Burn, Baby, BURN!

I am sunburnt. My face is peeling, and I love it.

I just got back late Tuesday night from a great ski-trip out West in Utah. I'd never been skiing on actual mountains before, but were relegated my whole life to skiing on a pile of road-debris in Michigan and on those baby-peaks called the Poconos in Pennsylvania. This was awesome, though. I experienced many different levels of excitement throughout the trip. The first was awe (landscape/view), then absolute fear (fell HARD twice on the same black-diamond) and followed by elation (figured out how to ski normally again and never fell again in 3 days).

My god... my quads took a whoopin' on those slopes! It was that really good suffering feeling where your thighs are just BURNING... and then you squat down further and really bring the pain! It felt good to torture them like that and I knew I was at least getting some kind of a workout. I'll post some pics at some point this weekend.

I also ate like a fat kid the whole time I was out there. Am I sorry? No... not really. It would've been nice to be healthy the whole time, but c'mon!.. I was on vacation and part of my idea of a good vacation is sampling feasting on the best food that city has to offer. And feast, I did!

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Speaking of food... costco has brought a new addiction to my life. I don't know what it is about these little granola bars, but they're AMAZING. I've got this box of what feels like 100 bars that I CANNOT stop eating them. You should probably go to costco and buy yourself a box so you know what I'm talking about.

Mmmm... tasty!

I went for a swim on Wednesday and didn't expect fireworks, but I was able to put together 3,000m of goodness.

3,000m Swim - Countdown Workout
500m, 400m, 300m, 200m, 100m... x2

It was untimed and I went ahead and counted the strokes again. It proved very helpful and constantly reminded me to lengthen my stroke and not pound the water.

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Thursday had me outdoors for the 2nd outdoor bike ride of the season. It was back to the old stomping grounds for laps around Hains Point (~3 miles/loop) with the rest of the people who compete in the Thursday Night World Championships. For those of you not in the know, there are literally about 100 cyclists out doing laps on this flat, nearly car-free course. To make things more fun, about half of these riders get in a HUGE peloton and just dominate the course. It's really cool to link up with them and cruise around the course at around 25mph, but that's nowhere near my actual speed so I don't want to instill any false confidence. It was a good, short ride and put me at about 25 miles for the day. On a side note, I dominated all the hills on the way back to my house in a way that I have NEVER done before. It looks like the time spent on the trainer ended up being worth a damn after all! Hurray!

The weatherman is predicting 76* on Saturday and 77* on Sunday so you can be damn sure I will get out there with the bike again for a nice, long ride. I'm thinking about following the route for the 10am route made popular by local cycling aficionados.

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I also plan on throwing down my first run since last October. I feel confident enough in the knee that I can get out there and start running again without risking sudden injury. I hope the work put in over the winter paid off and has strengthened the knee to a point where I can just get back into enjoying running instead of fearing injury.

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There has been a lot of talk lately about the comments made by local radio host and ESPN TV personality Tony Kornheiser (March 11th Show, Part 1, 33 mins. in). Knowing-the-style-of and listening to Tony for years, I can easily identify when he's taking creative license with his words and going far beyond his true beliefs just for the sake of comedy/entertainment. However, he seems to have picked on the wrong crowd of folks (cyclists) on a topic that isn't ripe for humor (hitting them with cars). I guess it's one thing to make fun of cyclists for their affinities for spandex, but quite another when you start making a joke out of a serious problem.

Personally, I'm not as up-in-arms as a lot of folks out there. Yes, I think what he said was unbelievably stupid, but "no" I don't think his words will cause more drivers to bump more cyclists. I guess I have a fundamental misunderstanding with the cycling community with regards to the "share the road" mentality. In my mind, the roads were created primarily for cars and they should have the right of way. I understand that it's very hard for bikers to find places they can ride for long distances at consistent speeds. The best choice for them is obviously the road. However, you cannot demand your piece of the pie from the motorists. There's got to be a level of common sense that tells people where and when they should ride their bikes on the roads.

There is an inherent level of risk you take every time you get out on your bike. Part of calculating that risk involves deciding where you ride. Cyclists who choose to ride on narrow shoulders or along busy roads take their lives into their own hands. I'm not trying to alleviate responsibility from motorists here by any means. The point is that we, as bikers/cyclists, cannot simply demand a piece of the road. For bikers and motorists to co-exist, there has to be a mutual level of respect given by each. For motorists, that means sharing the road and being understanding of our lifestyle. For cyclists, that means being smart about when/where we ride and respecting right-of-way on the roads. I won't jump into the fast-lane at the pool if it's full of 6 or 7 people who swim noticeably faster than I do, but I will if there's only a couple and all of the other lanes are more crowded. Common-sense and good judgment seem to rule a lot in this debate.

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The NCAA tournament has started. I couldn't care less for college basketball, but I'll gladly and enthusiastically fill out a bracket. It also signifies a good time of year. The weather is changing, the days are getting longer and it's less than a month until baseball season.

Pretty conservative picks, huh?

After the ride on Saturday morning, I think I'll get outside and do some grilling/relaxing. I just downloaded the soundtrack to the movie Babel and have found quite a few great, ethnically diverse songs. They'd work great as some relaxation background music.