Bombing the Hills

Now that we're getting passed the beginners level and into the intermediate level of mountain biking we're spending most of our biking up hill. The first time we were on the trials we rode the breaks hard not knowing what was coming. Now we're almost full speed bombing down the mountain. I'll try and throw a jump in here and there but I still have visions of face planting when I was a kid so I chicken out most of the time. Jumping can get hairy cuz the trails are only 4 feet across and any mistake means a big fall down the side of the hill. The aggressive factor goes way down after having kids but it's still a blast. Except for the 30 minute climb at the end of the ride to get back to the top. Even in the lowest gear this climb is brutal. Our goal was to climb this hill without stopping or having our feet touch the ground by the end of the year. We both did last weekend so that was our big accomplishment.

Early Bird

The last few weeks I've been working many hours and working late which cuts into Family time. So I'm going to try and change my schedule and start working at 4am - 3pm-ish. We'll see how it goes. Getting up is pretty hard these last couple days. Getting home and seeing Hayley for an hour before she goes to bed sucks. But it's almost as bad being home and super tired also so it's a fine balance between sleep and Hayley time. I've also slacked a bit on working out the last week but I did fit in a 9 mile run on Saturday. So far that's been my longest run in one shot. I'm going to attempt a helf marathon this spring and again in the fall to see if I improve on my time. Annnd I'm way off topic so this getting into work early is already showing it's effects.

Happy B-Day Mom, Ginger, Mike ...

So yesterday it would've been my moms birthday. One thing she didn't do was forget peoples birthdays. Me on the other hand, it's my specialty. I make a News Years resolution every year to remember peoples birthdays and to send them cards. So when Jen said it was moms birthday yesterday it hit me that I missed my sisters birthday earlier this month. CRAP!!

I have a plan from this point on not to forget. I'm going to enter all events on my Google Calendar and have it email me a week before. We'll see how it goes the rest of the year.

It's Wednesday!!

What happened to Monday and Tuesday. The week is flying by. The weather here is the best it's been since we got here. Daylight savings time is awesome. The extra hour of sunlight means I can do a lot more with Hayley outdoors when I get home. Hayley runs for the door as soon as I get home. I don't think she likes our apartment that much. She'd much rather hang out outside. If her shoes aren't on she'll run around the apartment trying to find them and she doesn't give up. After she finds her shoes and gets them on she'll bring my shoes to me if I don't already have them on. I've even got her trained as to which shoes to grab. I'll even switch it up on her to see if she understands. I'm amazed at how smart she is at this age. Although when I start thinking she's standing out we'll hit the park and see other kids her age doing the same things. So she's not standing out so much but she's a lot of fun to be around.

Shoes

Running five miles a day is killing my legs so I bought what I thought was a good pair of Nike running shoes. After a couple weeks running in them my feet were killing worse then before. I tried to tough it out thinking they just needed to be broken in but my feet got worse. They even hurt when I walked in them. So I went back to my rag tag shoes I was using before. The rag tags were getting to the point that they were falling apart so I decided to try again and buy a new pair. I went Sports Basement across the street. At first I figured they'd be way over priced but I gave them a try. I start checking out the shoes and a kid asked if I needed help. I told him I needed running shoes and I told him the Nike's I was wearing were killing my feet. He kind of laughed at the Nike's, apparently Nike's are bad shoes unless you get into the big money shoes.

He first had me take off my shoes and walk down this track. Then he had me try and a couple different kinds of shoes and run down the track with them. He made the comment that he couldn't see me running for more then a half mile with my stride. I guess I didn't realize there's a technique to running. So on top of selling me shoes he gave me a lesson in running. Apparently he was a big Cross Country runner and now he runs marathons. I bought the shoes for $80 and my feet felt a hundred times better after wearing them for a few hours.

So if you're ever in the market I highly recommend the Sports Basement. I'll be using them for all my sporting needs. It's a great store. Read some reviews for yourself.

Trails

Just some photos from last weekend.

http://picasaweb.google.com/chadwick1p/MtnBike

Delayed Weekend Update

Last weekend Jens mom was here so we spent the time doing touristy things. We had a short period of time to go mountain biking on Saturday and about 10 minutes into the ride I got a flat tire, and of course I have no clue where my pump went. This really put a damper on the day, so I had to walk back to where Jen and her mom were walking the trails. I changed my tire and proceeded to wait for Chad to come with his pump from his car. The flat tire cost us a good 30 minutes of riding. The trails were dryer then last time and it was warmer out. I'm getting braver going down the steep hills and I'm starting to throw in a jump or two. I keep envisioning landing on my face as happened when I was growing up. (which explains a lot)

After mountain biking we went to San Fran to see the Golden Gate bridge. After getting lost in San Fran all I could think about was "Why don't we have a GPS, they're so worth it" but eventually we found it by driving in one direction until we found some signs.

Sunday we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which was pretty cool. There's a bunch of buildings that used to be a canning companies that have been turned into a big tourists area. The area is called The Canning District. It was pretty interesting to see and it would be fun to see it back in the day.

Let is snow

Heee Haw. I'm not in MN dealing with all the snow they're getting. Al and Kathy are in FL and they're huge snowmobilers. Talk about ironic. But I can't brag that much cuz it's a rain fest here. Rain rain rain all day and night. It's driving me crazy. I want 70-80 degrees with lots of sun. Someday I'll move back to FL so I can experience it.