Today I reached my goal of summiting Flagstaff Mountain on my bike. I’d told Cynthia that I wouldn’t go mountain biking with her until I was able to do that, and that I hoped to get into shape within a month. So I’m ahead of schedule. I’d tried two times before and got farther than halfway (hence the Mountain 2 bit) but not gotten to the top until today. I used to be able to get up that mountain pretty quickly, and if I keep training I’m sure I’ll get there again. A long time ago I got a flat coming down the mountain pretty quickly, maybe 25mph, and took a bad tumble, so I like the uphill part better than the downhill.
But this is nothing compared to what Chris Sibona is doing these days while he trains for his half-Ironman triathlon. On Saturday he biked for four hours then ran for an hour. The biking took 4000 calories, and the running a mere 800. This guy is a nonstop eating machine these days, and he’s still lost 10 pounds during his training.
On Monday I got my eyes checked at Dr. Ruth’s and now I have aspheric contact lenses, whatever that means. They’re slightly more comfortable and the same prescription as before. It seems that my astigmatism has gotten slightly worse, but not bad enough to get contacts with that factored in — but my next pair of glasses will be better.
Monday afternoon I flew to Waterloo, Canada for work again. It’s about 8 hours door-to-door, so that makes for a lot of traveling considering I returned Wednesday evening. But that evening, about 6 friends and I made our way over to Connor O’Neill’s for $3.50 imperial pints of Murphy’s Stout (mmm).
My Dad, brother William, and his son are coming out to visit me in two weeks. I’m looking forward to that and collecting activities for them to choose from — we’ll have to see what we have energy for and how hot it is.