On The Eve Of My Challenge

I am blogging live from St. Paul, Minnesota the night before the 100 mile Ironman bike ride. There are a total of 5000 people that are joining me on my quest tomorrow. I'm excited. The only thing that is dampening my enthusiasm is the fact that the weather forecast is calling for light rain and strong winds all day tomorrow. Luckily we were able to make a stop at the bike store tonight and I picked up a bunch of rain gear for the ride. I figured that it was best to be as comfortable as possible tomorrow as I ride. Wish me luck that I don't get too soggy or cold!

A Requiem For A Dream

I usually try not to post about overly personal matters on my blog but since a number of you have been riding along with me on the Holly-Dan roller coaster for the last six months I thought that I would give an update...

I am sorry to say that after six months of chasing a dream that the dream is finally dead. It's funny that it comes at a time when things looked like they may have had a chance at improving. Holly had finally decided to stop living with her x-boyfriend and to get a place of her own. I'm sure that I will be criticized by some for the timing of my decision.

It wasn't an easy decision to make. There wasn't a fight, things weren't going particularly bad. But it had been over two months since I had last seen Holly. That wasn't for a lack of me offerring to come visit her or to fly her out to visit me. But she always seemed to have other plans preventing us from spending time together.

Over the course of the last two months spent alone I began to imagine what the next 2 years of my life would be like with Holly. As hard as I tried I couldn't imagine a future for us that was markedly different from what the last 6 months has been. I imagined a number of really good weekends ahead of us. But I also imagined those weekends spent together separated by periods of several months spent apart. I imagined myself constantly wondering how Holly felt about me and whether or not things were going to work out.

What I finally decided was that I didn't want to spend the next two years of my life that way. I knew that this decision meant giving up on an awful lot of good times that Holly and I could have had together. But it also meant foregoing an awful lot of pain, confusion, frustration and waiting.

I informed Holly of my decision via an email message. I know that's a little cowardly, but I have had such a hard time really communicating with Holly over the phone. I knew that to get out what I meant to say that I really needed to get it in writing. It has been over a week and I still have not gotten a response from Holly. Is it because she is so pissed off at me that she doesn't want to respond? Is it that she cared so little for me that she doesn't want to take the time to respond? I really don't know. But that was exactly the problem. I never knew what Holly was feeling.

Holly is an incredible person and I may never again in my life meet someone that I'm so passionate about. But, damnit, I'm going to try. And if I am lucky enough to find that person, maybe, just maybe, they will feel the same way about me.

I am the ass kicker-er, not you

The plan for my ride today was to do the same ride around the backside of Utah Lake that I did a couple of weeks ago, only this time I was going to add on another 20 miles or so and end up my sister's house in Orem. That would bring the ride total up to 80 miles and represented about 80% of a full loop around Utah Lake. However, I was feeling awesome and hauling ass on the bike today. So when I got to my sister's house 2 hours earlier than I had planned, I decided to just keep riding and finish the loop. So, my ride total for the day was close to 100 miles (Map Point officially says 96.4 but I don't believe it). James, Chris... I have but one thing to say to you: Prepare yourselves for an ass kicking :)

P.S. - Bonus points to anyone besides Master Fob that knows the reference behind the title of this post.

Impulsive Music Shopping

I stopped by Best Buy on Friday night and picked up four new CD's. Two of them were planned but the other two were total impulse buys.

I bought:

• Evanescence, "Fallen" - Great album. Amy played this for me last week. I had heard some of the songs before but never realized who the artist was until she played it for me.
  
• Johnny Cash, "The Man Comes Around" - I've been meaning to pick this up for some time now. I got it mostly for Johnny's rendition of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" and Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt", but I really like the whole album. Holy Crap. Yesterday I wore spandex biker shorts and today I'm listening to Country music. Who am I?!?! :)
  
• KT Tunstal, "Eye to the Telescope" - I loved the single, "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree", but didn't really plan on buying the whole album until I noticed that Best Buy was selling it for $7.99. I figured that I couldn't go wrong with that kind of price. It's actually a pretty good album.
• Various Artists (Compiled by Fischerspooner), "The Other Side: New York" - This was a total impulse buy. I was actually looking for some Ferry Corsten but they were out. I felt like I needed to feed my recently rekindled techno affinity, so I started browsing through some of the other albums in the techno section. I recnognized Fischerspooner and the album sounded pretty cool so I bought it. The jury is still out on whether or not this one was worth the money that I paid for it. I like some of the songs, but others are really strange.
  

Zion

I ran down to Zion today to do some hiking. I hiked the Observation Point trail. It starts at Weeping Rock and works it way up 2200 ft over 4 miles to a plateau overlooking the canyon floor. The view was spectacular. Because of the recent rain, the clouds were still hanging pretty low and it was like I was nearly hiking in the clouds.

On my way back down from Observation Point I noticed a fork in the trail that said, "NPS Boundary - 2.5 Miles". The trail wasn't on any maps that I had ever seen before and is not otherwise mentioned in any of the park literature. "NPS Boundary" didn't sound all that exciting, but I couldn't help but wonder what hidden secrets were to be found on this uncharted trail.

Could this be the elusive "secret ranger hike" that Chris and I had speculated about? I had to find out for myself. So, I hiked a 5 mile roundtrip to find out that the trail indeed led to nothing more than the edge of the park. In case you are wondering, it's a big barbed wire fence. Now I know :)

I brought my iPod with me on the trip but I forgot to bring the earbuds. So, it didn't really do me any good while I was hiking. It was kind of scary to be left alone with nothing but my thoughts for 6 hours straight. No good can come of that :) I spent a lot of time thinking about Alabama. Go figure?!?! :)

The pictures are here.

Man In Tights

I never would have imagined that I would do this, but I actually bought and wore (out in public no less) a pair of spandex biker shorts. They come with a nifty padded butt and crotch and that makes me feel a little like I'm wearing a maxi pad. But it does help quite a bit to keep my butt a little more comfy. What do you think, is it a sexy look for me?

While at the bike store I also picked up some clip-in pedals and shoes. It's hard to tell yet how much difference they make because it was really windy out today as I was riding. The wind was so strong that it was hard to tell whether or not I was riding more powerfully.

For some reason I was really afraid of forgetting to clip-out when I came to a stop and falling over sideways. But they really are pretty natural to use. The only difficulty that I've had is getting clipped in fast enough from a complete stop when I need to quickly cross a busy street. I'm getting better though. Another couple of days and I'll probably forget what it was like to ride without them.

Eureka!

I completed my second training ride this morning. I rode 72 miles from my house in Spanish Fork to Eureka and then back again. The most challenging part of the ride was a 10 mile stretch of road that goes up and into mountains to get to Eureka. I thought that freakin' hill was never going to end. But I kicked it into low gear and just kept hammering away until I finally made it.

When I finally got to the summit I did something that wasn't too bright. Instead of stopping in Eureka, I decided it was way too much fun going downhill, so I overshot the town by a couple of miles. That was a great idea until I realized that I had to turn right back around and ride back up it :) Speaking of downhill... cruising back down that 10 mile downhill section kicked ass.

Towards the end of the 72 miles things got ugly. I had plenty of energy left in my legs (which surprised me considering that my knees felt like they were going to explode when I woke up this morning), but my ass was in an indescrible amount of pain. It didn't help that my seat had worked it's way loose and the nose of the seat kept digging into my crotch and applying pressure where pressure really shouldn't be applied. I guess that will teach me to bring tools along on my next ride.

I saw quite of bit of wildlife on the ride; albeit most, or rather, all of it dead. I thought it slightly ironic that most of the carnage was accounted for by bunny rabbits (wild jackrabbits). How fitting for Easter Sunday (It is Easter today isn't it?). I also saw several several dead dear, skunks, birds and even a few cats and dogs. Seriously it was kind of gross.

Romping through the Devil's Garden

I couldn't resist the warm weather today so I got up early and drove down to Moab to do some hiking in Arches National Park. No trip to Arches is complete without a hike to Delicate Arch, so I payed homage to our great states' license plate adornment before exploring new territory in the Devil's Garden. The Devil's garden trail is pretty cool. It takes you down into a maze of Sandstone fins where there were just a ton of Arches.

The highlight of the day was when I decided to go off trail at Private Arch. I crossed through the arch into the canyon separating two fins and decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I could find a better way back to the trail than the way that I came. So, I started to tread up canyon. That worked well until the canyon walls got so narrow that I couldn't fit in between them anymore. There was a section of about 30 feet that I had to traverse by propping myself between the two canyon walls with my hands pressed up against one side and my feet on the other (there is a technical term for this in canyoneering, but I can't think of it now). Fortunately, I made it out alive and without injury. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get any pictures until after I was safely out of the canyon. Oh well.

I had an interesting experience while sitting atop double-o arch. I had climbed up the backside of the arch and was perched a couple of hundred feet above the ground. From my perch I could see a young couple (early 20's) that had wandered off trail and thought that they were hidden behind some rocks. They were totally making out. I felt kind of guilty for watching but, hey, they were totally oblivious to my existence and besides it was all PG rated anyway. The moral of the story is that it made me kind of jealous. No, not of the girl. It made me jealous that I don't have anyone to have a redrock romance with.

Here are my pictures.

In Training

I rode 60 miles on my mountain bike today. I rode from Spanish Fork to Lehi via Santaquin and the backside of Utah Lake. It was long, it was grueling, but I did it. I'm just kidding, it really wasn't that bad. I could imagine riding another 40 miles after stopping for lunch. It was really my ass and not my legs that did me in.

My plan had been to stop by the bike store yesterday to gear up before riding today. I wanted to get some new pedals that I can clip into, biker shorts, a biker jersey, and a helmet. But, the bike store was out of the pedals so I decided to wait until next week to gear up. The moral of the story is that I must have looked out of place while I was riding today, because a Sheriff's van actually pulled up alongside me and asked if I wanted a ride. I was kind of offended :)

Although this is my longest ride, it's not my first day of training. I started riding my bike to work on Thursday of last week. It's about 15 miles each way and then an extra 10 miles if I ride at lunch. So, that's 30 to 40 miles a day of riding that I'm getting in. Unfortunately the weather in Utah in April will prevent me from doing this more than a couple or 3 days a week... but every little bit counts.