Gremlins

Well, I've been meaning to post here for a while now, but it appears that gremlins have invaded my home computer.

Any time I try to do anything it asks me what program I want to use, even for simple stuff like, oh, starting Internet Explorer or Firefox. It's got to be some kind of malware but antivirus, though it finds some stuff, has yet to kill this thing off. Alas, I've yet to find a solution and I fear that it's gonna take a reformat on the machine. Ugh

Do any of you techie types out there have ant suggestions? Pretty please?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone. Any spelling errors are due to fat, clumsy thumbs.

An Open Letter to Winter

Dear Winter,

I really hate that it has come to this but I'm afraid we're going to have to stage an intervention if your current behavior continues. You see, we have always had a contentious relationship. We really do appreciate your existence because you provide a break from the often stifling heat of South Carolina and help us appreciate what have here, where we get to play outside pretty much 9-10 months out of the year.

You even provide the added benefit of dumping snow on little slices of heaven like Steamboat, Colorado, where we periodically get to go play in the snow.

An example of Winter behaving correctly in Steamboat

You, Winter, are the counterbalance, the one that keeps us honest, that tests our resolve. You send us inside to toil away on trainers or to simply hibernate in front of the television, dreaming of warmer and sunnier days. This is all well and good, but, sheesh, this is getting out of hand.

As I sit down to eat lunch while writing, this is the view outside my kitchen window:

This is not the Louisiana Bayou. It's my back yard.

You, Winter, have turned my back yard into a swamp. You, Winter, have decided, Montgomery Scott-like, to transport us, in terms of climate, to Belgium. Now, we love just about everything about Belgium: the chocolate, the beer, the cycling culture... Did I mention the beer? You, Winter, have however immersed us (pun intended) in the one thing we do not enjoy about Belgium: the weather.

This, my friend, must stop, and we would greatly appreciate your cooperation in ceasing and desisting all crappy weather activities until further notice.

And it is not only humans that dislike your current practices:

Seriously. You're making Jake sad, and he's NEVER sad..

Shiveringly,

The Yummy NOMs Brain Trust

I'm MELTING

Or, at least I WAS melting, for a very difficult 18 minutes 15 seconds last night. Case in point:

ahhh Whattaworld, whattaworld...

Last nite, I headed over to the Greenville Cycling Center  to participate in an indoor time trial on the computrainers to support JDRF. This would mark not only my first time on Coach Jim's slick computrainer set up, but also the first time I did a time trial in any format.

I even got to do it with some friends:

The hardest, and the prettiest gals in the Upstate Peloton

Robin's always so dang composed, she should join OREC

I, on the other hand, am rarely composed, but I've got this melting thing down

The wifey, channeling her inner Cavendish

Why is this important, you ask? Well I'm toying with the idea of bike racing this year, and, to that end, I joined the Greenville Spinners Racing Team just to see if I like the whole racing scene. To be honest, after hearing of several good friends crashing at local races as well as being a little turned off at how seriously people take themselves at these things, I'd been a bit resistant the whole idea. I like riding my bike, and typically, I like to keep it simple. However, after serious lobbying from the wifey and a couple of my P3C3 mates, I decided to dip my toe. I still don't know what races, or even how many I want to do this year. 

Then last night happened. It wasn't epic. I didn't even ride that strongly, but it was really cool to just saddle up and tap out 10k of full on effort on my own. I might be on to something here, especially when 10k of effort affords me the ability to demolish something like this afterwards:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This is the best part of being a cyclist

So, now, I've got to a) get a TT bike (WOOHOO! TOYS!) b) figure out how to ride it, and c) scope out local TT races that I can ride in.

Shouldn't be too hard. Stay tuned for updates, and until the next time, stay hungry, friends...


ps: Thanks again to Jim Cunningham for having the event, and also to April at The Living Pixel for taking all the pics. My sweat has never been captured in such stunning high definition.

Gauntlet

Well, so much for lots of updates all the time. I gotta shake these winter cobwebs.

In any case, we at Yummy NOMs want to congratulate the wifey on entering the blog world with her new space, The Wandering Cyclist.

She's going to be giving updates on her training plan, and race goals for the year, so go back early and often for tales of inteval workouts, blisters, carbo-loading, and other wonderful goodness.

I should also mention here that I'm participating in a training program as well, even with the same trainer. We have different goals, but we will be doing a lot of the work side-by-side, I'd imagine. No chance we'll end up getting hyper-competitive with eachother... None. Not at all...

(sewing machine leg kicks in..)

Seriously, we won't be talking smack or anything...

(getting really fidgety now)

Ok, ok... fine, the gauntlet is being thrown down. You think you can blog better than me. BRING IT ON!!!

(all better now)