Seriously???

I have been in the weeds for the last week or two, hard core work things going on (we’re talking back to back to back 70 hour weeks), so I was a little dismayed to see a brawl broke out at cross nationals. Seems like some dumb ass was heckling Page during his post race interview, and his bro in law told him to stuff it, and pushing and wrestling ensued (of course there were no punches thrown, these are cyclists after all - remember the Bobby Julich slap fight awhile back??). The worst thing though, these bunch o’ hooligans (I’m including everyone here), trampled on some of the Richard Sachs’ bikes. Sacrilege I say. Pure unadulterated sacrilege. Bear in mind, I don’t even like steel bikes, but I can see and take pleasure in art when I see it. I have a friend of mine that rides for Sachs, and that cross bike of his, drool worthy. It’s a damn shame you have to have a couple of dumb asses (I don’t care who started what) wrestling around a bunch of art gallery worthy bikes. Seems though like the Page family is a bit sensitive when called out on something. Page’s brother in law could have just ignored it as a loudmouthed asshole at a race (there are all types). But no, he took it into his own hands. Just let it go man. Just let it go. 

This does remind me of a group ride that I was on once. There is a local ride in Chapel Hill, leaves every Saturday morning like clockwork at 10:15AM from the Performance Bike Shop in Carrboro, NC. Over the years, the route has more or less remained the same, but it has been added on to in recent years, just a little longer of a route these days then when I first started riding it. One day, a few blokes from over Raleigh way came over for the ride. Somewhere around the first “hill” in the loop, someone cut someone else off, and the on the bike slap fight was on. I was sitting behind the 2 when this happened, but needless to say, it was fucking hilarious. It all started with something like, “Don’t cross my line DUDE!” and a retort in the vein of, “I’ll do what I want this is MY ride…” A few more choice words, a shoulder thrown to push the other guy into the oncoming lane of traffic (there were no cars coming thankfully), and then hands off the bars, with a slap here, and a slap there, and some cussing. If it wasn’t so pitiful, it would have been really funny. 2 skinny wanna be bike racers slapping each other while trying to ride up a hill. Look folks, most bike racers, and bike racer wanna bes should A. Never get into a fight, because, B. They have the upper body strength of a 9 year old schoolgirl. There was this one exception to the rule though. See below for an explanation.

Back in my younger cat 3 racing days, there was this HUGE guy racing bikes. He was freakin’ fit, and fast, and by big, I mean, like wrestler bike. He could climb, he could sprint. He could pretty much do it all, and suffer like nobody else. He had long hair, and was unshaven, and a teammate of mine knew him from Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. Yeah, this guy was in the Army. The United States Army. He would never really say what he did in said Army, but from the appearance of him, he was an operator. Meaning, Delta Force, the baddest of the bad US special forces. I saw someone start some shit with him once during a race, just some back and forth smack talking, and he mentioned something about seeing him, “After the race.” He did. The other guy got taken down in about, 0.25 seconds and was literally crying in the parking lot, See, when a guy who is a decent racer, and has guns bigger than fucking Hulk Hogan tells you to shut the hell up, maybe you should, especially if you’re a 145 pound “climber type” with a mouth writing checks that your ass can’t cash, and especially when the other guy is a member of an elite special forces unit that regularly kills a lot of people. He’s pretty much going to fuck your shit up, and there really isn’t anything you can do about it. Last time I saw the guy from Ft. Bragg, was about 1 week post 9/11. He mentioned that he might be “going away for awhile”, and I haven’t seen him since. I hope he’s all good, ’cause he was a bad ass, and a nice guy.

Sure, we’ve all almost had our conflicts out on the road, mostly with drivers, but how many of us have actually gotten into the shit with someone? I’ve come really close a few dozen times, but in the end, the guy getting out of the car really didn’t want to do anything anyway. He thought he was being “tough” but if they’re not going to throw a punch at you in the first 10 seconds, pretty much nothing is going to happen. That’s happened to me a bunch of times. Someone buzzes me, gives me the horn, flips me off, and when I give them the single finger salute back, for some reason, they take major league offense. Like a guy in spandex can’t flip them off. They stop, get out of their pick up truck (it’s always a pick up truck it seems), get all in my face, and then, do nothing, and drive off. I actually told a guy once that unless he wanted to get his ass kicked in the middle of the road, in the middle of town by a guy wearing spandex, he ought to get back in the truck, and drive away. Sure, I was talking tough, and probably would have gotten MY ass kicked, but he thought about it for a second, and then realized, hey, maybe he didn’t want to get his ass kicked by a guy in spandex (even though that was a remote possibility), and got back into his large scale pick up truck and drove off. The old heart rate was racing then, and my teammate Curtis at the time, had already ridden off (thanks for the back up). I’ve since calmed down a lot, and try, really really try, not to flip anyone off, unless I get it first, and even then, I just smile and wave. It tends to make them more mad.

Riding...

I went riding yesterday and today.

Yesterday, I left the house, it was gray outside, and threatening to snow. I figured, eh, what the hell. If it starts to snow, I'll just turn around and come home. 2 hours later, I came in the house, covered head to toe in the white stuff, and with cold water. Turns out, the thing that happens in North Carolina is that the road crews go out, and brine the roads before it snows, so when it hits, it melts. Which makes for, yes, some wet roads. Add snow, you get me, riding out in it, and almost as cold as I've ever been on a bike. There was only one other time when I was colder.

March, 2002, Greenville, SC Spring Series race. It was the first race of the season, and as we arrived at the race site, it was cold, and gray. I paid my money, get my number, kitted up, and almost as soon as I did, it started raining. Since I was out "warming" up, and getting soaked anyway, I figured, might as well start the race. Holy Hell what a mistake that was. 14 miles into the race, I had to stop, and then pry my hands from the bars. Why? I was so cold my hands were locked onto the bars. I went to the car, changed in the downpour that was going on, got into my car, started it, turned the heat on high, and sat there for about 2 hours, and never warmed up. I had several people who had raced get into my car with me, and they all had to leave in about 2 minutes or less, because it was too hot in there. Anyone who knows me, knows that I don't get that cold, ever. 2 hours, and I still wasn't warm. I didn't properly warm up until I got into the shower that night, for about an hour, in the hotel room. The upside, is that I slept like a rock that night.

When I got home from the ride yesterday, I had to do the pry the hands of the bars thing. Got undressed on the mat in front of our side door because I was soaking wet, put on my flannel PJs and hoodie, and then sat on the couch arms wrapped around myself for about 20 minutes. Why did I wait? Well, my feet were so cold that I had to wait for them to thaw a little bit before I got into the shower, or else, immense pain would have ensued. The wife came home, saw me on the couch, and wondered if I was OK. The shower yesterday, took about 30 minutes, and even though we're in a drought, I ran out the hot water. Sorry about that. I had to do it, and when I got out, I was more or less warmed back up. Good times when it's cold AND wet. 

I did ride today again, and it was around 25 degrees or so this afternoon when I left, but it was dry, so, it wasn't that bad. The feet got kind of cold, but that's par for the course for me, even with booties, and shoe covers on there. Not a problem. I'm used to it. It was nice out there though for the most part. Sunny, and a little icy in spots, but overall not bad. Compared to the day before, it was downright plush out there.

Tomorrow, don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. It'll probably be on the trainer tomorrow night. I hates the trainer.

Updates...

Things are moving along nicely at this point in time. And by moving along nicely, I mean the following items:

1. My shoulder is getting better every day, although, there is still pain every day, it's just not as bad as it was even say, oh a week ago. I can actually roll over on it in the middle of the night and there isn't a shooting pain through my body that wakes me up. Believe it or not, this is progress my friends, this is progress. And I haven't taken a serious painkiller in well over a month, which is also a good thing. Therapy on the wounded wing continues to this day, and I will actually have another appointment on Monday morning with my PT Beverly. I haven't seen her the last bunch of times that I went in there, so I think she'll be surprised at the progress that I've made with the range of motion and all, there is still much to go though, as I still can't really reach behind my back that much, but even that has improved a bit. It's been a couple of months, and I still probably have another 2 months of appointments and therapy, at least. We'll see what my doc says at my next check up, which is in February.

2. Since the shoulder has been feeling OK, and since I have a new bike (see previous post about bike), I have been able to ride the bike in the great outdoors once again, which has been redeeming for my soul I think. I didn't realize how much I missed just riding outdoors (not for the fitness, or for training, or for anything like that) over the last couple of months, and in actuality, it improves my attitude a lot when I'm able to do this. So far, I've had a few 3 hour plus rides, which isn't too bad, but the pace and fitness is, shall we say, not so good, but hey, what do you expect? I haven't been able to really do anything for 2 months solid. Anyway, the legs are coming around pretty quick, and consider this. My first ride I did about 2 hours, and was wiped out. Only a week later, I did back to back 3 hour rides, and felt pretty good when I got done. A little tired, but not falling down on the floor tired. As I said, progress. I am still nowhere near where I have been in the past, but that shall come as well I hope. I plan on being able to do 4-5 hour rides within a few weeks, and start piling up training miles. Not so much because I need to ride that long to get fit, but because I like seeing the world from the saddle of the bike is all. Oh, and in talking to other folks before my accident happened, and talking to folks after, pretty much everyone has said that when they got back on the bike on the open road, they were very cautious about traffic and cars, and were wary of everything that drove their way. I'm happy to report that apparently I've suffered no such psychological scarring from this episode in my life. In other words, I just ride along sort of like nothing happened (except my shoulder sort of aches when riding), which I consider lucky for me in the sense that I'm NOT riding along thinking about if a car is going to hit me or not. I just ride.

3. It's been almost 1 month since I got married, and I've got to say, it's the best decision I ever made in this life. I love my wife more and more everyday, and I didn't think that I could love her more than I already did. Well, I was wrong. Sure we're still in the honeymoon phase of getting married, but hey, as James Brown said, I feel good.

4. After speaking with, and working with, the insurance agent for the young lady that hit me back in October, we've got everything taken care of that needs to be taken care of. Meaning, I got some estimates for him, some pictures, and some other documentation of the bike damages, and he has submitted it to his claims guy, and he has backed up basically everything I said, and or claimed, so they should be paying that off for me soon, maybe as soon as next week. Which means, I can now give Curtis his money for the bike that he sold me, although he hasn't asked for it yet, but I just need to cut him a check anyway. I feel good about the deal that they gave me for my damaged bike parts, and it should make everything OK in the end. So I can't argue with that. Now the rest of the claims that my lawyers are putting in is of course, and entirely different story, and a different channel. They're still working on that end of things, and apparently, they really need to wait until all treatments and appointments are over and done with before they can go and seek whatever it is they're going to seek out on my behalf. Basically, right now, they're collecting bills and documents. Everything should be fine there as well in the end. I'll save further comment on that until everything is over and done with.

5. The New England Patriots last night capped off the perfect undefeated season. 16-0 ain't too bad, and I'm pretty sure that they would kick the ever living crap out of the 1972 Dolphins easily. Randy Moss has become a new man in New England, and has toned down his asshole-ishness, and has become the really great player he was probably always destined to become. I guess Coach Bill seems to have a way with guys like that. I think he probably sat him down, and told him, hey, come play here, behave yourself, and you'll catch a record number of passes and touchdowns. Well, after last night, mission accomplished for that man, and for Brady, and for the whole team. It was fun watching them play this year, and it'll be fun watching them run amok in the playoffs. I won't jinx them by talking about the Super Bowl and all, we'll leave that talk for if and when they make it there again this year.

6. The last thing is that in a few more days, I'll be headed back to work for the first time in a couple of weeks. I have to say, getting married, and then having a bunch of vacation at the end of the year has done me well in terms of mental well being. That being said, another one of my co-workers has resigned, and she'll be leaving the company on the 10th, which will unfortunately place us back in the dark dark recesses of probably a lot of work, but I'm not going to think about that for right now. I'm going to just kick back for the rest of my vacation, and hang out until I have to go back to work on Wednesday, January the 2nd. Soon enough, I think, I'll start searching for another job. There are a couple of little things I need to take care of at work, and until I can get those couple of things cleared up, I need to just stay there for a short time longer. I can see the end of my reign of terror at my current workplace though, and I can't wait for that to happen. We'll see what shakes loose in the next few months for sure.

For some reason if I don't post again until after the New Year, Happy New Year to everyone! We'll see you on the frontside of 2008. Hard to imagine that it actually IS 2008 now. Seems like yesterday that I was just graduating from college, when in fact, it was 12 years ago now. Yikes. This kid is getting old, or something like that.

It's almost 4:00AM. Do you know where you are???

I know where I am. Sitting in a darkened space of my house known as my office. Yeah, it's been one of those nights. This time though, it's all about the allergies. I started getting an allergy attack this evening whilst on the way to dinner. It cleared up for a few minutes and I thought I was out of the crap, but no. It came back, full on force, landed in my eyes, my nose, and my face. Now I can't really breathe that well, and have post nasal drip running down the back of my throat, which in turn makes me cough. Add to this coughing and or sneezing a set of sore ribs from falling off of the bike a lot this weekend (see previous post about drunken debacle known as the Single Speed Rally 2007 and you'll see what I mean), and this makes me approximately one not sleeping guy.

Let's run down the list:

1. Face swollen up from allergies? Check.

2. Nose rubbed raw from wiping? Check.

3. Persistent hacking cough? Check.

4. Persistent sneezing? Check.

5. Utter misery encountered throughout this evening? Check, and check!

Now I haven't had an allergy attack like this for a long time, and it's been a really long time since I had one that has kept me awake through a night. I think I need to call into work sick, throw down some Benadryl, and go nighty night. Which is what I'm going to do in about, oh, 30 minutes or so. Waiting until I'm completely and utterly exhausted, and then we'll head in for the killer allergy medication. I do hope that I have some in the cabinet here. I normally have a ready supply of Benadryl in case the good old Claritin doesn't work. It didn't, and now, I have to switch up. I even tried my old little trick of peppermint oil earlier today, didn't help. This is some good stuff. And again, I see my training week going to pot. Well, maybe I can get in some good sleep, and go for a ride this afternoon if I feel better. I hope that I do because right now I feel like smashing my head against a wall I'm so itchy, and sneezy, and feeling miserable. I love allergies, and I'm so glad that I have them now when I didn't when I was younger. That's what I get for going outside, and actually exercising.

It's funny isn't it, that when I was training the hardest, and when I was outside every day on my bike in all sorts of weather, good, bad, and indifferent, this is when I took in large amounts of pollutants into my lungs, which has made me, and my friends as well, more susceptible to allergies. And here I was thinking that exercise was good for me. Joke is on me I suppose. Again.

Been awhile...

So it's been awhile, but I have an excuse. That insufferable place called work has been holding me back again. Yes, I have written before of the promises that I've received from the people that I work for saying, "It's going to get better. Just hang in there." Well folks, I ain't seeing it.

Over the last 3 weeks, I have worked, on average, 70 hours per week. Most nights, not getting home until after 8PM, whilst leaving the house around 6 or 6:30 in the AM. There were more than a few nights where I didn't get home until well after 10 in the evening, or later. Yeah, it's not a good time that's for sure. More to do than I can handle, and well, nobody else to do it. I suspect that this week, should be more of the same, because all of the other stuff that I've been doing has caused me to neglect the other things that I should have been doing, and hence, I'm caught up on one front, and still flailing away in the dark at the other stuff. Needless to say, with all of the work, there has been no riding. 3 weeks, no rides. I could have ridden last week, but alas, had to help a friend move on Saturday, and needed to sleep on Sunday. This weekend, could have ridden yesterday, but alas, have been working so much that I needed a full day to do nothing, and sleep, and recover. Today, it's raining and nasty outside. No riding this weekend. Oh, and racing started this weekend as well. I'm so far behind, I'll never catch up now methinks. Well, at least not until this summer I think. If I can start riding to work a few days a week, that would get me some good riding time, and good saddle time, but we'll see how that all works out.

Anyway, more writing later, just wanted to complain about my job, again, and continually. I know, I need to find something else to do, but I can't right now. I'm locked in to what I'm doing for right now, and might get a reprieve when the SO gets done with school. We'll see. More ramblings to come, just wanted to give a quick update.

I have decided...

I have decided that I do actually like riding my bicycle at night. It's quiet, it's cool, and it's dark. It's good stuff. I actually think it makes you a better bike handler as well, since you have to "feel" the road a little more than you would during the day. Feel the turns, feel the road. If you don't, then you might crash. I catch more "smells" at night as well. The folks in their homes cooking. The smell of wood fires burning, and a bunch of other stuff. If you don't have snow on the ground, and it's not too cold outside, get a light, get a blinky for the rear, and go for a ride. It's 10 times better than the trainer.