Cody's 1st ride w/out training wheels

I've been trying to convince my son Cody, age 4, to let me take the training wheels off his bicycle for months, but he's refused. Last night Cody saw a video on Facebook of his favorite cousin riding his bike without training wheels. Aparently seeing Nathan riding without training wheels was all the motivation he needed. Today he had me take his training wheels off, this video is of his 1st attempt.

my new run partner

One of my fondest memories as a child was when I'd visit my Dad during the summers, almost every morning he'd go running & I'd ride next to him on my bicycle. We'd talk & enjoy each others company. Sometimes a 2 mile run would turn into 10+ miles because of how much fun we'd have together.

Today I was scheduled for an easy recovery run & I took my daughter on her bike. We did 4 miles together. I was amazed with how well she did. She never once stopped or slowed me down, as a matter of a fact she was going so fast I had to keep a high zone 2 pace to keep up with her. She's an amazing little athlete for being only 5 years old. I sure enjoy her.

Next year my middle son should be big enough to go with us also.

my daughter the cyclist

I've been pulling my babies in a bike cart to the park for 4 years. Yesterday I only had to pull my 2 sons in the cart, my daughter rode her bike there. Round trip it was 5 miles plus she rode around the park a half dozen times once we got there. I'm guessing she rode a total just shy of 8 miles. That's A LONG WAYS for a 5 year old!

bonked & dehydrated in West Texas

We are visiting family in Lubbock Texas. Since August of last year my longest bike ride has only been about 30 miles. Today my cousin Greg & I were able to slip away for a 62 mile bike ride. We rode the Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon 70.3 course & through Ransom Canyon twice. It was a GREAT ride.

Since I'm not used to riding longer than 30 miles I made some stupid mistakes on today's ride.

1) I usually don't ride long enough to need to buy extra Gatorade and Power gels to finish my ride. So when we pulled into the convenience store we realized we had both left our wallets & money at home. The people who ran the local convenience store in Slaton Texas let us fill up our water bottles with tap water, but without any more calories to finish the ride I bonked hard on the way home. I'm sure I could of handled riding 62 miles with that few of calories if I was used to riding those distances, but since that was twice as long as I was used to riding I fell apart.

2) the other mistake I made was not planning for how much hotter it is here in west Texas & how much more fluid I needed to drink. By the time we got home I had bonked & was seriously dehydrated.

The good news is I got to ride through my favorite 2 areas: Buffalo Springs & Ransom Canyon. When I retire in 2015 I desperately want to move to one of those 2 areas. That area would be perfect to train in & it would be a beautiful place to raise my babies- yes, in that order too!

We rode by the metal house in Ransom Canyon. That thing is weird, but oddly fascinating (see picture above). It's designed & constructed completely from scrap metal by local Texas Tech professor Robert Bruno.

My cousin rode his recumbent bike today. I had no idea how fast those things were. I'm in better shape than him & weigh less than him but he still laid a smack down. He let me put in a few miles on it & I was amazed at how comfortable it was & how fast it rode without much effort. I have to say I have a new goal. Before I die I'd like to ride in a 12 or 24 hour bike race on a recumbent. They are fast & comfortable & I'd be able to finish an ultra endurance ride much more comfortably on a recumbent than I could on a traditional road bike.

I love it here in West Texas! I can't wait to move here when my wife graduates & I retire!

Today while on my ride I tried Cliff gels for the first time. They were the best tasting gels I've ever had! They were like liquid candy! I'll be switching brands of gels from now on.

Cycling like a GIRL!

I had taught my daughter to ride her bicycle without training wheels last year before her 5th birthday. She forgot how to bike during the winter, so I've spent the last 2 days re-teaching her.

Today my daughter asked me to run next to her while she rode in case she got scared. Sounded like a great idea to me. She'd get practice riding without training wheels & I'd get in some base run miles. Turns out I didn't get in many base miles at all, it was mostly hill & speed work. She was amazing at hill climbing! A real natural! I told her she is the best hill climber I'd ever seen & that she made me tired when she rode uphill as fast as she did. From then on she got a kick out of riding as fast as she could uphill, & that little girl can haul butt uphill! I was having to push myself to keep up. She stopped peddling & rested on the downhill, but since she was on a bike she was still going dang fast downhill, so there I was struggling to keep up with her still! She rode for an hour fifty minutes with me running next to her at almost full speed. After the hour fifty minutes a few boys saved me by asking if they could ride with her. At that point I was able to sit down & watch them & rest. Their favorite game was racing eachother, & they did a ton of it! Race after race after race! If they happened to pass her on the flats or downhill, she ALWAYS pass them on the uphill. After about 45 minutes of riding fast & hard, beating them in race after race, she made 2 out of the 3 boys cry! Oh ya! That's my girl!

At my next triathlon I want to make anyone who tries to hang with me cry, I want to race like my 5 year old little girl.

Time to give credit where credit is due

Wow, what a busy week and a half I've had. I'm usually busy by normal peoples terminology. I work 6 12hr shifts a week. As soon as I get home I sleep, train for triathlon as soon as I awake, then spend a couple of hours with my wife & kids before I go back to work & do it all over again. So like I said, I'm usually busy, but this week was unusually busy. Last week the transmission went out in my van so my wife I are were trying to use one vehicle between the both of us. Since time is such a rare commodity with me, juggling who can use our only remaining vehicle, & when, made things pretty rough. But we made it through that just fine. My wife a I have always had the ability to make the best & see our way through anything as long as we have each other. Our mini-van has a 100,000 mile warranty & we had 90,000 miles on our van.



I called the dealership about our transmission & told them our extended warranty should cover it. They said "bring it in & we'll see if it is covered. The new tranny will cost 2,400 dollars. We'll put the new tranny in & in the mean time we'll see if its covered." A red flag went up in my mind. I'll spare you all the gruesome details, but long story short after what felt like a hundred hours on the phone with the dealership they decided to cover the cost of replacement & labor. We only had to pay 100 dollars for the deductible. We also had the battery & oil changed. Total damage was 350 dollars Much better than over 2600!



Tonight an immediate family member & I worked out some problems that we should of worked out over a decade ago. It wasn't easy, and there were some hurt feelings on both sides that we were able to talk out. But we worked it out. First time since 1993 I felt like all was well in that relationship. I've missed her so badly even though she was right here the whole time. We made up allot of ground tonight.



I weighed in yesterday st 193 lbs! I've met my WW goal so now I'm going to spend a couple weeks in the maintenance phase of the diet. In the maintenance phase I'll be getting allot more calories a day to eat. 6 more food points to be exact. For someone like me who has a love-hate-love-love relationship with food like me that is great news!!!!



In Nov 2006 I did the Clearwater 70.3. When I had my bike shipped from Fla. back here to NM, UPS damaged my bike during shipping. It just so happened that this week they finally decided to work out all the kinks to try & send me a check to fix or replace my bike. 17 months fighting with them & they just now decided to get off their butts. So there is another large block of time spent on the phone, sending out email & faxes. It looks entirely possible that UPS will be sending me a 2000 dollar check in the next 14 working days. The new Cannondale Ironman carbon frame came out recently. Cannondale has a frame trade in policy so that I can get the new frame for 2250 dollars (usually 3800) by trading in my old frame. I don't think it was a coincidence that it took 17 months to get this UPS claim resolved & Cannondale just now came out with their first carbon frame. No coincidence at all.



My son is normally a perfectly behaved 8 month old. He's teething this week so all hopes of sleep & peace have been out. Poor guy. But today he got his first good nap all week. There is light at the end of this tunnel.@The gate on our fence broke. Normally I can't fix anything mechanical or home project to save my life. The gate only took about 45 minutes to replace. Usually fixing broken things are one of my 3 triggers to send me into emotional eating. I didn't turn to food this time!



I thought I had broken the pinkie toe of my right foot. The Dr said I stubbed the heck out of it, but its not broke & I could continue to train as long as I didn't feel like it was at anytime becoming more badly damaged.



My wife and I put a bike for her on lay away 3 months ago. This was the last week we had to pay on it. By Saturday we had to either pay it off or lose the money we had put down on it. We got our tax refund about 10 days ago. So my wife & I not only was able to pay the last 400 dollars owed on the bike, but we also got her a helmet, cycling shorts, a jersey, & cycling shoes. Before I went to work my mother in law watched our children while Cindy & I went on our first bike ride together. It was amazing. We had more fun than I could ever have dreamed. We rode through a neighborhood in the NE heights of Albuquerque looking at houses & talking of when I retire from the Penitentiary & we can move our family to a real home in Albuquerque away from the prison. We talked about our children. We discussed each others dreams & inspirations. I have over 10,000 miles on my Cannondale Ironman bike. That's only 1 of the 4 bikes I own & ride. I've ridden allot of rides that I've felt were special, but today was by far the most magical ride I've ever had. We enjoyed it so much we decided we're going to do the Albuquerque quarter century together May 7th.



Friday night my wife & I went out with friends to the Horse & Angel bar & grill. It was the first time in 2 years I'd gone out on the town. I had my wife by my side so I was bound to have a great time. But last night ended up being one of the best times I've had in years. Friends, my wife, laughter, & love. Truly, I had so much fun last night out on the town with my amazing wife. Add today's bike ride, I can truly say I fell in love with her all over again. Today, before work I didn't want to leave. I felt like it was when Cindy & I had just started dating again. All I wanted was for me stay with her & in each others arms.



God is good to me. I don't deserve even a small tidbit of what he has blessed me with in my life, but he goes & blesses me anyway. God deserves some much deserved and over due credit. Thank you my Lord. You are so big, & sometimes I don't recognize all the blessings you give me in my life. This week you threw so many blessings into my life not even someone as blind as me could have missed it all. Thank you my God.

A bonding experience with my daughter

For the last 4 years I've tried to live a very active life style not only to be healthier, but also to be a good example for my daughter. I often take her to the track with me loaded with toys that she can play with on the football field in the middle of the track I end up running on. She'll play around in the grass or the long jump pit entire time I run. While the family watches movies I often ride my indoor bike trainer. I also take her to the pool or park on every one of my days off. I wasn't sure if I was making a difference in the way she'll live her life, but I enjoy living like this. And I really do hope my life style can create healthy choices made by her later in life.

About 5 months ago I bought my daughter a pink Dora the Explorer bike and a pink Princes helmet. I jumped the gun on that one let me tell you. Her little feet couldn't even reach the peddles. She got on the bike that had pink training wheels maybe two times at the most. Both times she got on it I made her wear a helmet. Although she thought the helmet was pretty, she hated wearing it! After 5 months I assumed she would have forgotten all about her helmet and what it was used for.

Today I was scheduled to ride 1.5hrs. I wasn't motivated at all. I grabbed my cycling shoes and helmet, set them in my chair and that's where they stayed for over 2 hrs. I was pretty sure I was going to miss this one. Then around 6:30pm my 22 month old baby girl walked up to me with both of our helmets in her hands. She looked up at me with those big blue eyes and said "please!". I have a bike cart for her but I had never taken her on a training ride with me before. She wanted to go with me on my bike ride and she was even willing to wear her helmet if that meant she could go with me. My heart skipped a beat, and my eyes started filling up with tears. Not only was I touched because she wanted to be with me no matter what it was I was planning on doing. But I also realized all my efforts of exercising in front of her was paying off.

I grabbed us both bottles filled with water, we put on our helmets, and she crawled into the cart before I could even hook it to my bike. I was a little worried that if I did my usual 22 mile loop she'd get bored or uncomfortable and start crying. I wanted to make sure this was a pleasurable experience for her, but the Bonanza loop is really the only place with a shoulder large enough to feel safe riding while pulling my precious cargo. I decided to ride the loop and hope for the best. We ended up doing a 1hr 44 minute 22 mile bike ride. She did great. The entire ride she kept herself occupied and really seemed to enjoying herself. All in all I believe it was a great experience for her. I know this was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I sure love being a Dad.