God is good!!! All the time!

Sorry that it has taken so long to update. It has been a really crazy week. I will start with a recap of the big news. If you have not heard yet, I was involved in a little bit of an accident last Monday. The end result was, I got a sprained wrist, sore shoulder, hip and a little bruise just below one of my knees, and on one of the quadriceps. As for the bike ..... can you say DOA!

The day began with an uneventful road ride to Beto Junction and back which is about 52 miles. Everything was fine until I was a block from my house. As I was riding down 9th I was about to turn onto Neosho St. As I approached the corner I noticed that I truck was backing down his driveway toward the street. I did not think much about it because it seamed that he was slowing to a stop as I approached the corner. As I turned the corner to go to the end of the block to my house, he decided to back out into the street just as I was about 1 car length from his driveway.

As he punched it, he flew out into the street, and blocked it. By this time it was to late to react, so I let go of the handlebars, and I was catapulted off of the bike into his truck hand first. Can you say OOOHHH... CCCRRRAAAPPP! Luckily the impact of my hand slamming into the side of his truck and putting a big dent into it saved the day. According to the garmin, I was traveling at 17.7 mph when we decided to become a little more familiar with each other.


After a trip to High Gear Bike Shop to see my friend Matt Brown the bike was pronounced TOTALED! I went back to the person that was driving the truck expecting for this to become ugly and drawn out and spoke to the man. As expected, he was quite surprised to hear how much it costs to replace a road bike. But the rest of the story I find quite miraculous.

I thought that this would take possible up to several months of pain staking deliberation to resolve, but quite the contrary. This cool old guy got in touch with his insurance rite away, and they rang me up on my cell that same afternoon for a statement. I explained to the best of my ability what happened, then they asked that I send some pics to them so that they could see the damage. The next day I emailed them to the secret agent lady and she said that she would get in touch with me when the estimate arrived at her office.

A couple of days passed, and I get another call from the agent, and she informed me that they have printed me a nice little check for the full amount of the estimate, and that it would be placed into the mail the next business day! The accident occured on Monday, and this was on Friday ...... can you say 5 DAYS!!!

Boy does God work in mysterious ways. For the past few weeks I was worried because the road bike was needing some work done to it before winter since it was getting up their in age. Now, for the small price of a sore wrist God has exchanged the old worn out road bike with an AWESOME NEW cross bike. Something I had been wanting for a while, but was not able to afford. All within a 5 day period! Thanks go out to Matt Brown at High Gear Bike Shop in Emporia, Ks. for all of the help through this whole mess, and for giving me such a good deal on the SWEET ride! If you are ever in need of a new ride, be sure to look him up. He has the best deals that I have ever seen.

As for the rest of my life this past week ..... big sorries go out to the wife unit for finding out about the little mishap through a stranger (owner of the truck). He came to the house when I was at work and apologized and told her that the insurance was going to pay for the totaled bike. The lesson of the week is .... accident, wife, bike shop then work. Proper protocol next time.

Besides this, Training is still on track. Riding is going well, lifting is coming around, and the run is still an embarrassment, but getting better. Also, through some awesome sponsorship I have now secured the winter riding attire so I can stay toasty warm during those frozen winter training rides. That's it for now, and I will hit you all up again in about a week with the newest updates!

Peace Out!

get'n my run on.....kinda!

Well, fall decided to show up early this year I guess. This past week, the weather has been awful. The mornings have been either cold, foggy or raining. In the past 2 weeks, every time I go out to ride, I have had to use the arm warmers and vest. It is weird having to do this the first week of September. Usually it is still summer out. Makes you wonder what winter has in store for us.

As far as workouts go, I have been getting in some good rides that have averaged somewhere around 40-50 miles a ride. Their were a couple of days though, that I had to get out and run due to bad weather. I was glad that I got the new running shoes the other week when we were in Kansas City. I thought that they might sit in the closet for a little bit while the weather was still nice, but... I guess that it's time to start the old cross training for the off season.

The original plan was to ride into the fall, then, when things cooled, begin some weight lifting and running several times a week along with 3-4 rides a week. This way I could still stay bike fit while improving my fitness and strength in preparation for next summer. I thought that it would be a nice change of pace to rest the riding muscles 3-4 days a week and let them get some good recovery.

Under the current circumstances, I decided to begin this a little earlier. During the month of August I felt that my fitness/performance was beginning to drop a little due to a lack of focus, and I was not wanting to loose anymore ground, so I am beginning a series of building phases leading into next summer. After much thought, and calendar searching, I decided that I may as well Begin the damage control now and ease myself into the first building phase.

The short term plan is this..... Last week I began some running. two days a week for the first three or so weeks, about an hour at a time to get the logs use to running again. Man!!! the first couple of times my legs let me know that they were not happy with me!! But, they are beginning to get better at this. I am able to go longer without walking a little, and the mileage is increasing. I have already noticed that it has actually helped my riding. Even though the legs are sore, I am riding a little stronger, giving the legs the days off of the bike.

This week I am also easing myself into the weight room again. I have not lifted since the Dirt Kanza, and I can tell. I hope to lift on the same days that I run, and ride on alternating days. After a couple of more weeks of this to let this old body get use to the new routine, I would like to add a third day a week of running and lifting, and riding the other days.

I plan on continuing this until the holiday season, then I will make some changes into the routine again. I am still hoping to get into a couple of events, like the Tour De Lizard, and the Freedom Ride, and who knows what else might come up, but as for training, I am going to be more focused, and begin the preparation for the assault on the endurance world next summer!

Well.... I have bored you all enough for now and will let you go. Until next week.

Peace out!

ROCKING THE CITY!!!

The past few days have been wonderful. To begin, I had a really fun time on the bike last week, being able to ride six days in a row, with three of those days being trail rides out at the camp. I ended the week with a KILLER workout on Friday morning that totally rocked. It included old highway 50, then another 30 miles of gravel at breakneck speed.

I was a little disappointed that I was unable to ride with the gang that night. It was the send off ride for our friend Lelan. I was a little wiped out from the morning ride, and the wife unit wanted to go out for dinner. We will ALL really miss Lelan and the fun times we all had on our bikes together, but look forward to when he comes back for visits.

Saturday the wife unit and myself took a marathon road trip to the big city. We started the day out shopping. This was something that she worked all summer for, and we had a great time wondering through Nebraska Furniture Mart test driving all sorts of things.

This was so taxing that we decided to go top off the tanks for the day with some AWESOME BBQ! I personally went for the burnt ends with the hot sauce. It was the best meal in weeks.

When we finished we had a little time to kill so off to Dicks Sporting goods we go. I was able to hook up with a pair of really cool running shoes. I have been in the recovery mode since we were raptured, and next week I am going to go into a building stage in preparation of next year. Their are BIG plans in the making, and I will need all of the time possible to accomplish the task at hand (more details to come later).

By this time we had already put in a full day, but was now primed to ROCK OUT for the evening. We arrived at the starlight theater about 5:30pm just in time for the final 5 bands at "Rock The Light" concert! Talk about a great show we rocked and moshed in our row for five and a half hours. The bands were unbelievable. By time we got home at 1:30am we were both wiped out and I could hardly walk. My legs hurt so bad from the jumping up and down that I could hardly press down on the gas pedal to drive home. It took the next two days for us to feel like we were back to normal again! Such weekends are legendary!

Peace Out!!!