Cezanne's B-day and Thanksgiving

This past Sunday was Cezanne's birthday, but I can't say how old she is...

We went to "Siroc" for dinner and had some great food. I highly recommend it. It was really good, but not too expensive, I think around $80 for both, including one drink and a split dessert.

I ordered a "Gimlet" which is basically vodka (or gin) and lime juice with a little mint. When I got it, it tasted like straight vodka, with a hint of mint. After sipping on it for a bit I told the waitress I was a light-weight and asked for some more lime juice.

Cezanne loves to be "cozy" as she says, so last Saturday I got her some Ugg slippers and she loves them. Good thing she made it easy by suggesting slippers.

My brother Jason is in Djibouti in Africa, so we made a sign for him for our Thanksgiving Day photo. Not a bad photo given that we used the timer on the camera.

Here is a shot of the gang without the sign. We had a great time and had great food.

I ran 8.6 miles on Friday and did an easy (but wound up being painful) 36 mile ride on Sunday. My legs are thrashed from the run, especially my hip flexors and nagging left hamstring. I'm not sure what I did to it. I might go out and try to do an easy 25 miles on the bike today. Last night my throat started hurting...looks like the beginnings of a cold.

Pretty boring post, but I had to throw something up here, since it's been a while.

Luv Cycles t-shirts

My High School friend Mike started a cycling clothing and info company: luvcycles.com

I wanted to get the kelly green shirt with yellow heart, but my brother already got that one, so I opted for the gray. The material is perfect.

I went for an 8.7 mile run today, really slowly, and wound up at a 9:02 minute mile pace. That's the farthest I can ever remember running. It was raining (hence no bike ride) and about 50 degrees, but it was actually pretty nice. My heart/lungs felt great (since I was going so slow), but the upper quads (I guess the hip flexors) were the only things bothering me.

I've been doing a 4 mile run twice a week just trying to slowly build up and get some miles in my legs and previously did a max of a 6 mile run. This is all in preparation for the half-ironman in June. I know my cycling schedule/racing next year is going to be hurting because of the running...and eventually the swimming.

Here is the slow run info: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/17722486

Some sad DC sightings

Last night on my run on Wisconsin Ave NW through Tenleytown and Frienship Heights I saw a guy dragging a cardboard box from the corner of a building. About 10 strides later I saw the make shift home he was making out of carboard boxes.

This morning I didn't ride outside, but I got on the indoor trainer for an hour. As I was stopped at the red light waiting to turn onto Wisconsin Ave a homeless guy (seemed homeless as best I could tell) walked joyfully in front my car through the crosswalk. He looked at me and I smiled. He started loudly, but nicely shouting something and pointing at the left side of my car. I thought he was trying to tell me my headlight was out or something, but then I began to understand what he was saying. He was saying, "Military stickers!" "Military stickers!" and pointing at the DoD stickers on my car which help me gain access to military bases.

After he said it about 3 times he turned square to the car and saluted. I saluted back (I don't wear a uniform for my current assignment) and he continued crossing. I instantly became keenly aware of my wallet sitting in the back right pocket of my pants. I usually never have cash, but I did this time. By the time the thought passed through my mind he was happily on his way and I was able to see the back of the jacket he was wearing.

The jacket had a huge Marine Corps emblem and said "Marine Corps" on it. As he finished crossing the street I saw him move off to right edge of the sidewalk towards the newspaper receptacles, thinking he might be grabbing one of the free papers. A few seconds later a cyclist passed and after letting him pass, the guy again went on his way.

Last night and this morning has caused me to take some pause to be thankful for what I have. I know it will only last a few hours and the grind and the day's events will soon wash the memory and life will seem difficult again.

I don't pretend to know much about it, but I know homelessness is not an easy condition to deal with. There is no easy solution, there is not necessarily an amount of money you can throw at it to eradicate it. What is even more sad is that a large portion of the homeless population are veterans. I'm sure a large portion are Vietnam vets who never got the care and support they needed when they returned home. PTSD is probably also a major factor and although it is a known and the military is using the latest treatment available, there are probably some that still believe it carries a stigma and don't seek treatment and then there are probably those medical providers who also overlook it.

On a side note, for fiscal year 2010 the Department of Veterans Affairs was appropriated (by the House of Representatives, waiting on the Senate) a full $3.2 billion for homeless veterans program, $949 million MORE than they were given in 2009. One of their major programs is Project CHALENG (Community Homelessness Assessment, Local Education and Networking Groups), which was launched in 1994. This program partners the VA with local community-based programs for a more wholistic approach to homelessness. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, “the most effective programs for homeless and at-risk veterans are community-based, nonprofit, ‘veterans helping veterans’ groups.”

I digress.

The Work Goes On

There is a loud clatter of keyboards banging, interrupted occassionally by somewhat frantic and animated calls from the boss requesting more and more information (one of the topics to be revealed later).

The guy next to me has already professed that he want to break something today. He has done some yelling and banging, during some calls (on mute) and immediately following those calls.

Really a quite typical day for the office, but today is extra special. We're all Federal employees and today is a Federal Holiday. Granted it's "just" Columbus Day, but nevertheless illustrates a commonality across all Federal holidays...they are NOT holidays in this office.

I would be willing to bet a lot of money that of the 534 "other" offices, we are the only one that is fully abuzz as if it was a regular work day, with the FULL staff here. Sure some of the other offices probably have staff in as needed or maybe working from home, but nothing like this.

The only respite today offers is that the 7am-9pm that I've been working lately will not happen today, the hours are more loose, but the tension while we're here is not.

I'm not sure why it surprises me anymore. There is a pension towards the opposite of what a holiday should be. It consists of the "holiday check" or the "holiday get them" or the "just because it's a holiday" mentality which causes a flurry of phone calls and emails to ensure the staff is at work. This pension towards creating work and placing more emphasis on the holidays reminds me of when I was young and it was inevitable that the worst arguments between my parents would occur on the Holidays.

So, as it goes, it was inevitable that there would be extra work today, as there was around July 4th, as there will be on Veteran's day.

However, it's difficult to complain when thinking about those on deployment and those service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Almost forgot to mention the important information we were all rushing around to get so that we could craft a press release: info on Christopher Columbus of course!

Early Early Morning Ride

I got out the door around 4:55am this morning. Ugh.

Something had to give...and it wound up being my Wednesday mornings. I'm having a blast riding 45-50 milers on Sunday, but my cycling fitness is steadily declining, in part from my lack of riding and in part because of my starting to run during the week.

I figure if I can get up early Tuesday and Thursday for a run, then I can get up early Wednesday for a ride. I don't like the cycle of: get up before 5am, run or bike, go to work, work twelve and a half hours, go home, eat dinner, go to bed and repeat tomorrow. But, what else can I do? It's going to get worse when Congress is back in session and I won't be able to leave work at 7:30pm...with my departure guaranteed to usually be between 8-9pm.

Getting up early today was helped because Cezanne had to get up at 4:30am today for work. I set everything up for the ride last night, including driving home along the streets where I was going to ride and confirming that Tilden St. NW (where I wanted to do some short/steep hill repeats) was well lit. Tilden St. comes out of Rock Creek Park and has a bike lane plus another 8-10 feet between the bike lane and curb, so it makes riding a little safer and easy to move out of the bike lane, closer to the curb when I hear a car coming from behind.

I only rode a little less than 11 miles this morning in the hour that I was out there...I know, that is a horribly slow ride, but it was early and I got in over 2,000 feet of climbing in that 11 miles.

The above pic is my view climbing up Tilden at around 5:15am this morning. It's a little blurry because it was taken with the iPhone, it was basically at night, and most importantly, I was blazing fast up the hill at around 7 mph... The pic does do a good job at showing the amount of room to bike and the level of street lighting.

Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/12408648

Click on the "elevation" tab, it's pretty funny to look at, perfect sawtooths. I climbed the short hill 11 times.

This is Mr. Bono in the back seat of the Prius on our way to Annapolis last Saturday to have dinner with my Mom for her birthday. The bed sheet we put on the back seat was falling down a bit. He's a handsome devil.

Last Sunday I did a group ride that started out with 6 and ended up with 4, not because they were dropped, but they had other things to get back to. I wound up going with Sig, Chris Chapel and Brian Laubscher, 3 really good dudes (on and off the bike). It was a ton of fun, but I don't know how long I can keep up the facade that I can keep riding with these guys with my current riding amount. If it were this past February through April, it wouldn't be much of a problem and while I would still be the weakest of the 4, I would be a lot stronger than I am right now. I just don't want to be "that guy" that can't pull (literally) my weight in trading pulls throughout the ride.

I wound up averaging just under 20 mph for the ride, which I think would have been around 20 mph if I had any legs on Anglers hill or at the lead-in to the final sprint of the ride.

Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/12198575

Here is Siggy's blog about his sweet new wheels and the Sunday ride: http://sigberto.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-secret-weapon.html

He's got a photo of the group coming down Clara Barton Parkway. You can just make out my bright yellow shoes at the bottom of the photo.

Cezanne is right, I need an editor

I wrote that last blog a little fast, and with that, the mistakes came.

Cezanne said I need an editor and she's right. I guess slowing down and re-reading the post before I publish could also work too.

My saddle broke on the left side, not the right. My bib shorts were snagging obviously on the left, not the right. Correction made.

I also think I wasn't making sense when I was talking about someone at the Bicycle Pro Shop telling me that Specialized Saddles eventually break. I think instead of writing "someone at," I wrote "some of" the Bicycle Pro Shop...

Above pic is of my older bro Jason and his twins on their trip to D.C. He was back from Djibouti, Africa for a short trip. Can't wait for him to get back for good! Cezanne was there too and went to the museums with them. Yup, she's the best! Unfortunately I couldn't go because of work. I just took the metro down a stop to meet them, hung out for 10 minutes, then went back to work.

My Specialized Toupe broke

I was wondering why my bib shorts have been snagging on the right side the last few weeks. This is why. I noticed today that my fat butt has weakened the plastic on the right side of my specialized toupe saddle.


I liked this saddle. I've had it for a while, but favored my semi-custom cedesius saddle until the Jeff Cup crash bent the titanium rails on that saddle. It's interesting because some of the Bicycle Pro Shop in Georgetown said that the specialized toupe would eventually fail, it's just what it does. It did!

This saddle hasn't been in any crashes and I'm not too fat...

What to do now. A year or two ago I did Competitive Cyclist's saddle demo program, so I'll look back at that blog post to see which one was my favorite. I think it was the Selle Italia SLR Gel Flow. I'm also going to try to bend back the cedesius, but not sure if the carbon is compromised by the Jeff Cup crash. I do like the specialized toupe, so maybe I'll look into getting another one, but a white one instead of black.

Great group ride today with NCVC. I think I burned the one match I have the days on Anglers hill. It was tough with my heart rate around 184-186 on the way up, but I was hanging kind of close to the front, but definitely couldn't hang with the first 3-4 guys crushing it.

Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/11770464