Something a little different

I played tennis for the first time since high school last night. I'm not nearly as good as I remember. I lost the match 5-2. It was a lot of fun though and I had some moments where it didn't look like I was terrible. Hopefully in a few more matches I can get some of that previous form back. I have to say thanks to Megan for going easy on me. She did let me win two games after all.

Getting back to normal

With the water receeding and closed roads opening things seem to be getting back to normal. There will be a lot of clean up and rebuilding taking place now. The Center Trail system was ravaged by the flood. The riding won't be good out there until a few work days and lots more dry days have passed. From what I hear all the bridges are washed away. Any place that could have water damage does and the trail is just generally a mess. The paved trails arround the city have some damage as well. The Great Western Trail has areas where the ground under the pavement was washed away and the pavement has crumbled. In some areas half the width of the trail is gone. There will be some work required there.

What a difference a week makes. Friday I was only able to ride from the golf course to the bridges, about 8 miles before I ran into this:


Not going to be riding through running water on 23mm wide tires. I had the fortune to find out on Friday that you shouldn't ride through a very thin layer of mud either. I met the pavement on my way to finding that out. With the paved trails opening back up I hope to increase the weekly mileage. I don't think the 500 miles in 5 weeks challenge is going to be met. Too many rainy and cleanup days. Hopefully I can get close though. Currently at 152 miles for the challenge. But with only a week and a half left it doesn't look good. The weather has been really good as of late so get out and ride. I know I will.

It's a good year to like water

Here are some of the pictures I took on Tuesday while cruising the flooded areas on my bike.

This is water works park. There is supposed to be a big concert right here in 2 weeks.

Baseball anyone?
Fortifying levies and blocking off the street. This was in preparation of the flooding that is occurring now.


The Simon Estes Amphitheater (Under the water somewhere)


This was as far as I went on Tuesday. From here(The Des Moines River Marina) the trail leads out to Saylorville Dam and is mostly under water. What you can't see in the picture is the redneck group that just got removed from the flood waters by the police. They all looked really drunk and thought it was a good idea to go for a swim in the river. When I rode away one of the group was telling the officer in charge to bill her for the time the fire rescue/rescue boat / police had spent rescuing them. She was such a good upstanding citizen that she would gladly pay for any time they had spent helping her.

Ride when you can

The rain has stopped! We haven't seen rain in 2 days now. It's beautiful outside and there is no wind to speak of. What a perfect day to hit the road. I'm heading out after work to take a bike tour of the flooding. I hope to make it out to Saylorville to see the emergency spillway. Not sure if I can make it that far though. There are lots of roads and trails closed. I'll be bringing the camera along(if I remember) I hope to get some pictures of the flooding.

Just when you think things are going right

Got home from work on Friday, looking forward to the weekend. We had a busy weekend planned but I was hoping to find some time to ride. First thing I did when I got home on Friday was head downstairs to see if we had any water backing up. It hit the rug at the bottom of the stairs and heard the familiar cush sound. Water logged rug. I opened the door to the basement and everything was wet. Storm water had backed up in the basement. We spent the remainder of the night tearing out a brand new laminate wood floor and pulling up brand new carpet. What a night. We skipped the wedding on Saturday to clean and dry the basement. Also found time to clean the gutters and make sure the downspouts were leading away from the house. We had Mr. Rooter come out on Saturday to check the sewer line. Yep it's bad, going to have to dig up the front yard and fix it. More great news. The claims adjuster is coming out today or tomorrow to see if any of the water damage is covered by insurance. The way things are going I'm not holding my breath. Hope your weekend was better than mine.

Another goal

It's time again to start watching what I eat. I checked the scale on Monday for the first time in a long time and it did not look good. I was up to 237! So I decided now was the right time to start the weight watchers plan again. It's been going good since Monday(hooray 2 whole days) and I've been thinking about a goal weight. My previous goal was 205. Which, as you can tell, I never came close to hitting. I think this time I'll shoot for something a little easier. My new goal is 217. So I'm out to lose 20 pounds. Now is a great time to start since I am working on a cycling goal as well. Hopefully in 5 weeks I'll have my 500 miles in and be down somewhere near 20 pounds.

Yesterday I skipped out on all my household duties and headed out on a bike ride right after work. I wanted to head downtown towards Saylorville Dam, but with all the flooding lately I wasn't sure if the trail was open the entire route. So I settled for cruising the great western trail instead. It was a great ride out. The legs felt good, I was cruising along averaging almost 19mph. I even hit it hard with a few intervals. The way back the legs got tired about the half way point, but I pushed hard to keep my speed up. I ended up with an average speed of 18.3 for the entire 36 miles I rode and finished in 1:53. Not too shabby... for me anyways.