This is something that I started a few years ago and in the midst of having to listen to all the endless countdowns for everything from the greatest Holiday destination of the stars to 2008's best movie soundtracks, I proudly present Miner's Blog.....Best of 2008.
Miles ridden: 2,500.
I'm noticing a disturbing trend here. I'm down 1,000 miles from last year and down 2,000 miles from 2006. It's to be expected though as I literally hung up the bike in mid July after the last Chapel race and besides a few weekdays spent commuting to work, I haven't been on it since. I predict great pain in early 2009 for my body when I try to get back into my 2x20's.
Best 2008 Bicycle Racing Experience:
I really have to think back on this one since it's been 5 moths without racing. I had a lot of good races. Race at the Lakes is always a blast because of the proximity to my house and the usual turnout of teammates. I would say the Chapel Series this year was my favorite experience. Cheap Racing, good eats at the end of the series and a large turnout of Stark Velo mates. It's also the one race of the year where guys seem to race tactically which makes it fun. For me, the added bonus was that I surprisingly went into the series with good fitness so I rode pretty aggressively. I hate being pack fodder and would rather be off the front or off the back from trying.
Best Cycling Purchase:
Once again I laid pretty low on the bike accessories this year. I ended up buying Nicholas a new Haro BMX bike. He had a blast racing out at the Akron Derby Downs this summer. My new bike purchase in 2009 will hopefully be a BMX cruiser for myself. Not sure I'll race it...yet but it'll be fun to go out there and ride on the track. BMX racing is how I got started into this sport as a kid so it's fun to see this path come full circle.
I don't know if I can call this a cycling purchase, but I was able to scrape up enough money to pick up the new Garmin 405. This watch is amazing and it's now clear that I am addicted to numbers, data and just plain information. I never thought of myself as a 'techy' guy as I don't need those kinds of toys, but when it comes to physical exercise and training, I'll get any proven gadget that I can to help me improve myself. Somehow in my own mind that justifies the purchase. I will clearly be a dork on my bike this year with my PowerTap giving me all the power data that I can consume and my Garmin giving me endless information as well. I can't wait to hear the comments from House and Troche.
What I missed in 2008:
Not much time spent on the bikes means not much time spent with my good friends. I miss those times the most. I remember saying this last year but I hope that I can find a better balance between running and cycling.
I also missed the annual trip to Boone, North Carolina. Hopefully I can find a way to resurrect that trip for 2009. There's nothing better than taking a cycling specific trip with friends where the only thing you have to do is to have fun, eat, sleep and ride your bike for three full days.
What I hope to accomplish in '09:
My plan in 2008 was to upgrade to Cat 3 and that obviously didn't happen. Not sure if I can state that as a major goal for me this year or not. It would be cool to be able to upgrade to race with all my teammates who seem to be progressing in the sport but what I've learned in the past 5 years of cycling is that I'm not really as good as you think I am. I know that's hard to believe but I don't seem to have a lot of natural God given talent, it all comes from lots of hard work. With the boys growing up, Elves & More and work, there doesn't seem to be that much time anymore that I can dedicate to my bike. I think I can be content being an average Cat 4 who goes out and rides with his friends for the fun of it and not necessarily because I'm trying to accomplish specific wattage goals on my PowerTap. I'm not giving up racing, look for at the usual places in 2009.
Off the bike, I hope to complete my first marathon in the spring. I will be targeting the Cleveland Marathon (I plan on registering today) in May with the goal of completing it and then I will target the Columbus Marathon in the Fall with my goal of getting a Boston Qualifying Time. Running is something that I'm really enjoying. It's really therapeutic for me and I love the fact that I can go run for an hour and feel completely destroyed as if I'd just been out riding my bike for 4 hours. I also love when I tell people that I went out for an easy 10 mile run.
I also hope to help grow Elves & More this year. Tim and I determined that our volunteer base has outgrown our contributor base. We need to continue to grow both but we need to find more funding. We think we could have easily built 2,000 bikes this year and I'm sure we could have just as easily given away 2,000 bikes. Here's to finding more money in 2009!
Well, that's it for my 2008, time to move onto 2009. I didn't do all that I wanted to with my racing, but sitting here on December 31st, I'm very lucky to be where I'm at. I'm happy and healthy, I have a loving wife and two wonderful boys, I have a great job and I'm a partner in Elves and More. This year, Tim and I along with countless volunteers and contributors, helped make Christmas special for 1,000 kids living in the Mason Park neighborhood in Akron. It's good to be a part of something larger than just yourself. Happy New Year!
brian
12.31.2008
12.21.2008
The month of December
December. What a wonderful month. It's just too bad that I historically have to fit 6 months worth of work into 31 days. Between clients trying to get projects out before the end of the year (Bidding is historically better during the winter) and Elves & More I also threw in a new project into the mix this year....a trip to Portland, OR.
I was contacted by NCARB in the middle of the year about being a tester/reviewer for their new architectural registration exams. They originally wanted me to go to Tuscon in August but fortunately I had a conflict that kept me from visiting the desert during the hottest time of the year. When I heard there was a trip to Portland I jumped on it faster than Stephen Baldwin jumps on a really bad script. Portland is an area that I've always wanted to go to. Site unseen it was also a place that I could imagine living in. Now I would get the opportunity to visit at no cost to me! What could be better.
My good friend Pat up in Chicago's brother and sister-in-law just moved to Portland. When Pat found out I was going, magically the trip out west became more than just a business trip, we decided to head out a few days early to hook up w/ his family and try to get some snowboarding in on Mt. Hood. Unfortunately Mother Nature didn't cooperate with us and there was too little snow on Mt. Hood to justify taking the snowboard across the country so we decided to get some hiking in. That turned out to be the best decision ever because besides the lack of snow, they had unseasonably warm weather that was in the 50's and more importantly, it was nothing but sunshine.
On Friday, Pat and I decided to head up to Mount St. Helen's for some hiking. I've traveled with Pat before and whether it's a trip to a mountain or a trip to the grocery store, you are definitely in for an adventure. We made up our way to the last visitors center and got out to make our best effort to find some good trails. Everyone we talked to recommended us taking this one trail up to a neighboring peak to get the best view of Mount St. Helen's. We decided that we had a pretty decent view from where we were standing and decided to make it a quest to try to hike up to the crater. After all, that would be an adventure. The hard thing about Mount St. Helen's is really being able to judge distances. There is absolutely nothing left after the explosion in 1980. No trees, no vegetation, nothing. Nothing that we could use to really judge scale. What looked like a trek of only a few miles would be more like 7 miles one way. The other thing about Mount St. Helen's is that because there is absolutely nothing there to sustain them, there is really little signs of wildlife. I think we saw a few Elk which I was really surprised about and one bird. That combined w/ the total lack of wind there made for a very eerie experience. It was like you were truly hiking on Mars.
After 3 hours, we finally made it to the water fall on the Mountain. Unfortunately it looked like our goal was still about 1 hour further up. We were also at the end of the 'sanctioned' trail which was sort of a joke since the only thing that was there were rocks. Hard to disrupt the environment when there is nothing but rocks to hike over in my mind. It's for that reason that we decided to take the most direct route back to the visitors center.
I should clarify, we only did this because we were getting challenged by losing sunlight (It gets dark at 4:30) and on the hike out when purposefully trying to stay on the trail, we'd lose it because it was really hard to distinguish where the trail was and where it wasn't. It made for a really fun walk back. We got to experience an area that maybe only a handful of people and elk have but it made it difficult because there was some really tough terrain to navigate through.
In the end, we estimate that we saved nearly an hour by taking a bit more direct route. I would imagine that their established trail takes you so far out because of how much water might be running through the valley during the spring melt off of the snow on the mountains. With it being dry we were pretty safe. The only difficult part was having to climb a 30% slope back up to find the trail. It was a blast though and by far one of my best experiences in the mountain. I only wish we had more daylight to have been able to make it up to the top.
Day two in Portland brought a trip to the Columbia River Gorge. This time we went with Brad, Em & their friend from Chicago Evan. I don't want to take the easy road here, but Brad did a good job blogging it so I will refer you to his site as well as some good pictures for the day.
Today is the big Elves & More Delivery day. I can't sleep which is why I started blogging this at 6:00 this morning. I will blog about the delivery here in the next few days as well as hopefully get some pictures posted. All I can say is that although its only going to be in the 20's, there's going to be about 1,000 happy kids in Akron.
b
I was contacted by NCARB in the middle of the year about being a tester/reviewer for their new architectural registration exams. They originally wanted me to go to Tuscon in August but fortunately I had a conflict that kept me from visiting the desert during the hottest time of the year. When I heard there was a trip to Portland I jumped on it faster than Stephen Baldwin jumps on a really bad script. Portland is an area that I've always wanted to go to. Site unseen it was also a place that I could imagine living in. Now I would get the opportunity to visit at no cost to me! What could be better.
My good friend Pat up in Chicago's brother and sister-in-law just moved to Portland. When Pat found out I was going, magically the trip out west became more than just a business trip, we decided to head out a few days early to hook up w/ his family and try to get some snowboarding in on Mt. Hood. Unfortunately Mother Nature didn't cooperate with us and there was too little snow on Mt. Hood to justify taking the snowboard across the country so we decided to get some hiking in. That turned out to be the best decision ever because besides the lack of snow, they had unseasonably warm weather that was in the 50's and more importantly, it was nothing but sunshine.
On Friday, Pat and I decided to head up to Mount St. Helen's for some hiking. I've traveled with Pat before and whether it's a trip to a mountain or a trip to the grocery store, you are definitely in for an adventure. We made up our way to the last visitors center and got out to make our best effort to find some good trails. Everyone we talked to recommended us taking this one trail up to a neighboring peak to get the best view of Mount St. Helen's. We decided that we had a pretty decent view from where we were standing and decided to make it a quest to try to hike up to the crater. After all, that would be an adventure. The hard thing about Mount St. Helen's is really being able to judge distances. There is absolutely nothing left after the explosion in 1980. No trees, no vegetation, nothing. Nothing that we could use to really judge scale. What looked like a trek of only a few miles would be more like 7 miles one way. The other thing about Mount St. Helen's is that because there is absolutely nothing there to sustain them, there is really little signs of wildlife. I think we saw a few Elk which I was really surprised about and one bird. That combined w/ the total lack of wind there made for a very eerie experience. It was like you were truly hiking on Mars.
After 3 hours, we finally made it to the water fall on the Mountain. Unfortunately it looked like our goal was still about 1 hour further up. We were also at the end of the 'sanctioned' trail which was sort of a joke since the only thing that was there were rocks. Hard to disrupt the environment when there is nothing but rocks to hike over in my mind. It's for that reason that we decided to take the most direct route back to the visitors center.I should clarify, we only did this because we were getting challenged by losing sunlight (It gets dark at 4:30) and on the hike out when purposefully trying to stay on the trail, we'd lose it because it was really hard to distinguish where the trail was and where it wasn't. It made for a really fun walk back. We got to experience an area that maybe only a handful of people and elk have but it made it difficult because there was some really tough terrain to navigate through.
In the end, we estimate that we saved nearly an hour by taking a bit more direct route. I would imagine that their established trail takes you so far out because of how much water might be running through the valley during the spring melt off of the snow on the mountains. With it being dry we were pretty safe. The only difficult part was having to climb a 30% slope back up to find the trail. It was a blast though and by far one of my best experiences in the mountain. I only wish we had more daylight to have been able to make it up to the top.
Day two in Portland brought a trip to the Columbia River Gorge. This time we went with Brad, Em & their friend from Chicago Evan. I don't want to take the easy road here, but Brad did a good job blogging it so I will refer you to his site as well as some good pictures for the day.
Today is the big Elves & More Delivery day. I can't sleep which is why I started blogging this at 6:00 this morning. I will blog about the delivery here in the next few days as well as hopefully get some pictures posted. All I can say is that although its only going to be in the 20's, there's going to be about 1,000 happy kids in Akron.b
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