Monday, February 23, 2009

Case of the Mondays

Because each day at work becomes more painful than the last, I did something stupid awesome today. I counted up the days I have left to daily persuade myself not to do anything rash, like respond to one of my countless daily emails with a big screw you.

Forty Five. 45. 15x3. 9x5. I think I prefer 3x3x5. This seem like less days than the other ones.

Anyway I break it down, it is manageable. Right? I am days away from parole and I am just trying not to get shanked or shank anyone before they let me out of the big house.

I have a headache. Maybe I will be sick tomorrow and have to work from home. Really I do.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Another year of ME.

Me rolling through the camping ground at the end of my first lap at Pueblo. This part of the course was always my favorite...right before the end, hammering allowed.
Photo courtesy of Ms. Behrens.

Hi guys!

Do you notice anything different about me? Nope, not a new hair cut. Well yes, my knee is more swollen than normal, but no that is not it. Ah yes, I do look older since yesterday was my 28th birthday. Good guess.

I had a good birthday, albeit very busy. The day started early when my lovely life partner got up and made me waffles in bed. What a great guy. Unfortunately I had to rouse myself out of bed to be at work for a early meeting.

After a full and particularly crazy day at work, followed by my night psychology class, I met up with some friends at a restaurant/bar last night to have a couple of birthday drinks. I rolled into bed last night at 12:30 pm and awoke this morning feeling every bit as old as my new age.

Another year bites the dust. Looking back over the last year, I realize how many good things I have experienced. It was a tough year with my schedule of working, taking classes, taking the GRE, volunteering at the hospital, applying to school, etc etc etc., but the good news is though that I am infinitely better placed in the course of my life this year than last year. New life path coming right up.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

24 HOP Race Results

Chollas are abundent on this course.

I haven't had much motivation to write about this race because I am not quite sure what to say. My #1 overall feeling is disappointment in my own performance. My #2 overall feeling is that it was a lot of fun and I wish I could have a do over.

The rock drop...where everyone watches you hoping you will wreck.

Julie comes over the rock which is right at finish with a great first lap.

Sarah comes in fast off her first lap.

My team of four women got 7th place. I can easily see that we should have gotten 4th and even possibly 3rd were it not for my shenanigans. This is a tough pill for me to swallow, because if there is one thing I hate most in the world besides losing is actually letting other people (aka my teammates) down. That being said, the other girls on my team were real rock stars particularly Julie and Lisa who threw down some damn good lap times the entire 24 hours.

The two minute summary is that I rode my hardest for my first lap and realized very early on that my strength and fitness just weren't there. I blame my swollen knee and two week hiatus from riding and hard workouts for this. I improved my time by around 6 minutes from last year, but overall I really wanted to be under a 1:30 and I failed by 2 minutes at a 1:32. In my first night lap, I felt really ill, ultimately throwing up half way through the lap followed by absolutely blowing up and riding a ridiculously slow lap that was worse than my worse lap last year. I don't know why that happened. Fitness?

I couldn't feel better after that lap and had a hard time eating or thinking of eating because I felt really nauseous. So when it came time to ride again at around 4am in the dark and cold, I allowed my punk self to punk out of riding which ultimately led to a misunderstanding which had no one from our team riding for about 2 hours. This (along with several mechanicals like 3 of us losing lights during night laps) led to us dropping from 4th to 9th place just like that. Another teammate got injured, so our two resident rock stars rode some good laps the next morning to get us back into 7th. I forced myself to ride one last lap at 10 am and during the lap, somehow started to feel a little better. Of course then the race was over.

So where does this all leave me? Well I have to say that during the tough hours of the race, I just realized how tired I am of competing injured. There is so much compensation that goes on when you compete through an injury that you will never ever be satisfied with your performance because you always feel that something is holding you back. This mental struggle has gone on since April 15th, 2006 (my original knee injury) which is a long time to be in a holding pattern athletically. Maybe it is time for healing instead of training for awhile... I just don't know.

Overall though, I had a great time racing with the Zumbala women. Our team was great, our support and camp set up was great, as was the food. I laughed a lot, met a lot of cool people, and got to be part of the great atmostphere known as the 24 Hours of Old Pueblo. And yes, it was bloody cold again.

As an aside, Sarah, my partner in crime did her first 24 hour solo and pulled out a solid 7 laps for 10th place in a really competitive solo division. It was her first >100 mile race effort. Kudos to her...she is tough. My buddies Jack and BJ also rode 12 laps in the duo for a top 25 effort.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Pueblo here I come.

Well I am getting pretty pumped to race this weekend. Live results can be seen here and I am riding with Team Zumbala in the four person women's open division.

I will try to take some pics/video of the start because it is a crazy scene with hundreds of riders running down the road. Really if you get a chance to visit 24 Hour Town, it is worth it.

I shall now work on learning by repetition:
"My knee is just okay but my heart is strong...just do it."

Monday, February 9, 2009

Just what I was hoping for.

Photo from last year's 2008 24 HOP, credit Epic Rides

Last year, I nearly froze my ass off riding around in circles in the desert at the 24 Hour of Old Pueblo. It was freakishly cold and my 3am to 5am lap involved the presence of snow which needless to say wasn't fun. I signed up again this year with the warm knowledge that we couldn't have freakishly cold weather two years in a row...it just doesn't happen in the desert.

Sigh. I was wrong.

The forecast for this year is rainy, cold (high of 50, low of 30), and generally crappy for the entire 24 hours of the race. Yes I realize that your weather is much crappier and that 30 isn't that cold, but may I remind you it was 80 here two days ago. It must be karma for all my blog comments bragging about the awesome weather.

Bring it Thor...bring it.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Deliverables

[Upon rereading this blog, I will warn you that it is really quite random and may not be at all entertaining. You have been warned.]

Hello gang. I wish I could blog something witty or funny but my creative juices are currently being ravished by something known as deliverables. Do you know what deliverables are? A deliverable as a noun, is the evil corporate term for something that needs to be finished and put to bed. Not like a child, but more like a project which is complete and removed off of a task list.

They keep telling me to deliver my deliverables, but I really want to deliver the message to them that my deliverables are not fun and I don't want to deliver anything to them other a pile of dog poop. Too crass? Probs.

I am going to give my orthopedic PA a deliverable tomorrow in our appointment which will be to magically heal my knee through modern medical miracles. If she is unable to deliver on her deliverables, I may be forced to set up a task force to acertain why the deliverable has slipped its schedule and what we can do about it.

Very shortly (end of April), I hope to complete my last deliverable which will be to scrub my brain of all corporate lingo, TLAs*, and other business related terminology to make way for memorizing each muscle and bone in the body. Sweetness. Put a memo on that TPS report.** Bam.

*TLA = Three Letter Acronym
**Office Space...where have you been living?