kentcowgill.org/blog

Heh. I complain about falling off of posting to my blog, and then I'm silent for nearly 6 days. So what's the story? Have I really stopped everything? Have I just gotten lazy in posting again?

Well, a little of both.

I mentioned I was getting discouraged with my inability to hit the targets for the push ups and chin ups. So I'm taking a break. I don't plan to stop altogether. I've been kicking around the idea of doing the pyramid push ups/chin ups/sit ups thing again. For a little while. Just to change things up for a bit.

I've been going to my physical therapy, and I bought a few things (ankle weights, lighter dumbbells) to help me do my physical therapy exercises at home. I also dusted off my stability ball and used that a bit, too.

I've also gotten out on my bike - with all the miles and miles of unridden road around me, I can't stay off my bike on the weekends.

Sunday I rode from my house, to Elmwood Park, River Forest, Oak Park, then up to nearly Evanston, Lincolnwood, Skokie, and then back home. It was about 41 miles, and looks pretty impressive on a map:

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I've already got a route mapped out for next weekend that should take me through Park Ridge, Des Plains, Mount Prospect, Rolling Meadows, Schaumburg, Itasca, Wood Dale, Elmhurst, Melrose Park, and then back home. This one will look really impressive, and will span about 48 miles.

Thanks to the long weekend, i.e. an extra day off, I got to go out on another ride today. This time I made sure to not run out of gas again like I did last time - I made sure I ate enough, and brought a snack with me to top off my tank at around the halfway mark.

Nothing particularly exciting to report today. I didn't take the route I was eyeing the other day. I wanted to be in familiar territory in case I bonked again.

I wanted to get back in a reasonable amount of time, but I also wanted to put in some serious miles. At least, more miles than I had been going the last few outings. So I figured instead of taking a bunch of streets through the north and west side of Chicago where I might run into traffic, stoplights, and stop signs, all potentially making it take much longer than it could if I were to take my old standby route, up to the Chicago Botanical Gardens.

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I suppose one of these days I'll start riding my bike in to work. But there are a few logistics I'll need to work out first - get the bike lockup area key, get the gym key, figuring out where the gym is, figuring out which bike lock I should take... I guess I'm still on the fence as to whether or not it's worth the hassle.

I was still feeling pretty beat up yesterday - lack of sleep for the last several days and a brutal physical therapy session, so I fell asleep early.

Today I got out on my bike. I tried to follow a route I found recently on bikely.com, but pretty quickly started missing turns, so I didn't quite follow the trail I had intended. I did take about the same course, and I did about the same mileage, give or take - but of course since I wasn't starting on any point of the trail there was a little extra mileage to get to it. I had to stop a few times and check my location on my iPhone map and see if I could get myself back to the trail I wanted to follow. Then I finally joined up with trail I was familiar with, and it was smooth sailing the rest of the way - to a point.

I'm pretty sure I neglected to consume enough calories in the morning before I went. After a total of about 19 miles or so, I was really feeling like I had run completely out of gas. But I kept on pushing through, at a little slower pace, and finally got home.

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I'm already eyeing a route for Monday - looks like as the route is plotted on bikely.com, it's about 33 miles. I'll be adjusting it slightly for my start and end points.

August 23:

I got out on my bike today. Pretty close to the same route that I did last Saturday, though instead of cutting a straighter line through the city to get back to the house in time, I just turned around and went the same route home. The good news is that there wasn't the Air and Water show going on, so the bike path wasn't absolutely jam-packed with people like it was last week. However, the people who are there normally (runners, walkers, roller-bladers, and other bikers) just have no clue how to coexist in the world with other people. It's simple - keep to the right, but get to the left to pass. Once you've passed, get back to the right. Don't run 3 people abreast. Don't ride in a huge clump of people with opposing foot or bike traffic. Be aware of your surroundings. And that means get those earphones out of your ears! How are you supposed to hear me yell out "on your left" so I can safely pass you, much less "OMG LOOK OUT FOR THAT BABY".

I also had the incredible good fortune to have either a cross wind or a head wind going south, and then again on my way back. So my average speed wasn't great, but there were a few times I actually caught a tail wind and kept a pace of 20 mph. But there was more than a few times where I had to slog along at 12 or 13 mph.

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Sunday was a day of rest. I like those.

I'm posting a bit more than a day or two per post, hoping I can catch up to current before too much longer.

August 8:

I think I'm supposed to do week 3, day 2, column 3 for push ups today, but I'm not sure. I'm more sure about doing week 1, day 2, column 2 for chin ups. Regardless of what I've actually worked up to, this is what I'll be doing for the day.

Push ups: 27 then 19 then 19 then 15 then maxed out at 25. Resting about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 105 in about 8 minutes. I actually think I could've gotten one, possibly two more out of the max set before total collapse, but I just stopped at 25. But the really good news is that today, I hit all the targets for week 3 day 2. Hooray!

Chin ups: Not quite so good. 9 then 8 then 6 then 4 and two halves and then maxed out at 2 and three halves. Yes, I tried to get more than two on three separate tries. And failed. Rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 29 in about 7 minutes. This is definitely more than I've done so far, but it was still short of the target. I think I'll probably end up repeating this one, too. Small bummer. But overall I'm still feeling good about my generally forward progress with the chin ups.

August 9:

Just to wrap up where I've been along the path to 100 consecutive push ups and chin ups so far, I've created a little chart tracking my progress.

This gives me a lot of hope - I can see, now that I've laid it all out, that I'm making some real progress. At times it feels like I'm taking a step backwards for every two steps forward I'm making, but I can see the method to the madness.

Thanks to Lisa's parents being in town to help out after Lisa's wisdom teeth extraction, I got to get out on my bike both days without feeling guilty about leaving her with Matthew! I got out and cleaned up my CamelBak backpack, loaded it up with about 3 liters of water, filled my tires up to 110 psi, and took off. I went just a few more miles today than I did last Sunday, so the total was almost 32 miles. The route was pretty similar to what I did Sunday, just following the trail a little further. Courtesy Google Maps again, here's my route for today:

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Lisa and I interviewed a few potential nannies on Sunday, and we had to take her parents back to the airport, so I took another day of rest on August 10.

August 2:
I got out on my bike today. I had to raise the seat and attach the seat post rack to carry some tools, spare innertube, patch kit, wallet, phone, and my portable tire pump. But I couldn't find my portable tire pump, which made the tools, innertube and patch kit pretty worthless. Sure I could patch a hole or change the tube, but I still wouldn't be able to inflate the tire after fixing or replacing the tube. But I had spent so much time collecting everything and readjusting my bike, and my "Matthew's Nap Timer" was running out, so I just left it all attached and got on my way. Here's the route I took today:

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From my house to the turnaround, I took the longer path, and it's about 9.5 miles. I didn't measure the shorter route from where I turned around, but I'd guess it's about 8 miles. So today's ride was about 17.5 miles.

The rest of the day, I decided to do nothing. That's right, absolutely nothing. I think I was starting to experience some of the symptoms of overtraining - basically I was going all out with just too many activities. I also think it was a mistake to split the chin ups and push ups into separate days - each exercise uses much more of the same muscles than I would expect.

But on Sunday, I got out on my bike for a little longer of a ride.

August 3:

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From my house to the turnaround, it's about 12.5 miles. I took the exact same route both ways, so that makes today's ride about 25 miles.

Drawing the lines of the route in google maps is a little tedious. Maybe next weekend I'll stick to some easier to plot routes.

This is, of course, assuming I replace my tire(s?) by then. I have a giant bulge in my rear tire, with thinning rubber that looks like it's just about to pop. Thankfully it didn't while I was on the road.

I'm glad a random stranger stopped near me at a road crossing to point this out to me by asking me if I felt the wobble. Having no idea what he was talking about, I thought he was perhaps crazy. But after he pointed to my tire, I saw what he was talking about. And of course I felt the wobble (ok, it felt more like I was riding over a bump) from then on - in fact I could think of nothing other than how bad it felt, how could I possibly have not noticed it before, and exactly what position will my body end up in when I have a horrible wreck due to tire blowout.

So I ended up buying a kettlebell and getting back on my bike.

Saturday (July 26) I bought a 25 pound kettlebell, and could hardly wait to start swinging it around. I went through circuit 1 of the Kettlebells the Iron Core Way DVD, which was a basic warmup followed by two three (I found out later) circuits of some basic kettlebell exercises. Even the warmup had me sweating and huffing. And I was running short on time, so I just did 1 circuit. All I can say is this: it's very difficult. I'm glad I didn't buy the lighter 20 pound kettlebell, because I didn't want to sell myself short. Also glad (at least for now) I didn't buy a heavier one, either. I'd like to make sure I've got the techniques down pretty solid before going heavier. Oh, and maybe get the initial full body soreness out of the way, too :) Because I was fairly sore the following day. But it didn't stop me from doing it again.

Sunday I did the circuit twice. And then Lisa wanted me to do the first part with her. So I did. But the second circuit on the DVD was a little bait and switch - they added exercises to the second circuit! So the second "circuit" was longer than the first, and with more stuff! How dare they! Just kidding, of course, the added exercises just really sent my sweat glands into overdrive. I got a really good workout, and I don't think I'll be ready to do this again Monday. I noticed the backs of my forearms are a little sore from frequent hard contact with the kettlebell. Either my technique is off, or this is just one of those things I'm just going to have to get used to.

(I found out later that this is primarily technique - I need to learn to flip the kettlebell (and my wrist) around a vertical axis and bring my wrist to the kettlebell - not bring the kettlebell to my wrist. Which causes impact. Which causes soreness.)

I also rounded up my bike shoes and helmet, filled my bike tires with about 95 psi of air, and took off. Lisa had taken Matthew and Spike out for a walk, so first thing I wanted to do was to catch up to them. I made a loop around the park a block away, then swung back towards the house - but no sign of them. So I took off to this bike trail bridge (going over W Peterson Ave in the map) I finally figured out how to get to. I have no idea how many miles I ended up doing, but I was out about an hour. But then I remembered I could plot arbitrary routes with Google Maps, so here's the actual route:

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Turns out it was about 6.5 miles.

About a third of the way back, I noticed my rear tire getting lower, so I slowed down and kept most of my weight over the front tire. Two thirds of the way back, I was riding on the rim. So I had to walk it the rest of the way home from W Foster Ave. Bummer.

So it was a little troublesome, but I think it was worth it.

If you look carefully, you'll see (at this point) a single new post from April of 2001 in the archive section, or if you click on "Older Articles" enough times to go back that far.

Just some background for these posts, since I'll be editing them a bit to 1) format them using Text::Textile) syntax, as well as 2) capitalizing words properly⁸. I had just signed up to ride in the 2001 Canada to US AIDS Vaccine ride - 415 miles in 5 days, and was blogging about my training and fundraising. Back then...

1. My wife Lisa was only my girlfriend.
2. My road bike (Univega) was brand new.
3. I was about to be laid off from a startup internet company.
4. Most of the links I've linked to were still active.
5. I had more of my pictures on the site.

In my editing, I will clean up broken links. I'll also try to re-upload all my old pictures to my new photos directory and link to them once I do that. And lastly, I'll remove most of the references to my fundraising activities and pleas for donations, since the ride has been over for almost 6 years. In case you're interested, I raised $7,080 in donations for the cause. I only rode about 245 miles due to overuse injury (RSI) to my achilles tendons. (Note the plural).

Hope you enjoy a little blast from the past. I certainly enjoy the memories.

⁸ I used to refuse to capitalize letters. Partly due to laziness, partly due to an extreme dislike of CamelCased variables, partly due to the fact that humans tend to be able to more easily visually distinguish between different lowercase letters than capital letters (or so I think I read somewhere). Since then, I've decided to drop the convention. I'm not 100% certain why - maybe due to the rest of the world and their treatment of the capitalization of letters :)

Ok, once again I'm burning the midnight oil trying to digitize the whole of my experiences on the ride. Or at least the 11:30pm oil. Whichever.

So I've put up the beginnings of my journal, but please keep in mind that I'm typing this stuff out as fast as I can!

I've also starting putting captions on my pictures because I suppose I just felt like doing a lot of typing ;)

Enjoy for now, and I'll post more when I can :)

I've been taking it easy the last few weeks so I don't burn myself out before the ride. The last time I put in some major miles, I went out with my friend Keith again and rode as far north as we could. We got up to the Naval Academy in Great Lakes, about 15 or so miles south of the Wisconsin state border. There was a pretty seedy-looking town there... broken beer bottles all over the sidewalk just outside of the entrance, hole-in-the-wall bars and tattoo parlors. Needless to say, we didn't stay long - we just turned around and headed back :) We decided to swing west on our way back and rode through - you guessed it - the Botanical Gardens for a familiar ride back home. 68 miles.

The next week, I attempted to ride to Wisconsin (I swear I'm still going to do it!) - but got rained on, rather heavily, for a good ten miles. I was soaked and didn't think ahead to bring any of my rain gear with me, so I just hung out at a Starbucks and waited for Lisa to come get me :)

As far as my training is going, it's ok, but not quite where I'd like for it to be this close to the ride. I rode 51 miles last saturday with a friend I met through my chiropracter - he saw my fundraising poster in the office and asked if I wanted to go for a ride... and of course I did. We went up to the Chicago Botanical Gardens, which I've done a few times before, but at least this time I had some company. It was good to go with another vaccine rider because he really kept me on my toes - not too many rest stops :) The coolest part about that ride was that we left from our neighborhood - I didn't put my bike on my car to get it to the start of the "trail".

The day after that, I met up with my friend Lisanne and her daughter Evelyn and did pretty much the same path, only fewer miles - we drove our bikes to the trailhead instead of riding through the city like I did the day before. Total of about 34 miles that day. We even saw a family of deer on the way back! Starting out that day was ... interesting ... We parked in a parking lot I'd never been in before and decided to do some off-roading to find the trail. No such luck. After going through wood chips, dirt, mud, and over a few fallen trees, we finally landed about 15 yards from where we went into the woods. Oops :) We rode down the road a bit and found a real entrance to the trail :)

And of course, I've finally made all my travel reservations. I'm leaving for Montreal on the 4th of September, and flying back to Chicago on the 9th. Hopefully I'll be able to ease my sore rear into the airline seat! I've got my hotel room booked at a hotel near the airport, and I've made reservations for shipping my bike separately to Montreal. Now I just need to make sure I have enough gear! Clothing, tent supplies, a waterproof gearbag - you name it, I need it! :)

Ok, that part about my ribs hurting? Guess what - I have a broken rib :/

On a more positive note, my real ride website seems to be up, running, and stable... thanks to XO communications, my DSL line is finally working again. If you're rambunctious enough, feel free to even sign my guestbook :)

So about that rib. I was in a whole heap of pain earlier this week, but it seems to be feeling a lot better. I feel comfortable riding my mountain bike on the roads, but my road bike is probably a bit too stiff and bumpy on the roads for my comfort. Fear not, I'm still putting in some fake miles on my stationary trainer - I did 10 today to just see how things went - and everything seemed ok.

So for the time being, I'm just going to ride my mountain bike to work, make a few excursions on the way home, and keep the road bike in the trainer. sigh

So my Dad paid me a visit this past friday, and not only did I get him out on a bike, but he also gave me a huge sponsorship! Thanks Dad! I lent him my mountain bike (I think it's more comfortable than my road bike and I also think it takes some time to build up a rear-end tolerance for it) - and we rode to a bike shop for a helmet. I also picked up some baggy bike shorts and a mini-pump for emergency use (hopefully I'll never have to use it!). Our next stop - the Taste of Chicago! We stopped in for a quick bite of lunch and then we headed back home. Round trip, about 20 miles. It was a nice leisurely pace hovering around 10 mph, and we had some good time catching up while riding.

Did I mention I picked up some baggy bike shorts? Now I'm going to be able to ride my bike to work again! I had been hesitant to ride to my new job because it's much more corporate -I'd feel a little embarrassed walking into the office in my spandex. Baggy shorts are definitely the way to go! I also now (thanks to my Mom) have a great gore-tex biking jacket, so I won't even have an excuse if it's raining :) Stay tuned to see how soon I actually ride in! :)

My DSL line is still down, but I think turning 30 (happy birthday to me!) motivated me to get out on my bike a little more. For instance, my mom sent me my birthday present via FedEx, which of course refused to leave the package without my signature. So I took the opportunity to ride my bike to the fedex station... 12 miles round trip. And the folks at FedEx were kind enough to buy me a bottle of water for my return trip :) Ok, so I'm a bit of a revisionist when it comes to history. But they were kind enough to take my dollar to the back of the warehouse and use it to buy me some water :)

Speaking of that particular bike ride.. I really wanted to ride my road bike, but guess what - it had a flat tire. As I had limited daylight, I didn't bother to see if it would hold air; I just hopped on my mountain bike. When I got back, I pumped about 50 psi into the tire and 5 hours later it seems fine. I've heard of slow leaks and bad patches, but this is ridiculous. That tire was fine for at least 35 miles - what happened to all that air?

Training, training, training... last weekend I only managed to get out on my bike once. I was going to go to the bike shop so I could pick up a new shirt. Unfortunately, I got a really bad flat tire. As in - I was riding on my rim flat in under 3 seconds. And I had no tire pump to put air in my tire if I patched it. Fortunately, I was within 50 feet of the bike shop. I had actually hit the curb near the bike shop and I think that's what wounded my tire. Unfortunately, the bike shop was closed. Fortunately, a friend (and potential sponsor - hi Jeff!) lives near the bike shop. Unfortunately, he wasn't home. Fortunately, I was maybe 13-14 blocks from Lisa's place. Unfortunately, she was out shopping. Fortunately, she had her cellphone and was almost finished shopping. Unfortunately, she got stuck in the checkout line. Fortunately, she picked me up after about 20 minutes. :) All tolled, about 10.5 miles.

Fast forward to this weekend. I ride to a DIFFERENT bike shop (thinking that the other one was jinxed) without trouble. I bought a seatpost-mounted rack and a bag to put on it so I don't have to carry all my stuff in my backpack. I rode to Patrick's place, and we went out for another Lake Shore Bike path ride. We got down to the University of Chicago area, and stopped for lunch at a deli on or near the campus. I suppose it was Patrick's turn to get a flat tire, because about 5 minutes after heading back, I hear his tire expel all its air. He apparently ran over a piece of glass that totally shredded his outer tire and innertube. Unfortunately, neither of us had a pump, but with the damage to his tire it wouldn't have mattered anyhow. Fortunately, a taxi drove by immediately after we located the offending piece of glass. Unfortunately, Patrick didn't have any cash. Fortunately, I did :) Also fortunately, the taxi driver didn't mind having Patrick load his bike in the trunk of the taxi. So I basically raced the taxi back to Patrick' place (about 8-10 miles). I almost won, because the traffic on Lake Shore Drive was horrendous! He barely had enough time to get home and change before I rolled up. After that, I had had enough, so I went home. All tolled, about 35 miles. And I've got some really nice sunburn for my effort :)

The new job has a lot of my time and energy sucked away.. :(

As far as training, the last month has been terrible! I had a really bad cold and the weather was horrid, so up until about week ago, I haven't been on my bike all that much. Last week, I did force myself out on my bike. My original intention was to ride maybe 10, possibly 20 miles. After about 8, I felt so good that I decided to call up a friend (who lived pretty close to that 8 mile point). As luck would have it, he was just getting ready to go out on his bike. We met up a few minutes later, rode down the Lake Shore Bike Path to the Museum of Science and Industry (and actually just a bit beyond that). We took a break at a promontory looking out over the lake, shivered a bit (I was cold!), turned around and headed back. All tolled, about 35 miles. Nothing too special about that ride - I'm getting a little bored with the bike path :)

This past weekend, I finally got Lisa, my girlfriend, out on a ride with me! I lent her my mountain bike, bought her a helmet, and we rode down to Bluesfest on Saturday. We took it easy because it was her first time on a bike in years. That was about 13 miles worth of riding. Then the next day, I decided to do all my errands on my bike - I rode to Lisa's apartment to put up shelves, I then rode to one of my clients' office to do some work, and then I sprinted (as best I could wih the stoplights along the route) back home for a total of about 20 miles. I think this is significant, because I rode for at least 2 hours each day, and they were back to back. I'm definitely going to be working more back-to-back days into my schedule as the summer continues, because the vaccine ride has 5 days, back to back, with some fairly hefty mileage.

I just rode 55 miles this past saturday.

This week was particularly fun; I drove to Winnetka with a friend, where we joined up with a group of riders that (I think) refer to themselves as "playa del lago" or something like that - or at least that's the name of the mall where they depart from. It was a nice, rolling ride through the streets of Winnetka, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Lake Bluff, Lake Forest, and a few other towns that I can't recall.

My friend, Warren, and his dad, Mike, and I finally turned around about 6 miles shy of Gurnee, primarily because Mike had to get back to town. The way back was beautiful - we found a route that went through some lovely neighborhoods - it felt like we were riding through peoples' back yards. About an hour after turning around, Mike turned up the steam to get back as quickly as he could, while Warren and I meandered around a bit more. We wandered through Fort Sheridan, a cool little town that used to be an army base - with all the original buildings still intact! All the officers' quarters had been turned into homes, and we couldn't tell what the barracks had been turned into - but they were huge!

Warren and I took a few rest-stops along the way because we were really getting tired. We finally made it back about 6 hours after we set out, and boy was I sore. I could hardly move the rest of the day and most of Sunday, but I think it was well worth the effort - riding with a group seems to be a great way to keep myself motivated!