Flippin Sweet Dude

Stuff that happened this week,  in no particular order:

1.  Erika and I went on a great 37 mile ride together, and got to spend some time together.

2.  I ate several bugs while riding and running, only one bit me back, right on the tongue.

3.  Decided to pick up all the change I saw on the road, ended up with $ 2.47 for the week.

4.  Ran along side a baby deer, for about 1/2 mile.

5.  Rode a 17 mile ride with Nathan, his longest ride so far.

6.  Finished my first bike race, and didn’t get last place.

7.  Swam my fastest 400 meters yet, and also did a 1,200 meter swim the next morning.

8.  Found out that I do have asthma, and taking a hit off an inhaler, it makes me feel like I can actually breath. Note to those living within 4 miles of my house:  You will not be able to hear me breath while running anymore.

9.   Wedding ring can now fall off my hand without any effort.  I must go get it resized.

10.  Fell asleep while watching ‘Despicable Me’, only saw the last 5 minutes of the movie.

11.  I’ve concluded that Google Chrome is the best web browser.

12.  Got 20% senior citizen discount on my prescription sunglasses, only because I said I was not happy with the price.  Then when I went to pick them up, they found they over charged me, and gave me back some money.

13.  Blew out my bike’s front tire.

14.  One 100 degree day, I dropped my water bottle 4 miles into my ride, it got hit by a car, so I lost all my water.   I got a better insulated bottle, and the local bike shop through in 2 more water bottles for free.

15.  Wrote this blog post.

One time I got stuck in an elevator for about 1 hour. The fire department finally came out and tried to get us out with all these wedge shaped parts, with no luck. They called some maintenance guy, and he put his keys in the lock and the door opened right up.

This guy, had it way worse than me.  Here is the time lapse of the security camera, and his many, many hours in an elevator.

It has been so great getting in shape and exercising each day.   Here are some of the milestone these last few days:

1.  Rode my 1,000th mile on my bike.

2.  Tried something new ( and scary ), my first bike race.

3.  Lost my 70th pound.

4.  Ran my fastest 5k.

5.  Signed up for a first sprint triathlon.

6.  Punched a new hole in the belt.

7.  Got rid of my pants, shirts and suits.

8.  Did a 15 mile hike.

After some prompting from a great colleague at work, I tried a real life bicycle race tonight.  I came way too early, and got to sit and watch the Flite A and B group race.  I was basically surrounded by 100 lb, pure muscle guys with $5k bikes.

It finally got to the Flite D class riders.  I started in the back of the pack, and stayed there for a few laps.  It was faster than I thought, and was a bit more than I’m ready for, so I had to drop out 1/2 way.  I think I’ll be back in a week or two, pace myself a bit better and try to get through an entire race.

Erika and I went on Trek, and just got back today.  It was wicked fun, we had a great time, and had a super great family this year.  Here are a few pics.  More to come….

The whole family did the Westfest 5k today.  The boys stuck together and finished in 43 minutes (12 minutes faster than their last 5K).  Nathan stayed with Ben and kept pushing him along, even after Ben fell and skinned his knee making Nathan walk more than he wanted.  They can be the best of friends when they want to be.  Aaron finished with his personal best at 29:09.  Woo Hoo!!  I also finished with my personal best of 32:10.  YES!  We had a great race.  I wished it had started earlier because 7:30 am is a little warm for me to be running.  All in all we had fun and accomplished the goals we had set out to do.  On to the next race.

We have been watching our new baby birds ( x4 ) that are nested in our flowering pear tree in the front yard.  They are carefully guarded by mom and dad ( Robins ).  If we go to take out the garbage, they fly over your head, making all kinds of noise.  They even try to peck your eyes out if you get too close.  They all hatched about 2 weeks ago, and yesterday mom was taking one of them out for a little test flight. ( Click on the pics for a better view )

I saw this today, and it brought back memories of college.

We had some interesting times on the bikes this week.  I had hoped to take off last Friday, to go on a 50 miler with Erika.  However we had some problems at work, so it was postponed.   Saturday, late in the evening, we took a reduced 30 mile ride.

10 miles in, and out in the middle of nowhere ( By the RC Willey building near I-80 ) Erika go her first flat tire.  One nice big Goat-Head thorn.  I was actually somewhat excited, mostly because we just bought her a spare tube, and I got to use my new tire tools, and my new ( and rather cool ) CO2 inflater.   We replaced the tube, and the inflater was wicked cool.  It filled the front tire in milliseconds, all the way to 100 lbs of pressure.

When we started back towards the airport, about 100 feet past where we fixed the flat, we encountered a 4 foot rattle snake.  He was sitting out in the sun, center of the road, and was very much alive.   A passing car startled it, it coiled up, and we got out of there.  The car returned, and looks like they cut the rattle off.  Maybe to make some of this.

Today, I finally had enough of some rattling noise on my bike.  Sounded like some bolt was in my top tube.  Every little bump it would clang around, and after nearly 750 mile, I had enough.  I took my bike apart, and found a small piece of aluminum, looks like scrap from a punching tool.  Either way, all fixed up, and riding quiet.

Someone is suing Google for being hit by a car, while walking on the highway. Who’s fault is it when you’re walking on a highway?

Find out more here, here or here.