iHurt...again

I like cycling cause I'm addicted to the pain. But there are different kinds of pain. There's pain from getting yourself bruised all over AKA "that was stupid" pain. There's also pain from breaking and tearing your body apart AKA "That was REALLY stupid" pain. There's pain from using muscles you never use or didn't even know exist AKA "Old Man" pain. There's pain from heart break AKA "maybe she would've liked chocolates better than a box of powerbars" pain. There's odd, irregular, and scientifically non-detectable pain AKA "Great Aunt" pain. There's screaming and trying to keep it G rated pain AKA "that scar there was from when I had a bull chase me." And then there's pain from purposefully torturing oneself for hours on end AKA *insert epic soundtrack* "*insert corny victory line ie. "We did it!", "Viicccttttooooorrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyy!", "We are the champions!, "as you wish", etc.*"

I did my first bike race...and I'm definitely not the winner. However, I finished, which is quite an accomplishment for this redneck who loves pain. So to put this race in proportion think of this; First think of that big hill in your county that everyone talks about how they lost their brakes on it, how they blew out their engine on it, etc. In this case it was Michigan Hill (by the way, I no longer like Michigan, be it a street, state, town, or hill) About a 400 foot high hill, with a seven percent grade. Now imagine how fast you'd go if you went out the door and ran down the block. If you're not a future Olympic sprinter or sitting in a wheelchair, you should be going somewhere in the vicinity of 10 MPH.  Now connect riding your bike at that speed up that hill...yeah, painful. Now try doing that four times with ten miles of riding at 25 MPH between each time up the hill...yeah, that really seriously hurts. Now insert a guy on a thirty five year-old, steel, road bike, which weighs thirty five pounds (everyone else was riding one to ten year old bikes, which way fifteen pounds)...that's why iHurt...again.

Surrounding this torture session was first getting up at the unreasonable hour of eight o'clock on a Saturday *insert horror soundtrack*. Then eating breakfast, packing up, and driving for better than an hour to get to this aforementioned race. Then the true rituals start, making sure you're signed in right, pinning on your race number (I only got poked twice as my dad stuck it on me), changing into your skin tight, lycra racing kit (bike talk for clothes), eating a banana, warming up, and then the race official bungled up the whole ritual. He walks over, pulls the brakes on my bike, and says "you can't race, go get that fixed." He then gives me directions to the mechanic's station...if you can call a wave of the hand in the direction of a couple hundred parked cars, bikes, and people directions. Long story short I managed to track down a mechanic who informed me that my bike had issues, which I already knew. However he worked really fast and figured out how to fix the the brakes well enough for the UCI guy's liking.

Cool, now that my bike is working where am I supposed to be? I finally figure out that the Cat. 5's (my category) are lined up on the road behind a couple other groups. So I run over there and am the last one in line, grrr. A couple minutes later a race official comes over and tells us not to ride like idiots. From the back we only hear every other sentence, but we know enough to roll our eyes and laugh. Another couple minutes and the pace car starts to go, we all get clipped in and start to pedal...then the pace car stops...we all hurriedly stop and unclip from our pedals...then the car starts rolling again, so we clip back into our pedals and start going. After a two mile neutral start, the pace car takes off and the race/torture session begins.

I managed to hang on until after the third hill, I then watched somewhat happily as the peleton (main group of riders) left me in the dust, allowing me to slow down to a dismal crawl.

I maintained this crawl to the finish line...where I collapsed...except...the finish line is two miles of pure agony from the staging area OOOOOUUUUCCCCHHH! Those two miles were the worst part of the whole race...especially when you add in making a wrong turn.

iHurt

I did a handful of things for the first time in my entire life yesterday.

A. I ate six eggs and 4 pieces of bacon for breakfast.

B. I got up by myself at 4:40 A.M. by myself...and it was my own choice at that.

C. I drove for a couple hours with my friends and instead of
partying...they all slept.

D. I stopped at a ski resort...instead of driving past like I have
about 20 other times.

E. I went snowboarding...not skiing.

F. I got the most bruised and sore I've ever been in my entire
life...and I've gotten brutalized in Ultimate Frisbee.

G. I ate some weird potato chips...don't ask me what brand.

H. I crushed a package of graham crackers...in the package.



So the reason I did all these things was that I went on a ski trip
with a bunch of friends. My friends who had been snowboarding before like to talk about all the awesome wrecks. I discovered though, that all the wrecks my friends talk about generally fit into a few criteria 1. Somebody else saw the wreck 2. The observer saw the wreck from a perspective which allowed them to keep track of the flips, slams, spins, etc 3. Both the observing and wrecking parties remember the wreck. This in turn caused me to assume that 1. The wrecks really hurt 2. Each person averaged about 5 wrecks in a day 3. All the wrecks counted, but not described were minor wipe outs. What I discovered, however, was that snowboarding consists of two key actions: Standing up...and falling over. Interspersed between these two key actions are moments of spinning, flipping, whining, lying on the ground, and occasionally riding the snowboard.


So to go through the day in order; I got up at 4:40 A.M. (because of
the switch from daylight savings time, my body said it was 3:40) ate
6 eggs and 4 slices of bacon, grabbed my gear, and got picked up by my friends. We then spent about thirty minutes rendezvousing with some other groggy and/or caffeinated friends, before driving off toward the pass. After a coffee break midway through, we made it up to the pass at about 8:30. It then took us the incredibly short period of about an hour for everyone to change, get passes, rent boards and stuff, and get out to the powder.


This is where the fun starts...I'm like, "where do I go?" One of my
friends is like, "Here I'll take you over to the bunny slope." However,
nobody tells me what to do with my bindings and stuff, so I have to
look and ask around in order to figure out that you buckle your lead
foot in and leave the other one loose until you get to the top. Let me
introduce you to one of the hardest things when learning to snowboard...the rope tow. It's like a ski lift, except that instead of chairs it has ropes, which you grab onto, and then attempt to learn how to balance on a snowboard while getting dragged up the side of the hill. I was terrified that I was going to fall over and mess stuff up, which was only partially true. I did lose my balance on the way up, but I recovered. When I got to the top I flopped over and strapped my other foot in. Then the craziness started...


My first time down the bunny slope I knew to catch an edge...and that was about all I knew. With this basic piece of knowledge, I stood up and started sliding down the hill. I managed to catch an edge, then I discovered what I didn't know...how to slow down. About the time I hit 25 mph, I decided I'd better wreck before I killed somebody else, so I tipped over and had my first wreck of the day. After a fifteen minute lesson and about an hour of practice, I was cutting it up pretty good on the bunny slope. So I headed up to the lower lift with a friend. For some dumb reason the lower lift for the beginners is also the lift which doesn't slow down to speak of when you hop on, so it's pretty scary when all you've done before is the rope tow. At the top of the slope I decided was a total idiot (about the third time I thought that that day). My first run was dicey to say the least. I generally
tried to stay upright and not go too fast. I failed at both.


By lunch time I was only falling down a couple times per run, and was
pretty successful at keeping my speed in check. Once I got back on
the slope after lunch, this involved losing my claim card for my
board and a couple other mishaps. I discovered that it REALLY HURT
when I fell over. I decided it was time to perfect going down the
slope without falling over, even if I was really slow. Twenty painful
wrecks later, I made my first...and last...perfect run. I decide it's
time to stretch my skills a bit so I start cutting around (and into)
some patches of trees. My great friend though decides this means it's
time I experience some real pain, idiocy, and awesomeness. He drags me over to the upper lift...


...The good part about the upper lift is that the lift itself was
designed by somebody with a brain. The result is that the chairs
actually Slow Down when you're trying to sit on them and when you're
getting off. The bad part about the upper lift is that the runs were
designed by somebody without a brain. After getting off the lift I
looked around and said to myself, "You're a totally, undeniably,
incredibly, dumb idiot!" This stuff was twice as steep as anything
I'd done before, and about half as smooth and wide! Anyways I followed my friend down and only crashed about four times, all of which hurt like crazy because of my pre-existing bruises. I then repeated the process for the last hour or so before the lifts shut down, cutting down my average number of falls to three point nine nine wrecks per run.


I must admit that what is worse than the pain from all the sore
muscles and bruises is the headache of thirty people doing a group
photo in the lodge after a day on the slopes. It took seemingly
forever in my hot sweaty clothes for everyone to decide the where,
when, and um who of our group photo. We then all ran around like
chickens until everyone ended up in real clothes, in the right
vehicle, with mostly the right stuff, so we could drive for a couple
hours home. Overall, it was an incredibly, painful, epic, idiotic, and
awesomely crazy dudish fun day...



...and I wanna do it again...



...in a couple months...



...when all my bruises have faded...



...and I have some money...

The Bigger the Better

When asked about my job, I frequently inform folks that I'm a "Lawn Care Specialist." In other words, I mow, weedwhack, and do whatever else it takes to keep lawns looking good for those who would rather shell out $10 an hour to me than do it themselves. There are a surprising number of benefits to doing lawn care. These include the fact that you can listen to your mp3 player for hours on end while taking a beautiful and leisurely walk. This also means you get to listen to deafening engines for hours on end in a hundred ten degree weather, while shoving fifty pounds of scrap metal through somebody's woods.

There is one constant though in lawn care: "the bigger the engine the better." Here is the second most absolute law of lawn care: "The smaller the engine is, the more often it breaks." For example, take a pick up truck: You have a Dodge pick up truck to drive around your mower, weed whacker, gas cans, and other odd stuff. If it breaks down more than every three months, than you'll never buy a Dodge again. On the other hand take a weed whacker: You got a Weed Whacker brand, with all the bells and whistles. However it must take at least ten pulls per start, break down twice per hour, and leak gas, before you even consider that you might want to buy a STIHL instead. So my plan is that when I'm rich I'll buy a push mower with a V8 sitting on top, which might keep repairs down to once a month (not to mention keeping the neighbors from stealing it).

And by the way, the Most Absolute Law of Lawn Care is that every engine involved can and will break at every opportunity.

The Boring Post

I've been off doing fun stuff away from the farm for the last couple weeks, which makes it so there haven't been any posts lately. Anyways I'm putting up a not so exiting post right now, with much better stuff coming in the future. I'd like to point out a couple things on the right hand side of this page. Near the top there's this heading which says "my favorite sites" underneath is a list of...believe it or not...links to my favorite sites. First is a blog called Life, the Universe, and Everything, which is a more serious, but still somewhat sarcastic blog about...believe it or not...life, the universe, and everything. Second is Unhappyhipsters.com, a very entertaining and snarky take on modern architecture and modeling. Third is iamTedKing.com, the blog of a wonderfully snarky, food loving, and American cyclist by the name of...believe or not...Ted King. Fourth is Despair.com, the source of just about everything...believe it or not...disparaging and unmotivational. Fifth is ivman's blague one of my favorite places to steal great jokes and photos from...believe it or not...written by my sister's French professor. So please follow the links and check them out (there is a stipulation though that you must continue to read my blog even though you may like theirs so much better :)

Below that is a view of The Home Skooled's twitter feed. Please! someone who is on twitter follow me! Currently I have like 70 followers on Facebook, but no one has taken the daring leap and followed me on twitter. Moving along there is also a place where you can put in your email, so that instead of going to this blog everyday to check for a new post you can simply get the posts in your email (minus the photos and other media I might add, so the email can simply act as a notification to check out the real site if you want the full media experience) And below that there is this "Search" function, so you can find that post where I made that earth shaking-ly profound statement...or just a lame pun. So yeah...