Busy, Busy ….

This weekend was one of the busiest that I can remember. It started on Friday with Elizabeth’s birthday. Unfortunately I had to work a full day. We let lizzie pick any place that she wanted to go to dinner. So Once I got home, we left for Frederick to meet my brother and his family at the Japanese Steak House that she has picked the last couple of years. It is a pricey dinner, but the food is GREAT.

Saturday we had our first soccer game. It was a bright and Sunny day. The flip side of that is it was unfortunately cold. I think the biggest issue was that it was really windy. After being out there for 2 hours (length of both kids soccer games) we were more than ready to get out of the cold. We spent the majority of the remaining day cleaning the house. It was in desperate need of it. We planned to have a my brother and a few neighbors over for pizza, cake, & ice cream (since we didn’t do cake on Lizzie’s birthday).

Saturday evening as we watched a movie, I brought my road bike in and installed the cycle computer. The computer has 8 functions, but basically there are 2 functions that I was really looking for. 1- Odometer, so I can track how far I am riding. 2- Cadence, so I can judge how fast / steady I am peddling.

Sunday was another great day. I started out the morning by going on a ride. Just outside of Charles Town they have redone one of the big roads that traverse between Charles Town and Martinsburg. One of the nice things they had incorporated was a paved bike trail off to one side of the road. It was a great opportunity to try out my new cycling shorts and bike computer. The ride was nice, chilly, but nice. All in all I rode about 10.5 miles. I averaged about 11 miles / hour. It was a shorter ride than I anticipated, but with the weather, it was long enough. I am still looking forward to the 30 mile MS bike ride. We had the dinner and Cake Sunday night. It was great to have so many friends and family around. Everyone had a good time.

Mighty Penguins!

We had our first soccer practice tonight. Okay, well the first one was last week, however, it was raining so the practice ended up being a meet and greet with the kids. Today we actually took to the field and ran through some drills. We finished practice with a scrimage. It was a good time. I am an assistant coach for Elizabeth's team. I thought it would be fun to get involved with the kids more. This seemed like a good way. It will get her more active and give us something special between us. It should prove to be interesting. I haven't played soccer since I was her age (about 4th grade).

Long and the short of it is I had a good time tonight and I am looking forward to the (short) 8 week season.

What goes around...

Its been a few weeks since i have written. There has been so much going on.

The cycling has been slow going. This is an expensive hobby. The Road bike was expensive and unfortunately all of the accessories that go with it haven't been any better. The biggest difference I have encountered between the Road bike and my hybrid bike has been the comfort of the seat. The road bike is built lean and mean. The seat is very aerodynamic and has no padding (Can we say saddle sore?). I have been on the hunt for cycling shorts. The problem is that I am not one for spandex. I have found out that they make 'baggy' cycling shorts. They are primarily designed for mountain bike riders, but I think I will get some use out of them as well - Once I am able to find a pair that look nice, fit, and don't cost $100.

The road bike I bought is a 2007 Bianchi via Narone. The bike frame is made using aluminum alloy. It has carbon forks and chainstays. It has Shimano 105/Ultegra mix gearing.

The shoes i have are Sidi. They are kind of strange, which is the way the cycling shoes are supposed to be. They have a stiff bottom which helps transfer the most power.

The weather hasn't been too cooperative. Cold and windy make a bike ride pretty miserable. This has made training pretty slow going. I really hope that the cold weather breaks soon and that the warmer weather brings some good opportunities to ride more.

I have the MS bike ride coming up on May 17th. I am planning on doing the 30 mile ride and striving to be ready for the 60 mile ride. We'll have to see how that goes.

No better time for a change...

So I know it is a little late for a new year’s resolution, but i think of this as a late start on a promise I made to myself. As i rang in 2008, I found myself almost 50 pounds heavier than i wanted to be. I joined the Army in 1995. My Army career was uncommon. It lasted till October 2000 and interestingly enough It started out pretty hard core and got progressively easier with every base i went to. The military enabled me to stay in pretty good shape. I am sure staying lighter was easier between working out an average of 5 days a week and being 8 years younger. So anyways back on track. I decided this year I would loose some weight, but more importantly get into better shape. I currently have 2 great girls and I am expecting a new little boy in the next couple of months. I feel it is important for me to be able to keep up with them. I have been getting slower with every pound I pack on. I have old man aches and pains. I need to loose weight and better yet, I need to get into shape.

I am not one to hit the gym. I just never could get into that. I decided to bike ride. I have been interested in doing the charity bike rides, but never really looked into it much. The company I started to work for in February of 2007 has a lot of incentives for getting fit. They have a cycling group that does a lot of the charity rides (specifically the MS Bike Ride - more of that later) and they offer a fitness subsidy that has helped purchase my Road Bike.

So...

This blog will end up being a little bit more of what I am into and the experiences i am going through vice a "dedicated" blog on Vino.