then a 2 mile run. This year the first two were the same, but the run at the end was changed to just over THREE miles. Oh man, I wasn't really happy about that. What's worse was last year's course was all trail and mostly a mile of up and then a mile of down. This year we had to go straight back up the dam (for the second time on the run, and once on the bike) and go do maybe a mile of trail, and then it was all road back. So it was more road than trail, which was my major beef. My knees don't care for the hard stuff!

Anyway, on to the race report. The first leg I needed to make sure I didn't do what I did yesterday and start too hard and get my heart rate too high. So I played it safe and ran to the bottom of the hill and then walked up. That put me last of the men and right beside the last lady. Then I took it easy getting going across the dam and got warmed up good before even trying to move much. Seemed to get warm fast, and reeled in Matt. We pretty much stayed together for the first three-fourths of the run, and at that point he stretched his legs out and pulled away by nearly a minute, I'd guess. For some reason, even though I felt like I kept the heart rate reasonable, I was pretty slow. I thought I was slower than least year, but it turns out I was pretty similar in time based on the data from last year's run leg. Even that had me bummed because I thought I'd be much better than last year. But last year I was fresh off a paddle, not a day removed from a really hard mountain bike ride.

I should mention here that I originally planned to carry a water bottle on this run, but opted at the last minute for a small Camelbak instead. That kept my hands free to more easily consume some Gu Chomps near the end of the run, as well as a salt supplement. I felt like I had plenty of fluids and proper nutrition this morning (including Gu Chomps a little while before the start and a salt supplement then, too). Then my plan was to swap to my bigger Camelbak for the ride that also has tools and spare parts in it, and after that leg to go on the TWO mile run with nothing. I didn't even think about the fluid situation with the change to a THREE mile race once I figured that out.

Even though Matt got to the first transition well ahead of me, I caught him here and we headed out together on the bike. Even more strange was another competitor beat me by even more and only left transition about a minute ahead. Matt and I stayed together up and across the dam and around the Welcome Center building, but I started pulling away on the singletrack. We did have to pass a LOT of runners from the running races that started after our race, but that trail is nice and wide, so that wasn't a problem. I doubt the runners cared for it, but I only had to slow for one and that was more my fault than her. But once we got out of that trail and out back on to the road, I never saw Matt again.

Then I headed up into the actual Dark Mountain trails, and not far in I had a very annoying reality hit me. Cramping calves. It was at the 2.5 mile mark according to my GPS, which was just about the same place this happened last year. I thought last year was because I forgot my salt supplements and didn't hydrate well enough, but apparently that's not entirely the case. It may be that no amount of salt or water was going to get me back in shape at this point in my training after that kind of ride yesterday, or it could be that I shouldn't have had quite so much sweet tea (and thus caffeine) yesterday. Or likely both. It's just strange that it happened at an almost identical place in the bike as last year with the exact same run before it (though last year I did also have a 3 mile paddle before the run, too).

Anyway, what I know is that the calf cramping was SEVERE at first. Mostly in the lower areas of the calf, and on both sides just depending on when I needed to put larger amounts of power into the pedals to climb. It was so bad at first that it seemed worse than I remembered last year, and I was seriously considering just quitting (about a mile from where this started the trail takes you back VERY close to the staging and start areas, so quitting would have been VERY easy). But as I worked on my breathing and consumed more water (yeah, I know, it's too late for that, but what the heck), it did seem to get better. I did have to walk a couple climbs (briskly, of course), which also helped stretch things out. By the time I got near the staging area I decided I might as well continue on as it seemed to subside to very tolerable levels. I'm really happy that's the way things went, because I really don't like the idea of quitting something I start. It's really gotta hurt.

So I continued on but with what seemed like fairly reduced climbing capability over yesterday. But I thought to check my power average, which I can easily get on my GPS, and found I wasn't down that much over yesterday. Hmmph, might as well lock in and get the most out of the fast sections of the trail since by now I'm really familiar with it, too. Next thing I know, I see a rider ahead of me occasionally. There's probably nothing better than a rabbit to chase when you haven't had one, so this was good. It was the guy I had seen in transition. Turns out he was climbing worse than me, so that's where I was seeing him mostly. But once we got toward the end and things started going downhill, I lost track of him again. He was on a full suspension bike and me a hardtail, though, so this all makes sense. He was losing power to his suspension while climbing, but could really rock the bumpy downhill.

I came out of the woods and headed around the field and into transition again. My rabbit was still in there, and it hit me that my legs still felt HORRIBLE and more water for this longer run would be nice. Fortunately I still had water left from the first run, so I swapped back to that Camelbak (along with all the other stuff to swap), and headed out with my rabbit-friend. We both walked up the big hill, then he took off and put a 10 yard or so gap on me across the dam. That gap would ebb and flow, but ultimately stay about the same as we ran the trail out with both of us walking some of the up-hills. My calves didn't mind the running, but my quads felt like big lumps of goo bouncing around and threatening cramping themselves. I think they were just so built up with lactic acid that it felt like they were going to cramp, but they never did.

Anyway, as we got to the end of the trail section (with a long stretch of pavement still remaining to finish the race), he stopped at the water station only to find no water left. That wasted most of the gap he had, but we hit the road with him having about a five yard gap that he turned into a ten yard gap and then a twenty yard gap. I figured this was his push to the finish. Hmm. Wait, I have that capability, too! Okay, so I turn up the speed a little, and notice I'm reeling him in SLOWLY. I also watched the road nicely to "shortcut" the large right hand curve a bit while he ran the entire outside. Every little bit counts. Then as we got to the dam I decided that it was time to open it up a bit more. Strangely, at that point he stopped to hug some lady that was running the other way (perhaps part of one of the other races going on that day? I don't know) and stopped as I got near telling her he had to go because he was hoping to stay in front of "that guy." He was smiling and cool about it, but I think he thought this was going to be no problem for him.

Yeah, that didn't exactly work out. At this point I was really into a much better pace, better than he had been in that entire leg. So as I went by he just exclaimed "well, so much for that last goal I had...good luck!" At this point I could hear my family, friends, and kids all yelling for me from down below the dam, and the kids were making their way up the dam to greet me. I was thinking at this point that I had probably started going fast WAY too early. There was no way I could maintain. But I just figured I needed to maintain it to the hill and then go down the hill quickly. Alan offered to let me toss my Camelbak to him, which I gladly accepted. I still had a HUGE distance to cover around the big field before the finish. I kept that pace pretty well around the "track", as they call it, but on the final straight to the finish I couldn't help popping a smile and really stretching out into a reasonable sprint. It wasn't a great sprint, but it was a very strong finish for me at that point. I was completely toasted, roasted, and composted.

But damn, it felt really good.

As I write this, I have my knees propped up and am reclined on the couch. It's been several hours and yet I'm still totally stoked. I don't exactly know why, either. Maybe it's that things went wrong, somewhat horribly wrong, and yet I kept working and figured out how to make it work. Maybe things weren't as horribly wrong as they felt right then, I don't know, but it seemed bad. And somehow I ran nearly 8 miles today with a 10 mile mountain bike in the middle, and I pushed it really hard and got everything out of my body that it had to give. And for that I was rewarded with the endorphins. And they feel good. I can't wait to do this race again and be even better.

Oh, the podium? Yeah, it wasn't so impressive. I was third in the under-40 group, but there were plenty of over-40 folks that beat me, and at most there were five in my group, and maybe only four. I beat Matt, but he just wasn't in the kind of shape this event requires and had severe cramping for much of the race. Kudos to him for pushing through what were MUCH more significant cramps than what I had. Alan totally crushed me today...that's the payback I deserved for my "fast for an old guy" comment yesterday. He's just plain fast, never mind being an old guy! I was just under three minutes slower on my bike ride today than yesterday. That still put me a few minutes faster than last year. Alan, however, did the bike leg in a very impressive 54 minutes, some 13 minutes faster than me today! That is basically the same gap we had last year, too. Amazing work.

Unfortunately Miles had to bug out due to some family issues, but both Michael and Ken beat me fairly handily, too. No idea about their times, but Alan did beat them. I think everyone had a good time, though. We need more races like this around!

For the folks interested in data, this is the bike leg and the run leg from the triathlon last year. This is the first run, bike leg, and second run from the duathlon this year. The first run and bike course were the same as the triathlon this year and last year. Sorry if this is somewhat incoherent...I'm kind of wiped out right now.

Podium Finish!

2010-10-16T16:39:00.004-04:00

So today my buddies, Alan Bocko and Matt Kimel, and myself competed in our first relay triathlon, the Dark Mountain Challenge. It's a three mile paddle, then a four and a half mile run, then about a ten mile mountain bike. Matt did the paddle, Alan the run, then I finished with the bike. The quick summary is that we finished second out of the team relay racers, which was probably only five or six teams. The winning team was about twenty full minutes ahead of us (1:56 to our 2:16), but they had a very serious paddler who beat us by maybe three or four minutes there, and then ONE guy did the run and bike, but he's a professional rider that is sponsored by Specialized. They were smoking in all phases. We did beat our other three buddies, Miles Pfeifer (paddle), Ken Riley (run), and Michael Cobb (bike). We had about seven minutes on them in the paddle, kept that interval on the run, and then Michael closed the interval by about two minutes on me. So they were about a 2:21. They finished third.

The backstory is that we did this race last year, but all three of us as individuals (our entire team, and Michael also did it along with some other friends who didn't make the trip this year). Matt showed he was really strong in the paddle by being fifth out of the water (overall) last year in what wasn't a very fast boat. Before that race I had purchased an 18' "surf-ski", which is a Hawaiian sit-on-top kayak that's really fast but really unstable. Just got a killer deal on Craigslist. The problem was it was so unstable when I tried it out that I opted for something a little more sane (long story there, but that boat kind of stunk for other reasons). But in the time in since, we learned that the surf-ski actually is a boat that can be mastered, with the big key being it's much more stable at speed, just not going slow or stopped. Fortunately we don't want to go slow or stop during the race, so Matt worked on it for a few weeks and got the thing down nice. And it is fast. They handicap boats for this race, but even with the extra handicap over the boat he paddled last year, Matt was three minutes faster (maybe more, I forget) this year. He paddled the three miles in 31:30, but with the seven minute handicap we were at a 38:30 for his leg. With some technique work Matt feels like he can shave a few minutes off this time, still.

Alan is fresh off a pretty bad achilles injury, so while he's still plenty fast, he was just a little off his time from last year at about 33:30. That's for about 4.5 miles of singletrack trail in an area that's very hilly and at a little bit of elevation. Still very fast for an old guy. And he'll get faster again.

My bike leg of the triathlon last year on this same course was 1:12, so I really wanted to beat that badly this year, especially since last year I had paddled three miles and run 4.5 before getting on the bike. This year I was fresh. I thought that was in major jeopardy, however, as I started out too hard. See, there's this HUGE hill you have to climb right when you get on the bike to go over the Kerr Scott Reservoir dam, and I went too hard there and didn't ease up enough to get my heart rate in check going across it. Then I realized it when I got in the first section of singletrack (about two miles worth) and STILL couldn't manage to get it back. After that, well, there's just so much up and down in succession that it just kind of sucked for most of the race. So my climbing really suffered.

To make matters worse, the Garmin GPS watch I have is pretty good most of the time at collecting data, but occasionally can be off by up to 20% of the total distance you've ACTUALLY covered. So around 30 minutes in I was just getting to four miles on the GPS. What? This is bad. It's a 10 mile course. I'm thinking this heart rate thing has me going slow. Wait, I'm not going slow. I'm going fast, just not as fast as I want to be going. And I remember "data can be wrong." So I just keep working with my breathing and trying to keep the heart rate in check and keep pushing. Then riders start passing me. Two or three guys and one girl! And let me tell you, she went by me like I was standing still. Fortunately all of those folks were doing the race as individuals, but yes, that means we got beat by a few individuals. That doesn't just mean they were in better shape than our entire TEAM, that means they overcame that part and transition time, since they had to do shoe changes and gearing up that we didn't have to do. Ugh. So now I'm worried again that I'm REALLY slow and the data isn't wrong. Shoot!

But after those folks went by (in fairly quick succession, thinking back), I never heard or saw anyone else. My biggest fear was that I had inherited a ten minute lead on Michael and would blow it all. But I know all I can do is ride my race. Trying to be Superman won't do anything but make it worse, so I keep breathing and churning. Turns out I actually only inherited a seven minute lead, and much to my surprise, I ultimately only lost two minutes or so of it! This is very good, I think. I finished in just under 1:05, with basically a 1:12 last year. So while I felt bad for most of my leg, I did beat it pretty significantly. And I think I could do much better, which is a good feeling, too, even if I didn't pull it off today. For reference, last year Michael beat me by six full minutes on the bike leg. This year he was about three minutes faster.

How will I fix this error for tomorrow? TOMORROW?!? Oh yeah, tomorrow there is a duathlon at the same location. Most of us from today are doing that race as individuals (there's no team option anyway). It's the same 4.5 mile run, followed by the same 10 mile mountain bike, followed by ANOTHER two mile run. Yeah, big fun. I'm looking at tomorrow's race as not a race at all. It's a training session that I must finish and just want to finish strong. Only it will have a starter's gun and a big group starting with me. Then I'll throw all that out the window for the two mile run at the end since I'll be in survival mode at that point anyway. (I'm sure my coach, Sage Rountree, will love that last comment!)

Here's a link to data from today, along with data from last year. Couple things of note...last year's data has this at almost ten full miles, this year only eight. Yet the course was almost identical. Last year I went 42MPH down the big paved hill, this year it's showing 47MPH. That's not possible, especially since I had to brake and swerve around a stupid pickup truck who decided to take his half out of the middle before I got to the bottom. That probably cost me 10 seconds of time, too, as the uphill on the other side was a LOT more pedaling than I've had to do in previous attempts. I am using a different GPS this year than last, but both are Garmin devices. The same watch that I used last year had me at 43.5MPH on that same hill a few weeks ago, and that's without a truck trying to kill me.

Also of note is that this year I have a power meter on my bike. I put out an average of 268W for this entire ride according to Garmin Connect, which is around 40W higher than my training averages. That's a pretty significant percentage and I'm very happy with that. But it means I could probably train harder, too. *cough* (And for reference, the Power Meter is a separate device from the GPS and the data so far has appeared to be much more trustworthy. It does get logged by my GPS, but it's made by a different company and is actually a physical device in the crankset.)

The final word for those of you still awake after all this is to thank my coach, Sage. This weekend is going so much better thanks to her help. She's only been working with me right at a month, but I can feel a ton of improvement that simply wouldn't have happened without her. I can't wait to see what we can do in the coming months!

In memory of Carolina Freight

2010-09-12T20:43:00.005-04:00

I have a soft spot for the old trucking companies that used to move this nation's products. My grandfather was a truck driver when I was growing up, and because of that, "trucking" was always just something that was cool to me. Of course my favorite movie of all time is Smokey and the Bandit, but other trucking movies like Convoy and TV shows like BJ and the Bear hold a special place in my heart. A recent news article on WRAL brought me back to some memories of seeing Carolina Freight trucks on the road. My grandfather did work for them for a couple years and my other grandparents lived near the hometown of Carolina Freight, Cherryville, NC. So growing up I got to go to the C. Grier Beam Truck Museum in Cherryville.

I was very happy to find that museum is still alive and well, and from the pictures looks to be the same as I remember it. I definitely hope to get my kids in there one day, and do recommend it for those of you who remember Carolina Freight trucks roaming the interstates or just enjoy looking at some very cool old trucks (from back in the days when the "sleeper" was actually on the front of the trailer rather than the back of the cab of the truck!).

Why do we hate entrepreneurs?

2010-08-25T17:36:00.003-04:00

This was forwarded to me by my Dad from the gl1800riders.com forum and I think it deserves sharing. Thanks to the original author.

This Is Why There Are No Jobs in America

I'd like to make you a business offer.

Seriously. This is a real offer. In fact, you really can't turn me down, as you'll come to understand in a moment…

Here's the deal. You're going to start a business or expand the one you've got now. It doesn't really matter what you do or what you're going to do. I'll partner with you no matter what business you're in – as long as it's legal.

But I can't give you any capital – you have to come up with that on your own. I won't give you any labor – that's definitely up to you. What I will do, however, is demand you follow all sorts of rules about what products and services you can offer, how much (and how often) you pay your employees, and where and when you're allowed to operate your business. That's my role in the affair: to tell you what to do.

Now in return for my rules, I'm going to take roughly half of whatever you make in the business each year. Half seems fair, doesn't it? I think so. Of course, that's half of your profits.

You're also going to have to pay me about 12% of whatever you decide to pay your employees because you've got to cover my expenses for promulgating all of the rules about who you can employ, when, where, and how. Come on, you're my partner. It's only "fair."

Now… after you've put your hard-earned savings at risk to start this business, and after you've worked hard at it for a few decades (paying me my 50% or a bit more along the way each year), you might decide you'd like to cash out – to finally live the good life.

Whether or not this is "fair" – some people never can afford to retire – is a different argument. As your partner, I'm happy for you to sell whenever you'd like… because our agreement says, if you sell, you have to pay me an additional 20% of whatever the capitalized value of the business is at that time.

I know… I know… you put up all the original capital. You took all the risks. You put in all of the labor. That's all true. But I've done my part, too. I've collected 50% of the profits each year. And I've always come up with more rules for you to follow each year. Therefore, I deserve another, final 20% slice of the business.

Oh… and one more thing…

Even after you've sold the business and paid all of my fees… I'd recommend buying lots of life insurance. You see, even after you've been retired for years, when you die, you'll have to pay me 50% of whatever your estate is worth.

After all, I've got lots of partners and not all of them are as successful as you and your family. We don't think it's "fair" for your kids to have such a big advantage. But if you buy enough life insurance, you can finance this expense for your children.

All in all, if you're a very successful entrepreneur… if you're one of the rare, lucky, and hard-working people who can create a new company, employ lots of people, and satisfy the public… you'll end up paying me more than 75% of your income over your life. Thanks so much.

I'm sure you'll think my offer is reasonable and happily partner with me… but it doesn't really matter how you feel about it because if you ever try to stiff me – or cheat me on any of my fees or rules – I'll break down your door in the middle of the night, threaten you and your family with heavy, automatic weapons, and throw you in jail.

That's how civil society is supposed to work, right? This is Amerika, isn't it?

That's the offer Amerika gives its entrepreneurs. And the idiots in Washington wonder why there are no new jobs…

Regards,

Porter Stansberry

Movie Review: Toy Story 3

2010-07-15T09:21:00.003-04:00

Ashley and the boys took me to see Toy Story 3 yesterday as my Father's Day present. I was a big fan of the first one, but thought the second one was just okay. But the reviews seemed very good for three, so I went in with high expectations.

It did not disappoint. Very good movie. I'm impressed they've been able to keep so much of the original cast involved through three of these. They have also been able to dramatically increase their abilities as far as the computer generation of the graphics. The facial expressions are incredible, as is Buzz's spanish dance scene. Amazing work.

This was by far the most emotionally moving of the three movies for me, and I'm sure it will be for any parent. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that the theme of the movie is what happens to all the toys as Andy prepares to leave for college. I mean I know my kids will leave one day, and I thought I was fine with it, but wow. This movie drives that realization home. Even with that, I still really enjoyed it. Nice work, Pixar.

Goodbye, George

2010-07-14T13:18:00.003-04:00

So, I've never been a huge baseball fan, but I've been enough of one that I've always sort of hated the Yankees and in particular, George Steinbrenner. But much like I felt when Dale Earnhardt died, I was sad to hear George had passed. I felt like I lost something, and that something was something I enjoyed hating. Hating is probably an exaggeration, but that's what we do with sports. That's what they are for. Someone to cheer for, and conversely sometimes, someone to hate.

There's been a lot of rhetoric about how big "The Boss" was not only in baseball, but in the world of sports and even in the world that is New York City. To me there's one simple way to point to what George built with the Yankees, and that is what every baseball player strives for: To be courted by the Yankees. Make no mistake, there are plenty of kids that grow up playing baseball and hating the Yankees. But ask even those kids what the biggest compliment to their game they could get would be and they'd say "to have the Yankees want me." Sure, they might prefer their lifelong team to be the one to actually sign them, but the team they'd want the most to chase them would be the Yankees.

Why? Because it means you're one of the best. That's all the Yankees have settled for since George took over. And even when they got what they thought was the best, they expected you to maintain that level or they'd move on to whoever had surpassed you. Period. Now, that might sound bad in some ways, but it is the pure business of sports. And from the sound of things, as long as you did what you were brought in to do, nobody treated you better than the Yankees would.

I'm happy to learn more about how philanthropic George was. I'm happy to learn more about how he turned a $10M franchise into a $1.6B franchise. But the real legacy he leaves is the aura of the New York Yankees. You either love them, or you're jealous of them.

Getting up early?

2010-06-29T10:35:00.000-04:00

I don't know what's happened to me as I get older, but I've noticed I'm waking up earlier and earlier and it's harder and harder to go back to sleep. I fought it and fought it. Then I fought it occasionally, and just got up otherwise. It all sucked. But now I'm starting to realize that life is better if I just get up early.

It would seem my body requires a little less sleep than it used to. I used to really need nine hours at a minimum. But now I'm good with as little as six or seven without major ramifications. What's even better is I don't mind getting up early on vacation. In fact, I prefer it because I go ahead and bike or run before it gets so hot and I've been playing outside and lose ALL motivation to get my exercise in that I want to do.

The next logical step? I might learn how to nap occasionally. It almost happened yesterday, but I predict it will happen at some point during this vacation.

Having problems with motivation to exercise?

2010-06-01T15:33:00.006-04:00

It's all about motivation. We all know we should work out more, but we don't want to. Oh sure, you can say "oh, I want to, but I don't have the time." Sorry, doesn't fly. Occasionally we really are too busy to squeeze a workout in, but in reality it's just that you aren't prioritizing it highly enough. To me that's really "don't want to" enough to find a way.

Why don't we want to? Lots of reasons, but I think a lot of it boils down to making ourselves think we have to. Get out of that mentality, and get out now. That doesn't help with motivation, it only makes it worse. You don't have to. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. But you probably do want to, or you wouldn't still be reading this. You just may be finding you don't want to enough to prioritize it high enough on the list.

One thing works great for me, and that is scheduled workouts with someone else. In an ideal world it's with a trainer who you're paying to kick your butt. Those are best. But failing that (because we can't all afford that), another great alternative is regularly scheduled workouts with anyone else. Why? Because canceling is a pain. You're worried you're letting your partner(s) down or that they'll think you're a wuss or whatever. It's peer pressure that works. Plus the time seems to go faster when you have someone to talk to. The drawback to the friend versus the trainer is that it's easy to not work as hard with the friends. SO WHAT. Something is better than nothing, and by a LONG shot. And having it regularly scheduled is really key, since it's much harder to drop the ball on scheduling the next one.

But what about motivating yourself for lone workouts? Step one is don't tell yourself you have to do it, because down deep you know you don't have to. Focus on the reasons why you want to, and do everything you can to find more reasons why you want to. The single best motivator is finding exercises that you really enjoy doing, obviously. That can take some effort, sure, but it's out there. No, not everyone enjoys running or bicycling or even tennis. But there are so many good sports that provide great exercise that you can likely find something you enjoy. Heck, I find spinning on a bicycle trainer works great as long as I have The Big Bang Theory episodes to watch while I do it. You might find a treadmill or indoor bike much more tolerable and quite possibly even enjoyable if you find something else you enjoy doing while on it. Podcasts, TV shows, etc. Or they might at least be tolerable enough that you don't mind doing an hour on the treadmill on a day when you just can't do a meet-up with someone somewhere else thanks to other commitments, weather, etc.

Oh, and if you're thinking "I can't keep up with my friends at what they do", stop that thinking NOW. If your friend invites you to run with them and the only thing stopping you is "I can't keep up", get over it! They know you won't be at their level. They'll adjust. They really don't mind, or they wouldn't have asked. Again, friends like to help friends, especially with this. Stop worrying about "bothering" them or "holding them back" or whatever. It isn't a big deal. If/when they need to train harder than you'd allow as a partner (say they're training for a race and want to compete), they'll let you know. But otherwise? Don't fall into the "I can't keep up" trap. It isn't real.

To reiterate, find ways to make it fun. Lean on friends to help you with that. Generally, you have similar interests to your friends, or they wouldn't be your friends. And if you have friends who do exercise, find out what works for them. People who exercise a lot do enjoy spreading the joy they've found in what they do.

Seek it out. All things worth having are worth working for. Get started.

Willful Foreclosure?

2010-05-13T17:03:00.004-04:00

This past week, 60 Minutes did a story on a new trend...people willfully walking away from their mortgage and house. That's right, people who can afford their mortgages choosing to not pay them.

Why would someone do that? The quick version is some states have laws protecting your assets entirely in the event of a foreclosure. So folks in particularly hard hit real estate markets who bought houses around 2006 now find their home value at roughly half what they paid. To add insult to injury, that means they can now rent a NICER home for around half what their mortgage payment is. So they've done the math and realized that just walking away and waiting on their credit to recover is cheaper in the long run than continuing to pay.

The story even featured a likable couple who went on camera and admitted they were in the process of doing this. They didn't feel bad in the least. They even chose to live in the house six months without paying because that's about how long it will take to get foreclosed on and evicted. All the while saving that mortgage/rent money. And Arizona state law protects the money they have in the bank, the cars they have paid for, and all the rest of their assets.

So why shouldn't they? I'll tell you why. Because it's not the bank's fault. It's not the bank's responsibility to prop up their bad choice. It might not be completely their fault, either, but let's face it, they'd have ZERO recourse had they saved up or inherited enough money to have bought that house outright. If it was paid for, they'd be living every day in a house now worth half what they paid. But would they be "out" anything? Nope. Not unless they chose to SELL it for less than they paid. But that would be a willing choice.

They leave the bank with no choice. The bank entered an agreement with them to help them buy their house. Sure, the bank stood to make money on the deal, but that's what banks do. Well, that's what they used to do. If everyone who could started doing this, well, they wouldn't be able to any longer.

In my opinion, it's legal theft. And the only reason it is legal is because a law was created to help protect consumers without ever thinking about a situation like this. Yes, the law needs to be changed, and needs to be changed quickly. I just can't for the life of me understand why the bank should be left holding the bag on a couple hundred thousand dollars of losses in cases like this. These people are gainfully employed, have a life savings, have no money troubles whatsoever. Yet the law is letting them stick it to the bank. A bank who did nothing more than help them in the first place.

It's just wrong, and people should know better and take responsibility for their own financial problems instead of pushing it off on someone else like that. Kudos to 60 Minutes for not listing which states this is legal in (other than Arizona). All they said was it's legal in 10 states right now in some form. I hope it isn't legal in mine.

My memories of basketball camp as a kid

2010-05-09T19:41:00.004-04:00

I know this probably seems like a random topic, but it is far from it. It's actually inspired by this story that I found thanks to Twitter.

As most know, I grew up in the Charlotte, NC, area. The only sport I played as a young kid (other than a single year of coach pitch baseball) was basketball. I played youth league ball in the Winterfield league (which I don't think exists any longer). It was one of those area-based youth leagues, and the competition was pretty good. There were age groups up to 16, and I think I played from around 8 to 16.

Outside of that, I also played in Bryan Adrian leagues and attended some of his camps. His leagues were one per season, so you could play in four leagues per year. It was a pretty simple deal, really...something like ten weeks of playing on Sunday for two hours. The first hour or so was drills and the rest was a game. Each league had four teams, and each player got a shirt in one of four colors. Each color was a team. You were all mixed up for the drills (on purpose so that everyone got to know everyone) and then you broke out into your teams to play the games. We always had sites with two full courts, so two games happened at one time.

Before we started, Bryan would always talk about what we were going to focus on. Then he would usually lead a drill or two with everyone in one big group, then we were divided up into smaller groups for more drills. He moved around the entire gym watching and giving his own input, though there were other coaches who were in charge of each area and later each team at game time. He'd watch some of both games, and occasionally provide input there, too. Then after the two games were over everyone gathered for about five minutes with him. He'd go over the things we learned that day and what we could work on by ourselves. Then he'd grab a few kids at random to try to score on him one-on-one. Maybe five kids, total.

You got five seconds and one shot only. And you're a kid and he's big. And quick (even with the bum knee). And smart. I don't remember more than two or three kids all season ever scoring. And if you did? $5 in cash. That was a lot back then, and he made you earn it. That was the thing with Bryan. You want something in life, you have to earn it.

He wasn't a friendly guy. He was a tough guy. But he was a genuine guy, too. If he had something to say, he said it. If you deserved praise, you got a terse "good job." If you didn't, you got an explanation as to what you needed to do differently. And you got the opportunity to try again. He never asked for anything of you for him. He only told you what you needed to do for you. He never seemed disappointed or agitated or frustrated with us kids. He just taught. If you wanted it, you learned it. If you didn't, well, you didn't. Didn't seem to be any sweat to him either way. But he worked so hard to help that deep down you just had to think he cared. I remember doing the math along the way on how much money he must be taking in. We knew what we paid, and it wasn't hard to estimate his expenses (it was easy, since the other coaches would tell us what they got paid, and the gyms he used were gyms that we knew other folks that rented, too).

He made a reasonable living, but he wasn't getting rich off this stuff. What he did do was work. And sweat. And teach. To me, anyone who is willing to sweat when they teach and do it all for a meager living must care about what they do. A lot.

Why was he all closed up? Only God knows. What I know is he helped a lot of kids be better basketball players, and as far as I know he did it very well. I'm sure he had some sort of problems in life other than what was mentioned. My idle curiosity wants to know what they are, but in a way I'm fine not knowing, too. Because I want to remember him as that tough basketball player who realized he had a gift he could share and just wanted to share it with as many kids as he could. And that's just what he did. Thanks, Bryan. You will be missed.

Farewell to a best friend

2010-05-04T19:12:00.004-04:00

This is a very old picture of Jasper (top) and Clark (bottom). Clark passed away about three years ago, but today we lost Jasper. Both were brothers from the same litter, and we have our good friends the Cosper's to thank for hooking us up with them. Kit's sister, Dee, had a horse farm and a female dog that appeared to be mostly German Shephard that they had adopted (or that had adopted them!). Before they realized she was even old enough to breed, though, she was pregnant.

Ashley and I signed up for our first pet together and waited long enough for them to be weened. When we showed up to pick up Jasper we found that only one sibling remained unclaimed. The folks who had said they wanted him didn't show, and I quickly theorized that having two dogs would mean they would chew on each other rather than our stuff. Ashley agreed, and we took home two puppies instead of one. Both had already been named...Clark got his name because he had a white patch on his chest that Dee's kids thought looked like Superman's symbol. They wanted to name him Superman, but cooler heads prevailed and they were fine naming him Clark, short for Clark Kent. Jasper was named after Dee and Bob's restaurant at the time, Jasper's in Cary.

We loved the names and loved the dogs even more. There are so many wonderful stories of both their lives, from Jasper and his ball chasing antics to Clark and the bullet he carried to a pot bellied pig tormenting them to Clark playing the "mother" to all creatures he loved. Like raising kids, not all the stories were good ones at the time, but they are all now fond memories. We loved them both, and now we will miss them both. In recent years we spoke of Jasper singularly since Clark had to leave first, but now I feel like it's quite appropriate to speak of them together again, since I know in my heart they are together again. I thank God for the 10 years we had Clark and for the almost 14 we had Jasper.

Farewell, doodlebug. Me, Ashley, Kevin, Zach, Sandi, and Hattie will miss you. And a lot of other people.

Conan versus Jay

2010-05-04T07:47:00.003-04:00

So I've distilled my thoughts on the Conan versus Jay saga after having watched Conan's interview on 60 Minutes. If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, just move along, nothing to see here.

Conan is bitter. I get that. Most comedians his age probably coveted the job of The Tonight Show host, and he got it. He was on top of the world. Then it all came crashing down. Promises had been made that were now broken and he was devastated. To top it all off, it was someone he considered a friend that was doing this to him.

But wait. He also said in the interview he realizes that NBC's part in this was "just business." Sure, there were relationships there that are now dead as a result, but he understands. But on the topic of Jay all he could really say is "that's not something I would have done" regarding Jay being willing to take back The Tonight Show.

This is where I get confused. NBC had two people under contract. It doesn't sound to me as if Jay had a choice in the matter. NBC decided they wanted Jay back in that time slot, and they offered Conan his same role (and The Tonight Show label, I believe) to move back thirty minutes. Conan refused and NBC decided to buy him out of his contract. But what did Jay's contract even say on the matter? Jay's contract is huge compared to Conan's, and any buyout is estimated to have needed to be well in excess of one hundred million dollars. Conan's buyout was $32M.

THIRTY-TWO MILLION DOLLARS. And he's bitter. And he realizes it was a business decision. And he thinks Jay shouldn't have accepted the job. But what if Jay's contract didn't give him that choice? Maybe Conan knows the details of Jay's contract, but it seems unlikely.

But here's my thing...Conan isn't as funny as Jay. Okay, that's my opinion. But I'd bet you anything that if we could measure "funny" across the board, Conan just isn't as funny as Jay to most Americans. They can't relate to him as easily as Jay "the car guy" Leno. The ratings are one measurement, and Conan's show fell behind Letterman. And that's all NBC cares about at the end of the day, and that's no secret to anyone in the business.

So my thing here is this: Suck it up, Conan. You got handed a $32M check. You'll live comfortably off that if you do no more work in your life. You will work, because you're funny. But sadly, you're not as funny as Jay. That's life. Move on. Be happy 60 Minutes felt like taking a stab at NBC, because otherwise you're not nearly relevant enough to make that show on your own.

Brute Electronics

2010-04-25T17:36:00.010-04:00

I may or may not have blogged about my AEV Brute before:

It's basically a 2006 Jeep Rubicon with a stretched frame and custom bodywork from AEV to make it a pickup truck. It's also got some other goodies like a 5.7L Hemi, 4.5" long arm lift kit, 37" tires, winches on both ends, etc.

I recently spent some time updating the electronics in it, though. First up was a new stereo headunit from JVC very similar to this one. All I wanted was something that had a built in HD FM tuner and front panel USB port that would operate my iPhone, and this one has it. We added a rear AUX input, too (you'll see why later). The real beauty of this headunit, I think, is that you have the choice of iPod control with the unit or you can leave the control on the iPod/iPhone itself. I prefer the iPhone interface, so I use that. The dash speakers were upgraded and I had a custom rear speakerbox built by the fine folks at Beechwood Metalworks:

That's the AEV logo in the speaker grills. Awesome work. The amps are buried inside the cabinet.

Next up I needed to add my HAM radio. The model I chose is the Yaesu FTM-350R. It has built in APRS functionality with the optional GPS unit, and it's a dual transceiver with crossband repeat functionality. All that adds up to allowing me to relay my mountain biking position from a small handheld through the more powerful mobile unit in my truck. In real time. I mounted the display, speaker, and GPS in the roof of the Brute:

I used a RAM bar mount and arm to mount directly to the top of the rollbar. Then I just used zip ties to mount the Yaesu external speaker to the rollbar. Finally, I put the GPS module in the alpine window for a great view of the sky. The main unit of the radio was mounted right on top of the speakerbox:

The microphone can just lay over the center console and I can use it perfectly. The wiring for the unit runs through a grommet in the top of the speakerbox. I haven't done it yet, but eventually I plan to wire the unit so that it turns on and off with the ignition switch unless I override it with a relay and switch I'll put in.

The antenna is mounted somewhat temporarily, currently. I just put it on a piece of aluminum and c-clamped it to the bed.

The final piece of this was to add mounts for my GPS and iPhone. I simply bolted RAM ball mounts into the tray on top of the dash. Then I used RAM arms and the Garmin 376C mount to put the GPS and iPhone on the dash:

Note the radar detector above the mirror. That's a Valentine 1, IMHO the best radar detector on the market. It's hard wired in to switched power. I used the visor mount turned around backwards and slid under the plastic trim that's above the windshield. To do that I had to take the curved piece off the plastic part that slides onto the V1. I then pulled the trim piece out some to get it in there, and reassembled. Then I used a small piece of sticky velcro to space it out to level it and help keep it from vibrating around.

Anyone who has tried to put a V1 in a Jeep knows that the suction cup mounts don't work well because the windshield is so vertical. It sits at the wrong angle. And the visor mount is fine except, well, you can't use the visor any more. There are mounts that hang from the rear view mirror that work fine, but they block your view significantly in a fairly important spot. This spot doesn't block anything (other than annoying sunlight that can penetrate over the mirror and isn't blockable by the visors, and that's a good thing!).

Here's a final shot that shows the XM puck that the Garmin uses. It's magnetic and stuck to the windshield frame. It's wire is perfectly sized to just push into the gap between the hinge and the windshield frame, which wraps around the corner and just goes into the door jam through the weatherstripping. It goes right into the dash and under the defrost venting over to the middle where it plugs into the GPS:

I'm really loving this setup. The speaker is right near my head, but nowhere I can hit it. That's good, since I can leave the volume low to monitor things while still having the radio on. The controls are very easy to reach and highly visible right above the visor. Yes, it's a lot of visible electronics for theives, but the Jeep is equipped with a full alarm system with power door locks and hard doors and hard top.

Also note that the XM radio on the GPS is piped into the stereo via that rear panel auxiliary input we put on the stereo. The beauty of the Garmin 376C with XM is that it gets realtime weather radar information via XM radio and overlays that on the GPS map. It also puts the turn-by-turn navigation information on top of the XM radio, so if you're using navigation and listening to XM you can't miss any of your directions.

It's possible that I could have used a serial output on my Garmin GPS to the input of the Yaesu HAM radio instead of installing the optional GPS unit. That solution would have taken more hours of work than it was worth given the relatively low cost of the Yaesu add-on. I also consider it a good redundancy to have two GPSs in a vehicle like this. The Yaesu doesn't do navigation, really, but it does show direction, speed, and position, and could be very handy if the Garmin fails. The iPhone has GPS, too, but I really don't feel great relying on that. It's another good backup, though.

Review of the iPad

2010-04-08T18:48:00.003-04:00

Well, I know everyone and their brother has already done a review, but I can't resist throwing my two cents in, so here goes...

I really like it. Why? The huge screen, relatively light weight, and incredible battery life. Okay, great, but what does it DO? Well, that's the big question now, isn't it? It's a great web surfing tool. Okay, but you've probably got something for that already. It's a great email reader, and a good email sending device if you mostly send short messages or don't mind adding the optional keyboard. Okay, but you probably already have that covered, too. It's a really nice picture viewing device. And video viewing device. And gaming device. And book reader. And calendar. And note taker. And a whole lot of things.

But nothing you can't already do with a laptop, right? Well, the thing is it does all that better than a laptop. Sure, there are things it won't do that a laptop will, but the things it does are all done exceedingly well. And in a light form factor with a battery that will last OVER 10 hours! Not many laptops can even come close to that.

What can't it do? Things like video editing, running Windows applications, or even someone every day tasks like running Quickbooks. Is there a killer application that makes it a "must have"? Not yet. But the thing you do get is the App Store, which will likely mean there will be a killer app or forty at your disposal soon. What do I dig now? The ABC app, the Wall Street Journal app, the fact that the email client in some ways is better than the OSX one, and how much better viewing video is than on the iPhone/Touch. The Blogpress app is pretty good for entries like this, but I had to add the picture using my Mac.

What doesn't it do yet that it will? Multitasking, a proper Facebook app (don't get me wrong, you can use Safari to do Facebook fine, but the iPhone app is better than using the web in many ways, and I expect we'll soon see an iPad app that's of the same ilk), and printing. There are some workarounds for printing from some applications, but hopefully we'll be able to print from the iWork suite. It just seems really odd to me that you can create and exchange documents so easily yet if you want to print one you have to send it to another machine first.

Does everyone need to rush right out and get one? Not really. But if you have a need for a space friendly device with good battery life that will let you surf the web, do email, and generally entertain you, I can't think of anything better. And heck, even the TSA is getting friendly saying it's not a big enough computer that they want you to take it out of your carry-on bag at the security checkpoint. That's worth something to me, right there.

One hole I hope gets filled is navigation. It should be MUCH easier for someone to build and market a dashboard friendly mount for this device so that the GPS enabled 3G version (coming in about a month) can be used as a navigation device (or the current version with an external GPS). The screen size will be much better than most of the off-the-shelf units, and the fact that it can also be your music player is an added bonus. I don't think it'll be more than a couple months before we see something like this on the market, and likely several somethings like this.

Can it replace a Kindle? Depends. If looking at "computer screens" for long periods doesn't bother your eyes, yes. If, however, you find that "computer screens" bother you and something like the Kindle's special screen doesn't, then no. It's a beautiful screen, but it is still basically "just an LCD." The Kindle is special in this regard, and if you need that particular feature of the Kindle then you need a Kindle. Unfortunately the only way to know if this device will bother you is to spend a few hours reading on one, but supposedly Apple does have a good return policy on in-store purchases. The iBook reader is a free application, and there are even some timeless classics you can download to it for free to give it a try. So you can, in effect, try it out for free to see if it will work for you. They've sold a half million of them in less than a week, so you might know someone who will loan you one, too. Nah, few people are going to let these babies out of their hands for quite some time.

-- Posted from my iPad, mostly

** EDIT: Shoot, I should have tried to put the picture in with the iPad. It's totally possible, and not even that hard. You just switch to your browser, find the picture you want to put in your block, touch and HOLD your finger on it, select "Save" from the menu that pops up. Then you have your image saved in your image library and can select it with the Blogpress app. Dang, should have known it was that easy!

Apple's Fail and Win

2010-04-04T10:12:00.004-04:00

First, the win: The App Store. With the App Store, Apple has setup the iPhone and now the iPad to be "game changers." If there's a piece of software that can make the device a winner, someone will likely create it and shove it into the App Store. And that amazing "community" (and it is a community of sorts, thanks to the fact that it's so easy for users to contribute and things to bubble up thanks to reviews and intelligent pricing) is what can totally shape demand for a product.

How did they do it? They created the hardware, then they created an operating system for the hardware along with the Software Development Kit (SDK) that any developer could use to very easily create an application, and then there is the relatively pain-free process of submitting your application to the App Store where Apple will sell it for you and distribute your revenue to you. Yes, I admit that there has been some problems between developers and Apple over problems with the App Store, but you have to admit that on the whole the model has worked very well for both parties. Apple does continue to listen to developers and add facilities developers need to continue to push the envelope, too.

Articles today about the iPad launch are pointing to the fact that a lot of people in line to buy first day iPads are doing so only because they'd "buy anything Apple sells" and thus are just lemmings. I submit that the App Store is mostly to blame for this kind of thinking, though. They know that there already are apps for it and there will be even more apps for it and are counting on those to make the device something they will treasure. You can already stream Netflix to it, watch TV from ABC, read USA Today and NY Times news, and it has complete eBook functionality including an App for those who already have Kindle eBooks. With most of that being completely free. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that they've already got the thing serving some pretty significant markets. It won't just be a success because of some lemmings.

Where does the App Store go next? Only Apple knows. I'm surprised they haven't tried to push it a little more for the Mac platform myself.

Now, the fail: Apple is far too limiting on the hardware integration side. They simply haven't embraced anything resembling an open model for allowing other companies to integrate the iPhone, iPod Touch, and now iPad in with their hardware. The first sign of this was how closed the Bluetooth is on the iPhone. It allows you to connect your iPhone to a Bluetooth headset, but the rest of the Bluetooth API is closed to third party developers. This means no Bluetooth keyboards, no syncing to a computer via Bluetooth, and no talking to a whole host of other Bluetooth devices that were starting to appear on the market. There were many $50 devices out there that were Bluetooth that manufacturers have now made into $150 wifi devices just to talk to the iPhone. This is not a win for consumers, obviously. Bluetooth is a perfect mechanism for a digital camera to get GPS information from your iPhone so it can geotag your photos, for instance. But Apple makes that impossible, even though all the building blocks exist already.

The problem runs much deeper than Bluetooth. Apple very closely licenses its dock connector, so anyone who wants to connect to it must pay Apple and go through a process to validate what they want to do with the device. So far this has been very limited. We've seen alarm clocks and a few basic stereo docks, but little more. Will we see refrigerators let you dock your iPad for easy recipe access and podcast playing? Will we ever see an aftermarket car stereo where the face is just an iPhone dock? Will we ever have the ability to control any aftermarket device via the dock part in a generic form? Ie. RS-232? There are currently a ton of possible industrial uses for the iPhone/Touch/iPad that we can't even try thanks to Apple closing up their serial port. The bigger problem is not the things I have thought of that we're missing, but the things the truly inventive hardware folks might find that would really kick some serious butt. They're not even trying, because they know Apple won't let it happen.

I don't know why Apple doesn't want third parties to let people control their devices with Apple products. Seems to me they've been a perfect mass market device that they'd sell even more of if they would. But for some strange reason they just won't embrace third party hardware like they have third party software. Could it be that they just can't take the step into a realm where they don't (and can't) have the level of control they have now with the App Store? I don't know, but it's pretty maddening to those of us who can see all kinds of awesome uses for these devices only to have an Apple roadblock in the way of making it happen.

March Madness Expansion?

2010-04-02T21:12:00.004-04:00

It looks likely that the NCAA will expand the NCAA tournament for men's basketball from 64 teams to 96 teams next season. The reason is simple...added revenue. It will add two days to the tournament, and a total of 32 more games. It will also kill the NIT, it would seem.

This has the support of the coaches. Why? Because most coaches are judged by "getting in the NCAA tournament" or not. It's about job security.

Okay, great. But think about this? There are about 340 division one basketball programs. Now we're going to 96 teams in the tournament. That's nearly one-third of the programs, when before we had less than one-fifth. The significance of just "making" the tournament will be diminished greatly. Will there be any talk of the teams who don't make it? That is the "bubble" we hear so much about now? My prediction is that we'll hear a little about it just before and just after the selection show, but the noise will be a lot less. Why? Because there's a new bubble in town...

The bye. That's right, the bye. The top 32 teams in the tournament (what we currently know as seeds one through eight) will not have to play the first round. Instead, the bottom 64 teams will play one game for the right to play the top 32. Currently, just about the last thing anyone cares about as far as seeding is who are teams 29 through 32 and 33 through 36. Why? Because those are seeds eight and nine, and those two play each other in the first round of a 64 team tournament.

In the new system, however, that won't be the case. Who gets selected as 32 or less versus those just above that cut-off will be the new "bubble" discussion. Why? Because those who aren't in the top 32 not only have to play another game to win the whole thing, they now have to win three games in the first six days of the tournament instead of just two in four days like before to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.

That's huge.

It's only going to take a couple years, if that, before people realize just how much lower your statistical and realistic chances are of winning the tournament as the 33rd or higher overall seed (anything 9th to 24th now). Sure, people currently feel like a 9th or higher seed isn't gonna get it done, but the difference now is that it just because EVEN HARDER to do what's already pretty unlikely. So the seeding cut-off will be huge. I predict it will be the new "making the tournament" bar that coaches are currently held to. Which means it just got HARDER for coaches to keep jobs, not easier.

All for money. *sigh*

Good idea: Check. Execution: FAIL.

2010-03-20T18:12:00.002-04:00

Listed for sale here. This is one of the better views, too! There is no "better side."

Another one for the Stokes girls!

2010-03-08T19:16:00.003-05:00

So you might remember my blog entry about the Friendly Chapel Church. If not, click it! In that vein, here's another one for the Stokes girls:

I mean did the local sign maker get tasked with naming the church? Or was there a special on letters so they decided to use as many as they could? There really was only one church (and it was quite cute and fairly old looking).

Book Recommendation

2010-03-06T17:39:00.004-05:00

So it's strange...I don't really read books. I mean sure, I read the third through the last of the Harry Potter books, but that's because after watching the first two movies I was impatient to know more of the story and willing to read the books to get ahead. I've also read the Josh Thurlow series of books by Homer Hickam. I don't really know what got me started on those, though. And I don't remember what got me to read Hatteras Blues, either. I remember my wife bought it for me, but I think I asked for it. It might be that I saw it on a bookstore sign near Hatteras Village, I don't know.

But I did read it recently, and ironically enough I read most of it while on a cruise ship. I feel like anyone would love this book. I know anyone who loves the Outer Banks of North Carolina would love it. I believe anyone who has ever fished off-shore would love it. People interested in coastal history should definitely enjoy it. Heck, anyone with a pulse, really. Please, by all means, give it a try if you're looking for something to read. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

You might be a redneck if...

2010-02-25T09:47:00.005-05:00

Just a few I thought up:

...if you've ever shot a fish.
...if you've ever wrecked your truck trying to run over a squirrel.
...if you've ever totaled a golf cart.
...if you've ever run over a squirrel with a golf cart with your Momma riding along.
...if you've ever de-limbed a tree with a shotgun.
...if you've ever fired a gun from a moving vehicle.

You might be a redneck.

No, not all of these have happened to me. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to guess what's what.

Towns banning cellphone use while driving

2010-02-09T15:26:00.005-05:00

So, currently there's no data to support the fact that accidents decrease in places that ban handheld cellphone use while driving. Yet towns like Chapel Hill want to make it illegal to use a handheld phone while driving. The best you can do is cite a AAA study that claims you're just as impaired while talking on a cellphone as if you had a blood acohol level of 0.08, which is the legal limit. So you're just impaired enough to be BORDERLINE too drunk to drive and thus we need to ban them? And the study is by the AAA, for goodnesssakes. Can we get some data from more than one source on this before we do it?

And honestly, I don't believe this is the kind of thing a town should be allowed to legislate anyway. The article states that the state legislature has to allow them to do this, which is good, unless the state actually does allow it. Then it's bad. Why? Because I can't think of a single reason why something that's bad enough we should ban it in Chapel Hill isn't something we should ban statewide. And if you think "oh, no, it's safer to talk on your handheld phone when traveling in rural areas", well, fine. That still means EVERY city should ban it, which is something the legislature could just do. I mean seriously, do you want to have to worry about what the law is in every city you go in and out of? Heck, they don't even mark the city borders on every road! How are we supposed to KNOW what the law is where we are?

It's rediculous, especially since many people (like myself) live outside Chapel Hill and would have little say in the creation of this law. I suppose I can lobby my state representatives if Chapel Hill chooses to ask for this, but really...I shouldn't have to. Note that nowhere am I claiming it's a safe thing to do. But we should be having this discussion at the state level only.

This is just wrong.

2010-01-08T11:17:00.004-05:00

On so many levels, this is just wrong. Found in a Food Lion. They had a very large tub of these in the middle of the aisle. Who picks that up and thinks "wow, I'll get this for my kids!"?!?!?

Confusing the message with the delivery vehicle!

2010-01-07T21:54:00.004-05:00

So, I genuinely love my man, Chris Grams. I'm pretty sure we first met when he was hired at Red Hat, but somehow we have several non-Red Hat mutual friends we've since found. I don't see Chris often (not nearly often enough, that's for sure), but I do follow him in the social networking scene. So when this post popped up on his blog, I had to respond.

Normally, one might respond to a specific post like his through the comment section of the original site. I'm not doing that because I haven't updated my own blog enough lately. pause Okay, that's not true...I'm really doing it here because I'm going to disagree with him somewhat vehemently yet at the same time I believe his general point is still valid. It's more the metaphor and some of the quotation I don't agree with. Oh, and I'm also putting it here because this is a topic that my Dad and I were discussing just a few days ago (no kidding).

I had already noticed a trend that traditional albums on vinyl (or LPs, as they are commonly called) had started to make a bit of a comeback. It's long been known that serious musicians haven't given up on tube-type amplifiers, either. In fact, there was a long period where there were no mass produced turntables being made, yet now you can walk into any Restoration Hardware and buy one (thanks to the fact that the Beatles stuff was re-released recently). Chris points this trend out as well, and goes on to give some of the reasons why people are going "lo-fi" (which is short for "low fidelity", the opposite of the trend toward higher fidelity sound systems based on digital music and such).

I just don't get it. These days one can record with incredible accuracy for cheap. There's simply nothing stopping you from sitting in a basement with a dog on the floor and getting a precise recording of "the best stuff." So why would you then dilute your "best stuff" by sending it out the door via what's not only lower quality, but adds errors (cracks and pops)? To me that's using lo-fi to help hide your own flaws that might happen in your "best stuff." And if you do that, aren't you being less "authentic"?

Okay, I do get why someone would want to listen to a 1966 recording via LP. In fact, I see both sides of that coin. There's obviously a market for the remastered stuff for the folks who don't care, but it most definitely is more authentic to listen to it as everyone had to in 1966. What I don't get is why anyone would want to do that with a modern recording. You're just diluting your own authenticity, in my opinion, by lowering the quality of your product intentionally. (And for the record, pun intended, I'm the proud owner of a Seeburg jukebox that sits in my basement full of original vinyl that I dearly love.)

I think you can be "real" as a musician and still release your music in unaltered digital form. I think you can be fake in recording in a studio, obviously. But you can also be fake by recording in your basement with your laptop, editing to high heaven, and then releasing on vinyl. The vinyl and the CD and iTunes are all just vehicles. The vehicle does not define the message. It can't enhance the message, but it can take away. So what's the real reason for the resurgence of vinyl? I think it's just a cool fad. Nothing more.

How a company markets is no different than how authentic a musician chooses to be. A company can go hire a big corporate ad agency and end up with a lie as an advertisement that's nothing more than actors saying what writers who are completely disconnected with the actual company tell them to say. Then they can edit to complete "perfection." But I think we've seen companies hire big corporate ad agencies and get "authentic" advertisements using real employees and real messages. We've seen plenty of companies get even more "authentic" by doing contests to let customers create their advertisements for them and show the winner during the superbowl! The spectrum is there, and a company can certainly do a good job of getting their message out in a lo-fi way.

Sometimes the politicians get it right.

2010-01-01T22:15:00.004-05:00

I want to say a big thank-you to the NC General Assembly for passing legislation banning smoking in almost all restaurants and bars starting in less than two hours. I'm not sure if it was original or not, but a friend of mine posted to Facebook just yesterday with something I'm going to repeat here. "A smoking section of a restaurant is like a peeing section in a swimming pool."

I agree completely. Many restaurants had done a great job of having air filtration systems to help mitigate the problem, but I find that I had pretty much quit eating at "sports-bar" type places like Buffalo Wild Wings and Bailey's. And it was because of the smoke. I like bar food, and I like the fact that bars are the kind of place where you can often get fairly high quality food but get it faster than many fancier restaurants (nice for those times when you don't have time for Outback but want something better than fast-food).

As a life-long resident of North Carolina, a state whose economy was long dominated by tobacco, I honestly never thought I'd see a change like this in my lifetime. Thanks, legislators!

Gun rights.

2009-12-20T15:29:00.002-05:00

Call me crazy, but I just don't see any rational argument with any of this. Preach on, Ted.

I'm a big HAM!

2009-12-18T17:25:00.003-05:00

So a week ago I took the test for the Technician Class amateur radio license. I passed, and today I received my first callsign, KJ4RIC. I'll probably get a vanity callsign, but for now, that's my unique ID on the airwaves! Made my first transmission on the OCRA 442.150 repeater this afternoon thanks to a lot of help from Troy getting the radio setup properly. There's nothing terribly hard about it, but just a lot of little details to get figured out. Fun stuff!

Still getting my feet wet figuring everything out. Looks like some pretty neat stuff will be possible. At the very least I'll now be much safer when I mountain bike as I'll have communication capability pretty much everywhere.

March Madness

2009-12-11T17:22:00.003-05:00

Oh yeah, baby! From the super scintillating to just plain awesome, the adrenaline levels are off the charts! This tournament is the P-T-Per of tournaments! It's awesome, baby!

Oh, sorry, got stuck in Dickie V. mode there for a second. Anyway, just needed to vent a little bit. The NCAA is apparently considering options on expanding the already-65 team field for the men's college basketball tournament. Say what? I understand there's always some whining about who got in and who didn't, but in reality, once you subtract out the automatic bids, we're talking about teams that weren't in the top 25 of college basketball. And if you weren't in the top 25, well, you didn't have much of a chance of winning anyway. So while the selection process isn't perfect, the reality is that it is pretty good and it's definitely "good enough."

I mean honestly, if the NCAA wants to change something, give us a FOOTBALL playoff! But messing with basketball is silly. But okay, let me throw out an idea. If they want to increase revenue and improve the tournament, how about considering making the Final Four a double elimination tournament? So you make it to the Final Four and then you still can lose one game and win the championship. That adds two (or perhaps three) games, but those are BIG games. HUGE. I think most fans would prefer that to another earlier weekend slammed with too many games to watch anyway.

Hey, Cliffy!

2009-12-03T14:01:00.007-05:00

I've used this forum in the past to espouse the virtues of one Elizabeth Warren. She's still pushing for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and as expected, the banks are fighting back with all their lobbying might. She's asking for our help in contacting our federal government representatives, and I think we should oblige (again, this link is thanks to Sarah who is always on the watch for EW articles).

But I want to take this "losing the middle class" thing a step further. It's widely thought that the Democrats have a master plan of pushing for all Americans to be able to go to college and have the government pay for it (ultimately). Why? Well, I suppose they assume it's everyone's right and it can't help but make us a better society and nation if everyone goes to college.

I disagree. Completely. Look, right now the "middle class" is a big thing. Very big. But it's typical to break it down into the upper middle class (UMC) and lower middle class (LMC). I see the UMC as mostly those who graduated college and have good jobs, two cars, nice house, and at least should be planning for retirement well. I see the LMC as typically those who probably didn't go to (or at least finish) college but still managed to work their way up from an entry level job to a management type position. Both parents probably work, but they have steady and reasonable jobs and make ends meet in a reasonable house with two cars. They're probably in the most financial jeopardy now, but honestly I see both upper and lower groups as the type folks that EW is concerned about and wanting to protect.

But which group is bigger or smaller and which is shrinking or growing? Well, my gut tells me the UMC is probably generally doing okay (and would be able to do better with EW's help, certainly). It's the LMC that's having the most trouble and stands to benefit the most from EW's ideas. But I also think the LMC's numbers are probably shrinking by most reasonable measures. I see illegal immigration as well as lack of adequate training absolutely killing the ability for someone to get a good entry level job and move up from it. The immigration thing bugs me, but that's not what bugs me the most. What bugs me the most is the education angle.

Higher education has grown and grown in this country and we've done a tremendous job to date with making it highly available via scholarships, student loans, and state subsidized programs. But I don't care what more we do, college isn't for everyone. Some choose (perhaps poorly, but it's gonna keep happening) to start families too early and thus can't commit to that level of education. Some just don't want it. Some may not be smart enough across a wide array of topics to manage getting a full college degree. Some may just not be motivated at the right time in their lives for it. Add in the fact that I really think to keep "college" as something of tremendous value that it has to be something somewhat hard to obtain. If it isn't then too many people will just think it's too hard once they get there and quit. Or worse, we'll have to dumb it down so much that the value is lost so that everyone can also "pass."

But where did that LMC used to come from? People with skills that were in demand. But demand for those skills has shrunk here in the US as the world economy has gotten more connected. Is it gone? I don't think so. But we've stopped training people to have skills. The biggest "skill" they worry about in US high schools now is how to prep kids for college. The first thing they cut? Physical education and vocational programs. I could go on for days about the importance of P.E., but again, this isn't the place. What is most important are vocational type programs.

When I graduated high school it wasn't common to have full calculus classes in every high school. We only had pre-calculus at my school. Now most schools have up to two full years of calculus available. Why? Because it prepares kids for college. That's great, but what are the kids taking that aren't going to college? There are still slower tracks that have your "highest" math class being something like geometry with some trigonometry. There's still the regular english class instead of A.P. english. There's still "civics" instead of A.P. history. Why? Because the

other thing we've done is worried about "passing" everyone. Let's stop worrying about passing everyone and start worrying about giving those who we're "just passing" some skills for when we "just pass" them right out the door with a worthless diploma.

This leads into one of my new favorite people in the whole wide world, John Ratzenberg er. You might recall him as Cliff Clavin on the TV sitcom Cheers, or more recently as many of the voices in Disney Pixar movies such as Toy Story and Cars. John's current passion is helping change the education system so we can start producing more "makers" in this country again. What's a "maker"? Well, it's someone with a knack for making something useful out of raw materials. Most talented makers ultimately turn into entrepreneurs in one form or another, and there's nothing more that this country needs than good entrepreneurs. I found out about John's work in the latest issue of Make Magazine (probably my favorite magazine ever). You can learn more by grabbing the latest issue, or by doing some googling on John's name and finding sites like this one.

But the point here is that we need to wake up and start educating everyone properly and not just trying to make everyone "college bound." We need to teach more skills in high school like we used to with metal and wood shop classes. No, it can't and shouldn't stop there. We need to expand that kind of thing dramatically. Kids are smarter and smarter these days, even the ones that aren't going to college. Let's stop "passing" them through with the minimum and up the minimum to include at least some basic skills that will get them a real job. Let's reinvigorate the trade school industry and make it easy for people to get loans to go to those schools, too. I think it's more important for a kid that wants to learn to weld to be able to go pursue that than go get a relatively worthless degree in history because societal pressure says everyone should go to college.

What is "cool"?

2009-11-25T20:25:00.004-05:00

So I have thought in the past some about what "cool" is. At the time the best I could come up with was examples. Like Arthur Fonzarelli from Happy Days:

I was recently reading an interview in Make Magazine with Adam Savage, one of the ever-popular Mythbusters. The interviewer, Paul Spinrad, points out that enthusiasm is the opposite of cool. My first response was "huh?!?" But further explanation and discussion with Adam points out some interesting things. First, it's children that are most often overly enthusiastic. There becomes a point, however, when a more grown up child finds that enthusiasm immature (or perhaps "dorky") and invents (or steals, at this point) "cool" as an alternative. Not caring about what someone else cares about is a way to sort of "take it away."

That's an interesting way to think about it, and kind of useful to me as a parent. Much like anything out there, it's fine to be a little "cool", but it's also easy to go overboard with it. Thinking about it in these terms will help me help my kids better understand why it's bad to act some ways. This could be particularly important for folks with multiple kids with ages that vary widely.

I don't know, just something to think about.

Pinzgauer For Sale

2009-11-25T16:34:00.001-05:00

Go to my new For Sale site and check it out.

Wow.

2009-11-16T23:49:00.002-05:00

So I just got addicted to Scrabble thanks to my buddy Steve a little over a week ago. Then I found the Scrabble app on Facebook and started playing it today. Then Jane joins and challenges me to a game. First move in that game? Used all seven letters. I'm pretty stoked. It's even better that I got a triple word on top of it. That's Scrabble nirvana.

Looking for free audio books?

2009-11-16T20:22:00.003-05:00

That's right, completely free! The drawback is that only books available in the public domain are available, but there are a lot of them. Many more than you might think with many of them being very good books, too. You can download in almost any format and easily burn an audio CD or put them on your portable music player. Check out LibriVox if you've been looking for this kind of thing for those long car trips.

I'm told some readers aren't so good and some are very good, so if you find a reader you really like you can go back and search for other books done by that particular reader, too. I believe you can also choose to omit bad readers from your searches. And if you like the service and use it, try to give back by signing up to do some reading. It's pretty easy.

What's in a wink?

2009-11-10T14:48:00.004-05:00

It's an interesting question. What's really in a wink? Love? Lust? Humor? Or just something stuck in your eye?

I don't know why, but I've recently started to use the wink a bit more. Seems a bit of a lost "art." No, not the actual ability to wink, just the actual use of it in social situations. Or maybe it's the people I hang out with, I don't know. I just know that as a kid it seemed like people did it more often than they do now.

Is there some social taboo to it? Can something like a wink be "in" for some time period and then become "out" just the same? I don't recall participating in or overhearing any conversations where anyone talked about the wink as if it were an old style of blue jeans that was no longer in style, but perhaps the wink is like that.

But the question becomes what can one really do with a wink? In my experience, it can be a good way to let someone in on a piece of humor. Particularly tall tales or simple sarcasm. It's worth noting that humor can go over much better in a crowd if just one person gets the joke (or, more importantly, that you're even telling a joke and not attempting badly to be serious). Let that right person in on it with a quick wink, and they pass an infectious laugh around.

Another option is the ability to make someone feel special with a wink. In the above situation, you might do both by winking at the insecure person in the group. Or a younger member. Or an older one. There are also situations where you could just be letting someone in on the fact that you just made a backhanded comment about someone else (but we're not the type to do that, are we?).

I should also mention that a wink can be a good way to let someone else know that you've noticed them. It could be a great way to seize the moment and turn what might have been awkward eye contact into a suggestion that perhaps a conversation might be in order if the other party is willing. People are generally shy by nature, but often it only takes a small signal to get someone else out of their shell. And why not try it? It's certainly easier than striking up the conversation yourself, and definitely easier to write off if the other party doesn't take the bait. I mean none of us like verbal rejection, but failing to respond to your wink is a lot less damaging than "you'll have to excuse me, but I just don't find your lame attempt at a pick-up line very intriguing." I'm sure nobody has ever gotten that exact response, but many have probably gotten that exact vibe after a failed pickup attempt!

Okay, I'm just exploring this "meeting people" thing. I'm happily married and intend to stay that way for a long time. And this is where I should bring up the fact that I can't wink around the house. Why? Because my wife thinks it is funny that she can wink with either eye and I can only wink with one. And she's mean about it and likes to gloat. Okay, that's not true. But she does give me some much-deserved ribbing about it.

So what wink stories do you guys have? Any thoughts on whether the gesture should be used more or less? I can't see what it can hurt to use it more. Sure, it could be very easily overdone, but I'm going to encourage folks to use it in moderation. Why the heck not?

Interstate 40 Detour

2009-10-28T21:46:00.003-04:00

So by now, most people who read this space and who might be traveling on Interstate 40 from points east of Winston-Salem into Tennessee should know about the big rock slide that has I-40 blocked and detoured. Why am I posting about it then? Because the DOT detour is REALLY BAD for anyone coming from anywhere further east than Winston-Salem. Their detour is an extra 53 miles. It makes a certain amount of sense to publish this as the official detour since there could be a lot of people coming from in between Winston-Salem and Asheville, but for everyone else there is a better way.

Check out this map:

View Larger Map

This detour is 13 miles further than just staying on I-40 would have been. It's also the way I go almost exclusively because it's an easier and safer drive. Going up Fancy Gap is much preferred to me over going up the mountain near Asheville. It's a wider and safer road. The speed limit is higher on most of this route and the traffic is usually better, resulting in the extra distance not actually causing any extra time. To summarize it:

I-40 West to Highway 52 North
Highway 52 North to I-74 West
I-74 West to I-77 North
I-77 North to I-81 South
I-81 South to I-40 West

(If towing, use the above. If driving a car and it's not rush-hour, you might consider taking I-40 West to Business I-40 West and then to Highway 52 North. But know that the ramp from Business 40 to 52N is VERY short and a potential problem in a tow vehicle.)

It's driving me nuts that the only published detour by the news outlets is the official one, even though I pointed out to WRAL that their entire viewing area is east of Winston-Salem and thus they were being irresponsible by posting only the DOT detour. For almost all of their viewers my detour is better. And it will save fuel and time. So it's greener. WRAL did respond to me, but ignored my request to add the better detour.

Piracy

2009-10-23T20:08:00.004-04:00

So by now most everyone should know about the pirates off the Somali coast that have been taking large ships and their crew hostage. They made around $80M in 2008 alone (from ransom). Amazing. Now the Navy is getting more involved and using drones capable of deploying weapons to patrol the seas.

That's an interesting attempt, but experts say it won't do much to deter the bandits. They say the biggest thing that would help would be fixing the Somali government, but that doesn't seem like a plausible solution. My solution? Get a big juicy cargo ship, mark it up properly, load it with empty containers, and a couple dozen Navy Seals. Just let it run around collecting up pirates. I mean they "attack" from tiny boats usually with less than ten bandits and some handheld automatic weapons. At best it seems they have some handheld rocket launchers, too. No match for Navy Seals. Probably no match for McHale's Navy, either, but let's not take any chances. Send in the pros.

Let them video each capture for evidence in whatever international court they get tried in and just keep doing it until the pirates quit. They might never quit, but we could just do it forever using it as a training tool for Seals. Just rotate them through every few months. And if a few pirates get killed trying to do their thing, so be it. Heck, let National Geographic do a reality TV show around it. I'd watch that.

Sweet Georgia Brown!

2009-10-13T21:46:00.004-04:00

So Holly's blog post on songs about NYC got me thinking about the Harlem Globetrotters theme song for some reason (okay, not for "some reason," for a very good reason...Harlem is part of NYC and it made me wonder what the song was about and if there was a version of it with lyrics). The answer to that question is there are lyrics to it, but I haven't found them yet. What I did find was far more interesting. You see, it's proof that even I could play a music instrument. That's right, me. And what musical instrument is that? Why, the tractor, of course!

I guess it's worth noting that some group of long haired hippies from England also did a remake of Sweet Georgia Brown. Strangely enough. But thanks to that one, now I know the words. Not a bad little song. Here is the original done by the author's band. And if you don't know the version the Harlem Globetrotters use, well, shame on you. Get some tickets and go check out the show next time they are in your town. You'll be glad you did.

(** The image used here is from the original 45RPM record jacket and scanned by yours truly.)

"Thingee" is one way to describe it!

2009-10-10T18:46:00.003-04:00

It's styled like a Jeep that got it's nose pinched, but it's really just two-wheel-drive and VW powered. And, uh, it's quite ugly. But hey, if ugly is your thing, well, it ought to be cheap.

It actually looks like it was built fairly well. I just can't figure out the why. Find it here on eBay.

Spinning a fact into a lie?

2009-10-09T16:11:00.003-04:00

According to this blog, I'm "spinning a fact into a lie". How so? By my previous blog entry pointing out that President Obama did nothing to deserve to be nominated before February 1 of this year, I'm curious what lie I've spun? No, he wasn't talking about me specifically, just everyone out there pointing out this little problem.

It seems clear to me. He didn't do anything to deserve nomination, but this writer appears to think that's okay since Hitler and a whole host of other people have been nominated in the past who were clearly undeserving. Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense. How silly of us to be pointing out that he shouldn't have been nominated and therefore not able to win an award that he somehow won without deserving it either way.

More information on the Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T14:08:00.004-04:00

According to this official link, the Nobel Peace Prize is selected from people nominated by February 1. What had Barack Obama done to change the world between January 20 and February 1 to receive such a nomination? I suppose he could have won it based on things he did before becoming the forty-fourth President of the United States, but I'll be darned if I can figure out what that could be. I mean he was pretty busy doing nothing more than campaigning for that entire year leading up to November, and he sort of couldn't do much until he was inaugurated.

I'd be baffled, if it weren't already obvious that the Nobel committee is nothing but a group of people with a political agenda. See Al Gore's award. Whether you agree with Mr. Gore's ideas or not, what "peace" has he brought to the world through his environmental work? Is it important and potentially worthy of high award? Sure! But the Nobel Peace Prize?

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize? Seriously?

2009-10-09T09:49:00.004-04:00

So the list of Nobel Peace Prize winners includes Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela. And now we add Obama to the list? Why? Well, according to the committee “He has created a new international climate” with respect to his campaign goal of a "world without nuclear weapons." Maybe I'm crazy, but I didn't see his administration do anything different than any other administration has done since the Reagan years when it came to issues like Iran and North Korea doing nuclear work. Nothing, zip, zero. Can someone please enlighten me as to how he's done anything at all different or better?

The NY Times can't even come up with any good reasons for this selection. Their next stated reason was Obama's speech in Cairo. I admit that was well received, but I'm not sure I've seen much lasting effect. Even so, this speech wasn't so great it puts you on the Nobel Peace Prize list, I don't think. The next item they list is he sought to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Who hasn't?!? Make some headway on that one and get back to me, will ya?

So could it be that the Nobel folks think he's going to do great things and that's why they gave him the prize? They say that's not the case, then all but say it is:

“We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future, but for what he has done in the previous year,” Mr. Jagland said. “We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do.”

Let's look at some other items from Obama's campaign rhetoric that would have been things that might have won a Nobel Peace Prize:

closing the prison at Guantanamo: Still not done
ending the war in Iraq: Still not done
ending the war in Afghanistan: Going the OTHER way! It's getting worse!

And while not necessarily campaign promises, in reality we have North Korea doing whatever they please with respect to nuclear weapons, Iran doing more and not less since Obama took office (sure, the current trend is they now say they're willing to "talk", but that means unless we make concessions for them they're going to do what they want), and Israelis and Palestinians still going at it just like always.

All I can say is perhaps he did more for peace than anyone else did in the last year. That would be a sad state, but perhaps it is true. I certainly can't come up with anyone else who did anything significant at all. But maybe they should have just picked a current Iraqi government leader? Those guys are trying to help their country and are hunted in thanks for it. *sigh*

At any rate, another thing I find strange is that the Nobel Peace Prize has a cash award currently worth $1.4M. Wonder what President Obama is going to do with that money?

My first triathlon

2009-10-06T13:31:00.006-04:00

Okay, first some background...while I can swim and even love to play in the water, I have no interest whatsoever in swimming long distances. None. I simply won't do it. But there are some triathlons out there that are "adventure triathlons" and combine other sports, typically paddling instead of swimming and the bike and run are on trails instead of the road. There's one such event near home called the Dark Mountain Challenge. Myself and some friends decided to do the DMC this year, and I started training fairly seriously a few months ago. The paddle was three miles, the run 4.5, and the bike was 10.

My paddling experience is fairly diverse, but didn't include much flatwater kayaking. To that end I got myself a fairly long boat that should have been fairly fast and did some training for that part. I won't go into the stories about that right now, but that was somewhat interesting, to say the least. The race was the more interesting part. The DMC folks have a handicap system for boats because such a diverse group shows up. They basically measure length and width and use a formula to assign a start delay from zero to seven minutes in one minute increments. My boat was given a four, but the guy seemed to really want to find a reason to make it a five. Matt also got a four, Alan got a two, and Bob and Michael each got zero as they were in sit-on-top recreational sea kayaks.

Matt totally killed me in the water and I was barely able to pass Alan for second in our group out of the water. I passed Bob about half way and Michael near the end, too. Unfortunately there's no such thing as a sit-in-kayak that will fit me while wearing running shoes, so I had to wear water shoes and change in the transition to the run (yes, traditional triathlons are swim/bike/run, but when paddling replaces swimming they usually switch it to paddle/run/bike so your arms get a break from holding the paddle before having to hold your handlebars). Alan passed me in transition since he didn't have to do anything but throw down his PFD and grab his water bottle. But I was still in front of Michael and Bob.

I started the run and Michael passed me right at the start and was hauling pretty quickly. We were probably half way through when Bob passed me. Both those guys were just in better shape than me. So now I was last out of our group, which wasn't where I wanted to be! But I kept my heart rate in check (mostly) and just did as much as my body would allow.

I got through the run and headed for the bike. I was really happy to get to that part as I felt it was my best part of the race. Then I got a cold dose of reality...about 2.5 miles into the ten my calves started cramping really bad. This was when I remembered that I had forgot to execute the part of my plan where I took electrolyte replacements before and during the race. I was well hydrated, but that does no good without enough electrolytes.

The cramping was really bad, but I found I could mitigate it by walking up most longer hills and pedal carefully on the lesser hills. Flats and downhill was fine. This is a pretty hill intensive course, but I wasn't going to give in, either. I figured I should REALLY bomb the downhills and get as much out of the flats as I could, so that's what I did. I still had resigned myself to not catching anyone else in my group, but I did pass a lot more other competitors on the bike than passed me, which was cool. Toward the end I saw something I really didn't want to see...Matt. Struggling. I buzzed by him with less than two miles to go and gave him some words of encouragement, but I still had work to do. (While I didn't want to be last, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be long before I caught Matt. He had done such a great job I hated to see him bonk that close to the end.)

I finished with a respectable time, though not as good as I would have liked. We're still waiting for results to be posted, but I was fourth out of my group of five. That said, I think I might have beat Bob in the bike portion, and if so I'm not going to let him forget that. He likes to be in front of me on our group rides and he's in pretty good shape for riding. Should be fun to compare all the splits once we get them.

You can see my paddling track, run track, and bike track via these links. Note, however, that the paddling one is missing about a quarter mile of the start as I forgot to start my watch. Also note that the paddling portion did not go nearly as well as I would have liked. My boat either doesn't suit my body for some reason or there's some kind of serious technique issue I need to address. Either way, I think next year we're going to try to do a team or two for the triathlon and then compete as individuals the next day in the duathlon at the same place. Gonna start training NOW. Matt can go kick the paddle's butt, Alan the run, and I'll try to bring it home on the bike.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Jon Forsberg of Santa Cruz Bicycles. I've never actually met him in person and only know him via another friend, but he's been a HUGE help via email and in some other ways with my bike. I ride a Santa Cruz Blur XC in full carbon fiber now, and the thing is simply incredible. I can't imagine a better cross country bicycle. There's no doubt it makes me a MUCH better rider. Thanks, Jon!

Also, a big thanks to all the event sponsors, which you can find on the Dark Mountain website. And finally, thanks to Maritza Greene for putting on such a great event! I can't wait until next year (but I think my legs would be fine waiting).

Car racing heart rate data

2009-09-28T23:10:00.005-04:00

So, I wore my Garmin 405 GPS and heart rate data logger during a session at the race track today. What's interesting is we did a "mock" race start during this session and I don't see any extra spike thanks to it. But my heart rate is in the 140's on average for the driving portion (had to start the data pretty early before even getting in the car and getting belted up).

That's actually a little higher than I thought it would be. Given the temperatures we see inside the car, it's easy to see why race car driving should be considered a sport. I can't sustain that kind of heart rate while paddling a kayak! Anyway, check out the data. I'm curious what others think. The dip at the end in speed to zero was a pit stop to change the rear wing angle on the car and then we went back out to see what effect it had.

(And in case you care, the 158 and the 223MPH speeds are data errors. Earlier in the day we were seeing 132 or so, but that's near the max that car can do at VIR.)

Movie Review

2009-09-27T12:37:00.004-04:00

I'm an admitted sucker for a romantic comedy, so keep that in mind. If you're not, well, you probably won't enjoy this one. It's He's just not that into you. There's nothing terribly special about it, but within that genre I'd say it was very good. Most romantic comedies can also be called "chick flicks", but I wouldn't say this one is quite that far down the pipe. Guys will definitely enjoy this one as it does make a certain amount of fun of the amount of obsession women can have over the details of dating. It also has a pretty stellar all star cast, and the acting is very good. All in all, I'd say this one is a good date movie.

That Disney Magic

2009-09-20T20:43:00.004-04:00

First, some background. DisneyWorld has what they call the "PhotoPass." Whenever you see a Disney photographer in any of the parks (and they are EVERYWHERE), you can grab them and have them shoot a few pics of you and your loved ones. They're pros with good equipment and they do their job well. Then they give you a PhotoPass, which is just a little credit card sized card with a big long number on it and a 3D barcode. Get more pics taken and you can just give them the card and they add it to your "account." Forget your card or whatever and just grab another one (they are free) when you next need pictures. You're saddled with an additional "account", but that's okay because you can combine them all to one account at any PhotoPass kiosk (again, free).

Share that number with friends (or pull it up yourself and share the link) and any of your friends and family can see what's going on with your trip as it happens. At the kiosks you can buy prints in an array of sizes. But the best deal of all is to buy the CD. You get the raw images sent to you and you retain all copyright on them. It's expensive at $150, but there are pre-purchase deals that can cut the price to $100 or so. And if you go to Disney with other families, just pool your dough and put all the PhotoPasses on one account and then copy the CD. Disney doesn't seem to mind that kind of thing one bit.

The problem arises when you combine a bunch of Photopasses to one pass and then you LOSE IT. Don't do that! One way to avoid it is to "back up" your PhotoPass by simply using your own digital camera (a cellphone camera will usually suffice) to shoot a picture of the number on the pass. Or write it down. Or when you combine you can actually have them put it on two or three passes that they'll give to you and you can put those in different places or in other people's hands. There are lots of ways to avoid being a dumbass, but sadly, as you might have guessed, I took none of these.

That's right, I had a Photopass with 65 pictures for THREE families from an entire day at Blizzard Beach, the best water park in the world. What makes that doubly bad is that this is the one place we generally don't bother taking our own camera in since it's a water park, even though we have an awesome new Canon D10 that's waterproof (just too annoying to keep up with when you're doing all those big slides and stuff since EVERYONE was participating in lots of BIG rides!). But at Blizzard Beach they have "little" PhotoPasses that are waterproof and have a rubber band that will go on your wrist and are no problem. Except we ended up with about a dozen of them throughout the day.

So at the end of the day I combined them at a kiosk to one. I shunned the smart man's attempt to give me two or three and said one was fine. Then, somehow, today, I lost it. I think I left it in the hotel room in a stack of old receipts I didn't need. We left the hotel around 9am and stored our bags for one more morning in Animal Kingdom before coming back to depart for the airport. It was right as we returned I realized I didn't have it and the staff was VERY helpful in tracking down the person who had already cleaned our room to find out if they had it or had seen it. In fact, that entire process took less than SIXTY SECONDS from the FIRST person I asked about it when I walked in the lobby of the MASSIVE hotel. But alas, not surprisingly, the cleaning lady did not have it.

I was a bit dejected, but then the security guy said "let's go over to the PhotoPass kiosk...sometimes they can find your pictures." I was a bit stunned at this possibility, because Disney doesn't really link your Photopass to YOU in any way. You go do that yourself at the end of your trip. You can enter ALL your PhotoPass numbers you might have accumulated and link it to your CD and have it pressed. Why they don't do this earlier (or make your room key a PhotoPass) I don't know, but that's the way it is.

Anyway, it turns out that not only do the pictures get put in a database that's linked to the number on the card they scan when they shoot the pic(s), but they are entered into the database by park and even location as well as the time they were taken. Since I remembered about an hour window at one of the Blizzard Beach rides that SEVERAL of us had gotten PhotoPass pictures at, I was able to have the kiosk guy just show me big thumbnail views of pictures from that time period on that ride until I found one of myself. He was then able to pull up that entire PhotoPass from that one picture of me. SWEET! He then scanned another card, handed it to me, and I was on my way, all in under ten minutes. I immediately snapped a pic of it with my iPhone and ran to catch my bus. Yeah, you got it, that's the Disney Magic. I'm not only amazed they could do all that, I'm amazed at the speed at which it happened. Truly special. Thank you, Disney, for saving me the embarrassment of being the one to lose 65 pictures and really the entire record of our day there.

Healthcare

2009-09-13T22:00:00.002-04:00

Here's my thing. The government isn't just out of money, we're borrowing just to float everything we're already doing. We need to stop that trend and go the other direction or our future is going to contain much more significant economic problems than those we've seen recently. So that said, we simply can't spend billions right now on healthcare hand-outs. Period, end of story.

Face it, nobody is denied healthcare now. Is it a problem that some people might have catastrophic healthcare events that cause them to have to file bankruptcy? Sure. But this situation has existed for a long time now, and that's what those financial protections are in place for!

What should we do? Everything we can do to ease healthcare costs that does NOT cost huge government dollars. Tort reform is a great start. Sure, some claim that the additional insurance costs to cover the huge lawsuits only amounts to some very small percentage of healthcare dollars. That may be true, but it's also true that doctors order something on the order of a few BILLION in tests that they wouldn't otherwise order to cover their own butts in the interest of staying OUT of court. Why? Because in many cases even GOING to court can cause them to become uninsured and thus basically out of work.

We could also investigate what other countries do, such as forcing healthcare insurers to go completely non-profit for that kind of insurance. Or kill that business entirely in favor of a government regulated non-profit that does it. All the models change dramatically when that happens, and we no longer don't worry about paying for huge insurance company profits, but we can also drop a LOT of current administration costs where insurance companies are having to do some much checking behind hospital administrators to protect their profit numbers. The insurer can now work WITH hospitals instead of against them.

There's probably a few more things the government can do without spending huge money that will help. I'm fine with everything we can do that doesn't cause huge spending. Just getting these things done would help in a big way. And not cause taxes to go up or the deficit to get large amounts worse.

If you believe in UFOs...

2009-09-09T21:04:00.000-04:00

Then this sign is for you!

US Healthcare vs the rest of the developed world

2009-09-04T08:44:00.004-04:00

Some very interesting facts packed into a short, easy-to-read article. Thanks to Chris for posting this on Facebook. This is a great read if you want to know the direction we really need to be taking on healthcare reform. Get rid of for-profit insurance on healthcare and clean up administrative costs. Add in tort reform and the article would have covered it all!

Put the fun...

2009-09-01T19:32:00.000-04:00

Well, the picture tells the story!

Thanks to Brad for finding and submitting this one.

No, the lens didn't strech it...

2009-08-31T20:53:00.002-04:00

The top really is chopped and it really is a 4x4. Not only that, it's got four wheel steering. Come on, you know you've always wanted something like this!

Here's the much maligned sign!

2009-08-31T19:55:00.002-04:00

From our previous post and comments about funny signs, here's the one Ashley and her sisters used to giggle about as kids (yes, it's been there 30+ years now!):

The "funny" here is that a "chapel" already is a "church" in this sense. So the girls would apparently spend the next little while saying things like "look, there goes an automobile car" and "cool, check out that gravel rock" and such redundant nonsense. I'm sure there was much giggling involved, too.

Yikes!

2009-08-31T19:44:00.002-04:00

Submitted by my friend John, we have this little gem:

I'm pretty sure this little maneuver is not OSHA approved.

Goodbye, Don't Bring a Trailer

2009-08-28T15:20:00.002-04:00

You might notice some new posts intermingled with original ones on my blog today. Those are the content from my now-defunct "Don't Bring a Trailer" blog. That site was a bit of a parody on the very popular Bring a Trailer website, but those guys felt there were some trademark issues there, so they are buying us out. I can't disclose the financial terms of the deal, but let's just say they are substantial. They have to be, since I can't disclose them. And the coolest thing is I can still keep blogging with those interesting vehicle finds, I just can't associate them with that name any more, so I probably will and just post them here. You'll find all the past content under the "dbat" label. Enjoy.

Lego Tedium!

2009-08-24T08:03:00.004-04:00

Thanks to my friend Mr. Blizzard who posted this on Facebook. If you've got kids, fire this video up in full screen mode and let them check it out. Adults who ever cared about any classic video games and/or Legos will enjoy it, too. It's done with stop animation, which is also called "claymation" when the animation is done with clay (so maybe we should call this legomation!). It's basically the process of moving things tiny amounts and taking a new picture each time and stringing the pictures together to produce animation. They claim 1500 hours of moving lego pieces and taking pictures to make this, and frankly, that number seems low to me! Kudos to the author of this one, especially since it's nice to find kid-safe videos on Youtube!

She's a beauty!

2009-08-23T21:08:00.000-04:00

We might be going out on a limb by putting this absolute beauty into our collection, but what the heck:

It's got an opening price of $499. We've seen some working examples of this early 1980's electric car on eBay in the past and we're not sure there's any parts on this thing that are worth $499. It's mostly toast from the sound of things, and these weren't worth much when they were new, let alone now. You can find a lot more scary pictures here. And in case you were wondering, the Electric Boogie by Marcia Griffiths actually came nearly ten years AFTER this lovely beauty above. That makes this thing nearly THIRTY years old. We're not sure which is more annoying, looking at the above car, or playing this video:

But, much like coming to this site day after day, you'll watch the video. We know you will. And somewhere deep down inside, you'll be dancing to it.

We like dune buggies, but...

2009-08-22T22:40:00.000-04:00

...this one just doesn't cut it:

Let's see. Last ran when parked seven years ago, most lights missing, interior is sparse at best, tires look scary, and, well, it's just ugly. We wouldn't have spent eBay listing fees on it, we would have had a scrap yard pick it up and thanked them for doing it (assuming they didn't CHARGE us for the privilege!). But maybe we can help this poor seller out by finding him the perfect buyer. If that's you, by all means, go get yourself a deal. On the plus side, you still Don't [need to] Bring a Trailer because it does have that handy tow-bar built in!

Hiking near Blowing Rock with the Conservation Trust for NC

2009-08-22T19:52:00.006-04:00

Through a strange twist of fate Ashley and I found ourselves doing a hike today with Ashley's sister, Hilary, and some folks from the Conservation Trust for NC. The hike was around five and a half miles and almost all downhill (they left shuttle vans at the downhill end of the trail which was quite awesome). I'll post my GPS track from it soon, but can't tonight. The above was one of many beautiful waterfalls along the hike.

Anyway, the highlight of the trip was Thunder Hole waterfall (which is not the one pictured above). A very pretty little waterfall and swimming hole that I and a few of the others on the hike decided to take advantage of. Here's a short video of me going behind the waterfall and then through it back out:

And here is another video of me sliding off the top of the waterfall and into the water:

A huge thanks to John Bell and Johnny Wilson for working so hard to put on this event, and it was great meeting a lot of awesome new folks today. We look forward to seeing you all at future events. And for those of you reading my blog who weren't there, please consider donating to CTNC! They are doing some great work to help conserve NC's beauty. They not only buy land to conserve it, but they fight to stop the forest service from logging land already owned by the government. Thunder Hole won't be the same if they lose their current battle to stop the Globe logging project, for example. Visit their site and help if you can!

More on the Whole Foods/John Mackey Story

2009-08-22T00:04:00.005-04:00

My friend Dave sent me a link to this article by a friend of John Mackey's. Folks might recall that John Mackey is the CEO of Whole Foods and recent wrote an article that was published in the Wall Street Journal speaking out against ObamaCare. That resulted in a fairly large backlash of folks starting all sorts of different movements to boycott shopping at Whole Foods.

The whole thing is quite funny, but if you're at all interested in the issue of ObamaCare, this article is a good read. My personal opinion is that this author (Michael Strong) and John Mackey are both a little too far down the Libertarian path for my tastes, but they are a lot closer to good ideas than the Democrats currently, too. What do I want? Reasonable regulation that protects consumers and preserves fair markets. You know, the kind of thing Elizabeth Warren is harping on.

Rocket Dragster

2009-08-21T21:51:00.000-04:00

Okay, we admit that we want it. And we want it bad:

So why does it make our list here at DBaT? Simple. It's a rocket and it's sold as-is and looks like that. Seriously. Who in their right mind would jump into a rocket that someone else built that they bought off of eBay and think "oh, I can't wait to fire this puppy up!" It's called a death wish, and we don't have one. But if you do, hey, knock yourself out. Literally. Or just use it to do your own tribute to the great Hal Needham and one of his classic movies, like this scene from Hooper (yeah, we're showing our age here):

Reverse Trike

2009-08-20T21:40:00.000-04:00

This just wasn't well executed at all:

Reminds us of a Pontiac Fiero in the front, and we're not really sure in the back. We started to post a picture of a Pontiac Fiero for comparison, but then we realized we just don't want to do that to our blog. Anyway, the concept of the reverse trike with side-by-side seating isn't new, and can be done fairly well as evidenced by the Campagna T-Rex:

Now, we admit that even the T-Rex isn't great looking, but it's a lot better (especially without the saddle bags pictured above, which are removable) than the "Trigger Y150" (where did they come up with that jewel of a name?) above. Outperforms it, too, and they're available already in the US for about the same money if you look around. But if you just have to get the Fiero-wannabe, find it here.

Our first submission! Or SCOOBYDOOBYDOOOOOO!!!

2009-08-19T20:59:00.000-04:00

Okay, so we're a bit excited about our first reader submission. Here we bring you the Mystery Machine:

We've got a pretty serious soft spot for golf carts, but a Mystery Machine themed one? Someone had way too much time on their hands. They also seem to think their time is worth quite a pretty penny at the $2500 asking price, too! No, they didn't post a great picture, but searching Google Images for Mystery Machine will find you plenty of other not-so-awesome clones. We prefer the original:

But if you just have to have a golf cart that vaguely resembles the van that Thelma and Shaggy and Scooby and the gang all rode around in, find it here on Craigslist. Thanks to John for the submission, and John, if this is your golf cart for sale, well, you've got a LOT of explaining to do.

Doubledecker Limo?

2009-08-19T20:42:00.000-04:00

We're not entirely sure what to make of this one:

What we do know is that the exterior is way better than the interior. We don't exactly understand why it has a huge stuffed animal inside, nor why there are pictures of a random box of jumper cables. If you scroll through the photobucket pictures you'll find a video of the engine running and the bus driving around. What you won't find is any mention of how difficult it can be to drive something that's 14'4" tall, and you can certainly leave your trailer at home since the last thing you want is to have something even taller to drag home. But hey, we love any vehicle with a true hot tub in it, and you gotta admit the Vegas wrap is pretty cool. What it is doing in Miami we have to wonder, but hey, it's Miami. Anything goes in Miami. We think you have to be the most interesting man on earth to rock this bus, though:

But if you're that guy, well, you aren't surfing eBay and you certainly aren't reading this blog. But if you want to try to be that guy, well, get a plane ticket to Miami and get to bidding.

A V8 RWD Geo Storm? Well, almost.

2009-08-18T20:49:00.000-04:00

Just needs a few small details ironed out to get her running:

Now, we like "sleepers" just as much as the next guy, and if this was a finished and running car it might not grace our precious web space. But you can't just get part of the way done on a project like this (a "mock up" motor?) and then expect to get any kind of money out of it. Yes, the wheels appear to be worth more than the current bid of $152, but it's not at reserve and we're quite confident it won't make it there, and that's without any idea what the reserve really is. If you are hurting for more projects of your own that you'll never finish (like this guy), find it here.

Pet Resale?

2009-08-17T21:14:00.001-04:00

These two signs appeared to me to be the same actual business. Sadly, it was closed so I couldn't verify that for myself, especially since I love me some "Clothin." Combine that with "Pet Resale" and you have a clear winner. More from Blytheville, AR.

Mobile "Dance" Club

2009-08-17T21:02:00.000-04:00

No, seriously:

We at the DBaT offices are unsurprised that such a creation exists, but we have never spent one single minute inside a moving "dance" club. Not one. *cough* This seller claims some lofty prices for what they have invested in this little beast, but we're unimpressed with the painted windows and the general appearance. And I suppose the idea is to be too distracted by "the show" to care that those seats look pretty darned uncomfortable. And there can't be many states where it's legal to be selling alcohol for consumption inside something like this, can there? And where does the "dancer" go when the show is over? And where do the patrons go to relieve themselves? Do you just have the driver make regular stops at McDonalds? We want more details on how this business venture can work! Or, uh, no we don't. But we do want to make sure you get to see the video of the cool light show inside this thing:

And if you're so inclined to get more info, you can just head on over here and place your bid now!

PeopleMoving is Big Business

2009-08-16T21:58:00.000-04:00

Well, it might be big business, but even this isn't likely to meet reserve:

This auction made us ask a lot of questions. First, who would spend $80k on something that looked like this originally? Second, why does a church own it (look at the listing ID) if it's not even street legal? Third, why wouldn't it be street legal? Looks to have lights and wipers and all that jazz and it's powered by a drivetrain that appears to have been out of something street legal (and fairly efficient, no less). Anyway, if you have to have an unattractive peoplemover that isn't street legal, this just might be for you.

We're full of hot air.

2009-08-15T16:55:00.000-04:00

And so is this thing:

So what we have here is a hot air balloon that seems to be a rainbow tribute to a mace:

I mean, here at the DBaT offices we can appreciate a big bag of hot air as much as anyone, but this thing is one of the least attractive hot air balloons that we've seen. But if you've got a hankering for a big medieval weapon themed balloon, find it here.

H3 hits the links

2009-08-14T22:20:00.000-04:00

The good news here is that this is probably just as off-road capable as a real H3, if not more:

So if Hummer owners are "compensating for something", what are owners of Hummer-clone golfkarts "compensating" for? A poor golf score? Or something, err, worse. We're actually very impressed at the level of detail this builder puts into these, but at the same time we just can't help but ask "why?" It's like a Power Wheels for adults:

Look, even the Power Wheels version is more off-road capable than the real thing! But if you already own a real H3, a Power Wheels H3, a 1/10 die-cast H3, and just have to add the golfkart version to your stable, you can find it here.

Thank You, Les Paul

2009-08-13T18:19:00.003-04:00

Les Paul passed away today. If you've ever listened to Rock and Roll or any of its many derivatives, you owe Les Paul a big thanks. His innovations in music since the 1950s are probably unmatched. By all accounts he was a truly amazing individual and musician, and a friend to many of the folks revered as the greatest of all time. You will be missed, Les Paul, but your legacy will live forever.