Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Training, training...

In preparation for dragging my chubby behind from Elgin, to Enterprise, to Clarkston, etc. on this year's Cycle Oregon (which I was not going to sign up for. But that's another story that I won't go into at this particular point in time...) I've been riding my very cool, very chic 2010 all-carbon Specialized Roubaix. Indoors on the trainer, unfortunately. Because of weather, time constraints, etc. that's the most accessible place. It's not the most exciting riding, but it does keep me from turning into the Goodyear blimp. I go through a lot of DVD movies...

I'm up to pedaling an hour and forty minutes, and I try to vary the routine from session to session. For example, last night I did :05 warm-up, then :30 sitting spin on big ring cog 6 at 13+ mph, then went to timed intervals. The new resistance unit on my trainer is a lot more resistive than the old one that it replaced. So I did intervals for an hour, doing :01 standing on big ring cog 10 at 17+ mph, then :04 sitting big ring cog 6 at 13+ mph. By the end of the time, I looked like somebody had hit me with a bucket of water. I think my socks were even soaked through...

Then I moved on to my weight bench. I've been slowly increasing the weight I'm lifting without changing the number of reps. I've read where that's the way to build strength rather than mass. I'm bulky enough as it is. I'm up to 75 pounds on the bench press for 15 reps, followed by 25 crunches. Next is 25 butterfly curls at 38 pounds, then another 25 crunches. From there I move on to leg lifts, 25 lifts at 45 pounds, then I do 25 situps holding the leg lift weight up with my, of course, legs. Next is 25 bicep curls with the leg lift weights, first left arm, then right, then both. Last but not least is an exercise that I have no idea of the name for. I have a small dumbbell bar with 25 pounds on it that I hang behind my head with both hands and do 25 reps with. When I'm done with the bike and the weights, I cool off with a Cytomax and whey protein smoothie. It's supposed to be good for me and help with recovery. I don't know about that, but it tastes pretty good...

So anyway, as of last night I have just a skosh over 512 miles since January 1, including the 6.85 mountain bike miles from last Sunday, and I'm the same weight that I was when I finished Cycle Oregon last year, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. Last year I did Cycle Oregon on 1100 trainer miles and only about 200 road miles, which seems backwards but you do what you can, ya know?

On a side note, I'm extremely proud of my lovely wife. She's been working on exercising and watching what she eats all winter as part of the family Biggest Loser contest, and she told me the other day that she is now able to get into some clothes that she hasn't been able to wear in quite a while. YAY!!!! And even though the spring work is going on, she's still finding time to exercise!!!

Monday, April 26, 2010

In the words of Mark Twain...

or I think that's who it was anyway, "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated". Or something like that. No, I haven't dropped off the face of the planet, and no, I haven't been kidnapped by aliens or any such thing. It's just that posting on the blog has kind of fallen under the radar, as it were. 'Tis spring, and a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of, well, spring work, and a little bit of spring play-time. I've been cutting fence posts, breaking and repairing my chain saw, fixing fence, traveling to Las Vegas to go house shopping with Clint, that sort of thing...

So what has gone on in life? Lots of stuff. We did indeed go to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, looking for a house for Clint, who will be starting culinary school at the Art Institute in July. Since student housing is like $650 a month, and the housing market is extremely depressed in the Vegas area at the moment, we decided to see if we could find a house for him to buy, instead of renting, since he plans to stay down there for some five years or so. We figured that, what the hey, if he can sell the place in five years for what he paid for it now, he's lived there for free for five years, essentially...

So after looking at a bunch of places, we made an offer on his favorite one and turned the Smerf-mobile for home on that Friday, then found out the following Tuesday that he's about to become a homeowner. Even better, the deal should close in plenty of time to get the $8000 federal tax credit check as a first-time home buyer. That'll do some house fixer-uppering and make a few payments. It's about time some our tax dollars helped one of us instead of all the bums who... Never mind, I won't go there...

I started my big gun sprinkler on our field last week, just in time for the first big thunder-boomer of the year to come blitzing through, depositing a phenomenal amount of rain in a very short time and washing a ton of dirt and other assorted junk over the head box for the main line and actually plugging a 3/4" nozzle. I was truly amazed...

Branding is pretty much done. There are a few more calves from some late-calving cows yet to brand, but not many. Brett's been helping people all over the place brand calves, along with building a few leather goods...

Clint's giving up his apartment at school this coming weekend and moving home. He's going to commute to classes the rest of the school year, and save the rent money...

I think that spring may finally be sneaking up on us. I've been doing all of my biking indoors on the trainer because the weather's been so crappy, but yesterday afternoon I finally got out and did a 7 mile ride on my mountain bike, up the creek to our lower gate and back. Great day for a ride. Coming back down the road I decided that there's really very little chance of me becoming a hard-core mountain biker. I'm too chicken to really bomb the downhills, and too wimpy to hammer the climbs. And the bashing around on the downhills is hell on my wrists, so I guess I'll mainly stick to road riding, with the occasional gravel road foray on my mountain bike for leavening...

Saturday I spent adding to my collection of juniper fence posts. The cool thing about juniper is that you don't have to treat it, and it still lasts for years in the ground. Our neighbor has been doing a juniper eradication project, so all I have to do is knock off the limbs, buck the trunk to the right length, and presto! Instant post! I got nine of them in one really small area. Partway through the first pickup load, the roller in the nose of my chainsaw bar went on strike. Fortunately Cheryl was still in town, and was able to get me a new bar. I ended up with almost twenty posts for the day, and the pile behind the shop is getting pretty big. I'm thinking I may attack the homestead next. There are some cut trees over there that look about right, and some more I can knock down myself. Might as well keep going while I'm on a roll...