FireBike Leadout

Mike May at Gam Jams has awarded me the Leadout of the Week for the picture of the Virginia Beach Firefighters wearing pink shirts for Breast Cancer Awareness.

Also Mike posted an awesome pumpkin stencil. I think it would look good on a FireBike pumpkin. I carved my pumpkin with my girls last night. Maybe I need to go find another one.

Where do you train?

We are into our second week at Atlantic Performance Training and I am impressed. One thing that it is definitely do is make us more accountable. Gone is the time of thinking I could eat anything I want because I ride my bike. Now I'm thinking about food as making me a better athlete. One main reason is that Jeremy (our coach) wants us to email him with a list of what we eat. The fact that I have to write it down and tell someone who has an interest in my training will make me naturally choose better food.

Since we are only training at APT twice a week we also have to keep a training log. Once again this makes those decisions of whether or not to ride a lot easier. The difference between this training an a standard coach can be seen in this off season preparation. Currently in this strength and conditioning program we are working on balance and coordination. This training is hard, fun and although off the bike, it will be very beneficial to racing.

We care enough to wear pink.

Over the weekend the Virginia Beach Fire Department was able to wear these pink shirts as part of a "we care enough to wear pink" breast cancer support campaign.

My Aunt is fighting breast cancer right now. I will be sending this photo along with my shirt to her as a way show my support and care of her battle.

Get well Janis.

Fire Truck Crash...Check this out.

Check out what happens when a fire truck does not stop at a red light. Every law in the country requires emergency vehicles to stop at red lights and stop signs before proceeding through. Luckily no one was severely injured. All fire fighters were wearing seat belts.

I'm Back and Ready to Train

Jenni and I went on our 10 year anniversary vacation. Yes it was to Disney and the kids stayed home. We felt a little bit bad...just a little though.

The happy anniversary buttons got us some free deserts and a couple of head of the line privileges and a whole lot of congratulations form cast members.
The second part of the trip was the Disney Cruise. First stop was Nassau. We weren't crazy about it. We probably enjoyed it more from the boat then when we actually got off and walked around.
Pirate night was a blast. This was Jenni giving here best Pirate look.
Castaway Cay was definitely relaxing. Can you say Corona moment?

Pretty girl and pretty boat.
I even helped a kid get into his coconut that he found.

Back to the boat. This was the part of the trip that we really liked. On Castaway Cay we get massages, relaxed on floats and in hammocks, road bikes and went snorkeling. It was a blast.

Now that the trip is out of my system I am ready to train some more. Jenni and I have a little bet going. We both probably gained a few pounds on the trip. We weighed ourselves when we got home. On December 1st we will weigh in again. The person who lost the most weight doesn't have to do the dishes for the entire month of December. That means loading and unloading the dishwasher.

Atlantic Performance Training

Atlantic Performance Training is where we are (the Virginia Beach Wheelmen) will be training this winter. While planning the Velocity training this offer came up. Velocity has been good to us for the last 2 years, but APT offers a more scientific and cycling specific training plan. The owner was a pro racer for Coors Light back in the late Eighties and early Nineties.

Today half of us go in for our initial threshold testing. I'm a little nervous but it should be fun. Although VO2max is part of the testing, the thresholds will be more important to set up our training plans.

We start the training at the end of this month. I'll keep posting the updates.

10 years and going strong!

Today is my 10 year anniversary. Jenni was 20 years old and I was 22 when we got married.

What else is this day known for?

Today is also Obama's 16th wedding anniversary...CRAP.

O.J. was found not guilty... DOUBLE CRAP.

The Beltway Sniper started random shootings in the D.C. area killing 5 people in a 14 hour period...TRIPLE CRAP.

A tiger attacked Roy of Siegfried and Roy leaving him partially paralyzed, and its his birthday today...

Okay so maybe we didn't pick the best day to get married. But it is still our day and our celebration. The true celebration starts next week Thursday when we leave for our Disney Cruise (kids left behind).

Don't be "that" rider.

I was having a conversation the other day with a guy at work. Here's what he told me:

"Last week I was driving home through Pungo and I saw 4 guys on bikes up the road. They were taking up the entire road, so when I got behind them I tapped my horn to let them know I was back there. Three of them moved over but one just stayed in the middle of the road. So I had to wait for on-coming traffic to clear then I slowly passed them. When I got up to the guy who didn't move he started yelling at me. He said his life is more precious then me having to get to where ever I was going to sit on my fat ass and eat potatoe chips."

I admit, there are some asshole drivers out there who would rather run us over then to take the time to pass us safely. But what made them that way. Perhaps it was the fourth rider described above. I am discovering that cyclist have taken such a defensive attitude with motorist that it is harming our image and hindering our safety even more.

Many years ago my father would commute his bike to work. One day a car full of guys road up behind him and hit him in the head with a baseball bat. They then drove off. It knocked him off his bike and absolutely stunned him. The bat had just barely caught the lower part of the helmet. It was actually a brand new helmet. His old helmet did not go down as far and it would have been a direct hit to his skull. He did not piss those guys off...someone else did I'm sure.

So next time you hear someone tap their horn, or even honk it for that matter, get over to the right and give them a wave (not a finger wave). Thank them for passing you safely and sharing the road.

As for that fourth rider. If you pull that kind of crap when I'm riding with you, I will personal get my car and ride your ass off the road. We don't need those attitudes out there. When I ride my bike I am relaxed and happy, road rage is supposed to happen when you trapped in a car. Let's all work together and try to change the attitudes of the drivers, not reinforce what many of them already think of us.

This was one of those blog post that I had written, thought it sounded too angry so I deleted it and figured I would rewrite it when I cooled down. So this is the cooled down version.

What do you think, am I way off base here?