Party In Da Club / Injury Report

62 mile ride by myself up Pilot Mountain yesterday. Thanks to Fitty Cent I had a good beat to make it up the mountain. Replayed Party In Da Club 3 times on my ipod during the ascent to help me up the mountain. Not many guys my age may even know who he is, but when you have teenage boyz you can't help but listent to some of their music. And, I must admit, I like a fair amount of it.

Not a pretty picture here, but then I'm working with an old worn out model, so I can't expect much. Still the background shows a great view from the top. Beautiful day, close to 90 degrees and sunny with no wind. I drank a tremendous amount of liquid on the ride and this was the first time I used the camel back in over a year, so good training for the beach ride. Drank 5-24 oz water bottles and filled the camel back up twice, but it was frozen solid initially, so it probably only amounted to one full camel back.

As for injuries. In the last 12 months we have all shown our age with each of experiencing some form of injury. Mine happpend a year ago, sidelining me for the summer. Philip had his achilles tendon and pneumonia, Carl with the back problems and now Fred with knee issues. We are still about 6 or 7 weeks away from the beach and barring no more injuries 3 of us are healing or have healed. Unfortunatly Fred's knee is a new one. Waiting to hear results of MRI and keeping our fingers crossed for good news.

Happy Thoughts

Here's a happy thought... Just completed my second half-ironman and I'm ready to focus more on cycling. I had a great time. Here is a picture of me about 30 minutes after the event next to the bike entrance The swim portion got cancelled due to fog, but the day turned out to be beautiful. Just can't compare my times to last year's race because of the swim portion but still enjoyed it anyway. Everytime I do one of these endurance events I catch myself saying I'm won't ever do another one about halfway into the run, but by the time the event is over I'm searching the internet for another one to sign up for. Looking forward to 3 Mountain Madness in a few weeks followed by Blood, Sweat and Gears 2 weeks later and then the ride to the beach. Hopefully the rest of our crew will be healthy by then.

I am back and getting ready for BSG

OK, boys... I am back. The pneumonia and Bronchitis is over. I have been trying to get back to biking shape in the last 2-3 weeks. Have ridden the gap 4 times. I am not near where I was before I got sick, but I am improving. My bike group here, the outlaws, a cool biking club that I have joined and Suwanee Bikes are getting back into shape. They need work on their drinking skills and I am helping or should I say I teaching them the technique of drinking and riding. Speaking of drinking and riding, let me get to that.

I did two rides back to back, 72 miles each and I found out something very interesting. Went out the night before and had 11 beers and two margaritas. I got up at 7 am, not sure how and got on the bike at 9. Yes it took that long for so many reasons that I don't want to comment. Anyhow, rode 72 miles at a pace of 19 miles per hour, not bad. The next day I only had two beers and got up at 8:30 am and got off at 9:00. I rode the same route and my average was 17 mph. Now the temperature was 102 degrees and think it was that way each day. All things being equal, beer seems to really help. I really have cut back on my drinking and will continue to do so, even though this post does not show it. However, how can you not say that drinking the day before does not really help. I don't know, just saying. Here are a few pictures for you, even have one from the new bridge at Sunset. It gives us another hill to climb at the end, but it is beautiful coming over the bridge.

FYI, I will not being doing 3 mountain madness, but plan on BSG. I am going to Vegas for a week and possible two weeks. I will take my bike to try and ride some of the mountains there. After BSG my riding will slow down considerably. Anyway, enjoy the pics and look forward to seeing everyone for BSG. Of course the ride to Sunset is still on, so that will be fun and look forward to it as well.