Parked on the Indiana Tollway

Originally uploaded by Sk8rAlStuck in IN for over 90 min. I90 is closed due to black ice. We'll see how long this takes. This might end up being a two day drive.


Updated: We ended up sitting there for 4.5 hours. We were able to make it to Chattanooga yet that day, but Florida had to wait until Saturday.

Winter's Here! (Like it, or not)

Well, it looks like we're in for another heavy duty winter this time around. Here, in Milwaukee, we've been hit with snow about every other day since December 1. It's been crazy. Last Friday was the biggest so far with 12-14 inches. That one resulted in the city shutting down, and me getting an unplanned vacation day. Here are some pics from the big snow...





After deciding to skip work on Friday, I went back to bed. When I woke, I was plesantly surprised to find most of the driveway already shoveled - thanks to Kiloracer!



Contemplating the giant pile of snow...

We had a little fun with the snow, too.



There has also been a fair amount of Christmas spirit around the house. Lots of gift wrapping, and I even did a bunch of baking last weekend. And some decorations and lights. Mom made Kiloracer a new stocking this year, so now everything is symmetrical...







Later this week, we'll be heading south for some cycling, and most importantly, WARMER WEATHER (we've had plenty of sub-zero temps to go with that snow). I'll try to post some cell phone pictures in the days to come...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

New Roof

When I bought my house 2.5+ years ago, it was clear that at least two things would need to be updated relatively soon. The furnace was replaced in February of 2007. And, as of the end of October, 2008, I have a new, pretty roof...

Here are all the before and after shots (you can click on any of the pictures to go to my Flickr sights with bigger sizes)...

The back, before...

...during...

...and, after. Note the new lack of chimney.

Another angle of the back before...

...during...

...and after.

The front, before...

...during (well, not really during - they did the back on one day, and the front on another day - this is the morning before the second day)...

...and, after!

My pretty, little house with its new roof. Considering I gave myself a migrain trying to pick out the right color of shingle, I'm very relieved with the final look. I'm glad I went with what I did.

New Member of the Family

It seems many of my friends are welcoming new additions to their families these days. Just yesterday, my friend Andrew welcomed a new little girl! Last month, Abbe welcomed Sophie. Nikki will be popping any minute now, and Jen and Joe will have their little one in the next few weeks.

Now, I don't have anything nearly as exciting and life-altering as all that. But, I do have this...

This is Stinky. Stinky is Kiloracer's cat. The two of them moved in this week. (Don't worry, she smells just fine. Kiloracer, on the other hand, is a different story... ;) )

So far, cat integration and assimilation is going ok. Nobody is chummy at all yet - mostly giving each other plenty of breathing room, with some occassional hissing and growling. But, Pangaea is spending less time in the basement - the first sign of progress. Stella should be the queen of the land, but since Stinky is three times her size, she seems to just be staying out of the way. We'll see how all this goes. At least nobody is peeing outside of the litter box (my biggest fear).

Credit Where Credit Is Due

It’s September (where did August go?), and autumn is in the air, here in Wisconsin. All too soon, winter will be here and I’ll be whining about that. But, before that happens, I feel I should take a minute to make note of how wonderful the summer of 2008 has been.

Yes, we had crazy rain storms in June. Parts of Wisconsin saw flooding like it hasn’t seen flooding before. Had I been adversely affected by this flooding, I’m sure I wouldn’t have such fond feelings about this summer. So, I am beyond thankful that my house stayed dry.

Since mid-June, the Wisconsin weather has been nothing but beautiful. From mid-June through the end of August, it might have rained twice. Though dry isn’t great for everything, it sure makes planning outdoor activities easy. With a few rainy days this past week, I’ve been shocked back into having to check the weather forecast when making plans. Really, it rains here?

Also, we had no heat waves. Sure, we had a few humid days that flirted with 90 degrees. But none of the expected 90+ or 100+ heat waves we usually get a couple of every summer. I didn’t turn on my home air conditioner once this summer (cheers are ringing out from my utility budget). Wisconsin truly lucked out on the excessive heat this summer – you didn’t have to travel too far south this summer to find the crazy heat.

It seems like Wisconsin was protected by a weather pattern that kept us just north of the more extreme summer conditions all summer long. I’m hoping this isn’t the same weather pattern that fed us snow storm after snow storm, alternated with damn cold temperatures, all last winter. I have heard rumblings that this winter is supposed to be a repeat of the last. Let’s hope not.

For now, I’m going to try to not dread the impending winter too much, relish my summer memories, and enjoy this autumn. Autumn in Wisconsin is usually nice, deserves to be enjoyed, and not overshadowed by winter dread.

And here’s to the summer of 2008! It has been great. Dry, with temperatures in the 70s and low 80s – everyday. Every. Day. Man, I’m going to miss it.

P.S. I do have some posts to make that will be more interesting than musings about the weather. Mountain biking, cats, house upgrades, and maybe some Milwaukee fun, coming soon! And pictures – who wants to read all those words?

T is for Tuesday and Track

During the summer months, most of my Tuesday evenings are spent at the Washington Park Velodrome, in Kenosha. There, I race single-speed, fixed-gear bikes, have fun hanging out with my teammates, and have a little less fun being eaten alive by mosquitos (after last night I have no less than 30 mosquito bites on my butt!). At the velodrome, we race all sorts of races; from simple scratch races (first one done wins) and unknown distance (when are they going to right the bell?), to more tactical races like points, danishes, snowballs, miss-n-out, and real pukers like tempos. Last night, I even got to race a keiren - normally only the men get to do that. The keiren is motor-paced race ramped up to fairly high speeds and then we're given one lap to duke it out. I really liked it, though I wouldn't mind another shot at is as the extra high speeds and excitement made my last corner a little wild - lost alot of ground and I think I could have passed one or two more women.

Anyway, it's alot of fun.

Here are some pictures of me taken by Karen, my teammate Kaz's girfriend, last month:

Rolling around the track during warmup.

Movin' and groovin' around the corner.

Rita K and me duking it out. Rita is on of only a couple women I race against who is older than half my age.

I took these next shots with my cell phone while on the track during warm-up hoping to capture what it's like to actually be on the track. I'm not so sure if that worked. The crummy resolution on the cell phone doesn't work the greatest for scenery-type shots...

And here are a few pictures I took of the big guys. These pictures were taking during the Mayor's Cup - a 100-lap points race - on July 8.

Lining up for the start. Most track races start with a neutral lap (rolling start). The racers ride one easy lap with everyone pretty close together. When they come around corner four, and they're all together, the official shoots his pistol to start the race.

Right after the starting gun.

The pace picks up and the crowd starts to stretch out.

Kiloracer working hard.

(L-R)Clayton Goldsmith, Kyle Jacobson, Nick Holbus (my teammate and carpool pal) and Len Cabelterra.

Holy Crap

Holy Crap
Originally uploaded by Sk8rAl

We got shit-bombed at work today. Already this summer, two of my coworkers have been hit while walking down the sidewalk. I think the sea gulls are trying to send us a message.

Levis-Trow Mountain Biking

A couple weeks ago, Kiloracer and I did some mountain biking at Levis-Trow Mound in Clark County, Wisconsin. Wisconsin has a pretty good variety of MTB trail systems, but I think Levis provides probably the best mountain biking in the state. There's almost 40 miles of trials available with lots of climbing and lots of single track - much of it being quite technically challenging.

I don't have a narrative to go along with this, but just wanted to share some pictures. It was a beautiful day, and it was a fun time. For more pictures, you can click here.

On top of Levis Mound, looking through the trees at a sandstone out-cropping.

Me on top of that same sandstone out-cropping.

Enjoying the view.

Considering the drop.

This is a panorama from on top of Levis Mound that turned out pretty well. But, you really need to look at a larger format to get a better sense of things. Click on it to link to the larger version.

Somtimes Rides Just Suck

Yesterday, Kiloracer and I headed out for a nice, longish, Sunday afternoon ride. It had been a few days since I had been on the bike, and I was excited to ride. We considered the 70 mile Holy Hill ride, but decided to just go for a 45 mile ride around Pewaukee Lake.

That excitement soon turned to misery, as within a couple miles of home, everything was just difficult. It seems I didn't give my stomach enough time to work through the pile of mac and cheese I had for lunch. Add to that, 80+ degrees and humid, and I was uncomfortable. The heat really should not have been such a big deal, but I think my body was so busy digesting, that it wasn't working on the cooling system. And, just to make things worse, I managed to leave any muscles I had at home. Even the most minuscule of extra effort was killing me.

After 10 miles, it was obvious I was holding Kiloracer back in a big way. So, I told him he could ride on ahead to be sure he got the workout he wanted. He said we were in it together, and he'd ride my pace. The next few miles weren't too bad as they were flat and I sat in the draft. But I could feel my feet swelling from the heat.

In Pewaukee (~16 miles in), we stopped at a gas station for a potty stop and a cold drink. I dumped my warm water over my head and refilled with some cold stuff. That helped to take the edge off the heat, but my stomach was still a bit off. Again, I offered to head home and let Kiloracer get a better ride in. Again, he said, "nah."

So, I trudged on, hoping my discomfort would pass. Gradually, the edge wore off the heat, and my stomach seemed to settle down. But, my muscles never reappeared. When it came to hills, I just dropped right to the granny gear and spun, slowly, to the top. On one of the longer hills, I just looked down at my pedals and counted pedal strokes. I wouldn't look up until I hit 100 - I just couldn't handle the excruciatingly slow arrival of the top.

At about 25 miles, Kiloracer went to hell too. So, we were just a couple of miserable bikers on an otherwise beautiful afternoon.

Thankfully, we hit a nice, flat stretch with a tailwind. We were able to cruise along at 25mph with minimal effort. That was somewhat satisfying - not because of some great athletic performance, but because the miles were going by without pain.

The last 10 miles, or so, were a bit of a death march. But, we made it - 45 miles - squeezed feet, stiff necks, and all. Thank goodness we didn't get ourselves committed to the 70-miler, or we may have had to spend the night on the pews at Holy Hill.

We recovered with lots of water, some ibuprofen, and naps. A little later, we worked out our legs by walking 4 blocks each way to Gille's for some frozed custard. Mmmm.

So there you have it - my Monday morning whine. More fun posts to come...

My “Restful” Holiday Weekend

This past Fourth of July holiday weekend, I had the opportunity to once again head up north with friends. But, with my big family reunion set to consume the following weekend, I decided two long weekends in a row out of town was too much. So, I stayed home in an effort to not exhaust myself two weeks in a row.

And, what did I do instead?

An exhausting home improvement project.

Actually, it wasn’t too bad. It was a physically demanding job, but I was able to go to bed early and sleep in every morning, and stayed fairly rested.

So, what was this project, you ask? I laid a row of 16” pavers along one side of my driveway. Why? I have a very narrow driveway. Add to that my neighbor’s hedge that runs IMMEDIATELY along the edge of my driveway, and I end up with people driving on my grass. This isn’t really a huge problem, because it doesn’t really happen that often. But, in the winter it becomes a muddy mess, and I end up with a trench in my lawn. This muddy mess isn’t only from cars driving off the driveway, but because I end up shoveling part of my lawn just so there’s room to open car doors when parked at the front end of my driveway. So, I decided my driveway needed some breathing room.

Here's the "before" shot:
The muddy trench isn't as obvious at this point because it's grown over with weeds.

So, here's what I did to remedy the situation...

DAY 1

I spent the morning of July 4th at Menards. Before going, I had made my measurements, and knew how many pavers and how much base materials I needed to buy. But, it wasn’t until I got there that I realized how much those quantities really amounted to. I had planned to make multiple trips with my car to haul materials home. But, I quickly realized that all these materials were going to be MUCH heavier than I had expected (i.e. each paver weighed over 40 pounds, and I needed 17 of them, not to mention the 25 bags of base and 9 bags of sand that each weighed about 50 pounds). So, rather than waste a lot of time driving back and forth and possibly doing damage to my car, I rented the store’s pickup and hauled everything home in one trip (let me tell you, that was $26 well spent).

I then spent the rest of the day digging the trench for the pavers. I was somewhat surprised how much time that took – things got rocky about 4” down, and knocking the dirt from the grass/weeds got putzy. At the end of the day, things looked like this…

There were some roots in there too.

DAY 2

On Saturday, I decided not to work on the paver project at all. I raced my bike instead…



This was my one and only road race of the year - the UW Whitewater Road Race. It wasn't a strong performance on my part (there was a great big hill we had to go up 5 times, and I just couldn't keep up - I was awesome on the rest of the course). But it was a beautiful day, and a good workout. I guess. Whatever.

Thanks to my teammate Ally and her friend for taking this clip of me. You can here my "yeah" as we go past the bell - only 6 miles and one more time up that hill to go.

DAY 3

On Sunday, it was time to get things done. I started out by finishing up the digging…

Here's the final trench all cleaned up.

Then things came together quicker...

I made this handy-dandy tool/jig for leveling the base.

Here's the base layer all tamped and leveled (a rather strenuous job).

And here's the leveling sand all leveled out. Now it's time for the fun part...

Laying pavers...

Of course, the fun part took the least amount of time.

And here it is all done, filled back in, and some locking sand swept into place.

Because I used my less-than-level driveway as a guide, a couple of the pavers aren't quite level. But, hopefully they'll settle into place. No matter what, the situation is improved. And I went to bed early that night too.

My First Mountain Bike Race

Wisconsin is fortunate to have an excellent mountain bike race series called WORS. Kiloracer has done quite a bit of mountain biking in the past. My experience on the mountain bike is pretty limited, but I've always wanted to do more. So, we decided to do the WORS race near Green Bay last month. Kiloracer said it was a good course for a newbie like me.

We drove up on Saturday with the hope of doing some pre-riding of the course before the race on Sunday. Unfortunately, June was very soggy for much of Wisconsin, and some storms on Saturday caused the race organizers to close the course on Saturday - they wanted to keep it in as good condition as possible before it got all torn up by the racers. So, we set up camp and hung out with a bunch of other racers. It was fun just hanging around outside with so many other cyclists.

I raced in the "citizen" division (for the newbies), and did pretty well. The course lived up to expectations, with about half being single track, and not really too technical. The hills were all do-able - I was able to power up them all and still recover alright - rode the entire race in my middle ring. So, I enjoyed the course, and I didn't feel like a total spaz who didn't know what she was doing. In the end, in the citizen division, I placed 2nd in my age group (35-39), and 7th out of 37 total - I was pretty happy with that.

So, now I'm kind of geeked about mountain biking. I'm still not all that good at the technical stuff, but I had TONS of fun doing this race, and it makes me want to try more. The new challenge is inviting - variety is the spice of life, right? This weekend we head to Levis-Trow for some more trails.

Here are some pictures from my WORS race - the Reforestation Ramble in Suamico, WI...

This is me probably 15 minute from the finish. It was pretty muddy out there, but that made it all the more fun. Though, I was glad I never got stuck or wiped out in it.

The men's fields were huge. Here's the back end of the Comp division heading out into the woods.

Here's Kiloracer heading out for his second lap in the Sport division. As coincidence would have it, that rider a few yards in front of him is my second cousin, Adrian. Adrian is a tough competitor in the 17-18 age group.

Kiloracer heading for the finish line all covered in mud.

Busy, Busy, Busy

It’s been over a month since I last posted, and I figured I had better squeeze in a post while it’s still June (gotta get that (1) tallied over there on the archive list). It’s not like there hasn’t been anything to share, it’s just that there hasn’t been any time to post (or I’ve been too busy sleeping when there was time).

Since my last blog post, I’ve done four criteriums, three nights of racing at the track, my first ever mountain bike race, spent Memorial Day weekend Up Nort’, and spent another weekend helping out at the road race hosted by my team. By the way, that road race weekend coincided with the deluge that hit the upper Midwest. I’m happy to report that the races were all raced, despite carp swimming around our parking lot (a mowed farm field), and my house survived just fine, despite Milwaukee County being declared a disaster area by FEMA.

As far as all the busy-ness goes, things aren’t going to be slowing down anytime soon. I was getting a bit stressed about it all, but then I decided that it’s ok. I love that summer is finally here, and I’m having lots of fun riding my bike and doing lots of racing. And I’ve decided that that’s what my summers are about – I’m not going to fight it, and just enjoy it. Everything else will fit in when it can.

But, in an effort to keep this blog somewhat current, I’ll try to post some quick and dirty posts on a somewhat regular basis. Probably mostly pictures with basic captions. So, to get a little caught up, here are some shots to wrap up May…

In late May, I raced "Wheels on Willy" in Madison. Here I am in the thick of things on the first lap.

Unfortunately, sluggish legs and a quick early pace, caused med to drop off the front pack after the first lap. I joined two others to form a chase group, but we were never able to put things together to chase back on (I blame that pretty much completely on one of the three, but whatever). This picture is of me and Dano Barrett (not the guilty one). Dano is a young speedskater, who is a very strong cyclist as well.

Though I failed myself by not sticking with the lead group for the race, I managed to win the chase group sprint and finish fifth overall.

Here's Kiloracer cornering hard in the Master 3/4 race.

Kiloracer and I headed Up Nort' for Memorial Day weekend with a bunch of friends. Good times were had by all, and Kiloracer and I were able to do a little riding on the tandem mountain bike.

Self portrait from the back of the tandem.

A view down some of the more rugged forest roads.

More later!

Yee-ha! Tandem, baby!

On Saturday, Kiloracer and I got to try something new when it comes to cycling – tandem mountain bike. Now, before you get too excited, there was nothing “hard core” about what was accomplished with our ride. But, I thought it was a lot of fun.

Over the past two years, Kiloracer has built up this bike in the shop (he started with only the frame – and that had a defect). This coming weekend, we are heading up nort’ for the holiday weekend with some friends, and he thought the trip would be a good place to use the tandem. So, Saturday’s goal was to just “dork around” near home in preparation for the big weekend up nort’. “Dorking around” is defined as: make sure it works, make sure we can make it work, and make sure it fits in my car. And, I’m happy to report, we were completely successful at “dorking around.”

Kiloracer was the “captain” in front, and I was the “stoker” in back. Things were a little wiggly for the first block, but that smoothed out quickly. We had riding on the roads and parkway paths ironed out in no time. For me, being the stoker, the biggest adjustment was not being able to really see where we were going. Riding on the roads and paths, it wasn’t a big deal. But, once we went on “real” trails, I found my blindness challenging.

Of course, the first trails that Kiloracer headed for were trails that I won’t even ride on my own mountain bike – near Hart Park; they have very steep little climbs that are absolutely covered in roots. These trails are not official or maintained, are very narrow, and run right next to a 20-foot drop-off to the Menomonee River. I was not a happy camper. There was a lot of swearing coming from the back half of the bike.

When you’re picking through ground debris on your own mountain bike, you can end up doing a lot of steering to work your way through/around said debris. But, when you’re the one in control, there is a flow to the whole thing. Conversely, when you’re stoker on the back of a tandem, you have no idea what is going on, and there is no context to give you a sense of flow. So, when the bike takes a quick turn to the right, your brain can’t reconcile why you’ve made this move toward that big drop-off. And, when you’re me, you freak out before the bike cuts back to its original bearing.

Thankfully, Kiloracer realized that we had bit off a little more than we could chew so soon in our tandem adventures. And, after I had a couple minutes to calm down, I promised him that on our next trail attempt, I would just close my eyes and keep pedaling.

So, we headed down the parkway to Hoyt Park. I knew of a marked and maintained trail where Jen and I had snow-shoed last winter. This trail proved to be a good choice for us. Though it’s not at all technical, I would call most of it single track. It’s narrow, and winds through trees, but is mostly flat. I broke my promise, and rode with my eyes open. But, I did make a conscious decision to “turn off my brain” and just keep pedaling. I knew I could trust Kiloracer’s bike handling skills, I just had to let go and let him do it. In return, he was conscientious about communicating upcoming bumps and low limbs and letting me know when I had to goose the power to get up a climb. He also did a good job of not scraping me off the back as we wound around trees. We ended up having a blast on that trail – we went back and forth on it a couple times.

We did discover some of the limitations of the tandem. On the Hoyt Park trail, we came upon a log embedded in the ground that created a drop – like a step. Even for me, this is something I wouldn’t hesitate to ride over on my mountain bike. But, the limited handling and frame geometry didn’t allow us to clear the log – we bottomed out half-way over. So, for now, we can ride off-road and on single track, but unless we end up doing a lot of this tandem stuff, we’ll probably leave the technical stuff alone.

Ok, this is becoming a long post about a 20-mile bike ride, with only a couple miles on trails. But it was fun! Here’s some photographic documentation:

Tandem road view.

Tandem path view.

Tandem trail view.

Tandem dirt view.

StokerAl

Our ride on Saturday coincided with the Sarah’s Stride 5K run. I knew my friend Tammy was participating in the run, so we took a break from our ride to cheer her on.

TAMMY!!! Tammy said our cheering motivated/shamed her into not walking. (Tammy’s the one in the pink top.)

I took this one from the tandem as we passed by while chanting, “Go Tammy go. Go Tammy go.”

More Riding

Just another ride after work...

My legs were a little tired after another strong ride on Wednesday. But a nice tailwind on the way home made things fun. Hopefully, it helped prepare my legs for Sunday's big "Wheels on Willie" race.

It's nice having the evening sun back. We now have good light until 8. Sure makes doing workouts during the week easier and more fun.

Flowers on Mother's Day

Last weekend, I went to visit Grandma and Mom (and Dad) for Mother's Day...

Sunday started out cold and rainy, but cleared up nicely after lunch. Mom and I went for a walk to pick up litter and see what was popping out of the ground.

The birds were really excited that Mom had put out the bird feeders. There were a lot of these red-breasted grossbeaks flying around.

There were lots of things popping out of the ground, but we didn't know the names of many of them. If you know, please share. These look like sedum, but not sure.

These were cool.

A different angle, so you can see the leaves.

These looked like Q-Tips growing out of the ground.

A bunch of these were growing near each other. Their leaves were pealing open in an interesting way.

These looked to me like little pansies.

I thought they were pretty cute.

I think they call these "fiddle heads." But I don't know if that's the plant's common name, or just the name for what various plants look like during this stage of growth. This one is kind of hairy. These were growing amongst the trees, where all the others were growing in the grass along the road.

Wednesday Night Team Ride

Woops - looks like I need to wipe off the lens.

Last week I joined a number a teammates for the Wednesday night team ride. It kicked my butt. But, I decided I needed to keep participating with the hope that these rides will whip me into shape, and they will probably be my best speed workouts.

I did the ride again tonight, and it was much easier, but not really that much slower (18.9mph vs 19.1mph). I think it was a couple things. Last week I was likely a bit tense with the new route, the unexpected speed, and the big group. I also suspect all that riding I did last weekend did a lot of good for my legs. There was a lot more "dynamicism" in them tonight than last week. It wasn't exactly easy, but I could get up and go when I wanted. Definitely not in peak form, but drastically improved.

Welcome back, legs. Good to see you again. You make me want to ride more.

Just Keep Pedaling

I did alot of cycling this past weekend. No racing - the lone race was 2 hours away and had lots of hills - it didn't make for the best budget choice. So, I decided it was a good opportunity for some big training rides.

The previous Wednesday, I had done a team ride that ended up being pretty hard. Though challenging, I'm going to keep doing them because I think they'll help whip me into shape. But, I also know I can't only do rides where my average heart rate is about 170 bpm (I'll get fast, but I'll also probably peak by the end of June).

DAY 1

As it turned out, the weekend played out perfectly. It was drizzly on Saturday, so I decided to do a trainer ride. Not that riding the trainer is my ideal ride, but it allows me to ride easily without spiking my heart rate. I can also ride slow enough to keep my heart rate where it needs to be without my ego taking a hit, or holding up other riders.

So, I rode for THREE HOURS.

Three hours - that's a new trainer record for me by at least an hour.

This ride made buying my own house worth it - I sat in the basement with the stereo on full blast watching movies and listening to music. The volume really is that important.

Three hours on a trainer makes your brain kind of mushy too. You can end up doing stupid things like taking pictures of yourself.

Part of my motivation to do the big trainer ride was to feel like I was doing "something" with the Fat Cyclist and his wife, Susan, in mind. It's weird how these blogs can make complete strangers feel like your friends. Fatty, aka Eldon, writes a very entertaining blog about cycling. Additionally, for a number of months, he has included posts about his wife's battle with a recurrence of breast cancer. Last week, he posted heart-breaking news about Susan's fight. Though there is nothing I can really do to help them, beyond sending well-wishes and making donations to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, I still had a desire to physically do something. So, I decided, for an undetermined length of time, I will wear my Fat Cyclist "Pink Lemonade" jersey every time I ride (and not obligated to wear my team kit). And though I sat in my basement where nobody could see me, I wore my pink jersey and felt like I was putting my energy toward something - and less than three hours wasn't going to cut it.

Any bets on when the perma-stench will set in? On when the arm pits will rot away? Ya gotta love what sweat and synthetic fibers can accomplish together.

DAY 2

I woke up on Sunday with mildly stiff legs, but they felt good. Made a good breakfast and pulled my Pink Lemonade jersey back on (what's that smell?).

Kiloracer wanted to do a 4-hour ride. So, we headed out on the Holy Hill route:


View Larger Map (and see what all those markers are about)

It was a beautiful day - sunny and in the 50s. Cool enough to require tights and long sleeves, but quite comfortable.

Funky railroad bridge on Funk Road.

My legs weren't particularly powerful, but riding wasn't really too hard. Heading uphill was challenging, but I survived. If I could carry some speed into a hill, I could usually pound it pretty hard to the top. But most just required me to tough it out. And I did.

Though I fantasized about taking a food break at the top of Holy Hill, we decided to skip that spur. And that's OK - I'll hit that hill another day.

It's a little hard to make out in this picture, but this is a shot of Holy Hill from Emerald Drive. The church is those pointy things on top of the hill in the center.

So we held our line down Emerald Drive...

Cruising down Emerald Drive

When it was all said and done, we had ridden for 4 hours and 25 minutes and 71.5 miles. Not bad. Very pooped.