Less than 70 hours until students arrive at school... and so much to do.   

News about school:

I was hired for the additional .20 FTE at the CLC.  That means I have my first actual full-time salaried job since 2002, and the first one in my field!  Considering I was .80 FTE last year and only worked for 80% of the year, this is like a 40+% pay increase over last school year.  Holycrap.  It comes at a pretty good time too, as babies are pretty darn expensive.  Maybe after crunching some numbers I might even be able to accelerate paying back the student loans a bit.  It sure would be nice not having those hanging over my head any longer.  OH!  Since I'm full time, I'll be able to take advantage of the federal loan forgiveness program this year.  I think the feds will knock off either $3000 or $5000 for teaching in an urban district.  Woo-hoo!

I have meetings at school at least twice each week.  Ugh.  The meetings are at the high school, but my day starts at the CLC.  That means I will go to the high school, attend a meeting, duck out early, go to the CLC, teach, go back to the high school.  Since I am planning on commuting by bike as much as possible, that probably rules out biking on days I have meetings in the morning.  I just wouldn't have time to shower and change.  I also need to work out the feasibility of going between schools without being a sweaty mess for my 4th period class.  They are only about a mile apart, but that is plenty of time to get sweaty, or dirty, or something.  Do I ride between schools in my teacher clothes?  Do I change just for a 5 minute ride?  I don't know.  We'll see.

I'm planning on going in to school today, and probably Sunday and Monday too.  I've got the first week or two mapped out for myst of my classes, but I don't necessarily have lessons completely set.  I have syllabi to create/modify, papers/packets to create and copy, physical set-up of the classrooms to mess around with, and in the case of my Cold War class, curriculum to create.  Yeah, I'll probably be in every day before Tuesday.

Bike-related news:

I spent a bunch of time yesterday working on the single speed.  Despite what Joe said, that bike is too small for me.  It is also old enough of a frame, where some parts aren't made any longer and are very hard to come by.  The seat post, in particular, is too short for me.  I can deal with the short length of the bike, but I'd really like to be able to raise the seat.  Maybe I will have to move the strip/polish/paint the bike project up from next summer 'cause I don't know if riding this small bike is even a good idea.

Bike work yesterday consisted of the following:

• Installing a rear brake
• Installing new brake levers
• Installing new brake cables/housing
• Re-taping the handlebars

All of this was new work for me except taping handlebars.  It wasn't very hard, but I know I could have done some of it better - particularly the fact that I didn't have any ferrules for the ends of the cable housing and I don't know that the second length of housing for the rear brake cable is routed quite right.  It will work, but I don't think it is quite the way it is supposed to be.  Oh well.  It is a working bike.

Bike work for the not too distant future:

• Put a larger chain ring on the single speed
• Strip the paint, shine the lugs, paint and or clear-coat the frame on the single speed so it isn't so darned ugly.  Then sell it.
• Figure out whether the lock nut or the threads on the fork are stripped on the mountain bike and fix that problem.
• Clean and lube the road bike
• Taller and longer stem on the road bike

That's it for now.  Since this journal entry was something to postpone my leaving for school, I should probably wrap this up.

Simple pleasure - sleeping in
Peace

I've got another physical therapy appointment tomorrow morning.  Stupid me, though, I scheduled it during the Tour de France team time trial.  They didn't even have a TTT last year.  Grrrrrr.  This is an exciting enough of a stage where I might have to go find a sports bar somewhere and commandeer a TV and have them put on the VS network.  But I digress.

I've been doing my core exercises every other day and I think I can tell the difference a little at least.  They're easier now than they were two weeks ago.  I am also working out regularly again.  Though I'm not at the intensity nor duration that I would ideally like to be at, simply training again feels pretty good.  My bike rides are up to 45 minutes now and my ride tonight and a couple days ago were at a higher intensity than they've been in quite a while.  I know I'm not where I was this time last year, though.  During my ride tonight, I climbed a short hill and I definitely don't have the climbing legs I usually have by this time in the summer.  I miss the Gears, Tears, and Fears ride.  Maybe in a few weeks I'll be back to multiple-hour long rides.

While Sarah and I were up north last weekend, I went for a short swim with Lindsey.  I gave her a few pointers on the start of the race and exiting the water.  Then we talked about transition set up as well.  Though I am no expert, by any means, I do enjoy sharing what I do know.  I am really excited to be doing a race with her this weekend.  I will have to share sweaty post-race pictures with the two of us.  I hope she gets hooked like I am.  We talked too, about trying to convince Matt and Molly to do a race with us some time too.  That would be a heckuva lot of fun.  I don't think that would take too much convincing.  If nothing else, maybe Molly would do Burrito Union with Lindsey and I next year.

Ah, that was a good post-ride beer.  Thank you Sierra Nevada.

Simple pleasure - climbing hills
Peace

I went in for physical therapy again this morning.  The guy I saw recommended a couple minor bike fit adjustments.  Aside from core strength (which I will talk about in a moment) one problem he saw with my bike is that one of the shifter/brakes is a little higher on the handlebars than the other causing one shoulder to be higher than the other and twisting my back slightly.  Though that in and of itself may not be enough to account for my back pain, that combined with very little winter riding then suddenly a lot of riding in the spring as well as a relatively weak core together probably did it.

This means there are some solutions.

1.  Adjust the placement of my brakes
2.  Don't neglect riding the trainer this coming winter (assuming I have any energy at all)
3.  Start some core-strengthening exercises.

I know my core isn't very strong.  I've never liked working on strength.  That goes back to high school where the weight room was dominated by football players.  Without rehashing high school politics (and nobody wants to hear that), we'll just say that I just couldn't stand the weight room so I avoided it at all costs.  That distaste for lifting and being in weight room carried over to college and beyond.  Now I know that core fitness is an important part of training for triathlon and that there are plenty of ways to go about taking care of my core fitness... but since I've never really stuck to any designed plan I've pretty much ignored strength exercises.

Now I'm paying for it.  So I've got a slate of exercises I need to do here at home.  If I want to get back out there and pound away on the bike, I need to take care of my core.  The physical therapist said I could start going on short rides (short is better than none, I guess), so that is good, but I need to be good about these exercises.  Hopefully this will get me back on the road to training regularly again.  That would sure be nice.

Simple pleasure - the wonders of air conditioning
Peace

I meant to do this a little while ago, but better late than never, right?  Here are my training totals from 2008:

Cycling:  1162 miles (that's about 320 more than I did in 2007, but quite a bit less than the 2k I wanted to do)
Running:  219 miles (kinda pathetic.  I wonder why my run is my weakest tri leg...)
Swimming:  64,000 yards (also not where it should be)

Though my training wasn't what it really should have been, I did have a good year winning and placing in my age group a few times.  I just know that if I find and stick to a good training plan, that I can do even better... maybe even contend in some smaller races.

Training Goals for 2009

• 2000 miles or more on the bike
• 600 miles of running
• 150,000 yards of swimming

Cycling-specific Goals for 2009

• Complete two century rides
• 49 mph

Running-specific Goals for 2009

• Complete a half-marathon in under 2 hours
• Get 5k time below 19:45

Triathlon Goals for 2009 (assuming a big trip somewhere or summer school doesn't interfere seriously)

• Chain of Lakes Tri - top ten finish and place in AG
• Buffalo Oly - feel good about finishing time (vague, I know, but it's a new race)
• North Mankato Tri - place in AG
• Graniteman Tri - see Buffalo
• Young Life Tri - See Graniteman
• Be in contention for the Minnesota Triathlon Series AG title

Some of these are a bit ambitious, but I think they're all attainable.  I got started on my base training much earlier this off-season than I have in the past.  I would also say that I am at right now, fitness-wise, where I was at March or April of last year.  This could be a very good year.

Simple pleasure - morning swims
Peace

Sarah and I went over to participate in the memorial bike ride for the four cyclists killed recently. It was wonderful to see around three hundred cyclists all together to honor the fallen riders and to raise the visibility of bikes on roads. It was also very cool to see cyclists from so many different segments of the cycling population all together - fixie hipsters, racers, families, commuters - that though they may not frequently mix they all have something in common.

The ride took off from Summit Avenue with the next destination being Excelsior Boulevard in Minneapolis. I probably didn't even make it a half mile though before I had an accident that ended my ride.

I still don't know exactly what happened, which isn't to say that I lost consciousness, I just have no idea what it was that caused me to go down. I know my foot got pinched, so maybe it somehow got caught between the front wheel and the frame, but that doesn't make much sense. All of the sudden I could tell something wasn't right.

I thought, I hope I don't go down.
Then I realized I was going to go down.
I thought, I hope I don't go over my bars.
Then I went over my bars.
I thought, I hope I don't land on my face.
Then I landed on my chin.

Fortunately, we weren't going very fast, and there were only bikes behind us and not a semi. Everyone was able to get around me as I lay there on the ground. I got up and tried to roll my bike away, but the front wheel wasn't rolling any longer, so I carried it to the side of the road. Sarah rushed back to a gas station and got some napkins so I could clean up the blood. I figured I had cut my chin, but didn't think it was going to be that bad... until I saw myself in the mirror of the bathroom at the gas station.

So stitches it was. Besides the cut on my chin, I got a bit of road rash on my knee, a deep scrape and a big goose egg on my shin, and a sore wrist that I also landed on. On the plus side, after I got an x-ray for my wrist (nothing broken) and stitches, we went to Izzy's for ice cream. Yum.

( Bloody and goofy pictures )

For those that haven't heard, there will be a memorial bike ride this Saturday for the four riders who were killed this last month in traffic accidents.  It starts at Snelling and Summit in St. Paul at 11:00 am and will have stops at two other of the sites that cyclists were killed.  If you can, wear a black shirt and have an orange ribbon around an arm or tied to your handle bars.

For more information see the mplsbikelove.com forums or this article in the Strib.

There have been four cyclists killed by motor vehicles in the Twin Cities in the last month (two of which were hit and runs), and a fifth person hit.

Damn motorheads.

I just got back from a ride that put me over 1000 miles for the year on my bike.  It's actually a bit more, but I've not had a computer on my mountain bike for about half the time I rode it.  I won't make the 1500 or 2000 miles I wanted to do at the beginning of the year, but I should be able to put on a few more miles yet.  Next year I have to break 1500.  That's the last of the benchmarks that I haven't broken from when I was 14.

Simple pleasure - dozens of pelicans in the water below the 494 bridge
Peace

I've already told her a couple times, but I just want to note just how proud of her I am for commuting to work by bike today.  It is ~22 miles each way, and once she gets out of Minneapolis and into the suburbs, it is not a flat ride.  Not many people can say they've bike commuted, even fewer can say they've gone as far as she did.  I've got no excuse now, assuming I will have access to a shower at the schools I'm subbing at.

Well done, Sarah.

Aside from walking, I would be willing to bet that more people in the world ride a bike at least a few times a year than any other physical activity.  Yet, NBC's coverage of the women's time trial was maybe five minutes in total and mentioned perhaps three of the women racing - two of them being from the U.S. of course.

Simply pathetic.