In Neils terms...it was a neg 5 (-5)

Yup - it was bad. The ride, the spin class....blah blah blah. I couldnt wrap my brain around the concept of enjoyment on the bike tonight...I couldnt get my legs to turn the wheels. You know that frustration when every time you put force on the pedal stroke and the chain skips all the time...that's where I was at but my chain was tight - my body was skipping.

better luck next time I guess. why it was a -5 instead of -10...the weather was perfect for a ride and I dressed perfectly for it. so i will designate on the "Neil Factor" 5 points for personal points and 5 for outside influence. whatever that means.

andy (-5)

I hurt - nice and painful!

Spin class - lots of intensity and 4 sets of isometrics - hindu squats - each set (3, 1 min reps)...holding the iron chair inbetween them for 30 sec. my legs were shaking so dang bad after 1 hour of spinning hard with all the demon quad squats. kudos to everyone who made it. the ride home on the bike was a bit tough too - two flats...not to mention walking hurt really bad. today - well....you can imagine sitting hurts.

just a reminder - for you john

http://chainstainstakeoncucknorris.blogspot.com/

all about the chuck

Neil and his Demon Dice...

I will give credit to Neil for his innovative ways and ideas...he's a teacher by trade...it's in his blood. So that brings us to spin class thursday night. John, Dan, Me, the crazy mexican and Neil showed up for some joy and some pain. John showed up for the beer. Neil shows up with this new idea - lets roll the dice and let chance determine the intensity and for how long that intensity will last. So the normal die is 1-6 - measuring time in mins...the other was a Thomas the Train die - measuring intensity...spinning to climbing a wall. Nice idea and a good work out - its just we were " climbing" for like 20 mins. Lake Neil was formed in about 4 min flat and it was grueling. Just when we got to the top of one hill...another magically appeared.

We nixed that idea and listened to Coach Troy for a half hour. It was tough all in all...John was still there for the beer so we then headed to Moon Rock for watered down drinks, beer and good food.

Good thing Neil didnt bring his 30 sided Dungeons and Dragons dice...that would have been too much.

Dayton Cyclo-Cross...I won

Okay - seeing that cyclo is really cool and the buzz is in the air...i opted for my first solo cyclo cross event. Work sucked today - it was tough. More mental than anything. I stared out the window as the rain dripped down the glass. The mundane atmosphere made for an almost depressing mood. I also had not been on the bike in a while and I am sure that had something to do with it. My thoughts were funneling back to pushing the pedals over and over. Feeling the wind in my face was an obsession by about 1 pm. I made the decision to bike no matter what after work. I have cool weather gear, I have all that I need to make that obsession a reality.

So I ditched work, raced home - breaking the law - loaded up the duds and fired up the rat bike for an adventure through the park and then to spin class at the shop. On my way out, Tina says that the movie is due so I tuck in the backpack and head to the movie shop by PDQ. All of our roads are torn up - all mud with HUGE puddles. The rain was steady and I was a mess by the time I left my neighborhood and I felt like a kid again. Leaving PDQ I headed in the deep mud past Dayton elementary and that is an even bigger mess. Cars were stuck right in the middle of the road. I was trying to keep the rpm's up and keep my bike up - it worked...no getting off the bike for 1 mile in the slime, mud goop. Into the park I head straight past Pineview down that old trail - blast through the west side of the park and up past Bernies to the shop. 1 hr 45 min of spinning later - back home. Riding at night is surreal to say the least. So with 20 miles on the mt bike and who knows how far on a spin bike - I am now happy.

Great job duck hunters - I would love to try a real cyclo-cross event. I think I need to figure out how to dismount though - watching Cullen wipe out makes me wonder....


andy

Pack 329....bug night / Hallow's Eve theme

Check out the great pics at our pack meeting. It was freeky as I am not acustomed to handling such things...especially the tarantula. But....the proof is there - I was holding it and I let it crawl on my hands and such. I do believe I wet myself - but all the same it was very very cool.

Click Here for Creepy Crawlers


have a great day.


andy

Sharing a 40 with friends...

Yes and no - the answers to your questions in advance...

Monday afternoon.

It was 40 miles with my bud Andy Prest...and no there wasnt a 40 oz shared at the end of the ride...should have though. Note to self. Andy is working very hard to get himself up to full iron man tri status. He was doing half/mini tris last year on my Cannondale and then graduated to a Moto tri bike with all the fancy shiznit. I rode the blue thunder ss with 42/15 . He is gettin good and he loves it when the ride or workout hurts...he actually laughs and has that look in his eye that Bernie has. This is a good sign. He and I go back to 1992 when we worked together up north and he is a fitness hound. Incredible soccer player - hence the funky socks he wore today...

We live close to each other but dont see each other nearly enough - ask about the story - it is worth a 10 min listen-too on the bike. So I get the call...."Andy, we NEED to ride longer distance and much faster than 13 mph max." "I'm game," I replied and we took off at like 2 pm from his home in old town Dayton. So we headed to the Coon Rapids Dam and then to the TH shop and a loop in the park. Our goal was to sit at 20 + as much as possible. I was a bit worried as it was chilly but a really nice day ( Monday ) but after the first 3 miles - it was all good. We cranked all the way down to the dam at 23-24...had to ease back going down the corridor and then we really cranked it up in the park - be cautious on the leaves - we both almost went down several times. I know we have said it before but that EC park is insane for a work out.

Whenever there was an open stretch or dry ground, Prest and I would lay it all out. Wide open trails too - didnt see a soul except for Neil and Erik. I was proud of Prest - the more it hurt...the more he was saying " now this is training and man it's going to hurt tomorrow. "

Prest is excited like we all were when we started biking - couldn't wait to get going...and he was highly visible with his bumble bee socks - he looked like some urban cyclo - psycho cross fixie fanatic but on the tri-bike. lol.

THEN ONTO TONIGHT>>>>>>

Went to the ramp and met up with Carol and Paul. one word....COLD. That wind was brutal even in the ramp. 10 laps for me and I was on the Cheq Rat bike with a 38x16 and 50 psi tires. I didnt mean to sound like some guy showing off the specs of my bike - it is good to know on a single what someone rode - a benchmark. Yes, it hurt. my best time out there for a full up and down and around the base is 2 min 9 sec (blue thunder). I set a time on the RatBike single mt bike at 2 min 21 sec....thanks to Sarver timing.

This beer tastes sooooo good. so another 5 miles of climbing in MN. Gotta love it.

After not...

riding for such a long time...well, I guess it was like a week, it was good to get on the bike. Going clockwise in the park - I knew I would meet up with someone - I just didnt expect to have like 13 by the time we made it half way. Fast, slow, easy, enjoyable...pick your pace and love it. These types of days will be gone soon. Good to see some new faces tonight - Dan. Good to see the single speeds out too (Jay, Tom, Me). And it seems that all the single track races must be done cuz Hogeland was out in force too.

Once we regrouped - out to l'Ramsey d'huez for a bit of hill climbing...in a loop. I am tellin' ya - this is reallllly cool and I felt it. 20 something in the park and 15 plus in the lot. That is 7.5 miles of climbing - IN MINNESOTA...shoot 5 mins from Trailhead.

Neil and I show up with Madonna and Carol, Paul and Holly are doing the loops already. Neil had the tank with curb feelers and I had the SS blue thunder. We both enjoyed some serious work outs. We did a bunch of laps and decided to call it quits and then we proceeded to keep going - thanks Paul - I mean it. Right when we said - lets go home - we tagged on 5 more loops - it was casual and it hurt.

Neil dropped me off at the PDQ gas station by my house and I turned on the lights and biked to the "lemonade" store for a 25.4 fluid oz of "lemonade". Tucked it in my back pocket and enjoyed a solitude 2 mile ride home. The lemonade never tasted so good.