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5 days until I get to swim for almost a mile, ride my bike for about 25 miles and run 6 miles, all after one another!!

I’m really excited about all this. For the last week I’ve been waking up from my sleep with thoughts related to the event on Sunday: Do I have everything on my checklist? Am I going to be in shape enough to not bonk half-way through? Am I going to make it to the venue on time? Thankfully, I’m feeling pretty well prepared, so I can answer: Yes, I have everything; no, I’m not going to bonk in the middle of it; and maybe, but who cares if an old lady passes me.

I’m sure I could have trained harder and longer, but I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve done, so I’m not regretting anything. The hardest part of all the training has been the time juggling, because time I spent sweating was time I spent away from Kelly.
Regardless, she’s been super supportive and encouraging, and I couldn’t have gotten to where I am if it wasn’t for her.

She’s so awesome that she’ll be traveling all the way to Silicon Valley with me (a total of about 8 hours traveling, round-trip) just to see me get in a wetsuit, disappear for about 45 minutes, get on my bike, disappear for an hour or more, come back to leave the bike and disappear for another hour, while I run. Triathlons are not a very good spectator sport (unless it’s on TV!), so I’ll be owing Kelly a big one for being there for me.
But in truth, I’m very excited that she’ll be there, even if I’ll only see her for a few minutes while the race is actually on. I’m sure that seeing her as I go through my transitions will give me a much needed morale boost, and knowing that she’s waiting for me at the finish line will make me want to finish faster!

I really had no idea where this blog post was going to go, but I wanted to mention how excited I am about what’s in store for me this coming Sunday, and to also give a shout-out to my BB for being so wonderful.

Wish me luck! I’ll post results and stories after Sunday.

If you remember, I did a Sprint Triathlon last year, and I loved it. Since I won’t be able to make it to this year’s edition of the Pyramid Lake triathlon (I’ll be honeymooning in Australia and Fiji), I’ve decided to instead take part of another tri… and because I think being exhausted is fun, I’m doing a longer distance one, an Olympic distance one!

The event of choice is the Silicon Valley International Triathlon, which will be just south of San Jose in Californi on June 13th (just a month and a half from now!). Kelly and I will make a weekend-trip out of the thing, but Sunday morning I’ll be sweating amongst hundreds of other people.

The event consists of:

• 1500 meter swim. This is almost a mile!
• 24.9 miles (40 Kilometers) on the bike.
• 6.2 miles running – a full 10k.

Now, I’ve got a goal time to finish in. Considering that I finished the sprint Tri of last year in 1 hour and 41 minutes and all of the following things…

• The Olympic/International distance is double the distance of a Sprint.
• I have a better bike!
• I weigh at least 15lbs less than last year.
• I’ve been swimming at least once a week, and will continue to do so to be ready for this race.
• I’ll have a wetsuit, either borrowed or rented, but some buoyancy help for sure!
• The race is at sea level, which should give me a small oxygen advantage.
• The longer distance means that I’ll be going slower, so as to not burn out.
• I haven’t been running as much as last year.

My realistic goal time is then exactly the double of the sprint: 3 hours and 20 minutes. But I’ll be pushing myself to finish in under 3 hours. I think it’s doable, and I’m going to be training hard to try to make it happen.

If anything, all the training I’m doing will help me accomplish my goals of being in shape and looking good for the summer!

My new year’s resolution has been fulfilled! I wanted to do a triathlon, and I now have done so!

It happened on Saturday, August 1st 2009. The event was put on by the Reno Area Triathletes group, and it was a great experience for my first triathlon ever.

The race started at 8:30am, and the first stage was a half mile swim on Pyramid lake. The water was not cold at all, and it took me 18:30 minutes to finish it. I took it easy on this part, since I hadn’t really trained for swimming, and there were people that were going to swim all over me if I dared to pass someone. I attempted to freestyle, but the adrenaline and the inability to see exactly where I was going made it feel futile. I swam most of the time in a very peaceful breast stroke. By the end of the swim, my arms were quite tired.

Right after that, I had to get on my bicycle to ride for 14 miles. The course was on the road that goes around the lake, with a few rolling hills but nothing impossible. I managed to finish in 50:28 minutes, with an average speed of 16.6mph.
Quite a few people passed me on this stage, particularly on the uphill sections. I made myself not think about that, and I set my sights on a guy who was in front of me. My goal was to pass him by the half-way point, and to never see him again. And I did that.
It was hard for me to put a lot of weight on my hands because my triceps were burning. But I HTFU‘d  and kept on trucking. The second half of the ride I apparently found my spot, because I only passed a handful of people, and I only got passed by two.

The last part of the Tri was the run, so I rode my bike into the transition area, changed into my running shoes and headed out to the trail.
My legs felt like potato bags. I listened to my body and jogged. I didn’t run, but I certainly didn’t walk (because of HTFU, you know).
Slowly, my legs came back to me, and less than a mile in, I was feeling like I could run again. And run I did! I picked up the pace, and before I knew it I was catching up to people -and passing them.
The circuit was a little dirt trail that looped around. It was around 10am and the sun was already making things very hot. I was thirsty, I was sweaty and I was tired. But there was only a little bit more to go.
At the very end, just yards before the finish line, a lady was sprinting up to pass me. I wouldn’t have it, and I literally finished the race running as fast as I could, on a full-on sprint. The lady didn’t catch me, but neither did my breath, and I finished with a major side ache.
Oh well, that didn’t matter. I was done! After wiping some sweat of my brow, I looked up and found my time. I had beat my goal of finishing under 2 hours, and the pain was immediately replaced by feelings of accomplishment and self-pride.
The run course was 3 miles long, and I finished in 28:52 minutes. Not bad for having swam and ridden my bike earlier.

My official total time was 1:41:57.2. I finished 142^nd (all the results are here), and I felt damn good doing it.

Some things to note for the next one:

• I really should train in swimming. It had probably been years since I’d swam for more than 15 minutes without stopping.
• I should invest in a wetsuit. The extra buoyancy would make the swim easier, and it’d keep me warm if I were to participate in Tris in places like Donner or Tahoe.
• My bike sucks. I recently discovered that it’s not a “custom bike” as I was sold, but it’s instead a GMC Denali. My bike limited me, and it’s time for me to upgrade to a real road bike.

Notice that I said “the next one”. I decided I’d be doing this again right after finishing this Triathlon. I loved the feeling, the challenge and the adventure. And now, I have a time to beat!

Today is the official Bike to Work day in 2009. I hope you rode your bike if your commute is less than 10 miles one way!

As for me, I started the day early. I took off at around 6.45am, and headed to one of the participating coffee shops, the Purple Bean. I showed my helmet, and they hooked me up with free coffee! Yeah!
The barista was very friendly and attentive, and asked me what I wanted. I told her I had no clue, since I never drink coffee… so I asked her to make me something sweet, and she served me a Mocha. It was delicious!
I sat outside while I drank my coffee -it’s kind of hard to sip on a very hot beverage and ride in traffic- and watched the day roll by. A lot of people in their car checked me out as they got their coffee at the drive-thru, but at least there were banners everywhere that explained why there was a silly guy sipping on coffee next to his bike. I nodded at those that established eye contact as I chilled out.

After finishing my coffee and leaving a small tip, I moved on to the Reno Bike Project.
Just like last year, they were doing free breakfast, which included pancakes, bacon, hash browns, fruit and coffee. However, this year was better than last. It was at their new location, which is a lot more visible, welcoming and easy to find. There was also a DJ, who was playing some very cool chill-out music.
The RBP staff did a great job at keeping the food available, and there wasn’t even a line to get food! They opened their garage door and set up a small kitchen facing 4th street. It was perfect, and it showed that they thought it out very well. The RBP continues to be a kick-ass place, and I’m really glad that they’re only a couple of blocks away from work.
I hung out at the Pancake Feed for about 30 minutes, and chatted it up with a few strangers. JP Zunini (whom I met when I was an exchange student) from KRNV was there and interviewed me, so I might be on the news.

A great way to start a Friday, and now I have a lot of positive energy from having had such a good start to the day. If you’d like to see how my ride went, you can check out my bike route here.

Good day!

Last weekend was ScalleyCat. A bike “race” that’s more like a scavenger hunt of random things in Reno.

It works like this. First, you find a partner who likes to ride bikes as much as you do. Lucky me, that one is Kelly!
Second, you show up to the event. It started at noon on Saturday. Your team gets a “bible”, a booklet with all the objectives of things you have to find. They range from innocuous acts like getting a picture by a landmark  -such as a statue- or riding long distances around town… and then there are things that border the lines of law or ethics, such as nudity or trespassing.
Since you have to prove that you did fulfill the task, and there are too many to have witnesses, you have to take a picture of you in the act of everything.
Finally, you have 24 hours to get as many things as you can from that list. Some are worth a lot of points, some are worth just a few. You and your teammate can do as many as you want, and in whichever order you prefer to. It’s strategy!

However, there’s more! Before the main event, there were smaller ones, which built up momentum and excitement.
On Wednesday, the opening night, I took part of the Time Trials competition. We started at the Lincoln Lounge, and raced all the way to Chapel Tavern, and back!
A short course, and at 8pm there wasn’t a lot of traffic… I was lucky and got mostly green lights the whole way, and I was able to complete the 3+ mile course in about 12 minutes. But that was too slow, because the top 3 teams (which included a couple of the awesome Bootleg Couriers) finished in about 9 minutes.

Thursday had an event taking place at the Hideout. The band “White Mice” was playing… and if you clicked on that link, you’ll know that they’re not exactly my cup of tea. That, and the room being the size of my office, combined for my ears imploding and making us not last very long at this shindig.
I will also take the opportunity to mention that although this is a dive bar that allows smoking, the smoke was not offensive. The body odor of the party goers was. I had to wash my nostrils with drano.

Anyway. Friday had us back at the Lincoln Lounge, where all we did was chill out and drink. There was a bluegrass band playing, which was a much better background music, but I was too busy having a good time with Kelly, Cory and Mikey.

Saturday came. We got our Bible. We got on our bikes… and we went! We tried to stick to our plan, which was do as much as possible without getting sent to jail. And we did! We had great time, and ended up gathering a bit above 75000 points, after riding somewhere around 45 miles in total, after 24 hours.
The pictures that we took show exactly which challenges we did, so to get to see what Team Skanksquatch went through, you should click here. Beware, some of the pictures include me with few clothes, or no clothes at all!

All in all, it was a great weekend. That’s what happens when you combine hanging out with your dream girl, riding bicycles, drinking Joose and doin’ hoodrat stuff. I’d definitely do it again. But hopefully I’ll have a nicer bike by then, and we’ll be able to go further, longer and crazier!

Oh, you can also see other team’s pictures over here. This is cool, because not everyone did the same challenges, and there are pictures of random people sleeping with bums, getting tattoos, doing karaoke at the Cal-Neva and making out with total strangers.

It was a Friday morning. I woke up, and checked the weather forecast. 70 degrees. Nice!

Riding my bike to work sounded like a good idea, so I geared up and headed out the door. I forgot my helmet, so I turned around to get it, and I was 100% geared up after I strapped my brain armor on.

I was happily riding at a speed of 15 mph, or more, East-bound on 4th street. I was almost to work, but I didn’t know what was about to happen.

A silver Ford Escort suddenly is making a left turn into Record street, coming in from the other side of 4th street. In other words, he was driving West-bound, and made a left turn, thusly having to cross the lane upon which I travel.

Unfortunately for all, he “did not see me”, and I did not have enough time to come to a full stop, or to maneuver around him. Instead, here’s what I did as I noticed that our paths had suddenly crossed, and we were destined for a collision:
I reached for my breaks, and squeezed those puppies like they were my glutes and I was competing for Mr. Olympia.
As my back tire skidded, I realized that I was going to ram into the car anyway. So I did what any reasonable person would do: scream. A guttural and very loud “AAARRRRGGGGGHH” came out, and quickly transformed into a “UUGGHHH” as my front tire hit the front-right of the car, and I flew over my handlebar.
From here, my memories are blurred. It goes from the yelping, to my chin hitting the windshield and then I’m standing there, with my bike on the ground.

The driver of the car stopped his car, and stepped out. He seemed very upset that I would dare run into his vehicle. I reached for my phone, with the intent of making sure I at least got his license plate number… but hey, he didn’t have plates! Dialog ensued:

Me: Where are your plates?
Him: I ain’t got none. What you gonna do, call the police?
Me: Yup.
Him: You got in my way.
Me: I had the right of way. You made a left turn when you shouldn’t have.
Him: Right of way? Haha, get out!

I found it interesting that someone who doesn’t have plates, would be telling me about how the traffic laws go.

And so it was, I called 911. And within minutes, there was a firetruck, an ambulance and two police vehicles. I felt kind of bad that so much attention was being brought, all I wanted was some sweet justice.
The firefighters were the first ones to see me, since their station was a block away, they got there first. They looked at me, asked if I was ok, and kind of looked around. As the paramedics showed up, they left me to their care.
The EMT took a good look at me, and I then realized I had blood on my hands. Shit! My chin! They inspected, and it didn’t look like anything serious. I explained to them that I have some old stitches on my chin (from when I was learning to dive in volleyball… and I wasn’t really getting it, obviously), and that it feels like that’s where the blood was coming out from. They checked my eyes, and made sure I wasn’t about to pass out, and then asked me if it was ok for them to leave, to which I said yes.

Then, the police report. I explained what I was doing, and how everything happened, and the driver of the car was also questioned.
I’m pretty sure they had to explain to him that even though I’m a simple bike rider, I still have rights, and I did indeed have the right of way.
The fact that there was a huge skid mark on the right side of the lane I was ridding in, proved that I was in full compliance with the law.
The cop filing all the paperwork was very nice. He took a lot of pictures, and he also told me that he likes to ride his bike to work. I took that as a good sign, I knew I was in good hands and that the cop wasn’t going to tell me that I don’t belong on the roads or something outlandish like that.

An hour later, papers were served. Once again, I was the witness of someone else being served a citation, and all I got was a receipt of the report. I was sent on my way, and now here I am, finally at work.

My chin is alright, it’s not bleeding profusely, and I’m sure it’ll heal up quickly. Besides, my beard covers it pretty well. I’m sure my neck will be stiff tomorrow, but I feel just fine right now.
I could have walked off the scene without a problem, I stayed because I wanted a police report. I kind of wanted to throw my helmet into his windshield, and ride away. I’m glad I resisted the urge, because there were a lot of witnesses. 4th and Record street is an infamous homeless hangout, but at no moment did I feel unsafe around them.

My bike is also just fine. The hoods of my brakes were bent, but I easily bent them back to where they should go. My handlebar is a little bit off, and not exactly perpendicular to my front tire, but nothing that can’t be fixed with some tools and a good eye. The tire itself is not bent, and as soon as I was dismissed, I rode off, and everything felt and sounded normal.

I’m pretty sure I could go through my insurance to get something out of the poor bastard (he uses ACCURATE INSURANCE), but I won’t. There’s no need. The guy got a lesson on traffic, and a citation as well. Justice was served.

PS: I’m damn glad I look like a retard and wear a helmet. I’d rather look than become one.

With the permission of “Hans”, I re-post this:

Have you noticed an increase of bicycle riders in our streets? It is almost dramatic! Hot August Nights brings a lot of focus on fuel driven vehicles. This could be an excellent time and opportunity to the public aware of the wholesome, healthy alternative of bike riding. There finally seems to be a growing alertness and readiness to act by our authorities. If we could motivate a thousand folks to participate in the Hot August Bike Ride it could just make the statement to propel our authorities to make riding safer in our area with appropriate biking facilities.

While Critical Mass rides have their values, to transcend them we have requested Reno city government support and police escort.

How?
Join the Hot August Bike Ride on 8/8, 6 PM at the West Street Market (West St. between 1st and 2nd Streets) in downtown Reno.

Why?

• To help raise the consciousness for bike riding as a wholesome, ecological transportation alternative.
• To make a statement to our authorities for more and better biking lanes and paths, for biking education in schools and corresponding law enforcement.
• For greater health.
• For fun and camaraderie.

Who?
Anyone who can ride a bike is welcome to join!

I went ahead and re-posted it also on Facebook, as an event. Click here to check it out and RSVP if you’re cool like that. Or, you know, you can just show up.

I will.

I dedicate this post to George Pickard, who has labeled me as an activist for promoting Critical Mass in Reno.
At any rate, did you know we’re in the middle of Bike to Work Week? And did you know that May is the National Bike Month? I did!:
That’s why I’ve been putting miles on my bike. It’s been nice seeing more and more bike commuters out on the road, and it’s also more fun to race them.
This Friday is one of the most fun events of the whole bike shindigs. It’s the official Bike to Work Day, and some coffee shops around town are encouraging you to participate by giving you free bike-fuel. Check out the list of these cool places here: http://www.gethealthywashoe.com/bike_to_work.html. There’s also a list of related events, and you should check those out too!
I will most definitely be riding my bike on Friday morning, heading up to the Reno Bike Project for some pancakes, and then hitting up two or three coffee shops on the way to work. I think it’s important to mention that I rarely ever drink coffee, so I expect to have all sorts of jittery energy by the time I get to work. It might even be an uncomfortably energetic happening.