STP really snuck up on me this year. I suppose that has to do with the little riding I feel like I did this year, the craptacular weather, and the whole having a family and such. While standing in the start line at 6:00 AM on Saturday it was hard to imagine that it was here already and I was minutes away from beginning. I mean, this is the event that I do, I’m not some 5 time Iron Man like some (cough, cough, Jeremy) but this is what I look forward to, what I train for. Some things that could have gone better and some things that helped me get through after the jump.

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I’m working up some words to describe my two days of riding, flossing and flying.

In the meantime here are some links to pictures from STP by Marathon Foto. Click on the “buy” button next to the photo and then the pic itself to see a larger view.

Jeremy’s pics

Sean’s pics

David’s pics

I know. I live in the Pacific Northwest, I should be used to this weather. I am. However, the reason why I especially hate the weather right now, in June to be specific, is that I was really looking forward to this season for cycling. Last year I was just getting my legs, getting into rides and figuring out how it all worked. This time around I kept up some spin during the winter so I kept my leg strength from completely atrophying (kept my arm tan too, somehow) and I tried to hit the ground running, as they say. I took advantage of the sporadic nice days during winter and early spring and did a 62 mile ride a whole two months earlier in the season than last year.

And yet.

Here we are with snow in Snoqualmie Pass, branches on the ground, rain falling constantly and temperatures in the 50s. Enough.

This is my last week of school and Thursday and Friday are half days. I am moving to 6th grade next year so I may be using student labor to move my classroom tomorrow but there are about 6 of us moving and we are all depending on the other to move at the same time, otherwise it won’t work.

Milo seems to be getting more teeth to fill in the gaps between his molars and canines. He likes to fall asleep on my arm, snuggled up next to me. He knows me as “the guy who gets him to fall asleep”. He won’t do the same thing with Rose but as soon as I come to bed he lays down and goes to sleep.

Right now things are good with Oskar but lately he has been getting stuck several times a day. What I mean is that he will not be able to move forward until a precise series of events transpire, sometimes in a seemingly arbitrary way. If you move forward using a different series of events he will have to reverse them and go back to the beginning and then in the direction he feels is the “right” way.

Rose has a final tonight in one of her Childbirth Education classes and then she takes a break for the summer. Her last day for watching the kids is next Tuesday.

Other events coming up include a BBQ for Jeremy’s 35th and the Flying Wheels Century. STP is a month away and then the Summit to Surf is two weeks after that. I really hope the weather improves. I feel like a slob when I can’t ride for a week or two because of the rain and cold.

This last weekend I enjoyed another successful Awesome Movie Nite with the guys up at Jeremy’s house. I rode up there Saturday afternoon and was quite pleased with my speed. Once I got on the Interurban trail I was pushing about 20.5 mph until I got to Renton and then had to manuever the roads and stay out of the major streets. I wasn’t looking forward to climbing the hill up to Kennydale but it wasn’t as bad as when I rode there last year for a BBQ. When I got there Jeremy went to pick up the delicious BBQ that had been pre-ordered. Absolutely scrum-tastic. He definitely kicked it up several notches which, unfortunately, we all must now raise ourselves up to unless we want to live in shame.

Movies watched were “Ghost Dog” and the new(est) version of “Appleseed”. Zach did the usual drink-argue-go sleep somewhere. Raving Rabbids was enjoyed by all (except Zach) and our heroes even found themselves on the Xbox interwebs getting p0wned like n00bs.

Sunday I enjoyed some quiet time at Jeremy’s as he had gone out for a bike ride. After a few calls from Rose I headed out. This time there was a big wind coming out of the south so all the way home my speed was way down from Saturday because of the nasty head wind. I also wasn’t looking forward to climbing South Hill but I knew it was inevitable so I decided on going up Meridian on the sidewalk so I could go slow and be out of harm’s way. I got home right as it began to rain, good timing. I didn’t set out to put in 70 miles but since I need to get ready for the Daffodil Classic this Sunday it doesn’t hurt.

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I am under 190 lbs. Just barely though, maybe 189.5 but considering I weighed myself a week or so who know what I’m at now. Rose has been losing weight too and we joke about it because we haven’t been doing anything to facilitate said weight loss. My training has been negligible since we moved the boys swimming to Tuesday and Thursday. That used to be my spin days and it’s been hard to find time to go. I have my bike in my classroom now with a Tour de Milton route lined up hoping that I can hop on my bike and do 12 miles or so plus hills after school but with this crazy weather I haven’t had an opportunity.

However, there’s a huge problem for me with losing this weight: My ring is perilously close to falling off on its own. It’s already happened twice and I was showing Rose this morning by shaking my hand as if I was trying to get something off of it and off it slipped. I guess I have to work on building up my finger muscles.

With the promise of Spring actually making an appearance I will be getting out more and training harder and better and faster and stronger. I’m still really excited about cycling this season but I feel like I’ve had a couple false starts due to the weather and my family’s busy schedule. I’ve also got some new geegaws and cycling atire that I haven’t been able to try out yet so I’m looking forward to next week if it clears up like it’s supposed to and the temperature to come back up.

We just got back from our first ride of the season, well pre-season perhaps, down at the Foothills Trail. This was the first time we got Oskar and Milo together in the bike trailer so I thought a quick jaunt down to the trail to get the feel for things would be in order. I packed up books, toys and bike snax for both of them.
Rose met her friend Courtney down there which worked out well since we couldn’t fit both boys with carseats, my bike and the bike trailer into one vehicle. We need a bike rack especially if we want to get Rose’s bike from her parents so she can join us on two wheels.
So once we got the big ordeal going and the boys situated and happy I took off. I didn’t really know how far I would be going since Rose and Courtney were walking and I didn’t know how long the boys would last in the back. It’s a good thing we didn’t go too long, wow, what a work out.
I mean, I know I’m just getting back in shape but it was still tough. Low speeds are kind of herky-jerky if Oskar is moving around; I can really feel him bounce the bike around. It’s kind of like in spin class when you turn up the resistance except there is never any turning down of said resistance; there’s no recovery.
I could only sustain speeds of about 14 maybe 14.5 mph. I could sprint up to 16.5 but stay that fast for maybe a few seconds. In contrast, last year before STP while I was on that trail I could stay around 18.5-20 mph for most of the 30 miles. Today I went 11 miles.
Like I said, I know it’s early in the season but man that was hard. I think this will be great strength training for me. I feel like the guy in “The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen” who had the huge ball and chain tied to him. When he needed to go super speed he just took it off and raced away. That will be me in five months of this.
I’m really excited about going out with the boys more. I’m glad they had a good time. I was also pleased to see so many people out and about on the trail in mid-January. It makes me happy to think their are more people out there like us who want to take advantage of the balmy 45 degree sunshine.

A sampling of things going on right now:

This was a friend in elementary and middle school. I doubt you heard about it but apparently in our state of affairs these days it merits little mention.

Oskar’s swim classes have begun again but he has yet to go. He’s been sleepy and/or cranky.

I started spin again. Gone twice so far. Started a group of cyclists in the district. Will do STP and other rides again.

Milo walks here and there but prefers the crawling; he can go faster and he knows it.

Teaching is going well but lots of big projects going on at once now and perhaps other possible things for next year.

I will be presenting at a local eductional technology conference for the second time in as many years.

Holidays were fun. Every morning Oskar asked who we were visiting that day.

Boys got a bike trailer for Christmas. Oskar broke it in with me in the rain (good way to get the dust and cobwebs off your bike).

Looking forward to new Death Cab album in May …

I decided to ride my bike to work, something Rose has been bugging me to do for a while. It’s only 12 miles but it is up hill both ways which is why I was hesitant at first, not really because there are hills involved but because the hills are on high traffic streets and there’s really no way to get back up to South Hill without going on a busy street.
Anyway, I planned to leave early with plenty of time just in case, for some reason, it took me much longer than I anticipated. I figured 1 hour, max.
Here’s how I was stupid, very stupid: I’ve left before plenty of rides without eating anything but packed things to eat on the way or knew that I could eat when I got where I was going. I knew there would be coffee and donuts and such so I was worried about eating when I got there. Of course, the point is that not eating before a ride in the day is different than not eating before going on a ride in the morning when you haven’t been eating in the last 10-12 hours.

So I bonked on the way up the hill to Milton.

When you bonk on the bike what happens is that you’ve used up all your body’s stores of glycogen and so you don’t have any energy so your body steals it from your muscles. Generally, I need about 100 calories per hour when I ride to keep my glycogen levels where they need to be so I don’t run out of juice. Of course, since I had just woken up I had no more stores and it didn’t matter that I was going to have pleny of carbs and sugars at work, I needed them then and now, before I left.

It’s never happened to me before and it wasn’t a very pleasant experience as well as taking the rest of the day and night to fully recover. I was going up the hill thinking, “wow, I really haven’t ridden in a while (that was true, it had been a month) but this is really hard!”. My vision was swimming a little and it was hard to concentrate on the road. I tried swallowing a few bites of Cliff bar and some Gatorade and that must have helped me get the last few miles to school. I finally feel better and at least I know what it feels like, which is incentive to never let it happen again.

Besides our pictures on Flickr here’s some more:

Cascade Bike Club’s

Photos from Gerry on Flickr

After waiting for the boys to get up from their naps and to get the car packed up we finally got in the car around 6 or so and headed down to Portland for the ride. Of course, due to the fact that we have two kids the time it took for us to get down there was much more than we thought was humanly possible. We stopped in Parkland for burgers then stopped in Lakewood for coffee and so Milo could eat then got in stop & go traffic down Hwy 99 because we thought it would be faster than the freeway which was also very slow.

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