back to school...oh...wait

i don't know if i am jealous of the kids going back to school or glad that im never going back.

i will say that i am not envious of the kids at vatech. wow. what a crappy way for those freshmen to start their college careers, eh? here is your class schedule and map of campus, dining halls, campus id card, quirky roommate. oh, and we almost forgot, your kevlar bulletproof vest. your first class is bullet-dodging 101, with your professor, borris-the-blade from the feature film 'snatch'.

has anybody been paying attention to señor bishop out in new zealand? looks like his events haven't started yet, but there were some pics of jhk(in 3rd place wearing blue) racing the relay. i have to say that i have been nothing but disappointed by the US of A in the design of our national team kits. they look rediculous, as always. in my opinion our kits are always painfully unpatriotic, aesthetically pathetic, and different. year after year they have been changing them for the past 3-4 years if my memory serves correctly. i was really excited when they first came out with the design that saul raisin is wearing at the road world championships last year(pictured left). i hoped they would keep that style around for a little while. but nope. either the roadies aren't talking to the dudes in the dirt to share kits, or they bailed on the design from the olympics/05 worlds that were such a nice change from prior national team designs.

but disappointment aside, i am super stoked for my man representing harrisonburg to tear it up over there in kiwi land. it has been sounding like he has been peaking hardcore over the past month or so and i am predicting a super wicked finish for him.

thats all i got for today. yesterday was the first half of spike lee's documentary on katrina. and the second half is starting right now so i am going to catch it. watching it yesterday made me so upset, sad, and angry at how it was handled. it disgusts me how the situation was handled by local, regional, and federal governments. you can't treat people like that. and you can't ignore a problem as big as that and get away with it. im amazed that nobody has been bringing up the failure of the feds to handle that crisis so close to election time. ok im getting upset again, time to scoot. enjoy the beautiful weather.

pax

shamed

not able to take any more torture of not being able to work out, this morning i embarked on a run/walk.

my route first took me by the carnegie-mellon freshman dorms where mom and dad were frantically trying to find a place to park their "if-you-pack-any-more-useless-crap-in-me-im-going-to-explode" suv and bid farewell to their son/daughter, and say hello to tuition fees for the next 4-6 years. considering it was carnegie-mellon, it would probably be safe to assume 7-8 years.

at this point in my run, i had been doing something along the worthless lines of 8 minute miles for about 14 minutes when i start to catch a rather portly young lady who was trodding along at a pace not much slower than mine. i opened the good ol stride on the downhill and smoked her like she was hickory bacon. 'well done' i said to myself, i successfully boosted my self esteem and put our friend in her place. damn right this 155lb skinny white dude is faster than some 250lb college chick.

so i get closer to the cathedral of learning where i was going to run up all 80-something flights of stairs and decide to slow down. and by slow down, i mean walk. quite honestly, i was well over 170bpm while jogging (not even running) and i was struggling after having passed my personal rabbit 5 minutes earlier. i am about a half a block away from the building when she passes me. son of a bitch. well, i am almost to the cathedral so i have no intention of starting my massive stair climbing interval early. so i just let her go. score: running cow-1 stava-1.

i start the stairs, running up at a moderate pace and think to myself 'hey this is pretty fun! really difficult, but fun!' a couple minutes go by and its starting to get really hard and i am feeling dizzy. not a good sign while running up stairs with a fractured elbow and sprained wrist, god forbid i fall and ruin my entire left arm again. look at the hrm...183bpm. time to slow down and do what? start walking. by this time i am at floor #6 (the cathedral has 40 floors that are open to go up). this is going to be a long climb. i sort of zone out and just head onward and upward. not walking up the stairs too slowly, but certainly not going up quickly. total time of 9'30, thats including getting lost for about 2-3 minutes on the 3rd floor trying to find stupid stairwell A.

get to the top, nice view, too tired to admire it, start heading back down the stairs. mind you i entertained the idea of taking the elevator down but figured that would be just too pathetic. even for someone with as little pride as i, i couln't do it. so i played the "lets see how high you can get your hr descending 80 flights of stairs without falling" game. 162. try to beat it. i dare you.

i get outside and start the walk back to my apartment through some really posh neighborhoods with oldschool houses, neato. but i can't get 6 minutes away from the damn cathedral until 'my little pony' catches up to me again. cut me some slack chick. i haven't run in, oh, about 7 months and haven't been exercising regularly for almost 5. im not going to lie, i had absolutely zero intention of running at all after doing those stairs. i was perfectly content with taking a senic route and walking home. and i was not about to change my fate. so i walked on and let her pass me again.

it was basically a crawl home after that. partly because of my extreme shame in letting this girl pass me twice, and partly because i was so flipping exhausted from working out. so that was my morning. now i am probably going to cook up some lunch and read the paper. maybe a little golf on tv will be in order as well. enjoy this lovely sunday after that phenomenal rain storm last night. time to grub.

pax.

throwin out the baby with the bathwater

really exhausted from the past week - being sick, not sleeping well, pain from extremeties. but tonight may be the light at the end of the tunnel. i don't think i really need to explain myself too much, but some peeps and i look to be heading out for drinks and a movie tonight. the drinking part doesn't matter, other than the fact that we hope to get really obnoxious for the flic and enhance our overall feature presentation experience. the movie however, is the pièce de résistance:

with what seems to be a cult classic before it even hits the theatres, we are bound to enjoy ourselves with some fine cinema. looks like the esteemed s.l. jackson may have a new friend within a years time - named oscar. in the meantime i am just gonna lounge and watch some hbo/take a shower. enjoy the weekend. ride if you've got working legs.

current song: trusted - ben folds

strugglin'

i have been pretty sick since saturday, and seem to be getting worse. it started out as this stomach virus sort of thing, but now it has mutated into a monster dome-piece thing. headaches and mondo stuffiness. not fun. but the good news is that my wrist isn't in too bad of shape. according to the head orthopedic doctor at upmc, the bones in my wrist "are really pissed off" at me. but they will learn to like me more over the next 4 weeks while i continue to wear this splint. my 'geater arc' in the wrist is where the energy transferred through when i crashed, essentially going in one side of my hand and exiting on the other side. i have some mumbo-jumbo fracture things that he pointed out...from what i could understand they seem to be some sort of surface fractures on my pisiform, hamate, and capitate bones. the doctor was kind of thrown for a loop by the fact that my wrist escaped more serious damage and that the little things that seem to be wrong with it are this obscure. no change for the elbow (continue to move it and it will heal just fine on its own) and ankle (continue to wear retarded and obnoxious boot for 3 more weeks) though.

i am looking forward to getting on the bike again soon. but i am also excited to try some hardcore cross training this winter to get in great shape for racing again next spring. i am going to give cross country skiing a shot, and also some snowboarding, raquetball, and hardcore pittsburgh snow riding if i can get the appropriate gear.

in the mean time i will just hobble around work and home, trying to save moola to go towards paying the rents back, paying the bills, getting a sweet custom made italian bike with full da or record, fixing my car, buying furniture for my apartment, putting a downpayment on my first house...

Strength does not come from a physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
-Gandhi

feed my frankenstein

two great movies that have been on tv this week: wayne's world and mr. mom. seemingly random and unconnected, yet both fabulous movies in their own right.

but on towards the information i am sure you have been dying to hear about...my injuries. good news and bad news. the good news is that the doc(s) were stoked about the quick progress of my elbow and wrist. they said that both, while not totally healed, have progressed much more quickly than the average person after the same sort of injury. so much so that they almost wrote off examining my wrist some more via MRI. what a big mistake that was - but more on that later. an additional injury that started to bug me the afternoon after i saw the doc the first time was my left ankle. strangely, it didn't start to swell and bruise a few days after my accident. the ankle x-rays showed a possibly miniscule fracture, but more like a gnarly sprain. soooo they gave me a boot. which blows. i am now starting to accessorize with my wrist splint, how cute is that?

but back to the MRI...i don't know about you, but i have never had one before. i always assumed they were this moderately brief spat of claustrophobia where the machine humms and you slide in on your back. well, i couldn't have been more wrong. since my wrist was getting the MRI, i had to lay down on my stomach and extend my left arm as straight as possible - not an easy feat when my elbow is still fractured. they strapped my wrist into some box-like contraption and slid me in face first. i think to myself, this isn't horrible. i mean, i am uncomfortable, but i will be out of here in a few minutes, maybe 10. mind you, there was no clock or reference for me to determine how long i was in the MRI machine. a little time goes by, and the discomfort is starting to bother me. a little more time goes by, and i start to go numb in my entire left arm. shortly after that, my arm falls asleep and my feet start to tingle. while all of this is going on, the machine is screaming and screeching at an obnoxious pulsing rate in my eardrum even though i have cotton swabs in my ears. more minutes, added discomfort. i am starting to get incredibly miserable and cranky. i try to zone out and ignore the pain/noise/numbness, i even think i fell asleep a couple times for a few seconds. but i am getting more and more irritated by the second. they never told me how long i was going to be in there. the operator comes on over her microphone and says "ok, last time" for the honking/pulsing interval. what feels like 10-15 minutes later, she finally pulls me out. i am really irritated, but hide it because i know it's not her fault that the machine took so long, or so i assume. apparently, as she informs me, extremeties such as arms and legs take wayyy longer than torso and head MRI exams. after all was said and done, i was strapped in that flippin machine for 45 minutes. OUTRAGEOUS! i am still mad about it now, and its 24 hrs later. honestly, how can you strap somebody in an MRI machine for that long and not tell them that they will be locked in for 45 full minutes of noise and discomfort? arggg.

so now i am hobbling around the office looking like i am recovering from a stroke to the left side of my body. long story short, it looks like my injuries are somewhat minor, and none will require surgery or physical therapy. i am expecting to hear from the docs in the next couple days about my MRI results. from their hesitancy to even do the MRI, i expect that it will turn out negative and will just take a little more time in the splint before i am back to normal.

still waiting to hear about my cat 3 upgrade...really glad that lieberman lost...other than that not much to report. i am also super excited for erin to come friday afternoon. it will be a fun filled weekend for sure with her here. hopefully i will be out of "gimp-mode" by the time her flight comes in.

current song: i'm ok, you're ok - mxpx

mtb crash

diagnosis

1. minor elbow fracture, will heal on its own. need to keep mobile and active, gradually developing full range of motion on its own
2. inconclusive wrist injury. could be a) bruised soft tissue or b) torn scapholunate ligament. the latter requiring intense surgery, questionable recovery, and tons of physical therapy. the soft tissue damage would probably heal on its own very quickly.

i will know more about my perdicament on tuesday after my next appointment w/ the doc.

highs and lows

this is what i love about cycling. and by love, i mean eternally struggle to live with. a brief rundown of the tour de toona (check for pictures/results of the cat 4 races) followed by the events that transpired shortly thereafter:

stage 1 - friday, 20 mile circut, 2 laps
after a surprisingly great night's sleep on the most comfortable bean bag chair ever, kevin and i rolled out to martinsburg early in the am. after a relatively uneventful first 18 miles or so, the peloton got its first look ar the finishing circut consisting of about 7 or 8 90degree turns before the 200m long finishing straight. i thought to myself 'this is going to be one sketchy finish'. so i sat in the group for most of the next lap until we hit our single hill at around 10k to go. upon hitting said hill, the rider in front of me decided that i didnt need to be towards the front anymore - and proceeded to drift me off the road and into the gravel. i stayed upright but was stopped as the tail end of the peloton passed me by on the uphill. i clipped back in, started cranking, looked to my right to see the race officials in their retarded pt cruiser convertible stare at me like i was an extra-terrestrial, and tried to catch up with the group before the top of the hill. i was only able to grab a few stragglers by the top, and wound up regrouping w/ everyone again on the descent. it started to get sort of hectic on the front again with the gnarly headwind and jostling for position in the last moments before the finishing circut. i was able to get up to about 15th wheel going into the first turn. i sat on the guys ahead of me, expecting them to be better sprinters than it turned out they were. jumped around a few dudes in the straight before the last corner and then passed a few more in my sprint to claim 9th, some cash, and 7 points. i was also in 9th for the gc. keegan met up w/ us there and spent the rest of the weekend racing too.

stage 2 - saturday, 20 mile loop with 1 kom sprint on a 4 mile climb
i was super nervous for this stage. even though it was only 20 miles, i knew it was still going to be hard. i was climbing great, even put in a half hearted attack w/ a couple miles left. after getting reeled in, i was sitting in the top 10 riders in a field of maybe 40-50 dudes that was getting more and more strung out. then, towards the top of the climb where the gradient really kicked up, i shifted into my small ring and "clink-clink" my chain dropped. luckily i was able to get it back on w/o having to stop, but now i was about 25 meters behind the last guys in the group. i started to dig super hard and picked my way through the riders in the steep stuff, closed what seemed like a half dozen serious gaps on my own, and made it over the top in around the same position i was in before my chain dropped. a group of 4 got a gap over the summit and i was helping lead the chase with my group of about 10 guys. the toad was flat for the most part, and a good number of the guys werent working to bring the break back. i politely invited them to help in our pursuit, or to get the f out of the group. some did, some didn't. then i led through a hard right turn to begin the real descent. from that turn on, we were bombing down the mountain like an asteroid. hit speeds of just shy of 60mph, and seemed to be averaging close to 50mph for the majority of the plummet. however, the leading 4 were working together like butter while our group was more like margarine. we brought back a lot of time, but not enough to get them before the finish. i was beginning my recoil like a rattlesnake to strike for the sprint win for 5th when my rear derailleur decided it wasnt interested in snapping when i asked it to. after about a 10 second delay btw my 13 and 12 gears, i had already started my sprint. it finally kicked down into the 12 tooth at the first banners. i missed 5th and 6th both by about 12 inches and came away with 7th. more points and more moola followed. now i was up into 6th gc.


stage 3 - sunday 20 mile downtown crit
we woke up at around 5:30 to the end of the world. massive rain, lightning, and thunder. we seriously debated not going to the race, but the weather looked to be clearing around 6:30 so we rolled to altoona in record time thanks to me bugging keegan to keep going faster. and i was glad we decided to go, bc the course was amazing. it was such a fun loop. at one point i was leading the peloton for about a lap and a half, ballin it, not even touching my brakes going through the corners. what a rush! when it got down to 3 or 4 laps to go, i made a very smooth tactical move and grabbed the leadout wheel of one of the top sprinters. he tried to muscle and elbow me off, but i wasnt budging. for a moment i thought i might get a personal leadout for the win, but the leadout man checked behind and aptly noted that i was not his teammate. by this time i was already in about 7th wheel. i moved up one or tow more spots in the last turns and then kicked on the afterburners for the sprint finish after hitting the final right turn. i dusted everyone next to and behind me but couldnt quite make up the ground to be in contention for the win. i came away with 4th (my best finish in a race ever), more points, and a lot more cash. i also bumped myself into 5th gc overall (translate = even MORE cash and a bitchin result at one of the biggest amatuer stage races in the states). not too bad for my first stage race and not having raced since march. i am super stoked about my finish and am going to apply for my cat 3 upgrade in the next few days. anybody know about any road races this fall?

then sunday afternoon i decided to go on my first mtb ride w/ kevin and his friend gabe. after staying upright all day, gabe (the junior maryland state downhill champion) ironically crashed in front of me and i flipped over him. one heavily scratched up back, one minorly sprained/broken elbow and one severely sprained/broken wrist later, i am heading to the orthopedic doc today to see exactly what is wrong. thankfully my collarbone was tip top and not phased. all i know is that i am in an incredible amount of pain and am pretty upset that this happened after such an awesome weekend. but i guess thats what happens when you ride bikes. hopefully i will be up and at em soon enough and fully functional for erin's visit on the 11th.

in the meantime i will just sweat it out in my apt in the middle of what has to be the hottest/most humid summer in the history of the world. have a glass of ice water, on me. with a side of vicodin.