Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Thursday, October 10, 2002

Odds and Ends
It’s been quite a while since I posted a missive to this well intentioned but somewhat misguided forum. I don’t really have an excuse other than to say that life has a way of getting busy from time to time.

A Mile(anhour)stone
Those of you who are either bored or mentally derainged enough to read this site on a regular basis will recall that I set a goal of riding a time trial at 25 mph. A couple of weeks ago, I took an important step in that direction. After a month of focused time trial training I went out and tested my fitness using the same method as Lance Armstrong. I rode two three mile time trials at maximum effort with a ten minute recovery period in between. The first (outbound) stretch resulted in a 25 mph average. After the recovery time, the second (inbound) stretch was ridden at an average of 26.2 mph. While these distances are short for a real time trial (usually between 7-10 miles for Cat 5 riders) I’m pretty encouraged by the speed.

Healing Slowly
Another update is that I am healing up from the injuries suffered during my recent foray into mountain bike racing. Progress has been slow with my rib just now not hurting everytime I roll over in bed. Just a word of advice: Try to avoid cracking a rib when doing those things that seem like they’d be so much fun before you do them. I have gotten back on the MTB and had a good ride at Camp Thunder but I need to go slow. I felt like I had set my recovery back a week from all the pounding I took.

Hurricane Watching
With all the tropical activity over the last couple of weeks, I feel as if I’ve become a hurricane junkie. First Hanna stopped by for a somewhat soggy visit. Apparently, word got out that we weren’t very hospitable here in Central Georgia (at least as far as large spinning conglomerations of tropical energy are concerned) as Isodore played coy soon after. Finally, Lili almost completely ignored us for the more inviting environs of Louisiana. During this time though, I spent enough time looking at NOAA forecasts, NWS prediction models and NHC discussion synopses that I think I should earn an honorary degree or something. Now that things have settled down, I’m wondering what on Earth I’m going to do with all that time.

Halloween Costumes
As Halloween approached, my wife and some of our students have begun the yearly quest for a really cool costume. While observing this activity with only somewhat restrained amusement, I have begun to wonder what I shall be for this most overdressed of occasions. When I ask people what they think, their first response is something like, “You could go as a cyclist.” I thought the point was to pretend to be something you’re not. My wife and I toyed with the idea of going as Christian and Satine from Moulin Rouge. I thought that it might be cool to do the poor Bohemian writer schtick. Kathy, however, found a really cool bat mask so that idea is now out. I could look to try to do the very ultrahip Matrix look, complete with black hair dye and long, dark trenchcoat chic. I’m afraid that no one will get it though. The Matrix, at least until Reloaded comes out, was so 1999. So I’m at a bit of a loss. Whatever shall I be? Feel free to leave helpful/nonsarcastic suggestions in the “unburden yourself” section of our program.

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