Knee Surgery

Well the day finally came. This Wednesday I went in for surgery. The experience was not the most enjoyable, and I have come to terms with the fact that the surgeon misled me. I am very sore, very unable to move, and wondering how long I will need to use these damn crutches. I am quite worried about my biking, however I have heard a number of people who say the beginning of recovery is the worst and you recover quick after that. I definitely hope so!!! It is now officially day two and I feel worse than ever and can barely stand up. So here is to recovering quickly and getting to use my bike again!

Cheers!

Welcome to the Soccer Mom Association

It is official, we just bought a minivan. The specs on the van are such... 2003 Dodge Grand Caravan with 80,000 miles. Quad seating with driver, passenger, and rear air,etc etc. I am ashamed to say I am quite excited with my new purchase. This will definitely make the trip out to Utah much more comfortable!

Buying a car

We are currently going through the painful search for a used van to replace one of the two saturns we own. We are very over due for getting a larger vehicle, especially when we need to cram in all four of us along with George and Jessie. Lucky for us, George is a really good dog while sitting between the kids in the back seat, and Jessie is small enough to sit by my feet. But none the less, we need something bigger. We really started the search the other day by test driving a number of vans, and drooling over a number of them that are out of our price range.

During this process of looking at cars I think we have learned two things.....
First, it is super easy to purchase a new car. You usually know the make and model of what you want and the hardest choice you need to make is what color you want it in. Where as with a used vehicle you need to consider much more. For example, are the ratio of age, millage, and amenities equal to the price of the car. If they aren't, the new issue is can you talk the dealer down to what you think the car is worth. Or even worse, you find a car you like, you take it for a test drive and everything is going well until you hear this funny noise half way through the drive. You turn off the radio, and the AC (which isn't very fun when it is 90 and humid out) to try to pinpoint where the noise is coming from and what it may be related to. You take it back and they say it is just the breaks, they make noise when they are wet. Well that doesn't compute because it is 90 out and although it is humid it isn't that humid that there is standing water. I give I don't know everything about cars but I have had enough break problems through the years to know basically what the symptoms are. But I digress, the dealer says they can have someone look at it for you, but do you want to buy a car that you have already found a problem with?

Second, car salesmen become even more pushy about used cars then they are about new ones. Every sales person, with the exception of one, we have ever run into when looking at used cars all the way back to my first car have been your stereotypical "used car salesmen." I just about fell over when one asked the typical line of "what will it take for you to buy a car from us?" My first thought was leave me alone..... but that is the type of person I am.

Amid all of this, we have found a few vans we are interested in and are looking a little closer at them to try to decide which one is really the car for us. We will keep everyone updated I am sure when we actually make the leap into another car loan.

Staying ahead of the peloton

Before I get into my full story of todays bike ride, I just wanted to add another life / physics lesson. "Objects with greater mass win. Always!" Not only do they win but they win spectacularly. I was riding into work today which unfortunately includes about a 7 mile stretch where I ride the shoulder of a four lane highway. The highpoint of the ride comes at the top of Springfield hill, the hill itself is not very steep but it does rise for about a mile and a half. Why I call it the high point (pun intended) is that when you make it to the crest the actual bike path begins. Unfortunately the path is on the other side of the four lane. Every day for the last few years I have always waited for an opening in traffic, merged over to the turning lane and turned onto the side road that connects to the bike path.

Today things went different. I merged as planned with plenty of room, in fact traffic was at least a half mile back. I reached the far right lane a little ways before the turn lane began and held my arm out signaling my intentions. Normally I figured this gives traffic a heads up and they have plenty of time to switch lanes before they reach me. Of course today about 10 feet from the turn lane my whole peripheral vision was dominated by a large red pickup truck no more than two feet from my side. Sharing the road with traffic is scary enough at times but this was compounded by the fact that he was doing 55 and happens to be towing a boat. It scared the crap out of me, almost bad enough that I wanted to stop and check my pants :)

Another unfortunate for me was the fact that I was hugging the shoulder on the left side and was next to the rumble strip which didn't look inviting seeing I was doing about 35+ at the time. But the good news is all went well, I was a bit confused why he never moved over seeing there where no cars in the other lane.

For the next few miles I contemplated whether it was due to me thinking I had a right to share the road, a previous biker that upset him in the past, or just his hatred for us spandex wearers. Maybe it was nothing of the sort and he just noticed me at the last minute and didn't feel safe quickly changing lanes with a boat, either way I learned something. I will no longer merge into traffic, from now on I will go to the intersection on the right shoulder and cross the street when there is an opening.

Now back to the reason I am posting. When I joined up with the bike path I went by a group of cyclist who where going the opposite direction. These are the serious bikers who are very trim, have their team jerseys, and are operating more expensive bikes than I will ever will. They where coming to the end of the trail and turning around to go my direction.

Before I continue... ***Flashback***. It is Monday of this week and I am sitting in the clinic waiting to see the doctor for my preop appointment. In case you are wondering check out my earlier post where I mention my knee. I am sitting in the waiting room and like most people, I pick up a magazine to pass the time. I happen to grab some running magazine and flip to an article talking about pushing yourself when it becomes unbearable. I found the story very interesting in which the author talks about his first race and performing better than he ever had during training. He goes on to talk about how scientists are starting to think there might be something genetic that causes some people to have certain chemical boosts that occur when the going gets tough. He mentions that when a athlete is feeling the burn and struggling to keep going, some will go "Wow that was great! I am doing that again" where others are more prone to say that was horrible, I felt like crap and am never doing that again. The question is why the two different reactions, and it is looking like it might have something to do with the way our bodies respond to pain. I have always been one to love competition, and put myself in with the group who perform better because it forces me to be better myself.

Back to the story, two things occurred to me when I realized this group of in shape bikers hard turned around and was now following me. One, that my legs are recovering quicker now that I am biking all the time and two that I am ahead of the peloton and want to stay ahead! For those of you who are not familiar with cycling it is very common for sprinters to take off ahead of the peloton (main body / group of racers) and try to stay ahead to get points for crossing checkpoints first. However there is one thing most people who don't ride in groups never learn. That thing is drafting and it makes a huge difference even on a bike. A group of riders can maintain a faster pace for the entire ride by drafting. One person gets in front and holds a fast pace while everyone drafts / recovers, once the guy in front gets tired he falls to the back of the line and the next person takes a turn in front. That is why a single rider can not out run the pack for the whole race.

But I was determined to push myself. So I kicked it down into a low gear and pushed hard. It wasn't until I was down the road another five miles that I realized they still hadn't caught up. I looked back and saw they where still back there but not once did they gain ground on me. I felt the burn and when I finally got to the city limits and had to stop for the red light, I watched the gap close quickly. When the light changed to green I hit it hard again and eventually lost them all together in town. I was proud of myself! Of course I can't say for certain that they where even trying hard to catch up, but in my mind they where :)

I got to work somewhere in the ball park of 1hr 15 min. I cannot say reliably how long it took or how fast my pace was. The reason for this goes back to the truck giving me the cold shoulder. While crossing the rumble strip I felt something hit my leg, but didn't notice what it was so gave it little thought. It wasn't until later that I realized it was my cyclocomputer. Doh! Of course I usually don't worry too much about that because I rely more heavily on my GPS. But as luck would have it my GPS notified me two miles into the trip that it was shutting down due to lack of battery power. So I have no logs on the trip, other than knowing the total miles are just shy of 25.

Now I that I am at work, I get to look forward to the ride home :)

In Search of the Route from Hell

My search continues for the elusive route from hell. The one that is nothing but continuous uphills, which make your legs burn and your eyes bleed. I didn't quite find it today, however I did find a decent trail with some "fun" hills. The route ran around Devil's Lake State Park and did give me quite a workout on some of the hills. It also told me that I am not quite ready for the route from hell. But hay hopefully soon.

Also on that note, I have a 124 mile bike ride this weekend in Chicago. This will be the longest ride I will have done to date. The next long ride on the schedule is the MS ride at 200 miles over two days. Then the grand daddy of rides in September weighing in at 206 miles in one day. Hopefully my body and legs will be ready for it.

Le Tour

Owen asked after we moved in for me to post some pictures of our place. Well it has been over a year and I have yet to do that. So I thought I would start posting. Unfortunately our place is not the most photogenic at the time, so I thought I would do individual posts of different areas. To start off I uploaded a number of shots of our backyard. Check out the pics, there will be more to come.

Patio Update

In case any of our viewers out there are wondering what came of the patio, I thought I would give everyone a quick update. We are still working on cutting the edges, adding a retaining wall, and building the gardens on the side. We still have quite a bit in the grand scheme but it is starting to really take shape!

More about Life's Lessons

Shannon last night mentioned my post "Life's Lesson Number 32". She asked where are the other 31 life lessons and why are they not posted on my blog. Well in response to that I thought I would share the first two lessons of life.

Life's Lesson Number 1 & 2...
The first lesson of life is you don't talk about life lessons.

The second lesson about life is you don't talk about life lessons.

Concerts on the Square

As Shan mentioned in her earlier post, the Madison Scouts where staying in Baraboo to train for their summer season. Last night they kicked off Baraboo's Concerts on the Square. Unfortunately the weather forced the performance to the UW Baraboo's gymnasium, instead of its normal location on the town square. The performance was great, they played quite the spectrum of songs from Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" to Moulin Rouge's "El Tango de Roxanne". They sounded awesome my only complaint was being stuck in a very hot gymnasium and the sound of a drum and bugle core isn't quite meant for the reverberations of a gym.

Lifes Lesson Number 32

Flying a kite in 30+ mile an hour winds during a tornado warning is not the most bright idea :) On my way home I happened to notice the trees bending sideways and thought "hay wind... We could fly a kite!" That was about as much thought as I put into it, until I noticed the string cutting my fingers as kite struggled to launch into outer space. Good news is, no animals were hurt during the flying of our kite. I was a little worried when it whipped down a hundred feet and slammed the ground. It was at that point that I realized this might not be a great idea for the people on the ground! Well all is well in the end, just thought I would share my life's lesson.

100th post :)

I have the pleasure of writing the 100th post, happy day.

Since Memorial Day, we have been hearing a marching band practicing. I didn't think much of it originally because high school was still in session and I thought maybe the band we were hearing was the high school's. That opinion changed not too long after that when we had heard the band practicing all day, so we knew there was no way that it could have been the high school band. The music was originating two blocks over at UW Baraboo, so we went to check it out the other day, and low and behold it was the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps. That was a pleasant surprise to say the least. For those of you who may not be familiar with them, they are a division1, all male corps that competes on the national level. Being an all male corp is very unusual now days, I think there are only two still remaining in the U.S. I never expected that I would have a chance to see them live more less get to hear them practice daily.

We took the kids down there last night and watched the color guard practice, and caught just the beginning of the band warming up. They sounded great. I would have loved to say longer but we were all getting a little cold with the wind blowing. I will admit I am still a band geek at heart. They are having a concert on the Baraboo square this evening and assuming that the weather holds out I think we are going to take the kids down there to hear it. Jasmine seems to have to music bug also, so she will get a kick out of it.

Other then that, Kai is hitting the terrible twos at full force. As of late, I have started to appreciate Jasmines lack of temper tantrums. It isn't that she doesn't have tantrums, as much as they aren't the toss yourself on the ground and become completely inconsolable type. The terrible twos are such a joy. I find that I am sad that Kai is finally leaving the I love mommy baby stage and is now hitting the independent I can do it myself stage.

Jasmine is starting to be able to identify the letters of the alphabet, and knows her name and where she lives. We were going to try to get her into a preschool this summer but there really wasn't much of a program for her, so I think we will wait until fall and try again. It isn't that I want to rush her into a school program, as much as I think the social interaction with someone other then myself and Kai would do her some good. Not to mention allow me to have some one on one time with Kai.

Other then that everything is pretty much same old same old.

Biking to Work

I have finally ramped up my biking schedule and am starting to feel it :) Today the wind was a bit brutal and caused my ride in to take about an extra half hour. When I hit Madison the first thing I noticed was the smell of mammoth muffins coming from Perkins. I thought about what Dan would do if he was in my shoes and then quickly decided that was a bad road to go down :) So I fought off the temptation and kept biking down the path. Maybe when I catch up to Dan's weight I can stop and give in to the Dark side!

Trek 100

This weekend Shaun and I rode in the Trek 100 for the MACC fund (Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer). There where a couple of cool things about the weekend, one was that Lance Armstrong was there and saw us off. Well actually we saw him off, after speaking a few words he and a number of trek reps got on their bikes and started the ride. After they left the rest of us where released.

Though we where rained on twice through the day, the weather could not have been nicer. It was somewhere in the 70s, which I think is about perfect! Cool enough to not overheat and not too cold that you freeze on the bike. Also there was almost no wind so you could keep a good clip going.

Shaun and I selected the 100k ride (62 miles). We got off to a good start keeping our speed between 17 and 24 mph. For the most part Shaun and I stuck together for the ride, there where a few times when I didn't realize I had left him behind, but we quickly caught up at the next wayside stop. It wasn't until the end when Shaun was feeling the burn that I told him I wanted to go all out to the finish and would catch up with him at the car. I took off feeling like I needed to push myself all out and was able to keep the speed up in the 20s. I finished feeling great. I was a bit worried that the lack of miles last month would catch up with me, however keeping active with other sports seemed to help quite a bit. I felt great after the ride other than a little cramped up in the joints from staying in the biking position for so long.

Also I am now setting myself up to ride into work every day. I will still look at driving during Thunderstorms or bad weather. Outside of that I plan to ride from Sauk City which would equate to about 23 miles one way. My next organized ride is the 17th in Chicago and will be 124 miles. That should be a good gauge for how in shape I am :)

Here is the elevation map, not quite as spectacular as Dan's mountain rides ;)