It's been a looooong time

      Well it's been a really long time but I'm back to riding and running. The summer was pretty much a bust but it was worth it. I took a lot of time off and fixed a bunch of nagging pains I had in my body. I survived the fracture and am back to base building, again. I'm currently around 18-20mpw right now. I'm just glad to be back on the road running and riding again and hopefully I can go longer than a year without injuring myself. Well till next time.

Out for a while

While trying to remove a DVD player from a TV I managed to drop said TV on my foot. Seems I'm out of a lot of activities for a couple of months. Luckily it was just a small break and nothing serious. I guess I'll know better next time.. Newho.. here's a picture of the offending limb,



So I guess I'm not gonna put up a whole lot until I get better...till then..

Running after time off

I've taken the last few weeks off for the pain that I've been having in my rear. I had an interesting ride last week and found out that my saddle height has been plaguing me with this pain. Fixed that and guess what? no pain. Well the local beach run series started this week and I really wanted to get in a few of them. After running a few miles yesterday pain free I figured I'd at least go in and get a race out of the way. I had no real intention of trying to put in a serious time but I guess it doesn't always work that way. I started out way to fast, 1st mile around 7 something and I knew I needed to slow down. I just locked in a nice pace and set in for the last 2 miles. Finished at 24:03. 10 seconds slower than Myrtle Beach but not bad for having taken off the last few weeks. Just got to start getting the miles back in. It feels so good to be running again.

Commuter Part II

Well after getting everything put together on the bike I had the unfortunate realization that it just wouldn't work. It seems that the bags fall a little to low and I end up hitting them with my heel during the pedal stroke. So now I'm on the lookout for something else to use. I'm trying to figure out what I need since I'm not doing any touring, just need something small for my daily trips around town. Oh well.. till next time..

My new commuter

      It's been a while since I've posted anything. I've had to stop running for a while while I recover from a muscle/tendon/nerve issue. I'm still riding the bike but I just haven't been as focused. Seems that happens when I quit running for a while. I can't wait till May so I can hit the road again. Anyways. Last week my wife bought me a new bike. Nothing special, just a Schwinn Hybrid. My old beater served me well but for family rides around town it wasn't going to hack it. Not to mention I just can't handle doing slow speeds on the roadie so.... It was kinda nice, she just showed up at my work and gave it to me. Luckily I could spend some time at work getting it 'dialed in.' Well now that I have this new bike I can finally start to commute to work. Kinda sad though, considering it's only a 2 mile ride one way, but I'd rather do it on a bike than in a car, providing it's not raining. Well went to Wally World and got some bags and a rack so I can carry my gear, and here we go.

The Bike:


And the rack:


And the bags:


Hopefully I'll be riding the bike on Thursday when I go back to work..

Week of Mar 29 - Apr 4

Last weeks workouts
3/29 5 mile run / 15.77 mile ride (30 min)
3/31 Bike in the shop
4/1 3 mile run / 9.13 mile ride (30 min)
4/2 8 mile run
4/4 6.36 mile run

      This week was a rather bad week. Didn't have much time to even get on the bike. Was busy on the weekends doing yard/house work. Hopefully I'll be able to get my time back in providing I don't get any new nags or pains. Luckily the bike got fixed and it was only in the shop for a day. Well back to the grind.

Week of Mar 22 - Mar 28

Last weeks workouts
3/23 8 mile run
3/24 3 mile run / 8.78 mile ride (30 min easy)
3/26 5 mile run / 15.62 mile intervals (3/7)
3/27 3 mile run / 7.26 mile ride (30 min easy)

I'm gonna end up missing 100 mile run this month by a few miles, but it's ok. I'll get my goal by the end of the year provided nothing catastrophic happens. On a side note I just got the Crank Brothers Premium cleats to see if the lateral adjustment would have any affect on my knee pain. While it did help and eliminate the left side pain and new pain on the right side has popped up. I think I can fix that no problem. Anyways. That was last week, nothing special. Till next time.

First Metric Century

      Well I decided to go out for a ride on Saturday and ending up doing my first metric century. That's 62 miles for those who are wondering. It wasn't so bad. It was a little cold for me, 45F, with a NNE wind of 20mph+. Unfortunately for the first half of the leg the wind was at my back. It was nice doing an 18+mph average but it would only turn around to bite me. The return leg was completely horrible. A 20+ headwind is no fun when you're by yourself. At about mile 50 or so I had a nice leg cramp. Wasn't to horrible but it was bothersome enough. I added a few miles here and there to make sure I'd get in the mileage that I wanted. After a stop off at a local gas station to fuel up with some sugar I headed on home to finish my last few miles. It was great. Next 100 miles. Don't ask me when though. Well here's some stats, nothing special, I just started putting in saddle time 10 weeks ago.


63.2 total miles
3 hours 55 minutes 20 seconds (give or take)
16 mph average
~2600 calories burned

To put it in perspective about how strong the wind was I did the first 28 miles in 1:30.

you can see the route here.

Here's some pictures.




Sound only of the rear shifter

I'm an OCP, I think

      I've been battling the past few weeks with whether or not to keep the silver hardware on my bike. I really don't like it, but there's nothing wrong with it. Simply put, I just don't like it on my black bike. I've been thinking about replacing most of the hardware with red to go with the accent color but that seems more like a war and less like a battle so I figured why not just go with black. Easy enough. Removed the offending bolts and headed down to the local hardware store(had to go anyways for another home project). Matched up the bolts and I must say it looks a lot better. Not sure about the weight differences but I don't think there was much considering I replaced with the same quality bolts. All in all I'm happy with it. I've still got a lot of silver flashing but that will go in time. Anyways, here's some pictures.

Stem plate before:

Stem plate after:

Stem at steerer before:

Stem at steerer after:

Those wonderful fender eyelets before:

Fender eyelets after:

Till next time!

March is here

      Well another month down. Horrible weather right now. Cold. Luckily it was nice enough this past Friday that I managed to get out for a ride. 32 or so miles in about 1:40. Nice to get out on the road. Followed it up with a 5 mile run and actually set a nice pace. Things are looking up! Can't wait till the weather gets nice enough to get out everyday before the family gets up. Training is still going well. Picking my running mileage back and my bike mileage is starting to increase as well. I think I finally figured out my setup as well. Had a nice hour on the trainer without any pain. It's so nice not to hurt. I kinda forgot what that was like. Well till next time. See ya!

Myrtle Beach 5k

Well I haven't posted in a while, been kinda busy. Still training, exercising, or whatever you want to call it. Recently did the RBC 5k in Myrtle Beach, last weekend actually, and was overall pleased with my times. I set a new PR for myself finally breaking 24 minutes. I had a goal for sub 25 and went right on past 24. It was a good run. Lots of people, 772 to be exact. Only problem I had was the fact that timing was gun timing, which I'm not a big fan of. But anyways. I also managed to get the bike on the road and I must say riding a 10 speed setup is so much better than the old 3x8 I had on there. Nice ride over the bridges and for the most part the people in the cars were cooperative. 20.4 miles in 1:19:55. Just taking it easy. I can't wait till the weather gets better. I am so over the cold, but what can you do. Well enough for now. Back to the ToC and everything else.

New Week, Nothing New

      So what is going on now? Nothing. Just trying to keep the lines of communication open. My 'training' is going well. I'm back up to 3 miles or so on a run. I wasn't able to run at all during December thanks to the half marathon I ran. Lots 'o pain. 6 miles in December but I'm already up to 26 or so for the month of January. Nice. Getting back on track. I've been on the trainer a lot. Well a lot for me. Only 65 miles or so but it's better than nothing. I'm trying to get in 5 days a week with at least 30 minutes. To bad the computer I'm using to keep up with miles isn't exactly working to well so I think I've actually gone farther than that. Oh well. Until I can get something better I'll just have to guesstimate. Anyways. 4 more weeks till Myrtle Beach. Looking forward to it. Well that's enough. I'm out.

There's a new Rival in town!

      Well it's a new year and I figure I'll try to put more up. So I guess I'll start with the latest venture, converting the group on my Trek over to full '09 Rival. I'll just go ahead and say that it was the best present my wife gave me this year for Christmas.

      It took about a day to get everything installed and set up only to find out that the left shifter was completely screwed up. The adjusting cam was spaced to low from the adjustment plate(see picture). That brought on a whole new kind of pain. I knew that customer support was supposed to be great with SRAM and I'll agree it was awesome. All I had to do was find a LBS that would let them ship me the new part, along with a prepaid envelope to return the old one. Go figure that no LBS wanted to do that. The first one told me it was 'shady' and the second said it would cost him to much money. It wasn't till everything was over that he apologized saying, 'You knew what you were doing and I didn't know what my part was in the whole thing.' It's cool, at least I'll still shop there. As for the first guy, he can just shove it. And now for the real purpose of the post...

      Here's the before picture.

      And here's the goods,


      And here's the after picture,


      Before and after cockpit views,

      All in all it was a great learning experience and other than a few FD tension problems everything went great. I also got a trainer which allows me to get ride time, at least in some form. I've spent the last week getting my seat height set right and it's been working well. I think I'm finally dialed in and feeling great. Well I think that's enough for now, but I'll try to keep it up this year.


      And in case you were wondering here's that bad shifter.