Aside from my mishap on day 1 of commuting, the rest has been great. It does stink to get out of bed even earlier than I already do, and it's pretty chilly out in the early morning to be riding a bike instead of in your car with the heat on, but once you get past those first 2 miles or so, you start to warm up pretty nicely.
Recently it's been a challenge to wear and pack the correct riding apparel, this is because of the crazy range in weather we're currently experiencing. It will be about 32-34 degrees in the morning when I set off on my ride into work, but in the mid 60's by the time it's time to head on home. What this means is that I have to try and cram and pack all the cold weather accessories and apparel that aren't needed for the warm weather ride home into my bag, so I have them available again for the next morning. It's a tight squeeze but I'm making due. It's also hard to say it'll be nicer when it's cold 24/7 because the current rides home in the afternoon are perfect right now.
I do find that I am much more tired in the evening on days that I ride, and I'm usually asleep before my head even hits the pillow, which is good. Also, I don't feel at all bad when I get a cheeseburger and fries for lunch, because I've already burned it off on my morning commute, and [by my logic] I'm going to need that fuel to burn off once again on my ride home! Also, in only 6 commuting days so far, I can already feel my legs getting stronger and I'm able to climb hills faster, or at least in a higher [harder] gear. I'll have to do a post soon on all my various pieces of apparel so you can see how I've braved the chilly temps thus far. In the meantime, here's a snapshot summary of my 6 riding days so far, and a workout summary from yesterday's ride, which was also my fastest round trip thus far. Go by bike!
As I mentioned previously, this weekend was the annual Punkin Chunkin event up in Delaware. Every year, teams bring their various contraptions made for throwing pumpkins into a field, and square off in each category to see who will be the next champion. I had never been before, so I didn't quite know what to expect, and as with any first time event, you learn quite a bit about how to better prepare for next year.
The first lesson, is to either camp out at the grounds the night before, or get there verrrry early in the morning. My friends and I camped at a campsite about 30 min away, and by the time we everyone else was up and moving around, it was already noon. I was all for camping out at the grounds using tents, but I was outvoted and the cabins 30 min away won. The reason you want to get there so early is because there is one road heading into the site, and thousands of cars trying to get there and park. The event was only about a 30 min drive from our campgrounds, but it took us almost an hour once we were there to drive up the one remaining road and park.
Second lesson, make friends and get invited to join an AWESOME tailgate section! We totally lucked out with this one. Our group drove in two cars, but we got split up in the whole parking thing, and cell phone reception was really bad. Luckily for my half of the group, we had the cooler full of beer, and the folding chairs to bring into the grounds. My friend Pete has a friend named Ryan who lives up in the area, and Pete invited Ryan to join us for the chunk [both of whom rode in my car]. Ryan has some co-workers who found out he was finally going to attend after years of bailing out, and insisted he come and join their tailgate. So Pete and I [and our cooler full of beer] tagged along and got to join a great group of people, right near the front who had gotten up at "zero dark hours" to get out to the field and start cooking and setting everything up. They had an awesome spread of food and were begging us to eat everything so they didn't have to take anything home. [It didn't take much for me to agree with their wishes] I made friends fast and we ended up having a fantastic day watching all the events, and people, all while enjoying hot chili!
Below is a brief photo recap of the day, and a quick video compilation of some of the shots. The video is really short though, because by the time we got there in the afternoon all the trebuchet, and catapult machines had already fired once, and they were onto the air cannons. Now the air cannons were very impressive and fun to watch, but half the time you couldn't even see the pumpkin coming out, or you had no warning that they were about to fire, so I missed a lot of video opportunity because of that. We waited around until dusk for the 'free fire' when the whole range opens up and teams just start launching pumpkins left and right, that was the highlight by far. So here's some pictures and video, and be ready for more punkin chunkin adventure next year!
At the site of our new friends and tailgate section.
Pete and I enjoying our new spot!
The buffet table.
Check out this awesome plate of food!
If I didn't know any better, I'd say that was a real
battlefield there in the distance!
Spitfire!
Man your battle stations!
There was some excellent people watching available as well.
In this shot you can see the guy [who I called Lance] powering
This coming weekend I'm headed up to Delaware for the annual Punkin Chunkin event. And yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. Competitors will launch pumpkins as far as they can into a field, using the machines they've built. There are a bunch of different categories too, like catapult, or air cannons [which I hear can launch a pumpkin over a mile!] I've seen the specials on TV before [like the one video below] but I've never made it up for the actual event, so I'm really looking forward to it. Stay tuned for updates early next week and check out the preview below of what's in store! Enjoy!
This past weekend was my 5th homecoming/reunion up at Albright. [Holy cow, it's been 5 years already?!] This was certainly a memorable one, and not just because there were a plethora of new babies around, but because of the rare October snow that came to join ruin the party! Well, I shouldn't say ruin, but the turnout was definitely lacking when compared to all the other homecomings I've been to.
We awoke Saturday morning to find the snow flying sideways, but neither my buddy Steve or I thought anything would stick. About 2 hours later we were trudging through slushy sidewalks as we made our way to the luncheon/tailgate that got moved inside the rec center. I had heard there was some rare snow in the forecast, but certainly didn't expect anything to stick, much less stick to the streets!
Despite the snow, and frigid tailgating conditions, it was still a lot of fun to be back up there and to see some friends who I hadn't seen in quite some time. I also made my way into the natatorium to relive some memories from the thousands of hours spent in the pool during my time at Albright. I took a picture on my old starting block and tried to get one of the record board, but unfortunately it's down right now for updates, but my friend informed me that my college roommates and I still hold the pool record for the 200 IM relay. Here's some pictures from the weekend, enjoy!
Driving through the one day blizzard!
The football game.
The water cooler got a little lonely.
The seats weren't quite as filled as normal either!
My friend making good on her bet. [She's a huge Giants fan]
"Gentlemen, 100 yard freestyle, take your mark....."
Sorry it's taken a little more time to get this one up, but I kept running into some technical issues....but those are resolved now....so we are good. As most of you know, last weekend I headed up to MD to volunteer at a 5k obstacle course race, but I was dressed up as a zombie and placed out on the course to try and pull people's "health flags" [read: flag football flags.] If they lost all of their flags, their time at the end was recorded as a zombie time instead of a human time. I was out on the course for about 5.5 hours chasing people, pulling flags, and attempting to pull flags when I wasn't being hit, slapped, punched, shoved, or cursed at. Needless to say it was quite the experience.
I left at 4am to make the drive up, and when I got up to the event site, I made my way over to the volunteers area to get zombie-fied. They had professional make-up artists there to paint our faces and destroy our clothes in a believable manner. I had also brought along my white contacts to complete the effect. There were plenty of other zombies around that commented at just how freaky I looked with the eyes. Here's a picture of me as a zombie when I got my make up done that morning. And the video of my point of view of the race.
After the event I decided it would be worth the effort to drive home in all my make-up [while trying to avoid being spotted by other drivers] to head over to my parents house to try and scare my mom. And scare her I did! [Most of you have already seen the video but I'm posting it again because it's just too funny.] Also, it was my younger sisters homecoming dance that night, so we thought it would be fun to take some pictures we all of us dressed up.
Well, it's been an interesting first day of commuting! The weather was pretty cool, but not cold, there are leaves on the ground....oh and it rained last night. See where I'm going with this? The ride in was great this morning except for a minor hiccup when turning onto a wooden path covered in wet leaves. I made my turn, and the next thing I knew I was sliding along the ground. Fortunately though, none of my brand new riding gear ripped, and the rack on the back of my bike acted as a frame slider, so there wasn't even a scratch on the bike itself. It wasn't until I got to work and took off my knee warmer that I discovered I had scraped myself up good! [Check out the damage below!] Anyways, this mornings incident definitely served as a reminder that wet leaves provide zero traction when cornering, and hopefully I'll avoid crashing from here on out. In fact, I can't even remember the last bike crash I had [other than mountain biking, because crashing happens all the time then]! I'm all bandaged up now though, and ready for the ride home this afternoon, upper 60 degree temps!
I think my knees have perpetually looked like this
Ever since I figured out the paths and trails to take to get me into work via bicycle, I've seriously considered commuting by bike full time. The wheels in my head started spinning this past summer, but it wasn't until recently when I put my plan into action. Part of that delay was because the bike model I had my eyes on was discontinued, so I needed to find something similar to use. Eventually I ended up deciding on the Trek Ion CX Pro.
The CX stands for cyclocross, a form of bike racing usually held in the winter months, and on bikes that very closely resemble road bikes, except they're built for more abuse and off-road usage. I wanted a bike that I could still go really fast on if I wanted to, but it also needed to be able to stand up to the abuse of commuting, have spots for a rack and bag, and fenders. Last week, when the time was right, I placed my order for the bike and to my surprise the bike shipped really fast and arrived at the shop the other day. So after work yesterday, I headed over to the bike shop to build up my bike and outfit it with a couple accessories for commuting.
My goal is to commute a minimum of 3 days per week....in all weather conditions...year round. If I stick to that goal, it'll be over 100 miles per week that I'm outside riding my bike vs. sitting in rush hour traffic. Can't beat that! I ordered a bunch of cold weather riding gear too, so the upcoming freezing temperatures won't derail my plan. I'm sure I'll have some interesting updates on how that goes in the coming months. I'm very much looking forward to this challenge, and come spring time I know I'll be in fantastic riding shape, and ready to put in a solid season of races. On with the pics!
Trek Ion CX Pro [with added rack]
With the bag for commuting added on.
Mmmm, carbon fiber
Stock tires which I plan on swapping out to an all weather road tire
A full marathon has been on my list of races to complete for quite some time now, and I've never gotten around to researching it some more until lately. I have 3 race goals for next year, 1) a full marathon, 2) complete a half iron-man, and 3) complete the Shenandoah Mountain 100 [100 mile mountain bike race], of course these are all stepping stones to my real race goal of completing a full iron-man the following summer. For those unaware, an Iron Man is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile run. Yea.
It's very true that it if you have you eye on an event or race, the best thing you can do is to just sign up for it, because otherwise you'll keep putting off the training and then flake out and never sign up. By signing up first you force yourself to develop some sort of training schedule or regimen, so that you can put it a solid effort on race day. Welp, I'm officially signed up for my first marathon. It's going to be on Saturday March 17th, 2012, here in DC, and it's called the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon USA. I've heard of the Rock 'n' Roll marathon series before, but this is the first time it's coming to DC. I'm very excited and curious at the same time. Excited because I know I'll have to keep my butt in excellent shape all throughout the winter and excited to cross this one off the list, but nervous because I still don't know how it's going to feel when you're searching for strength as you pass mile marker 20, and realize you still have 6 more to go. But there's only one way to find out!
I've found a decent training schedule that lasts 18 weeks leading up to race day. That means that my training schedule starts in just over 2 weeks from now. The details of the schedule can be found here, and there's a screenshot of the mileage and corresponding week pictured below. I'm not going to be starting my training from scratch though, since I've remained fairly active and in shape this whole summer and fall. In fact yesterday I strapped on my trail shoes and got in two nice laps around Burke Lake totaling 9 miles, and a pace much faster than I anticipated on being able to run, encouraging! One day and run at a time though, and hopefully come March 18th, I'll have some excellent news to report!
Rough outline of training schedule. [Click to enlarge]
On Saturday night, a bunch of my motorcycle buddies and I headed out to Summit Point Raceway in WV for a little 'racing under the lights' action at the go-kart track out there. I love karting so any time I get to race a new track, I really enjoy it. Most of my kart experience is on indoor slick tracks, so it was fun to get outside again onto an asphalt track, even it was almost semi-slick. Temperatures were probably in the low 50's that night as well, so the track itself was a little cool. Even so, I did very well and learned the racing line of the track pretty quickly. You'll see in the video below, it doesn't take me much time to dispose of the racers in front of me!
We ran three races that night, and on my last lap of the last race, I threw down my best lap of the night, a 48.344, dropping about 1.5 seconds from my previous best lap. The last full lap in the video below is my fastest one for the evening, and got me a top 5 time for the week, not too shabby for never racing there before! Anyway, enough chatter, on with the video!
Early last month, I had posted about a new adventure type race that I found out about called Run For Your Lives, and wanted to be a part of. Well, instead of running in the race, I'm actually going to be volunteering instead, AS A ZOMBIE!! That's right, I made it through the zombie volunteer selection process and am officially a 'chaser' zombie....meaning I get to actually hunt people down and kill them [not for real though, I just have to pull the flag football flags they'll be wearing...good thing I play defensive back in my flag football league!]
There are 'walker' zombies as well, which are more or less there just there to scare the bejeezus out of people, and I'm sure I will too, but my make-up probably wont be quite as intense since I'll be running the whole time. I can't wait, and I think I'm going to have a lot of fun too. I've been lurking the Run For Your LivesFacebook Page, and there seem to be quite a lot of overly confident people on there, and all I have to say to them is, if you can't run a 4.5 40 yard dash, you will be killed by me. Guaranteed.
To help with the visual scare tactics of chasing people down to try and eat their brains, I ordered some white contact lenses to make my living dead getup a little more believable. They're really not so much contacts as colored pieces of plastic film, making them extremely difficult to put in and getting them to sit properly, but they work nonetheless. Should be a great race day!!
