It's just a little mud...

Yesterday I tried out my new tires on my bike for the first time in preparation for Sunday's cyclocross race.  I headed out to some trails to practice riding on grass and getting on and off the bike while going as quickly as possible.  I rode through some mud, made my wheels spin a bit, and got off and ran up a hill with my bike on my shoulder.  Of course, I came to stand still getting back on, so I lowered the seat.  No problems so far.

I was slipping around, keeping my balance through muddy stretches as I headed down a hill and saw a puddle.  I didn't want to ride back up the hill, so I went through.  The mud and standing water (with much algae growth and odd, oil-like patterns floating on top) was soon a few inches deep.  I was still upright and moving forward and it looked like the stretch was ending soon.  Then I turned a corner and it kept going.  I saw other trails and they were all flooded too.

Three things occurred to me at this point.  One, it's barely rained for the last two weeks; where is all of this water coming from.  Two, if I keep moving, I won't get wet.  Three, I've stopped moving and the mud is over my shoes.

I felt like Atreyu slogging through the swamp of sadness.  I was worried that I was going to lose my bike like Artax.  It was then I saw a trail to the side that seemed to have more tall grasses to step on, so I headed that way, lugging my bike with me through the mud.  This is where the giant, man-eating prickers attacked and the trail turned out not to be a trail.  I saw a clearing a little ways ahead and then made it to within ten feet of another, dry trail.  I couldn't get there.  The pricker growth was so thick I had to turn around an backtrack the whole way.  Then I had to go back up the hill I was avoiding in the first place.

I headed back today, but completely avoided the bog I found yesterday.  First I found the thorn that poked through my tire and put a pinhole in my tube.  Riding on grass is much more tiring than the road and I do not have easy gearing on my bike.  I don't know how people get on and off their bikes at speed, but I'm going to do the best I can.

All of that said, I'm really excited about tomorrow's race.  After my riding today, I think I have a little more reasonable expectations for how I'll do, but I'm going to have fun.  That much I know.

Cyclocross, here I come

I've got my first cyclocross race coming up on Sunday.  Academically, I know what to expect.  I'm prepping my bike as best I can.  I found slightly knobby tires to fit my road frame.  I'm taking off the bottle cage and computer.  But, I really don't know what to expect.  Even seeing pictures of the course, I have no idea how this is going to go.  The one thing I do know is I'm excited and can't wait to give it a try.  My wife keeps repeating one phrase to me, "Don't hurt yourself."  She says this to me a lot.  It means a lot to me that she cares for my well being enough to place that subconscious thought, "...hurt yourself" into my head to strike when I'm least prepared.  Hopefully it won't happen during the fire jump on the course.

Wish me luck.

Reflections on a 5k

Last night I ran the first 5k race since 1995.  I can't believe it's been that long.  In the past 3 years I've gotten back into racing, but I've been focusing on things that required more guts and pain tolerance than pure athleticism.  It's a nice way to avoid the question of how far I am fitness and ability-wise from when I was running Cross Country in high school. 

Last night, however, there was no hiding behind the difficulty of the terrain, novelty of kayaking for the first time, or the grueling nature of any multi-sport event.  Last night was a flat 5k course at a perfect 60 degrees with no wind, precipitation, or oppressive humidity.  No excuses for performance other than lack of preparedness.

I started the race with a colleague from school that I stumbled upon before the start.  We both had the goal of finishing in under 24 minutes.  The start was a fast run down Market Street, which was really cool at night with the lights and over 300 other people.  It soon turned onto the dark streets of residential downtown Lewisburg and the gut check began.  I hit mile 1 at 7:58.  The fastest first mile I've run since the earlier mentioned cross country days.  I had to guess at the split at the time because of the lag in the official start and the time when I crossed the mat for the timing chip.  I couldn't see my watch well enough while moving in the dark, so I just went with it.  With about a half mile to go, I picked up the pace.  At that moment, I was so thankful for the last few weeks I'd spent doing 400 meter intervals at about a 7:20 mile pace.  The last bit of the race felt like these last few intervals and the all out one at the end.  I still had a kick, the intensity of which tells me that I could have gone faster over that last couple of miles, but the kick was there.  I had lost my partner early on, but caught back up at the end and we finished within seconds of each other.

I finished in 24:43.  I was 5 minutes out of medal contention and didn't meet my goal, but when I found out that the course was actually 3.2 miles long (not 3.125 that is more the actual 5k distance), broke down my time to see that I'd averaged about 7:43/mile.  I'm very happy with that.  I've been struggling to build speed these last few years.  It's a far cry from my all-time best of 18 minutes, and I don't think I'll see that again, but I think that I can get that pace down to 7 minutes/mile and maybe even get below 20 minutes again.

Thoughts on Who - The Doctor, that is

Disclaimer:  for the purposes of this discussion, I am only discussing the new Dr. Who.  All and any comments pertaining to the original series will be out of place. 

I've finished the 5th season of Dr. Who on Netflix and am waiting for season 6 to become available streaming.  I'm not satisfied with the current Dr., Matt Smith.  When I first started watching, Christopher Eccleston was perfect and I was really upset when David Tennant took over after just one season.  However, within a few episodes, I got over that and really enjoyed him as the doctor.  But the arrival of Matt Smith, who isn't bad as the Dr., it's just not the same.  I know it's not supposed to be the same, but I still haven't fully accepted him as the Dr.

Even more than the Dr., I feel that they peeked with Rose Tyler as his companion.  I've like all of the others (Donna Noble took longer to accept), but none of them had the same connection as Rose and no one's ending(s) were as strong as hers.

I have to give it to the writers of Dr. Who.  They really get you attached to the characters and pull you in to make each season's finale that much more special.  Even with Matt Smith's Dr. and Amy/Rory as the companions (who I've accepted more than him), season 5's finish was spectacular.  Doomsday from season 2 is still tops, but they've all been great.
I've never known a Scifi show that could pull you so emotionally.  If you haven't watched the new Dr. Who, you should.  Give yourself a few episodes to get used to it.  It's one of the best shows I've watched - right up there with Battlestar Galactica and The Wire.

So glad I've gotten rid of Windstream

My wife and I had finally had enough of our current telephone and internet provider, Windstream.  A year or two ago, they bought out our local provider.  Up to that point, I actually enjoyed the few talks I had with customer service and always felt that I was treated well by the company.  Windstream bought them out and almost immediately, we started have connection issues with the internet.  Then our phone lines started getting extremely fuzzy.  It got so bad, that we could hardly hear the people we were talking to.  Windstream said they detected no problems with the lines, so it must be inside the house.  It also got to the point that we had to restart the modem at least 3 times a day to get internet access and often even that wouldn't help.  Windstream told me that our connection was fine.

We switched to the cable company for everything.  In order to do the switch, I needed a passcode to port my number.  I called Windstream and got a code.  A day later the cable company said the code was rejected.  I called back and got a completely different number, which this time worked.  I planned on shutting off the Windstream service a few days after the switch so I could get all of my email contacts switched to a new address when all of a sudden, I couldn't access my email anymore.  I couldn't even get to a login screen.  I called today to cancel Windstream and they had already cancelled when the phone number got ported.  I asked why that would cut off my email and got some BS answer.  Luckily I didn't use their webmail and have all of my old emails, otherwise, it would all be lost.

It's sad that a good, well-liked, local company that did it's job well was bought out by what clearly seems to be a large corporation that acts like a child when it doesn't like what you do.  Good riddance to Windstream and I haven't had to restart a modem all week!

I'm raising my daughter right

The girl has been going through a lot of maturation this past year.  Kindergarten has pushed her levels of independence to previously unknown levels.  She's taking showers and cleaning herself with minimal assistance.  And, she even has taken to choosing her own clothes, with her own style.  None of that is something I can take credit for.  However, I think I have had some influence on her current push for an identity.  She's been stating, ofter vociferously, that she loves rock-n-roll.  She treats us daily to her dance interpretations of whatever music is playing.  She's a big fan of Gogol Bordello.  She's been going through my CD collection asking to hear different things.  Last night was a watershed moment.  For a while now, she's been saying how much she likes drums and guitars.  Everything I put on, she said she wanted more drums and guitars and could I please turn it up.  A light bulb went off, I put on a particular CD, and she actually started headbanging.  It was Metallica, Master of Puppets.

I figured out that my 5-year-old daughter's particular taste in music may be metal.

The coolest thing is that she likes so many different things.  I was worried for a while because she was gravitating to things like Lady Gaga and K$sha (some tracks of which are cunningly catchy), but I kept hope because she liked Gogol Bordello so much more.  But after her repeated requests for more drums and more guitar, I can see that her musical tastes will be fine.

Rock on.

Can we count on your $200 to defeat the worst president in history?

I got a call that came up as a private number and decided to take it.  What's the worst that could happen?  It was Dick Morris in a very moving speech that really didn't say anything outside of rhetorical devices.  It asked me to stay on the line to participate in a survey of Tea Party supporters.  I figured this could be as much fun as the call I took from the NRA a while ago.

I was informed that Mr. Morris just wrote a book on how to revolt against president Obama and his socialist agenda.  Then I was asked which conservative I think led as the best example for us to follow today.  I didn't want to let the person know my views yet, so I said Thomas Jefferson.  She replied with "Oh, going back in history.  I heard Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

"I didn't say Abraham Lincoln.  I only said Thomas Jefferson," I replied.

"Well, we certainly could use someone like him today," she said.

At this point I refrained from asking what about Thomas Jefferson led her to believe he'd support her side.  Instead, I listened to hear how they were planning to take out a full page add in USA Today and if they could count on my $200 contribution to defeat Obama, again mentioning that not only is he the worst president since Carter, but the worst ever.  I asked her what he's done to be the worst.  She said the car bailouts, to which I asked why were they so bad.  The companies are profitable and they paid back all the loans.  Then she started talking about fighter pilots in Libya.  I broke in and said that I wasn't saying anything about Libya, but why was the car manufacturers bailout bad when they worked. 

I asked her what she thought about the bank bailouts by Bush.  I asked if they had paid their money back.  She said no.  I asked what she thought about the bonuses their executives received.  She had no reply.  I asked her about all of the corporate tax breaks and she said the president had no business doing anything like that.  I replied that it seemed like Congress was leading the way there.  I was about to ask about all of the state governments selling themselves to business, but she started to thank me for my call and that we weren't going to agree on anything.

I asked her why she didn't want to have a discussion.  Did she want it to be a case of I think this, you think that, and let's see who has more people?  Isn't that a bit juvenile?  She was trying every way she could think of to get off the phone with me without just hanging up.  She kept repeating that she was glad I had my opinions.  Then I asked how she got my name as a supporter of the Tea Party.  She asked if I was so-and-so, who happens to be my brother.  I replied, "No, I'm another so-and-so.  That's my brother.  I'm the owner of this house."  Then I let her off the hook.  Now I know why they had the name and number blocked.  They don't want real discussion.  They just want you to agree or not know of their existence.

It was an invigorating, but scary look into the psyche of a part of the American public and their leaders.  With no information at all, with nothing but rhetorical devices and scare tactics politicians and lobbyists try and succeed to get vast amounts of money and support.  Maybe the answer is to limit everyone to a single term in office.  With no pressure to get re-elected, maybe politicians will start to represent people again and not special interests and corporations.  I don't know.  Our system is broken.  I have no idea how to fix it.