It's Rough Out There

So now that I have this bike, I've been thinking about doing a triathlon. Our friend Dave does triathlons and he told me about this clif bar commercial on youtube. I don't know if I want to do a triathlon anymore.

Gulp...

I bought a new bike. A road bike. A really nice one. And it was a GREAT deal. I've never in my life owned such a nice bike. It makes me nervous. Alex and I have always wanted to get into road biking--especially out here in Michigan it makes a lot more sense than mountain biking. And since my stress fracture, my only exercise is biking and swimming (although presumably someday I'll be able to run again, at which point maybe I can do triathlons!). I wasn't really looking for a bike. Not really. It happened like this. The other day I biked 15 miles out to Pinckney State Rec Area on my commuter Trek bike. It was great fun, but the bike left something to be desired. Well, every now and then, like once a month, I check craigslist for things like dressers and plant stands. Last time I checked there was an awesome free desk listed that is now sitting in our office. Yesterday I decided to check bike listings just for fun. And there it was. A beautiful high end road bike, normally $1700.00 for only $650.00 (see here for the specs). Exactly my size. Posted the same day. Was it meant to be? Well, I emailed the guy asking if it was still available. He emailed back and said he already had two interested buyers who were coming to test ride it, but he would let me know. Around 8:30 pm he called and said that the interested buyer couldn't get the money together until Sunday or Monday, so he was going to give me a shot at it. Really? And to top it off, he was willing to drive 15 minutes TO MY HOUSE, to let me test ride it. Really? When he got here I hopped on and it fit like a charm. Let me tell you, if you've never ridden a high end road bike, you MUST do it some day. They are amazing. Seriously amazing. So I bought it. Holy cow! Don't worry, Alex was behind me 100%. I can't take my eyes off it (neither can Rambo).

So, does anyone want to come visit and go road biking?

Gardening

Alex and I have a garden! It's so exciting. I built planter boxes in the front yard where the plants will get the most sun. We planted tomatoes (including several heirloom varieties), peppers (both green and red), broccoli, green beans, straightneck yellow squash, and cucumbers. We're still looking for pumpkin and zucchini.










Notice the specially built watering system. I planted the plants in trenches down the long planter box with the idea that I could just put the hose at the top of the row and let the trench fill with water and slowly soak in. But, because the bed is on an ever so slight slant, the water runs right to the end of the row and then overflows leaving the top plants high and dry. In hindsight, I could have planted the rows across, instead of down, but then I wouldn't have had such a fun problem to solve. Anyway, I put plastic plant containers between each plant so that the water would dam up between plants. The bricks keep the containers from getting dislodged. The water travels down the trench through the little holes in the bottom of the containers. It works like a charm!

Addendum

Here are a couple of videos of Alex in motion. As usual, I had a hard time both filming and cheering. I learned from the first video (mile 11.5) that I should just cut my losses and stop filming when I want to cheer (sorry in advance for all your eardrums when you watch the video). That's why the second video (mile 23) cuts short before he gets too close. It's kind of hard to pick Alex out in the first video since he's in the middle of the pack. It's like playing Where's Waldo. At the end of the video you can see his torso go by--it's the one clothed in a maroon shirt. As you can see, the weather started out less than inspiring, but that's the beauty of a marathon--there's plenty of time for the weather to change! By 9:30 the sun was shining and the runners finally had a chance to dry out.

Chariots of Fire

Alex did really well in the Cleveland Marathon this morning...

3:21:50 (7:42 miles)
179th overall (out of 8,007)
168th overall men (out of 4,065)
25th in his age class (out of 531)

And he managed to look great the whole time.

Mile 11.5


Mile 23.1


Mile 25


Mile 26.2

Swearword

Due to an ill-timed stress fracture I won't be running the marathon this Sunday. The silver lining is that I don't have to curb my beer intake this week. Also, I'll still be able to cheer Alex on from the sidelines.

Sigh. Maybe someday I'll finally be able to successfully run a marathon.

Crowds

As I mentioned before, there are a lot of people in New York City. I never really captured the essence of the crowds, but I tried. Below are a couple of videos I took. The first one is near Central Park and the second one is I don't remember where. I took the second one while walking down the street. I held the camera by my leg while Alex guided me through the crowds. I used this method because I felt weird pointing my camera in peoples faces as they walked by. Now instead of featuring strangers faces, I have a video featuring strangers butts. Enjoy!