262 Clarks

I rode Clark's today. I forgot how tough that climb can be. It took me 25 minutes and I stopped once and spun out a couple of times. Definitely not worthy of UtRider's Time Trial page. The bottom couple of turns are a bit rough but the rest of the trail is in very good shape. I on the other hand I am not in good shape nor do I have good technique. There is nothing worse than spinning out when you are climbing. I went down once an the other time I just missed the jewels. Anyhow the ride was fun even if I tipped over once and froze on the way home. The great thing about Clark's is that I can ride from my house and it is almost all dirt. I have never ridden Ghost Falls so Thursday I will probably climb up Clark's and go down Ghost Falls. Photo is from the bridge at the bottom of Clark's using my phone camera.

260 A few photos from the basement.

As you can see I am getting closer to finishing the tile work. I am down to the last 3 rows. Susan wants it done yesterday so I will try to do a bit every couple of days. There is not much room to move so this will be slow going. The final row is small and will require measuring and cutting each tile to match the drywall. Alyssa wants to have a sleep over as part of her birthday party so I need to get it finished by June. I should be able to get it done. I am just a bit tired of working on the basement. It is so close I just need to buckle down and get er done.
This shows what was finished Yesterday.

Thise are where I started at the beginning of the day. I was able to put down about 55 square feet. Today my shoulder is a bit cooked and I am not going to do any more until it feels a bit better.

259 Bad Snake Day

I have run into two of these things today. I do not like snakes. Riding up Corner Canyon on BST going north to CC road there was a rather big one of these. About 4 feet long. I thought it was a rattle snake when I first set eyes on the little monster. He was stretched across the trail sunning him self. I almost crashed trying to get out of my pedals. The evil looking bugger would not move either. I had to walk the bike off the trail to get away. Yuck. I do not like snakes. Then I go home and E is mowing the lawn and has just broken the lawn mower for the second time today and as I am walking down my stairs to the back yard there is another one of these little buggers at the bottom of the stairs. I almost stepped on him. Geez. I can go years with out seeing a snake and today 2 in one day. Susan and the kids think this is really cool. They would love nothing more than to hold one of these in my face and watch me squirm. Gotta love family. I looked this little guy up and he is a Bull Snake. I am hoping the one in the yard goes and visits the neighbors on a permanent basis.

260 BBQ and the Red and White game

BBQ was great today. We smoked six racks of Ribs and went to the Red vs White game at Rice Eccles today. Good fun great food and friends. The ribs fell off the bone. They actually could have been done a bit less. The Rub and sauce were great.

The game was fun. It ended in a tie. To me it looks like Terrance Cain will be the new QB. Loukes did not look to have the same arm. Loukes is probably a better runner though. They will have to fight it out between now and September. I hope this is another good year. Last year was amazing. Undefeated season beating Bamma in the Sugar Bowl. No one showed the Utes any respect but the team proved they were deserving of another BCS bowl . I think the U will be fairly good. The D is solid but the QB is the big question mark. That and losing Louie Sakoda will hurt. I still think they can go 9 and 3 and then win their bowl game. You can hold me to that one.

260: I think I have figured out my training program.

I think I have my training program figured out. I am going to do something close to this program. It is a bit late to start now so i will have to modify the program by about a month. Check it out. It makes sense to me but I have no idea if it will actually work. Now if the weather would just help a brother out. This weekend is shot though. The U plays in the Red n White game Saturday. I am going to spend tomorrow smoking pork and sipping a beer or two. Doing Ribs right takes hours but I have it down to a near science. If I remember I will try to take some photo's. The ribs will take about 4 hours in the smoker. We will probably do a Pork Roast as well. Man is there anything better than Pork. My weight has slowly gone up a couple of lbs. No riding and eating what ever the hell I feel like is adding to the scale.

The weather is supposed to improve. I will do a long ride for sure Sunday so hopefully I can get back into the swing of things. I am going to have to diet again shortly but not the 500 calorie monster that I was doing a few weeks ago. Probably more like 2000 calories and watch the fat and keep carbs in check. Anyhow Someone sent me the SS FAT GUY photo and I had to add it to the blog.

259 Electric personality?

Yesterday I went for an easy recovery ride. 30 minutes on the bike path. My heart rate monitor keeps showing these bizarre spikes. I have done some research on the web and the best I can come up with is that it is related to our dry climate and static from my jersey. Funny thing was that yesterday I was wearing a cotton tee shirt. I know that I was not going hard. I was trying to keep the HR below 150 and I get spikes for no reason. I also get them on Highland Drive by the prison/Bluffdale exit. I think it is aliens or maybe the little black helicopters flying over the Point of the Mountain.

258. Ouch

For some reason my heart rate monitor goes nuts every now and again. I know I was going hard today but not over 200 beats per minute hard. E and I rode around to Alpine and then over Suncrest on the mtn bikes. I retrospect it would have been smarter to ride the road bikes.

We saw Andy H and Drew on the way home. Somehow I bet they were about to do the same ride. I could not tell who else was with them. I could not pick out Lucy and Rhonda but I am sure they were there. It was all I could do to waive at that moment. I went home crashed on the couch.

259 So I am not pregnant.

My last entry I talked about how I had gained 11 lbs in 3 days. Lucy pointed out that I may be pregnant. Thanks. I am glad to say that I am not pregnant. What a relief. That would really suck. I think what happened is that I just went hard enough to hurt myself a bit and my body kept a bunch of water. I have been dropping about a pound a day since Wednesday. I was around 259 this morning and I have not been dieting. It may even be a bit less. After the race I rode for 2 hours Sunday then rode for 30 min on Monday then 45 min hard on Tuesday. I took Wednesday and Thursday off. Friday Erich and I rode for about an hour until it started to rain. The little snot enjoys the hell out of making me suffer. I rode as hard as I could to try to beat him to the gate on Clark's. He beat me by about 5 minutes and he left a couple of minutes after I took off from the house.

Corner canyon was wet but very ride able. There were a few muddy spots but they were easy to ride around. The bikes did get a bit muddy though. I may do a bit of trail work on the road. There is a small stream of water that is making a mess. 5 min of work should be able to divert the water back into the stream.

Tomorrow should be a longer ride as long as it stops raining. I want to ride into Alpine and come home over Suncrest. Lets hope it stops raining because if it does not stop raining I will be stuck in the basement laying tile. I have about 100 sq feet left and I really do not want to set any more. It has to get done but I would rather go for a ride and then find an excuse not to do it in the afternoon. If I do end up laying tile I will add some photo's. It is getting close.

264. I am old but at least I am slow!

Over the weekend I entered my first race in 20 years. I forgot how much they hurt. Check out the heart rate. After being crushed by pretty much everyone Stupid Bike sees me suffering away for the last half mile. Tells me that there is someone in my class about 30 seconds behind me. The guy immediately catches me at the top of the last hill. After hearing about every 3rd word Bob said I set off to catch this guy. I got to him just before he pulled off the course by the Finish line. Heart Rate 183. Guess he was not in my class just pre riding? Then again he looked like he could have been. Clydesdale's are are not the toughest group to pick out of a line up. I had a good time. The course was fun and so was everyone at the race.

Sunday we went for a ride and I had nothing. I really mean nothing. Stupid Bike had to come back and look for me. He and Ken feared that I had taken a massive soil sample. Which has been known to happen. I took a turn headed the wrong way and and had to find my way back to the main trail. Thanks for checking on me I am just slow. I rode 14 miles Sunday. Boo made it 17 and the rest of the group probably rode 30.

If you noticed my weight on the Title I gained 11 lbs in 3 days. How is this even possible? I think I must be sick or something. Hopefully it will go away in a day or two. I did eat BBQ, several Bagels a few Cinnamon Bears covered in Chocolate. But 11 lbs? That is like 38500 calories not to mention the couple thousand that I burned off riding. If this continues I will need to change sports. Think Sumo.

253. I bailed hard this morning.

I started out my morning making lunch for Lyssa and you know what the Doritos were just too much for me today. So far I have had a hand full of Doritos and a Big Steak Breakfast Burrito from Del Taco plus 2 cups of coffee and some creamer. I do not think I will go completely nuts but I have started to slide down the slippery slope.

We are headed down to the Cholla tonight. Since I have decided to eat I think that I may even ride in the beginner 40 plus class. If the Clydesdale's are only doing one lap then I will hit the big class. At 254 I am still 34 lbs over the weight minimum. Sunday Boo and I are going to go ride Gooseberry. It will be the first time he has ever ridden slick rock and the first time I have ever ridden the Goose. Somehow he still just makes me too nervous when we ride anything near cliffs so I have stayed away from Moab. From what I understand this will probably scare the crap out of me. You know the typical 14 year old who has the attention span of a gnat? Well that is him. When he was about 8 we were riding on a bike path that had a raised wooden section. It was about 3 feet off the ground and about 4 or 5 feet wide. Well he rode right off the edge on one of the turns. I asked him what happened and he said he was looking at his foot and just went off the edge. Lucky for him it was just soft wet goo where he went over. No harm other than some muck stuffed in the helmet vents.

I will probably still diet next week but I was off the program starting Tuesday so this is not the end of the world. I lost 29 lbs in the last 35 days. I will keep posting my weight on all of my blog entries and hopefully I will have some cool photos from the race and Gooseberry.