Week coming to a close

I wish I could sleep like this again

Christian busting balls for some milk, how can you say no to that face.
My beautiful baby girl

This week has gone by pretty fast for me. I'm finally back on a consistent bike training schedule. The ride at the point was fast today. Heavy hitters Ken and Nima were putting on the hurt. They put in a few attacks and I tried going with them. I didn't last very long. Ken and Nima just rode me off their wheels. The funny thing is 2 months ago I would have stayed right there with them. Like I said in an earlier post, I'm missing that top end I had 2.5 months ago. Its hard maintaining that kind of form all year around. It just can't be done in my opinion. You have to break down sometimes in order to rebuild again. It will come back though. Its hard to maintain any motivation to train when I'm pretty much not racing the rest of the year. I have my eyes on the Page Valley Road Race in late August. It is the MABRA Senior Championship Road Race. If I went I would do the CAT 3 which consist of 63 miles. I believe the race is in the Shenandoah area. This area is known for some serious climbing. I would have to lose an extra 5-6 lbs before this race. I'm at 190lb right now. I guess I'll cut down on the peanut butter.

On the family end, its good to have my wife and kids back home. Things are back to normal; crying baby girl, Christian busting my balls for some milk, Roxy the dog fighting me for the bed covers and my wife.....well she's actually been my support. Thanks babe.

Wife, Kids and Dog are back

My little family made it back to town from the beach late last night. I was temporarily a bachelor from Sunday to Tuesday night. Holy shit was I bored. I was having withdrawals bad. I missed them so much. My family is everything to me.

I tried to keep myself busy. Monday when I got home from work I planned on watching the College World Series. A severe wind/thunderstorm came through and knocked out the power for about 2-3 hours. No family, no dog, no power. Luckily my buddy Wade called and we went out for some cold ones with some of his friends he hadn't seen in years. I had a great time. To great maybe, I had a headache the next day.

Last night I anxiously awaited the arrival of Erin, the kids and Roxy the dog. The College World series kept me busy until she arrived. Did anybody catch the LSU vs RICE game. LSU really pulled one out. Awesome game!!!! Fresno State won the second game against UNC. I'll be watching that again tonight. I love college baseball!!!

On the training end, I'm back on the bike. I can tell I've lost a bit of my top end. Oh well, kids will do that to you.

Stay tuned for the beach pics soon to come.

Relaxing Fathers Day Weekend

This weekend we went to the beach to spend Fathers Day with my in-laws. We drove up Friday morning. I actually drove up on the motorcycle because I had to come back Sunday. Erin is staying up there with the kids through Wed. That's the longest trip I've made on the bike. It's about a 3 hour ride. Wade, my buddy made the trip up there on his Buell as well. We also came back together. It was an awesome ride. The weather was nice. Very peaceful.

Training wise, I manged to get in some long runs. No bicycle. We took some fantastic pictures up there. Once Erin makes it back from the beach, I'll put up some of the pics we took. It was a fun time for Christian. We took him to Frontier Town. I'll give you more on that once I get the pictures up.

Thanks for reading.

Finally a nice cool down

Last Years Pool Picture

The heat is finally gone. Yesterday was in the mid 80s and today will be the same. What a relief. When I got home from work I jumped into the pool again for a nice 1500m swim workout. A bike and a swim in one day. I'm paying for it though. My shoulders, back and arms feel like jello right now.

After my swim, I went home and had dinner. Erin is quite the cook. She never disappoints. Mmmm Mmmm. After dinner I took Christian to the pool for a swim. He loves the water. When it was time to go he kept saying "no don't want it". Even after I told him, let's go see Mama and go eat dinner. Again.. "no, no, no, don't want it." He's a smart little guy. So I had to revert to bargaining with him. Geez, I have to bargain with a 19 month old?

Christian is into the animated movie Cars. He loves it. He'll watch it everyday if I let him. So I had to use that to get him to come home. He says.."Ok watch cars Ok." As to not let him think I was a push over I told him that he had to eat dinner first, take a bath and then he could watch cars. He gave me a look like, "its a deal". He only got to watch about 30 min of it before he had to go to bed, 8pm sharp. Kids are the best.

So finally today I'll get to go out to the Haines Pt. noon ride. It has been over two weeks since I've been out there. I'm looking forward to it.

Early Morning Ride

This morning I met up with Matt, my colavita south teammate for a training ride. I Got up early this morning to get my gear on the motorcycle and headed out at 6am. Got to the office at 6:25am and got my cycling gear on in time to meet Matt at 6:45, our start time.

We did the 20 mile Hill Ride in Arlington, VA. Who knew Arlington was so hilly. This is the kind of ride that even if you decide to go easy, your heart rate's going to jump up due to all the up and down climbing. At the beginning of the ride Matt put in a huge effort up the second hill and I wasn't even warmed up yet. Matt commutes in on his bicycle so he was nice and loose by the time we started. I thought to myself if he continues at this pace I'm in trouble. The effort hurt him a bit though. After that we settled into a nice rhythm and finished the ride in about an hour.

Towards the end of the ride, Matt and I started talking about baseball. I actually brought it up. When I first met Matt I came to find out he was also an ex college/pro baseball player. AND get this, he was a catcher just like I was in my baseball days.

Matt got drafted out of high school as a catcher by the Cleveland Indians back in 1992. He decided to go to school first and played at the University of Indiana, THE Hoosiers BABY !!!!. He then got drafted again in 96 by the Florida Marlins. Awesome!!!!

As for me, I got drafted back in 1995 by the New York Mets out of high school as a catcher as well. I decided to go to school first also. I played two years at Cochise Junior College in Arizona and then transferred to NMSU to continue playing.

To get to the point, what are the chances to ex ball players who turn cyclist come to meet each other. Pretty cool huh? He also works in the building right next to me. I got Matt to join our team early in the fall of 07. By the way, he's a monster on the bike and has just CAT up to 4 from 5.

thanks for reading.

Back in the Pool

Yesterday I managed to do something I haven't done in close to 3-4 years. I jumped back in the pool for a swim workout.

Let me veer off topic a bit to give you a brief "The Meat History Lesson of the Day." When I finished my college baseball playing days at New Mexico State I ventured into the sport called triathlon. I used to swim (at least what I call swimming) to keep my arm in shape throughout the long grueling season. In my many swim visits to the New Mexico State Univ. pool I met an interesting bunch. These guys would do these outrageous swim workouts that wore me out just looking at them. I later learned they were triathletes. What the hell is that right? It's a sport consisting of three disciplines (Swim, Bike, Run). Long story short, these guys got me into triathlon. Before long I was doing the workouts with them. The only ingredient I was missing was the bike. I had no idea what a tri bike was or what it looked liked. My friend Tomas, gave me all the details and not to long I had a tri bike, thanks to my Dad. I don't think he was to excited busting out $1500 for a bike. I don't think he was into the idea about me going into this sport. He still gave me his full support though. Anyways the bike was a trusty Kona. I still have that bike today. To cut to the chase, I became pretty good at triathlons. Before long I was finishing just 1 or 2 minutes down in the results from the overall leaders. I got hooked. In fact so hooked I signed up for Iron Man California after I graduated in May of 2001. You'd think a guy would wait to do an Iron Man a couple years after just starting triathlons. No not me, I jumped right into it after a few months of my triathlon venture. It's a big deal because an IronMan consists of a 2.5 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a full marathon 26.2 miles. All in the same day, May 19th, 2001. I'm still very proud of that accomplishment.

After I moved to DC in June of 2001 I continued to do triathlons for up until 2002. Then I met these guys who call themselves roadies. Roadies are cyclist who just do cycling and compete. You mention triathlons to them and they may just slap you across the face. AND that's how I got hooked on cycling. Triathlons became a thing of the past. In fact I keep it a secret that I still run for conditioning purposes. You mention running to cyclists and its off with your head :)

So that brings me back to the beginning of my story. Being back in the pool brought back good memories. I did a 30 min interval workout (about 1500 meters) and it wasn't to bad. In fact I may sign up for the Osprey Triathlon in Public Landing, MD October 4th. Oh boy, an ocean swim in October. Holy Crap, I hope the hurricanes don't bring the big waves. Shhhh, don't tell my cycling buddies.

The kids

Big Bro with his little sis

Big fury sister Roxy checking it out
Little Miss Chicken Legs

HOLY CRAP ITS HOT

We didn't get to do very much this weekend. Its been hotter than a joggers nut sack in the summer time. The temps down here are in the high 90's with almost 100 percent humidity. We have a heat advisory through Wed I think. Being from the southwest you would think I'm accustomed to the heat. The humidly just kicks my ass though.

I skipped this weekends racing to just train. To be honest I think my season is pretty much over. With the new baby, time is just limited right now. I've also been busy at work so I haven't been able to train at the Haines Pt noon ride. I've pretty much have just been running for the last two weeks to not lose any of my bike fitness.

Saturday morning me and my teammate Matt went out for a 2.5 hour training ride. First hour of the ride we had this intense fog. We could barely see 10ft in front of us. We almost bagged the ride due to the fact that maybe the cars wouldn't see us. We only had about 5 miles to reach Mason Neck Park where it is generally safe from vehicles, so we decided to proceed. The ride was good. Afterwards Matt came in to meet our new little girl Matea. Roxy our dog finally took a liking to Matt. The heat got so intense throughout the day that Erin and I decided to go do our shopping early. We hit up Costco for diapers and baby supplies. The kids pretty much slept through the whole thing. My buddy Wade and his wife came by the house late afternoon. Wade brought his Buell Motorcycle. We gave the motor bikes a nice wash then we hit up Old Town in Alexandria. Mind you that it's 100 degrees. I must have sweat half my body weight on that 1 hour ride to Old Towne.

Sunday morning I went on my regular training ride out of Old Towne. It was actually hotter Sunday. The training ride starts at 8:30 and pretty much ends at 11:30. 3 hours in the hot ass sun. The ride was intense as usual and two guys from our pack succumbed to the heat and got dropped. They know the way home so we kept going strong. Went home after the ride and Erin the kids and I just sat inside all day. Its to damn hot to go out. I think we might get some relief from the heat this weekend. I see mid 80s in the forecast. Oh yeah we are also heading to the beach again to see the in laws for fathers day. I'll try and take some pics.

Thanks for reading

BIKE JAM PHOTOS

Bike Jam Race Report

The race reports are bit late but here they are. Bike jam is a race I always enjoy doing. Mainly for the atmosphere. Its really just a big festival of bikes and some intense bike racing. My favorite part of the day is watching the pros race. Its a whole another level watching those guys. We actually took the whole family to the race. It was a great task for my wife to keep track of both a 2 week old baby and an active 19 month old. My wife did awesome. I owe her big time for that. After the races we headed off to the Ocean City for some fun on the beach and a visit with my in-laws. The weather was beautiful that weekend. A bit more on that later, but here's the race report:

I started off doing the 30+ /40+ race combined. I didn't get much warm up before the race only because I was helping my wife find a suitable place to set up camp to watch the race. After doing that and getting dressed I only had 20 minutes to warm up. I believe the field was 100 strong if I'm not mistaken. Not having any teammates I was going to have to race smart. I wasn't able to do much. I spent to much time on the front early on covering moves but being a one man show I couldn't cover everything. I decided to fade back in the peleton a bit to get some recovery. When I did I missed the winning break. I went up to the front again to see if I could work on pulling them back with the help of those not represented in the break. It didn't happen. In the end I managed 20th overall. I think the same result as last year :)

An hour later I lined up for the CAT 2/3 race. Again I had no teammates. This race was much faster. I tried to do less work in this race. I pretty much sat mid pack the whole race. I felt good but I just couldn't get in groove as far as moving up. I figured with the pace we had people would start fading and the pack would dwindle off little by little. At one point I looked back and I was the last man (not a good place to be). Damn, had we really shed that many guys already. I hightailed it back to the middle of the pack. I could have swore I came in top 15. I only say that because I finished along side one of my old teammates, Wade Jennnings and they had him 11th in the results. They didn't even have me in the results. I guess the camera angle missed me or something. Oh Well. Overall is was a fun time at least for me. Afterwards when I got to my wife's little campsite she gave me this look like "OK you raced, let's pack up and head to the beach, NOW". YOU GOT IT BABE. Above are some pics of the race courtesy of JIM WILSON and KEVIN DILLARD.

Tornadoes, lightning and sideways rain

So on my commute home yesterday I completely got stuck in the rain. I was on the motorcyle. I had to take refuge under an overpass for about 10-15 minutes until part of the storm had blown over. This wasn't just any rain/down pour. I've done the commute in the rain before but when you throw in lightning and super windy gusts with side ways rain, you have to know when to throw in the towel. In the end, I made it home with no problem. The buell handles the rainy conditions quite well. The wind and lightning managed to knock down some trees in my neighborhood.

I think we actually had some tornadoes touch down in the Anarundel Mills area. NUTS!! We may get some late thunderstorms today as well. ROUND 2 I suppose.

Thanks for reading.

Taking Roxy for a drive

Here is my boy pretending to drive roxy our dog around. He is now 19 months old. He got a little pissed after I took him away from the steering wheel. I think he gave me a taste of the terrible two's soon to come. Oh boy!!!

Sorry for the super late entry. SO our bundle of Joy has arrived. Matea Carolina Moreno came in at 6lbs 10oz. She was born May 15, 2008 @ 3:18pm. She's beautiful. Mommy and baby our doing well. She is acutally 3 weeks old today.

In my next entry I will catch you up on my recent races and family happenings.