So not much has changed, been working and training and trying not to die from the heat. I broke down and ordered a Road ID, the drivers here make riding and running a little dangerous so I figured it would be good to get. Also when I train back up at school on those back roads it would be good to have. It's pretty cool, it feels like I am wearing a watch. I got green to match my LMC kit. It was kind of pulling the hair around my wrist, so I... well I shaved the are where it sits... I know, very strange. Here is a pic of it, I think you can see the area where I shaved it...
So I told you I was staying with friends when I go work in West Palm right? Well they had this cereal I have never heard of. It's called Weetabix and from what the box says it is from England. The cereal comes in brick form and you break it up and add fruit an milk. It has become my favorite cereal! This stuff is so good!!! I add some fruit, if I have it, and a little bit of honey. It is good with just honey if you don't have fruit. I found it at Publix and can't get over how good it is! Rebecca said Food Lion didn't have it so I'm hoping Lowes does. I'm sure Earthfare does but it's way too expensive there... If you can find it I suggest you try it!
So I had been doing some reading on running since I am fairly new to it. I saw a few articles talking about running barefoot and this interested me. I looked into it and there a good amount of people who run barefoot, they say it is healthy than running with shoes. Some say that the shoes ruin your natural foot form and causes damage to your heel since you tend to land on your heel when you run with shoes. It also shortens your strides so you don't waste as much energy. So I decided to try it out, it wasn't half bad. They say not to do your normal long runs barefoot at first. So I did my normal run but held off the last half mile and ran that part barefoot, just to try it. They say you need to build your feet up a little before doing it as a normal thing. My feet felt good and I didn't get any cuts from glass or rocks, beginners luck haha. So I will try it again for a week and see how I like it. An article on it.
I took this on a evening run on the beach. The sun was going down behind all the charter boats, it was pretty nice! Then my phone died, there was a really great view from the top of the 17th ST bridge but I couldn't get it. Maybe next time...
Oh I also registered for the half marathon! So there is no turning back, it's official! Sunday September 26th in Johnson City is the big day! Check it out! Well that's it for now, I'm sure I will have something interesting again soon...
Ok so sorry to my 10's of readers, I have been pretty busy with both my internships and other things. So here is an update... I started my 2nd internship last week, I am working with 1600 AM WHTY in West Palm Beach, FL. The frequency used to be owned by Radio Disney but they went off the air. We now broadcast a mostly Haitian show and they are currently playing a good majority of the World Cup, since soccer is the national sport for Haiti. The station is in West Palm which is more than an hour north of me, so I drive up here the night before and spend the night with some friends. They live about 25 mins. from the station so it works out great! I stay in west palm monday night and tuesday night and drive home wednesday afternoon when I get done with work. It's a fun job, sadly i don't work were they broadcast from, the station is at another building, but that is soon to change. I work in the offices and we have a small studio that is not yet up and running, but it will be and they will broadcast out of here.
I have been running a lot lately, training for a half marathon. I just haven't really had time to ride either, I have to be at work early so that means I would have to get on the road by like 5 am if I wanted to ride. I can't really ride after work because then it is 100 degrees and I would die. But come hell or high water I will be riding my bike again, I will ride no matter how early or hot. I miss my bike and I need to get back to it.
Here is a picture to show how hot it is when I've been running. Sorry if it's kind of gross... This is the back of my shorts after a run. This is how bad I sweat when I run at 6 am, imagine what it's like if I did it in the middle of the day!?!?
These are some pics from the golf course my friends in West Palm live on. They live right off the 11th green and at night after dinner we go on the course and play with Leo, their basset hound. We toss a ball around and he will chase that thing for an hour or so. He's pretty funny!
This is from the 17th ST bridge in Ft. Lauderdale. I took this on an early am run, the sun had just started to come up. The bridge is my only form of a challenge when I run down here. It's hard to do hill work here when you are at sea level... But the bridge will do for now, it's actually pretty steep and long.
So apart from my two interenships and running and the occasional ride not much has been going on. I applied for a third job at William-Sonoma in the mall. It's a high end cooking store. They haven't called me back yet but as soon as I get done with work I am gonna head over there and see what the deal is. If most of you know me, you know it would be my dream to work there! I hope it works out.
Well I'm sorry for the lack of updates but I will get back on track, I couldn't blog while I was in West Palm because my friends do not have wifi. But I will make sure to post regularly now that I have my travel schedule all figured out. Well that's all for now, until something else...
So Sunday I woke up at about 5 am to go meet my friend Chris. He told me about a group ride that was out in Weston, he said it can get pretty fast. I wanted to do some fast paced group rides to work on pack riding and such. So I got in the car and set off. It was 85 degrees at 6 am...
I get to Chris's house and follow him to the place where the group meets. We met at a starbucks out in Weston. The group ranged from me being the youngest to some middle age dudes to one older guy on a recumbent bike. They were nice and were all wondering how to prounounce the name of Lees-McRae on my kit.
Most of the guys were rockin tri bikes but that was cool. They were training for triathlons and such. Chris told me to watch out for the guy on the recumbent. He said well be cruising at like 23-25 mph and this dude will come flying by!
Apart from it being 100 degrees the ride was good. It started out slow but we eventually got the pace up. We still only ended up going about 23 mph. I ramped it up a little faster when it was my turn at the front but I ended up blowing most of the group. But the stronger guys stuck with me. I ended up blowing at the end because I thought the end was closer than it was so I was going pretty hard for longer than intended. I didn't know the roads since I had never been out west to ride.
Chris wasn't kidding though, that dude on the recumbent came flying by me when I was going about 25! I had no clue those things could go that fast! He was joking about getting a disc wheel for it, that would be nuts! He was wearing shimano sandles that had cleats on the bottom and you could clip in with them, nuts! We eneded up doing a little over 30 miles. So it was a good work out. I was glad with how I felt riding with a group and think I am ready for a race series I found here.
This was the temp when I got home at about 10 am...
I got home, showered, ate and put my compression socks on. I needed to recover for a 5k I was going to be doing in a few hours.
The 5k was in Miami and I hadn't registered yet so we had to boogie down there early. Traffic wasn't bad cause it was the weekend. We got there and I registered, my parents where gonna do the walking portion of it but we figured it would be way too expensive so they kind of snuck in and didn't pay, don't tell anyone...
My race number.
This race was chipped, meaning that they kept score with a chip. High tech!!!
I ran into a family friend and he has been running marathons for a few years so I figured if I stuck with him I'd be money. He told us to start on the 1st line, so I followed him. This was part of the crowd behind me. Big group! I think there was close to 2,000 people. The race started and my friend Bob almost trampled this 8 year old kid that was in the front, he kind of had no business being there, Bob picked him up and threw him back, it was pretty scary but funny at the same time. I had my headphones in cause I needed some rockin beats to help get me through it. I was rockin out to the BeeGees, Barry White, LCD Soundsystem, Patsy Cline and one or two other artists.
The race was hot, it had been in the high 90's all day. It then started raining, most of you would think that's good but no. The rain here makes the heat so much worse. The steam from the pavement makes the air so thick, you could cut it with a knife. I was dying! I went in to the first mile and saw my pace time was 6:30, way to fast for mile 1! So I slowed down and that was good cause it was hard to breathe. I didn't notice my other times cause I was so hot and only focused on seeing the finish line. Coming into the last turn i was taking the inside line, coming close to a parked car, cause the inside is always shorter. Some d-bag tried to squeeze into the space that was between me and the car, all two inches that was there... He tripped me up but I didn't go down, lost a few seconds though... That was about 100 yards from the finish, the last 50 or so I just flat out sprinted. My legs were so cooked but I wanted to finish strong. It seemed like it was never going to end.
My time was 22:06 and I had an avg. pace of 7:07. I placed 5th in my age group, 20-24, and got 62nd overall! I had no clue I had done any sort of place worthy run. I wonder if I could have broken 20 min if I hadn't done that ride in the am? My goal next 5k is to break 20 min.
I wasn't hungry after the run, my stomach usually doesn't want food after I run. I was in much need of fluids though, luckily gatorade was passing out free samples of their new organic flavors. It was really good, not as sugary as the old gatorade! I also found the beer tent. I figured there weren't going to be any medals cause there were thousands of people, so beer was my medal! Except it was budweiser...
Well it was a busy day to say the least. Sorry this was such a long post, thanks for the two of you for finishing it! I plan on doing much more running since it seems that I am semi-good at it. Hopefully I can start doing this race series on weds. nights. I want to upgrade and possibly win some much need cash. Running should be good cross training for the bike and the bike should be good training for running.
Well these are two videos, one from the group ride and one post 5k one. Enjoy! Till another adventure, adios!
Friday, June 4, 2010
So I started my internship with Holland America Cruise Lines yesterday. So far it has gone really well, this is only day 2 but I feel comfortable enough to say that I am doing a good job. I mean I haven't gotten fired yet so that's a plus. I know most of the people there having already worked for them two years ago.
Yesterday I got briefed on what I will be doing and got to do some work. Today I got to go to the Port Everglades Association meeting and got to sit in on a very important meeting. The meeting was great and my boss introduced me to the board. I had never been to a meeting of that level and it was so interesting to see how it operated, it was a great experience. After the meeting there was a lunch in and I met a ton of people that have been working with Port Everglades for years, these people are the cream of the crop so to speak.
Since I have to be at work semi early I have been riding or running at the wee hours of the morning. This morning I went for a short ride. I woke up at about 5:20 a.m. this morning to go for a short ride. Got on the road a little before 6 and did about an hour and a half.
This is funny because the house next door is being fumigated, and the first time Rebecca saw a house like that she didn't know why it had a tarp around it. I told her that it was a small circus, little funny story...
This was supposed to be my overnight oatmeal. I hear that people are putting oats and milk in a jar over night and letting the oats absorb the milk and then they eat it without having to cook it. So I tried it out. I'm gonna have to try it again cause I used Irish oats because that was all I had and I don't think they work the same as regular ones, but it was still pretty good! I recommend trying it!
So now that I am a working man I feel like I should find a bar that I go to every night after work, like Cheers. Order the same drink and sit at the same stool and get to know the bar tender and the bar flies. I just always envisioned that is what you do when you get a 9-5 job. I'm gonna keep my eye out for a real dodgy looking dive bar or pub that is close to my house. Make a few friends and here some good stories. I'll let you know how/if that pans out.
I have no real plans this weekend, thank god! I might do a group ride that my friend Chris told me about. He said it can be fast. I need to do some fast rides and do some pack riding. It's always good practice. There is a 5k sunday evening that I might be doing as well! Rebecca is doing a 5k tomorrow morning in Johnson City. She has been running everyday and is gonna blow them away. I'm really proud of her, she runs more than I do!
I'll post pics of the office I work in and of my workspace. In case the 3-5 of you who read this are interested... Stay tuned, there is lots more to come.
These are just a few pictures of my early am rides.
I am back home for the summer. I'm sad that I had to leave Rebecca and the babies, but I got a paid internship with a company that could be a potential job when I graduate. I also was able to score a second internship, so I will get twice the experience while I'm home. So hopefully I will have a better chance at getting jobs with twice the experience!
The drive was long, but we decided to stay at a friends house in Canton GA, just outside of the ATL. It was nice to be able to sleep in a bed and have a decent meal, instead of fast food and sleeping all cramped in a car. We hit rain most of the way and the traffic was nuts, thanks a lot memorial day... Cops were everywhere! It seemed like someone was pulled over every 5 miles!
I had a ton of crap, I decided to bring everything home so I can reorganize and leave stuff that I don't really need. This is just a little of what I had.
It's strange being home, it kind of feels like I never left, if that makes sense. Things have changed though, my street is totally different. There are a bunch of ugly condos and everyone on my block seems to have a small yappy rat dog... I guess it's the cool thing to do. Figaro was happy to see me! The vet is mad because Fig won't lose any weight, he is 24 lbs, he has been on a strict diet for years but just won't loose any weight! We've been snuggling a lot and I plan to get him to lose at least 4 lbs. this summer.
I went for a ride the past 2 days, the flat is nice since I haven't ridden for a while. The wind is a little annoying but I'll get used to it. It is so hot though! I'm dying, I used to be able to stand the heat but I guess after this winter my body has accepted a colder climate. I am no longer wearing shirts, unless I have to, otherwise I would not be able to handle it. This isn't even the hottest months yet, June and July are gonna suck!
On my first ride out I saw the new love of my life! I named her Bertha, it looked like it suited her. This magnificent creature came riding by me on her bike and my heart stopped, I knew this was love at first sight. From the various tattoos to the short spiked hair. The bike was pretty rad too!
This morning I went for a ride with my friend Chris. He's a lawyer that used to work in the same office as my dad a few years ago. He has been riding for a while and is now doing triathlons and likes to ride with me when I come visit. We were only like 10 miles into our ride this morning when he went to shift and his chain broke! I thought he was kidding at first but sure enough the chain was broken. We stopped at a kwiki-mart and checked out the damage. Neither of us had a chain tool, well I did but it was broken... A big group of 30+ riders came by so I got on my bike and chased em down. I went from the very back to the front asking every person if they had a tool. Not one person had one, there were a few tools in the group ;-) but no chain tools... We waited a little longer and another big group went by and it was the same story...
I called my dad and he was gonna have to come get us. Then some guy rode by and we asked again, figuring to get the same answer, but he said "oh yea, I got one" success! He was a really nice guy. Thank you nice guy who rides a cervelo, you rock! So we fixed the chain and got on our way. On the way home I got a flat, go figure. Then we hit the bridge and ran into one of the big groups of d-bags who didnt want to help us. The bridge had been broken and been up for like 10 mins. so we waited and talked to a few people, the non-tools. This one dude had been riding a fixie for their whole ride, it was like a 50+ mile ride they had been doing, he also had flat pedals... He was either a retard or a beast, couldn't figure it out. So this morning was pretty eventful.
I'm not gonna ride tomorrow, I go into the office to meet with my boss and find out my schedule for internship numero uno, I want to be fresh. I may run in the morning but that is TBD. This summer is going to be interesting with all my work and training. It'll make for good blogging I can tell you that much! So get ready for some interesting stories about the cruise industry, working for a radio station and attempting to race in Florida. I plan to do some races to cat up and try and make some money. Stay tuned!
Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I've been pretty busy the past couple of weeks, but now I have a little time off so I figured I would update my fans. School is done, we moved Rebecca to her new place , graduation happened, and we went to a friends wedding. All that was just last week! Like I said, I've been pretty busy.
I started getting a cold the other day... Who gets sick in May? So I've been taking it easy and drinking a ton of water. I feel a lot better today! Rebecca and I have been training for a half marathon but I've been slacking lately. We went for a 5 mile run yesterday in Boone, we ran the Greenway Trail. It was pretty nice, except I was hurting big time. I was still sick and felt horrible, also since I've been busy I haven't been eating very well. I've turned to the fried food bbq cake and ice cream diet... Ya not good! Rebecca did awesome but me... not so much.
I was supposed to be going home today but my parents had to do something important at work so I wont be leaving till Friday. Now that I feel better I plan on riding everyday until I go home. I need to get some Mountain time in before I go to the wonderful world of flat lands, Florida. Hopefully my legs have some power in them, I haven't ridden in a few weeks, so I hope I don't get passed by the swarm of Fred's that are invading the High Country. Maybe I wont wear an LMC kit if that's the case.
Oh!!! I forgot, sorry. I got a new phone! My trusty iPhone took a tumble of someone's balcony and finally broke. I have had that phone since before I came to LMC. I was planning on getting a new one this summer but I had planned on retiring it properly. But my phone had a long good life, we had gone many places and seen strange things. He will be missed. So I got the new iPhone 3GS, it is so awesome! It has a video camera, one of the main reasons I got it. It is so much faster than my old phone, it doesn't lag when I try to load something and it is voice operated! It also has new GPS so I downloaded a running application that maps out your speed an time, it even shows where you ran on google maps! I also got one for when I ride, it does the same thing as the running one.
So ya that's what I've been up too. I'll post on a regular basis now that I'm done with school. Again I apologize for the lack of blogging but I was busy.
So this saturday was the Run for the Fiesta! The run was about 2 miles and finished at Los Arcoiris. Rebecca and I had been training for this all year, well not really, but we have been really pumped for the past few weeks. We also talked Hannah, Rebecca's younger sister, to do it. She was done with school and we thought it would be fun if we all did it. So we picked her up Friday night and relaxed until the run started on Saturday.
We got there early to warm up and scope out the competition. Hannah went off and did a 15 min. warm up, which I probably should have done as well. It was a good sized field, I think there were about 20 or so.
Me stretching. Not really...
Rebecca and Hannah More stretching. I decided to take off my shirt cause it was getting pretty warm. Sean Condron went off right from the gun and I figured if people got away you wouldn't see them again. So me and a few others stuck together at the front. It was Sean, some lacrosse kid, Sammie K, some little guy with his shorts up really high and his shirt tucked in and myself out in front.
Sean cracked and Sam moved up and I tried to follow him but the little dude would not get out of my way. So i had to fight to pass him and eventually did, Sam was pretty much gone after that. I was 4th the rest of the way but than Hannah came up behind me and caught me towards the end, so I got 5th. Which was still really good and I had fun so that is all that matters.
Rebecca post race Rebecca did well too! Most of the people cut the course and one guy even got in a car... So she's not sure how she placed but she did beat all those cheaters.
Kerry and a few other guys on the team rode as the lead car and made sure to stop traffic so we were safe.
We celebrated with tons of chips, salsa, queso and free tacos! We also got discount margaritas! They were so good after a hard effort in the hot sun. There was also a raffle for all those who participated in the run. Hannah got a free entry to a 5 mile race up on Beech. It is over the summer and she really wanted to run it so now she can for free! Rebecca got a water bottle an t-shirt! I got a $20 gift certificate to Los Arcoiris! So we are going back to celebrate Cinco de Mayo! It's gonna be fun!
All in all we had a good weekend. The weather was great and that makes everything that much better. Now that I am getting into running Rebecca and I are looking to do a half marathon in September. I may do a full one in January but we shall see. Don't think this means the end for biking, oh no! I will stil be riding and racing. I am looking forward to racing when I go home over the summer. I hear races in Florida are fast!
