Specky Four Eyes

Check it out, I got glasses. First time since I was about 6 years old. These are the super bendy metal ones (flexon) and are a very weak prescription, but things about 10 meters away are much clearer now.

Cost me about $4 after all the awesome insurance kicked in.

8 hours of awesome

The 8 Hour race was a HUGE success! My buddy showed up on time, as planned, at 3:40AM. I got a good night's sleep beforehand and this was only about an hour earlier than I've been getting up recently anyway. The drive down there only took 3 hours, there was zero traffic on the road and we rolled into the race venue at 7am with enough time to take a little nap before the race. I rolled up to the start line just as the first group was leaving, lucky for me, I was in the second group so I was just in time. Then... we were off! Let it be known there was around 3 seconds there I was in third place!

My goal this race was to try and ride 100Km off road (62 miles). I hadn't ridden the course before but had ridden at the venue a couple of times. At my last 8 hour race I think I managed 60 miles so hoped to do more at this race. I was even ready to keep riding after the cutoff time, if I was able, to get more miles in. I also had stricter plans to stop and take a break during the race. The course was 9.2 miles and 1200ft of ascent.

The first two laps were the usual cluster fuck of people getting in the way, and being pushy jerks and dust and misery and everyone coming out of the gate too fast and pushing too hard at the start. Everyone does this, there's no way to avoid it and you might as well just deal with it, we nailed out two really fast laps. I got to ride with my friends too which was really nice and made for some really fun banter and smack talk. At one point we caught up a rider on some single track and there was no good place to overtake. Some jackass at the back was being a real jerk about trying to get past people and we had a great time making fun of him and reassuring the girl holding us up that there was a good place for us all to overtake in 300 meters. She couldn't take the pressure though and pulled over to let us pass and a few seconds later we were on a wide open fire road and Mr GrumblePants wasn't anywhere to be seen.

I wanted to ride 100Km which conveniently enough was just under 7 laps. I also wanted to make sure I stopped for food at least once so my plan was to do 4 (maybe 5) laps and then stop so I was at least more than halfway done. By lap three I was getting a little tired and wondering if I'd make it to five. The onset of cramps during lap four really drove home the point that I needed to stop and concentrate on getting some more fuel in my body. As I rolled in after lap 4, I took a detour over to my car, I regretted not having my stuff right there and ready to go, but it didn't take long to find my stuff. I rode back to the start and sat in the dirt while I ate my cold mac n cheese and veggie hot dogs (with ketchup!) and sipped on a coke. It was great to be able to cheer on the other racers and chat with folks too. The last thing I wanted to do was get myself in a panic about time, so I made sure I took it nice and easy and didn't rush. I made sure that I didn't know what time I stopped and didn't set a time to get going again. It was a really nice break from the race. In the end it looks like I took about 20 minutes.

At the start of lap 5 I was mostly concerned with making sure I wasn't going to throw up. I didn't know how that lunch would sit in my belly, but it was all good and after a few miles I felt confident to resume riding at my normal pace. Laps 5 and 6 were uneventful. Lap 7 was supposed to be my last so I put my bike computer on the distance setting and watched it count down to 62 miles (63 just to be SURE), I was delighted when it finally flipped over and I had reached my goal, it seemed to take a lot longer than I expected. I met some dude on a Jericho bike who we worked out was in the same category as me but I just couldn't keep up with him and he dropped me. When I finally crossed the finish line he was waiting to bump fists, which was really nice and ameliorated some of the bad feeling I had about the folks who were rude about overtaking. He asked me if I was going for another lap and I hadn't really thought about it seriously, so I just told him I didn't know. I carried on spinning up the road and saw Jun and his wife and I asked them what time I' have to come in by if I did another lap. Good news, I had to be back by 5:30 and it was only 4:10. I'd been doing around an hour laps so thought no matter what shape I was in I could put in an 80 minute lap so I headed out again.

There were quite a few times at the start of the lap where I was thinking that I'd done my goal, it would be a whole lot easier to just turn around and head back to camp and tell everyone that I was 'only joking' about going out for an 8th lap. But I dug deep, I remembered all the times I'd NOT done that extra lap and really regretted not giving 100% later on, afterwards. So I kept on pedaling.

It wasn't long until some dude came along behind me and I let him know that whenever he wanted to pass me, that was fine by me, but he said no, that's o.k. he's really tired (which didn't make much sense, he did catch me up after all). We chatted for a while and he asked me what lap I was on (8th, oh wow, he said, me too), what category I was in (Sport, what a coincidence). Then I'm thinking there's only one more factor that could mean that we're both riding for the same position in the race and that would be if he was riding a single-speed (one gear) or a geared bike. I hadn't looked back this whole time we were riding, chatting, I was concentrating on the course. I knew that he could see my bike though and knew how many gears I had. I asked back, "I don't suppose you only have one gear back there?" Nope! he replied and that was it. There goes my mellow last lap. I begged him again to pass by, but he refused. So I suggested we both just try and drag each other to the finish line before the 5:30PM cutoff time. I had visions of him hanging on my wheel, drafting off me for the whole lap, only to zip by me at the very end taking one more position in the standings away from me. It made me mad, but there was nothing I could do about it so I just kept riding. Every time I heard something (usually MY bike squeaking and creaking) I imagined he was right behind me, ready to overtake at any moment. It sure made me ride a little harder. In the end I never saw him again, but did meet him on the online message boards after the race, that was cool.

Not long after that I caught up with my buddy DJ. DJ is very competitive, very. DJ also likes to have his excuses all lined up before he races and also likes to pile on the pressure on YOU by saying how awesome you are going to do and how terrible HE is going to ride. I dislike this pressure a lot. At the last race DJ had, impressively, ridden a whole lap more than I had and here I was riding the same number of laps as he was. We chatted for a while and rode along, and then on a fire road climb I passed him, and just kept on going. Either he'd hit a wall, or just decided to hang back and let me beat him or who knows what, but here I was in front of DJ for the first time ever. Awesome.

That made the pressure even higher. I thought about all the talk before the race and how mad it had made me that he was putting so much pressure on me to put in a good performance, I was fueled mostly by my anger at that and my determination to come in over the line before DJ. I rode hard and my body complained. My cramps started coming back, I got up out of the saddle to work different muscle groups but they carried on. All the while I'm imagining DJ right behind me. In the end I had to get off my bike and jog/run along side it to give my legs a break and then hop back on a ride again, alternating like this to try and stop my legs cramping up completely. I'd already finished off my water at the halfway point in this lap but did have a smidgen of Gatorade left in my bike bottle. By this point I was sick of sweet tasting things, but I knew I needed it so I chugged it down, along with some gu (energy gel) and half a chocolate brownie clif z bar. My mouth felt like I had been eating orange candy all day (which I pretty much had) and I longed for some fresh cold water to drink.

There is one rock on the course I remember, it's at the top of some singletrack climbing and you come around a corner, exhausted and there it is, your only option is to pop your front wheel over it and then lunge to get your back wheel over it, once you've done that, all the climbing on the lap is pretty much done. I kept looking and looking for this rock and finally I saw it, then I knew I was done and I was fairly sure the only person who could catch me was Jun and he wasn't even on the same lap as me. I started to ride really hard to get into the finish line.

There was one more memorable spot too, a fire road descent followed by a sharp right corner and then over a 3ft waterbar / barrier. All my other laps I'd been hitting this at speed, flying though the air for a respectable distance and then slamming into a really rough landing spot and riding it out. It turns out that on lap 2 some dude crashed hard there and was evacuated on a backboard. Later on we found out he had broken 2 of the vertebrae in his neck, he can still feel and move things, but he's going to be wearing a metal halo to stop him from moving at all for the next 3 months. Despite my love for jumping my bike, I wasn't going to take any chances on this last lap, I rolled the jump and carried on hammering along on my bike. I even missed out a teeny jump right near the finish line too, I just didn't want to wreck this close to the end.

And then I was done. 8 laps, in 8h05m58s. my bike computer says my riding time was 7h45m and I rode almost 73 miles (an average of 9.3 mph). I don't have exact figures, but I probably climbed (and descended) 9600 feet (almost 3000 meters). I hung around at the finish line, cheering people who came in and chatting with friends. Trying to chat, I wasn't very good at putting sentences together at that point. After a few minutes DJ came in and I started the relentless teasing that I'd beaten him. After a while I popped over to the finish line to look at the results and it turns out I was in 4th place! What a result! I was extremely pleased with that and my performance overall. No medal, but I was used to that, I came 4th at the last race too, but this field was much bigger so my relative position was much higher. I felt really good about the whole thing.

We hung out and ate and chatted for a long time, then pitched tents and camped out for the night. I had brought beer, but really didn't feel like punishing my body even more with dehydration and a headache so I just drank lots of water all night long. We drove back the next morning and made great time and I got home in time to play with the family.

After a couple of days spent reloading the organizers website very 5 minutes the results were posted and I could really take a look at how I did and analyze it. Here's my lap times:

0:53:57
0:50:47
0:56:33
0:57:08
1:23:33
1:00:40
1:03:11
1:00:09

You can clearly see where I took 20 minutes for lunch, other than that my times seem to be increasing at a linear rate, so much better than the exponential performance last year. My average laptime was 1:00:44. I feel like I could have done another couple of laps given a break and that would have motivated me to ride 3 more to hit 100 miles, I guess that's the next step.

After looking at other people's results I noticed the dude that won our category was hugely superior to us, we all did 8 laps, he did 10! If he had raced the next category up (expert), he would have won, if he had raced as a pro rider he would have come second. If he had raced in the 40+ Masters category he also would have come in second. What a lame ass sand-bagger I thought. That kinda sucks. Then later on I found out he was taking a friend's spot in the race (it was a full race so some people couldn't race if they didn't register early enough). And he hadn't been put into the right category (40+ Masters). That's cool, I can understand that, I can see how it's not your fault and it was an accident. However what is your fault is when you get up on the podium in front of everyone to accept a gold medal you don't deserve since they thought you were in wrong category. It's like if they had me racing in the women's category and had got up to collect my medal.

Anyway, I suppose it doesn't matter, I don't need a third place medal, it's just something I wouldn't be able to throw away and I'd have to find somewhere to keep it. I'm still super happy with how the race went and how I did. I'm looking forward to another 8 hour race in a month!

First 8 hr race of the year, coming up

This weekend is my first 8 hour race of the year. I'm really looking forward to it. The schedule for getting down there and racing and then hanging out s much more to my liking. I'll be heading down day of the race (4AM) , riding and then camping out after the race and coming back the next morning. I play to actually stop and have some lunch during the race this time, and make sure to drink something with electrolytes in it and I'll have a lot more veriety of food since I'll be carrying clif shot blocks (cola, lemon-lime, orange) as well a clif bars and orange gu shots. If they have packets of sport legs (anti cramp pills) on the course I'll take those too, but I haven't bought any (I planned to).

The week running up to the race has been... eventful. I snapped my chain last week, I knew if needed replacing, I planned to do it in October before the last 8 hr race, but didn't want to dick with my bike before a race, and then never did it after since it was still working. Well it snapped, and then snapped again (likely where I had put it together again), so I now have a nice new chain and cassette on my bike, it seems to be working well.

Then on Monday I snapped a seat rail on my beloved seat. Luckily I have a spare seat with titanium rails so it shouldn't be so different, I was really worried about trying to get used to a new seat on an 8 hour ride, I've had really bad luck with new seats in the past. The people who make my seat said they might be able to put some new rails on there for me, so I sent it off to them, that would be cool. I've already bought a new seat and post that has more lay-back, so the seat wont be so far back on the rails and be less likely to snap. This new seat also has a i-beam type construction (no rails), we'll see how it goes.

I'm tapering this week, ramping down my riding before a big race, it's hard to do (I really want to be getting ready to go riding today, but I'm not riding at all today!). So on Tuesday I was going to ride the super easy way (28 miles all downhill or flat) into work with a friend. He called and bailed so I rode the egular way in (32 miles and somewhat hilly). My shuffle ran out of battery power, luckily I had my big old ipod with me so I could listen to some different music (all my 4 star and above Queen). Then I got a flat tire (my first ever on a ride into work I think). Finally to top it all off, one of my distinguished colleagues almost squished me with their car, while trying to overtake me quickly and then take a right hand turn onto a side street. I followed them and we had a discussion about it. I was proud about how not-ranting I was, but I'm sure he still thought I was ranting. At least I didn't swear or insult him.

Anyway, yesterday was a nice spinny ride in the woods with my friends. It was raining of course, but we had a great fun ride and no one was hurt and nothing got broken. Today I'm not riding at all and tomorrow we're doing a really, really, easy mellow ride just to spin things out before the big ride on Saturday! I'll post more about how the ride went, hopefully next week.

Washable iPod Shuffle

This weekend I washed my 1st gen iPod Shuffle in the laundry. It really wasn't a very good idea and I hope you give me credit and realize it was an accident. However my friend Nicole did it too and says hers still works. I quickly put it on top of the water heater for a day and made sure not to press ANY buttons. Then I put it out in the sun for a day and then back on the water heater. After that I figured it should be dry throughout, pressed the little battery button and no light lit up, my hopes were dashed and I thought I'd killed it. I was especially bummed because I like the gum-stick form factor more than the new little square ones, it works better for cycling where I can find the controls easily with it in my pocket, I wouldn't know what the orientation of the new square one would be and my rides are too bumpy to clip it on the outside of my clothes. However I decided to plug it into my computer just to be sure and I was delighted to see the little light start blinking and then it showed up on my desktop! w00t! I let it charge and sure enough it seemed to charge up and looked like it was working. It was flawless on the ride in to work this morning. Was the sound even cleaner than normal?

We're coming to England

We're coming to England! Thought I would post about it here to give people as much notice as possible so we can plan meeting up. We're doing it a little differently this year. Instead of flying over and then driving the whole length of the country visiting people, we're going to rent a huge freaking mansion right on the Devon/Cornwall border and have people come down and holiday with us. We'll only be there for a week and the place (sleeps 15) is filling up fast, but there's plenty of nice B&B's and campsites nearby too so we all should be able to fit in. Email me if you want more info (like dates!). It would be great to see you! Since we hope to have more spawn in the not too distant future and since flying while breast feeding/pumping is a total nightmare, this might be our last U.K. trip in 3 years or so. That's kinda why we're splurging. So get it while you can!

Dland

A couple of weeks ago I went on a business trip. It was tough being away from the family for two whole nights but it had to be done, this was important business! The company was having its annual trip, until this year it had always been a ski trip to Tahoe and they flew everyone in and we had a great time snowboarding and then partying into the night. This year was going to be different and I was super bummed it wasn't a ski trip. Since my wife doesn't like getting cold this had turned into one of the few times a year that I'd get to snowboard and I could hang out with friends who went similar or faster speeds than I and generally we had an awesome time. This year the trip was to the happiest place on earth, Dinneyland!

There was a full 3 workdays scheduled to this, the first one to get there and the last one to come back, in between was non stop action a day that ended up starting, hungover at 9AM sharp and ending at 1AM!

We flew down southwest which I think is the first time I'd flown with them, I can't say it was terrible our flight was only a little delayed and the no assigned seating worked to my advantage, I got an ext row seat with no seat in front of it so I had lots of legroom. I was shocked that they handed out peanuts on the flight. I'm not allergic but I realy dislike the smell of them so that was a little nauseous. I'd imagine in these times of people with very high (potentially fatal) allergies even to airborne peanut particles they wouldn't hand them out and give us pretzels instead or something. Our company had negotiated some kind of super whiz bang cheap flight deal since no one was allowed to switch planes, even to go standby on another. After we'd boarded they had to announce they were kicking off a few people that had managed to slip through and come on standby.

We arrived around 7pm and were spread out at many different hotels around the park, after a few phone calls to find out what everyone was doing we descended on the completely fake downtown part of the park that's not quite in the park and open to take your money late into the night. Managed to meet up with some folks at the (Something, can't remember) Kitchen and had some well needed food and found out they had Newcastle brown on tap! well, that was it! I was making up for lost time! After that we headed on over to the 'lost bar' which is a teeny little hut by the siwmming pool, but they too had Newcastle brown so I wouldn't have to mix my drinks! we spent the evening being drunk and disgusting and having a great time. I remember the little boys room had a sign that said 'lost boys' I liked that.

My daughter's trained me to wake up early, so even though I didn't get to bed until 1:30AM I was awake at 6 no problem. I showered and headed out to find some of the free breakfasts, the one at our hotel wasn't very good, so I headed over to the resort to see what they had, sadly theirs was similar (pastries and fruit). It was also very very lonely, seems no one else had got up early to play so I was all alone in this huge banquet room, I had some pain au chocolats and then got ready to meet my friends for the day.

Now when you're going to do dland and you're all stoked about it and amped up, you'd better find someone else to do the park with the same attitude as you. Luckily I knew Jon. Jon and his wife used to have season passes, they know all the secrets, they even frequent the dland chatrooms to find out what the buzz and the secret inside scoop is on all the gossip. Jon knows what's going on and how to hit the park properly. I'd arranged to meet Jon at the front gates at 9AM when they opened, a few text messages and we were both waiting early along with Brian, another person eager to learn the ways of the park from Jon. If we'd been staying in the resort we could have got in at 8AM, but none of us were, so we hung back and got in a little before 9AM, they let you in, so you can head to main street for them to drop the ribbon and you can then go in and ride the rides. We were right at the front and ready for action and they removed the ribbon, told us to hold fast, and then... finally after a huge countdown we were off. Jon respects the law in dland, you follow the rules so you don't get into trouble, so we had to walk fast NOT RUN! and skip a little to get into the park as quickly as possible. The fun day had begun!

What followed was a rush of amazing rides,

blah, blah, blah this post is taking forever! I started it weeks ago and I'm pretty sure I'll never finish it, so here's just some notes and more pictures and we'll leave it at that, huh?

headache advil for sale at most stores!

fast pass

buzz lightyear: 4 tips!
indiana jones: 5
pooh: 4
sch-matterhorn: 3
Space Mountain: 4
pirates: 2
haunted house: 1
tower of terror: 3
soarin': 2
mr toads, storyland, autopia,
Choo Choo Train: 1
california screamin': 2

nemo: none

skipped mailiboomer

fake look of everything amazing.

After the park closed to the public and it was just my coworkers, the park was DESERTED, we walked onto the front of every single ride, and many times it was just us on the trains.

More Pictures.

Americanated

Today I became an American Citizen! After living here for 12 years, 7 with an H1 visa and 5 as a green card holder, now I can finally participate in the most hallowed of American actions. I can serve Jury Duty. I think they're going to let me vote too. Let's just hope they don't bring back the armed forces draft anytime soon!

The ceremony was held at a local community theater and I arrived just in time, parked and ambled over, outside were tents set up by the democratic and republican party, waiting to sign people up to vote and lots of people peddling certificate holding things. I dutifully got in line and someone came around handing out a leaflet in a plastic bag with a little bonus thing in it. I was in luck, this gravy train of being an American was already leaving the station! My first bit of swag. The shameless republican party has decided they could buy my vote, and since I was obviously a starving immigrant, the price was cheap. Or perhaps they were just trying to send me a message. Either way, the first thing I was given as an American Citizen (or soon to be one anyway) was from the republican party of the United States and I'll never forget it; they gave me an individually wrapped life saver breath mint (kinda like a polo, for you Brits who are still reading this and haven't disowned me yet). The Democrats gave me nothing!

Once inside we got a larger envelope with a letter from the govenator, information about voting and a cheap American flag. It was of serious low quality and I felt a little sad for it. I wondered if it had been made in China, the pole was bent, the lowest stripe was twice as wide as the other stripes and, as an American, it made me sad to witness our flag being disrespected so.

I walked in to get my seat (go, go section 8, yeah!) and the dude in the aisle asked to see my green card, he looked at it and then put it in his pocket, that was it, the last I'd see of it, it was pretty sad to leave it like that, but I guess I was moving onto bigger and better things.

We waited a while and then they proceeded to tell us how important it was to vote and that we could submit forms that very day, unfortunately the forms were for the county the theater was in and not the county I live in. They said they would forward forms to the other counties for us, but my address looks like it's in this county, not the correct one, so I don't trust them. I was worried about asking about it since I was worried they would say, "Oh, you're in the wrong ceremony, we need to reschedule you", so I shut up and figured I'd deal with it later.

We had missed the deadline to register vote in the upcoming primary (where each party chooses who to put forward for president) by one measly day but good news! we could show up at the voting office and we could register and vote as long as we did it at the main office, not just a polling station, however day of election I'll be at Disneyland so I guess I've really got the hang of this being American, blowing off voting to go ride roller coasters and eat funnel cakes! (Truthfully, I'm going to head down to my county offices this week and see if I can register and vote early and also set myself up as a permanent absentee voter and vote by mail from now on.

The 'You should vote speech' went on for quite a while and I was glad when he was done, but, oh surprise, we now get to hear the same speech in 8 other languages, I can understand how important it is to vote and to encourage new citizens to vote, so I can see why they did this in 8 languages, however at the same time, one of the criteria for becoming an American Citizen is that you speak English and it irked me somewhat that this was done in other languages, If I'd been moving to France or Denmark, you can be sure I'd be fluent in their language after 12 years and wouldn't expect them to speak to me in English, especially at a ceremony where I was joining their country. I have mixed feelings about this, I think I should be ashamed of what I was feeling, I don't want to be or think like a dumbass american redneck and I need to talk more with friends about why it's o.k. to have multi-lingual stuff like this (particularly at this ceremony) so feel free to challenge me on it, call me a bigot, whatever works. I'm particularly enjoying the idea of someone bringing up that we should all speak Cherokee...

Anywhoo.... after that they had us all stand up as they called out our country of orgin, they started alphabetical, and so I was carefully listening for Turkey, so that I could get ready to stand up when they called out the United Kingdom (God save the Queen). but then they changed tack on me (Tricky folks, these 'Merikuns). and I was a little tardy standing up, so I couldn't see how many other Limeys there were there. Iceland seemed under represented (one) and I also learned that the nation with the most attentive, punctual and synchronized stander-up-er-ers is India, He'd barely finished saying India and blam, they were all up and their seats flapped up into place in synchrony, awesome.

Then we all sang the national anthem, I almost cried, and then we took the oath. Well I took most of the oath, I didn't say the last 4 words (I'll let you look them up). I was told I didn't need to during my interview, and I think I was told I should swear or something, It didn't seem appropriate to yell out "Fuck Yeah!" at the end so I just kept quiet. I think it was at this point we became American.

Then we did the pledge of allegiance to the flag, which the newly American, ex-Icelandic lady did very well. I also missed out a few words from that too. After that there was a short video from our new commander in chief (nauseating) and a music video about America and how awesome it is, with flags and eagles and stuff like that.

And that's it, they had us all file out and handed us our naturalization certificates, which also said that we weren't Americans until we sign them, I zoomed off to pick up my coworker/friend who I was driving into work and had a small panic attack that I might crash and die right there and I wouldn't be American, so I signed it right away when I got to his house.

I'm pretty sure I get to keep my old citizenship, I certainly still have my old passport and I think I can get a new one too, we'll find out when I try and renew it I guess. Next on the agenda is to try and get my daughter (pictured) her British Citizenship (see how we like to game the system!). If I'd done it right I would have applied before her first birthday, then it would be easy, but alas we'll get it done somehow.

That evening I went out to celebrate with some of my American friends and didn't order the fish'n'chips, I had a hamburger, with extra cheese and bacon thrown on and we talked about American things and afterwards I had to go back to my American home, since I had to get up to go to work at my American job, with my American coworkers, you see, that's what us Americans do :)