Signal & Signal

I had a great Birthday weekend!  On Saturday morning me and a friend rode up Signal Mountain (W Road route).  I couldn't help but make my usual remark of "Man its gorgeous here!  You have no idea how awesome it is to live in Chattanooga!"  Note, he is from Chattanooga.  I know it was my goal to make more personal pictures on the blog, and I got about 1/4th of the way there, since I did bring my point and click, but I got so wrapped up in how pretty it was up there, I forgot to take it out.  

I'll try my best to describe it here.  When we got to the top, we got off our bikes and I felt like I could see forever.  Mountains were in the background, but immediately below was the valley.  The morning fog was still visible below us in certain spots, and the good ol' river was briskly winding through the city.  It was awesome!  

We then rode around on the brow for awhile, before going hypothermic down the mountain.  For those of you who have not had the pleasurable experience of being soking weat with sweat in 30 degree weather, and then going 40 mph down a mountain on a bike, it's simmilar to freeze out in a car, but just with your whole body outside and being wet.  

The next day on my birthday, I met another friend at the bottom of the mountain to run up the front side.  Much to my chagrin, my alarm didn't go off.  He was nice enough to wait for me.  I guess the wait was worth it for him, since we talked the entire way up the mountain as we ran, and we still ran faster than his time before.  Everytime I tell myself I'm going to hitch-hike down, becuase of my knees, but it never works out.  So staying true to my roots, I did something VERY different - I RAN DOWN THE MOUNTAIN BACKWARDS!  I definitly got some strange looks, but it was worth it.  My knees didn't feel like I had dropped bricks on them all day, like before.  I think the bonus, was that my hamstrings got a nice extra workout.  

After the workout, I had one of the breakfast's I've had in a long time, and definitly one of the best in my entire life.  Not so much for the food, even though that was amazing, but by the friends and family I ate with.  

Hindsight 20/20, I'm glad everything happened the way it did last year, to trully force me to believe that what matters most in this crazy world we live in is the relationships we have with others.

birthday boy

Hi! It is Brittany, Jimmy's Wife. I hacked into his blog to tell all of his friends over here that today is his Birthday. Make sure you wish him a happy one and if you just so happen to want to see how special he is to his family be sure to jump over here.

Thanks for saying hello! Have an incredible day!

Oh and a post is always better with a picture so here is the b'day boy sporting a couple of his birthday presents (click to enlarge).
Happy Birthday to my Ironman! Love you a and f. -brittany-

Gossip, Gossip, Gossip

Guy's perennially make fun of girls for there endless talk of celebrity's. In reality, however I think us guys are just as bad. Instead of it being actors/actresses it's just sports figures.

I'm not going to use this blog to spread gossip but I do have two bits of information hot off the gossip wheel that people might find interesting.

1) I have heard from 3 different unrelated groups that Floyd Landis is moving here - to Chattanooga, TN

2) Lance is planning on doing an Ironman after the Tour de France! This one, I actually have an internet source for.

Long Run Sundays...

On Sunday, I found yet another awesome reason why I love living in Chattanooga. I have now been here 9 years and I haven't even scratched the surface on all of the outdoor activities available. On Sunday, my friend Dusty had to do a long-run in training for his upcoming marathon. Having participated in many of these long-run sessions I know they can be extremely boring and it wasn't like running 10 miles was going to hurt me and my nice winter-hibernation flab.

So early Sunday after a late night I got out of a nice warm bed to go brave the cold for a long run (can anyone tell that I had a lot of excuses not to go?). We were running at Chicamauga Battlefield. I had never ran there before, but Dusty had ran a half-marathon and guarunteed I wouldn't be dissapointed. Note, I prefer trails and we would have ran trails, but all of the ones we knew about were flooded. The experience was awesome to say the least.

First, we talked pretty much the whole time so it definately wasn't boring and second we saw no less than 30 dear. It was great being out there with the early morning fog and mist seeing the deer eating in the fields. At one point, we got within about 5 feet of two deer that were completely unfazed that we were running almost at them (they were by the road we were running on).

The actual run wasn't bad at all, as there were only a couple of moderate hills and we pretty much talked the entire time while watching the deer so the mileage flew by.

Anyway, we had to cut the run short due to a bowel syndrome I had which is caused by eating expired granola and then going and running 8 miles, I'll let everyone guess as to what was going on...

Changes

Last year was great of-course because I became an "Ironman" the obvious goal since I had that great conversation on a road trip with my friend Kevin. Now I'm "stuck" with a blog titled "My Path To The Ironman" What to do?

Well, for one, if you have been consistently reading this blog you know that there is more to my life than just 140.6 miles and that there are more "things" both tangible and intangible (but mostly intangible) that I consider an Ironman.

Yet, there will be changes. My goal for the blog this year is to have more frequent posts, more of a following, and more personal pictures. So keep me accountable. These are the goals for the blog this year, who know where it will lead...

If there is anything you would like to see or hear about please leave a comment, email, or call. If there is anything you dislike or like comment, email or call.

No Mo Memphis Ride

On New Years Day I got invited to do the "No Mo Memphis Ride" All ex-Memphians now living in the greatest city on earth - Chattanooga, TN. The person who invited me said "we are all going to be hung over, so we will just take it nice and slow" Which was fine with me since, I'm not really even doing base training right now, rather just trying to keep the weight off until spring when I will hit training hard. Also I haven't done a serious ride since Ironman.

We all met at Mojo in Red Bank, Lance was predictably not there on-time, but strangely enough his bike was there (he was changing out a tire on someone else's bike. The other two (a couple) I had not met before, but judjing by the bike and the gear, I knew we weren't going slow on this ride. She had a custom bike, and he had a SEVEN, for those of you none-cyclist out there, these things aren't cheap. Corey showed up and the others and we were off. So let me paint the picture, everyone is there with all of their sharp bikes and winter riding gear, and I've got my mountain bike helmet, my hoodie sweatshirt I have had since middle-school, one black sock and one white sock, and quite possibly the cheapest pair of cycling shoes on the face of this earth. I think everyone else's sunglasses cost more than my entire outfit. Owell, I'm just here to have fun and make everyone else look good.



The ride to Signal was fun, we talked about last night's drinking and the new year and all of the races we were looking forward to. I have never climbed the W route up signal, but it is much talked about. I was predictably slow, but it was a fun route, there was a little ice up top, but nothing too scary. I thought I would overheat in my 3 layers of clothing but I didn't, and that should tell you how cold it was. The rollers on top of Signal are great training. You just have to grind them out no matter how good of cyclist you are. There is no fast way to do them. The ride down the backside was fun, as always. Corey was, as usual, the fastest hitting 42 mph, it would have been faster, but we were all COLD.



At the bottom, I pulled out a PBJ sandwich. Everyone was laughing, but at this point who am I kidding really? They all had their perpeteum. I'm not naming names, but these people are so serious they drink Recoverite after they mow the lawn.

About Perpeteum:



About Recoverite:



The ride through the Sequatchie Valley was the most disappointing. Usually it's a nice ride with no traffic and you can talk the whole time, while maintaing a nice training pace. This time we were greeting with 15+ mph headwinds. My stomach was really acting up. Evidently champagne & rum isn't what I should have been carbo-loading the day before. I was in good company though a fellow cyclist had a similar concoction of beer, whiskey, champagne, and then beer (in that order) from the night before so he was right there with me. I made it up Suck Creek mountain with one hand on my handle bars and one hand on my stomach. On the way down I my entire body was shaking so bad I was scared I was going to fall of the bike. It was pretty though seeing the ice on the side of the mountain.



So I'm sure while reading this you are glad you didn't participate in this ride, as it was one of the worst rides I've been on. However, hindsight 20/20 would I do it again - YOU BETCHA! Even though I had miserable stomach cramps, was freezing, and was completely out of shape and shouldn't be tackling two mountains and 60 miles, it was a lot better than staying inside and watching tv all day.