Saturday, August 9, 2008

Florida Report

I know it has taken me a while (I have had a busy week back), but here it is.

Florida was fun. Hot, but fun.

It started in Lakeland. My time in Lakeland consisted again, as it did in CT as a lot of Tour de France watching. I got to spend a lot of time with my mom and got to see my other siblings and my grandpa, too. It was a really good time. Here is a nice collage of a picture of me with all of them.
Near the end of the week, I took a drive up to Gainesville to visit my friend Jamie who goes to UF. That was a fun time, too. Not very eventful, just went to a couple bars. Although one was a dancing bar that was called :08 (8 Seconds). If you can't tell yet, it was a country bar. Everyone was line-dancing and it was all country music. I was very surprised to find out that there is a unique line dance for every song that they line dance to- actually pretty impressive.

After Lakeland was down to West Palm Beach and the Keys with my brother and his wife and her family. This was a lot of fun. I already talked a little bit about it. I did a lot of snorkeling and water stuff. I ended up only catching one lobster that wasn't big enough, but it turned out to be good enough for me. Ryan and Erin and her family get really serious when it comes to catching lobsters, so I think I helped the most by staying out of the way.

There were amazing sunsets every night and I think the only pictures of me down there also had a sunset in it. Here is one of them.Speaking of the sun, I actually took my shirt off for a lot of the trip. A week in the Keys with my shirt off still didn't seem to be enough to get rid of my tanlines, so I think it is just hopeless to try.

Overall, I had a great trip in all three places I visited. Thanks to all of my hosts for great times. I am very relieved to be back, though. A month of doing nothing started to make me feel like a bum. Plus I was without a bike for two weeks. So now I am back and working and riding. Back to the usual grind.

And just to mention riding...I rode the super sketchy section of the local loop last night with 7 eggs in my back pocket- in the dark. I went down once, but didn't land on my back, so the eggs were fine and made it all the way from Steve's to my place and were just the right temperature to make pasta.

Friday, August 1, 2008

July Wrap-Up

Due to nine days off and lots of MTB riding, in CT and running in Florida, July turned out being a pretty light month.

I did a total of 338 miles, 2/3 being on the road bike. I did 3 races and was humbled in all of them. I've been running the past week in order to keep up the fitness until I can get back on my bike.

August will be a better month, since I will not be racing until the end. This will be my last chance to get intense training in before collegiate season starts.

I'll be back on the bike on Monday.