Great Weekend

I had a great weekend.

On Friday I started my reveiw of Dueces Cracked. Hopefully that will enable me to really elevate my game. The first video I watched was from a series taking Bhudist teachings and tranfering it to the poker table. The first lesson was "right thinking" This deals with accepting things as they truly are and playing only when you are on your A-game. I want to watch one video of this series per week.

On Saturday I took my daughter to the Strip District. We had a good time. It was good exposing her to the various sights, sounds and smells of the Strip. We went to breakfast at Pamela's. Daughter is not a breakfast person afterall (she is the one that wanted to go early) Oh well, a lesson learend. We bought some good food and had a very nice dinner Saturday night.

Yesterday I went for a 36 mile road ride. It felt good to get some miles on the legs. I think I will be able to complete 3 laps for the race.

I went to the county fair last night with my daughter. She had a blast. We did not see one animal. She just wanted to ride the rides. She met little friend, and the two of them rode all night. I figured that she can see animals next time so I let her go.

On th poker front, I made the mistake of mult-tabling. I know better, but I just cant stop myself. I am going to subscribe to dueces cracked tonight and step-up my poker education.

I have an interview with a CPA firm next week. It will be an interesting discussion. I am not sure what I want to do.

I picked up my car from the garage yesterday. It was rather expensive at just shy of 800. I put it on a credit card, but I have previously paid that amount in anticipation of the charge. My car is good to go now, so I can get back on track financially and really start working on cutting down my debt.

I rode my bike last night. I felt really strong. I was able to clear all logs. I also climbed a big climb in the middle ring. I rode my bike like it was a single speed. For the race, if I ride this strong I can put in an under 2-hour lap. Endurance may be an issue, but at this point there is nothing I can do about it as I only have one long ride left. Everything seems to be coming together. My weight is at my goal weight.

I stayed up a little later than planned last night. I was cleaning the home office and playing poker. I played two sit-n-go's and I got bad beat out of both of them. The first was a worse beat than the second. In the first, villian had only 2 outs to beat me. I had top top pair and a flush draw and villian had second pair. The second hand I had AA and raised 3x, it folded to SB who called. BB folded. Flop was 89Q. Not the hand I wanted, but I had come back from 30 to 790, so I pushed all-in. Villian called with 9j. So, villian had (3(j)+2(9)4(10))= 9 outs. Out of the 2,162 possible hands, there were 717 hands that would beat me. Villian was 2:1 against, he didn't have odds to call as pot was closer to 1:1. In any case, I got the money in the middle with the best hand twice, and was beaten. The fact that I was down to 30 and came back was pretty good though.

As for training for the race, I will do a long night ride tonight and hill climbs Thursday morning. I will also do hillclimbs on Monday as my last hard workout before the race.

I found some nan in Giant Eagle yesterday and I think that will be a good food to take to race day.

We went for our final Seven Springs training ride on Friday and Saturday. My nutrition was off and my bike had mechanical difficulties. My brakes were rubbing and my rear axle was loose. This made my bike unstable and I used a lot of unnecessary energy trying to ride the darn thing. I did one lap with the loose axle. After it was fixed, I was more stable on the second lap. I did two laps with the bad brakes. I figured out what was wrong with them and properly adjusted them for the third lap. I felt strong on the third lap.

For this week, I will work on some hills. I will climb Bear Hollow Trail a few times to give the legs a good workout and I will get my bike into the shop. This week is really the last work week for training. Next week will just be rehab.

I have decided I want a new mountain bike. Getting ready for this race has been fun, but I am training on a beginners mountain bike. While on a casual ride, this is not an issue I just know I could perform better on a better bike.

When I started to ride in 1991, I had a low-end bike. I moved up a step with my second bike. My third bike was then a top-of-the-line bike. My Supercaliber. That bike was awesome. I rode that bike until my friends stopped riding. I then stopped riding as well. There is a whole host of reasons I stopped riding, but it was due mainly to getting married, having a child, playing rugby, etc. Really, I just filled my time with other things. I bought my current Trek 4500 at the same time I bought my road bike, our doodlebug, and my wife's bike. This was all well and good as we just rode on rails to trails and we did this very little. I started to ride my road bike more and I enjoy it. I like riding a mountain bike too.

This brings me to my current dilemma. I would like a new mountain bike. I don't need a new one, my current one works. I feel kind of bad looking at a new bike when I have other debts to pay. I also worry if I will get the kind of use that would be warranted from a new bike. If I ride next summer like I did this summer (I won't be on Council, so I will have more time) I could see buying a new bike.

Here is what I am going to do though. I am going to put $50.00 per pay in an envelope and by July 2010, I will have $1,200. If I still want a new bike, I will buy it. If not, I will just pay some debt.

Good Ride

We had a good ride yesterday. We rode at night for 2 hours. Actually, I rode for two hours. Chris rode for one. I did two laps, he did one. I really wanted to give my legs a work out. I was really warmed-up for the second lap and I think I rode faster.

Now I face a bit of a dilemma with tomorrow's workout. I should have woke up this morning and did my circuit, but I over-slept as I was up too late. If I do it tomorrow, my tri's may be shot for Friday&Saturday's ride. I think this is a chance I have to take. I will just massage them Thursday night. I will also not do my scheduled time trial on Thursday, as this will give my legs a chance to heal.

On Friday, I will do a pull-up workout and Tabata bike spins

I have some money set aside for my car repair. I think I am going to use it to pay down two of my small credit card balances. I will then use my credit card with the largest balance for the repairs. This will consolidate everything. I don't know if this is a a good idea, but it will make things more managable.

I replaced my cassette and chain last night. After I installed the chain, I had to adjust the limit screws, but then it wouldn't shift onto the low gears. I noticed that the cable was very loose. I pulled the slack out of the deraillure and it worked like a charm. I was very impressed with my maintenance skills. Let's hope that my brake job goes as well.

Weekend Recap

We went to Seven Springs to train for the race on Friday. We got late start because one of out team mates came from out of town and was stuck in traffice. Our late start was further pushed back because some people just fart around too much. If you are going to show up for a group ride, have your shit together, you just make others wait. Our group split up at the top as one rider had to put his lights one. Having not previously put his lights on, he had difficulty mounting his helmet light. Again, do not wait until a group ride to figure out how to mount your equipment. This put the second group 1/2 hour behind the main group. Two out of the three in the second group got lost on the course and this set them back an additional 1/2 hour. By the time they got back it was too late to do another lap. One of the riders in that final group had my helmet light and I needed it for my lap, so I couldn't take off without it. In all, I was dissapointed by only doing one lap, but I was happy with my performance. My team though is very undertrained. I am hoping we do 10 laps in the race.

I had a family wedding on Saturday. It was very fun to see the family. I did spend some money though and I drank too much.

I slept in this morning. It is probable a combination of staying up late to play poker,but a little catch up from this week already. I am disappointed as I did not make it to the gym at all this week, but I figured it would be good to bank some extra sleep. Of course I will try to do better next week. Let eff'ing around and more working out.

We have our first (likely only) full team ride toniight on the Seven Springs course. We plan to go up right after work and ride two laps. One will be a night lap. We are then going to stay up there and do some game-planning. It should be a blast and will be a real test of fitness. My plan is to go out slow and save some energy for the last lap.

Had a great training ride last night. The legs held up well as did the new lights. Also, the bike handled like a dream. Unfortunately, my crossfitting has been non-existent. I will likely only make it to the gym once this week.

I went for a nice 20-mile road ride last night. It went well and I felt pretty strong. Tonight will be a night ride. The ground is a bit wet, so it will get a little tricky. Should be fun.

I just talked to the garage. I have a car repair that will likely cost $500 for a tune up and an inspection. I can add the $300 for the body work next week and this will be an $800. Certainly expensive, but my car should be good to go for a while. Looking at my finances, this will keep me from paying off any debt, but I should not have to go into debt further.

I do need to talk to the wife about my budget though.

Weekend Disaster

This weekend was a wash on improvement front. First off, I ate too much crap this weekend. Second, I spent too much. Part of it is the bike race. Third I drank too much yesterday. I should not have driven. I cannot keep making this mistake.

I did my 10-mile time trial last night. I finished in 37:53 this is an improvement of 52 seconds. I am happy with the result as I did not think I was going to beat my previous time. I made it to the 1/2 way point in 19 minutes, which I think is faster than the last time, but I seemed to be losing time on the return. This is the opposite of what happened the last time. When I saw I was going to make it under 38 minutes, I really pushed it to finish.

I did a tabata workout on the spin bike at the gym this AM.

Hopefully I can keep up the training and not get over-trained. I am worried about this especially as I am trying to cut weight. I will monitor my legs, but I think I will be ok if I am watchful.

Gin and Juice Music Video

I am back

After a lengthy absence I am back. Many things have happened since I have been on hiatus. Some good, some bad. Nothing major.

I am re-committed to improving my life. I am reading "Awaken the Giant" in order to help. I want to improve my fitness and get out of debt. I will concentrate this blog on these areas. I have started to use Goaltribe and Gubbnet to help in these endeavors.

My journey to improvement will include paying off my debt and doing 20 pull ups. These are the areas that need the most work right now. To that end, I have included a "Debt Monkey" on my blog, to track progress on debt.