Unfounded fear...

…so far anyway. I spent most of the week in fear of getting sick. My 2 main-time coworkers got deathly ill this week and one was out all week. He said he spent 5 days in the worst pain of his life. Then it started to spread to other workers and I was scared I was next. I didn’t mind managing the bike shop alone, just as long as the sicky sickertons were not there to contaminate me. I made a special stay healthy elixir that was boiling water, half a lemon, a chunk of ginger root, cayenne pepper and honey. I chugged several doses of this over a few day period, hoping it would work magic; so far so good.
After last Sunday’s wind tunnel ride I was able to get outside again Monday for an hour or so. It started snowing while I was out (kind of hard too), but the temps weren’t too bad.
The rest of the training week was spent inside. We had a significant icing Thursday, so all is frozen for the weekend. I thought there would be a chance of getting out today, but no dice. I’ve dodged the 3 hour-indoor-ride-bullet so far this year, but today was the breaker. I spent 2 hours on trainer, then took a break to do some stuff I needed to get done, then rode rollers for the additional ~hour I needed. I got 11 hours in for the week, so it’s not too bad of a week for mostly inside miles.
What I did during my break was finish up my bike storage hanger system. Earlier in the week I tore out some storage cabinet things in our basement (there were four, so I tore out two and left two), and made a hook system to hang up 4 bikes where the other two cabinets were. It’s really sweet and looks really good. Plus it gets "out of season" bike out of the way. Also, a coworker let me borrow her sawzall to cut out some parts of the old cabinets, and let tell you, if you’ve never used a sawzall, these things are awesome. Super dangerous, but totally awesome. They just tear right through whatever you put in front of them.
So that’s this week. I have to believe that this next cold snap that’s forecasted will be the last. We’re running ~10* below normal as is, and there’s another one of the temps-in-teens snaps coming, so it has to be nearly over, right???

Correction

My bad. The high recorded wind gust today was 51mph. I think I remember that one almost knocking me over!

Weak Week.

My week went fine, but I felt tired and weak most of the weak. I’m hoping it’s just the high volume after taking a week off. My lifting Wed and Fri was tough. The weights I’m used to lifting felt very heavy and toward the end of my sets I was struggling to push them up. Then my Friday evening roller ride I felt both tired and disconnected, which led to lack of concentration, which lead to me falling off of the rollers several times. I finally bagged the roller ides ~10 minutes early. Then after bagging the ride I didn’t feel like cooking, but was super hungry, so at my suggestion Lindsay and I went to the Great Wall Chinese Buffet and I tore it up. I wasn’t to tired to eat a lot.
Today was a weird weather day. It rained hard off and on, but finally stopped. Add to that it being ~60* and it means outside riding! Oh, but there was a steady 25-30 mph wind and gusts over 40. It was torture. I was worried about how I might feel since I felt sluggish all week, but I felt good and rode a really solid 2.5hrs. I ended up going at it solo because Ryan’s bike broke down on him (it rules having two bikes, too bad he’s over 6’ tall and can’t borrow one of mine), but I rode strong for the conditions. Though I was totally depleted when I got in, I felt pretty good overall.
First road race of 2008 is in ~5 weeks (March 30), so a few goods weeks leading to that should be doable. As long as I get feeling stronger and peppier

New Procedure...

"New Procedure Shrink Fat Without Needles, Surgery or Drugs."

I saw this headline today and shook my head for the future, 1/2 in sorrow and 1/2 in disbelief. Here's my take on it:

1) It's not new.
2) It's called EXERCISE!

I didn't read the body of the story; didn't care about the "new procdure."

Week off--over

It was a good week off and hopefully I feel less tired, more recovered and stronger in the following weeks.
This past Thursday was the final home meet for my high school swim coach, so I went home for the evening to see my parents for a bit and attend the meet. I got to see some people I haven’t seen for ~10 years, and see Coach Mullen off into retirement (he has coach swimming for 40 some years!). It was nice. Plus it was nice to get out of town (and out of work) for a little road trip.
I also went to my second ART session and my neck/back is 99% better. There’s still a little pain in my neck, but it feels more like a mild stiff-neck and less like my muscles are wound up like golf balls.
So next week I’ll start my Feb.-March training block, which is pretty much the same as my summer training block(s), but that allows for inside riding and two lift sessions (which means two days of two-a-days). I’m right where I want to be mentally this time of year and this week off helped that a lot. I want to get back on my bike, as opposed to dreading it. I’m doing well physically too; I may say I’m ahead of where I expected to be. I don’t want to get overconfident though. I just know I’m riding outside really well against the people I like to use as rulers (Ryan Shanahan is more of a meter stick than a ruler though).

Monroe County CX Championships

I finally made it to a local cross race after two misses. I had a good running too, I got second behind Isaac Neff, and since he’s really, really fast I fell pretty good about it.
And so begins a rest week. I hung some shelves yesterday morning and I went in for A.R.T. this morning to try to get my back/shoulder straightened out. It’s sore right now from the therapy, but I think it helped. I have two more visits scheduled and he thinks that’s all it will take.
It’s really warm here right now, but really wet too. Plus there’s severe weather watches or warnings, so I’m kind of glad to be not working out because I would be very tempted to go outside and ride, but could run into bad weather.
I plan to lift tomorrow, take Thursday off totally, then go for more therapy Friday.
Next week begins a new block of training, but will be interrupted Wed. by my final ART visit. I hate to start the block w/ missed workout, but I think getting this problem worked out is important so ican sleep better and train (more) painfree.

THE MAN!

I did our taxes tonight. We filed separately last year, so we decided to file jointly this year to get the benefits it brings. Plus since we bought a house this year, I was expecting the mother of all tax returns. Well, don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
I have always gotten a good tax return check it the past. Usually around $1,000 at least. This year I had plans to pay off a credit card, and maybe make some minor home improvements w/ our FAT return. Well, if you haven’t figured out where I’m going with this yet, we owe the man over $200. It’s only February and I have my WTF?? of 2008 already. Not only did the man take $3,300 from my pay, but now we owe more. I guess somebody has to pay for the billion-dollar-a-day war we’re in. I’m sorry, but we’re lower working class peeps, the system sucks. Plus, I was lead to believe that being married, filing jointly and buying a house brought tax benefits, not further penalized you.
Thanks, George. And if the government uses tax money to troll blogs searching for terrorists, read this: YOU SUCK!

I ain't missin you at all

I’ve been missing races lately (meaning not going, not ‘missing’ them) . The CX in Columbus last Sunday looked good enough, in fact the weather looked so good that we decided a good 3+ hr road ride would do us more good than driving for an hour, riding for an hour then driving another hour. And so we rode. It was just RS and I and we went out to hit some big hills. It was windy too, so it made for a good hard ride. We started out just kind of riding tempo, but ended up w/ the headwind, hence having to hammer.
I ended up a little short on my weekly hours, but not much (just minutes, really).
I tried to get outside yesterday (Thurs 1/31), but it was frigid w/ a strong wind, so I cut it short, but ended up being out for an hour. So I rode trainer when I got in for another while for the hours. I think I’m running a hair behind this week too, and I’m going to do the final B-town underground cx this Sunday, then I may have to work after it, so I will likely end up an hour or so short of 12. No biggy. Then next is off. I decided I’ll lift Wed and Fri, but that it. I am going to see the A.R.T. Dr. Tuesday about a nagging upper back/shoulder pain I’ve been having. It is sometimes keeping up at night in what I can only describe as excruciating pain. It seems to be getting better now that I made an appointment, but we’ll see.
All else is pretty well. I’ve got some work I need to do on Lindsay’s road bike which I’ll likely do next week, otherwise, just truckin’.