LOTOJA and feeling inspired

Last week, I was able to ride in the annual Logan-to-Jackson Hole (LOTOJA) ride / race at a respectable pace. This culminates a great season for me - I have lost nearly 40 pounds, and am in better shape than I have been since living in Texas 10 years ago. I did some great rides including RAMROD and STP, as well as dozens of great group rides with friends and fellow cyclists from the area.

What's next?

I have to say, I am feeling very inspired. Jon Baddley, my brother-in-law, had an unbelievable race at LOTOJA (see photo below, he's in the middle riding in the green jersey). He finished 5th in the CAT 1 group. WOW!!!! That is an incredible accomplishment and the result of talent, ability, family support and hard work.

He has me seriously inspired. I'm going to race, and race seriously in 2010 and beyond. I feel the biological clock ticking quickly, and know I only have about 5 or so years left where I can make serious improvements in my riding ability, and seriously compete. So, I better get going now...and, with family support, I know I can work hard...hoping I still have talent and ability deep inside, waiting to come out.

So, my training starts now for 2010. I'm starting to build a plan for the winter and spring. I'm reading Joe Friel's training bible for the second time. I'm going to structure my life so I can have the right amount of focus on my cycling, while still having balance with my family. I also need to find a team...wish I were in Utah, where I know the scene a ton better.

Thanks, Jon, for igniting the fire within me once again. I hope to see you at LOTOJA next year...with me, hopefully competing as a CAT 4.

A few of my favorite things!

I suppose I could also call this entry the perfect Saturday. Here's my play by play.

Woke up at 5 AM and fired up the smoker. After it reached temp, I added Brisket and a pork shoulder, both of which I had prepped last night with some great spice rubs. Then, I got ready for a ride. Steve and I headed out at 6:10 AM and rode over to Duvall where we met up with another group. We had 8 in all, nice size group. We did 75 miles in 4 hours. I felt great, even my knee (which I am worried might need to be surgically repaired after the season).

After my ride (and icing my knee), I took a 15 min nap. Love naps!

Then, I headed out to Bellevue and grabbed a few things for the boat. I came home, and cleaned up the kitchen, did dishes (love a clean kitchen!).

After that - the reward. The whole family headed down to the lake and spent a couple of hours boating. Loads of fun! We tubed (with a new tube). We swam, I wakeboarded and even wakeskated for the first time. I showed off on the wakeboard, doing a couple of nice jumps for the wife (who, by the way, did an awesome job driving the boat!). I also had a couple fo good falls on the wakeskate. It's not as easy as people make it look. I suppose I have something else to add to my list of things I'd like to learn.

We came home, after boating, to a wonderful BBQ dinner. The brisket and pork shoulder were AWESOME! The best I think I have ever made. Ann made a salad, and that's what we feasted on. Meat and salad. Mmmmm.

Now, we are about to watch a movie as a family. What a nice and relaxing way to finish things up.

A perfect Saturday for sure!

How to lose 15 lbs in one day...

One word, RAMROD.

When the year began, I needed a fitness goal. I set my sights on RAMROD. If I could get back in shape for that ride, I could feel like I was on the right path to health and fitness. Well, job done!

Now, the weight loss...I started the day about 5 lbs over my normal weight of 175 lbs. During the ride, I averaged 1.5 bottles of water+lytes per hour of riding (about 30 oz per hour) and downed about 5,000 calories. Here's how I burned them up, and more. The ride began at 5 AM. By 6 AM, I had already broken a spoke on my new hand-me-down front wheel from Jon (oh, and thanks a million Jon! Loved the wheel). I was just riding along and "snap" is what I heard, looked down and saw that one spoke had snapped. I detuned my front brake as much as I could, which allowed for the wheel to pass through and then rode to the first food stop, avoiding any pacelines and groups since I was now a "dangerous" rider on the course with no front brake.

At the first food stop, I downed a bagel with cream cheese, a banana, and a RAMROD cookie. Mmmmm...lucky for me there was a volunteer mechanic who helped me true the wheel enough that I could tune my brake again. Unfortunately, it took about an hour. This will be important later. Here's a shot just prior to the food stop. Note that I am proudly representing team "Gerald" and did make the traditional "yipee, yipee" cry at least once.


I took off and started the climbing. Here's a rough map of the course (don't trust the stats from Mapmyride.com since they wildly underestimate the grade and ascent). We climbed for nearly 20 miles at an average of 6% prior to reaching the summit of Cayuse Pass. I ate some more food, filled bottles and headed out on the descent. Below is a shot, with Rainier in the background. I am just getting ready to fly downhill. And, boy did I. I passed all of the riders who passed me on the climb. I am really working hard on the descent. It was a ton of fun, great road!



At the bottom of the descent, there is the lunch stop and climb to Crystal Mt. I opted to eat prior to climbing. I downed a ton of food, drank a Coke, filled my bottles again and started towards Crystal. This was a 6 mile climb also averaging 6%. It was another fun descent. At the bottom, I stopped again and refilled my bottles for the final 30 miles into Enumclaw for the finish.

I took off, ready to hook up with some other riders and paceline into town. Unfortunately, I could not find anybody who was riding my pace. All of the faster riders were way ahead by now (recall my long wait to fix my spoke? This put me a little further back than I should have been). So, I solo'd the rest of the way. It would not have been that bad, but there was a nasty headwind and it was 101 degrees and very exposed. I quickly ran out of fluids and there were no more stops. I was having a really tough time, and wasn't sure I could finish. I just put my head down, rested my forearms on my handle bars (in a TT position) and rode. Within a couple of miles of the finish, I jumped on some guy's wheel and coasted home. All in all, I believe I rode about 130 miles solo.

When I arrived at the finish line, I needed soem serious water. At this point, I was about 165 lbs - wow, 15 pounds down from my pre-ride weight. This is serious danger zone stuff. Within 30 min, I had downed 5 full 24 oz bottles of ice water. I Had a large Diet Coke, a couple of ice cream bars, a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings. Before going to bed, I drank about 4 more water bottles. By the next morning, I was back to 173.

Here are my official stats, from my Garmin 705:

Distance: 160.12 miles
Ride time: 8 hr 53 min
Total climbing: 9865 ft
Avg speed: 18 mph
Stop time: 1 hr 10 min
Calories: 14,360
Avg HR: 152
Avg Cadence: 86

Even though I spent a ton of time riding RAMROD solo, it was a real team effort. I'm grateful to the wonderful volunteers who worked the ride providing food and fluids. I'm also grateful to my riding buddies - Tracy, Steve, Kipp, Dave and Bryan (who also rode RAMROD with me, and drove me to and from the course) for all of the hours spent in the saddle leading up to the ride.

I'm really grateful to Jon, my brother-in-law. If you look closely, you'll notice that I am using Jon's old bike, Trek Madone, which I love (and bought for a song), his old wheel Rolf Vector Comp Pro (since I broke my hub last month while riding STP), the socks that he gave me for my birthday (way cool, Contender Bicycle socks) and the New Moon Cycling team water bottles he gave me a few years ago, also for my birthday. Jon, I am really in your debt.

Last, and most of all, I am so grateful to Ann. She has put up with me leaving at 4 AM a couple of times a week, riding until noon on many a Saturday, evening rides, a crazy non-family friendly diet, my moods and my overall obsession. Thanks for making this dream a possibility!

5th Grade Camp with Sammy

I just had the incredible experience of spending 2 and a half days with Sammy at his 5th Grade Camp. Sam is at an awesome age where he is old enough to do some really cool things (like climb on a high-rope, 60 ft in the air, see below)

or getting on a huge cable swing, and swinging from 60 ft in the air, going about 20 ft in an almost complete free-fall.

Yet, Sam is still young enough where he still likes to be with me, his dad. When we were going to dinner, he wanted to walk with me and hold my hand. At meals, he always sat next to me. At night, he slept on the top bunk and I slept on the bottom bunk (as opposed to across the room). And, at the campfire, he wanted to sit by me.

I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to spend these past couple of days with Sammy! Thanks for an awesome time, son.

OUCH! Today I injured a friend.

We did the early AM wakeboarding today. Everything was going smoothly. We started at about 6:20 AM, each had 2 nice long runs, and we were pulling out at 7:30 AM. As is customary, when we were pulling out of the water, I did an "Andy Johnson" maneuver, which is, full throttle, then spin the steering wheel as hard as I can, resulting in an unbelievably sharp turn. Only, I did it with Spencer in the boat, and I failed to warn him first.

No sooner had I turned, Spencer immediately flew accross the entire boat, smacked head+ear first into the boat. My heart sank, it was really bad. He started bleeding quite a bit from his ear and seemed very shaken up and dazed. I was immediately worried about a concussion. Spencer went to his Dr. this morning right after our outing. I am still hoping that it is nothing serious.

Here are a couple of shots from my camera phone.

Remodel Project Phase 1 - August, 2009

Last August, I sent the entire family to Utah for 6 weeks. During that time, my dad came to town and we completed a kitchen remodel. We went from start to finish in that 6 weeks. We did almost all of the work ourselves, while I worked full-time at the office during the day. Our house was a wreck, we were cooking on the grill outside or eating out every night (which partially explains my need to diet .

This first before shot is the kitchen prep area before we started. It was soooo small, that two people could not stand in there together without bumping into each other. Our house was built in 1968, and this is the first update to the kitchen since original construction. You can imagine how bad this was needed!

Here is the second before shot. As you can see, the kitchen is broken up into separate prep and eating areas (with a dining room that we hardly ever used). We had a very small pantry / storage closet and way too few cupboards. My goal was to substantially open up the area.

Below is the after picture.

I think we achieved all we set out to do! We opened up the area a ton. We have so much cabinet and storage space. (Not pictured here) We have a walk-in pantry that is about 12 feet deep. All in all, we have more storage than we need!

We used the old pantry to give our fridge a "built-in" look to it.

We created a desk/work area where we now have a computer. This is great for the kids...they only are allowed to use a computer that is in a common area.

Lighting was also really important to me. We placed some lights under cabinets and in some really nice glass-door cabinets where we have our china and crystal. It creates a great ambiance!

We've been living with our splendid kitchen since September and loving every minute of it.

More blogging on remodel projects to come (all are finished), including:

1. The front hall

2. The living room

3. The laundry room and half bath

4. The kids bathroom

5. The master bathroom.

Nice looking kid

Sunday Alex and I went to an evening fireside. Handsome, happy kid!