Snowpocalypse here in Atlanta. Might as well take some pictures, as we don’t get this much snow often. Already 5″ of accumulation, so if it keeps on snowing through the night we’ll have some fun in the snow tomorrow.
Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Snowing in Atlanta
Monday, January 10th, 2011
Colorado Trip
Monday, August 30th, 2010I had a ridiculously awesome vacation/visit to Colorado. Lots of good times were had, and we did a little bit of everything. Camping, hiking, biking, drinking awesome beer, hanging out, etc. We started with a camping and 4 wheeling in Arapaho National forest. Hiked an awesome trail to Echo Lake. Cat *almost* got the Jeep stuck on a gravel road on the side of a mountain, but she got out of it with some sweet left foot braking and lots of throttle. We then followed this up with a visit to Rocky Mountain national forest and some more hiking/camping. Drove Trail Ridge road and visited Estes Park also.
Spent some time in Fort Collins after that. During the “work day” I did a bunch of awesome mountain biking around that area. Hit up Hall Ranch in Lyons, CO, which was pretty much the best bike trail I’ve ever done. Also did some local trails around Lory State Park. At night, we hung out around Fort Collins. Went to my first “bike in” at New Belgium brewery.
We then headed out to Crested Butte and Gunnison National Forest. Did some camping the first night and then settled in at Cristina’s Guesthaus in Crested Butte. Had a great hike to Maroon Pass, halfway to Aspen and saw some amazing views. Also did some epic mountain biking around Crested Butte including 401 Trail and Deer Creek. I can’t wait to go back 
Spend the rest of the vacation around Fort Collins. Broke my bike just a few days before I was leaving, so filled the rest of the time with a cool trail run and some great times around the town.
I took a ton of pictures and rather then my usual “pick out the best 10 or so” I figured I would post all of them.
4th of July fireworks
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010The parents were in town for the holiday weekend, and we decided to shoot off some of our own fireworks instead of going to one of the shows. Only 1 neighbor complained, so I feel that it was a success Got a couple of good shots, one of which I really like. I need to start doing more photography again! I haven’t touched the 40D in almost 6 months.
GU Energy Gel. You’re my best training buddy.
Monday, February 1st, 2010On one of the message boards I frequent, I got some advice to take GU energy gel before my snake time trial at the beginning of the month. I did. Despite being what I thought was out of shape, I sort of kicked butt and felt great, during the race and also afterwards. I then redid the snake 2 weeks after that. I wrote up about it, and damn I bombed. I was slower, didn’t feel as good and totally bonked on that ride. Also recently I started running 5K’s once a week. The only difference between last week and this week was that I took a GU before this week’s monday run. I knocked 3 minutes off my time! Woah! Last week, I remember about 3/4 of the way through I was struggling. Had to focus on deep breaths, slow up on the uphills etc. Today? The further I went, the better I felt. It was weird.
I don’t know exactly what type of junk is in this little magical package, but its gotta be something that isn’t on the label. Maybe its all mental, maybe its all something else, but I totally feel like superman after taking one of these things.
We’ll see how they work again this weekend. Got time trial #2 at the snake. First official TT was 3hrs 1 minute. I’m going for a real goal of 2:45 and a stretch of 2:30. Not sure if I’ll be capable of doing that, but I’m gonna GU up every 45 minutes like the box says, so with my month of “training” and a ton of energy crack, we’ll see what happens.
Updates on stuff
Sunday, January 24th, 2010It’s been a fun and relaxing couple of weeks. Its been kind of nice. Not to say that work and my normal weekday has not been super hectic, but just been a bit more relaxing and fun during my time off and weekends, including a great weekend that is finishing up.
I’m still riding the heck out of bikes. Rode the Snake Creek Gap again, and will be heading back for Time Trial #2 in a couple of weekends. Was actually harder the 2nd time around. I went with a friend and we pushed harder for the 1st half. I also didn’t take any Gu gel with me. Took a wrong turn about 75% of the way in and added an extra mile. That totally took all my energy and desire away and I ended up “bonking” finishing 20 minutes over what I did 3 weeks ago. Just hit a wall with 2 miles to go. Took a couple of falls too and scraped up my rear derailleur pretty good. Almost seems like these $$$$ mtb parts are almost expandable when one is going on rock gardens every 2 weeks. I’ll make sure to have plenty of that super gel and more desire and training when I visit again in 2 weeks.
I’ve also re-started working on the house again. Got inspired to worry about fixing what still needs work rather then looking at things such as hardwood floor upgrades. Got some new art for the walls and got some great photos of mine framed. Sure wakes up the downstairs. I’ll be working on finishing the crown molding this week, and then tackle that damn bathroom eventually.
Lastly, started work on the race car too. Kind of scared me when I realized just how much crap there is to be done in the off-season. I did decide to make this year a bit light and only hit the big and important events. Going to Road Atlanta twice, the SARRC/MARRS at VIR, one of the Daytona doubles (or Barber race) and then the ARRC. Going to skip the ITFest as thats just too much of a haul and $$ expenditure at this point.
On second though, scratch that whole “more relaxed on my time off” thing off the list. Going to be a crazy busy and fun spring!