Lightning Shows

Day time and an asteroid seem company suited more for a dark room. Not the open of the morning in full blaze of the late spring on a sunny day. No dark and dank are more in mind. The evening dew on one's feet. Chill and sweat shirts. Looking out from where you are, to where you are not in wonder. A gathering of folks looking into the heavens at the light show in slow motion moving at millions of miles an hour. Wow, what a little distance will do to one's perspective.
This little story is not about asteroids. Thought the damage feels about as massive. When your head has a lightning show inside the skull it is a thing of wonder. Just a wonder to survive till the next moment. Drugs help a lot. Trigeminal neuralgia is a worn out spark plug wire. The one you touch in the car engine and get a wild shock. For those that have never worked on cars, and old cars for sure. This is a very unpleasant feeling. I mean it just stays with you for the longest time. The trigeminal nerve in my head does this everyday. Some days a little less. Some days are a lot more difficult. This morning was one of the difficult mornings. Though it could have been the flash of electric current running through the left side of my face without relief. I have had that one a few times. Down right scary those one's are. If I had lightning strikes every day. Well best to count my blessings. Today was the start up of a minor ache to a over all disability that makes one want to hurl. Hurl from the relentless pain. Just the smallest little nerve. Sending a hello off to the side of my face. Building and getting more building permits to build some more. It's housing development gone wild. Most of the time the drug works well to keep the pain down to a manageable level. If I avoid a lot of movement on the left side of my face. I keep the action of the nerve down. No reason to work if nothing is moving. You know like walking, chewing, keeping wind from hitting my face. Little things like living a real life some days. It's a hard time. One of my few treats is riding my bicycle. Oddly once I warm up the pain will not effect my ride 80% of the time. Then it will even brake through on a ride and bang. I want to bend my handle bars into a new shape. The drug helps a lot. Tegritol a nasty little drug designed for seizure's. It was first developed for epileptics. Now it is used as a nerve blocker of sorts. There are lots more drugs. I have tried a bunch. Most don't work so well. The doctors want to have you buy the most expensive drug. Kick backs I'm sure. The tegritol is not to bad. It only cost an arm. I have tried some that took it all. They did not work at all. No returns though. So I have this lightning show ever day. Some days are good. Some days are great. Every day is a show.
The next doctor show is a chiropractic that specializes in cranial manipulation. Deep breath big guy. I have all ready tried everything else. If they can't cut it. Moderner medicine hasn't a clue. So the show goes on. A million mile an hour. It's all how you look at it and where you look at it from.

The Speed of Red

Just when I thought I was getting an idea about this blog I see a change. News paper reporter is OK. Then you know what I want you to know. Not so bad. Not so good to. Is the content of the blog the news of the day or the days? Or is the blog more than the personal Sunday news paper. That few will read. Is the content also the emotion of the writer, and in my case, his stories? Maybe it's just time to put down the lines and let them speak for themselves. Write the truth of the time given.
When I go down to the local bike shop. It's for stuff I can get cheaper on-line for sure. Add the postage and it is close to the same. For some stuff. Feed your neighbors first. The folks down at the local shop will do nice favors for free often or cheap. Take a bottom bracket out. Remove a lock ring to a rear gear cluster so the gears can be changed or cleaned. My tires are one of the items I often buy from the locals. Tires that cost as much as a car tire. More often the bike tires cost more. So it was time to install some new high end tires on the #1 bike. Michelin "Race Pro 2" red and black. The red ones go faster. $54.95 each. Dam! Well, it had to be done. My tires have a lot of miles on them. There beat. Still some miles on them but, cuts and thin where they should not be. Flats out on the road happen. Flats out on the road suck. So it's time for new tires. I'll save these old tires for the #2 bike. Well maybe not. The red ones do go faster!

Highway of Death

No, it's not that serious. Just a note of the huge amount of wildlife in and on the side of the road. More than I can ever remember seeing in the past. Spring has the wildlife, well, being wild. That does not get along with the domestic world of speed and controlled space. Food for someone in the passing. The vultures are everywhere as I have noted in the past. Vultures waste nothing, and their energy, is never wasted.
My new riding position on the bike is starting to work. Muscles I never knew I had are starting to pop up out of my legs. Good thing. I need ever muscle I have to make the bike get up hills. Working in the smaller gears is working out better than I had hoped. It is exciting to see this new program start to work. My thighs are doing more of the work now than my calf's. I hope to find a good balance. I shaved my legs for the season to. That helps a lot. Ya, right.
Also I took my winter bike and re-built it with Campy parts. Tried the new crank set with the bottom bracket bolted together in the middle. It is just sweet to install and has NO flex at all. Works for me. I'll buy another higher end one for the #1 bike when I can afford it. Most likely a carbon one. Boy do they cost. All in all the winter bike went out and rode almost like my #1 bike. Shifted great like ALL Campy bikes do. I also put new Mavic wheels on the bike. That always helps a lot. Now I can change wheels from one bike to the other no problems. Everything one bike has will work on the other. It makes for a good system. Happy Me.
Watched 2 movies in the past 3 days. "the Pursuit of Happyness". Will Smith and Jaden Christopher Syre Smith. Others for sure. Good movie, though a bit serious for my current taste. I will not be watching this one soon again, but I liked it alot. It was a great movie. The other movie was "Wild Hogs". Just stupid fun at the theater. Ya, we paid for the night out. Pop corn, soda, something chocolate. Good seats. There were 6 people in the theater watching this movie with us. Everyone else had sense enough to go to Pirates 3 ? or another movie. It was opening night for another Pirate movie. I'll wait for the DVD. We had great fun at the "Wild Hogs" movie. All 6 of us in the room were laughing out loud, and very loud. Stupid but fun. Not very much swearing. The movie was just good laughs for an hour and a half. I'm good for that. No not a great movie like "the Pursuit of Happyness". Just,,, fun. I'll watch the Hogs movie again in the near future for the laughs.
My Mom is getting along slowly from her fall last week. Took her to the doctors office. Boy that was fun. It was just difficult. So no broken bones. We knew that! Take this pain pill. That's about it. Take a pain pill, go home. So Mom is at home healing slowly as an 82 years old does. Mary Anne and I got the food set up at her place. Mary Anne has been so kind to call on the phone. She knows I do not like talking to my Mom to much. Also Mary Anne took Mom a Wendy's treat of cheese burger and a Frosy. My Mom love that stuff and gets very little of it. Right now it's just to hard for her to get around in her apartment. Any small favor helps. One day at a time.
So I go out on another ride today. There is a nice race on a course I first promoted a race on in 1980s somethings. There still using the course. It's hard, we ran the District Road Race Championship on it to. That tells you something. I'll pass on the race though. Not in my training plans. I need several more weeks of this training to feel comfortable enough to race on these new legs. I still want to go to the track though. I may only race track anyway. Never liked road racing. Though with these new legs might be worth the effort. So I will go out on a 60 miler today. Do my drill. Keep the faith. Say the prayers to the long road. Ride the circuit once again.

Signs

It would be great if I knew what was happening around me before I found out. I'll keep working on it.
It was a Tuesday ride. Small gears, keep working on my new riding position. Take the time to retrain the body to use this more forward and taller style. Change takes time. The ride was great. Perfect weather. Everything was working out so well. I did not care if anyone passed me. I was happy to just work on my own program. Now I want to say I have a real problem with other riders passing me. It's the racer in me. Oh, and put someone off in front of me and I would go after him. Chase them down and leave them in my tire tracks. Today was not that day.
I had a beautiful Turkey Vulture over my head right from the door. I thought it was looking at the neighbor dog in there lawn. It was a small Boston Bull. Black and white looking for the party. Well, the Vulture was looking at him. I thought the dog was the entertainment. As I moved out for the road it was odd that the Vulture seemed to be following me. Lots of the Vultures in this area this time of year. I kept going down the road. The shadow of these great birds kept over head on my way down the road. Hummmm. Mile after mile it was Vultures. I had never noticed this many of the giant birds before. Has though I had interested them in my red and black riding outfit. No matter. I was having a wonderful ride. So the Vultures were out and I was out with them. It is also the time of year the Red Winged Black birds start dive bombing bike riders from their utility post perches. Then following as though to say stay out of my breeding area. These birds are very aggressive. So Vultures and Red Winged Black Birds. The Vultures are just so much bigger.
This kept going on for the first 45 minutes. I got down to the local game reserve and it got down right odd. Dozens of the Vultures, low right over where I was riding. I decided I better make friends. These great birds were no more than 15 feet over my head. Flying right along with me. I looked up at them. They looked down at me. I started talking to the Vulture and I waved a wave of friendship. The Vultures looked down at me and at that moment moved off. Just like that. Poof. They went off to find dinner. I went off to finish a great ride. 45 miles of smart riding. Train smart not hard as the line goes.
I got home. All was wonderful. Everything was fine. Till the news came in a little later. Greg, an acquaintance that is a serious rider like my self was on a group training ride this day. An X close friend of the neighbor lady. Greg had got himself in a 5 bike crash training. Road rash from head to leg. It was a bad crash. Most of the guys went to the emergency room to get checked out. Not Greg of course. Greg is a hockey player to. Tough and I mean tough. Black belt to. He should have gone to the emergency room to get cleaned up and shown how to change the dressing he will need for a while. Not to mention the pain of these road rashes. More like 2 degree burns really. What a disaster. I have been there a few times to.
So I got to thinking of the new friends I had made today. The Turkey Vultures. The eaters of road kill. Hummm. I really need to pay close attention.

The changes we make

Changes are good, right.
I have altered my diet a lot. No cholesterol in my food, or lowered it by 90%. I feel the difference already. It's an odd feeling. A little dingy. Not as sharp as I was. Though still doing fine. No soft drinks, apple juice only, it is good for you. More than anything is the feeling out on the road. I need to use a lot more deliberate thought about what I am doing. Stay on the road, not in the ditch. So riding has been effected. I am also working on a new position on the saddle to. More forward. This means training my muscles all over again. I need to be patient.
Yesterday was "one of those days". My ride was in the rain for 35 miles. Not so long. It was difficult with the driving wind. Not many cars out. That was nice. Just a ride that was hard from the first crank of the peddles. It was cold to. Back to full winter outfit. My shoes are soaked. Still drying.
Just got the call from my Mom. She fell last Wednesday. She is 82. She did not want to bother anyone. Mary Anne felt she should call on Saturday. We had no idea. Then my Mom came clean because she was in so much pain. We did what we could. She would not go to the emergence room. I take her to the doctors clinic at 11 AM today. Better get ready. My Mom is a real hard headed woman. Difficult. Ah courage be with me now.

The big 3

There are 3 medical issues I face everyday. Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. I have the high blood pressure well under control with a simple old line drug. It works very well and has few side effects. One down. The type 2 diabetes was much harder to deal with. 19 months of hard workouts, 110 pounds of fat gone. Eating a very low carb diet. My diabetes was well under control. Then this week my new doctor put the hammer down on me to get the cholesterol under control. My over all # is 290. Not so good. Then I looked a little further. My HDL, the good cholesterol is 88. These is VERY high and this is very good. Almost unheard of for a male. Then my LDL is 183. This is very high to. The doctor just told me to get my over all cholesterol down to 70! Ya, that's going to happen. So I did a little looking into cholesterol averaging. Basically you divide the LDL by the HDL and it comes out to a ratio. Anything under 4.0 is good. Mine with all the bad numbers comes out to 3.3, this is very good. Every body is different. Still I am making a drastic change in my diet. No butter, no half and half in my coffee, less coffee. Less red meat and changing over to buffalo. Buffalo has very low fat. Also eating more chicken, no skin. Oats are big to. Garlic pills. Non fat half and half has no cholesterol. I have started to read every package. Oh, no cheese. Though Mary Anne found a yogurt cheese, no cholesterol and it taste great. Also I went back to eating albacore tuna. I had stopped eating any sea food for Mary Anne is deadly allergic to all sea foods. Mouth wash after eating tuna. So more changes. All good. I'll bring my LDL down by 50 to 80 points. This bringing my ratio down to 1.3 or so. Very low. But no way am I taking drugs for what is not that bad. I am so lucky to have a HDL of 88. It makes this all a lot easier.
It pays to some good research.

Time and the Reaper

Time has a way with us. We think time is ours to use. I think time is a winner, all the time. Resent religious news will affirm that. The Reaper did his work.
I had a long posting waiting to be finished. Not enough time to finish it. Not enough time to make the posting just right. Poof, it was gone in a miss key. Start all over now with a new view on time. It's been busy. Just busy. Not enough ride time. Not enough cleaning time, Not enough time to do much. Though time was used somehow.
Last Thursday it was my first ride on Alpenrose Velodrome since 1992. It was butterfly's all over again. Meeting a new friend once again. Learning to ride the walls and not fall off. 43 degrees is the banking on the walls at Alpenrose. It looks like it just will not hold your bike on them. BUT, it does. I did the walls of Alpenrose again. We are not friends all over again. Though Alpenrose was kind and willing to get to know me again. Thanks for that.

May Days coming in

May Days. Hummmm. I was thinking of the calendar. Then I was thinking of a boat. Then I was thinking of both. These May Days are blowing in with the Northern wind. Common this time of year in the Northwest. It is the first real hint of things to come. Afternoon winds, blue sky, 75 deg. These are the perfect days. The days I ride and live through 6 months of rain and dark for. I have lived all over this country. There are some wonderful places. Great sights, history, water ways, food, people. The NW has fine late spring weather, great summer weather, good falls. Add this to some great biking roads and you are in my kind of heaven. Add to all this, very low humidity all the time. I am lucky everyday to ride my bike here. One more thing, not that many bugs. Not that many bugs, all the time, all year.
Yesterday was one of these days. It took all day to get to the ride. It was a fight in every direction. Always something blocking my path to the road. I had a 100 mile in the car this day. Just to get a new pair of bike wheels. Everything was working to keep me from the day on the bike and road. I needed the new wheels after cleaning my now old wheels and finding some huge stress cracks. By late I was screaming MAY DAY MAY DAY. I just could hear the sounds coming from my soul. It was a kick the dog kind of day. Or kick yourself for no reason. Just to feel some pain. I got out on the road at 5:07 PM. I was going to ride myself into the ground. I just had to get rid of the day. Move on to some other way of a better day. It was the only way I understood to break through the stress. Ride hard, ride fast, find hills.
Everything for a reason. No mystery. Everything is connected all the time. Prices are paid for days like yesterday. I paid some of the dues this morning. Redefining my simple place in the world. Small, simple, unafraid. What you see is what you get. What I see is what I see. I try not to look past the actions if the moments. Mary Anne and I will share steak tonight before she teaches. On a fresh ironed table cloth from Italy. Flowers, and a setting. Tomorrow is another day. Today is a new day. Dinner is the only place I want to be in the world. Mary Anne is the only person I want share everything with. God I love Mary Anne.

Space or just Digital fun

A friend sent me the photos I have in this posting. There from the Hubble Telescope. There just so cool. Fancy, artistic, beautiful. Made here or created out there?? Still things to wonder at. There is never enough wonder. Dream more, and think less.

Back at it

Recovery is easy. Just that, easy. Go easy and build back up slowly. Pushing to hard is how you get to start again. A nice 33 mile course. 2 hills some rollers. 39X16 the whole way except the hills. 39X25 on the hills but I could have pushed much harder. Build back up. Go easy for a while. Start the cycle to build up again from an easy place to harder efforts later. It was hard to go slow. Still at 90 to 95 rpm. Just going a lot slower on the speed. It was hard to not push. I like to push myself all the time. I push hard to much. Sigh.

I think the track got a race off on Friday. It had rained off and on early then cleared mid day. It was fast twitch Friday. Sprint night. The track looks so good after Sundays clean up. The whole track got a new coat of paint. Stripes and all. It looks great. obra.com get you to the Oregon racing sight and as some photos of the work and the new paint. Wow. Looking forward to sometime on the walls.

I get out again on Monday rain or shine.

O T S

My legs have been sore for days. Nothing seemed to make it go away. Massage, hot baths, elevated legs to drain the bad blood and lactic acid. The legs were unhappy. This of course made me unhappy. Sigh, Over Training Syndrome. I have been here before. Over training for an older rider is easy to do. The meter for good training is slow. Just a little increase here and there. More days off than your mind tells you is good. Easier workouts than you think you want to do. All in all, over training is the worst. Once you are in it, it takes much longer to get out of it, than to get into it in the first place. I have hit the over training wall for the first time in 19 months. I found myself sleeping all morning. I'm still a bit tired. Food was just screaming at me yesterday. All the wrong food to. Peanut butter, bread and jelly. Any carb in the house. I wanted to eat it, and I did. I'm a diabetic!! I just have to not eat carbs very often. Proteins are the best. Potatoes and a few green. Not to many greens. I'm all upside down. Time to slow down. Take a few days off the bike. I hate missing my rides. I'm also going to have to reduce my mileage. Ease off on the stress load. I have worked so hard to get where I am today. I guess I have work a little better, not harder. It's going to take time to get out of this over training syndrome. Track racing starts this tonight! Dam. I'm just going to have to listen to the body. Let it recover. Feed it good food. Give it more rest than I think it needs. Reduce the mileage. Build back to a better place of fitness. Sigh. I hope I caught it early. I think not. 2 to 3 weeks of recovery are in order. I hope 2 weeks. No ride today.

51 and getting there

It was the day to work the flats. Easy, but not. The ride was River Road to the Ankeny game reserve then Jefferson to Marion, to Turner and then home to Salem from the south. I almost always ride to the south and come home heading north. So I was doing flats in a moderate 39X15 gear. Easy spin. Just keeping the pace. 90 to 95 RPM. Then after about an hour and a half of this I mixed in 53X15 at a lower RPM but the same heart rate. Builds muscle. 20 mins on one then 20 mins on the other gear. Still at the same heart rate. A low heart rate 110 to 120 max. This is a good rate for me to build endurance and burn fat. Fat I have to burn. Still at 220 to 215 for the last 4 months. It's time to drop the next 10 pounds. It's going to take more work and less carbohydrates. As a type 2 diabetic, protein is the best food. Keep the sugars down to a minimum. So the ride was a hard effort, though consistent. There were hills towards the end. Kind of broke up the 40 miles of flats. My saddle was getting a little tired of me.

These are the best days. The best temperature. Bugs down to a minimum. You know even in these days I still get a bit of free protein. I had a great ride. I'm in great shape. I fight back the age just a little bit. I keep the reaper to my rear. I ride fast, to keep the reaper to my rear.

Another 45

It was another of many ride days. Each ride a joy. Like a friend that is always there for you. Kind, though cold sometimes. Honest to a fault. You know just where you stand with the road. It never lies. Gravity and the road. Wind, cold, ice, snow, rain, blue sky, warm and hot. It's all just the best seasoning to the day. Each day I can get out. Time, work and reflection. Well, more to.

Yesterday was a great day. Just a bit of a chill, 48 deg to start. Arm warmers with Lycra shorts, jersey and an undershirt. 45 miles of a mixed ride. Flats to start with a few rollers. Then hills to finish. About a half and half ride. I need more hills. As I am slow on them, I just need to do more. I am hungry for the mountains near by. 2 hour climbs. Long efforts. I need an epic ride. 5 or 6 hours of hills and mountain descents. Today was not that day though. A great ride, a new position on the bike. A little higher on the seat post. Just a bit forward on the saddle. Looks like I may need a new longer stem on the bars. The speed was up. The climbing much improved. Faster up the hills in a bigger gear. It was a good ride. Though I am still nursing a bit of a sore back from riding with the boys from Little Rock. They were so kind to this old man. Made me feel a little younger than I am. Today I go out again. Another long prayer.