Thursday night Sean and I took a nice spin out that the Dump. We mainly stuck to the lower trails, and did some exploring on some that we had never seen before. In all it was a fun ride, and we all enjoyed it. Sean even conquered his nemesis drop! Way to go Sean!
Well, today was supposed to be about yardwork, but since it started raining, I had to put that on hold. Instead I did a little site work. I cleaned up the taxonomy (not that you will notice much), removed the cloud module since it has been deprecated in Drupal, configured the weblinks module to output my monitored links (essentially replacing the site cloud), installed the weather module, and installed the subscriptions module (only useful for users who login).
Pretty successul I would say.
As a side note, I will leave the notifications module, and the subscribtions module running side by each for now. They offer similar functionality, but offer it differently.
The notify module allows you to receive emails when new content is put up here, or if new comments are added to any story.
The subscription module allows you to subscribe to certain threads, or certain taxonomies (categories of posts). It is a little more fine grained than the notify module. I haven’t really tested this one yet, but hopefully it will just work!
I am just helping out the cause here. The moron control board has been released, and it looks like some morons already found it. Too bad they don’t get it. Head on over to http://moroncontrolboard.org to check it out!
Woohoo! Results are in. I placed 8th out of 27 with a time of 4:13.88 in the intermediate class. The winning time was 3:49.95 I am very happy with these results. Trés cool.
:guzzle:
I think I could have gone a little faster, but I might have run the risk of crashing, or perhaps running out of steam and ending up being slower than I was.
Darryll did great too. He placed 20th out of 39 riders. Very good for his first race ever. Congrats Darryll.
Happy blogaversary to me,
Happy blogaversaryto me,
Happy blogaversary dear blog,
Happy blogaversary to me!
Wht a blast this weekend was. Yesterday was a very hard day. When I woke up this morning, instantly I could feel that my legs were a little stiff and sore. I knew that the race should be very interesting.
When I got to the race site I went and registered, then headed up for my mandatory run. As soon as I started down the hill, I knew that my race run was going to be difficult. My legs were pretty tight, and not comfortable at all. My grip strenght was also not its normal self, so hanging on to the bars was a challenge. I remembered the upper section pretty well, but messed up the first road crossing, and almost t-boned a stump. I hiked back up a ways and tried that road crossing again, and messed up again! The third time was the charm, and I had to remember that during my race run I needed to stay pretty far left.
The bottom two sections flew by pretty quickly, and by the bottom I was pretty tuckered. I had originally thought that I was going to do two preruns, but I quickly changed that plan.
I then started the waiting. I had close to two hours to wait before my class started racing. Oh well.
Just as I was about to make my way to the top, Su eand Yoshi showed up. I talked with her for a little bit, then jumped in the shuttle, and made my way to the top.
There I had to wait some more, but when time came to line up, the anxiousness set in. I wasn’t nervous, but I was biting at the Bullit. I just wanted to get out there and go.
Soon enough, it was my turn. I lined up and got my right foot set on the pedal. Then I waited. The 10 seconds to go came, then I waited. The countdown started 3…2…1…go! Down the ramp, and into the course. I flowed the first few corners really well. The course had settled in nicely, and the berms were pretty sweet.
I railed the corners, pedalling out of the last half. Lefts and rights just came to me, as if I knew the course like the back of my hand (which I don’t). Over a couple jumps, through some more corners. I had one slight bobble over one jump, but recovered quite quickly. I remembered all the lines I wanted to get, and the tricky corners. I dropped down into the ravine, and as I was cresting the other side I kept thinking about the upcoming road crossing that I messed up earlier in the day.
When it appeared, all I could think was keep left. And I did. Pain was starting to set in. My legs were on fire, my feet were cramping up, I was breathing heavily, and my forearms were getting very, very tight. I knew to keep pushing though because the end would be coming up very quickly. Throught the second section I manualled the dips, and sucked up the humps, and when I could snuck in a couple pedal strokes.
I slowed for the second crossing, and in some far off place I could hear Sue cheering for me. I sprinted across the road, and dropped back into the trail. The pain was getting intense, and all I could concentrate on was the finish line. From the second road crossing it was mostly a straight shot to the line. Except for one corner with a log drop at the apex. Right on cue I slammed on the brakes, lifted and tuend the bike, and started pedalling. I had made it through the last corner, and it was only a short sprint to the finish line.
Once across I just needed to spin along the fire road to work out the lactic acid, but I had to stop to give up my plate first. I took off my helmet, and spun away from the finish line. I was happy with my race. No crashes or wipeouts on my race run. That was a good thing. I probably could have gone a little faster on the first section, but then I would have been more tired near the end of the race. Oh well.
I wanted to stick around to get my results, but they were having problems. They did the draw prizes (I won a t Shirt), then announced results would be ready in about a half hour. I didn’t want to wait around any more, so I took off. I know I didn’t win, but I am happy with my result. As of this writing, results aren’t posted yet, but I have my fingers crossed that I placed mid pack in the intermediate men.
Another crazy fun DH weekend. No crashes, nothing broken.
Practice is done, and tomorrow I race. It was a long day of hikng to the top of the course. Long an hot. Yeesh.
In all we did approximately three complete runs, but one of them was broken up a bit. Thankfully tomorrow there will be shuttles in support of the race.
The course is super fun. The top section of the course is pretty long, but it is very new, and therefore, very loose. The couple berms that exist aren’t fully effective yet because there isn’t enough traction to be able to use them. The first section is pretty twisty, a few little drops, and a couple corners that can be race killers. There is one in particular that is a left turn around a stump, that is off-camber, loose, and the edge of the course drops a few inches. One run today I was trying to rail the corner, and my front tire washed out, and my bike got trapped between the stump, and a tree on the outside of the corner. I ran out of the incident, and wasn’t hurt, but it reinforced that I needed to be extra cautious in that corner.
The bottom two sections of the course are extremely fast and flowy. Not touching the brakes there, save for the very last corner. It is a tight left hander with a small 6 inch log drop at the apex. Tricky!
Anyway, I am ready for the race (I think). This time I will be in intermediate, and not beginner.
Phew, long week. It was a good first week at the new job. I was doing some testing yesterday and today and found a couple previously unreported bugs.
Now I turn my attention to the weekend, and another downhill race. I am ready for action! Tonight I am going to head to Nanaimo to stay at my moms. Tomorrow morning I begin a long day of practicing (with no shuttle support). Then Sunday I race! Wish me luck!
Today was the first Tuesday that Yoshi hasn’t come to work with me. Poor guy! He did get an hour visit from Sue, and a short walk at lunch time though. I am sure he enjoyed that.
My first couple days of work have entitled _lots_ of reading. That is to be expected in this industry, but it sure is tiring!
Tomorrow I start my new job. 🙁 No more freedom. I really did enjoy my time off, but I had so many things to do, I never got them all done.
This weekend was quite eventful though. Yesterday we went for a brunch at the new home of some friends. They put on quite the spread of food too. Wow. Wonderful home too. We were supposed to go to a BBQ that evening, but that got cancelled due to an illness. Instead Sue and I went to go see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Great movie. The first 15 minutes were totally confusing, but once you figure it out, it becomes very enjoyable. Sue and I call it a form of Sci-Fi without all the aliens and space and crap. Very vivid imagery, and NOT a Jim Carrey film at all.
Today I did some yardwork, and I was supposed to go riding. I balied on that and took Yoshi out for a swim at the lake. Now I am home again coffee in hand, ready to do some more reading on C#.
