Mini Bike Trip #1

So, Jean and I just returned from our first self supported bike trip. Sure, we’ve been on MANY different bike trips, including Iowa’s RAGBRAI to our tour down Germany’s Romantische Straße, but those were “supported” (someone schlepped our gear for us), or part of an organized event. We’ve also been on plenty of trips where we drive a car full of bikes and gear to a destination, get some riding in, and then drive home. We’re now embarking on the type of travel where we roll out of our front door with our bikes—and whatever else we need for the trip—and then just go. Well, the one caveat is that we have to drop our dog off at the spa (kennel), so we’ll usually be leaving the car there and using that as our step off point.

Because this was going to be our first trip, I planned something close to home. A short ride from Ipswich to Newburyport, Massachusetts, with a side trip down the National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island for a total of just under 30 miles. I wanted us to get used to having gear on the bikes, and we were supposed to have two new bikes to break in as well.

Oh, and I planned all this as a surpise to Jean. First, I ordered the bikes—one for each of us. I’ll talk more about the bikes later. Then I booked a reservation at a decent bed & breakfast/inn in Newburyport, then I booked Luna’s stay at her spa, then I prayed that the weather would hold out.

All weather reports indicated that Saturday would be clear and that Sunday would have a cloudy start with rain later in the day. I could certainly work around that!

When Jean learned of the plans, she was excited—we’d be having a min-adventure!

The weekend finally arrived, but we only had one new bike (again, more on the bikes another time). That was fine though, Jean would take her new “adventure bike,” and I’d ride my cyclocross bike. She was set up with panniers (waterproof bags on either side of the back wheel), and I had a small bike trailer (and a waterproof gear bag).

We were packed, we dropped Luna off, and we hit the road under VERY overcast skies.

About two miles in, we had our first detour—literally. Route 1A (a more scenic route) was closed because a bridge was out, forcing us on to Route 1 (a busier, not-so-scenic route). It only put us a few miles out of our way and there was a enough room for us to ride that we didn’t feel like our lives were in constant danger. Once into Newburyport, we made our way over to Plum Island to ride the 12 mile (round trip) out and back ride to the end of the Wildlife Refuge. Lunch was on our agenda first and we stopped at Bob’s Lobster Shack for chowder and salmon burgers. That’s when the rain started. A good, steady, dismal rain. Fortunately, we have lots of gear and that meant rain pants, jackets and socks. Jean even had waterproof gloves. We made our way down the Plum Island road but we did cut a few miles off when we realized that the scenery wasn’t going to change and the rain wasn’t going to let up.

We made our way back into Newburyport—into downtown, and found our accommodations—the Essex Street Inn. We secured our bikes and exploded into our room, covering everything with wet gear in hopes of fostering some evaporation.

Then it was hot showers, warm clothes, and off for a nice dinner and a movie—how civilized.

The next morning, we woke to a thick misting drizzle that later changed to driving rain. Our gear was dry (except for my gloves), so we got dressed, got packed, and started pedaling. With no side trips this time, and the detour expected, we made the short ride from Newburyport to Ipswich in less than an hour (remember, carry/towing our gear), and exploded into the Element with wet gear, bikes, and a wet dog.

It was only a short trip this time, but it was a blast. We’re planning our next one and we’re thinking of better packing methods, better route planning methods, and better weather.

Joe's Ridge and Kessel Run

I finally got a chance to tweak some of the video that we took in Fruita (shot with a GoPro Helmet HERO). I really have no idea what I'm doing with QuickTime, but I was able to cut out a minute of useless video and I was able to add Dio in to the soundtrack, so Damn it, that's a good enough start for me. This video is about six minutes long, so enjoy (more to come).

Fruita, Colorado

Yep, my buddy Rob Bousquet and I had "guy's trip" to Colorado for some early season singlespeed abuse. (I've got lots of links in the text below, so be sure to use 'em!)

Day 1: April 1st got an EARLY start for us. Our flight was at 6:00am, which meant leaving Rob’s house by about 4:00am which meant getting up at a little after 3:00am. Who’s idea was this? Anyway, we made it to the airport by about 5:00am, checked in, and had an uneventful four-hour flight to Dallas. After an hour layover, we had another uneventful flight to Montrose, CO. By the time we had landed—only about noon local time, we had been up for 11 hours. Oy. We grabbed the rental (Dodge Durango), and made the 90 minute drive to Fruita, stopping for food along the way. After a quick check-in at the hotel (Comfort Inn), we made our way over to Over the Edge Sports to grab our bikes. At this point, I was starting to feel the day’s toll of traveling, but we assembled our bikes with vigor. Rob had some difficulties with his brakes, and I found that my rear tire had a huge gash in it, so it took way longer than it should have. We finally ended up on a trail by about 5:00pm Colorado time, or about 7:00pm our time (after being up for about 16 hours with only about 4hrs sleep). Yeah. Our goal was a short ride on Mary’s Loop and Horse Thief Bench (See the ride here). About 15 minutes into the ride I stopped to wait for Rob (something he would be doing for me on the climbs later in the trip). He finally rounded the turn with multiple bruises and abrasions on his legs and elbows. Yep, that how the trip started. Anyway, we rode just under 13 miles of some of the area’s best singletrack and made it back to the Comfort Inn for sleep, but not before hitting a local spot—the Hot Tomato Café for some killer pizza and great beer on tap. We chatted with a couple from San Francisco (Sam and Colleen), who were also in town for some riding.

Day 2: Our plan (mostly Rob’s plan) was to do an epic ride in the morning, grab some lunch, and then do another epic ride in the afternoon. We fulfilled that goal, although not exactly on epic proportions. Our first ride was in the legendary Book Cliffs area at 18 Road. We climbed up a short trail called Prime Cut, then crossed over to Joe’s Ridge—an awesome downhill ridgeline rollercoaster ride—to Kessel Run—a mellow downhill course that’s essentially a two mile slalom run. From there, we ended back at the starting point, went back up Prime Cut and then descended on Chutes & Ladders. A good time was had by all, and I got some great video (or so I thought).

We rolled back in to town for lunch, and then headed to an area called Rabbit Valley for a long, windy, sandy ride that turned out not quite as planned. I got a flat, we got lost, and all in all, we spent way too much time surfing through sand. Later, while talking to many locals, the overall feeling was that there was no surprise that we got lost. Hmmmm, thanks.

The Hot Tomato Café was having $2 drafts (yeah, more New Belgium 1554 please), and more of their “hot pie.” Our new friends, Sam and Colleen were there and we shared a LOUD table (right next to the band), for food and biking tales.

Sadly, that evening’s pizza, or what I like to call “meatzza” reared it’s ugly head about midnight, forcing me up and out of bed to find a truck stop stocked with Maalox and/or Tums. I thought I would perhaps vomit, something that’s occurred only two other times in my memory. My superior GI tract prevailed, with the help of antacids, and I was able to get at least “some” sleep.

Day 3: Our plan for this day was to find one longer, but perhaps more mellow ride. It’s still quite early in the season for us, and we had been doing plenty of climbing on our singlespeeds. Rob found a trail just over the border in Utah, that advertised about 650ft of climbing over about 20 miles (7 miles out, a 7 mile loop, and 7 miles back). It sounded perfect. We used our trail book, written by local trail builder, Troy Rarick, but he forgot the first rule of any trail guide—getting people to the trail head. With no directions in the book, and no signs anywhere along the road, we made full use of our 4x4 Durango, ultimately relying on the map, some compass readings, and a little luck.

The trail, known as the Overlook Trail, started off great. It was mostly smooth, flowing singletrack, with enough rocks and obstacles to keep it interesting. The scenery was impressive, and the miles rolled by. There were no signs along the trail, but we were able to stick to the plan, and finally at about 9 miles, we stopped for lunch on the Arch Loop. Fully refueled, we proceeded to finish the loop and get back on the same trail that we took in. Something changed though because as soon as we started off, we were confronted with deep sand and rocky transitions, forcing us to do lots of walking. And that great trail out? It was so fun because it was slightly downhill—a fact that was brutally revealed when we were working our asses off to get back to the car. In the end, it was a long, dusty, hard ride that wiped us out. The total on the GPS? About 20 miles and just under 3,200 feet of climbing. Oy! Did I mention that it’s EARLY season for us, and that we’re on singlespeeds?

Day 4: With fried legs from our previous three days of riding—57 miles with 8947 feet of climbing—we were looking for a mellow day. I had accidentally deleted my video footage of Joe’s Ridge (one of the area’s prime attractions), so we opted to re-do Prime Cut to Joe’s to Kessel. That would give us just over 5 miles of riding and a little more than 711ft of up and down. I got video, I got photos, and I was done. By calling it a day at that, we were able to take our time disassembling and packing our bikes, and supporting the local economy.

And speaking of the local economy, Over The Edge Sports (OTE) was the only local shop that I knew of, and they were the shop that allowed us to ship our bikes out AND store our cases while we were in town. I thought that was pretty cool but the overall “feeling” I got from the shop was “we’re the cool shop in town, we’re locals, and you owe us for riding our trails.” One guy even told us to try a certain trail because of one of the hard climbs, and that if we could do it on our singlespeeds, he’d buy us beers, but if we couldn’t we’d owe him a beer. Huh?

A stone’s throw away we found another bike shop, Single Tracks, and they couldn’t have been more helpful. Chris, the owner, spent lots of time talking about trails and local conditions, and he was super friendly. A perfect comparison between the two shops is this: when we got our boxes, OTE said we could put our bikes together outside on the sidewalk next to the shop. When we were taking our bikes apart, Single Tracks let us use a work stand, their hose, and any tools we needed in a side work area. I know where I’ll be going back next time.

I’m trying to get some more video from the trip, and I’ll be posting that soon, but you can check out all of the photos here.

Easter 5K Cross Country Race

What better way to celebrate Easter than to run!? Jean, myself, Jeff Hattem and two "newbies" (Mike & Jo Schnyder) headed up to the Salem Country Club to participate in the 5K cross country race on the golf course. This was Mike and Jo's first ever event like this--I hope it's the first of many! After the run, it was time to replenish depleted calories, and Jean had QUITE the spread with banana bread, pumpkin chocolate chip bread, sweat potato biscuits, German apple pancakes, sausages, tempeh bacon, fresh cut fruit, two different quiche's and mimosas... Hmmm... I didn't deplete enough calories!

Spring is Springing...

Jean and I (and Luna) hit the trails ar Bradley Palmer--FINALLY. It was good to get out on the bike while in FL, but that was on the road. There's nothing like dirt. Jean also had a chance to test out her new Cannondale Rush (too bad she forgot her cycling clothes--at least she remembered her helmet and shoes...). The trails were a little muddy in sections, but overall they were in great shape. Too bad I couldn't say the same thing about the legs! Ride on!

Got Weapons?

When we were checking in for the flight to London last month, one of the security guards asked if I had anything with me that "could be used as a weapon."

I had SO many wise-ass answers that I wanted to use...

I wanted to say that words can hurt so does that count?

I wanted to remind him that the pen is mightier than the sword, and I had a few pens with me.

And speaking of pens, I wanted to point out that a well placed bic or Papermate, into a carotid artery could probably be fatal. Or, that I could use two pens as handles tied on to the ends of a shoelace to strangle someone.

I wanted to simply say that, if launched from a catapult or trebuchet, I could be a weapon.

With the folks at the TSA not known for their sense of humor, I said none of these things.

Traffic Lights

I have about a 25 mile commute each way for work. The vast majority is on highways, and based on the time of day that I go in or go home, I rarely have a problem on US1. However, the 2.3 mile stretch from the highway to the hospital is MISERABLE, no matter what time of day I drive it. I have to contend with 13 traffic lights that seem to be perfectly timed so that you have to stop at each one. With so many lights, you can usually see the next one while you are stopped at one, and as soon as the one you are at turns green, looking down the road I see yellow, then red. It most frustrating at 3:00am when there are NO other cars on the road. I HATE Cambridge Street. I'd love to be able to ride in--and it's not the distance that prevents me from doing so. It's #1--the fact that there is NO decent route (i.e. safe) from my house to the hospital, and #2 based on my hours, I'd either be leaving the house at about 5:00am (to get in with enough time to shower and change), getting home that same day at about 9:00pm, or I'd be getting home sometime after 4:00am--not great times to be commuting. Ugh. I just needed to vent.

How big?

Now don’t get me wrong—I am heartbroken for anyone who is missing a dog, but how big is the missing pup? (as seen on one of my Orlando rides)

Orlando

Here I am in Orlando for a four days of family stuff and road riding.

Day one: My morning—and Jean’s morning—started EARLY. We were up at about 4:00 and on the road to the airport by about 5:00am (that’s a dedicated wife). My 6:50 flight left on time and it was PACKED full of kids. Packed. I was in the middle seat and the woman next to me even had a toddler sitting on her lap for the whole flight. Well—most of the flight. He was also running up and down the aisle along with the other kids for a Romper Room at 36,000 feet. The little lap dog next to me even had me covered in pieces of waffle and snot. I do have to say though, that the Jet Blue airline had a good amount of leg room and free DirectTV entertainment. Thanks Jet Blue. I landed in Orlando without incident and immediately picked up a large, black Starbucks coffee. I was feeling the lack of sleep. My mom picked me up and we stopped off Bike Works of Orlando to get my road bike (which had been sent down ahead of time via FedEx) and some supplies.

I wanted to get as much riding in as I could so I assembled my Sarthe, squeezed my self into some spandex, and, despite being dead tired, hit the road. So much has changed since my last ride in this area. Miles and miles of roads that used to be lined with orange trees are now lined with new housing developments and strip malls. It’s total sprawl with repeating sequences of Mobils, Starbucks, Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, Best Buy, Linen & Things, Marshalls, Ross, Circuit City, Home Depot, Subway, Walgreens, Blockbuster, Olive Gargen, etc, etc. It all looks the same. About 13 miles in, I got a flat, ironically, along a stretch of road that I was remembering getting a flat on years ago and being besieged by mosquitos as I was changing it. No bugs this time. My first ride was a little over 22 miles and it felt good to spin the legs out.

Day two. I mapped out a route and headed out for a longer ride, this time hopefully about 40 miles. I had a tiny map with very little detail and a large, but older map, with great detail. And, of course, as my luck always runs, my course would take me off the edge of the good map. So, yes, I did miss a turn. In the end, I still managed to pull in a little more than 40 miles. Forty flat miles. It was on this day that I realized how out of shape that I am. Damn.

Day three. No riding today—we’re having some wild weather: wind, rain, thunder, lightening, and a tornado warning. I spend the day bringing my mother into the 20th century by getting her off dial-up and on to DSL. Why is anyone still using dial up?

Day four. Unfortunately, the wild weather persists. We’ve got a wind advisory with sustained winds of 20-30mph and gusts over 40mph (see vide0). Yeah. So, I thought about going running instead, but I figured that I had spent money to ship my bike down so I should suck it up and head out. I did. It was CRAZY windy, with head winds that just about stopped me cold, nasty cross winds that tossed me around like an empty can, and merciful (but proportionally limited) high-speed tail winds. I had hoped for 50-60 miles for the day, but after 37 miles I rolled in and called it quits. With a morning flight on Sunday, I had to box my bike up and ship it out right after the ride.

My total mileage for the four days was about 100 miles. Not great, but better than I would have done at home on the trainer or out in the elements.

Lunar Eclipse

Did you catch the lunar eclipse the other night? I did! I strapped my good old Canon Powershot down to the railing on the back porch, pushed the digital zoom to the limit, and proceeded to play with different exposures and settings. Had it not been so damn cold, I would have put some more effort in... Oh well, I'll have another opportunitiy in a few years.

OZZY

Here is the pic that everyone has been looking for...

England: 13-20 February 2008

And so our trip began, much like all of our trips, with several days of pre-departure chaos. Jean's work was busy, my work was busy, and an ill-timed winter storm threatened our flights. However, the stars aligned, the snow changed to rain, and our ride to the airport arrived on time. We got to Logan at the recommended two-hours early for international flights.

The first bit of trouble came up when the ticket agent informed us that he could not find us on the itinerary because our tickets had been cancelled. That lead to a few minutes of anxiety but it had turned out that the travel agency had changed our flights but did not notify me. The good news is that we got a direct flight! The bad news is that we were WAY early. The worse news was that the flight was delayed. Jean and I suddenly had about 9 hours to kill at the airport. That's where I'm writing this right now, thanks to my portable keyboard and my Tungsten T/X. I love my digital gadgets!

Now, try to keep up, but I'm now writing on the flight home. Did you notice that subtle difference?

Anyway, after waiting several hours, we were finally wedged into our seats, the FAA required screaming babies were activated, and our flight across the pond commenced.

The first photo-worthy moment of the trip occurred while we were waiting to go through customs in London Heathrow Airport. While we were in line, Jean says to me, "Look, there's Ozzy."

I looked up, and holy shit, there he was—Ozzy.

We made it through the line in time for me to be one of the millions of annoying people he's had to endure in his decades-long career. Yep, I snapped a photo with the Oz-man. Hey, I paid full price for my Diary of Madman LP back in the day—he owed me.

To be honest, the only other stuff I remember from this trip are lots of stairs, lots of people, lots of museums, aching feet, bitter coffee, and an original copy of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia.

Jean had spent MANY, MANY hours planning out our itinerary, and that meant a tight schedule, miles of walking, and plenty of local beer sampling.

Our hotel, the Queenspark Hotel was noteworthy only for the diminutive size of both the elevator and our room. First, the elevator BARELY fit two people. Second, our room was what we'd expect on a cruise ship. The two of us could not stand or walk about the room at the same time—one would have to sit on the bed. But hey, we weren't in London to hang out in elevators or hotel rooms.

Anyway, as soon as we checked in (and to recap—this is after I worked an overnight shift, got 4hrs of sleep, after Jean and I waited at the airport for 10hrs, after a 6hr overnight flight where I got about 2hrs sleep), we hit the town to see the British Museum. Miles of amazing items, perhaps most notably, the Rosetta stone.

The next day, we started off by the River Thames, grabbed a couple of obligatory pics of Big Ben and Parliament, and then toured Westminster Abbey, the Winston Churchill Museum, walked all around downtown through Trafalgar Square and then hit the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. Both were amazing.

I guess it would get pretty redundant for me to just describe our days because they were pretty similar. Plenty of walking (with literally hundreds of stairs each day) and lots of amazing things to see—the Tate Modern, the Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Science, the Museum of Natural History, the Courtald Art Museum—get the point?

One of the surprise treats was the British Library. They have a room with books, documents, scrolls and other works dating back more than a thousand years. For example, a copy of Beowulf from 976, a copy of Galileo’s first book, an original copy of Newton's Principia, letters from Darwin on his Beagle voyage, an original copy of the Magna Carta, and the list could go on. That was awesome.

Also on our trip we caught a theatre show—Spam-A-Lot, We were packed into the seats like contortionists, and we were high enough up that supplemental oxygen would have been helpful. It was an entertaining show, but I won't be running off to see any other musicals anytime soon. Sorry, all you "Cats" fans.

On our last full day in the UK, we took a tour out of London to see Warwick Castle (Jean wouldn't let me buy a souvenir sword), Stratford-Upon-Avon (the birthplace of William Shakespeare), and Oxford (as in home to Oxford University). It was a welcome change from the bustle of the city, but our tour guide was CREEPY. Dressed all in black, with gloves and a hat to match, he just seemed evil, and he looked like he ate the souls of infants for breakfast.

With that, it was time to pack all our dirty clothes back up, and make our trek back to the airport.

Expect more reflections from the trip soon, and in the meantime, check out the pics!

The answer is "yes."

Did a boat-load of patients come in last night just as I was about to leave?
Did I get stuck behind the plows on the way home, forcing me to travel at about 10mph the whole way up Rt 1 from Boston?
Was the CVS computer system down, so when I finally got to the pharmacy at 3:30am, I was denied access to my prescription?

January 30th, 3:40pm

Over the past several months, the sport of cycling has come under intense scrutiny due to the seemingly rampant use of performance enhancing drugs by some of the sport’s top athletes. Many riders have been fined, sanctioned, disqualified, or otherwise penalized for proven or suspected transgressions. I would like to take this opportunity to report that I have never knowingly ingested or otherwise utilized any type of performance enhancing substances including erythropoieten, human growth hormone, synthetic testosterone, Enzyte, Comcast’s “high speed,” or any products resulting from dabbling in the black arts.

I have no current or previous relationship with Dr Eufemiano Fuentes or The Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. And I wholeheartedly support WADA’s chairperson, Dick Pound’s efforts to get his name in print as much as possible because it just sounds dirty.

Any questions can be directed to my public relations manager, and chief of paparazzi credentialing.

January 28th, 9:14pm

Saturday (1/26) was another EARLY morning. This time, up to Maine to help with my alma mater, the University of New England, with physician assistant applicant interviews. The PA program gets about 700 applicants, and of this, about 150 are asked to come in for interviews. From there, about 50 are offered seats, resulting in about 40 people choosing to attend (many people apply to multiple schools). I’m really impressed with the caliber of applicants—some of these people are truly shining stars, both academically and professionally. I don’t know how I slipped through the cracks, but they can’t take my degree away from me now! Anyway, I gave a tour of the campus to some friends, as one is hoping to attend PA school later on down the road of life. Anyway, by the time we had lunch and I made the drive home, I only had time to hit some weights for my workout that day.

Sunday (1/27) was a day off from work, yeah! Jean and I did about an hour and half on the indoor trainers, with our nemesis, Coach Troy. Then our friends Mike and Jo came down for some quality social time.

Monday’s (1/28) workout was an outdoor run (c-c-c-cold) with Luna of about 4.25 miles. So far, so good!

January 25th, 1:00pm

So, my last entry was January 15th, huh, well, I’ve been busy; sue me.

Last week work was busy and I was a little slacking in the work-out department. I was able to justify the low activity level somewhat by saying that I was “resting” to make sure I was fresh for my fitness test on the 19th. Let’s get into that a little bit… Saturday morning I was at CycleLoft (in Burlington, MA) for VO2 max testing (maximum volume of oxygen that your body is able to utilize during exercise), aerobic threshold (turning point of when your body’s metabolism becomes mostly anaerobic) and resting metabolic rate (a measurement of how many calories I use in a day). I had done this about 5 years ago too. I performed fairly well back then and it was helpful information to put together a training plan. I knew that I had fallen out of shape over the years, but I had no idea how much. Now I know, and it’s sad. But hey, like they say in G.I. Joe, “knowing is half the battle.” My VO2 max is down (from the high 50’s in 2002 to the mid 40’s now) and my weight is up (about 20lbs), and this data just verified what I already knew. Now, I’m motivated and it’s game on.

As soon as I got home, I went out for a good spin on my ‘cross bike, but I had to keep it short to get to work. I pulled the overnight shift on both Saturday and Sunday night.

Monday (1/21), after sleeping my overnight shift off, I was pulled off an hour on the trainer, then Tuesday morning (1/22) I was able to get another hour in on the rollers (I worked 10a-10p), followed by an hour run on Wednesday (1/23—I had to go in to the hospital for a 4hr meeting). Thursday morning (1/24) I did another hour on the rollers (before heading in to work the overnight), and here I sit on Friday (1/25), looking forward to some more saddle time. Indoors though, it’s still damn cold out there.

In no particular order, here are some other highlights from the past week or so:

• I had my first patient that came in as a result of a unicycle accident.
• I went to take my XC skis out, and found that they had both delaminated and looked like they were unpeeling like a pair of bananas. Hopefully REI will fix ‘em.
• Jean got a flat tire on her road bike—it’s on the Computrainer! (How???)
• Sadly, my friend’s bike shop is going out of business, so I went in and bought some stuff that I didn’t need.
• I booked an Emergency Medicine CME conference in Orlando, including non-refundable flight, only to have the conference cancelled two days later. Well, of course, I ‘m still heading down to see my mom and now I’ll call it a “training camp” too ‘cuz I’m bringing my bike.

January 15th, 9:45pm

So, we had a Nor'easter on Monday. Bummer. All of our snow had finally melted, some of the trails were rideable, and it seemed like we'd be getting a break. No such luck. I did a ride around the 'hood with Luna on my SS with Nokians. Here's a short clip...

Week Ending 1/13/08

So, the overall theme for this blog is supposed to be my quest to get in shape. With that in mind, here's a recap of what I was able to achieve in work-outs for the past week. I was just starting to feel a little more like myself, after my battle with the flu, but my schedule was tough, with four days at the hospital (with two overnight shifts) and one day at my part time job. The weather was also uncooperative with heavy rains on Friday morning (my morning off). In the end, I was able to get three runs done (on the road=4.5, 3.5 an 3.0 miles), a short stint on the rollers, and a good Sunday ride on the road. I've got three cemeteries right near my house, and they've each got some great hills--I'm able to get a good 10-12 mile ride with hill sprints done, all within a couple of miles radius of my house. Very convenient! Overall, it was a decent week. I'm scheduled to go for my VO2 max an lactate threshold testing this coming Saturday. Once that's done, I'll start my real fitness plan! Yee-haw!

Canine Houdini

So, our little Luna hates her crate. She's hated it since day one, and she's found many, many ways of escaping. I can't count all of the times we're locked her away in her crate (in the car, in our house, in other people's houses), only to find her out and about upon our return. I thought I had finally contained her in her most recent crate. First she had broken the pins that allowed the cage door to open/close/lock, so I replaced them with rods from Home Depot. In case she was able to break those, I also drilled holes in four corners of the front and locked the cage door with four heavy-duty locking caribiners. This held her for a while, but she has been working on chewing her way out! We're starting over with a new crate...

January 10th, 8:44pm

So, today was finally a mellow work day. I put in a shift at my per diem job, in a health services office. It's a stark difference from my job in the emergency department. My patients here are remarkably healthy, with a minimum of (if any) complaints. I feel like shaking them and saying, "what do you mean you don't have all over body aches and fevers and chills and nausea and vomiting and headaches and chest pain and shortness of breath and a horrible peeling rash all for the past 3 years after twisting your ankle?"

The work environment is so different too... it's, um, what's the word... quiet! At the hospital, I'm bombarded by wailing drunk patients, screaming children, boisterous nurses, beeping monitors, buzzing alarms, phones ringing, blaring sirens... oy. Of course, for some reason, I like the crazy, hectic, chaotic environment. Yeah, but a slow day in a quiet clinic isn’t bad once in a while.
It’s a busy week, with four 12hr shifts at the hospital, and a day at the clinic today. I’m looking forward to tomorrow morning off—AND the weekend. Can anyone say “I’m going riding”?