Today and Yesterday are my best days since getting home from surgery and pain is continuing to be less an issue. It’s still plenty of work moving around and if I move wrong the pain ramps up quite a bit. My appetite has returned but I’m trying to keep my eating pretty minimal. I see the next 3 months as a huge challenge fitness and weight management wise so I’m trying to get an early jump on things. I tried to weigh myself on the Wii Fit today but I couldn’t hop up onto the balance board fast enough to get a weight.

The other big concern is weaning myself off the pain meds. It feels like right now beyond being tired a lot during the day I’m not seeing a lot of side effects any more. More important, my alertness and focus is nearly back to normal so I can get back to work and some of my non-cycling hobbies.

On Friday Char and I changed out the bandages ourselves. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with the home health situation but we can certainly do a comparable job to the clown they sent out here before so until I get someone else arranged we’re going to take care of that end of things and just keep an eye out for anything unusual. The staples should be removed on Friday which means the cut should be mostly healed by then.

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My days seem to be broken up into little chunks. For a while I’m feeling nearly ok. Then I’ll use the bathroom or just pass out asleep and then feel horrible for a bit. Sometimes sitting at my laptop, I’ll be IMing folks and just drift off in the middle of a conversation. It’s quite frustrating to be completely reliant on folks around me. I’m a pretty independent person and now I need help using the mens room (when I’m not stuck using a bedpan). Read the rest of this entry »

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Last week someone offered me free entry into a race near Clearlake, CA at a great park called Boggs. I’d been thinking of going to the race and getting the free entry sort of tipped me over the edge. The race is a 24 hour endurance race.  I did a solo entry and figured on taking it easy and just seeing how many laps I could in 24 hours. Never really thinking in terms of it being a “race” more just an endurance event.  I started out at a fairly moderate pace. The first lap was a pokey 1:12 minute pace. Between laps I recharged my nutrition and did a little tuning of the bike.

The second lap was more fun than the first. Folks were spread out and I was rolling at a good pace and chatting with other racers. Nearing the end of the lap, there is a long climb then a really fun section of singletrack. It’s not very challenging, in fact I often recommend it for beginning riders. It’s called Gail’s trail. Primarily just fast, smooth rolling trail with occasional easy to avoid rocks or trees. The only tricky bit about Gail’s trail is the fact that the edges are soft and covered with slippery pine needles. I was cruising down Gail’s at a good clip, really enjoying myself. I’d just passed someone and the fun meter was set to about 8, then my front wheel found those pine needles. Read the rest of this entry »

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Had a great ride today… a friend took me to a place called Pipi Valley east of Jackson. It’s an OHV park but we had lots of fun. There was plenty of mud, a few creek crossings and Bruce broke his rear derailer. Overall not a bad time.

No real ride report but perhaps once I’ve been there a few times I’ll put something together. We rode trail 25, about a 15 mile loop. I would suggest if you ride this place you do it soon or wait for another rain, it gets lots of moto traffic and turns to moondust early in the summer.

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As I pushed my bike up a steep section of 2” deep sloppy mud, I couldn’t help but think “What kind of an idiot rides in crap like this in the middle of the night?” Then the inescapable thought bubbled to the surface “What kind of idiot composes blog posts in his head while riding in 2” deep oatmeal at 2AM”.

Our drive to the Coolest 24 Hour race (that’s the name of the event) was interrupted about 15 minutes short of our destination on the climb to Pilot Hill. Pilot Hill is a little town off of Highway 49 at the top of a steep windy road. When we got to the steep part of the hill the engine was running great, but the RV was slowing down, until eventually we had no power at all. I managed to pull the RV onto what is probably the only section of dirt shoulder on the side of the road big enough for a 34’ RV in the 5 mile climb, even so the RV stuck out into the narrow road for a foot. Read the rest of this entry »

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When you are putting the cleats on your shoes make sure you use the correct sized bolts. My shoes came with two screwes and I inadvertently put the longer screws in which poked into the bottom of my feet. I didn’t walk much on them so it wasn’t bad but potentially painful if I’d gone on a long hike-a-bike. Also putting short screws on is a recipe for trouble.

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Sonora to Mt Elizabeth

Things are a little crazy right now, my company lost the contract I was working on and they didn’t have any similar jobs where I live so right now I am officially unemployed. Severance package is decent so we’re doing ok financially but unfortunately it means I have to look for work. If anyone is looking for a DBA with Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and MySQL experience in an enterprise point them my way.

Since I have a bit of time on my hands I’ve been trying to get in some training on the bike. The trails are pretty gooped up so I’ve been grabbing some road riding between the rain showers (sometimes in the rain) and doing some longer fire road rides with little bits of singletrack. The photo linked here is from a ride I did this weekend near Sonora, lots of steep climbing (5800’ over 25 miles) and about 10 miles of riding flumes at 12-15+ mph trying to keep up with some fast riders. Here is the Motion Based rundown on the ride. Click on the picture to the right for the photo log. Quite an interesting ride overall, Jeff cracked his frame then wrangled a spare and finished the ride. Aaron got crossed up in the snow and took a swim in the flume.

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Update: at this point it’s all under snow—Ogre

Some snow remains in Butcher, freezing and thawing, it’s messy for a mile or less then it’s the best ever to the bottom. Shuttling is on for this weekend. The Sunrise Trail is snowed in with 2-4”, very sketchy. The road down to Butcher is open.

For more info check out the Downieville Outfitters Trail Conditions page.

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