Tomorrow is my last day of work at my part-time job. Apparently, everyone thought that it was today. I just was given 15 minutes to pull any files off of my computer so it can be wiped by the close of the business day. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be doing tomorrow if I do come in, but I’m seriously tempted to not show up.
so tonight and the rest of the geekpunk family are heading up to cumberland maryland. Me and jim are spending the weekend on the sadle ridding the c & o from cumberland to dc (We hope). General idea is that were gonna ride as far as we can , while still having fun, and if we get to dc rad… if not… ehh… Im pretty siked about it. Siked to see parts of the trail I havent seen, siked to just have 1 agenda and no way to “work” on anything else.
Im very much of the mind that you need to have little things to look forward to in a week to push you through it. This is the starting of several weekends, for me to look forward to. Next weekend me and the lady are going away by ourselves to cape may to celebrate our 5th year of married bliss… and then the weekend after that me and holden are driving up to boston to hang out w/ her at a conference.
When I was teaching this time of year seemed to take forever, just waiting for the summer to come. Now I really dont have a summer, but instead small little breaks through out the year, where I can look forward to escaping. Sadly there will never be summers again until I retire to a life of leasure, but for now the c&o will do.
Apparently, Amazon.com will now tell you the 100 most common words and several approximate reading levels for the books they sell, according to which, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a more difficult-to-read book than One Hundred Years of Solitude.
im sorry for ignoring you. You know I love and care for you, I raised you from a mere pup, but sadly ive been busy. Its me, not you…. I promise tomorrow ill write you a nice letter and let you know what ive been up to.
love me
If you look really closely, you will see me in a yellow shirt in the upper center. I look like a dot.
I couldn’t sleep last night but managed to get up at 5:45. I was still a little conflicted about the run, but not knowing too much about the Plantarfasciisdoafoiasdjfoisadfotis I didn’t want to have a replay of the million climbing finger injuries that bench you for months. I decided not even to bring my shoes so I wouldn’t be tempted to try and run. Read the rest of this entry »
race is tomorrow. picked up my race pack. decent goodies. the shirt is ugly as shit and I got there too late to get a medium, although honestly it is so damn ugly it doesn’t matter. Water bottle and one of those weirdo drawstring backpacks that seems so popular these days. couple energy bars.
racked my bike. it felt weird to leave my bike outside unlocked overnight, but there will be security there. also, of the 1400 bikes there, mine is one of the least likely to get stolen. At dewey, there were a lot of “hey, I am going to try and do a triathlon” types. The pack for columbia seems hard fucking core. almost all the bikes are carbon fiber monocoque titanium aero triple spoke featherlight nuclear powered rockets. I’m sure those would get stolen first, unless they have built in titanium kevlar alarms (but they probably don’t because that would cause too much drag).
if anyone is inclined to roll out tomorrow to cheer me on in my quitting, my swim wave leaves at 7:23. I’m hoping for a 40 minute swim, 5 minute transition. 100minute ride and quitting. I was thinking about running anyway but I took it to the internet for advice and 2 random strangers advise against it. and that’s good enough for me :)
this morning, to enjoy the weather, I met jed and erin at Great Falls for some climbing. motivation was low for the day, but it was a good day of hanging out. No new sends, just old climbs and old friends. Afterwards jen, jed,erin and I went to baltimore for “the best turkey burger ever” at Donna’s. And it was pretty damn good.
unfortunately I had no buddy and didn’t get to enjoy the free breakfast stuff either because I don’t do the 9-5 thing.
I woke up this morning at 5 and really didn’t want to do this, but I had made a point of talking about it a lot so I didn’t punk out. having already made the decision to wimp out on one thing this week, I figured I should at least do this.
I packed things up into the back of my truck. I drove part way to get rid of some of the heavy traffic. I also decided that if it was really crappy, I would pass on it. a few miles away there is a shopping center where I ditched the truck. Departed at 5:52
1/4 mile in I hit a bump and heard a noise, I didn’t check but it was jen’s blinkie light falling off my bike (I think mike has mine in his bag following the KSR…I hope he does anyway). Sorry jen. It’s a good thing I was wearing bright yellow rain pants I guess.
weird rear derailleur problems popped up when I would drop to the lower (easier) gears and I reminded myself the beauty of normally riding a bike that doesn’t switch gears. I entertained the idea of taking trigger in to work today, but I wanted to make sure I got there in time so I rode the Fuji. Now I gotta play around with the derailleur before I rack it for the triathlon tomorrow.
Gears began to act up more and I was thinking about turning around, but then I realized that I was just being a baby and that if it were really bad I could make it bike TO work day and ask wife to pick me up on the way FROM work day.
Once I got off New Hampshire things went pretty smoothly, but the hills started. they weren’t that bad, but I was trying to not work too hard and arrive all sweaty and gross and the derailleur thing was a pain. then I remembered that I had a granny gear up front that I had made the mental commitment to never using. Well, I broke that plan, but really that was just all pride anyway.
As I rode into the parking lot, kids were getting off the bus and looked at me like I rode a donkey in. The most annoying part was walking around the school in wet cycling shoes making clicks and squeaks all over the floor. I made it up to my office, changed clothes and slapped on some sandals and I was good to go.
From bike computer.
daily distance: 12.8
avg speed: 14.0
ride time: 2:33:19 (but that’s because I forgot to reset)
Let’s hope the rain clears up a little for the ride home.
Jen and I got a laptop yesterday and we can access a wireless network from here. We’re not sure if it’s a neighbor’s or something that the building has set up from the “grad student work room” but either way, it’s a hell of a jump from the dial up that we were using just yesterday.
well maybe, or maybe not, but that song is on my running mix on the ishuffle.
Today the plan was to swim for 40. bike for 80 and run for 40. I should have been doing bike run workouts once a week for a month at least. I’ve done one so far.
the swim was rough but that was mainly because the pool was awfully warm for a wetsuit, after 400 meters, I took it off. I had to ask for help putting it on, someone told me to look out for the sharks in the pool as I walked out of the locker room. I laughed. the pool was way too warm for a wetsuit. after 400 meters I had to take it off. It definitely helped with the buoyancy, but I felt like it was fighting it a little bit with each stroke. I lost count of my laps but kept swimming until I hit 40 minutes.
Phase 2, throw on the jersey and run out soaking wet to hit the Agricultural loop I felt like a dork running out of the gym in a soaking wet pair of cycling shorts and jersey. Pretty much anytime I’m wearing cycling shorts and a jersey I feel like an idiot, because clothing wise, cycling is the worst sport ever. the bike was OK. a little slow and I kept thinking about how much more intense the Columbia Course is. At the end I was feeling pretty worn out. Read the rest of this entry »
This morning, I had to haul myself out of bed so that I could go give a final, which is a very unfortunate way to start a Saturday morning. I wasn’t moving too fast because I had just had very disturbing dream in which I forgot to show up for the exam, and when I got there, everyone was someone I had vaguely known in high school. So I wasn’t really all that awake when I reluctantly got into the shower. After a few minutes, Inoticed that my shoulder was pretty red. “That’s wierd,” I thought. “Maybe I got more sun than I realized yesterday.” Of course, this made no sense, as I spent most of yesterday indoors or at grocery stores. When I got out of the shower, my shin was itching, and I thought, “Wow, I must have my first mosquito bite of the year. Damn suckers are out early this summer.” Then I actually looked at my leg. Then I looked at my arms, and practically yelled, “Oh, shit.”
I bought a new kind of body wash yesterday. It turns out that I’m pretty darn allergic to something in it. Luckily, I didn’t wash my face with it, as I’m sure it would have been a repeat of the time my face swelled up and was covered with a rash back when I used the wrong moisturizer in college. (”Oh my God,” my roommate then laughed. “You look like Corky!”) After briefly panicking and then realizing that it was only a rash, and that if I were going to go into anaphalactic shock, I’d already be dead, I calmed down. (But not before waking up Jim to let him know that if I couldn’t get into the campus health center, he might have to take me to the emergency room later in the afternoon. Melodramatic? Yes. But I was itchy and cranky and not about to wait until Monday for a cure.)
Now seriously running late, I threw on clothes, hoped that the rash on my arms and neck wasn’t too visible and headed off to campus. As I was crossing the street, two vans stopped suddenly, in front of me, and a woman jumped out of the driver’s seat of the first one, yelling, “I hate being lost when there’s someone with me!”
“Are you trying to find a building on campus?” I asked, figuring that it wouldn’t take long to give directions. Read the rest of this entry »
