Limitless

The two weeks have been fantastic. FANTASTIC. In a lot of ways I felt like kid again. Although I had a lot of personal stuff to take care of, I set aside a good amount of time to play, and play I did. Here's what I've been up to over the past several weeks (lots of pics).

Before I get started, I have to mention that after a few days off of work I felt limitless. Did you see the movie? I had ridiculous amounts of energy that allowed me to play for part of the day and be responsible the the other part. It was great. Mine was done without the aid of a little pill however.

Limitless Trailer

I couldn't help but remember the beginning to my journey as I watched the trailer. I got slammed in the eye and stung by a bee my last week of work. I looked super awesome. this picture was before it turned black and only really shows the swelling.

My excuse for looking like this, I'm an engineer (who likes to ride his bike).

It all started with a trip to Roanoke. The wife had a girls weekend in Christiansburg and I was going up to Roanoke to pick up a new mountain bike I has in the works since April. All my bikes are typically black, so I went a little crazy with this build and went with purple and gold. I was really excited the way it turned out.

Purple Santa Cruz Tallby LT (TBLT)

Right after picking the bike up from the shop, I headed out to my favorite riding spot in Roanoke. North Mountain. This is the same trail I did the Dragon's Tale race on in April. This time however, I'd be riding up to the ridge from the other direction. Out of the parking lot I saw that the trail was extremely overgrown with briars and stinging nettle. I'd come to regret that later, but I had a nice ride on North Mountain. I didn't feel all that great on the climbs, so I held back a little and took the road back to my car knowing that I had another ride planned for later in the day.

The 2.2 miles up to Deer Trail killed me, but the descent was great and allowed me to test out the big suspension on the TBLT. I was a little tentative on the way down due to storms that took a lot of trees down, but I made it out without incident. EXCEPT for the fact that I got a tick on the ride that I didn't notice until dinner. I hate ticks.

I love going to Roanoke. Not only is it a great place to ride a bike (any kind of bike), but my kids also love to go. My in-laws live in South Roanoke, so it's an awesome location to get some decent road rides or even mountain bike rides out the door. The in-laws are great with the kids and a super accommodating by allowing me to sneak out for some rides. My wife's brother and his family also live in Blacksburg, so it's always a good time to get the cousins together as well.

Just before dinner one night, I snuck out for a ride on Mill Mountain. I can ride to these trails from there house and they are surprisingly good. Really good for bing right next to downtown Roanoke. 

Junk Car Trail on Mill Mountain

It wasn't all about biking though. I had a great time at the park with the kiddos too. This park was at the Elementary School the wife went to as a kid. 

The kids loved the tire swing.

On the turf with their cousin.

Afterwards, we went to 7-11 for some Slurpees. That certainly made me feel like a kid again!!!

After returning to Charlotte, I used Monday to get some personal stuff done. I needed to get my drug screening for the new job done and I had some weeding to do. I had just received a nasty gram from the homeowners assoc. that the weeds next to my mailbox were to the level of a warning. Sheesh. I went medieval on those weeds and then took it upon myself to paint the mailbox, cut some stencils, and re-paint the house numbers on the paper holder. Way more ambitious than I would get under full time employment. Limitless!.

The next day I headed to the Uwharries for another spin on the mountain bike. I intended to head up to Pisgah, but just wasn't feeling up to it. The Uwharrie trail system is much more forgiving if you're having a bad day. As it turned out, I hd a pretty good day on the bike.

Stopping for some fuel.

My eye finally healed! just in time for the new job!

In addition to the mailbox, the back part of my yard hasn't seen any work in 4-5 years. The tree in the picture below wasn't even visible. This work took be the better part of two days and consisted of me getting destroyed by mosquitos one night and attacked by fire ants the next day. Oh yeah, remember the stinging nettle from Roanoke? That destroyed my legs too. So for the record, stinging nettle, ticks, mosquitos, and now FIRE ANTS. I'm also super allergic to anything that itches so I was a real mess. As I write this days later, the itching is only now bearable.

Yard Project.

I also had a great breakfast with E at the Flying Biscuit after a ride on the Greenway. It so rare that we actually eat by ourselves quietly. It was great.

Biking with E on the Greenway.

After all that, and on a whim, we packed up and headed to Myrtle Beach for the weekend. The kids loved it.

A loving it.

L loving it.

T loving it.

This was a cool restaurant at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle. We didn't go, but this looked like something that needed to be in Vegas. After 5 years in Hilton Head, which has nothing like this, we had a good time with the kids.

The girls enjoying their treat on the boardwalk.

Burying A int he sand. She loved it.

T Cannonballed for hours.

L rode the water slide a lot. So did I.

For my last hurrah, I drove up to Lak Norman for a ride on the trails there. I've been wanting to do that for years, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity. It was a perfect day ont he trails. Mid 70's for the entire ride. Nice.

 Figuring out the trails

 Enjoying a break by the lake.

Wish I had time to kayak

After all that, it's time for bed. I have a new job to start tomorrow. :-)

New Beginnings

After I graduated college and starting working for the man, my mom bought me this motivational picture and frame. I used to have it on my desk at my first job, but it has been hidden in a cabinet for the last 7 years or so. After last week, I though of it immediately and went right to its location and pulled it out.

sorry for the bad photo.

The reason it is so relevant is that I quit my job at Honeywell last Monday. I have spent the last 8 years there and now I'm starting a new position on August 1st. It's a little hard to move on but comes at the right time and I'm very excited. 

As I touched on in my last post, I really haven't been riding as much as I would like to. My fitness has suffered as a results, but that's ok. I needed a little down time. Realizing that I'll need my fitness in a few months for our annual trip to Pisgah, I started a pseudo plan to get my legs back. It started on Friday with an invitation from my coworker for a group bike ride. I was reluctant to go because my current level of fitness and group rides are not exactly complementary. I decided to give it a go for two reasons. 1) I really like the dynamic of a group ride and 2) I wanted to get a true feeling for how in or out of shape I was.

I have only done 1 group ride before and it was an all out suffer fest. I tried to hang on to an "A" group with an average of 22-23 mph. It was hard, but I loved it. I got dropped on that ride, so I had that in the back of my mind as I considered doing another one (in worse shape). The ride email said 19/20 mph average which I knew was at my threshold. I could barely hold 17/18 on my solo rides and "my" rule of thumb is +2mph for a group ride with the benefit of drafting. Nevertheless, it was still on the edge of my capabilities, but I showed up at 8:30am anyhow.

The ride started off tame which was great. Sometimes you're sucking wind almost immediately. I was able to get warmed up without too much trouble and was even able to hold a conversation for the first 8 miles. Around mile 10 and on the open road is when I started to crack. We were hitting 21-22 in the straights and I just couldn't hold the wheel of the person in front and was dropped slowly off the back. I considered quitting, but I was able to keep the pack within reach and rejoined at the next stop light. Over the next 10 miles I hung on as best I could, but it wasn't a matter of if, rather only, when I wold be dropped. Around the half way point, I lost contact with the group and my group ride turned into a solo effort from that point forward. I was also the furthest I'd ever ridden from home on roads I wasn't familiar with. Luckily, I had my Garmin to guide me home.

I had been keeping tabs on my physical needs all morning. It was really hot, so I was drinking and taking supplements to keep on top of it. After getting dropped, once I found my route home on my GPS, I stopped for a minute, took another salt tablet and drank the rest of bottle #1 and slogged it back to the car. After downloading the ride, I was very happy with the data. I averaged 18.4mph over 34.5 miles. Not the best ride ever, but not the worst either. with some proper rides over the next few weeks, I should be back in shape in no time. Let's see how that holds up.

Focus Pocus

Focus. Somewhere between April and June, I lost focus on my plans for 2012. In business terms, I had a terrible second quarter. The kind of quarter where you have to look back and ask "what happened?". I started off the year great with the off road tri, the Charlotte 10 miler, and then the Dragon's Tale and then flamed out. There's a reason for that which I'll get to later. Mentally, I just needed to check out for a little while. I kept a decent base of cycling, but gave up running completely. That's ok with me though. I really love mountain biking and have gotten in a decent amount of trail so far this year. 

My mountain bike project is nearing completion and should be done towards the end of July. I'm really excited about a longer travel full suspension 29er. More details on that coming soon as well.

I've also discovered Strava in the last few months. I really love this app since it works with any GPS enabled device. Your phone, or in my case, my garmin tracks your ride (or run). The cool thing about it is that it tracks your performance over segments (either ones you create or ones that the community creates). You get awarded PR's, and performance medals to keep your motivation high. The more I use it, the more I like the features. Garmin should pick up this company to make Garmin Connect even better. Well, I say that, but it would probably kill the spirit of Strava, so maybe its better that they innovate on their own. Anyhow, I love their app, so I thought I'd pass it along.

I just got back from our annual trip to Hilton Head Island. We've been going there for 5 years now. It's hard to believe it's been that long. The kids are growing up so fast too. All of them were babies when we first started going. Mommy and Daddy were even enjoyed the vacation this year as the kids are soooo much easier to handle than the little ones who ate sand, threw fits, and cried all night. What an awesome time at the beach. It was my first vacation of the year and man I needed it.

Harbour Town Lighthouse.