invisible hill repeats

connect.garmin.com/activity/82437454

you don't gain mental toughness by sitting indoors in a comfy chair staring at an anemometer. you gain it by throwing your leg over your bike and riding headfirst into the wind!

today's ride wasn't about speed. it was about strength, physical and mental. the anemometer said the winds outside were sustained at over 20mph. the mind said, "i can take on that wind." the body went along with the mind to see what it could do.

my original thrown together plan was to do one-mile "hill" repeats - a mile into the wind with a mile recovery with it at my back. that was my plan when i turned north on argonia road, but it changed after the first out and back. i decided to try two miles out the second time. i'd do that and then another one-mile repeat. i did the two-mile hill and then decided to do a ladder with a three-mile "hill" in the middle of it. i did the three mile out and back and turned to do the second two-mile repeat. then a wild idea hit me. "why not ride four miles out? how much more can it hurt?" i actually broke out in a wide grin at this point. i thought, "some people mistake mental strength building for insanity!" i'll admit there's a fine line between the two. i didn't cross it today. really. i did my four mile out and back and then for good measure i tacked on another one-mile sprint into the wind just to say, "i win!"

so now, quit your whining and get out there! you've got a mental battle to fight! go out and conquer! (22.94 miles @ 13.6mph)

3.01 miles in 27:05

connect.garmin.com/activity/82375138

my plans for the evening changed when my daughter's surgical incision turned up looking nasty after a day of walking on it. fearing infection, we made a trip to the emergency room and got some antibiotics.

when we got home, no one was here because the whole family had volunteered to help out at the elementary's fun night. since my daughter was fine and dandy, i decided to knockout the rest of the miles i needed to put myself on target for my year's running goal. i just had to do it.

i ran the three miles at a really easy pace, not caring at all about speed. i just wanted to run it. about two miles in, i started feeling the effects of my ill-advised mcdonald's supper. fries and a burger are not the best pre-run meal. ugh! i gutted it out and finished my last mile without incident.

so i'm on target for my running goal. now i've got to get to work on making up the deficit in my cycling miles. i'm way behind in that department!

2.04 miles in 15:31

connect.garmin.com/activity/82312013

the green swarm laughs in the face of gale force winds. "do your worst!" they cry. the wind whimpers and slinks away. "coward!" screams the swarm!

seriously now: the wind is crazy today. i "enjoyed" the run southbound into the 20+ mph winds. there were times, my pace dipped when a gust hit my full on. wow! the run back north was amazing! when i came over the railroad tracks the wind lifted me and shoved me headlong down the other side of the "hill". it was all i could do to keep my feet under me. wheeeee!

three more miles before the end of the month and i'll be right on target for my year's goal. wow that feels good!

a few more miles

connect.garmin.com/activity/82272695

after breakfast, i decided to get a few more miles in before work. here they are. pretty boring miles. the wind picked up a bit making me slower on the way out, but faster on the way back. my average was a little higher than my slow time trial this morning. yippee. (6.25 miles @ 15.3mph)

a slow time trial

connect.garmin.com/activity/82263690

i joined Steve P.'s "fastest 15 miles" challenge yesterday, so i thought i'd make an entry this morning. i knew i wasn't going to have the fastest time ever, but i figure i'll get something in and i'll at least be in the running for the win if no one else posts a 15-miler. that i even rode this morning is amazing. i was going to run and get the last 5 miles i need to stay on target for my year's running goal, but when i woke up i was far too sore run. so i rode, nice and easy and called it a time trial. makes me laugh as i think of it. if any of you would like to join the challenge and beat my time, feel free. (15.00 miles @ 15.0mph)

4.35 miles in 43:23

connect.garmin.com/activity/82136092

ugh! if i only had one word to describe this run, that would be it. it was hot. it was windy. i was tired. my wife was the smart one. she stopped after just over a mile saying she'd try again later. i kept going, circling town at a plodding pace. really this is all i could do. ugh!

4.51 miles in 38:48

connect.garmin.com/activity/82136092

i went to work early this morning so i'd have time for a longer lunch time run. it was 68 degrees by the time noon rolled around. beautiful blue skies. white fluffy clouds here and there. a gentle 14mph wind! perfect!

i started out with plans to run around my holden's nature center loop, but when i hit the "road closed to thru traffic" sign, i decided to go straight instead and make this one an out and back. i ran out to where the road is gated off, ducked under the gate and ran to the first break in the road where i happened to notice the "no tresspassing private property" sign. oops! i turned around quickly and headed back to town.

about a quarter of a mile after i flipped around, i got hot, so i shed my shirt. dropped it on the ground actually. that's one of the dips in speed you'll see on the garmin info. the other dips were two 1-minute walk breaks. i was getting too hot, so i decided it was better to back off than to die.

i made it back, cleaned up a bit and now it's back to work!

advisory in the works

connect.garmin.com/activity/82081316

there's a wind advisory in effect until 8:00 tonight. sustained winds will be around 15mph this afternoon. thankfully they weren't even above 10mph this morning. unfortunately, the little breeze that was blowing was directly in my face as i headed west. it doesn't take much to make it rough going. on my outbound journey i averaged only 12.9mph. the return trip's average: 18.2mph. gotta love kansas! (15.97 mile @ 15.1mph)

miscellaneous errands

over the past few weeks i've been riding here and there around town, running errands. i've been to the bank, the library and the school. i decided to go ahead and post these miles today since i wasn't able to do a regular training ride. enjoyed a ride to the school and back with my wife this evening. (7.00 miles @ 10.1mph)

4.00 miles in 32:45

connect.garmin.com/activity/81907193

if you squint your eyes and cock your head just right while looking at the map of my route for this run, you can see a giant anteater. go ahead try it. use your imagination.

whether or not you can see the large insect sucker, this run was good and bad. i felt great starting out, but about halfway through the "lousy" hit. i'd just eaten breakfast before heading out on the mean streets of argonia, so i could blame it on the waffles, but i'm i'm not sure they're at fault. not sure what it was. all i know is i had to deal with discomfort for a little over two miles. yuck!

still, i'm pretty pleased with my pace overall. not my best, but not my worst either.

i need about fifteen miles more by the end of the week to stay on track for my goal. shouldn't be too hard. the problem is, i'm about 400 miles behind my cycling goal for the year. that'll come too. it's just a matter of time. i made up a lot of lost ground this month. more to come in may.

better than nothing

i woke up late (for me) this morning and didn't have a ton of time to ride, so i did three quick out and back forays into the wild! i rode a little over four miles on the first one, returning in time to put breakfast in the oven. i rode a little over two miles while breakfast was cooking, walking in just after the timer had gone off. finally i rode around eight miles after breakfast to round out the morning. not as many miles as i would have liked, but better than nothing. (15.85 miles @ 15.2mph)

long out and back

connect.garmin.com/activity/80971363

i was planning to ride longer today, but i had a late night, rather involved ems run and didn't get to bed as early as i would've liked. i woke up sore and stiff, not at all ready to put the hammer to the cranks. so i just dressed when i finally woke up and went out.

my original plan was to ride 25 miles so i could move myself up in the "cycling into spring" challenge. i've made it my goal to stay in the top 20. don't know if i can do it, but it's worth a try.

anyway, i rode east and just kept going, riding right past the turn around for a 25-miler. i went clear to the 14 mile mark and then flipped around. the wind was horrific on the way out. it held me to a 13.5mph average.

the wind helped just a little on the way back. i still wasn't producing super high speeds, but i managed to eke out a 16.5mph average, bringing my overall up to 14.9mph.

the only excitement this morning involved running over a french fry and dodging a couple of puppies when i got back into town. they'd gotten loose and just wanted to say high in the floppy, hoppy way. love puppies, but not when they're frolicking near my bike while i'm rolling. hope their master wakes up soon and gets them back in their pen.

i'm back now, ready to get moving on the rest of the day's tasks. have a great one! (28.08 miles @ 14.9mph)

4.00 miles in 40:19

connect.garmin.com/activity/80853539

it's been a long time since i ran in any kind of heat. 74 degrees isn't overly hot, but when you're used to running with temps in the 50s and 60s, it feels icky. i might add, it's amazing how much sweat i produce!

i ran the first two miles with my wife who was out for the first time since coming down with strep last week. we ran at a nice easy pace and she kept going the whole time.

when her two miles were done, i sped up a bit and ran a second two on my own. i was fine for the first 3/4 of a mile and then my tummy decided to rebel. it was touch and go for awhile, but i made it home without incident.

God is with you...

Four phrases from Isaiah 41:10-13 have been a comfort to me during the time of transition I find myself in. My prayer as I share them here is that they will be of as much help to you as they have been to me. If you’re struggling in a dark place, I hope God’s words given to his people, Israel, when they were in trouble, will shine light into your soul.

“Do not fear, for I am with you.”

I’m not sure there are any words that would be more comforting coming from the mouth of God. These few words give assurance of God’s presence in the most trying of times. When we are afraid, God is beside us. He’s shielding us from harm. He’s guiding us along the path. Whatever you’re going through right now, however dark it seems, do not fear! God is with you!

“Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.”

I wonder if every time I get upset it’s because my eyes are on myself rather than on my God. I look at my circumstances and give more power to them than they have. I am dismayed because situations that come into my life don’t fit with the way I think things should be going. In doing this, am I not mocking the God who knows me and knows what’s best for me? Am I not making an idol of my plan for my life when I shove God’s desires off into a corner? “I’m on the throne. I’m my own god. Don’t tell me what you think is best!” I’m pretty sure saying such things and experiencing God’s discipline will lead to a whole lot of dismay. There is no peace for those who disregard God. None! God brings peace to those who make him Lord in their lives.

“I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

There’s a strange thing about believers: when a follower of Jesus is weakest, they are strongest. I know. It doesn’t make any sense. Sounds weird when you say it, but it’s true. When Paul was dealing with this “thorn in the flesh”, begging God to take it away, he had a bunch to say about this strange phenomenon. In 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, we find his words: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (NIV) God’s power is made perfect in weakness. He shines through when we hold it together when we should be falling apart. He proves himself to be our strong deliverer, our shield, our defender, our refuge.

“…I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.”

Do not fear! We heard those same words earlier. Now we hear him say he will hold our hand and help us. This verse is special to me. It’s the verse that God gave Susan when she was working through the wounds of her childhood. It’s the verse that gave her strength and hope. It’s the verse that taught her to trust God. The promise is for you too. You have no reason to fear. God is holding your hand and he will help.

P.S. I will begin serving as pastor of Pratt Friends Church in July 2011.

To receive my once or twice weekly message via email, send a blank email to webmessage-subscribe@associate.com. Past messages are available at freegroups.net/groups/webmessage.

the morning was moist

connect.garmin.com/activity/80744442

the morning was moist! 100% relative humidity! the wind was weird! from the south, but couldn't decide if it would prevail from the east or west. annoying! so i just rode west four miles, turned around and rode back to town and then another four miles to the east. returning to town i repeated it all over again. the road was soaked, but no rain coming down. heard a whippoorwill once. that was kind of cool. rode through a swarm of gnats twice. not so cool! my garmin gave me the low battery signal after only two hours. i guess i shouldn't take it off the charger and leave it on all night. oops! thankfully, i was almost home and it was in its cradle before it died. (30.56 miles @ 14.9mph)

double out and back

connect.garmin.com/activity/80553548

i couldn't get to sleep last night after getting the news that we'd be moving to pratt in july, so i woke up a little later than usual and didn't get on the road until just after 5:30 this morning. i rode out to the conway springs road, turned around and headed back.

everything was going along great when, all of a sudden, i hear this pffft and then a series fo pfffts in a rhythmic pattern that matched the rotation of my front tire. blowout! grrrrr! i was close enough to home that i decided to limp in rather than change a tire in the dark.

i pulled my bike into the garage, popped the quick release and took a look. there was a hole clear through the tire itself, so i had to throw out the tire, patch the tube and put on a spare tire i had laying around so that i could ride again after breakfast.

the six miles after breakfast were much more uneventful, but i don't trust the spare i put on for very many miles. i need to get something ordered or call my bike shop friend in great bend and have him bring something with him on monday. i don't want to do a century on a questionable ring. (20.45 miles @ 14.5mph)

interval torture

connect.garmin.com/activity/80352533

i woke up to a chilly morning. it was 40 degrees out. thankfully, there wasn't much force behind the wind blowing out of the northeast.

i felt sluggish as i rolled out of the driveway and pedaled up pine street to the highway. i was planning to do some intervals starting after a short warm up. at one mile, i decided to wait until i had a second warm up mile. i just wasn't ready.

at the two-mile mark, i leapt out of my saddle and hammered the pedals for about a minute. exhausted, heart pounding from the exertion, i backed off and spun my way to the three-mile mark and repeated the sprint. i did it again at the four-mile mark and then spun it out past the next two intersections. when i hit the seven-mile mark, i kicked it up a notch again, sprinting at that intersection and at miles eight, nine and ten. i took another break, resting through the eleven- and twelve-mile marks, then pounded out another set of three intervals at miles thirteen, fourteen and fifteen.

with the last sprint done, i cruised on in to town and back out for an extra couple of miles giving me a five-mile cool down. felt pretty good when i got back. happy with my workout, ready for the day. (20.47 miles @ 14.8mph)

1.62 miles in 11:35

connect.garmin.com/activity/80212540

the green swarm knows not slow! wish i could say more, but i'm testing these suckers out and i'm not supposed to give away details until we go live with the review. let's just say the scottie dog got his tail whipped! great lunch time workout!

blustery recovery

connect.garmin.com/activity/80162591

the weather was sort of schizo this morning. when i left, it was 62 degrees with a light southwesterly breeze. when i got back, it was 49 degrees with a strong northwesterly gale! crazy stuff! the shift actually happened about six miles from home. i came out from behind a tree line and got slammed by the north wind. sure glad i decided 62 was cool enough for a jacket. as for the riding, nothing to report really. i rode recovery, spinning out my legs after last night's speed fest. i rode basically the same distance as last night, but it took nearly 25 minutes longer. that's recovery for you. slow and painless.

speed fest

connect.garmin.com/activity/80097056

it was warm and i felt like flying! i pumped my speed up on my way out, fighting the wind. i bowed my head and ground it out. the warm air rushed over my body. it was great to suffer for every hard pedal stroke. i managed a respectable 16.0mph average over 10.03 miles going out.

when i turned around, the easterly wind became my ally. putting the same pressure to the cranks yielded higher and higher speeds. i was over 20mph almost all the time. i kept fighting for every tenth of a mile per hour i could get.

i hit the 15-mile mark of my ride, five miles into my return, in less than 50 minutes i knew something special was in the works. i hammered away at the remaining miles, hitting 19 miles before the clock struck one hour.

when i reached my normal turn off, a truck was coming so i rolled passed the intersection and did a short extra half mile.

i finished the second "half" of my ride, a 10.56-mile speed fest, in 27:18. that put my average for this time trial at 23.2mph! i've never had a second half like that! (20.60 miles @ 19.0mph)

2.00 miles in 15:07

connect.garmin.com/activity/79587793

the green swarm grabbed me by the throat and forced me to run! at my daughter's insistence, my first quarter mile was run up to the school to find her shoes so she could wear them to prom. silly girl! she left them in the locker room after taking cap and gown pictures earlier this week. grrrrr!

i ran the quarter mile back home, dropped off the shoes and other assorted things i found there, then went out again. i didn't want to run too much since i'm not used to shoes like this. (and that's all i can say about the shoes until the review on the blog. if i said more, i'd have to kill you!)

ran two miles and quit. walked a block to cool down, then came in to clean up before "the boy" got here to pick up "the beautiful one"!

first long ride in forever

connect.garmin.com/activity/79495881

i woke up a little before 6:00, got dressed quickly and was out the door and rolling down the road by 6:15. i only had a four-hour window between 6:00 and 10:00 when i wasn't on call with EMS, so i was pretty happy with my departure time. wanting a long ride, i started west, into the wind. thankfully it had died down a little overnight. last night there were gusts near 60mph!

even with the lessening of the wind, i still had to struggle to maintain speed on the way out. i was creeping along most of the time, with little motivation to push harder. i've learned over the years that on days like this, you set the cruise and endure. if you fight the wind, you will die.

i did not die. in fact, i made it twenty-four miles in the first two hours. the way things were going when i turned north on highway 14, i didn't think i'd even come close to that before i needed to turn around in order to make it back on time for my EMS shift.

i hit the lap button on my garmin as i turned around, so i could compare the into-the-wind distance and speed to the with-the-wind portion of my ride. no comparison! i rode another 31 miles in less than an hour and forty-five minutes. my average speed over those miles was 18.2mph, bringing my overall average up from 12.0mph to 14.8mph. i was rolling along at over 20mph with little effort heading south and i rode in the upper teens headed east.

there was a little detour on the way back. just before i got back to harper, the train crossing arms started dropping, so i turned and rode back north a mile, ensuring a half century ride!

when i got back to argonia road, i still had almost fifteen minutes to spare, so i turned north on argonia road for a quick out and back. with these extra miles i bumped my total up to 55.11 miles. i love it! my first long ride in, like, forever! (55.11 miles @ 14.8mph)

2.00 miles in 15:57

connect.garmin.com/activity/79339605

the maiden flight of the "green swarm" (the name i've given my new pearl izumi streak II shoes pictured above) will have to wait for another day. i had plans to take the ultralights out for an easy jaunt around town at noon, but the weather was too icky. i didn't want them to be soiled by the elements. so the old initiators (i never did name these things anything other than what nike did) carried me around town. i haven't looked at my garmin data yet, but i'd guess there were some serious dips in speed when i was heading north or west. the wind was awful and the spitting rain didn't help matters. just before i headed out the door, i saw a gust of 27mph on the weatherlab...and i still went out! it was actually quite pleasant once i got moving. really! 38 degrees and blissful!

taking a beating

connect.garmin.com/activity/79293036

i knew it was going to be windy this morning. the forecast yesterday predicted winds up to 29mph this afternoon. it now predicts 34mph for the 3:00-8:00 time slot. on my ride the sustained winds were just in the upper teens. i'm sure there were gusts over 20mph, though. i was nearly blown over a couple of times.

my original plan was to ride out seven or eight miles, turn around and come back, but once i got out of the shelter of the trees going north on argonia road, i decided i could only take so much beating. i rode just past the two-mile mark and turned around. i rode back to town and then headed north again into the wind. and that's what i did all morning until i was out of time. then i rode home and parked my bike, exhausted. (15.49 miles @ 13.8mph)

bugs are in the air

connect.garmin.com/activity/79118969

it's officially spring! i got hit in the head by a bug twice on my ride this morning. the first one hit me in the lips! glad my mouth wasn't open. the second one hit the side of my forehead and bounced off. i've got a hard head!

as for the rest of the ride, i had to deal with a little bit of an easterly headwind on the way out. it wasn't much, but it was strong enough to make me think i didn't have time for the 20 miles i wanted, so i turned around at nine miles. i turned around and sped back home. the wind gave me such an advantage, that when i got to my "home" corner, i had fourteen minutes to spare. i spent about eleven of it spinning down main street and then returning home in time to fix waffles. i wouldn't have gotten away with putting them off another day. (20.30 miles @ 16.2mph)

a batty, rabbity ride

connect.garmin.com/activity/78962247

i keep sleeping "late" and missing the opportunity to get in a long ride. grrr! i didn't even wake up until after 5:00 this morning. thankfully, i didn't have to layer up too much, so i hit the road around 5:30. the ride out to the east, after a brief misstart because i didn't change my garmin over to biking, was pretty uneventful. i just put my hands in the drops and pedaled into the wind. the ride back, however, was full of interesting stuff. first, i nearly hit a bat! that's never happened before. i'm riding a long and all of a sudden there's this brown flash of flappy stuff shooting in front of my bike light about a foot off the ground. crazy! then a few miles later, i notice a dead rabbit on the road and, a second later, a live rabbit streaks across the road right in front of me. he's lucky he was fast enough to get out of my way, because i didn't have my hands on the brakes. i would've hit him! it would've been a sad easter if i'd killed the egg laying bunny! i actually rode too far this morning. i miscalculated the amount of time it would take to get back home and ended up pulling into the garage too late to fix the waffles my girls had requested. we had english muffins instead. tomorrow will be waffles.

1.00 mile in 6:50

connect.garmin.com/activity/78813895

i decided to see where my 1-mile fitness was today. i had to find my shorts and shirt in the laundry basket, so i didn't get out as quickly as i'd like to have. i put on "what i was made for" by big daddy weave and took off at a sprint. probably overdid it a bit at the start, but i felt great for about .40 of a mile. then i started struggling. still i pushed on. i found my second wind and ran it on home. i was aiming to break my PR, but tied it instead. not bad. i'll keep trying to get faster!

winter again

connect.garmin.com/activity/78767056

brrrrr! is it winter again? i woke up to a clear, crisp, 40 degree morning. i dressed in tights, long sleeves, a jacket, shoe covers, a headband and gloves and my toes and fingers still felt like they were going to fall off. i thought i was done with this stuff for a few months, but no! winter in april! of course, i'm not going to complain when it gets up to 80 degrees this afternoon.

post-meeting ride

connect.garmin.com/activity/78727161

i had a meeting at work until just after 8:00 tonight. when we were done, i decided to go and blow off some steam on my newly re-tired road bike. remember i had a blow out last time i took it out. so now i have nice new rubber on the rear rim. made for smooth sailing. i rode to the east first, thought maybe i'd judged the wind wrong, turned around and headed back toward home. when i got back to argonia, i rode on past and took in the five miles west of town too. had a great time riding up drouhard hill before turning to roll back home. (19.57 miles @ 16.6mph)

2.50 miles in 20:17

connect.garmin.com/activity/78566687

i woke up just before the alarm was set to go off this morning, stumbled out of bed and spent an extra five minutes trying to locate all my gear in the laundry basket and an the drying racks scattered around the house. i finally thought i had everything gathered together only to find that one of the socks i thought i had was missing. how did socks get so good at disappearing. maybe houdini taught them. anyway, after a futile search for the AWOL sock, i grabbed another pair and got dressed. it was a cool 45 degrees this morning, a huge drop from yesterday afternoon's 80s. i put a couple of transcript request forms in the mailbox for my wife and then took off heading north. i was going to run my normal route around the north side of town, but when i got to the school, i decided to stay closer to home and just run a loop. so around and around and around i went. three loops and a little gave me 2.5 miles. not a lot, but better than zero!

4.17 in 39:15

connect.garmin.com/activity/78047462

i woke up with a stiff and sore body. i have no idea why it was like that. it just was. lower back. ankle. brain. all stiff and sore. i decided to run anyway to see if things would loosen up. i took off on what i thought was going to be a jaunt around the outskirts of town, but then i decided to change it up a bit and run around every block in the northeast quadrant of town. i'd never attempt this in new york city, but in argonia it wasn't too bad. i wasn't sure if i'd have time for all of it, but i ended up finishing only five minutes later than i planned to wrap things up. my body's still a little stiff, but it loosened up a little. i'm hoping to get in a short bike ride after i take my daughter up to the school to take the ACT.

2.82 miles in 32:16

connect.garmin.com/activity/77841538

after i finished up a skype interview with a church in western kansas, my wife wanted to go for a run. we walked up to the school, talking about the direction God might have for us, enjoying each other's company. when we hit the corner just past the school, we started running around town. we took it easy so we could keep talking. when we got back around to the house, we had to take a brief pit stop and then ran another mile and a half. we stopped about three blocks from home and walked back. very nice outside. about 67 degrees with a light breeze. wish the weather was like this always!

typical

connect.garmin.com/activity/77705310

a nice relaxed ride this morning. nothing terribly exciting about it. just the typical stuff. wind in my face on the ride out. wind at my back coming home. average speed on the way out: 14.2mph. average on the way back: 17.1mph. (24.03 miles @ 15.6mph)

lunch time rocket ride

connect.garmin.com/activity/77578677

this ride felt completely different from this morning's westbound out and back. the wind was still strong, but my legs didn't care two hoots about that nasty stuff. they were warm and ready to go, go, go! i guess they were tired of being cooped up in tights or something. today, they were set free from their confinement and they had a blast! i went along for the ride!

wind in the west

connect.garmin.com/activity/77525045

i looked at the clock. i blinked. it still said 4:37. my body said, "go back to sleep." my mind said, "get your lazy butt out of bed!" my mind won. i only had a little over an hour to get my workout in before my on call time began at 6:00, so i dressed quickly and got out the door. after a couple of trips back into the house to grab stuff i'd forgotten, i hit the road just before 5:00. it was windy today. the roar of the gale was in my ears for the whole hour. the force of it was in my face all the way out to danville and briefly toward the end of the ride when i was riding on the southeasterly angle. my legs weren't sure what was going on for the first few minutes of the ride. they didn't have a lot of pop in them. they half-heartedly did what they've done for years. turn the cranks. turn the cranks. turn the cranks. i can ride on autopilot for hours. finally, i slapped them and they woke up. i put them through their paces a few times, pushing my effort to see what was there. i need to have a little something by the end of the month when i plan to ride the gyp hills between coldwater and medicine lodge with doug and eric. if today's ride was any indication, i've got some work to do. as i rode back into town, i heard someone yell my name. couldn't see them in the dark, so i just rode on. i found them as i rode past the high school weight building. they said something, but i couldn't make it out with the wind blowing directly in my face. i waved and rode home. wish i'd had more time to ride. i need miles! (16.05 miles @ 16.3mph)

10.81 miles in 2:55:32

connect.garmin.com/activity/76749618

how many miles do you run when you're refereeing four soccer matches? the answer for me today was 10.81 miles. i was standing still enough for auto pause to kick on for a little over an hour of the four hours of play time. had fun most of the time. only had one coach who thought she knew what the rules were come out on the field. she wanted to stop play because a girl on her team was injured. the girl was up and limping, but there was no dangerous play, so i let them play. the coach was furious. actually reported me to the coordinator. i talked with him and cleared things up and then, after the game, talked with the coach. she was convinced i was an idiot who didn't know the rules. oh, well. can't win them all. the rest of the matches were pretty low key. a hand ball here and there and lots of goal kicks. only one penalty kick all day.

2.29 in 25:46

connect.garmin.com/activity/76577002

i got out for a short run with my wife tonight. talked a lot about our upcoming move and possible interviews. still feels pretty crazy thinking about all this. who knew this would be where we would be? we certainly didn't anticipate this a year ago. God will see us through.

6.20 miles in 53:55

connect.garmin.com/activity/76468302

it's kind of weird starting a race knowing you're likely to lose. that's what i did this morning. i made it into march miles madness challenge's elite eight earlier this week, edging out the ninth place finisher by a single mile in the sweet sixteen distance race. having done that, i found myself preparing to run a 10K race against some of the fastest guys on the site. they started posting sub-50 minute times yesterday. my fastest ever time was wednesday's 50:32! still, if they didn't all post times, i had a chance. i woke up this morning to find that five of my competitors had posted times and the slowest of them stopped the clock at 44 minutes. discouraging? yes. but i'm not a quitter, so i gave it all i had. today, all i had was not enough. i ran a decent first 5K, but after than, it was not pretty. i slowed drastically and felt pretty awful. i did, at least, still beat the skinny kid's time. not saying much, but at least it's something. i bow out in the same round as kansas did. Karlee M. will have to carry the kansas torch alone into the women's final four. good luck, my friend! and congrats to all you fast people. next year, you'd better watch your backs! ;)