Pool

So I found a nice pool table via.. well.. Geoff at work. But it was free, and we only had to spend a couple of hours disassembling it and now it is in pieces in my apartment.

Unfortunately it is slightly larger than anticipated.. so I'm debating where I should place it. Is it wrong to convert your bedroom into a pool room and move your "bed" out into the dining area? I mean.. I rarely have guests over.. but I think this would work quite well.

Plus it would solve the problem of having so few working outlets in my bedroom currently.

Yes, I know the landlord could fix them.. but I don't need them to work...

Leave me alone. I think it is a good idea.

Later

Since last post

Did the Kansas half-ironman. It was rough. But I finished.. well sort of. They started pulling people in off the last portion of the run due to weather... but I would have finished. Only was like 1.5 miles short. There are some good pictures.. feel free to e-mail me and I'll send you a link to pictures of my pain.

Haven't run or swam much since the race. I've been riding more. Went out with some fast guys on tuesday.. and didn't get dropped. That certainly helped my self confidence about my riding skill. Some of them asked if I had raced over the weekend.. so I guess they thought me fast. Honestly I just drafted like a little bitch... but hey, whatever works right?

The move is going well at work.. just lots of crap to do. Never ending stacks of boxes and shelving units. But it'll be done soon.

Later

WI Ride

So I got up early this morning.. 4:30am early. Yes, 4:30am does actually exist and isn't just a time where clocks jump ahead. I was going on a ride. It was supposed to be 4 hours... up to Wisconsin and back. The bad thing? Wind.

The wind was coming out of the south.. which is odd for this area of the country. Going up was awesome. We were flying... easily pushing 27mph without even trying. Of course we realized it was going to suck coming back. Oh, we also started a little late.. but that is neither here nor there.. except we started the ride 2 hours from the time I had eaten breakfast.

So we are riding.. turn around... and bam. Face full of wind. And this isn't pansy 10 mph winds. These are 30-40mph winds... winds that want to pull your bike out from underneath you. Winds which force you to pedal on downhills or else risk coming to a complete stop. I've never ridden in winds this bad before. Pushing as hard as you can and barely breaking 12mph... it was disgustingly bad.

Thus, what had been planned to be a 4ish hour ride turned into a 5+ hour ride. Now, this probably doesn't seem like a bad thing right? More time in the saddle means more training... right? Wrong! Nutrition and liquid consumption are pretty import factors when doing a serious training ride. I had planned for 4 hours.. so I brought enough stuff for.. probably about 4.5 or so... As we are coming in the last 10 miles or so... I'm out of gels, have maybe a swallow of water left... and I'm bonking hard. It was pretty bad at this point. The winds are still trying to crash me... I'm getting light headed, I can feel my blood sugar bottoming out... yeah.. that was pretty scary. I wanted to stop and lie down in a drainage ditch and wait for someone to come pick me up.

We finally stopped at a 7-Eleven. Less than 5 miles from our destination. I felt sort of like a pansy.. but that snickers tasted like heaven, or at least the edible parts of heaven.. which I assume is the clouds, halos, and possible wings. Anyways, we ate, rested, then headed out. I feel I could have finished without the food, but damn it was good.

The ride was a good one, nice scenery.. decent roads.. very few obnoxious drivers (Only 1 can of skoal thrown at us).. so all in all a decent ride. The winds were a little much.. but so it goes.

Later

Arkansas

It was really great to see all of you over these past weekend. From tennis to rolling down hills outside the Clinton Library.. I had a blast.

Thanks for the awesome time everyone.

-Later