Monday, December 31, 2018

2018 Wrap Up

2018 was a pretty crazy year as I look back on it.  Just like 2017 was, capped with another 6 week trip to Australia in the fall for work.  Way less stressful though.

Work was pretty insane with a trip to Boston, Princeton NJ and 2 trips to Dallas plus the Australia trip.  All told I think I had near 80 hours of work flying alone covering what was 37 or 38 business days on work travel.  No wonder I have have only used half my vacation for 2018 so far so I've gotta burn 3 more weeks in January thru March.  Major project at work started in February and looks like will push on into May/June of 2019.  2 Manager changes, and a position change coming in early 2019, to a new role.   Exciting stuff hope to be in UK in 2019.

Biking.....Well it's been a rainy year and add in the travel and I lost close to 2 months due to Australia and work travel.  Only biking 1x in Australia was a let down but it was the rainy spring while i was there.  And I apparently brought the rains from Northern VA.  :)  Here on the home front it was a WET year I think in my area we are near 70 inches of rain with some spots near/over 80 inches.  Normal is 40.  And right now the pattern looks wet as hell over the 1st 2 weeks of 2019.  So my cycling with 165 activities.  My commute total was low till I considered in 1st 3 months of 2018 I only drove to work 2 or 3 times and till training in June I had more rides than drives to work.  Then I add in 30 days of walking commutes and it wasn't a terrible year!  :)  With all the rain though MTB riding has suffered and it's going to take a while for me to get it back together.  Get back to 3K of cycling at least in 2019.

Running.   ON running shoes were the best find.  Buying them in the summer was huge.  Especially while down under I ran near 100mi since the end of September.  I think I had maybe 60-70 miles total in 2017 mostly in the spring while in Australia the 1st time.  At 200 miles this year it's my biggest run year since 2013 with Tough Mudder training/etc.  Running with the monday TAA group is a huge boost to keep the "streaks" going.  Continue running with another 200 mile year or more.

Other stuff?  Concerts, saw a few with top notes on Coheed and Cambria, In this Moment and Halestorm.  Tenacious D also.  But was slightly underwhelmed due to huge venue and bad position.  Muse is on deck for 2019 with maybe Iron Maiden this summer. 

Personal Travel?  Not much hoping to put a BIG trip on the map for Fall 2019 back on the other side of the world but not Australia this time.  New York to see my buddy Eric is also a spring priority!

Otherwise hoping that my stupid tennis elbow from the last snow of 2018 gets better a bit more.  Hauling luggage around airports and Sydney etc put it back to being crap after finally feeling mostly better in July/Aug finally.  Joys of old age to come?  Maybe race some MTB and CX again next year?  Lots of other stuff to look forward to.  Get out.  See more folks and have more fun.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Australia - 2 - The Entry

I'm back in Australia, again left town at the end of last week and well I'll be here till late October.   

I'm bummed to be missing fall though it seems like it's staying rainy so far so the weather isn't awesome.

In Sydney it's early spring with again lots of rain in forecast and generally cool at 50 to 70'ish degrees most days. 

Got in at 715AM local time in Sydney and was able to drop my gear at the Hotel at 830.  I traveled back into the CBD and wandered a lot of my old haunts from my previous trip going down to Chinatown and then out thru a lot of Darling Harbor.   Did my regular visit to the Chinese Gardens, it was very different in Spring versus when I visited it in the fall on my first day in 2017.   Finally had brunch at Taste around 11AM.  Soo good, ended up talking to the bar staff lady about beer places and got a few recommendations and had 2 beers.    Then ended up making a failed decision check and ended up getting another beer at the Pumphouse.  OOOPS.  Oh well.   Wandered my way back thru town and stuff was opening up a bit more finally getting to my hotel to checking at 2:15PM. 

After unpacking I crapped out intending to only NAP but stayed in bed till about 3AM when I woke up near 10 hours later.  I read and did a bit more napping till I rolled out at 730 to the office.  Had an awesome breakfast at Bunker in North Sydney and then boom work.  Got Destination Roll on for lunch, hell yah.  Dinner I was Rag and Famish for a Guiness Beef Pie, Chips and a Akasha Freshwater IPA.  Slept out till 4 or 5 then next morning.  Fell back asleep at 630 till 830.  OOPS.

After waking back up late I rushed in and had a busy morning at office getting access and such sorted finally.  Got lunch with a coworker and it was all good.  Then  it was time for my first visit to one of my favorite bars:  The SG (Spooning Goats) - The star wars bar.

The SG was having it's monthly event of William Shakespeares Star Wars.  This time it was Act 1 of The Jedi doth Return.  It was hillarious, eventually I'm going to upload and link a short clip to the youtube's here.  Drank wayyyyyyy to much beer.  2 IPA's and 1 stout. 

Hit up my favorite burger bar in the CBD after Grill'd for a most excellent Wagyu Truffle burger.  Hell yah!

Also did my first run, across the Sydney Harbor Bridge was bummed I didn't bring phone so I missed a couple awesome photo's of the moonrise.  It was HUGE! 

Wednesday - No idea may run if the rain stays away again. 

Thursday, June 07, 2018

Week 22 - A bit of a "plateau", called b33r.

Week 22 - A bit of a "plateau" week.  Lots of bad behavior end of last week.

Too much b33r.  Though it wasn't like I got S-Faced in a major way it's just been a beer or two a night on weeknights and 2 or 3 a day on the weekend.  Probably 10-11 beer week last week where I really want to be a 7-8.  Then add in a TAD bit of eating not awesome and not being as active as normal in riding and no running last week.  So I stayed off the scale till today after some more recent penance on Monday and Yesterday.  204.8.  Not bad.  Now though I am going to re-focus and start trying to move to the next goal of 200. 

200 is doable.  If I can float 197-203 I will be happy as a...Clown? 

Anyways a busy few weeks ahead.

Trailwork at WF this saturday.
Training Class All Next Week
Possible Travel 15-17th.
Product Work 18-22st.
Family Reunion the 23rd
Friends Housewarming the night of the 23rd
Dallas the 25th-26th. 

Then things calm down a little bit. 

Can the CAPS do it tonight.  I think so!  GO CAPS!  Regardless we better win this series!

Awesome weather this week was the payoff for all the rain, lows in the 50's and 60's and barely hitting the 80's so far this week!  It's awesome!

Saw Kit for Trimming...friends trees is almost RTG.
Saw  - Stihl 261cm
Boots - Redwing Loggers 9" Steel Toe
Chaps - Husqvarna - Technical Apron (Meets 1897 which now satisifies non fireline FS 6170-4G (2016 Rev).
Gloves - Stihl Promark Leather
Helmet - Stihl Promark w/faceshield and hearing protection.
Wedges - 3
Trauma Kit - Yep w/Israeli Bandage.
Pack - Dakine Builder 40L
Bottles - Yep 16 or 32oz for Fuel Mix, 8 Oz for Bar Oil. 
Axe/hammer - TBD, may have dad bring up my family hatchet.

32 Hours of Activity in Strava in May.  So far 119 Activites and 1340'ish miles for the year. 


Friday, May 25, 2018

Week 21 - Shred to Shed

Wow, was really good to actually look at this today,   15 Weeks ago I noted I'd hit 214.4 officially.  Today's weigh in was 204.7.  I'm stoked, I hit my initial goal of 205 by end of May with a week to spare.  I'm now looking down the line and that by the end of June I want to be 200 SOLIDLY.   I fluctuate a bit and can very by 2 even 3 lbs at times.  This means I want to occasionally see 198 or so. 

I was trending down into April but had a BAD weekend and other stuff and had gotten on a real plateau at 210.  In fact 1 point i spiked up to 218.8 briefly. 

But I really cracked down, cut back on VitB(eer) and started really enforcing portion control and trying to eat a tad earlier on evenings.  And it's working.  211.6 down to 204.7 in last 4 weeks. 




The other side of it is I've been running and riding my butt off.   I looked back at 2017 for up thru May and while a bunch of my walking in Australia wasn't logged it was a pathetic spring in 2017 and early this year was not....  75 Hours logged by end of May 2017 (though probably 50-60 hours of walking in Australia wasn't logged).  As of today?  120 Hours.  And I think by end of month it will be more like 135'ish.


So regardless I'm stoked on my progress.

Riding area wise I'm a bit down on the stoke, but I have checked out Schaeffer this year with the new trail sections/redo work which is super nice!  And Cabin John's new stuff.  But no shed.  No travel.  No plans for an MTB trip.  Thought about Stoke-ville this weekend but between various issues and inbound shitty weather it's a no go.   Maybe PA or Richmond soon. 

Long term?  I'm thinking Japan.  Last year Hawaii was beast for J-Dog's and KM's wedding.  So I'm long term planning against Japan in 2019 currently. 

And I think my right elbow issue is slowly working out finally since the last heavy/wet snow in March I think.  Oy tennis elbow SUCKS. 

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

Week6 - Tuesday - EotWAWKI

So it's time to pay the piper for the last several months. 

My activity level has been low since October, though Strava does not cover things like Trail Work and Volunteer hours at MoCo where I put in near 30 hours in 4 days of running around. 


2018 has been hot and cold...More Cold. 

So with the lack of regular commuting to work on bike, general winter bad behavior (Stuper Bowl, Hibernation Eating, etc), it has led to something...bad. 

The last few years I've been weighting in at work on a decent scale there.  And in the fall prior to holidays I was hovering around 210'ish.  Over the holidays I opted to get a Garmin Vivosport for tracking/steps/activity/etc.  So last week I weighted in for the 1st time at work and saw a moderately horrible number.  214. 

So I knew it was time to get serious.  So I've now acquired a Garmin Index Scale.  It tells me just how @@##$ fat I really am.  MORE winter party and superbowl party were I suspect big negatives.

214.4 LBS this morning.  Sigh.  It's going to be a long grumpy spring.  Goal for by end of May?  205.   10 LBS in 4 months?  Should be doable. 

Plan this week and in General. 
Run - Tuesday
Ride - Wednesday
Ride 2x - Thursday
Run or Ride - Friday
Ride - Saturday
Run - Sunday


Techno - Part 2 -
Several weeks ago I borrowed a ShockWiz from Bikenetic and have been tuning against it a bit. 
My rear airpressure at 225 was way low.  I"m now at 245'ish and it still thinks I"m low.  But if I'm ridng at 230 then 255 might not be terrible.  So up it goes. 

Session 3 - Last Week Feb 1 2018
245 - More Air - 15-20%!, argh it didn't save.