My little slice of the 'net
Archive for August, 2009
Tour
Aug 25th
When I got home last night and crashed on the couch, there was an interesting show on HD Theatre (Discovery Channel HD). Chronicled the story of two guys who won a contest in 2007 to ride a stage of the Tour (actually, about half of it). (Offered as the L’Etape package from Trek Travel). The got outfitted with brand new Madone bokes, full Discovery team kit, and “behind the ropes” access at the Tour. They got to ride the route for what was stage 16 of that year’s Tour – over the Col ‘dPierre-St-Martin (Cat 1), Col d’Marie-Blanc (Cat 1), and finishing on the Col d’Aubisque (HC). (Click here for the route - click on “Profile of the Stage”) One of them dropped after the Marie-Blanc, but the other finished on the Aubisque. His time – 7 hours and change.
But watching it made me want to do something like that for a vacation in the upcoming years. Despite the pain, it looks like fun.
An observation
Aug 18th
One of the interesting things that I’ve noted in the last week is that my sleep quality is directly related to my food intake. On nights where I don’t eat the healthiest dinner, I sleep horribly, and wake up groggy as all get out. I oversleep, despite the system of alarms that I have.
This really started over a year ago when I went out to San Fran. I thought that it was because I picked up tobacco use again. No doubt that it’s a contributing factor, to be sure. But with that trip, I stopped tracking my food, and began my decline from exercise.
Won’t be riding in le-tour anytime soon
Aug 12th
I got back on my bike for the first time in over a year last night. I spent about 25 minutes on the trainer, and then decided that I needed to get out of the house. So I went out and did 8 miles. Nowhere near my usual evening ride, but the total time on the bike – 55 minutes. Felt oh so good. It wasn’t a difficult route, no major hills/climbing, and the speed wasn’t where I remember it being, but what do you expect? The handling was off, and I forgot just how difficult it is to pace yourself on the road and judge your effort. If rain wasn’t in the forecast for the next couple of days, I’d probably be back on the road, without hitting the trainer.
… and I’m spent
Aug 10th
Summer school is finally over. I pulled an all-nighter on Saturday to submit my last final by Sunday at noon. It’s not my best work, and the reason for the all nighter was that I started gaming on what was supposed to be a short break, and turned into a late late late night.
Grades for 2/3 courses are in. A and A-, so the worst grade I can get in my last class and keep my 3.0 is a C+. I don’t think that it will warrant it, but you never know. This professor has been entirely frustrating in his administration of the class. It was an interesting experience, to be sure, but when you don’t know where you stand heading into the final. Oh so frustrating.
I have two weeks without classwork before the (hopefully) final semester kicks off. I’m working with my advisors to get one course straightened out (budget cuts forced a change), but should be good to go for graduation in the Fall. The next two weeks will be spent trying to get back into the routine of fitness that I managed to lose in the last year. My hope is that it sets me up well going into the fall semester. We shall see, I suppose.
I’m getting back into tracking my diet and exercise, so that should motivate me a little better. I use software from www.crosstrainer.ca – the online version now. I did use the desktop version for quite some time, but with constant reformats and lack of access till late at night sometimes, I wasn’t keeping as good a diary. But with the online version now, I should be better.
I’ve really got to hand it to Amazon’s Kindle team. They’re giving one book out of an author’s series away for free (undoubtedly to hook you into the author). It’s a great, cheap way to keep reading different titles without having to drop a lot of money. And getting a chapter or two sample delivered is pretty darn nice as well.
You know what they say… best laid plans and all that. =/
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