Dreaming of a Life Less Ordinary

  The Continental 48 and it starts with San Antonio   Sometime shortly after the Dam-to-Dam ride last September, I got to thinking like I normally do, about what it next.  Would I dare to do the RAIN ride?  Would I try another century? Perhaps a ride around ole Gitche Gumee? Did I want to focus on swimming?  Maybe another triathlon? Lots of questions with no real answer.   I settled on wanting to keep riding.  Let my body rest a little bit but keep up the riding.  So, as I sat around looking up rides to do on google, I kept getting hits for rides in Ohio, Kentucky, and even Illinois. I thought why not go try and ride in another state, that could be fun.  I could find a location ride to do in 2025.   I keep thinking about riding in different places.  Then I had a vision of me packing up Nebula and putting the bike on the back and driving to these different locations to ride. I really started to like the idea of going to different rides.  Then the idea came to me.  I am not sure exactly

  Dam to Dam - September 8, 2024   The 15 th annual Dam to Dam has come and gone.   I am very happy to have been part of it.   The ride is not without its faults, and the day was not perfect, but it was overall a great ride.   Wabash, IN is sort of in the middle of no where up in Northern Indiana.   North of Kokomo and east of Peru and not far from Miami and Mexico.   Yes, I know that sounds like a lot of different geography, but those are all towns around Wabash.   If you happened to drive from Terre Haute to Wabash like we did, then you have gone through Brazil, however, Brazil isn’t close to Wabash.   Wabash is probably three times the size of Colusa, CA which is where last year’s main ride took place.     So compared to where we did our century ride last year, we were in a boom metropolis.   I liked Wabash, it was a quant little town.   The Hampton Inn where we stayed was super nice.   Everyone was friendly.   Even the former junky we almost ran over when I accidentally dr

  Beaten and Broken – my path to 46 Miles…   It has been a long time since I quit.  I mean just thrown my hands up in the air and said fuck it, I am done and just walked away from something.   Getting beat on the bike takes a lot of different criteria all coming together and making you so overwhelmed that you just can’t go on.   I do remember the last time I quit.  I was in Watsonville, CA.  It was during my tri training.  I had a horrible day on the bike.  There was some guy who was stuck sweeping me in.  Hill after hill kicked my ass.  I was not having any fun.  So, got off the bike and said to the guy “Fuck it I am done”.  I think he was a little dumb founded and didn’t know what to say or do.  So, he got on the phone and called the coaches, but by this time, I had determined I was not going to quit and I got back on my bike, and I finished the game, and I did finish the game.  I might have gotten a tow up the last big hill, but in the end I did it.  Me and that guy shared a moment

38+  Miles: 38.77 miles Elevation Gain: 1,893 ft Moving Time: 3:55 minutes Avg Speed: 9.9 mph Temperature: 91F Let’s just get the stats out of the way first.  All in all, it was a good ride, although, I do hate the average speed.  I felt like I was faster than that yesterday.  However, with some climbing and some heat issues, I probably wasn’t as fast as I wanted to be.   The scheduled called for 38 – 42 for the group ride.  I had every intention of getting closer to that 42 than the 38, but sometimes you have human moments when you are out riding the bike.  It was one of the first time I went out without having a planned route, I figured I knew just enough to piece it together are I went.  I knew I was going to start by heading to Ellettsville.  Then I figured I could cut across campus and get in 5 miles, and by the time I got back home, I would be at about 40 if not a little bit more.   I was going out on my own because the temperatures called for 89/90 degrees, and I wanted to get o

  8/17/2024 The Power of Words   Friday the 16 th  was just another Friday.  It started off like so many days lately I got up later than I expected after I started my workday at 6 a.m. checking email seeing if anyone needed anything in EMEA.  There were no emails.  I sent one to myself just to make sure that my email was working.  It has been glitchy ever since my quarterly password change and since I resigned up for my personal Office 365, the personal and work emails had been confused on which accounts to login where, but we were over that hump.  The test email arrived.  No one needed me and I was content with that, so I pulled the sheets over my head and rolled away from the fan and drifted back to sleep.  That sleep is never really the best sleep, the mind has already started to wake, and it is running around and getting ready to go.  Dreams often fade in and out in this time and if it weren’t for these herkie jerky dreams I would wonder if I had gone back to sleep at all. Finally,

Cool Outside – Stronger Me!   Yesterday was one of my best rides in Bloomington.  I just felt strong!  Strong is a good way to feel when you are out riding.  I think a lot of it had to do with cooler temperatures settling in the Midwest over the last three or four days and thank the light it looks like they might hold for at least another week.  35 miles, 3 hours and seven minutes and 1,555 ft gained, and I felt good.  Real, good!  I think I already said that once before.  As I told Coach on Training Peaks after the ride “Felt great today.  Weather was cool and I felt strong.  I was riding a lot more upfront today.”  I over shot my target by about 10 miles, I was supposed to ride 25 miles, but what can I say, I got bored and wanted to get out and start riding yesterday, so I coned Kona and headed out.  Kona has some serious bad wounds on her back feet.  They have been like that since late May or early June.  Makes me feel bad.  So, for the last few weeks she has been on pretty