Bike Commute

The commuting went just fine today. I had a tough headwind the whole way into work, and the ride ended up being 20.5 miles. I had plenty of time, but felt drained from the get go. The distance and condition made for a struggle.

My company has fixed the shower and it works much better now, so getting showered and dressed was not a difficult.

The winds I was hoping to have with me on the way home had died down a bit, but it was still much better than the morning. It was was freaking hot however. Over 100 degrees.

Traffic wasn't too bad. It was better in a couple of spots than I thought it would be, but bad in a few I thought it would be good in. But no close calls to speak of.

I'll probably give it another try next week.

Bike Commuting to Work

I've wanted to try it for some time, but in reality, given the hours I typically work, and the 18 miles I'll have to cover each way, there is only enough sunlight in the day to do this for about 3 months out of the year.

So I hatched the plan and worked out all of the logistics earlier this Spring, and am ready to give it a shot tomorrow.

Here is how it will work:

Day before:
I packed a bag with my work clothes for tomorrow, along with a towel and my shower kit, and brought it in to work with me today.

Night Before:
Shave (face, not legs) before I go to bed so I don't have to worry about shaving at the shitty bathroom that has the shower in it down in the bowls of my company's headquarters building.

Morning of:
I need to get up by 6am to be on the road by 6:20 am to give me time to get here and mess with all of the shenanigans associated with getting ready for work at a company that has shitty shower/dressing facilities.

The ride is about 18 miles, and only includes about 2 miles of travel on what I'd call busy roads. If I leave at 6:20am, I should hit the busy part around 7:05am or so.

I'll be riding with a smallish back pack that will hold my phone, wallet, building ID badge, sandals, and a clean pair of clothes I can wear while tromping around in my building on my way to my office to retrieve my clothes from the day before, and then back down stairs to the shower. While I loves me my spandex, I'm not ready to stunt my career path by being "the guy in spandex on Wednesdays."

Once I get to the building, I'll bring my bike upstairs to my office (I just wouldn't dare rack it in the parking garage), grab my change of clothes and head back down to the 1st floor to shower. Did I mention the shower down there is shitty? A trickle of a stream, ice cold, and it is in the same locker room where the unionized guys (TWU) that maintain our building have their lockers. Lots of strange looks from the union guys no doubt are in store. From there, I'll get cleaned up, go grab some breakfast in the campus cafeteria, and head back up to my office ready to start my day by 8:30am.

Afternoon of:
The afternoon drill is equally complicated. I need to hit the road by 6:00pm to get home before dark. So I'll change into my skivvies, cover up with that change of clothes I briefly wore in the morning, come back to my office and grab my bike. I think I can walk it down a fire exit to avoid mixing with the usual 6pm rush out of the building. Once downstairs, I'll put the clothes in the backpack, throw my cycle shoes on, and away I'll go.

I'll report back tomorrow night, or on Thursday and let you know how it went. Wish me luck.

CapTex Tri Race Report

I know it has been a while, but I'd like to log a proper race report from the CapTex Tri back on May 27th.

I'll try to keep it brief, so I'll just say that this race is a huge production. Over 2,700 athletes raced this year, and for that many athletes, the organizers do a good job. It doesn't have much of a personal touch, but it makes up for in it spectacle.

I swam the morning before at Barton Springs, which is a spring fed pool that feeds Town Lake, where the race was held. Town Lake is really a dammed up river. When I got to Barton Springs, I found myself at the back of about a 200 person line of Team in Training triathletes from all over the country. the group in front of me was in town from NY.

I've raced with TNT in the past, and for all the good they do, I feel like a schmuck complaining, but every time I looked up in the swim and bike course, I found a TNT athlete in the way. I blame this as much on the race organizers sending the typically slowest age group waves first, and the faster ones last. I guess the idea was to clear the roads sooner, but it make for a crowded course all day long.

Swim:
Since my wave left about an hour after the elites went off, I watched them all roll up into transition. I did a 19:06 swim at this race back in '05, and while I was in better shape for the swim last time, I figured I'd be within 2 minutes of that time. well the top guy was out of the water in 20 minutes, Andrea Fisher was out of the water in 20:30, and Desiree Ficker was out in 23 mins, so I knew straight away that the swim was long.

The gun went off, and I took off with a guy and we swam together for the first 5 minutes. I was soon on my own, not feeling special, and about 10 minutes into the swim, I had caught several of the waves in front and was dodging people and getting swatted in the face the rest of the way. The swim felt like it took FOR EVER, and it did. Not happy about it. I need to swim more.


Time: 24:10; Pace: 1:37/100M; Place: 28/1442 (overall)

T1:
Transition started off uneventful. Transition area was all dirt. No grass to be found near my age groups racks, so I made sure to get out of my wetsuit back in the swim swim exit shoot which was on grass.

I grabbed my bike, and headed out. As I made my way out of transition, my aero bottle fell off my bike and onto the dirt, spilling lots of water. It turns out, when I secured it in the mount, I didn't realize the Velcro was facing the wrong way and I never got a 'seal.' threading the Velcro through the holes is a challenge with the bottle in, and I spent a good 60 seconds trying to reattach it. I lost about half of the water, and it was hot, so I was pissed.

Time: 3:53

Bike:
This 4 loop bike course is fun, scary, and crowded. Fun because it has great long downhills. Scary because it is very technical, and many of the turns are at the bottom of hills where you either can take alot of speed into the turns, or have to break alot. And is this thing ever crowded. Luckily they give you 2 and sometime 4 lanes of traffic to work with so you can pass, and avoid drafting by moving over rather than back. With so many people on a 6.25 mile loop, you could stack bikes from front to back wheel, and you'd have more than 6.25 miles of bike.


I did a good job of accelerating at the top of hills, and out of corners. I also did a good job of staying aero when I was going fast or into the wind, and stretching my back when I was climbing.


In the last 4 or 5 minutes of the ride, I was feeling a strange sensation in my front wheel in turns, and realized when I stood up to stretch my back in the last downhill and felt the front rim bumping along the road with no air in that front tire, that I'd flatted. I finished the ride, and was no worse for ware.

Time: 1:10:10; Pace: 21.2MPH; Place: 317/1442

T2:
I don't recall T2, so it must have been uneventful. Transition area was huge, so it was hard to be fast.

Time: 2:46

Run:
I hit the 2 loop run course a little fatigued. I probably pushed a tad too hard on the bike, but I've been worse, and should have been fine. It was just really effing hot. My wave left about an hour after the first, and the race started about 20 minutes late, so it was late morning by the time I hit the roads, and it was steamy.

The first lap started off okay, but I wasn't doing anything exceptional from a pace perspective, and could feel it unraveling. I was able to get ice at some of the aid stations, and I took it with me to pour on my head as it melted.

On the second lap as I climbed Congress up over the bridge towards the capital, I popped and was reduced to a walk. It was demoralizing, and was hard to motivate to get going after the pop. I walked ran the last mile and a half.

Time: 1:02.25; Pace: 10:03; Place: 691/1442

Overall:
Time: 2:43.26
AG Place: 62/178
Gender Place: 275/849
Overall: 336/1442

Made it to Vienna

It is Sunday afternoon, and we've made it to Vienna. We had a nice train ride yesterday morning getting here, then located a bookstore to get our BK Vienna Travel guide, which we couldn't live without after using the Prague version. We had a wonderful dinner last night, then hit the sack early.

Today, we took the metro to the Hofburg Quarter for a day of site seeing, followed by some time in the Stephansdom Qurter. We toured the Habsburg palaces and garden's, saw the Dynasty's crown jewels, then visited the Albertina museum where we saw the works of Dali, Monet, Picasso, Klee, Degase, Kokoschka, and many more, in addition to touring several of the state rooms of the Habsbugs palace. Pretty interesting stuff.

Any how, no time for an elaborate post. We've got a full day tomorrow concluding with a concert in a fabulous concert hall where will hear some Mozart, Strauss, and others.

Cheers!

Prague 5/30/08

Day Three:

After breakfast, we set off to Old Town Square to take in the sites. Old Town Square is where many of the architectural styles of Prague converge. You've got Gothic, Rococo, Baroque, Art Nouveau, Renaissance, Romanesque, etc. We went inside the Tyn Church, which was an ornate gothic church and watched the top of the hour festivities on the Old Town Hall Tower's clock strike 11am.

We hitched on with a free tour for about an hour and listened to many of the other notables regarding the square before breaking off to head over to a cafe for coffee.

I made a mistake in an earlier post. I thought the Scotts were in Prague in droves for a rugby match last Wed, but it turns out they are in town for a soccer match against CR today. They are everywhere. Painted faces, kilt wearing, flag toting, bag pipe playing, bar taking over Scotts EVERYWHERE. It was amazing. The game starts in about an hour, though I'd have to imagine they are underdogs assuming Rosiky and company are playing for CR.

Next, we crossed the river to tour Wallenstien Palace amd the gardens inside the palace walls. This Palace is the current home of the Czech Senate, and the gardens are well maintained and populated with about a dozen peacocks. Pretty interesting.

We took the tram home after lunch, and are getting ready to head to the Opera in about an hour. Then it is off to Vienna first thing tomorrow morning. Hopefully that goes smoothly.

Prague 5/29/08

Day Two:

Day two started off early with another breakfast downstairs. We set off immediately to Wenceslas Square, which is Prague equivalent of Las Ramblas in Barcelona or Champs Elysees in Paris, though possibly more historic. It was here that a protest in Nov of 1989 against Police brutality led to the Velvet Revolution, and the overthrow of Communism. The square is really more of a long double wide street, and is named after St. Wenceslas, the Patron Saint of Bohemia.

From the southeast end ofthe square, we were a short walk from Statni Opera, the Czech Republic's State Opera House. We bought tickets to Puccini's Tosca which we'll see tomorrow on 5/30. The interior looks amazing from some photos we've seen and is fashioned in Neo-Classical style decor. Stay tuned for our thoughts on the Opera.

A couple of blocks from the Opera, we saw a building that looked alot like a train station, and decided we'd go check it out. We didn't have our train tickets for Vienna yet, and thought we might look into locking those down. After a few difficult conversations in broken english and Czech, we have tickets, and think we know the drill for Saturday morning. It should be a scenic 4 hr trip getting us to Vienna (Wien) by noon on Sat.

Next, we headed to the Jewish Quarter called Josefov. When American's think of European Jewish Quarters, we immediately think to the WWII era, but this area dates back long before that. This quarter is a combination of two distinct jewish communities that settled in the area in the Mid 1400s. The West Jews settling around the Old-New Synagogue to the west, and the East Jews of the Byzantine Empire settling around the Old Shul where the current Spanish Synagogue resides on the east. The entire area is about the size of 8-10 city blocks, and isn't that big.

We first toured the Pinkas Synagogue which has been created as a memorial to the 77k+ jews lost during the Holocaust. Of the 100k jews in Prague when Germany invaded, about 80k of them were sent of to a concentration camp called Terezin located about 60 miles NE of Prague. Here many of them stayed before being sent off to Death Camps such as Auschwitz. Only 3k of the jews survivced to return to Prague after the war. In the Pinkas Synagoue on the walls is the inscription of all 77K+ jews lost. Really a shocking and touching memorial.

From there, we went to the Old Jewish Cemetary, which during the period of 1400-1600 was the only place Jews could be buried in Prague. From the photo below, you can see that the tombstones are densely packed, and in most places, the dead are burried 8-12 people deep due to lack of space.

We toured several ornate synagoues marking different periods and times in the quarter, and had a good time exploring save for the fact that things were a bit pricing, and photography was not permitted in any of the sites.

Next we grabbed lunch at Kafka Cafe named after famed Czech writier Franz Kafka sipping beer and enjoying people watching from our street side table.

From here, we decided to hoof it back home but do the Charles Bridge on our way back up the Vltava River. Charles Bridge is Prague most familiar monument connecting the Old Town with the Little Quarter which sits below Prague Castle. Until 1741, the bridge was the only crossing over the river. The bridge was commissioned by Charles IV in 1357. The bridge is pedestrian only, and is lined with statues of various Saints of Bohemia.

For dinner, we went to the raucus establishment next to our hotel called U Fleku which is pretty much a fun beer garten. Accordian players and tuba totting festively dressed guys play sing songy drinking songs and encouraged the folks sitting in the outside tables to get involved. There is only one type of beer available, and they walk around with it on trays for you to flag down when you're ready. They just keep a sheet of paper on your table with your tally that the "guy with the money" totals up for you on you way out. My tally reached 5 last night, mostly because I wanted to see if they would give me another mark at beer number 5, or would use the cross mark in typicaly tally style. They didn't do a cross. We had brats and a greek salad that were outstanding.

More stuff to do tomorrow, but am not sure I'll be able to blog it before we leave early on Sat morning to head to Vienna, and don't know if I'll have access to computers there.

Prague: 5/28/08

Day one:

We got up and had breakfast in our hotel. It was an interesting fair, but there was a bit of fruit, coffee, and pastries.

We took a cab to Prague Castle and started off on a day of touring the inside of the castle. The tall Gothic looking structure in the centre of the Castle is St Vitus Cathedral. Within the Castle Walls also house various Basilicas, Palaces, Convents, Art Museums, and much more. Read about it here

Afterspending roughly $30 on the cab ride to the Cathedral, we were motivated to figure out how the public transit system here works, and we did. I pride myself on being able to figure out Public Transit in foreign countries, and enjoyed learning the ropes here. They have buses, electric trams (Above ground) and subways. Anyhow, we made it back home for about $2 in about the same amount if time.

We were still a bit jetlagged, and both crashed for about an hour and a half. I slept HARD, and felt much better after waking.

We had dinner at Reykjavik in Old Town on a street that is on the East Bank and is a straight shoot off of the St. Charles Bridge. Apparently there was a Rugby match at Sparta Stadium last that evening between CZ Republic and Scottland, because we could hear it from the Castle, and saw lots of Dudes in Kilts wearing Scottland Rugby jersey's that evening.

On our way back home, we were walking down some less traveled streets and were commenting on how every block had 2-3 little pubs that were tiny, and mostly empty. Just then, we spotted one that was showing the USA v England soccer match being held in Wembley Stadium in England and decided to grab a beer and watch the rest of it. The match was a poor showing by the US, and by time we reached the end of the first half, the little bar was packed with Ingrid and I, and about 15 Brits, all swearing like sailors, and not very impressed with the US effort. It was fun none the less.

Three beers later, we were on our way back home calling it a late night.

Itwas a good forst day, amd we've got plans to take in an Opera at the National Opera House in two days. It should be great.