But what will I wear?

Today was warmish, mid 40's, which is pretty nice for January. I decided to take a short 50 mile spin in my new kit (which by the way, has seen use 3 of the 4 days I've had it). Knowing I'd be out for some time, I took it easy. 'Cross season killed me this year and has really taken a toll on my off season legs. Usually at this time of year I'm ready to really train. This year, I'm still doing LSD (that's long slow distance). Whether or not this turns out to be a good or bad thing, only time will tell.
Doing a LSD ride is nice for focusing on climbing so that is what I did. Easy on the flats, hit the hills. I did climbs on this ride that I usually split into two different days. It hurt but now that I've had a chance to recover, my legs really are in good shape. This is after a Friday that I just blasted as hard as I could (for fun). Saturday was a 2 plus hour mountain ride that covered about 24 miles at Fair Hill with Shawn, Joel, and Tom. We stopped a few times to chat with some Bike Line rides we passed along the way. Basically, a little over a 5 minute mile pace. That's pretty fast for a fun group ride. Then there was today. 50 miles in under 3 hours. I weaved back and forth over the same hill four times. Each time riding a different road up and down. There aren't any mountains in Lancaster but there are big hills. Some have an average grades of 10% and are about a mile long. Some are longer with a lower percentage of grade. The hills I was riding today were definitely the first kind. This was suppose to be an easy day. Oh well there is always tomorrow.

Gearing Up

So, I'm not a male model but I'm taking one for the team. Here is our team uniform. Paid for by the fine folks at Allied Milk, Isaac's Deli (also designed it), and The Arro Group. I have a bad habit of making stupid faces and standing in an awkward way when I have my picture taken.

I have to go for a ride now. See you later suckers.

Skellington and myself were out for a walk one day. Everything was normal. He lifted his leg to pee and when he put it down he was limping. I picked him up. Searched the bottom of his foot for a splinter, glass, whatever. Nothing. Not even a scratch so we kept on going. A week or so went by and he was still limping so we took him to the vet. The one doctor said that it was arthritis. I found this hard to believe and I told her the story about how he started limping. He never had shown signs of this before but she insisted that that is what it was. Well, who am I to argue. We bought the medications and went on our way. So a week later and the poor guy is still hobbling around on three legs. We took him in again to see a different doctor this time. This one did x-rays and lots of other motions with his leg. She determined that he tore his ACL. That's right, his ACL. He was just peeing! She said that we had two options. Let it heal on it's own or surgery. Surgery requires 12-16 weeks of recovery while letting it go meant 4 weeks of bedrest. If you know what Jack Russels are like this is nearly impossible but since he is 10 years old we went with this option. We went home feeling like we finally had the right answer to his limping. We did what we could over the next few weeks. We carried him up steps. After he would go #2 we would carry him home. Anything we could to take the stress off of his knee. It never would've been enough. The little guy went under the knife on Friday to repair what turned out to be a ruptured meniscus. Are you kidding me? He was peeing!!! Now you see the aftermath of all that ordeal. A green cast with Skellington from "A Nightmare Before Christmas" on it. I thought that that was pretty cool. The little guy is recovering but you can tell the painkillers are making him loopy and he sleeps with his eyes open a lot. I'm surprised at how well he gets around with his peg leg though. He can "jump" on and off the couch eventhough we are not encouraging that. He tries to run but often will just sit down because he can't the peg gets in the way. Oh well, at least he will be getting better soon.

Best Friends

So here we are, it's 2008. Looking back on the past year, this team went from a joke between two friends to actually existing. The team is 10 riders strong. They have varying degrees of skill, age, and gender. I feel we have a very well balanced team and our season starts in just two short months. Right now, everyone is preparing themselves to be in the best possible condition for our teams goal races. These key races are where we feel we can display our sponsors names the best. The ones we have the best chance at winning with the types of riders we have. Our uniforms are about 3 1/2 weeks from being complete. This is really getting exciting now.

The pictures are of Mayari (brown blob), Skellington (little white guy), and Staci in the left picture. Mayari and Skellington hate to be cold and even though they aren't really best friends, they pretend. In the right picture, is Mayari (left), and Serendipity (right). They were trying to make a heart like swans do. They failed and a fight ensued.