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

Monday, March 28, 2005

Nasty Day

So the weather's turned bad for a day after what can only be thought of as the previous day's deluge. Lots of rain yesterday; tons, buckets, sheets of rain. So today we get pissy rain with a cold wind. I feel like I should put on longshoreman's clothes and go around looking ominous and scary predicting the end of the world. It'd be great except that tomorrow's going to be nice, sunny and 75 degrees. Kind of blows the whole doom and gloom thing.

Not a bad weekend all in all. Got some yard work done this weekend though I found out that the blade on my lawn tractor had been bent by another party so the lawn is still unmowed. I was thinking I might get out with the hand mower and do some work but the day looks too yucky so it'll wait until tomorrow. I'm guessing the chore set for this afternoon and evening will be found inside.

I got reelected to Faculty Senate last Friday. Sort of a mixed blessing I guess. I like being able to contribute my ideas to the running of the school but I begrudge the meeting time from my riding schedule. Thins week looks like committee meetings up the wazoo; Ad Hoc Honors Program committee today, Retention Initiatives Task Force Wednesday, Regent's Physics and Astronomy Advisory Committee Friday. Lots to do and still get grading done and class prepared for. This is one of those weeks when I wish I was an administrator just so I could focus on the tasks of getting things in place to enhance teaching. Given the schedule I'll have a committee meeting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for like three weeks straight.

Passover went well and now we're trying to get ready for a concert on Wednesday night at the CoffeeHouse. I was supposed to receive some promo materials but they haven't arrived and so now I'm worried that there's been some communication error between us and the band. Hopefully it'll all get straightened out to everyone's satisfaction. I'm looking forward to settling back into a more normal GCF schedule to finish out the year. Worship was really great last night as we focused around the resurrection of our Lord. I'm feeling like I can actually add something with my bass. By the way, I got an acoustic electric bass that's been really cool to play. It's made by Axl and works really well for me as a smaller guy with really small hands. I've been diggin playing it though I think I've hit a plateau. Once school finishes up I'll have some more time to woodshed a bit more intensively.

Thanks for reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Monday, March 21, 2005

Eventful Weekend

So while most of the Georgia redneck nation (and the Alabama redneck nation and the South Carolina...you get the point) was in and around Hampton this weekend for the Aaron's 312 (the drama of 12 extra miles...) and the Cracker Barrel 500 I spent the weekend doing decidedly non-redneck things. Saturday night the Weissmeister and I went up to the Tabernacle in Atlanta (skillfully dodging redneck drivers coming back from witnessing the drama of 12 extra miles) to see Buddy Guy. I was amazed by BG's guitar skills and stage presence. Easy to see why he was such a huge influence on the British rock dudes of the mid and late sixties and Stevie Ray in the 80's. A lot of the lyrics were a bit coarse but that's what you get sometimes with the blues. I have to say that I prefer the styles of B.B. King, Robert Cray and Keb' Mo' to Buddy Guy but there's no denying that he's an amazing musician. The Tabernacle was a cool venue as well.

On Sunday I feld the area entirely to go down to Dublin to ride in the 23rd annaul century ride there. I huge with the fast group the whole way and ended up doing the 100 mile distance in 4 hours and 17 minutes. I kept wondering when we'd slow down adn on more than one occasion I was praying for a flat tire or dropped chain so that I could let the fast group go but it didn't happen so I hung in there. I ended up being the first century rider across the line which felt pretty good. What it tells me is that the power and endurance to hang are there in spades, I just need to keep improving as the road goes up to hang in the big races.

This week will be busy as we prepare for a Passover meal. We do this every year for our ministry and it's a very meaningful rememberance and celebration of the Jewish roots of our faith and Christ's place in it. I never fail to get just amazed sometime during the ceremony as I realize that Christ was doing the same thing the night He was arrested 2000 years ago.

Anyways, thanks for reading and I hope you have a great week.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Monday, March 14, 2005

Brooks

This weekend was my fourth crack at racing in the Georgia Spring Omnium in Brooks and Griffin. I'm usually not very good here becasue the course definitely doesn't suit me. Mostly flat with narrow roads doesn't leave much for my non-sprinter legs. My goals are always to get some racing miles in at racing intensity and to get comfortable moving around in the field. Coming in at the end of a build cycle meant that I was pretty fried from the get go. My only hope was to lay down a good time trial on Sunday. The good news is that I met all of my goals for the weekend and would have done even better had I been in better position early in the road race. The bad news was that the big names in Georgia Masters racing are flying and I'm a bit behind. Still, my goals are for April and May so i'm feeling like I'm where I want to be right now. I had a great time trial with a 25 mph average which is great for this early in the year. I still finished in only 7th place but I'm taking a lot of encouragment from the results. This next week is recovery time for me which is when I'll really get a lot better. I don't have to race again until the first weekend in April so I'm should be in good shape for that. I don't know how I'll stack up against the MTB guys but I like my chances if I can get some trail miles in soon. Dauset has been closed a lot and the weather doesn't look too condusive to a lot of riding. I may have to make a few trips down to Macon to spend some time on the Pig Trail.

Thanks for reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Yucky Weather...Blech!

The weather dudes said this week's weather was supposed to be pretty Ok. Highs in the low to mid sixties and a bit of wind. Instead we're stuck in the low fifties with more than a little wind. It's too nasty to ride outside and Dauset is closed due to the rain we had Sunday night so...more trainer time. I tried to spice it up today and that was fun for about an hour but after a while, it just doesn't matter.

To make it worse, it's probably going to be really nice next week which is supposed to be a recovery week for me. Low milage and no intensity. Oh well. This weekend is the Brooks Race which I'll be doing after a year hiatus. I'll be racing masters so I expect the race will be a good bit safer. I don't expect to do really well as I'm still in the first build cycle but the race miles will be good and I'll get to work for a teammate who's flying. Hopefully he'll return the favor in April when I'm at my peak form.

I think tonight will be a night for warm tea and a good book. Maybe some relaxed tunes as well. Hope you're able to chill out and enjoy the time.

Thanks for reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

The Critter

I may have mentioned this before but there are things that no one every tells you when you start cycling. They tell you how great your legs will look and how much better you'll feel. Read the right magazines and they'll mention that some cyclists develop this "need" to suffer on the bike and if you're one of those people then you won't be content to just go for a leisurely bike ride most of the time. They tell you that the sport is full of style and occasional snobbery so you can be ready for that.

What they don't tell you about is the weight-loss/wardrobe crisis and the critter.
The first would be obvious if you thought about it but you don't. You're enamored with the shiny bikes and the lyrca/spandex superhero clothes and the romance of sport and Lance's comeback story. After you get into riding all of the sudden you lose a bunch of weight, 40 lbs in my case, and all of the sudden your clothes don't fit and people start looking at you with the question in their eyes. They wonder if you either have developed some sort fo eating disorder or if you have cancer (I actually had a close friend tell me that the church we attended all wondered if I had come down with cancer when I started losing weight as I was riding).

The bigger problem is "the critter". At some point I think the International Cycling Union comes and finds you while you're sleeping and they implant some kind of alien critter inside of your body. The critter does nothing but eat. The critter lives inside you until they take it out early in the wintertime so they can harvest some sort of product or enzyme or something. Every year I've been riding I think this happens.

Why do I hold to this impossible theory? Well for the last three days I can't eat enough. I mean it's not just that I'm hungry, it's that I'm ill the hour before lunch and the hour before dinner because I'm lightheaded and starving. And it's not from not eating enough. This morning for example I had two big bowls of honey nut cheerios. That's a lot of calories. Less than four hours later and I'm absolutely starving, my blood sugar's all out of wack and I can barely wait to eat. For lunch I'll have two PB&J sandwiches made from the big slices of high fiber bread and by 2 pm I'll be ready to gnaw on the woodwork in the lab. I'll do my daily 2+ hours on the bike and come home and inhale an entire bag big bag of Baked Ruffles with dip to tide me over until dinner which I will sit through after I've demolished my huge portion looking at my wife's plate wondering if she plans to finish all of what she has. Then I'll have bedtime snack and wake up hungry in the middle of the night.

Oh, I know, you're crying crocadile tears but you have no idea what it's like going through the entire day thinking about food. Having given up all sweets and desserts for Lent hasn't helped either. No running to the store to get that "Hot Tamales" fix. No roll of Necco nickels while I'm getting ready to ride. The other day I was ready to kill somone for an Otis Spunkmeyer Chocolate Chocolate Chip muffin. I was standing Wally World doing everything I could to restrain myself from grabbing a package, ripping it open in the store and devouring all three like Alien on a Space Marine. I feel like a nicotine addict who just ran out of my patches in a room full of screaming three year olds while 30 out of tune violins play grunge music an octive too high. When I do eat I get immediate gas as my body tears through the food rummaging for calories like a 4 year assaulting a Christmas package that he's looked at for two weeks dying to know what's inside.

I'd say it was a terrible way to live if it wasn't for the feeling of being on the bike. The rides are heavenly, even when I suffer. Maybe more so when I suffer. I love the feeling of just absolutely groveling on the bike because you're trying to squeeze that extra mile per hour out going up the hill. Of being on my time trial bike going all out and seeing the speedometer say 30 mph and knowing that I am fast; really, really fast and that I can endure the pain. The feeling immediately after the ride before my body figures out what I've actually done to it of being cleansed and of being pure and of being whole. That feeling is worth all of the craving for food the critter causes because I think the critter must be what stimulates the endorphin release or something, because the two are always related. Rides aren't all that fun earlier in the training season but I'm not hungry all the time but once the hunger comes so does the feeling.

Damn Critter.

Do you think I can talk 'em into giving me another?

The Physicist   Link Me    |