Titles are the Hardest Part

I wonder why it's so hard for me to come up with good titles for these entries. I always try to have them be witty and meaningful to the reader but I guess if you want meaning and wit, just read on (assuming today is a good day).

So now that I have my house and have been living in it for a while, I'm starting to get excited for next year again. I feel like I did when I first started growing giant pumpkins. So much potential but so much unknown. It's exciting! I discover new plants and cultivars almost daily, many have never been seen before by another person!

To give you an example, I was roaming around a container nursery the other day and I spotted a weird looking branch (a sport) coming off a plant that just looked different. As I looked closer I saw that the outside of the leaves were green and the inside center of the leafs were white (variegated). The mother plant had the opposite, green centers but white (variegation) around the edges. A discover like this could be huge if it turns out to be superior to the mother plant. The owner of the containers fortunately permitted me to take a cutting!

This is the kind of stuff that gets me excited. It may be sound weird to a non-horticulturist but to me, I love it. I suppose that's why I've lost interest in cycling. I seem to always want to lead a mono-dimensional life. I used to be so into triathlons and I loved it like I do plants. But at the time I didn't care for horticulture. Now for whatever reason my interests are sliding into another direction even though I was having some good success on the bike.

Oh well. Yes I feel guilty but I'm happy and that's all that matters. Maybe I'll start riding consistently again and maybe I wont. I don't know. I trained so hard for a lot of years and I feel like I've been there and done that. With horticulture there's always something new to find!

Oak Ridge Road Race and Time Trial

So I guess I'm a cyclist now.

The cat 5 race started out squirrely and punchy as always. Even in the neutral zone people were hitting their brakes hard and playing that accordion like a French street musician . Stop, go, stop, go, back and forth, back and forth. I was trying to leave a bike length buffer zone ahead of me but goofballs would always cut into the gap and then hit their brakes. Eventually I found myself at the back from trying to leave little buffer gaps. Being at the end of a squirrely peloton = bad as I would soon find out.

Finally some attacks came and that seemed to cut some of the nervous energy down a bit. I think most of them were dummy attacks but at least we were racing. Then as we hit the first little stinger of a hill the whole peloton nearly imploded! I finally said out loud, "Who's driving up there?" and a few people chuckled. Three people had just dropped their chain! Ahhh! I was trying to stay positive but I was getting frustrated. Then someones saddle bag came off and started flailing and flapping all over the place. The dude reached down and as he tried to fix it, he nearly took out the rest of the group that had just barely avoided the dropped chain gauntlet. It was actually funny how nuts we all were.

The first hill was approaching and I decided to go to the front and apply some pressure to separate some of the riders. Near the top I pulled off and there were only 4 or 5 still on my wheel. Cool! Except two of them were on the same team so I didn't really want to work that hard with them. Oh well. Eventually the group worked itself back to about 20 riders. Fortunately, things were much smoother.

I didn't have an odometer so I kept asking Drew how much farther. Surely the finish was right around the corner, but it wasn't. The race was moving slow again and we were spread out across the entire road. The motorcycle referee came up and yelled at us to not cross the center line again or we'd be disqualified. Since we were going so slow and the finish was approaching, I could feel everyone getting antsy again. I went to the front and did a little turn for a minute or so and then surprisingly, everyone started to pull through and work together. It was great!

We turned a sharp right corner and immediately, a dude attacked. I was like, "Okay, anyone else feel like chasing that?" Then I saw a big 500m on the road and I thought, "Oh sh!t! That's the winning move right there!" I shot out of the saddle and closed down the gap as quick as I could. I immediately went right by him and saw 200m on the road. "Go go go" I thought. "Everything you've got!" I crossed the line and then quickly entered that state of oxygen debt where you feel like throwing up, pooping your pants, and cursing at the same time. As we grouped back up we all introduced each other and chatted about the race before being allowed to ride back down the hill. It was a great race and I was glad I got up extra early for once.

The Time Trial

The time trail would be different. Instead of a few seconds of pain at the end of your race, it would be nearly 20 minutes of pain. That sounds short compared to my 40k and 56mi triathlon time trials but you have to push so much harder. I'll repeat, SO MUCH HARDER. As my start time drew nearer I actually started to get nervous. In a road race anyone can look good hiding behind wheels and blasting for the finish in a last minute dive. The other cyclist and even yourself can get a false impression of fitness. In a time trial its all you.

5...4...3...2...1...Go!

That count down is one of the scariest things you'll ever hear in this sport. You know it will hurt... a lot! But you don't know what will happen. There's just so much uncertainty.

I'm pretty sure I started off faster than I wanted to because of my nervous energy but before I knew it, I topped the first hill. Now I felt the efforts begging to set in. "Stay aero and smooth" I kept saying to myself, "only a few more miles left after this." Work on catching the next rider up front.

On the second little rise of a hill I was giving it everything. I know going up hills is where I'll do the most damage so I was really pushing. On the down hills I was spinning out but still trying to apply the pressure. Now where is that 1k mark?! I'm dying here.

I finished and luckily ended up wining luckily... but it was close! Chris Morelock finished only two seconds back, pushing me all the way. I was happy for wining but there are a lot of improvements I can make for next time.

A Brand New World

Okay. There are two reasons for my long interlude between posts. First, I've been boringly busy. Second, and probably the main reason, I have not had access to a reliable internet source at home. So here we go. I'm preparing to start a brand new chapter.

I just finished moving into my new house. It's a little slice of heaven for sure and I feel very fortunate and lucky to have landed such a nice place. It comes with a little creek in the back and 22 acres that are mostly cleared for pasture. There is a small garden around the home but its filled with boring hum-drum foundation landscape plants. We'll be fixing that in the years to come. The house was originally a log home but the outside was laid over with vinyl siding due to all the boring (as in burrowing) type insects and carpenter bees. The inside is log home-like and very cozy. Brianne thinks it looks like a big lincoln log fort. Whatever it looks like, I like it. I'll be posting some picture in the future.

Bike riding has taken a back seat again. That's okay. I like to take a mid season break to completely rest, both my body and mind. I get burned out if I go go go. When I was riding I was improving so quickly it was thrilling and a little frightening. It seemed as though nothing or nobody could stop me. Work is winding up and I seem to be finding my stride. I'll just need to find a way to become more efficient and refined so I can do some of the other things I love. I'll probably just pick up on something else or expand one of my other hobbies. That's okay. Either way, I'll still be doing something I love.

Being a Grown-up

February already. Now that I work 5 days a week like a normal person, the time really seems to fly by. I get up, shower, eat breakfast, make a lunch, go to work, try to get things done (if I can stay focused), come home, spin on the trainer for 0:45 to 1:15, throw the Frisbee for Spruce, make dinner, read, and go to bed. Pretty exciting huh? I wonder if that’s how it works once you grow up. But luckily we still have weekends!

Every Saturday I make a serious effort to ride with a bike group. It is really the only way I am going to meet people and get involved. I never thought of myself as a liberal, just someone in the middle. But man, here in Tennessee if I open my political opinions up I might get shot! People ask me where I keep my guns. Why is everyone so insecure about being gun-less? I’m all for owning guns, shooting them, and don't hold anything personal against them but they are such a big deal to so many people. I guess I just wasn't raised that way. Maybe someday I’ll buy a gun and play with it or just let it sit in my closet... Anyway, sorry for the rant. So it’s nice to ride bikes with some like minded people. It’s the highlight of my week usually.

So I've given up running and swimming.  The pool is too far away and I’m bored with running I think. I've run my whole life and my odds of improving a lot more are small. However, I've never seriously giving cycling a go. Cycling was originally my weakest discipline in triathlon but I think that’s because I swam and ran a lot. My potential to improve in cycling is much greater than swimming or running. Plus cycling is way more social than having your head underwater or long solo runs. So we’ll see what happens. I've joined the local cycling team in the area, Team Volkswagen, so that should make cycling a little more motivating and fun. It’s nice to be a part of something more than yourself too.