0 for 2 at FMV, Roller coasters and NELLIE KANE!!

The last week has been sort of an up and down week, much like a roller coaster, literally and figuratively.

First, last weekend's bike race series ended the same way that the Full Moon Vista Grand Prix weekend did for me last year - with me on the pavement wondering WTF just happened. Friday's race went ok, it was a criterium in Genessee Valley Park. Crits are great for spectators and it was so cool that friends and family were able to come out and watch me race right here in town, which is pretty rare for any of the stuff that I compete in. I'm not a great sprinter and don't really have any desire to be a better one, so crits are tough for me to really do well in. I did stay with the front group which ended up lapping the majority of the field. The race was hard, but I felt pretty good. The last few laps were really fast and it was really tough to move up and fight for position, so I ended up finishing near the back of the front group of about 15 riders. Overall though, I was feeling pretty good that I stayed upright and was looking forward to Saturday's hilly circuit race in Powder Mills Park. Saturday's race was going pretty well until about 2/3 of the way through the race I crashed on a downhill section. I'm still not sure exactly what happened or what I could have done differently, so I'm trying not to dwell on it. I avoided any serious injuries and my bike is fine, really frustrating nonetheless but could have been a lot worse I guess. So, I sat out Sunday's race. I have been able to ride a few times since then and generally speaking, I'm back on track.

Tuesday night my buddy Scott drove up from Philly to go to yesterday's Phish show at Darien Lake. Nancy and I both took the day off and went to the 6 flags resort which was open only to phish ticket holders. I don't think I'd been on a roller coaster in like 15 years, but it was a good time. After a couple hours in the amusement park, we got a good tailgate going in the parking lot with Kevin, Brandi, Scott and two of Scott's buddies from Philly. It was great to hang out with all of them. I've been to a lot of shows with Kevin and Scott, but unfortunately, I don't get to see either of them nearly enough these days, so it was really cool to just hang out and catch up with them both. It's pretty wild to think that the three of us became friends working in the Outdoor Apparel department at Galyan's 10 years ago. We went to Bonnaroo together 8 years ago this week, wow, I feel really old. Kevin is (among many things) a freelance photo journalist, and was shooting the show for a magazine, so he was in front of the front row for the first 3 songs. The first set was amazing all around - in fact, I'm not sure I could have picked a better setlist based on my favorite phish songs, but the highlight was that they opened with Nellie Kane. Nellie Kane is a bluegrass song which they rarely play, but I have always joked with Scott and Kevin during every tailgate that they would open with Nellie Kane. It became a running joke between the three of us, especially in recent years since I listen to a lot of bluegrass and "twangier" music all around. Kevin played guitar during the cocktail hour at our wedding last year and learned how to play Nellie Kane specifically for our wedding because of that. Needless to say, when they opened with that, Scott and I had one of the strongest hi-fives we've ever executed. Kevin was still up front at that point shooting, but claimed that he could hardly hold his camera steady with excitement. Overall, it was a great day all around and great to take a step back and just chill out for a change (although I did get scolded twice for reading work e-mails at the tailgate).

Left to right, Nancy, Scott's buddy (also named Scott) and Scott at our tailgate.
Nancy and Brandi are sitting down, then left to right is Kevin, Kevin's buddy Luke, Rick and Scott.

Scott at the show.

Looking ahead, Nancy and I are celebrating out 1st anniversary Saturday. She's also graduating from the U of R on Sunday, so some serious milestones this weekend for sure. Difficult to believe that we've already been married a year, time is going really fast. I will say, it was a really eventful 12 months and a lot happened, it's just difficult to take the time to step back and realize all of the stuff that's gone on and the places we've been lucky enough to see. I guess that's why I started a blog in the first place though.

Fire alarms, Babies, Half marathon, Sam Adams, Bike Racing, and Phish

I think the title of this post is pretty self-explanatory, however I will go into further detail.

Fire Alarms - Last week I went down to DC for some meetings and stayed overnight in the capital region. This is the 2nd year in a row that I was down there the week leading up to Memorial Day. This is basically for the same reason, there was a large delegation from the Georgian government in town to celebrate Georgian independence day and have some bi-lateral discussions with the USG about the two governments cooperation. This is also the height of tourism season and a time of year when many schools in the east do a school trip to see the sights. For the 2nd year in a row, some punk 8th grader yanked the fire alarm in my hotel. What are you gonna do...for all I know, he was probably from Penfield.

Babies - Last Friday, my buddy Andy was in town from Charlotte with his wife Erin and baby Jack. This was Jack's first visit to Rochester, so Andy's parents threw a party for all of their friends and family. This was also an opportunity to meet my other buddy Dan's 6-week old son Grady. There were a bunch of other babies running around, but Jack and Grady were the headliners. It was great to see everyone and also a little alarming that I'm to the point where there are a minimum of 3 children at almost every social event I go to...

Half marathon - last weekend I ran my first half marathon in Buffalo. My good friend Jeff was in town visiting some family and the race happened to coincide with his visit, so I figured why not give it a shot. I've been running a decent amount since I've been on the road a lot recently, but this was the first running race I'd done in almost a year and the first one longer than 3.5 miles in almost 2 years, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I arbitrarily set a goal time of 1:25 (~6:30/mile pace). This was based largely on some of the treadmill workouts I'd done on my last work trip - basically, that pace felt comfortably hard for longer intervals. So, anyways, I started out pretty solid at that pace, at 10km in, I was almost dead on that pace, at 15km I had slowed a little, but was still just over an hour, then I sort of hit the wall a little. My legs got really heavy and I'd say I ran the last 5km or so at a 7:30/mile pace and ended up with a 1:29. So, not the best way to finish a race, but aerobically I felt really good and now I have a time to beat at that distance. I think the next time I do a half marathon, I'll pick a time of the year when I'm not also juggling bike racing and really focus on getting some more mileage in leading up to the race.

Sam Adams - After the half marathon, Nancy and I stayed up in Buffalo to hang out the rest of the day. Jeff and his girlfriend both work for Sam Adams, so needless to say, the BBQ hosted at Jeff's brother's house was basically sponsored by Sam Adams. It was a lot of fun and great to see a lot of really close friends from the Buffalo area that I hadn't seen in far too long.

Bike Racing - oh yeah, it's still bike racing season. This weekend is the Full Moon Vista Grand Prix, which is 3 races in 3 days, all local. I'm really looking forward to getting out there and racing these courses (even the crit), and I'm looking for a little redemption after last year's debacle.

Phish - a week from today, I'm going to a Phish concert with Nancy and a bunch of other friends, including Scott and Kevin, who I've been to a lot of shows over the years with. So, I'm really looking forward to that as well.

So, that should clarify the randomness of the title and provide a small snapshot as to how all over the map my life has been.

Oh, and on top of that, I'm switching jobs at work and am pretty psyched...possibly more on that later...or maybe I'll just write about biking, running, ski racing and general adventure, that's more interesting anyways, right?

Please let us know if this works...

A week ago Saturday, I left for Georgia for a few days of meetings. It was the usual type of stuff there - long, drawn-out meetings that are as organized and coherent as a herd of cats, followed by long dinners with many, surprisingly concise, coherent toasts, followed by not nearly enough sleep, hopefully a workout, then rinse and repeat. It was a good few days though and we got a lot accomplished.

Thursday morning, bright and early, I headed to the airport and flew to Vienna, rented a car (my first time driving in continental Europe) and drove to a trade show in Brno, Czech Republic. As this was my first time driving in Europe, and the signs aren't in English in either Czech of Austria, I made sure the rental car company gave me a GPS. Upon receiving the GPS device, the rental car representative said the following to me (believe me, not making this up) - "You're the first person to rent this model, so we're really interested to know if it works." Hmmm....well, if I end up lost in rural Slovakia, I'll be sure to give you some good constructive feedback. More on that later...

I made it to Brno without a hitch. Driving across the border was a total non-event, it's more of a production to drive across the New York, Pennsylvania border. The "Welcome to Czech" sign was smaller than the "Welcome To Osceola" sign in the Tug Hill. Overall, it was pretty underwhelming. Brno was a cool looking city, even though I was only there for a day and spent most of it working. Our local partner there, took us to dinner Thursday night at a touristy, medieval restaurant where we had some good Czech beer and ate some BBQ ribs. The ribs weren't much to write home about, I'll stick to Dinosaur, but the beer was all Czech beer is cracked up to be.

Back to the GPS...the following day after spending all day at the trade show, then breaking down the booth and packing up our equipment to ship back, I drove back to Vienna. I was supposed to stay at a hotel near the airport (our travel department told me it was within a mile or two of the airport), then fly home the next day. My GPS couldn't find the hotel name, but did find the street address, so I plugged it in and started the 1.5 hour drive back to Vienna. Once I got into Vienna, Mr. GPS started taking me through downtown Vienna, lots of traffic, strange traffic patterns and a stop light every 35 feet or so. Having never been to Vienna, I didn't really have much of a choice. Anyways, after about 45 minutes of stop and go traffic, I arrive at my destination...only it's a random house, not a hotel and I'm in a residential neighborhood, no hotels even close. So, I type in the airport in as my new destination, it's gotta be close, right?...recalculating...estimated 40 minute drive away, WTF??? I'VE HAVEN'T GOTTEN A DECENT NIGHT OF SLEEP IN 7 DAYS, FEEL LIKE CRAP, HAVE ALREADY BEEN DRIVING FOR 2.5 HOURS, AND I HAVE TO DRIVE 40 MINUTES BACK THROUGH ALL THAT STOP AND GO BS!! I'm not sure if I actually said that out loud or not, but I was pretty close to a total meltdown...anyways, I drove back to the airport and couldn't find my hotel after a lap around the airport. I do a "Close Hotel" search on my trusty GPS, find a hotel by the same name as mine 5 miles away, not too bad, not 1 mile, but whatever, I just need to get some food and sleep and everything will be ok...drive to hotel, which takes about 20 minutes with traffic, park in ramp garage, lug all my stuff up to the front desk...Sir, you're at the wrong hotel, you're hotel is by the airport....AHHHHHHHHHHH...lug all my stuff back to the car, drive back to the airport and finally find my hotel. It turns out, it's not only on the airport's complex, it's the very first thing you see when you exit the arrivals hall in Vienna, the walk from the rental car drop-off to the terminal was longer than the walk from the hotel. All in all, the GPS and my own stupidity turned a 1.5 hour drive into a 4 hour drive...morale was not high at this point...

Adding to my morale issues is that I picked up some type of bug somewhere along the way that hit me pretty hard Friday, which also made the trans-atlantic flight home the next day not exactly one to remember, but I made it home and the worst seems to be over. I'm already to the point where I can look back on this trip and remember a lot of really positive experiences and not the lovely Hertz agent that asked me how the GPS worked out for me.

New stuff...

I finally broke down and added a mountain bike to my collection of training tools (they're actually toys, but "training tools" sounds more legit). For several years now, friends of mine have been telling me that I would love mountain biking and couldn't believe that I didn't have one. So, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered this bad boy through our bike shop sponsor Towpath Bike.

Based on my first two rides, that's the last time in this bike's life that it'll look that clean, but that's the point. My second ride was quite the trial by fire, I went with three other experienced riders, two of them (Jason and Duncan) I've skied and road biked quite a bit with and they assured me that the ride we were set to do was tough, but wasn't super-technical, meaning, you'll be going up and down a lot of really big hills, but you won't be riding over logs, through creeks and through narrow single track with big trees on both sides of you. That might have been the original plan, but Duncan's friend Andy came as well and called an audible. Instead of the previously planned route, we ended up going to Stid Hill. The first thing we did after entering park was ride through a creek, which I got about halfway through, panicked, stopped pedaling and promptly fell over. After about an hour of trying to keep up with these guys, but also continuously falling off, coming unclipped, or having to run with my bike because there were too many "obstacles" in the way, Jason finally came clean that this particular route was as technically hard as any single track area around here. So, that made me feel a little better, because up until that point, I was struggling to stay on the bike at all! All three of the guys were extremely patient and helpful and by the end of the 3+ hour ride, I feel like I was monumentally better than when we started and had a blast. I still have a ways to go to really improve, but it was a great time and I am very excited to now have this option for days when the weather might be suspect or when I just don't feel like eating the constant wind that you're exposed to road-riding in this area. Additionally, it seems to be a killer tough workout almost all the time, especially on trails like we rode on Sunday, you are constantly working your entire body just to keep the thing upright.

On a different note, I'm headed to Georgia tomorrow and may end up going to Czech Republic as well during this trip, which will be a first for me in that country. Should be an interesting adventure...

This is absurd

Last night I helped out at a little league practice (9-10 year olds) for a team that a friend of mine coaches. I worked with the pitchers and catchers and overall it was a lot of fun and great to be around kids playing baseball. Sometimes, it's easy to forget how huge a portion of my life baseball was for so long. Anyways, we were forced to practice in a parking lot because the fields are still too wet to play on. They're too wet to play on because every day the temperature has gotten above 45 (about 3 days so far) it's been pouring rain with 35mph winds. Last night's practice was 40 degrees and very windy and the ridiculous part - that's the best weather that team has had to practice in so far this year, and that's April 21st (theoretically a month into Spring). It's difficult to teach 9 and 10 year olds how to catch when you have to spend 10 minutes re-adjusting the chest protector to fit over their SNOW SUIT. My former college baseball team has had 9 out of the last 10 games cancelled and basically will have to play 4-5 doubleheaders a week whenever the weather breaks (hopefully by June?).

I had a bike race on Sunday and Tuesday. Sunday's race didn't go great and Tuesday's race went really well, but in both cases, I finished the race colder than any ski race I've done in the last few years (other than maybe the Fischer Loppet 3 years ago when I made some unfortunate apparel choices). The 10 day forecast looks pretty dismal and I have still yet to go for a bike ride without 3 layers on top and bottom, and this is supposed to be my "summer sport". Tomorrow I'm racing in the Binghamton Circuit races and according to the weather forecast, I might be better off bringing a snorkel than my bike.

So, Mother Nature, you've shown us once again, you're the boss, now knock it off...April showers can't bring May flowers when if I'm still wearing a down jacket everywhere.

I would say this blog post could be filed among the "howling at the moon" category.

Let's do this!!

Last weekend, two things happened - I rode about 130 miles and spent about 8 hours cleaning, waxing and re-waxing my skis to put away for summer storage. I also cleaned up the make-shift wax room, which takes over about half of our attic for 5 months a year (the latter task was substantially worse than the former by the way).

The last few years I've noticed that there's usually about a 3-4 week period after my last ski race, where I am in denial about ski season being over and find it difficult to really get going biking or putting any type of structure into training for anything. I work out a lot, but typically don't put any thought or plan into what I'm doing. After spending all winter outside, all of a sudden, the thought of going for a bike ride in 30 degrees and windy weather, and dealing with numb fingers and the rush to get a dry shirt on after working out in the cold (do avoid getting sick) and everything else that goes along with the cold, seems like the worst idea ever.

Then after a few casual bike rides, and typically one or two with reasonably warm temperatures, it seems like a flip switches. I think that happened this past weekend. Saturday, I joined a bunch of my teammates on a 90 mile ride, including, for the first time this year, trying to go hard on a bike and really crank it up. My legs were thrashed, but the next morning, I had absolutely no hesitation in jumping on my bike and getting some more miles in. Mentally, ski season is finally over. That doesn't mean that I can't wait for November, but at the same time, I can look back on a great season for a variety of reasons, and be happy with it, and also look forward to the summer and biking.

Last night was the first GVCC Tuesday night race of the year and it took me about 5 minutes to try to attack off the front. It wasn't the best race, but I felt pretty good and it was good to get back in the action. This Sunday is the GVCC Bloomfield Classic, which is a tough course that also overlaps with my roller ski TT course. We'll see how it goes, but I'm definitely looking forward to pinning a race number back on and getting out there. The next couple months should make for some exciting races (and hopefully some decent results for my teammates and I).

Airplane food

Sometimes, when flying on foreign airlines, this type of thing is put in front of you...

Or this...
What is that thing in the bottom left? The menu said that this was a "Tapas plate". I think there may have been something lost in translation because I've never seen Tapas that look like this.

Sometimes I'm feeling adventurous and try everything...however this is also why I always carry Clif bars with me when I travel...