Corporate Hippy

Have I mentioned that the 12 hours of Ithaca is to be my first ever solo endurance race event?  Yeah.  It sure is.  And its this weekend.

*yikes*

Actually, I’m really looking forward to it.  The course is mostly flat and twisty and very short.  As in ~5 miles of short.  I’ve decided that I’m going to do as much as possible on the SS, but I’m bringing the Titus along for ‘in case of’ .. This also puts me in the solo-women’s category, rather than the SS category.  I’ll be ‘competing’ with Shari and Claudia. 

I’ve been pulling together some ‘lap goals’ in my head and just looked up some results from last year for reference.  Our team did 25 laps, meaning I did 6 (Jessica did the extra lap).  Shari did 18 laps last year.  Oof.  Ok.  So, I think my bear minimum goal will be 12 laps.  That’s twice as many as last year, and averaging one lap per hour.  I’m going a bit easy on myself (goal-wise) since this is my first solo endurance race.  It may be flat and short, but its still riding a bike all day.

So there.  Its written in digital and will soon be published for the world to see.  I do have some super-secret goals that will not be published on the interweb and may or may not be talked about after the race

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biking hippy

Shari and I have been trying to plan a ride together since the spring.  We’ve made a few attempts to meet at Pontiac Lake, but either weather, illness or just plain chaos has gotten in the way.  Tonight however, the planets aligned.  The weather was perfect, we were all in good health, traffic was good, last minute bike maintenance issues were taken care of and we made it to PLRA 10 minutes before we said we’d be there!

I’ve been having hand, wrist and arm pains lately after riding my SS.  I was really starting to think that the handlebar I’d fallen in love with at the ILRA bike demo, spent a ridiculous amount of money on, might not be working out for me.  I was getting very discouraged.  For some reason, it occurred to me to take off my Cane Creek grips and put on the Ergon grips that I’d originally had (and quickly removed from) on my Cannondale just as I converted it to a SS.  I thought they got in the way and I just didn’t think they’d be good on a SS.

Well, I decided to give them another shot now that I’m more used to the Ergons (have a pair on my Titus and LOVE them) and also more used to the SS they were worth another shot.  My hands and wrists hurt so badly after riding at the Tree Farm on Tuesday that I couldn’t think about riding the SS again until I made a change.

So, first thing I did when I got home from work today was swap out those grips.  I also moved the position of my brake levers when I noticed that they were pointing way too far down to the ground.  First thing Nick did when he got home from work was change his rear brake pads and was doing the final adjustments when I rolled in.  We packed up the jeep and made our way to Pontiac.

As soon as I hopped on my bike and put my hands on my Ergon grips, I remembered that the demo bike I rode when I fell in love with the handlebar had Ergon grips.  I remembered exactly the reason why I ran right out and spent an embarrassing amount of money on that Ritchey Carbon LowRizer handlebar.  Tonight, I decided that the Ritchey Carbon LowRizer handlebar was worth every penny.  Wow.  What a difference.  And having those little bitty bar ends was sooo much nicer for climbing.  And I climbed (instead of walked) a whole bunch more tonight than I did last time we rode PLRA (a couple of weeks ago, my first ever SS PLRA ride)! 

And, riding with Shari is so much fun.  We just ride and chat and ride and chat.  And she’s a hellova rider – I could hardly keep up with her on the downhills (and I think she inspired me to be less cautious, and so I had a ton more momentum which made the whole thing so much more fun!).  And Robin keeps such a good pace that I never really fell too far behind.   I was jumping off the drops instead of rolling off of them, and I think I even yelled “woo hoo” once or twice.  The weather was amazing.  It was like 80 degrees and no humidity.  Sunny, breezy, just a beautiful night to be outside.

And then we topped off the evening with dinner at El Patio.  Mmmmmmmmmmm.  Good times

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biking hippy

I’ve mostly felt good about my riding this year, but I’ve been very very lazy about on-bike nutrition.  I don’t know what happened.  I used to be very good about it.  I was almost religious about it sometimes.  But it seems like this year, I just can’t bring myself to do it.  I can’t seem to manage a Hammer Flask and every time I try to buy gu packets or hammer gel packets, they either end up lost or eaten by the dog.

I should carry and drink Heed when I ride – especially on hot days like today .. but that stuff makes my lips all sticky and really doesn’t taste good when its hot outside.  Plus, it stinks up the cupboards and you really have to keep up on washing water bottles – something I’m by no means good at.

I need to do better tho .. because its killing me now .. in this heat, I have no energy and I sweat so hard my clothes are heavy-wet when I’m done.. That stuff needs to be replenished somehow..  I know this.  I preach this.  I wish I knew what it took to make myself follow it.

blah.

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biking hippy

Its now 8:20 .. I’ve had my macbook for about 9 hours now.. I played with it for about 3 hours this morning and maybe an hour and a half this evening.  Yes, I managed to break myself away for a bike ride today

I’ve already watched a DVD (ok, not the WHOLE DVD), imported my entire iTunes library – with metadata (including stars, dynamic playlists, playcounts, etc .. ), configured a new browswer (i’m pretty browser finicky) and loaded a chat client.

I made a funny picture with photobooth and changed my wallpaper.  I also figured out how to change mouse properties and made some changes to my dock bar thingy.

I like this mac stuff .. Everything has been just so easy .. It truly is unbelievable. 

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geek hippy

Its been two years, I think .. two years since I’d decided that I wasn’t going to spend any more money on PC hardware and that my next major purchase was going to be a mac.

One unplanned event after another pushed it off and off and off and off … When Nick’s computer died, he had to choose between spending $ on a new PC or $ on a mac mini – he chose the mini.  When Alex finally got his feet on the ground and his PC went nuts, he decided to buy a macbook. 

*Sigh* I was going to be a pioneer.  Instead, I became a follower. 

Until, I became the first in the household to walk in to an Apple store and come home with a beautiful little white macbook.

Mmmm .. Life is good

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geek hippy