New Wheels

Just over a year ago I bought my first road bike from a friend on mine. The deal was just too good to pass up, and I rode that bike a lot last year, in fact the picture at the top of this blog is one I took of my bike on a nice long evening ride heading out west at some point last summer. [May have to take an updated shot in the coming months to reflect the recent upgrades to the bike!]

Anyways, I'd been thinking about picking up a new aero wheel set for my bike that is both lighter and far more aerodynamic that my previous wheels. I wanted a set that I could still use on an everyday basis and also be able to swap over to a tri specific bike for triathlon races if I wanted. What I decided on [with the recommendation of a friend of mine] was the new Bontrager Aeolus 5 D3 Carbon Clinchers. These wheels are 100% carbon fiber and have a dish of 50mm. Basically they're much lighter, stiffer, and will cut through the wind much easier than my previous set. They came in last week but I didn't have a chance to swap them out until last night. Too bad the weather isn't looking so good for this weekend, cause I'm anxious to take them out for a nice long ride, esp now that I can hop back on the bike since my marathon is done! Here's a simple picture I took of the bike last night....and yes, I know my bar tape is dirty and I need to re-wrap the bars with some fresh tape! But those wheels....oh lawwwd those wheels!

It just looks fast!

Here's a stock image of the wheels so you can see

what they look like a little more up close.



My First Marathon

Oh look, I have a blog....that I totally ignored for the last 2 months. My bad :) Actually quite a lot has happened since I last wrote, but there's really one one story that deservs an update. Back in October I wrote a blog post about signing up for my frist marathon. Well my friends, that marathon happened. and here's what I've got to say about it.....

Sometime when I was a kid, I decided to add completing a full iron-man race to my list of life goals. I think it was just watching the pure emotion pour out of people as they crossed the finish line that got me, and I just knew from that point on it was something I had to do before I die.

I’m a swimmer, I swam competitively my whole life, I bike a lot too, but running (distance running), well running is by far my weakest of the three sports. I’m not the kind of person to do something just to finish it either, I get competitive with myself and make goals to go after, it’s not enough for me just to finish, I have to race the clock. I knew that if I had any hopes of not only completing an iron man, but in a respectable time, I’d have to really focus on my running. So last fall I signed up for my first running race of any kind, a marathon.

For lack of any better option or knowledge at the time, I decided to follow one of Hal Higdon’s free online marathon training plans. It was 18 weeks long, and would take me farther that I’ve ever ran before. I was nervous about the weekend distance runs, but had no other option other than to tackle them head on and learn from my experience.

You’ll be amazed at how fast your mind switches on you as to what is considered a distance run vs. a short, easy one. When I first got going I remember thinking to myself “okay, 9 miles, you can do this, you can do this!” – then about a month later after I had gone into the 15-16 mile range, I thought to myself, “only 9 (or 11) miles today? That’s easy!”

I battled a couple injuries, did research on them, talked other runners with more experience than myself, and got myself through it. About 3.5 weeks ago, I peaked with a 20.6 mile run, which was tough as hell. The last 4 miles of that run were incredibly painful (though I had no idea at the time what pain would actually feel like on race day) and it made me a little nervous about not being able to even come close to my goal of a 3:45.xx marathon. I kept with the plan though, and eventually tapered down and rested my legs accordingly.

Race day came and I was surprisingly calm. I kept expecting butterflies to fill my stomach in the days leading up to the race but they never came, which I was really thankful for. Also, the weather ended up being perfect last week and on race day, which helped a lot. Before I knew it, I was in my corral and the gun went off. The first few miles were a little tricky to find my pace because of all the people around, but I just focused on controlling my excitement and trying not to go out too too fast. The one thing I didn’t really enjoy was running alongside ½ marathoners at the same time. They were speeding up, slowing down, speeding up, stopping, etc. and then a lot blew by me at mile 12 as they were heading to their finish. I never really got used to it, but after I made my turn to start my second half of the race, it was a totally different race. There was very little crowd support for the full marathoners, and it became totally mental. I’m glad I trained without any music because not having headphones in let me settle into a rhythm amidst the (mostly) empty course.

Once I hit mile 21, I was encouraged, because I ran 21 miles much faster than I had ran my 20 mile training run, and I was still feeling alright. Mile 23 was a different story. I really started to struggle to keep my pace at this point, and while I never hit or found “the wall” I did begin to feel the pain. Miles 24-26 were probably the most pain I can remember feeling in a long, long time. I would keep closing my eyes so I wouldn’t see the road stretching out in front of me, and I’m pretty sure I went to some pretty dark places in my mind. But I didn’t stop. I knew I had to keep moving forward if I had any hopes of nearing my goal.

I kept hoping there would be a mental burst of energy that would kick in towards the end, but unfortunately that never happened. The last .75 miles were tough, but I was able to pick my pace back up closer to my race average. Eventually I turned the last corner and could physically see the finish line about 100 yards straight in front of me, and dug as deep as I could to try and finish strong. I’m pretty sure my form was way off and I looked like a total goober, but I finished. I came in at 3:46.17…..18 seconds off my goal. But you know what? I’ll take it! I came far closer than I thought I would, and despite 2 slow miles towards the end, I ran a pretty good and consistent race that went almost 100% according to plan.

Of course now I have my sights set on higher goals (will be shooting for roughly 3:35.xx next time around), which I think is absolutely obtainable with my new knowledge and experience of what it will feel like in those closing miles. I also now know that I need to focus a little more on running hills during my training. All in all the entire process was a fantastic experience and one I can’t wait to repeat, over and over again.

Iron man, here I come.

(Official timing chip)

(Click 'view details' for the mile by mile stats)

Bike Commuting, 2.5 Weeks

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!

[Click to enlarge]

Punkin Chunkin 2011: After

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

up their human-powered machine with his bike.

The fun machines.

View from the distant parking lot.

[Punkin Chunkin 2011]

Run For Your Lives, Zombie Cam & Report!

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.

Ready to eat some brains!

[Run For Your Lives, Zombie POV Cam]

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.

It was quite an interesting drive home!

[Scaring Mom As A Zombie]

All dressed up.

Happy Zombie.

She's so proud.

Commuting, Day 1

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

since I was 5 or 6 years old!

New Bike....Again!

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

The Bike Lane, best shop in all the land!

Zombie Run Update

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 Lives Facebook 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!!

Humans, Here I Come!

Fatties Don't Stand A Chance

Milestone Pt. 2!

2.5 years back I made this post about my car hitting the 100,000 mile mark on my way to work that morning [early 2009.] Well two and a half years later, August 19th 2011, on my way up to visit my friend in NJ this weekend I hit the 150,000 mile mark. And yes, I was totally prepared yet again.

Since Feb 4th 2009, 927 days have passed giving me an average of 53.9 miles a day driving, or 22,248 hours, which translates to roughly 2.24 miles per hour. In that time though, I've also owned two motorcycles and bought another car [but you all already knew that], so I wonder how much more driving I would've done in the Galant and how much sooner I would've hit the mark had I not gotten the other modes of transportation? Orrr, had I not bought the Challenger, would I even still have the Galant? [Probably not.] Either way, it continues to be a fantastically reliable mode of transportation, and whenever the time does come, I will be sad to see it go.

Couple interesting things about the video, [yes we have video this time!] I was actually right in the middle of the Delaware Memorial Bridge when it happened, so I was actually over water, and not land at all. Also,  if you listen closely to the background song, there's a cymbal crash right when the odometer clicks to 150k, not that I planned that at all, but I noticed it on the video afterwards and thought it was cool. Well that's about all I can write about a car hitting 150,000 miles, so on with the obligatory before/after pics, and video. Thank you Galant, for all the many miles of trustworthy service!

Almost......

THERE!

[Rolling Over 150k Miles]

The Colonel Gets Some New Legs

As I mentioned a couple times over the past couple weeks, I had another upgrade planned for the Challenger, but wasn't able to get it installed until this week.

Back in June, I was able to get a smoking hot deal on a complete SRT Challenger suspension setup. The guy I bought it from has an SRT Challenger, but had upgraded his suspension, so he decided to sell his stock components, and he made me a deal I couldn't refuse. They were barely used with ~2,000 miles on them, whereas my stock suspension that just came off was at 12,700 miles.

I wanted something that would lower my car ever so slightly and give it a more aggressive look without actually looking like a "lowered" car, and I wanted the appearance to remain stock to the untrained eye. For these reasons I was looking for the OEM SRT setup versus purchasing some other kind of coil-over kit that would've lowered the car more than what I would have liked. The SRT suspension ended up lowering my car about 1" in the rear and about 3/4" in the front. The front may drop a bit more in the next couple of weeks since they are still relatively new parts, and the weight of the engine may settle it down a touch more. It's not a huge difference but it is noticeable, however if it weren't for me pointing this out, I have doubts that anyone would've noticed. The ride is considerably better though, and a decent amount stiffer than the R/T suspension was. There is also far less body roll going around corners which really improves the handling of the car.

Anyways, I'm really happy with how it all turned out, and am enjoying the increased performance of the SRT suspension a lot. Here's some before and after pictures I took. If you look at the gap above the tires, you'll see it's smaller in the second picture with the body of the car coming down about 1 inch. What does everyone think? Would you even have noticed if I didn't point this out?

Before

After

Upgrades Update

Remember this post from last month about upgrades? Well, I got the said upgrades, but haven't had a chance to get them installed yet. Fear no more though, because in one weeks time the Colonel will have the next round of upgrades complete! Sorry for the slight delay on this one, but rest assured the plans are now set! I'll of course do a post-upgrade...post on it all, complete with plenty of wonderful pictures! Hooray! In the meantime, here's another picture to help you guess what I may be up to. Enjoy!

The Colonel Gets A New HUD

Okay, so not like the Challenger was really low-tech to begin with, but in the audio department it definitely lacked a little bit [at least by today's standards.] When I ordered the car, I knew it wasn't going to be my daily driver, so I didn't opt to pay for a few of the snazzy features that I wasn't going to utilize on a daily basis, the touch screen Mygig unit being one of them. I think it was originally part of an interior or technology package, that would've included some other things I could care less about, like illuminated cup holders and stuff. So, I passed and figured if I really wanted something, then I'd upgrade at a later time.

That time came last week. One of the members of ChallengerForumZ is in the process of upgrading a ton of stuff on his car to get it ready for the SEMA show in Las Vegas later in the fall. When I found out he was going to have his factory installed Mygig head unit up for sale, I sent him a message and he offered to sell it to me at an extremely good price, so good that I bought it immediately, and had him ship it out the next day. 

Fast forward to Monday night when I got a notice saying that USPS tried to deliver it, but missed me [seriously, why must they insist on making deliveries in the middle of the day when they know you're not home?!] so I stopped by the post office yesterday to go pick it up. Since this unit is a stock OEM piece that could've originally come from the factory, it was really easy to install, probably took me all of 10 minutes. [I go through a little of that in the pictures below.] Once I got it installed and the dash put back together, I of course had to tinker with it for the next two hours. One really nice feature is that it includes a built in 30Gb hard drive, so I can just load all my music onto the head unit itself, and just play the files directly off the hard drive, rather than having to plug in my phone or something. Also, the fit was perfect, and looks like it came from the factory like that. I think it livens up the cabin a little bit as well. Anyways, I'm really happy with this little upgrade/modification and can't wait to take another road trip to really utilize it. On with the pictures [and video], enjoy!

New touch screen head unit, ready to install.

The center console, before. [A little boring]

Taking apart the dash to get the old one out.

4 screws hold the unit in place behind the center console.

Unplugged the power cable, antennae, and wiring harness off the old one,

and plugged them right into the back of the new one and slid back into

place. [One great feature of sticking with original OEM equipment!]

Dash put back together for a perfect and stock looking fit!

It works, success!

Default home screen.

After a little 'personalization'! [You can upload your own photos

and change the background picture to anything you like.]

Mp3's playing off the hard drive.

Here's a quick video of me going through some of the basic functions.

[Mygig Functions]

Pin Dodge 2K11: After

The 9th annual Pin Dodge tournament took place this past weekend, and with much success! No injuries, and for the most part, everyone was on time, and on point with keeping the games moving along. We broke the regular season into a 'double round robin' format, that totaled 42 games played. Then we had a double elimination tournament for the playoffs.

Unfortunately my run at a 4th consecutive championship fell just short this year, as my team finished 4th out of 7. However, the championship did remain in the family, as my brothers team completely ran the field this year without losing a single game. We had excellent weather with not terribly hot temperatures and low humidity with a few passing clouds to give us a break from the sun. All in all, it was a great day, and provided everyone a chance to catch up and see friends who don't live in the area anymore. Next year will be our 10th anniversary of playing, so we'll definitely have to do something big! In the meantime, enjoy these pictures that both Katie, and myself took!

7 teams, prepared for battle.

Pin Dodge!

And the chaos begins.

Exchanging throws.

 Bright colors.

Sometimes it's fun to aim for people, and not the pins.

Here I am hoping that ball doesn't hit a pin.

A victim from 2, 3, maybe 4 years ago? Still laying dead in the woods.

My bro, 2011 Champion, and part time model.

The gang one more time.