Jerimiah Wedding's MindSay Blog

sup

jtwedding — 2004-08-13T10:08:00-05:00

So...this is my first blog. I'm a 21 year old business student who's life revolves around swimming, cycling and running. That is correct, I'm a triathlete. I also work for a sporting goods store part time and have my own business doing graphic, motion and web design.

Currently I'm training for a sprint distance Duathlon (2 mile run, 13 mile ride, 2 mile run), which is next sunday morning. This will be my first competitive event. I've done the StP previously (seattle to portland bicycle classic 206 mile bike ride). I hope to be able to be able to compete in 1/2 ironmans in the next two years and to the moon from there.

Test Run

jtwedding — 2004-08-14T01:08:00-05:00

Today is exactly 1 week and 1 day away from the David Haines Memorial Duathlon so I decided it'd be a good idea to do a test run of the 17 mile event. First 2 mile run went okay, i took it slow doing 8 minute miles, I then hopped on the bike and found my legs to be strangely tired. I'd ran and rode distances much further than this and somehow after just 2 miles of running, my legs felt worn. After the first 4 miles on the bike I found that really my muscles needed a little transition from run to bike. Something I'm definitely going to work harder on when training for my next event.

After riding 13 miles I felt damn good, threw on my shoes and hocked my helmet and gloves. I soon found that I didn't have a smooth transition from bike to running either. As a matter of fact the transition was horrible. After about a 1/4 mile I could barely breath, my Heart rate was zone 4 when i was barely moving and my muscles felt dead. I figured no use killing myself one week before the event. While these things will probably be a problem next weekend, I'm glad I know about them and next time can train better for it. Then again, next time I hope to be getting wet first thing. :)

T minus 6 days

jtwedding — 2004-08-16T12:08:00-05:00

woke up early and went for a 40 minute jog. I"m trying not to taper my workout too much so that my muscles don't tone down over the next week. I have work tonight and a coworker is having a b-day party afterwards so I didn't wanna tucker myself out.

bleh...

jtwedding — 2004-08-17T06:08:00-05:00

I did 2 running splits (15 mins each) and 1 cycling split (30 mins) today. Just trying to get used to riding after running and running after riding. I did a lot better today then last time and hopefully I'll do even better come sunday. I'm off to play some b-ball with my buddy.

Knee problems

jtwedding — 2004-08-18T10:08:00-05:00

Yesterday during basketball I jarred my knee, it hurt last night but felt fine this morning until about 40 mins into my run. I'm gonna hop in the shower throw a brace on and hope for the best this sunday.

Soreness

jtwedding — 2004-08-19T12:08:00-05:00

After hard running for an hour and then 9 hours of work my calves and shins are sore as hell. Today I'm just gonna take a nice slow bike ride and chill the rest of the day, maybe go swimming or something.

I've come to realize that I may not win this upcoming event. It all depends on who shows up for it. I'm in much better shape than most cyclists/runners, but I'm not so sure about myself now. If I linger on this i'm afraid it'll hurt my performance, so I'm gonna try to remain as relaxed as possible before this event.

Good day, bad day

jtwedding — 2004-08-20T10:08:00-05:00

I got some new gear for the race on sunday, got a new jersey, shorts, socks, running hat, helmet and i think that's it. Either way I look hella slick in my new outfit. I'll have my mom take some pics of me during the race and post em up for all 2 of you who read this to see.

I had a nice workout today, did 2 miles in 15 minutes then jumped on the bike for a crazy 30 minutes which I basically just went over tumwater hill and back ( it's a hardass hill going up but going down is so much fun ). Then did a slow jog for 10 minutes then walked a bit to cool down. Tommorow I'm up at 6am then having a light workout before work and then tommorow night getting everything ready for sunday.

I feel somewhat excited and nervous right now just thinking about the race. There's so much stuff I don't know, like who my competition is, what level they're at, and whatnot. I do know that it is gonna be rainy and fairly cold (60 F) which I actually look forward to since I tend to be an awesome wet weather athlete (gotta love growing up in washington).

Anyway, i'm going to bed cuz i have 7 hours until wakeup call.

Night before...

jtwedding — 2004-08-21T10:08:00-05:00

It's about 10:30pm and I've got to get up in about 5 and a half hours to get ready for the race tommorow morning. I'm damn tired and may just take an extra hour of rest tommorow, maybe make my brother drive so I can sleep on the way. Either way, I think I am ready for tommorow, my knee feels fine now, my head is somewhat clear and hopefully I'll be primed tommorow morning. Wish me luck!

Old people are fast

jtwedding — 2004-08-22T04:08:00-05:00

So my event was this morning. During the first run the pack took off and I took it easy as was my plan with this very nice lady from Portland. The last 1/4 mile or so I picked up the pace and hit the bike split in something like 3 from last place in around 18 minutes.
As planned I moved it on the bike. I passed all those people who were so fast out of the gate. There was a wicked mean headwind coming back from the loop, so I spent a good amount of time down on the aero-bars. I finished the bike split in 4th in 43:11.
The final running split went damn well all considered. My stomach was not agreeing with me and my legs where dead but the closer i got to finish the faster they moved. At the turn around a girl was about 5 feet behind me and yelled something about being ahead of me during the first run or something like that, not sure didn't quite catch it. By the end of the under 16 min 2 mile split I was a good minute in head of her.

I finished off around 1:17:10 for the entire event and in 4th place, which I didn't know until they were giving out trophies. I thought i was in 3rd and when i finished I was listed as being third on the duathlon board. The guy who took first I hadn't even noticed him on the course so I had thought the guy in 2nd was actually 1st. It was a little disapointing that I didn't place (by meer seconds no less), but I think this was a good experience and I learned a lot (like not to eat hotdogs and drink soda the night before...).
It was a lot of work to get here and I still have a lot of work ahead of me. I don't have any more events planned until next year but in the mean time it gives me due time to improve on a lot of things.

civilian life

jtwedding — 2004-08-24T09:08:00-05:00

I did my first run in my new shoes (new balance 536), they need a little bit of breaking in but other than that they are quite nice. Not all that fast but they'll work for most things. I've found a pair of shoes that I just bought to wear to work are actually awesomely cheap and lightweight and thanks to my neutral feet feel pretty good going shorter distances (mostly speed work).
I finished my crap for my financial aid for school. This year I'm getting one quarters worth because that's all the time I have left to graduate. I need 9 credits and in order to get my grants i need at least 12 so I'm taking 15. I was thinking about how I'm going to pay for my next two years of college since uni is so much more expensive than community college. The thought crossed my mind that maybe, hopefully, I could work something out with a running scholarship. I know I have the potential to be damn fast ( I used to be one helluva 100m runner ). Maybe there's some scholarship in there. Maybe I just need to work my ass off and find a way to pay for it. Either way, my ass will be worked off.
I feel kind of weird not having any short term goals at the moment. No races, no purchase, no anything. Pretty much all the things I wish to accomplish are a year or more away. This I believe is the first time that has happened in quite awhile.
Oh well, I guess I can take this as having ample time to prepare for what I plan in the future. Meaning...lots of nice hard workouts and studying :)

bleh

jtwedding — 2004-08-28T12:08:00-05:00

it's like 1 am on saturday morning and i'm about to hit the hey. I had a killer bike ride today, 25 miles with hella hills and maintaining at the least 18 mph. Tommorow I have a long run and about 4 hours of work to look forward too. If i get up in time i'll run before work if not i'll run afterwards. I've been getting 0 sleep lately and it's not helping my sales so i'm sleeping in tommorow. see ya manana!

mmmmyep

jtwedding — 2004-08-29T01:08:00-05:00

so i slept in as expected and ended up only having about 20 minutes to go running which i ceased the opurtunity and put in a fast 3 miles. After work I played some basketball so I wasn't exactly lazy today. Tommorow I plan on one helluva training day, but since I don't work I'm sleeping my ass in.

LLlloonggg run

jtwedding — 2004-08-29T06:08:00-05:00

Today I did a 10 mile run averaging a little under 9 minutes per mile (I want to shave 2 minutes off that). I actually felt really good when I finished up the run, but I made the mistake of eating too much too fast and too soon after the run and ended up vomiting for the first time due to excercise. I have to say it wasn't a fun experience but I did learn to let my body settle before throwing food down my throat. Just more valuable experience for the future.

long bike ride and long work day

jtwedding — 2004-08-31T10:08:00-05:00

I did a 30 mile ride today and realized that while my running has been improving my cycling has gone down hill. The hills were killing my legs and my guts felt like they were just going to come up at any moment.
I got called in an hour early to work, and it seemed like they longest 6 hours of my life. My legs were hurting the whole time and I just wasn't 100% for work. That's life though and I'm feeling better now especially with tommorow off (nice run anyone?).
Last night I talked to an old friend I hadn't talked to in probably a year or two. Turns out she's taking up running since we stopped hanging out. We talked about running and about our mutual friends, how they are doing and whatnot. Probably going to arrange a run with her and her running buddies sometime soon. She asked if i wanted to do a 5k race on the 12th, I'll probably do it. Depends on if my work will let me have it off.

running and calories

jtwedding — 2004-09-01T11:09:00-05:00

Today I did 4.5 miles in 35 minutes on the dot. I started out too fast with the first mile being around 7 flat then burned out and ran the rest a tad slower. I do feel a little better because roughly 6 months ago the same route took me around 45 minutes to run it. Losing 10 minutes isn't bad if you ask me. I also added up my calories and my total required calories. Turns out, any given day I burn between 3000 and 4000 kCal's (calories) and I only eat between 1500 and 2000. While this may sound good to some for weightloss reasons, this is not good for someone with so little body fat such as myself. I already lost all that extra weight so really i'm just working on losing muscle mass (something i don't want). So starting today I became what I dread the most, a calorie counter, but for completely different reasons than the usual. Tommorow I have work and before that I plan on getting a good ride in. I like running so much more lately but I really need to keep up with my cycling skills.

bleh

jtwedding — 2004-09-03T10:09:00-05:00

Yesterday I did some form work. I had to do things like skipping, bounding and some other stuff that made me look like a silly ass. Afterthat and about 5 miles of running at top speed, I was beat but still had work. I was actually doing great at work and wasn't feel as down as usual after having a hard workout. Today I have to work at 3 and get to the bank before that. Probably not going to do any hardcore workouts, maybe just run a couple miles if that.

Cell phone?

jtwedding — 2004-09-05T11:09:00-05:00

Well I finally broke down and bought a cellphone. Since I plan on moving very soon and I also plan on spending about 80% of my time at work soon I went ahead and bought a cellphone after about 99% of the world already had one. Now I just need a shiny new car and a fancy studio apartment and I'll fit in with the other kids at school! (I sense a little sarcasm. "Well I hope so because I was laying it on pretty thick there")

In other news I decided to take a week off from running and riding. I haven't taken more than a day off for a few solid months now and I was getting burned out. I'll pick things up on tuesday hopefully recharged and ready to kick through some solid mileage.

badda boom badda bam baram

jtwedding — 2004-09-10T02:09:54-05:00

I've been working mad hours at work lately, yesterday I pretty much woke up and got called in (on my day off) then worked til 9:45 at night. Today I went in 3 hours early (1pm) and left at 10:35 because my asst manager needed help running shoes (which means putting new shoes onto the shelves in the storeroom).
I ran 4.5 miles today in 35minutes 35 secs, which is a full ten minutes faster than the last time I did it. 10 mins faster in one week isn't bad if you ask me. I've been doing a lot of speed and form work lately and the (nearly) week off from running was a good refreshing period. That first run back was much easier and nicer than I had ever expected.

Holy work!

jtwedding — 2004-09-14T03:09:51-05:00

Well...I haven't ran in about 3 or 4 days because I've been working pretty much from waking up to when i go to bed. Yesterday I worked 16 hours and all I did was fold shirts...for 16 hours... Thankfully this won't be happening again. What happened was at work they changed the standards for how shirts are to be stacked and presented which meant we had to re-fold a few thousand shirts. You'd think that such a small store wouldn't have so many damn shirts but jesus...
All this was because the Regional Vice President was coming for a visit today. Actually he's probably there right now. Thank god he'll be gone when I get there though. Supposedly, this guy will check out the shirts and if anythings wrong he'll throw the stack on the floor and say, "fix them"

first day back, not too shabby

jtwedding — 2004-09-15T03:09:05-05:00

Today I went for a short run with my mom's bf mike out in this place called mima mounds. It was actually the funnest run I've ever done. When the trail wasn't zigzagging all over it was constant up and down over the mounds, which really spiced up the run. I wanna try to do a run similar to this at least once a week, also would like to spend more time doing trails instead of so much time on hard roads.

Watch for bicyclists!!!

jtwedding — 2004-09-16T03:09:28-05:00

I ran 3 miles in just under 21 minutes today and spent some time with the ole weights. However, that is far from the highlight of my day. My mom's boyfriend, Mike, the guy who got me into cycling which begat other endurance sports, got hit by a car today on his bike. What happened was he was cruising down the road on the shoulder when this lady turned into a driveway infront of him and he ran into her car going somewhere around 20 mph. The lady went on to get pissed at him and say that it was his fault. Here's the doozy ladies and gents, in Washington State if a cyclist is going one way and you wish to turn in front of him, he has the right of way and therefore you need to wait until he has passed just as you would a car or truck. I'm pretty sure this is the law everywhere else too. Thisis the second time i've heard of an accident like this and to be honest it scares me and pisses me off. People need to think. The woman who hit him was yelling at him about how cyclists think they own the road and yadda yadda. Well guess what bitch, cyclists share the road with drivers and vice versa. If you wouldn't pull some shit on a semi-truck don't pull it on a cyclist. I'm heated enough about this issue right now so i'm gonna go take a shower.

back to the real world

jtwedding — 2004-09-22T04:09:28-05:00

After Mike's little accident I hadn't run until yesterday when i got home from school. Yes you heard right I'm back in school. Thankfully I'm working about half as much now so I don't have too close a schedule. I'm hella sore from a wicked fast (too fast) first-day-back run. I'm just gonna pull a short slow run today, take it easy and then head out to work. My oh my what fun.

mwaaaaaa

jtwedding — 2004-09-23T07:09:19-05:00

Went for a 50 min run and included Tumwater Hill in there, went up and down that beast twice before feeling like I was gonna die. Was a good run and I am definitely feeling the afterburn now. I have to leave for work in like 5 mins. My life has pretty much consisted of school, running and working this week. Maybe it'll chill out in the next few weeks but I'm definitely not quiting school or running so there you have it....

Not so happy trails

jtwedding — 2004-09-26T01:09:00-05:00

So my buddy Scott told me about these trails at this park that's on the top of Tumwater Hill, which is only a couple miles from my house. I decided since it was so much closer to just go there and check it out. Well, scott explained it like this, "they go on for freaking ever!" After spending maybe 10 minutes checking out the trails I found that "for freaking ever!" actually means, about 3/4 of a mile with one or two offshoots that are quick deadends. These trails were in horrible shape. There was broken glass, old mattresses and other random furniture, and my all time fave, the washing machine. I did a few laps and just tried to up the speed each lap. Needless to say I probably won't be spending much time at these newfound trails.

In other news, my new 17 yearold assistant manager got on my nerves something awful. We were busy as hell and he was at the front talking to his friends for a good 30-45 minutes not mindingany of the customers and not really caring that our POS system was having problems (which a supervisor fixed real quick like, meaning 10 minutes). So anywho, not 2 hours later an old buddy of mine comes in who I haven't seen in years. There is one person in the store and the ass manager is behind the counter doing ratios, something he can easily take off from to help a customer. So this lady asks him if we have a sock she can use. I'm writing this guys phone number down and the AM asks me if i could get the lady a sock. I didn't hear him the first time but I do hear him when he gets all assertive like on my ass and demands it. I look at him and finish writing the number down. Then I politely help the lady and pay the AM no mind. The guy is a powertripper, which is the worst sort to have. I put my resume in at the local running store though so hopefully that gig will work out and I can get out of this corporate chainstore bs.

new job and stuff

jtwedding — 2004-09-28T05:09:13-05:00

Well I found out today I got the job at South Sound Running. I went in earlier and put my two weeks in at my current job. I felt kinda bad because the people I currently work with are such cool people, especially my boss, Rob. I think he was quite disapointed that I'm quitting but it's in my better interests. Since it's owned by a private party I don't have the whole, "corporate" stuff that I currently have, which is the main thing I don't like about my current job. Anyway, I"m off for a run.

First day back on the bike

jtwedding — 2004-09-28T09:09:53-05:00

I went for a 3 mile run and did a sad 30 mins flat. It's not that I didn't go fast enough, it's more like I slowed down too much. After that I wasn't very satisfied so I jumped on the bike for the first time in quite some time. I did a solid 12 miles averaging around 19 mph, surprising. I thought I'd be slow as hell from sitting it out for so long. Anyway, I'm off to hang out with a friend i haven't seen in awhile. Tschuss!

Whoo eeyyaaa

jtwedding — 2004-10-01T11:10:47-05:00

Ok, so my boss at Champs gave me like 4 hours over two days next week. Yeah I'm leaving, but it's in two weeks. The whole reason I gave my two weeks was to give him adequate time to get everything in order and ready so he wasn't hurting without me when I left. Well...I was pretty assertive about "asking" him if he really needed me the next week which he "answered" that he didn't really. So I talked to my boss at SSRunning and I'll be starting this thursday instead of next wednesday. Also, I got to spend some time witht he rep from montrail. Got to try on some pretty trick trail running shoes and other stuff, not to mention the new bowerman series watches. Which, if you like to run with just a watch and would like to make goals with laps, miles etc, the watch can pretty much do it all. I'd pick one up myself but I plan on waiting and investing in a nice Heart Rate monitor.

Yesterday was my second day on the bike and my first day doing a double split. I did a hard 12 mile ride which includes pretty much every major hill in the area, then swapped clothes uber-fast and did a slowass 2 mile run (like 8 min miles). Today I decided to take it easy and do a nice little 4.5 mile run on a route I do a few times a week. I took it pretty easy at first and only planned on making it in under 40 mins. I did the first mile in like 7:40 and then gradually turned it into a progression run topping it all off at exactly 33:11. I still want to get faster but I think at this point I need a little coaching.

Which brings me to my next paragraph. This sunday I'm doing a 13 miler out in capitol forest with my new boss and a group of runners. It should be pretty nice and probably faster than I have ever ran a distance like that. I think my main problem with speed is I'm always afraid of starting out too fast and dying out early. Hopefully having other people around to help me pace will get my tush in gear to really crank out some decent times. We'll see in the next few weeks though.

Artswalk and barhopping

jtwedding — 2004-10-02T01:10:07-05:00

Went downtown last night and kinda checked out artswalk, but really just went to a bunch of bars and ate at the dirtiest cafe with decent food and a nice waitress. I went in the bathroom to take a piss and the urinal was full of shitty water, the floor was covered in it and the stall had no door, although the stall did have a guy passed out taking a dump in it... Overall the night wasn't exactly the greatest ever, didn't really drink partly because I was driving and partly because I knew it'd hurt my training this weekend.

weirdness

jtwedding — 2004-10-03T01:10:01-05:00

I had to close at Champs today. It was odd because I have like 2 days left and they had me closing as a manager....I'm not trained in that stuff really and I haven't signed the little paper that says I take responsibility for cash and the deposit. I talked to Mike about it and he thought it was not only weird but rather stupid on my bosses part (not my words). Having a couple days left just makes work that much harder to go. Minutes felt like hours, hours like days. Today was indeed the longest 8 and 1/2 hours of my life. Even when it was busy time didn't go fast enough. Tommorow I have the first big trail run, hoping everything works out and I do alright. Who knows maybe I'll die of a heart attack half way and never have to run again....

Before work I put in 12 miles on the bike, just took it easy and enjoyed the ride. At the halfway mark there's a gas station in this trashy little neighborhood. This kid started talking to me about how fast can i go and stuff like that. Not to be the one to make him think cyclists are stuck up assholes I tried to answer his millions of questions and politely left saying I had to make it home in time to go to work. One thing that disturbed me was that this kid talked about how his uncle would drive by cyclists or "you guys" as he put it, and open his door and knock them into the ditch. I didn't find this funny and told the kid that it was a jackass move. Unfortunately nowadays being called a jackass doesn't hold that negative conotation it once did. The kid found his uncles actions funny. I'm sure his uncle is some redneck trashy asshole whom I would find a perfect fit for my foot up his ass, but I was the better man and tried to provoke the kids interest in the sport. Hopefully he won't grow up to be like his uncle and He'll actually wave to riders instead of assaulting them.

First day on the trails

jtwedding — 2004-10-03T10:10:41-05:00

Well Ik and thave done "trail" runs before. If it's dirt, it's a trail right? Well my baby-skin smooth trails were nothing compared to my run today. I went for the first time with the group from SSR, and I gotta say, mucho respect to people who run on those trails regularly. I got smoked by pretty much the entire group with the steep hills, steep descents and rugged terrain. I felt like a beginning runner for the majority of the run until I hit the road back. The last mile or so went uber easy. Everyone was hella cool though and now I look forward to running with these guys every sunday.

Hard days, hard nights

jtwedding — 2004-10-07T09:10:46-05:00

Yesterday I skipped my last class (it's an art class, c'mon!), and went for a decent ride. Did 25.57 miles in 1:27:05. Average speed of 17.88, that included about 5 miles of hills, I'm no "Lance" but I'm glad I could still pull of a ride like that. The most important thing is that I got good speed onthe flats and didn't have to granny gear it up any of the hills, which means my legs are in better shape than they were the last time I did that ride. Afterward I didn't feel so hot, mostly cuz I'm not used to that long of a ride in the condition i'm in. Hopefully I'll be back up to doing 60 milers at 19 average soon.

After that I had my final day at champs. It wasn't a bad day but between being tired and a killer headache, my asst manager started to get on my nerves. I realized pretty late in the day that I was just being stupid, last days are always weird though, it's pretty much, "have a nice life" and then go home and never see or talk to them again. I had a good run at champs, even though it was only a few months. I met a lot of new people, worked up my own customer base and got lots of stuff for cheap. Now it's time to head to SSR and do some real damage.

first day at work

jtwedding — 2004-10-07T11:10:00-05:00

School, ran, then worked. First day was like getting hit by a bus of knowledge, so much stuff to learn. I thought I was pretty knowledgable before but pandora's box got opened up on my ass today. So the next couple weeks I'm gonna be all sponge like and absorb as much as possible. Miguel is one knowledgable guy (my boss) and just today i learned more about running and running shoes than i've learned in the past year. Other than the initial shock, work is looking good. The "uniform" is a nice sugoi shirt, i got navy and yellow ones. The atmosphere is like a million times better than Champs ever could be. Now I just need to learn all that stuff so that I can actually help customers instead of just going, "this is the guy you need to talk to" *points at miguel*

Nother day, nother dolla

jtwedding — 2004-10-10T10:10:44-05:00

Went running again out in Capitol Forest. I did much better this time. I have a problem with running in a group and I think that was messing me up at the beginning. I let em pass me and once I was on my own I felt fine and actually was running faster than I had been with the group. Having people around you just does something to your brain and for me I just don't like it. I feel like I have to pace on them instead of taking my own strides and doing it how I want.
I tried a new Gel today, it's from crank sports called eGel. Miguel gave me a couple the last time I worked. Gotta say they're no better tasting than any other gel, however they pack a damn punch. More carbs, and all that mess than any other gel or even a powerbar for that matter. Going down it was like Mountain Dew slime, which for me is especially bad since I don't drink soda.

notha day another dolla

jtwedding — 2004-10-13T12:10:16-05:00

After school today I hit the road for a 15 miler, did it averaging just over 18mph. Can't really complain about that. It was a beautiful day, perfect for riding. Would've gone longer but had to get back in time for work.

I'm not entirely comfortable with fitting people for shoes yet. Everyones arch looks the same and everyones gait looks the same. I see it when someone points it out but I don't notice it myself. Well this lady came in and she'd never been fitted before,, so i'm thinking, "this should be easy enough." I find out what her problem is and what she's looking for...kinda... Turns out her pediatrist told her some weird story about how if 4 degrees is rubbed off you outsole that the shoe is worn out. Well for starters her shoe was a crappy ass Avia that had no support and really was working against her 400$ orthotics. This lady was stubborn, my boss miguel helped me with her (meaning he took over when I realized she was a tough one). Even he could barely stand her because she was so adamant about finding out if her shoes were still good, not if they would help her any, but if she had less than 4 degrees... needless to say I was a little nervous helping anyone else out. There was a girl who was super easy to deal with and so I naturally fucked it up and again miguel took over for me. I'm just not confident enough in my knowledge of the shoes and what to do when a guy is standing behind me who knows every shoe inside out and the past 8 years of models before it.
Tommorow I work with this guy Craig and hopefully the lack of pressure will help me to focus a little more and do my damn job.

better days, better dollars

jtwedding — 2004-10-14T09:10:11-05:00

Yesterday went a lot better than the day before it. After school I took my little sister for a short run. She's interested to trying it out so I figured I'd tickle her fancy. I then went for a quick 3 miler at tempo pace (6 for me, I'm slow...).
Work was a bit better, not that it was bad before. I didn't feel like I had Miguel breathing down my neck (which I didn't becausse I worked with Craig). I brought a woman through the entire process of fitting with no problems what-so-ever, and then helped a guy replace his old shoe with a brand spanking new shiny red one, which took some convincing since he wasn't too fond of red. Anyway, hoping today goes well, we'll see.

Hmmmm...

jtwedding — 2004-10-17T12:10:15-05:00

Well today is another good ole Trails day. I'm a little sore from running with Miguel yesterday. Life has been hectic as of late. Work has been badass, I'm having no troubles there lately. School is just boring as hell. My workouts have mainly been centered around running, I need to get some cycling and swimming in...but we'll see what happens.

Trails, Trails and more trails

jtwedding — 2004-10-18T01:10:33-05:00

Hit the trails today pretty nicely. Went out and back on a muddy-ass trail. My spanking new montrail ultra-shoes were a big help (120$ can go a long way in a good shoe). I did 40 mins out then it took 30 mins to get back. I was chasing behind this girl in my group on the way back (13 year old who competes with college girls in cross country, did a 19 min race last week and came in 9th overall) I kept up with her for a bit but lost her when it started to get really muddy again. Either way I had a pretty good run. I made plans to do a run with this guy Mike on Wednesday after I get off work. We'll see how that goes, hopefully I can find my high gear again before there. It's a little disheartening running with such good runners. Makes me feel a little inadequate.

Running with Scissors

jtwedding — 2004-10-21T10:10:49-05:00

Well I went running with Mike last night after work. It was pretty good until about half way when he had to take a dump and I had to sit around for 13 mins while he did that. I did a few laps around the block but it didn't help much. Once we got going again it was like I was just starting out, my legs were cold and I was a little irritated that he couldn't have done his business before the run. It took 50 mins total to do the run (Just under 5 miles). Needless to say it wasn't any PR or anything. He wanted to know if I wanted to run with him again next wednesday but I dunno.

Neue Fahrrad!

jtwedding — 2004-10-22T10:10:18-05:00

So two days ago I bought a new bike, it's a Bianchi Vigorelli Linkage Took it for a spin yesterday, just had to get the stem for the bars shortened and now it rides sweet. Went for a 12 mile or so ride (dunno for sure because my computer isn't installed on it yet) the bike is much faster than my last bike and I see a bright future for my '05 tri season.

Sunday is Trails day!

jtwedding — 2004-10-24T09:10:39-05:00

Did trails today, nothing too eventful. It was muddy, but not as muddy as last time...it was steep...but not as muddy as my first time...so I guess it's just a nice medium somewhere in there. However, I did feel a lot better afterwards than I usually do.

Progression run

jtwedding — 2004-10-27T01:10:44-05:00

I went down to Capitol lake to do a 3 part progression run. First lap was 12.26.34, it felt alright. Maybe a tad too fast but I wasn't too bad. Second hit 12.22.12, 4 seconds didn't seem like enough for me but by this time I was feeling it which brings us to lap 3. At 11.30.51 I was moving it and was really feeling it toward the end. I'd like to know the exact distance there but not even Miguel was sure of it. I think its around 5k for 2 laps so needless to say, i'm a slowass. But it's not the season for killing myself yet. So I'll live.

I have school off tommorow so I plan on sleeping the hell in, maybe going for a ride before I head to work. We'll see how that goes.

Running with Sisters

jtwedding — 2004-10-29T12:10:54-05:00

After work I didn't feel like doing the lake loop so I went home and was going to do my 4 mile route around tumwater. My sister said she wanted to go running so I figured why the hell not. The first mile she knocked off at a little over 8 min pace then the next mile took 12 mins...she kept stopping and walking because she wasn't breathing right. I got her to jog slowly the last 1/4 mile. After that I felt like I had just gone out for a warmup. It was getting late so I hit up a 2 mile loop. 1st mile was 7:30:57 exactly, 2nd was 7:54:94, coming in total at 15:25:51, which is faster than the last time I did it (few months ago) at 16 mins flat or so. Biggest thing today was I finally gave in and got some running pants. On tuesdays run my legs were freezing ass cold to the touch even if I was feeling warm. So I figured I'd do my legs a favor and fight the cold off. They're just Adidas Astro pants and worked fairly good. I think I look like a goon in em but I used to think I looked like one in my short running shorts. They didn't bother me at all, which is odd cuz I figured I'd hate having them on.

Nother sunday, nother trails day

jtwedding — 2004-10-31T10:10:01-05:00

Did the rock candy Mt. trail today. It was rough going up to the peak, had to hike through parts as it was hella steep and hella rocky. On the way back it much faster/easier going. So far I think those trails were the most enjoyable regardless of the fact it was so hard at first. The views where quite incredible. I'm thinking the next day I have free I'm gonna go out there and do some exploring on the mtn. bike.

DAY OFF!!!!

jtwedding — 2004-11-01T11:11:38-05:00

Went to school and work but didn't do any workout type stuff what-so-ever! I felt pretty tired, half from the run yesterday and half only getting about 6 hours of sleep last night.
Met some new people today at work. One guy is one of the elite Ultra-marathoners in the area and the other is a cyclist on a local racing team. Talked to him about mountain biking and our racing seasons last year and how running has helped us with our riding. Either way, today was a good day minus the being tired as hell.

Friggin' cops

jtwedding — 2004-11-03T12:11:52-05:00

Well I went down to Capitol Lake to do some repeats. On my first go-round, a cop was scoping out a vehicle in a parkign lot in the park. I was maybe 1/4 mile from my car at this point. First he did the little "c'mere" thing with his finger, to which I just waved and kept moving. He then yelled at me about how the park is closed and I need to leave...I told him my car was right around the corner, and as i'm not even 15 feet away from the end of the trail and beginning of the sidewalk he informs me that I need to get on the sidewalk... the whole time the guy tells me this in a matter of fact way and really condescending. So I just run across to the side walk and tell him to have a good night. I get back to my car that's parked on the street IN FRONT OF (not in it, and not in the park either) the parking lot for the park. I start stretching near my car but clearly not in the park. The same cop drives up and tells me that he already asked me to leave and that was my last warning. So of course I finish my stretching as he sits in his car and watchs. I then leave and was pissed cuz my night was ruined since the next closest place was near my house and it would be to late to get a decent run in.

Back problems....

jtwedding — 2004-11-04T11:11:42-05:00

Well I wanted to run today but my back is just getting worse and worse. So I figure it's best to take it easy for a little bit and not workout so damn hard. Tonight I'm gonna spend some time in the Steamroom stretching out my back and relaxing, get a good nights sleep and hopefully wake up tommorow ready to roll.

Boring life

jtwedding — 2004-11-06T02:11:19-05:00

Well...I haven't ran or the like since my back is still tweaked. I spent maybe an hour just stretching yesterday and felt better afterwards but woke up this morning in knots. I plan on spending the night sleeping on the floor (helps my back a ton). Hopefully everything is nice and cleared up for my Sunday trip to the forest. Oh and Rob, I picked up a pretty sweet camera today so you'll get to see some good shots.

mwahahhahah

jtwedding — 2004-11-09T12:11:33-05:00

Well tommorow I'm gonna try to get back running and see what happens... I'm just gonna do a light run with lots of clothes on so i get hot as hell then come home and stretch like hell.

This weekend was eventful to say the least... I ended up getting a little tipsy and didn't get a chance to head up into the mountians as promised as i was a bit sick on sunday. But i had a good time the night before. My brother Jimmy was there and I was around a lot of good friends, so why not eh?

Anywho,right now i'm at that point in the quarter when all i want to do is be done with school. I think the fact that this is my last quarter only exacerbates that feeling. But i have like a month left...

Just like 1st grade...

jtwedding — 2004-11-09T11:11:00-05:00

Today was my first day back running after taking a week off due to the back situation. I went for an easy 3 miles just to wark up and get a feel then spent about an hour just stretching and doing little things like pushups and situps. The run felt horrible. First mile was around 7:40 pace and felt just damn slow, second....was like 9:30...yeah...I felt like my legs were made of Molasses. I had to move ass after that and did the final mile in 7 flat and felt like crap (dizzyness, lactic burn, etc). Needless to say it was probably the worst run I've had in my life and hopefully it's only uphill from here.

Better days

jtwedding — 2004-11-11T04:11:11-05:00

Went for a run today. Did 5 miles in 34:28. FIrst mile was 7:40 and i just cut time off each mile after that. Final mile was 6:20 and felt pretty good. All in all I had a good run, much better than two days ago. Spent the rest of the day cleaning my room and now I'm abouts to go to work for another exciting day.

Shooting self...in foot

jtwedding — 2004-11-12T10:11:23-05:00

Well I was talking with my boss today about my big race this coming season (black hills triathlon, not a huge race but it's the last of my season and my goal race). When I told him the running split times he got this glimmer in his eye and I guess decided that he's going to race it next year... Now normally i'd be like, "good for you! Triathlons need more athletes like you!" Only the fact that this guy is fast as hell and will probably punish me on the run....kinda makes me uneasy. I'm a fast fucker on the bike and a decent swim, but no lead I could make would touch his 25 min 5 mile time (the length of the run split). Considering the best time this last year for the men was 32 mins...Oh well, I guess it gives me a reason to really train hard this year and hopefully kick his ass :)

back on the trails

jtwedding — 2004-11-14T08:11:01-05:00

Did an out and back on a fairly hilly course. 35 mins out, 25 back. Felt like crap for the first half but ran it out. Having a week off because of back/drinking did not help me at all. C'est la vie I guess...

Now i have to spend the next 5 hours working on a project for my 2-d design class that i was supposed to do the last few weeks. Again, C'est la vie! I made the bed, now it's time to sleep in it.

Hallo meinen freundinen!!

jtwedding — 2004-11-16T03:11:17-05:00

Went for a quick 4 miles (27:32) and then did some strides, skipping and other fun stuff. I plan on doing another run after work, this time a tempo. Well see though.
Went up to lookout park today to take some panoramic shots of my home town (you can see everything from there). Didn't work out as it was foggy as hell and thus the pics were null. However I went and took some pics of the trails i used to run on out there, which I might add have gone to total shit. It looks like bums have been living there with thing slike washers,dryers amongst other appliances and not to mention the fac tthey cleared a good deal of it but just left all the brush sprawled everywhere. Once i get the pics sorted out i'll post a link but for now...

I am on the intraweb!!!!!!!...

jtwedding — 2004-11-16T05:11:18-05:00

Well I guess i've never linked to this stuff before so i figured why the hell not.

First off my neglected Webpage
CLicky here I never update the damned thing and there's not much there other than links to where you can find other stuff by me.

CLIKC PLZ KTHX BYE! is my art page over at deviant art. Go check out my class act artworks and photography.

and that's all i can think of right now.

oi vey!

jtwedding — 2004-11-21T01:11:54-05:00

Well the last few days hasn't been too eventful. I've been running and biking a bit, not too much but enough for now. I have a 5k on thanksgiving that i'm doing just for shits n' giggles. Plus it's free thanks to the fact my work is sponsoring it.

In other news my school has been hella hard lately. Not hard as in the work is hard but i find it hard to find the motivation to go everyday. It sucks being so close to graduating were it's like a total downer almost. I'll be glad when it's over though.

Big update

jtwedding — 2004-11-21T07:11:45-05:00

Well first off i'll start off with my house's water. Well apparently something got into my city's water system and they are now chlorinating the water. Everytime I get some water it's like drinking out of a swimming pool. We had the best water for so long but so jackass had to go and pollute it with his faulty septic system and now we're all drinking shitty chlorine water...

Moving on, went for a nice bike ride. Since I opted out of the trail run today it was decided that a long-hard ride would do some good. First 8 miles was all fine and dandy then it was realized that shorts was not the best idea. From the thigh down my body was frozen. So the mother was called and she agreed to be my personal saviour and bring me some pants. Well said pants didn't arrive until about 20 miles into the ride. Now since my entire was leg cold it was assumed that having pants would warm up the appendages. This assumption was dead wrong. The combination of Defeet socks, shoes with vents on the bottom and Pearl Izumi Calientoes just could not ward off the cold. The last 10 miles or so I feared my feet would just fall off from frostbite or some other heinous ailment attributed to the fact that my feet were fucking freezing. Upon arriving at home, thick hiking socks and trail shoes were quickly placed over the thin-ass defeet speede socks.
Another interest aspect of today's ride was that I got to test out Powerbar's new drinks, both endurance and recovery. I filled a 20 oz bottle with the endurance drink and brought a 16 oz bottle of fresh, chlorinated water with a 1 oz GU Energy Gel (vanilla flavor). The first 45 minutes I periodically sipped on the endurance drink (which is mighty tasty for being a lemon-lime flavor, i despise lemon-lime gatorade...). At 47 minutes exactly I hit my first and only GU and took in about 6 oz of water. In the final 45 minutes I sipped on the rest of my endurance drink to have a total of 20 oz of Endurance drink, 1 oz GU, and 6 oz of water. Upon arriving back at base, I stretched while sipping on the 16 oz of recovery drink. It was Orange flavor and reminded me of watered down orange juice, because it was frothy and just tasted that way. This surprised me as I've never mixed powder and water, and gotten something like this. Both drinks went down easy and didn't taste too strong. Also they came in individual packets for 16 oz and 20 oz, so mixing it just right is fairly easy. Only quarrels is that the endurance drink appeared to affect me much like Accelerade in that at a certain point it made me feel like my body wasn't absorbing as much water as it should have. It pails in comparison to my tried and true combination of Gatorade, Gels and water in a 1:1:2 ratio.

Now that I've bored you with my stupid nutrition and biking adventures....

Last night I watched "Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind" It was a damn good flick but was a little too much Kaufmann for my taste. It seems like every movie that guy has a hand in really gets that touch that after awhile gets a little "meh...". The concept was interesting though, and the end was wayyyyyyy too holywood. Being the wannabe intellectual that I am, much thought was given to the subject afterwards. Ther have been times when I would have considered this sort of thing, ie after my high school sweetheart broke up with me. Looking back though, it seems like if what had happened was erased from my memory then it would have actually been a waste of 2 years and I'd have learned nothing. Coming out of all the bad relationships i've had, there has yet to be one that I didn't come out stronger, and in many cases stronger than the chica involved.

Day before turkey day race

jtwedding — 2004-11-24T09:11:24-05:00

Well, yesterday I did a super easy 6 miler and today i should probably go out and do something. Hard to motivate yourself to go out running when it's dark out and raining like hell. Oh well..

The guys at my work (being all runners) decided to raze me today about the race tommorow. I don't know that they know that this will be a sub 20 effort not a 15 flat.... The only guy who knows how fast I am is my boss, Miguel, and he's a little preoccupied with his realization that he's no longer the fast little guy he's always been (he raced at XC regionals and got whupped on). My boss boss, Greg, and his wife are going to be there. He gave me a uniform today that says "team south sound running" with the company logo on the front. Good thing, that way when everyone's looking behind them they can see the logo, as opposed to the back where only the walkers would probably see it, J/k. Anyway, i gotta go out for a run then get ready to kill myself tommorow morning, or embarass the hell outta myself, either way we're gonna have some fun.

Race log

jtwedding — 2004-11-25T12:11:22-05:00

Time 9:17 pm
details: Did a little 5k tonight at a super easy pace. Did it in 24:35, which is about what I was going for. I kept having to slow myself way down because the pace felt like a swift walk moreso than a run. Before the run I ate a powerbar, drank some water and had a plate of pasta (about an hour or more before the run). Afterwards I spent a full 30 mins stretching and downed a Powerbar Proteinplus bar. The bar has a whopping 290 calories most of which is found in the form of protein and carbs (non-sugar) which means it's my new recovery bar. I've given up on the recovery drink as one of these bars + a bottle of gatorade brings me back to 100%.

Tommorow's plan:
Wakeup time: 7 in the AM.
Breakfast: Bowl of Oatmeal with strawberry jelly (the usual)
30 mins before race: down 1 Clifshot Energy gel (mocha mocha flavor with the extra caffeine kick) and about 12 oz of water.
Nothing more up til the start. Post-race I'll down another gel and hit up as much water as possible, maybe even make that two gels. After that it's all fair game. Carb and Protein load galore.

My goal is to run it under 20 mins tommorow. The course is supposedly pretty damn hilly so the first mile will be a slow 7:10 and then I hope to cut down from there, we'll see though. Wish me luck!

Post race log...

jtwedding — 2004-11-25T03:11:08-05:00

I arrived at the Centre in Norpoint about 8:51 and had to park a ways down the street. The course looked to be indeed a hilly one, so I was going to stick to the plan mentioned in the previous entry. At 9:00 exactly I took a Clifshot Gel (mocha mocha w/caffeiene) and drank about 10 oz of water. Signed in and got the racing chip and number (unfortunately had to pay for this one, 24$). Hit up the bathroom, which had a massive line that I cut through super fast :). Around 9:10 started my warmup, just did strides in the parking lot then stretched super-lightly. When the runners got lined up I stripped off my longsleeve, pants and hat and was the sole person out there in a singlet and shorts (see image at header). I wanted to be just behind the front pack coming out of the starting line so I got about 10 feet from it. Suddenly people started to walk up to the line from in front and pushed us all a good 20 feet back. So now it's midpack time for Jerimiah, I get thinking, damn this is gonna take a while to cross the starting line...So I try to make way forward but to no avail. A band was playing off to the side and once they finished a little jig a canon went off and everyone but myself and a few others flinched HARD. It was actually humourous to see so many people duck down at the same time. So we're off and it takes a good 20-30 seconds before I cross the starting line, hit "start" on my watch and try to get past some slowpokes. The first 1/4 mile was so congested that I spent more time trying not to run into people rather than get anywhere. Once things clear up the first mile is mostly downhill then a bit o' flat and I clock it in at 6:45 which was about 30 seconds faster than goal. Feeling good so naturally the pace is picked up. The second mile is going great and I'm hitting well below goal times. Then comes the first hill, I was told there was one hill so naturally being a crazy hill runner it's decided to use this time to gain some time over other runners. The 2nd mile mark is right over the crest of this hill (7:26 way over my goal but the hill was a big speedbump) and from here it appears to be a lot of downhill then some flat, and having been told there was one hill, the pace was again picked up. The downhill was beating on my legs a bit but not too bad, at least not so bad that one more mile would be tough. At the base of the hill there was a tight turn and then.....the longest damn hill... About half way up my heart feels like it's about to explode, my breathing is short and fast and my head feels like it's about to explode. At this point my body gives up all hope and the pace is brought down to a walk. After approx. 1 minute, it's decided that, that was enough of that nonsense (repitition...) I start again and make it up the hill about the same pace as those around me. Looking at my watch, it was already past 21 minutes and my goal was no longer possible. So instead of taking it like a bitch, I use all the energy I have left to finish the last section (last part of the hill, some downhill then down to the finish line) I speed it up and about 800m to the finish I come up on this high school age girl. I start to really kick it out and it seems like she's trying to keep up so this is the part of every race I love. No matter how far back you are the finish should always be fun and I try to find someone who can kick it out with me just to make it feel a little more special. I don't know if she just didn't want to kick it the whole way or if she just couldn't but after about 100 yards she falls back out of my sight (although based on the picture above i think she was pretty close to me in the end there). All in all i had fun for the most part and didn't do too horribly considering it's my offseason and there was no extra training done for this run. Finishing time was 23:48:51, 2 minutes, 48 seconds and 51 hundreths of a second slower than my goal time. I'll take this one on the chin like a champ though and just prepare a little more for next time.

Post race, I downed another clifshot gel and drank a bottle of water (20oz) then drank up some more water and stretched next to my stores both and chitchated with Miguel, Bree and Greg about whatever. Miguel finished the race in 16 flat which he was happy about considering his poor performance at his race last weekend. I don't know how Bree did and Greg did not race.

On the way home I had another gel (GU vanilla bean this time) and drank about 15 more oz of H2O. Talked with Mike about how the race went and pretty much made a goal for my next few races.

Now it's turkey time so happy thanksgiving everyone and don't eat too much.

Yeah yeah yeah

jtwedding — 2004-11-27T10:11:20-05:00

Thursday night my sis gave me a deep tissue massage (the first i've ever had) Didn't hurt nearly as much as people made it out to sound but afterward I felt damn good (meaning the following day). Didn't run yesterday as friday is always my day off from running.
Yesterday and today at work were pretty busy, especially yesterday. The post-thanksgiving craziness is in full effect. I've seen some of the craziest cases these past two days. Yesterday I had a guy with a size 15 narrow feet, today I had a guy with size 6 and even a 4e (the widest possible) was too narrow for his foot, then i had a woman with a foot that was narrow as hell. Each one was a pain in the ass to deal with and only two walked away with a shoe (the 15 and the woman).

Went running today after work, went for 45 mins, not sure of the distance but i'm sure it was averaging 7 min miles. Got to try out my pimpin new Sugoi jacket. It's nice, first water resistant jacket i've had that actually moved instead of constricting your movement. One of the perks of working for a running store is all the cheap and free stuff :)

trails, again

jtwedding — 2004-11-28T07:11:52-05:00

Just got back from my first trip to the trails in about 3 weeks or so. It seemed a lot easier run and was actually quite enjoyable. I used my lighter trail shoes (brooks adrenaline ASR) which up til this point where only used for day to day wear. While they weren't goretex it felt so much easier to run with those since they're a good 2-3 oz lighter than my beastily Montrails. There's 120$ down the drain eh?

Now i have to get back on my project for my design class....my fingers hurt just thinking of all the xacto knife work i have to do....

Sooo tired

jtwedding — 2004-12-01T03:12:48-05:00

Up since 5 am today and it's 12am(next day) and I just finished my final project for my design class....more tommorow...sleep now....until 6....

baaaddddd day

jtwedding — 2004-12-01T11:12:27-05:00

well as far as how damned tired I was all day it was a bad day. Went to school, last class I had to present my project and portfolio which went alright, nothing spectacular. Got home and as much as I wanted to sleep I knew i had to get some miles in. So I went for a 4.5 miler that felt just horrible. I was so tired all i wanted to do was lay down and sleep....After that I stretched and did some dumb little excercises. Did a bit o' homework and went to work. WOrk was slooowwwww as hell which didn't help with the fact that I was dead beat. Post-work I was going to run home (literally). Brought my swank little day pack that binds down so it doesn't flop against my back and took off...fast....Now I live 2.5 miles from home. I made it home in 14:30. That's just under 6 min miles...which would be the fastest I've ever run that distance. Here's the thing though....I didn't feel like I was making a PR when I did it. I just ran damn fast. Of course one thing was different. and that is that I ran striking on my midfoot instead of heavily on my heel as I tend to naturally do.

In other running news, there's another race on the schedule for December 11th. The course is flat as hell, the record for the course is sub-15 mins which isn't very normal for these here parts. So this race will guaranteed be much faster than the previous one. Also this time I wrote out a schedule for training for it so it won't be like last time where I basically showed up and that was that.

al;hgasl;dfasf

jtwedding — 2004-12-03T01:12:31-05:00

Tommorow I have my last exam in Accounting then I have two finals next weeks, environmental science and Accounting on tuesday and wednesday respectively. I"m so damn tired of accounting I could puke at this moment. I'll be very glad to be done with my whole 2 1/3 years here and be able to move the hell on.

Went running with my bossman Miguel tonight. He basically held my hand through some 4X2 fartleks. I have a serious problem with pace. I am physically capable of running fast, but when I try to run fast it goes too fast and dying out quickly is a problem. The Fartleks today were odd for me as I'm just not used to a pace between my training pace and what I call "fast" Anyway, like you all care ( you all meaning the one or two people who stray here ) Now it's time for some el sleepo

Almost forgot. the Final Project I was working on got me a phatty A. The teacher wasn't expecting something as good as it was from me. I believe she put it, "Your project blew me away". Which probably means she was used to my shitty work. Anyway, if you wanna see it clicky thislink here

recovery day

jtwedding — 2004-12-03T08:12:15-05:00

5 miles easy today, did it in 41 flat so....8.2 min miles...yeah nice and sloowww, however if you factor in the time I spent at stop lights you could easily knock 5 mins off that time. Tommorow's going to be another easy day then sunday is long trails day.

Had my "last" exam in accounting today. My teacher just emailed me my score and grade "pre"-final exam. It's a 82 on the test and 81 in the class. Not bad considering how much I slacked. I could've easily pulled off an A if I had applied myself, but meh. So now i have 1 definite B and one hopefully B (maybe higher if i ace my final :) ) and my science class.....who knows, but the last test in the class I failed (first and only one though folks so don't worry about me). It's odd being so close to being done at this school. 2 and 1/3 year and now i'm about to be off to the next big thing. Changes is always odd though.

hurt, tired, and ready for some time off

jtwedding — 2004-12-05T09:12:27-05:00

Well today was trails day. My boss had to work, and everyone else but one guy decided to wuss out. So natch we decided to go do Rock Candy Mtn. It's about an 8 mile loop with the first 3 miles being similar to what I would imagine running in hell to be like. Minus the super coldness.
Started out alright, taking it easy so as to finish up strong. Took us just under 40 mins to complete the first 3 mile accent. after that it was a long gradual climb for a few miles. At this point I'm feeling pretty good, taking life as it comes. We get to the top of the trail that descends back to where the car was parked and see a sign. It's labeled, innocently enough, "Rock Candy Peak, 1.3 mi" So I gets to thinking, "An extra 2.6 miles would be worth the awesome view." Well so we head up there and it turns out that it is a 1.3 mile accent, and at a certain point it is below freezing and thus....snow. This doesn't bother me to much as going up hill it's easy to stay warm from how hard muscles are working. We get to the peak where it is damn cold but oh so beautiful of a view. You could see the entire south sound (sort of through the fog/snow). We start to make the descent back and after about 3 miles, realize that something is not right. Neither of us recognize the road we are on and really....it's just plain cold as hell now (not to mention snowing). We come across a 4 way intersection and spot some mountain bikers coming our way. The friendly "hello....we're lost..." and get a "Man we were lost too, we think this is the road that goes back to rock candy parking *points*" So we decide it's best to take this road back and continue on our marry way.....until the road forks.... There was a ledge on one fork so we go up there and deliberate on what the hell to do. Pretty much we want to go opposite directions and eventually I convince him to go the direction of my picking.
About 1/4 mile into it a truck comes down the road and we flag him down. Again we give the friendly, "Hello....we're lost..." and to our surprise we get, "oh man....me too". So he heads down the road and we do the same. Eventually we see him again coming back our way and he stops and tells us the road goes around the valley and that it's not the way he needed to go, and if we wanted he'd take us back up to rock candy mtn peak. We take up his offer and ride down the road a bit. Eventually I see where it was we went wrong and I tell him that the road we are on eventually comes across C-line (the road he wants to take) Well we go past the trial crossing we had to take and go down the road a bit...and it dead ends....no intersection with C-line to be found. So i swallow my...something and as we turn around i come up with, "hey mike we should just get out at the trail and head back down before it gets dark" So he drops us off there and as soon as he's out of sight, I break out laughing and tell mike that I had that guy so damn lost it was unbelievable. I actually felt bad but I laugh at weird shit so....Eventually we make our way back down and get lost again for maybe 2 seconds, nothing special. By this time we're going on almost 3 hours of running including the maybe 10 mins we spent in the truck. My legs are cold and tight as hell and we both feel miserable. At the parking lot we run into a guy who was also running and find out he's part of the forest service and he runs out there all the time. We tell him about our running group and when we meet...and you really don't care about that. Long story short, don't go for the damn peak when you know your way back....now i'm tired, my legs hurt (badly) and I feel like dying right now.

2 days after

jtwedding — 2004-12-08T12:12:50-05:00

Well I still feel like crap from Sunday. Yesterday I woke up after a solid....12ish hours of sleep and still felt like sleeping a few more hours. No working out has been had the last two days whatsoever. I talked to miguel about my race this weekend and pretty much told me to take today off, go for a long recovery run tommorow, then some intervals and strides on thurs. Take friday off and then hit the race Saturday. Who knows how this'll turn out but I hope that girl doesn't show up....

Last day at SPSCC

jtwedding — 2004-12-08T02:12:22-05:00

Woke up around 6:30-ish, tired as hell. Shower didn't help any and skipping breakfast didn't either. On the way to school I just took in how absolutely beautiful the morning was. It was overcast with light rain, no fog what-so-ever and clear anything. There was a crack in the clouds were the sun was rising and it had the most amazing calming effect. Arrived at school around 8-ish and headed straight to the student store to get some granola bars and a water. Grabbed a paper and settled in. There was absolutely no "studying" done for the accounting final this morning. It was probably the most laid back morning I have had before a final. Which is nice and for everyone around me cramming at the last minute may have seemed odd. The test itself was much easier than I had anticipated. As a matter of fact, I found it boring, almost falling asleep a few times and had to jolt myself to maintain my concentration. Never before have I been that relaxed while taking a test, let alone a final worth 30% of my grade. I handed the finished test over feeling very confident in my performance and left the room. Since I rode the bus that morning I had about 30 minutes to spare so I just walked around campus and took it all in. I had not done this ever in the almost 3 years I'd been attending. It was always, "hustle to the next class". Got a latte (which I do about twice a year) at the SUB and just soaked it all in. It was almost depressing leaving the school for that last time. Felt very strange. Rode the bus downtown and had another 30 minutes to burn so I thought, "I haven't read a comic in ages, maybe i'll head down to the comic shop" Well they were closed and so I walked around with my Latte in hand, picked up a copy of the stranger and a schedule for the capitol theater (the good one not the mall one). Eventually made way back to the bus depot and hit a bus home, which brings us to the present. Today I plan to have a 4-5 miler, easy, per Miguel's recommendations. Then spend some time at work later on. Til' then folks!

Best time at the mall ever!!!!!

jtwedding — 2004-12-09T01:12:40-05:00

After work, i decided it would be a good idea to head to the mall, maybe get a haircut (never happened), get some stuff I really don't need, etc. I shopped around for a bit, got some DVD's (Spawn Seasons 1 & 2, Boondock Saints), some old Dreamcast games (Grandia 2 and jet grind radio) and a CD (susperia unlimited). I'm walking past the cinemas when this girl next to me is pushing her bro in one of those stupid "car" carts. The little boy is standing up and the sister is moving ass. Suddenly she stops and the boy (no joke here) flies out of the cart, does a few flips, then cartwheels once and lands on his back. He looks up at me with the oddest look then starts balling his ass off. Being the insensitive, jerk that i am....I start laughing. I take a look around mid-laugh and realize that a large group of people are staring not at the kid...but at me... At that moment I felt what it was like to be evil...and I don't regret it...

Nichts

jtwedding — 2004-12-12T02:12:57-05:00

So how'd the race go? It didn't. My boss tole me not to do it and I really didn't feel like doing it so instead I just took a day off and chilled...literally.
Things that sucked today:
My dads in town and I never saw him once even though he was across the freeway from my house (literally) at home depot.
I got a letter from my school sayin i need to take ANOTHER math class to graduate.
I spent too much money on food.
Didn't run at all.
Things that didn't suck:
spent time with the family at Apollo's pizza (see things that sucked also)

That's about it for my day...how bout yours?

one of those days

jtwedding — 2004-12-12T11:12:36-05:00

Today was a day that I honestly couldn't tell you how it went. As far as events went I can recall them but for the life of me, couldn't say whether it was a bad day or not. I got up, ate....hung around the house until I left for my trail run. Did the same loop as last week minus getting lost. Got home, showered then headed over to where my dads staying. Got there just in time so that there was no work left to do. We went out for a beer and pizza. I dropped him and his wife off and went back home which brings us to the present. So there you have it.

violently ill

jtwedding — 2004-12-13T01:12:52-05:00

Last night I felt uber-bad and wanted to throw up. But instead of forcing it I figured sleeping it off would help. All was well until about 4 in the am when i woke up feeling HORRIBLE. I threw up in my garbage in my room, which hurt my chest and throat like hell. Then proceded to pass out. I woke up half on my bed and half on the floor with that horrible vomit taste in my mouth. However, I do feel much better now. Probably something I had eaten (I had cold pizza and soy milk about 15 mins before going to bed).

LLLLLOOONNNGGGG day

jtwedding — 2004-12-15T12:12:39-05:00

Well, originally I didn't plan on getting up any specific time but ended up waking up around 8 in the am. Decided that it'd be a good day for a bike ride, seeing that I had a good many hours til work. As soon as I was out the door the rain started pouring. Now...seeing that I live in washington, rain doesn't really hurt me. As my mom would say, "You ain't made of sugar" So I went on with the ride. Starting out there was no plan as to how far or how long or whatever, so I just rode. So I played it by ear and ended up doing a nice 20 something miler. Not sure exactly because the rain cause my computer to wig out and stop tracking my distance/speed/etc.
Work was incredibly uneventful. A full 4 and 1/2 hours of nothing but a customer maybe every 30 mins or so. I had 3 people come in at once, a hotty, an ugly and the ugly's boyfriend. I guess the Ugly had some catalog where she could get brooks shoes for hella cheap and they had just come in to try some on so they knew the shoes would work before they got them. Of course they didn't tell me this...the hotty let it slip when I was fitting her. So of course I razed her about it and she ended up buying a pair of Asics (gt2100's for those who know, ie Rob), and some Sole orthotics. But the ugly's bf, whom also got fitted, was fairly content with just using our facilities, my expertise and our shoes so he could save some money....bastard. I find it rude, this isn't like a car repair where you shop around for a quote, find someone who'll tell you what's wrong then go to some other place because you can save 10$. Ok that was probably a bad example but i'm sure the point isn't wasted.

Post-work I hit the bus home and decided to go for a short run with my mom's BF. By short I mean short....and slow. He's not a runner and it showed. He's been trying to get into it since he can't ride his bike until the doctor gives him the A-Okay on his wrist. Which brings me to another point.

It seems in the last few months i've been a source of inspiration for those around me. My sister, my mom's bf, and a number of my friends (all people whom you probably wouldn't expect to ever take up running), have all taken up running. Even my brother called me last night asking about a training regime he was planning so he could cut some weight (he's a weight lifting type guy and fluctuates, hard excercise and eats well for awhile then falls back into inactivity and bad food). It's weird being someone whom others look to for advice and even inspiring others to run. I guess for me it's different than some runners out there (ie rob) because I wasn't a runner my whole life. I played soccer and some other sports but i was never really an athlete by any means. After high school I worked two jobs (one in fast food) and pretty much sleeped about 4 hours a night and slept my days off (like the entire days, graveyards suck). Now just a few years later, I'm in pretty damn good shape, I'm running distances I never could have before and i'm doing it much faster. And now this entry is too damn long so it ends now...

Bad morning

jtwedding — 2004-12-15T04:12:35-05:00

Well...today I got up and felt like crap. My neck and back were hella stiff so I spent a good hour just stretching and doing little excercises trying to loosen it up. Finally around 11, I headed out for a run. It was 4.5 miles of horrors. I was uber-dehydrated so the further I went, the worse it felt. I felt like a newbie runner out there dying after only a few miles. Persistence got me home though...eventually. I Downed a good 20 oz of water and a couple powerbars while spending a good 20 mins stretching then did some core excercises. I feel better now but that's not saying much. I 'm not sure exactly what I did but my body was not digging it this morning. Gotta get ready for work so laterz...

Dunno why i'm updating again

jtwedding — 2004-12-16T02:12:52-05:00

Well...work went swell! meaning nothing happened...absolutely nothing. Picked up the latest issue of
"Bicycling". It's the "sex" issue, so naturally it's full of pics of hot bods and articles that have no real relevance (like how having sex helps your training, maybe I should use that for excuse next time i'm out on the town, "excuse me miss but would you like to bump uglies so as to help boost my training?"). There's an article, graph also, where a woman wore a heart rate monitor while on a ride, then wore one having sex and compared results. There's also a butt-load of poll results from a reader poll. Without a doubt it's probably the most useless issue of any sports related magazine I've laid eyes upon (including those crappy mens health mags), but it's all worth it for the Lokelani Cover. Post work I worked on my business stuff a little bit and the artwork you see at the top of my page here. I got pretty frustrated with it as i couldn't get it the way I wanted to...c'est la vie! Before I hit the hay I need to write out a schedule for my workouts and include swimming in it (my least favorite part of triathlons...) Til' next time kiddos

OMG LATEST NIGHT EVER!!!!1111ONE

jtwedding — 2004-12-17T03:12:17-05:00

Well...Last night a buddy from work invited me to come to the Eastside tav, where 2$ pints where the special for Thursday night. So Sean from my store, and Becky and Jennifer (both from the Tacoma store) Where all down there with a few guys I still don't know who they were. I'm Guessing boyfriends but anyway....Well I invited my good buddy Scott to come along for some good times. Hey, he's jobless and all EMO so I figured I'd cheer him up :) Naturally I invited my buddy from my old place of work (CHamps sports) Krystal. Now Krystal's persuasion in the sexual manner does not include Men. So naturally I tell my buddy scott this before she gets there (He's a total fucking homophobe so i have no idea how he's going to act around her). Well he ended up bombarding her with questions, mostly around if she likes black girls, which he reiterated....over and over..... Before you got "WTF?" Scott has a sexual persuation that includes women of a different ethnicity. Or he's just obsessed with black women, see it how you like. Anyway, all the guys who were with us minus my good man Sean, were giving Krystal the "sechs" eyes, which myself and her found pretty damn funny. The second scott was out of earshot she told me, "He scares me!" Which is pretty typical for most woman when they meet Scott. he's the kinda guy you have to warm up to. He's like a good dog that gives you WWWAAAYYYY to much attention. He's loyal as hell, but he won't shut up (or stop humping you leg..). SO yeah, we end up at this hippster bar that was full of died black hair, EMO glasses and generally weird people. So they call last call and we're like, let's bail. So minus the people from work, me, Krystal and Scott head out for greener pastures. Mind you this is 1:00 in the morning so the night is still young (and don't ask why they called last call at 1 in the am when the bars close at 2:00). On the way back to the Eastside Krystal states she would like to go check out "Jake's on 4th". Which for you less than knowing folks is a gay and lesbian facilitiy also known as a queerbar. Well my buddy scott being the sexuality conscious fellow that he is, flat out refused to go, saying something like, "I ain't no butt munchin' gay homosex loving boy" Which sounded pretty gay to me but "meh". So we continued on and arrived at The Eastside right when they're announcing last call. I down my 4th and final beer of the night and pronounce my want for food. Scott...is drunk. Drunk Scott means only one thing, he's talking way to damn much. So while he's talking he's not drinking his last beer. So I'm like, "Shut up and finish that dude so we can go eat" It's like seriously the last possible minute before they'll kick us out that he finishes his beer. And so....we head to denny's, which was pretty much the same stuff as above but replace beer with food. After denny's Krystal dropped me and Scott off at my car and we got in and made our way to his aunt's house (where he staying because he's homeless, ahahahahahah) Whereupon our arrival Scott decideds to profess how I'm his "BEST FRIEND EVAR!!!" and how everyone else is bitches compared to me. Honestly,,,,i think scott is a fucking powder keg. One second I think he's gonna flip out on me the next he's professing his undying friendship. (like no shit a made a smart ass remark and he got pissed somewhere in there) So anyway, He takes like 20 mins just to get out of the fucking car, this is around 3.50 int he am btw, when he finally gets out I crank up the stereo and got the fuck outta dodge. Drove home and hit the bed around 4.30, the latest i've been up since I worked graveyards all those years ago. So yeah, today I woke up at my normal 9.30 time and couldn't get back to sleep so I laid in bed for a bit and finally got my ass up. Thankfully I have today off from work and working out so life is good.

Christmas Partee

jtwedding — 2004-12-18T03:12:15-05:00

Well got back from my work's Christmas party a few hours ago. It was enjoyable, some funny stuff but wouldn't translate well via internet, so I won't attempt to spoil it. My bosses got everyone these swank Brooks Helsinki jackets with the company logo emroidered on em. We also did the whole "white elephant" gift thing what I got? Lemme take a pic real quick....

So there you have it. That's a genuine crazy schizo horse head statue, a plush snowman, easter fake grass, and a pen set. Needless to say I had no need to stress about getting my gift stolen from someone else. It was good food, good beer and good people so really it wasn't a bad time at all.

meh

jtwedding — 2004-12-19T06:12:00-05:00

Yesterday was a rough one. Went for a 2 hour drive to attend a funeral, stopped by my aunts house where everyone was only to leave as soon as i got there since my mom didn't want to stay (it's actually my dad's side of the family and since they're divorced she still feels odd there). Post-that I attempted to attend a party with my co-workers, the third in 3 days, but was given horrible directions and thus never found it. So I fell back on a party at another buddies house, which would ahve been bangin' had I been 17 since that's how old all the girls there were....yeah, so yesterday ended up being just a bad day.
Today I ain't doing shit, no trails, no work, no nothing, i'm just gonna be a lazy ass and enjoy every minute of it!

Til' next time folks!

new day

jtwedding — 2004-12-23T03:12:20-05:00

Got a membership at the local "premiere" health club in the area. Signed my life away on Tuesday and went there to work out for the first time tonight. Last time I used a treadmill was long before I even started running (so it's been a few years). I was on it for about 15 minutes before I said "screw this" and moved on to other things. Just did some leg work then went upstairs and spent a good 35-40 mins just stretching massaging my aching legs. This morning I had a nice 20 mile ride which wasn't really anything special to speak off. Tommorow I plan on doing my first day ever of swimming workouts. Hopefully I won't drown in the 3' deep lap pool.
Work was pretty busy and we raked in over 4G's which I guess we were just over our numbers from last year. Although, compared to my job at champ's sports in the mall this is like a walk in the park...or so it seems. til' next time folks.

Better days than Rob

jtwedding — 2004-12-25T12:12:59-05:00

Christmas eve, had to work, but that wasn't a biggy since it was only 4 hours. The adidas rep was there and I got some free Merino Wool socks and he's gonna ship me some of the new supernova controls. Post 2 o'clock, I hung around for another 40 mins off the clock and just helped people out. First time I think i've done that, or wanted to, at any job. It's not just about getting paid, but making a relationship with the customer to help the company. (that sounds so fucking corporate, but it's the opposite). I picked up the last of my christmas gifts in that 40 mins. My mom probably got the best gift of all. A shiny new Pearl Izumi Whisper jacket, which just happened to be too small so of course my mom got all selfconscious about being "fat". My mom ain't fat btw, the jacket is just damn small. She and her BF got me some pretty swank new Campagnolo winter cycling gloves. The things are nice and toasty and seem to be exactly what I planned on ordering from pearl izumi (since i get it at cost through work) but a tad bit nicer. My entire family got, either gift certificates, south sound running cups/shirts or socks (my dad is getting the socks tommorow). So my whole family is now decked out in SSR gear. Little secret....as i was looking for gifts, my boss miguel gave me two of the cups for free and one of the shirts. So all in all my siblings, minus my dad and the GC's cost me about 30 bucks. Not bad when you have 3 bros and 2 sis'. All in all it was a good day, hung out with the immediate family a bit (minus dad but that's manana). Til' next time...

Nina Kraft banned....for two years...

jtwedding — 2004-12-25T12:12:52-05:00

http://vnews.ironmanlive.com/vnews/topstories/1103319648/
Considering how she came out of nowhere at a rather old age and suddenly started to destroy the competition regardless of the fact that she trained like shizz (rumoured to start the day with a cup of coffee and ham, bacon and eggs types o' meals). I think she doped regularly and she just now got busted. If she stops using epo she'll never come back, if she doesn't, she'll be back. It's fucked, and makes you wonder what other athletes might be doing it just haven't tested positive yet.

In other news it's christmas day, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I'm heading out to meiner Vaters Haus. Hopefully it'll be exciting....or something.

Am I crazy?

jtwedding — 2004-12-28T02:12:54-05:00

Ever wonder if the things you see are actually there or if it’s just you? I have this thing with digital clocks and displays. You know, the ones with lines that light up strategically to make numbers and letters. Under certain conditions I can make the numbers appear to move in my vision but nothing else vibrates. Never having tested this with another person I do not know to this day whether or not I can physically move these digits or if I’m just fucking crazy.

days to the apocalypse - 7 years 347 days 11 hours 44 minutes

jtwedding — 2004-12-30T03:12:26-05:00

So it's the 30th, been a few days since an update and my last one wasn't really an update. I've been training pretty hard (for me at least) the last few days. I'm just doing base which means long slow mileage. Did 50 mins of running on tuesday with some time in the weight room, then yesterday went for a 20 miler (bike). Took that one a little faster than I should have, and now i'm feeling it but it was only 20 miles so I'll live.
I was supposed to start swimming on tuesday but when i got to the gym the pool was closed off except via the woman's locker room and I wasn't going to push that one.
Today I gotta get another 50 mins of running in. I'll probably break it up, 30 before, 20 after work. Since I was feeling groggy lately my good man, Miguel, suggested I get a more stable sleeping schedule. I was going to bed after 1am and getting up whenever. The last two days I've been in bed before 12 and still got up around the same time (10ish). Although I do feel a lot better. Might be because of the increase in sleep along with the increase in training, but i dunno?

New Year's I planned to go to seattle with an old friend from Champs. Turns out I only have like 20 bucks until i get paid which will be a couple days after the first, so no go on that unless someone wants to pay for me...which they should considering it is my birthday and all. We'll see though. I won't be drinking heavily on my b-day for the first time since Iwas 16. Lately bringing myself to that point where i am "shitfaced" just doesn't appeal to me. Even having a beer doesn't have the same appeal it used to. Even my good buddy Mike isn't indulging like he used to. We used to brew beer together for christ sake. Now we both pass when offered a beer...well for themost part. I guess people change and stuff.

Tschuss!

Happy friggin new years

jtwedding — 2005-01-01T04:01:58-05:00

Happy new years everybody and happy bday to my self (how pitiful is that, wishing myself a happy bday). Went to two parties tonight, first ended up being a little crowded with high school kids which = lame, so we headed over to a buddy's house and counted down the new year there. Post that, i dropped a friend off at home and went homage myself. So to all the 2 people who will read this, happy new year! Take it easy in '05!!!!!

I'm sick

jtwedding — 2005-01-03T02:01:22-05:00

My head cold developed into something much worse last night. I woke up about 5 in the am dripping with sweat but was very very cold (it was about 70 in the house though so soemthing was wrong with me). When i stood up to go check the thermostat I got very dizzy and almost fell a few times, then when I finally got back to my bed, I stripped my wet clothes and threw on something a little more dry. After finally getting to sleep (for some reason my head was acting on it's own accord and I had this sort of hallucination like i was stuck in some damned machine that everytime I thought I got somewhere I'd just end up worst off. (or could've been a dream :) ). Woke up again around 8am, same deal, cold but covered in sweat. I decided to take a shower ASAP and maybe try to get warm. In the mean time I fought off the dizzyness and nausea. Now I've eaten some oatmeal and got some fluids in me but I don't feel a whole better and now the pressure in my sinuses is getting worse. Basically, today is not a good day. I have work at 2.30 which I'll go to despite all the sickness. I rarely miss work and as long as I"m not vomiting or unable to walk I can work alright. Last time I was sick anything like this was when I worked at jack in the box and I worked for 2 weeks with the flu. There they made you feel like a bad person if you missed work for any reason, which was total bullshit. Now that I know I can call and be like, "hey i'm sick, can you get someone else to cover for me?" I don't feel so bad about working while sick because if it comes down to it I can just leave and have someone come in. Now i'm just rambling so I'm gonna stop, tschuss!

Feeling better

jtwedding — 2005-01-04T04:01:35-05:00

My raging bad cold is much better today, I'm still a little groggy and my nose is stuffy but I'm not in a cold sweat anymore. I decided I'm not going to try excercising at all until I get 100% again. I think running on sunday is what made yesterday so bad. I need to take it easy for a bit and just let my body catch up.

In other news, while shaving this morning I remembered this poem that I wrote in like 6th grade. I was obsessed with this one girl named Jennifer something (i forget her last name now). For a full month I tried to win her over and she just wasn't having any of it. I wrote her this poem and then not a day later she wanted to "go out" with me. Funny thing was after I wrote the poem I didn't like her anymore. Which looking back there's a good bit of humour in there, since I tried to get her for so long (it was 6th grade, a crush that lasts a month is like an eternity) then when she liked me I no longer liked her. Anyway the poem went something like,

"I lust for one
I will until the day is done
for all is lost without someone
I will look to the sun
for the one"

I believe i called it "the one". Tacky as hell. Looking at it now it's partly funny that I wrote it (i'm not a poet by anymeans, obviously) and also kinda sad cuz I don't think I fully understood what "lust" was. Of course I could have meant the non-sexual definition of the word but I don't think I was that deep in elementary school...

Still sick

jtwedding — 2005-01-05T03:01:52-05:00

I'm still sick but slightly less so then the other day. No cold sweats which is good. In my head I think i'm better but in reality it's probably just the fact that I'm not sweating freezing rain anymore.
All workouts are still postponed until this cold has done it's time. Tonight there'll be some stretching and small excercise things done in order just to keep me sane. Nothing major though. Work yesterday was probably the easiest I've had it, ever. It was slow but the coricidin was making the day go by fairly fast as I wasn't too cognitive of what was going on around me. Although I did keep dropping shit, shoes, clothes, whatever. I was butterfingers all day.
Today I got a nice and long 4 1/2 hour shift ahead of me. Wednesdays are always hella slow so hopefully the coricidin won't lose it's strangehold on me. Til' then folks!

Guess who's back...back again...

jtwedding — 2005-01-11T02:01:02-05:00

Well, I was without internet for a few days and thus, no updates. I'vebeen relatively health since.....friday. Got back into some running which at first didn't go so well but come sunday I did a nice hour and 5 mins by going over T-hill a few time (nice steep hill about a 1/4 mile long) Took it slow and easy, just working on base at the moment and trying to get my strength back. Being sick messed up my routine hardcore.

Started swimming again on saturday which didn't go so well. Turns out I'm a horrible swimmer (what's new) but allt he progess I got last season is now gone and defunct. I did 1/4 lengths because I'm a wussy and couldn't even pull off a full length (25 m folks...seriously...) I got a long way to go with my swimming again but much like when I started running for the first time it's that initial hump to get over.

Other than that my work started our Capital City marathon training group. We had the orientation last saturday which i had to get up at 6 in the am to be there by 7. I guess every saturday now i have to be to work around 8 am which is going to suck majorly. Hopefully the next few months will come and go quickly. On the bright side, I can run with the group. Although running 8 miles at 8 in the am isn't my forte anymore. I prefer later. But we'll see how things work out. Til' next time.

Uneventful day

jtwedding — 2005-01-12T01:01:37-05:00

I didn't engage in fisticuffs with any crazy Jeeberty's but I did go for a nice run this morning. Just took it nice and easy and capped the day off at 38 mins. 8Mins longer than anticipated but meh, that's life. Post-run I went to work for a few hours, which really just consisted of me putting away shoes where I could find spaces for them. Spent maybe a total of 10 mins working with customers but hey, whatever works. It was a pretty chill day and actually pretty relaxing.

As soon as I got home from work I turned my ass right around and went to the gym. Did a warm up on the eliptical (however you spell it...) in the reverse persuasion then stretched real nicely and did some lifting. All of the forementioned was quite uneventful.
I then hit the pool for a few laps just to get some water time in. I'm not doing flip turns yet (yeah right...) but it is getting better. I went between free style and back stroke. Warmed up with backstroke then went between the two for a few laps. I really need to work on being more comfortable in the water and also my breathing. I suffocate nearly everytime I do a little freestyle. I should probably get a coach to help me out but them things cost $$$$$. anyway, it's bed time cuz i had a rough day. So til' next time.

College runner dies of heart attack while training.

jtwedding — 2005-01-14T04:01:50-05:00

Truely Sad

Notha day notha dollar

jtwedding — 2005-01-14T11:01:00-05:00

Was up til' like 7 this morning cuz I decided to go kick it with my buddy from my former place of employment, Krystal. Got about 3 hours of sleep then decided to start the day off right with a run. I did my first workout in about a month or probably more. I did a 4.5 miler and mid way threw in 4X2 fartleks. By the end I felt it hard. I also had the advantage of wearing a Heart rate monitor and got to watch my HR soar to places that partly scared me.
After that i came home and did some core (meaning situps and the like). I took a shower and decided I'd better get used to shaving again since the season isn't too far away, and it's easier to keep it up than to just let it go and pick back up later on. It tooke FO-EVER! Had to use clippers to trim it down short then shave ti all. Since I did a shady job trimming the razor kept getting dirty. Total i wasted about 40 minutes, so Rob can feel good that he's got someone beat.

Long day off

jtwedding — 2005-01-17T12:01:17-05:00

Went to bed around 1 in the am last night and slept until around 11am this manana. Had some b-fast and lunch about an hour apart then decided it'd be a good idea to get a long ride in before it got dark.
So originally the plan was to do around 30 miles in around 1and 1/2 hours. Well ended up doing well over 40 in about 2 and 1/2. Within 5 miles of home I bonked hard since all the food I brought was a single GU pack. Luckily my store was en route to home so I stopped and snagged two powerbars, one I divulged on the spot and the other on the last 2.5 miles home. Since then I've been eating and drinking water/gatorade/apple juice like a mad man hoping to recover fully by tuesday for a nice run.

The ride itself was awesome as it wasn't raining and the temp got up to almost 50 F, which for this time of year is relatively warm. The sun wasn't out but I've found it doesn't matter to me if it's an overcast day as I tend to "zone" in poor weather and ride/run stronger. Plus it doesn't get too warm :)

Tonight I plan on getting some well deserved sleep then head downtown tommorow morning to meet a friend before work. Tommorow is a recovery day which means i get to be lazy :)

Near drowning

jtwedding — 2005-01-19T01:01:58-05:00

Today I nearly drowned again, or some might call it swimming but I sure wouldn't. Started doing laps going between freestyle and backstroke, got about 4 in then stopped for a little breather when the chica in the lane next to me introduces herself and tells me that I'm making mondo waves and it's screwing up her swim. So naturally I came up with, "Well I apologize for being a shitty swimmer" and packed my things up and left. Well, all except I really just gave her a snide look and moved over a lane.
Before the pool I did a full weight circuit which left me sore as hell in the leg region as I also kicked out a 50 min run this morning before work. So needless to say...I got nothing

Edit: almost forgot, just to rub it in, we've been having some freakish weather weather lately. We went from temps in the high 20's last week to a high today of 61 F. On my run I was wearing a very light pant and long sleep and I was damn hot. So yeah, enjoy

Ride and stuff

jtwedding — 2005-01-20T02:01:54-05:00

Today was supposed to be a slow hour ride for me, partly to recover from yesterday and partly because I just needed it. It turned out to be one of the most awe-inspiring rides. The ride took me past two lakes, the first being black lake, not a bad lake, and the second being capitol lake, which happens to be perched right below the capitol building-go figure! So anyway, along the rode that follows the shoreline of capitol lake, deschutes parkway, the sun was peaking through the clouds almost as if the clouds were just a thin filter, which made it so that you could see rays from the sun, almost like what you'd see in some sort of religious picture where heaven is shining down on someone. The clouds over the lake were absolutely amazing. I turned right on to this ghastly steep, but not long, hill we like to call "courthouse hill". As I ascended the sun was perched right over the crest of the hill. It gave this feeling like I was ascending to a higher place or the like. It really reminded me of that painting of Marco Pantani where he's riding up a hill and the sun ray s are shining on him like he's being blessed by the heavens or something. Eitherway, it was an awesome experience.

EDIT: Scanned it from my last month's issue of "bicycling"
Click here to see it, not quite what I remembered but still, you get the idea.

Long day

jtwedding — 2005-01-20T11:01:14-05:00

Today was one of the most tiring days of my life, hands down. I woke up particularly early because I had to hit the gym and go swimming before work in addition to running. Which ended up being a big mistake. 6.5 miles was on the schedule which I threw a 6X2 fartlek in there (probably the biggest mistake). Took me a little longer than it should've for me to finish that about 50 mins, but I took the non-workout times superslow. I then rode my bike to the gym (don't worry folks it's like 2 miles down the road). The rain was out hardcore and I got drenched 2 teh max in that 2 miles. ENded up doing a full weight circuit and never got around to swimming as it was about 1 when I finished lifting and work was at 2.30. All day during work today my IT band was KILLING me.
For the first few hours it was just sort of a nagging. The last hour I couldn't bare to even stand up or put any weight on it. It didn't help that my legs felt like putty also. I started to bonk at work hardcore but luckily after work I was meeting my dad for dinner. Which was the reason I hit the gym pre-work.
Anyway, it's about 9pm now and I feel like nothing more than sleeping for-friggin-ever!

Good things come to those who wait...or something...

jtwedding — 2005-01-22T12:01:50-05:00

Well today was my "day-off" I had to go in around 10 in the am for my annual review. Since it's a recovery day I decided to just ride the bike in, nice and easy. The review went much better than I expected. I thought I'd go in there and they'd tell me I was doing a good job and got a raise (i knew about the raise because they put it on my last paycheck. Well I ended up getting a promotion of sorts, I'm now fulltime and sort of Miguel's right hand man (he's my manager). I also got a bonus which was pretty damn nice as well as unexpected. So my day started off right. I then made my way to the bike store downtown, conveniently named "the bike stand" and bought a light for my bike so as to see on those dark nights coming home from work. I then finished the day off with a loop around capitol lake bring it in for about 12 easy miles, Cake bro', Cake!
Around 7 in the pm I attended our store meeting, which pretty much they just went over stuff I already knew and listened to one of our senior staff bitch about our new inventory system (it sucks, truely it does). Afterwards I went to mall and picked up not one, not two, not even three but four pairs of pants. Two jeans and two sweats. You know what, you all couldn't live without knowing that. Now I plan to finish this here beer and get some shut eye as I 'm running with our training group tommorow for an easy 8 miler then working til 5. So up at 6 and then party til' dawn...or something....

mwa

jtwedding — 2005-01-22T09:01:33-05:00

Woke up around 6.30ish to get everything in order for our marathon group. Got to work around 7:45 just in time to move things around before the mass got there. I was planning on running with the group today and there was no backing out since Miguel would have held me too. Peer pressure is great sometimes. The run was an eight miler. I was the last person out the door as I had to make sure nothing was going on before I left. By the end of the run I had made it ahead of the majority of the group. Not bad when there's a few hundred and it's just an easy run. I very much so haven't recovered from my hard workout on thursday. The fact my shoes are giving out didnt help either. So of course I purchased a new pair, the ASICS 2100. Well fitting shoe for me and a lot more stable than my ASICS Landreth. Whenever I wore the Landreth I had to wear an insert to fill in my arch since the shoe doesn't offer much in the way of support. Like you all care. Anyway, working after the run was not cool. It was either hella busy or slow as hell. I vacuumed the floor twice and my co-worker rich did it once. Pretty much it was just for shits n' giggles, and also because the owner made it a point that we need to vacuum more. It was pretty much a running joke as Rich cleaned like EVERYTHING. I mean it, he cleaned all the little shelves, the POS system, the credit terminal, EVERYTHING. Things that never need cleaning were thoroughly cleaned today. He even sanitized the phones. All because the boss man said we need to keep things cleaner....like we're all that dirty. It's one of those things where you rise to a new level then they just adjust the level to make you have to work harder. Sort of a constant uphill battle.
Anyway, now i'm just gonna chill out because I've obviously become a boring person spending my weekend nights catching up on sleep and not really doing much with my time other than working and working out. So yeah, i'm gonna go be a loser and such. Peace out, homefries!

SUNDAYS OFF

jtwedding — 2005-01-23T11:01:52-05:00

Well I went to bed pretty early for me last night, about 10pm. Woke up this morning around 8ish and decided my bike needed some quality time with me. Ate breakfast, prepared my ride nutrition (banana, a heavily concentrated 8oz bottle of gatorade and 24 oz of water). It was a LSD day (long slow distance, not the hallucinogen[spelling?]). I decided to just make a tour out of it, saw the cycling team from my gym on my way out the door and was almost tempted to joing, but again, it wasn't to be a hard day. My quads and hammies were very soar from yesterday and for the first time I took an anti-inflammatory to help with that.
The ride was pretty mellow, took it easy for the most part although I did throw in a pretty nice hill. About a mile long and damn steep, but that was it for anything "hard" even though it wasn't that difficult..
Major thing that kept popping into my head was the fact I have no fenders on my bike and the wet roads were throwing all the road muck onto my back and legs (big fun folks). So sometime this week a trip to the local bike shop is a definite MAYBE.
All was said and done, or rode, after an hour and a half. I wanted to get 2:30 in by my legs were starting to mess with me so it was decided not to mess with it.
It was a beautiful day for a ride minus the wet roads. Rain never bothers me it's always the damn muck getting thrown up from my tires that gets me. So again, in desperate need of fenders. Not even sure if there are fenders available that will fit my bike????....
Around 5ish I went to the mall and got my hair "DID" by a friend whom happens to...cut hair at the mall!... Went to the book store to check out the selection and ended up picking up a copy of "Core Performance" by Mark Verstegen. For some reason these books interest me. This one actually is pretty good so far and not a whole lot of the fad BS you get in most books. I read a book on Atkins awhile back that made me wanna puke, because just how bad the things they suggested were for you. Anyway, it'll be the first time i've read a non-fiction book since spring quarter last year when I took a nutrition class.
Again, it seems my life is very dull and not to exciting, and so, til' next time folks!

My own personal "Chasing amy"

jtwedding — 2005-01-25T05:01:19-05:00

I used to work with this chick whom just happens to be a lesbian. She's pretty dang hot and hella cool. While we worked together we never hung out and never even really talked that much. The last month or so we've been hanging out pretty regularly. I had no feelings for her whatsoever at first as i just saw her as being like a guy where it wasn't possible to date just be friends. Well as of late I've noticed that the little bugs been getting to me. Everytime I get a text on my mobile, this little thing clicks in my head making me think it might be here. Which it has been about 90% of the time.

Hard part is this, i was at her house. Just me and her watching movies and drankin'. Ended up spending the night with her. We stayed up wayyyy late talking about stuff. She kept talking about how one day she could see herself with a guy, etc etc. So this got me thinking that maybe she's interested in me. But the fact lingers that she's a lesbian.

I've dated a few Bi-sexual chicks in my day. But both made it very clear that they were into guys and mroe specifically me. With this chica, I just don't know... Maybe i'm just being a horse's arse....

F'in dogs man....

jtwedding — 2005-01-27T01:01:33-05:00

Well I woke up rather early this morn (for me anyway) at 8 in the AM. After pussyfooting about for an hour, I went for a ride. Wanted to get a solid 2 hours in so I plotted the course and did the damn thang!
First 8 miles were nice and hilly. I actually took a diversion just so I could hit up this monster set of hills and added about 2 miles to the trip.
At about the 8 mile mark, another diversion was made but for an entirely different purpose. As I came up to a stop sign there was a bridge ahead of me. Right before the bridge from some bushes, out came two German Shepards. One appeared to be fairly large and the other looked rather small. So natch I thought, must be a mother/child type combo. I slow down contemplating whether I should ride by, or slowly walk not too long after my answer came in the form of a charging "little" dog. Turns out the "little" dog was actually a damn big dog which would've made the other ENORMOUS. Being the dog-savvy chap that I am, I immediately stopped the bike, pulled out of my clips and put the bike between me and the dog. For a moment it crossed my mind that it may jump over the bike and just take out my jugular. Luckily that didn't happen, it stopped just short of the bike. It stood there barking and growling and raising all sorts of hell. Meanwhile it was standing in the damn road while I was on the shoulder. Unfortunately we were next to a stop sign so there would be no miracle speeding car for me.
After about 2 minutes of my standoff with the dog, I tried to slowly back away in hopes that Kujo wouldn't follow...good luck. He just started to come closer than before. So I immediately stopped and for a second contemplated jumping on the bike and taking off down the road and seeing if i could beat it out of there without getting mauled. Common sense made a fast trip to the decision making center of my brain and decided to sit it out. I had more patience than any damn dog....hopefully.
Eventually a car rolled up and started honking at the dog and even swirved at it in hopes to scare it,... I guess. No such luck, that just got the damn thing closer to me. Oh, by the way, the whole time I was there I was yelling at the dog and trying to find something to throw at the bastard. After being at this for somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. My chance came. A truck rolled up with a Golden Lab in the bed. I'd like to say that no dog ever looked so good and I could have kissed it right then and there If I hadn't been busy making my crafty getaway. When the Shepard was distracted I made a bee line the hell outta Dodge.
I got about 300 yards down the road when I noticed another dog on the side of the road, not fenced in or anything....so i thought, "Shit...not again..." Slowed down again and waited to see what happened. The dog just looked at me like I was crazy. Didn't even bark or get off it's well rounded rear. For this I was thankful. Being such a dog lover I had to take note of the fact that while one dog almost ruined my ride, another dog made the rest of the ride possible and another reinforced my belief in the good heartedness of the canines. Although I did take note of the fact I've never had a near mauling by a house cat....
Anyway, that was the excitement for the day. After that I finished my ride by tacking on 22 more miles, which went wonderfully. Work was slow as it is every wednesday night, so all I did was stand around and read "Galloway's book on running" Real interesting...kinda....

Longish day.

jtwedding — 2005-01-28T02:01:39-05:00

Woke up about 9 in the AM, kinda drudged around the house until 9:51 when the phone rang. My first thought was, That's miguel and he wants me to come to work early. Then it hit me...on tuesday he had asked me to come in at 10 today. So I had 9 mins to get there. I washed my hair, threw on some deodorant and brushed my teeth super fast. Then called work and told em I was on my way. Which was funny because they didn't even know I was supposed to be there. Work was boring til' about 1 when Miguel came in and released me of duty until 2.30 when i was actually scheduled to be there. So I went on a longish run (for me anyway). It was around 8 miles. Didn't feel too bad except for my TIGHT IT band. My mile times are finally down to low/mid 6 min miles on average. Even kicked out a sub-6 min mile the other day. 5:45, which hurt like a moFo but life goes on.

Right now I'm contemplating taking a cold shower and maybe even spending some quality time with "the Stick" (it's a massage thingy). Also considering the fact I have yet to shower today it may be a good idea...also..also..also....continuing on....I got nothin'

PART EEEEEEEEEEEeeee...

jtwedding — 2005-01-28T08:01:27-05:00

Today was my day off from the workin' week. So I rode my bike down to the gym, did some quality time with some weights and some nice stretching. Then I hit the pool. Did 400 meters, 200 freestyle, 200 backstroke (or BS as i like to call it). Swimming has been going a lot better than in the past. It only took a few weeks and now I'm already back to doing full lengths without dying somewhere in there. Still having issues with the whole multiple laps without stopping deal but it'll come in time. Right now I am focusing solely on just getting more comfortable with swimming and hopefully will be doing workouts sometime in the near future.

Tonight is my best o' buds, Isaiah's Bachelor party. So you probably won't be hearing too much from me until sunday after I get back from my first day back in the forest (super psyched about doing this again).

WARNINGINGINGIN...

jtwedding — 2005-01-29T05:01:30-05:00

This is pretty extreme video stuff, but...it's what we might call "instant karma"
The bastard we see in the video is clearly trying to "door" the guy on his bike. To "door" soemone is to hit soemone on their bike while driving by as to knock them over. It usually puts the rider in a bad way and someone ends up in the hospital.
However, i'd like to say that I never wish harm on my fellow man, but this was just too much to pass up. So here it is:

http://uselessjunk.org/videos/instant_karma_darwin.wmv

Don't say I didn't warn you...

Some cyclocross videos

jtwedding — 2005-01-31T12:01:09-05:00

Some cool vids of cyclocross (for those who do not know, it's a cross between road and moutain biking, fun stuff).
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~dronkert/tmp/

another little gem I found cycling.tv

Someone's got a case of the moooondays!

jtwedding — 2005-02-01T02:02:03-05:00

Well after a rockin' weekend, today decided to be boring as hell.

*flashback to friday*
After the norm of going swimming there was a bachelor party to be had. What all went down there, stays there. Sorry folks but there's lifes to be preserved here. Needless to say though a good time was had by all attending. (in fact the above pic was from forementioned par-tay).

*flashforward to saturday*
Ended up sleeping in til' about 9 in the am since the night before was a rockin' late night. So I missed out on the training group but caught a few more hours of well deserved sleep. Since my mileage has been rather pisspoor lately, the plan was to ride the el bike to el work. Got about 20 feet from the house when the flat tire was registered in my slow brain. So that plan was fouled before it got too far. Upon arriving at work I found muffins and bananas. A most delicious breakfast (and nutritious). The entire day dragged on like what I imagine hell to be like (not even hell could be that boring actually). Since I wasn't feeling tiptop because of the night before it just made things worse. Although some of the best shoe fitting's i've done by far were accomplished on that day.
*now to sunday*
Went out to Capital Forest for the first time in about a month. Gotta say that I missed the heck outta those trails. I took it easy and had to tell the guy I always run with to slow the hell down as he was huffing and puffing not even a mile in.
Got lost but somehow magically made our way back and ended up on a much shorter loop then planned so we did an out and back and ended the day at an hour twenty. Not too eventful and not really worth reading but hey, i just ate about 30 seconds of your life. How's that feel? You'll never get it back...ever!

Featured in phirebrush

jtwedding — 2005-02-02T12:02:27-05:00

My piece "the Human Condition" made it into the most recent issue of Phirebrush.
clicky
or click here to just go straight to it

Wool Trainers

jtwedding — 2005-02-03T01:02:18-05:00

Ok, so I'm a certified cycling fashion dork. I've been scoping out Wool trainers lately, just as casual wear and have narrowed my choices done to 3 sweaters.
The ever lovely Cervelo wool trainer:
http://www.trizilla.com/ProductCart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=11524
Molteni classic
http://store.velogear.com/mowotr.html
Or the Italia classic
http://store.velogear.com/itwotr.html
Decisions...decisions... Or I could just keep the 200$ and buy something else and more productive...but the bragging rights of having a Molteni sweater all Merckx style is just too tempting.

Durango courts are fucked...

jtwedding — 2005-02-05T08:02:48-05:00

Excuse the language but,
Click for disapointment

Pics of MY trails

jtwedding — 2005-02-11T02:02:42-05:00

Went out the forest today as I didn't work thanks to something I'll update about probably after saturday. Either way, checks em out
Forest1
Forest2
Forest3
Forest4
Forest5

New take on signing in the rain

jtwedding — 2005-02-11T10:02:30-05:00

Mr. Kelly is so much more badass now.
http://www.newstoday.com/_tpl/qbn/golfgti.mov

Long week mates

jtwedding — 2005-02-13T01:02:13-05:00

So my best friend got married yesterday which made the last few days a little hectic. Thursday I had to try on my tux and hopefully take it home. Didn't happen. The pants were a good 4 inches too short and had to be redone. So I would come back friday for that. After that I had to drive to rochester (30 mins south of my house) to pick up my mom's boyfriend from work. Then drop him off at home and head to the church in Tenino for the rehearsal (again 30 mins south, just east of Rochester). I was worried because it was about 6:15 when I made it to the church, only to find out that the bride and groom had not even arrived yet. Going over it was boring and we had to do it about 3 or 4 times.
Friday was the "calm before the storm". Since Friday is an official "day off" from work, a long ride was in the works. Did 50 miles with 30 miles of that being the course for the Black Hills Triathlon (my 'A' race this year). It was a beautiful ride, the sky was clear except for a few of those pillowy clouds. Good stuff! Went to pick up my tux again and guess what...it was accidently shipped back to their warehouse...so delayed again.
Later that day I went over to Isaiah's (the groom) house to keep his nervous ass company for the night. Which entailed him playing playstation and me watching tv.
Saturday I had to go into work at 8 for our Capitol City marathon training group. Ended up having to work one of the water stops and run around trying to get everyone gatorade.
After that (arounnd 11ish) went and got my tux, finally... By 3pm I had eaten, half a poppyseed muffin, a powerbar, and a 10oz latte. So dying was what I had in mind. I made some turkey wraps real quick like for me and isaiah (since I was back at his house). We then proceeded to leave for the church. The whole "pre-ceremony" was nerve racking and I seriously thought Isaiah would have a nervous breakdown. He distracted himself by playing video games in the back room while we groomsmens sat people and did all that fun stuff. The actual ceremony went by rather quickly, probably because it was the real thing and not like the rehearsals. Which brings me to my favorite part, the one where all the family members get drunk and make merry.
The reception was pretty bad ass if I do say so myself. Met all sorts of relatives of Isaiah's and Ashley's (the bride...duh) that I never knew existed, and saw a few old ones I knew way back when. It was a good time except when I caught the garter with as little effort as possible. Basically it hit my chest and my hand was out and it fell into it. Took a second for the shock to sink in...but meh. The chica who caught the bouquet also happened to be a brides maid and the chick whom I had spent most of the night talking to. So of course we got plenty of flak over that one. After all was said and done I was the only one of the wedding party (meaning bridesmaid and groomsmen) left there. As a matter of fact I was the only non-family member to stay for the clean up. It was a good time

Yes!

jtwedding — 2005-02-16T12:02:39-05:00

More yes!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html/104-2101194-0535130

Calm before the storm

jtwedding — 2005-02-18T01:02:52-05:00

Tommorow I plan on taking Bordeaux hill. What is this Bordeaux hill I speak of? Well it is a lesser known hill out in the middle of nowhere (literally, it's about 16 miles from my house near the county prison). Every cyclist I know that has attempted the hill has failed at ascending it to it's peak. As a matter of fact, no one could tell me how long it is, just that it is steep as hell and twice as long. And so, tommorow will be the day I make a name for myself amongst my peers by conquering the beast of a hill and immortalize myself amongst the local greats.
(note: if I don't post tommorow you know what happened....but I'm making it up damn it!)

Bordeaux hill

jtwedding — 2005-02-20T05:02:10-05:00

Riding up Bordeaux Hill I came to two realizations. 1, cyclists in my area are wimps, and 2, there are no truely gruelling hills in the area. I was actually rather disapointed. Yeah it was tough, but it wasn't that tough. There was no point of hopelessness or me dragging on despite the lactic acid build up in my legs feeling like battery acid through my veins. Point being I made it up, surprisingly the hill was only a few hundred yards longer than the farthest anyone i knew had gotten. More surprisingly, the other side of the hill is the real beast. Going down it was a blast but turning around and going back over it was not quite so fun.
This Little escapade led me to a sort of personal goal/future journey. I want to find a hill that I cannot beat. I want to find something so challenging that to earn the right to put your name to it would be something worthwhile. I want to find the perfect hill. Long, steep, and freekin awesome. Consider it my personal search for Nirvana.
This next week I'm taking a recovery week. Gonna take it a little easy and get ready for some crazy work outs to prepare myself for my next race (duathlon in Portland, OR on apr 2). Wish my crazy ass luck!

In the garage, where I feel safe, no one laughs about my ways.

jtwedding — 2005-02-26T03:02:47-05:00

Sometimes I feel like a hermit. I live amongst people and even with people, but often feel like I am alone. There's no one out there with similar interests. Most people here about my philosophies on life and automatically think i'm nuts. A few of those issues are as follows:
I don't own a car, sharing a car with a friend and regulary take the city bus or bike to work. Preferring to ride my bike for the most part. Many people can't believe that I don't own a car or that I prefer to ride my bike. They for the most part assume I'm broke and can't afford a car and thus my predicament. I honestly don't feel a car is worth the trouble so that I can save 5 mins going to work (literally, it takes me 10 on bike and 5 driving).
I left my former job which paid more for my current job which pays less. Having hated my job before, working for a "sports" store in the local mall and making commision. Which meant 90% of my job was pushing people to buy shit they don't need. I was good at it, but living with the fact I reinforced people's need to consumer shit they don't need did not help me to sleep at night. At my current place of employment, I actually help people, and don't pressure them to buy things they don't need. It's like night and day. Even though I'm going to school to hopefully get a degree that would help me financially, staying at my current job at least part time would help to keep me sane.
There are many things about my life which I feel almost ashamed of not because they are wrong but by my peer's standards they equate to something being wrong with me. I really need to buck up and just not give a fuck (excuse the language) what others think and do my own thang.

Until next time.

Internet Pornography and YOU

jtwedding — 2005-03-05T12:03:32-05:00

Had a pretty busy last week or so, took a recovery week since I was sick and to get ready for the workouts this week and the following months. Bought a new Dirt Jumping bike and been messing around on that. Works been so so and trainings been same old.

In other news I found this "sweet" video where people get like "3 feet of air"
http://www.midwestbmx.net/aspireweb.wmv

Financial woes got you down? Sell some shit!

jtwedding — 2005-03-05T03:03:50-05:00

Well as of late I've found myself doing the inevitable. I maxed out my credit card. I not only maxed that piece out, but I over charged, but this was not a mishandling of my funds I tell you. See I brought my balance up to 2 dollars from my max. Then those bastards over at bank of america decided to add a periodic finance charge which brought me to overlimit and thus a 35$ fee for overlimiting. This from the credit card that claimed to have no annual fee...But I guess it's not an annual fee...it's a periodic finance charge.

Since I plan on moving in the next month this put a damper on things since my minimum payment on this piece is around 200$ and I have around 350$ in bills to pay this next payday already. Get this folks, I only make about 500$ a payperiod (two weeks) so that leaves me with.....-50$ not to mention the overdraft fee. it didn't help that I just paid my tuition for next quarter and thus have tapped out my savings. So I'm forced to resort to the one thing I've been avoiding the past few (enter most desirable time period here). I'm selling things which have value but I don't "need". i.e. my video camera. Bought it for about 450$ 2 years ago and have barely used it. The video editor I bought with it has gotten much more use. I'm hoping to get maybe 250$ out of it with all the accesories I bought (which adds up to somewhere around 700$ total cost to me originally). It's nice to have a camcorder but being able to pay bills would be much nicer.
So there you have it folks, my financial woes. I know, boohoo, there's kids in china who work all day for breadcrumbs. To that I have nothing to say but,....i got nothing...

And life goes on

jtwedding — 2005-03-10T04:03:58-05:00

Well the past week or so has been pretty eventful. My financial issues are dealt with and I am going to find out when moving into the new place is able to happen. Training has finally been kicked into gear, this is the first week that the wednesday ride was not missed. It is hard to work from 10 to 7 then find time for a 30 mile ride. Yeah getting up early is an option...for YOU!

So there is approx. 3 weeks until the Spring Classic in Portland, my first race of the season. This tuesday was my second running workout this season. It did not go well. 6X2 minute Fartleks were the order for the day, the first 3 went alright but on the 4th I became dizzy and had a pain in my chest. Being the wuss that I am, I stopped. Ended the run on 5 miles in 38.33, so a little over 7:30 mile pace. not what I aimed for but alright.
Yesterday was a late night on the trainer (stationary bike thingy). Headphones and a bottle of Amino Vital were my only company for a grueling hour, not grueling as in painful but as in borish. During the workout the conclusion came to me that getting up 4 hours early is better than spending 5 minutes on that damn contraption.
Today was the saving grace of the week for me. All my routes around my house have grown somewhat stale, so a new route was planned and executed. A 7 miler through the most rural area of Tumwater ended up being the best route to sprout from the weedbox that is my mind. Being virtually alone and just enjoying everything that surrounded me was uplifting. Almost equal to the sunday run in Capitol Forest, but not quite at that level.

I now have 2 weeks of hard training before my "taper" for my race, feeling totally unprepared even though the last 6 months have been based around this season's races. That feeling of "can I do it" is definitely creeping in and messing with my psyche.

Moving

jtwedding — 2005-03-15T01:03:48-05:00

I'm moving tommorow. Not sure when I'll be back online, if ever. We'll play em like we sees em.

Moved and stuff

jtwedding — 2005-04-01T06:04:55-05:00

I'm moved in now, using my roomies pc to type this. Race tommorow, spring classic duathlon, 5k, 15 mile, 5k for those interested. update later.

An Update???

jtwedding — 2005-04-09T09:04:54-05:00

Well it's about a week after my race. Exactly a week actually. Life has been pretty hectic, no internet still, typing on buddies PC. This month and next month I have a total of 5 races. The first 4 small town races all leading up to the Rose Festival Duathlon in Portland, OR.

THe spring classic Duathlon went alright by first race of the season standards. Didn't place by any means but went out there and performed consistantly which is what I wanted. The next month and a half Miguel wants me to work on nothing but speed, which I found out was my biggest problem at this last race. Hopefully I'll win a race or two in the meantime and we'll see what happens for the Rose Festival.

In other news my shitty roommate (dunno if i've even mentioned her) moved out about a week ago and we already have someone else moving in. It's a guy who works at the restaurant down the street. Pretty down to earth guy whom hopefully will make living with him a breeze.

Day OFF

jtwedding — 2005-04-10T09:04:10-05:00

Got my lazy ass outta bed around 8 in the am and headed out to Capitol Forest @ 10. Did a crazy nice loop of 9 miles. Along the entire stretch was beaver ponds, rivers, stream crossings and lots of uphill action. It was supposed to be raining all day but the morning was nice and clear, perfect for running about.

After getting back home me and my running buddy Mike watched the detroit-Miami game which was pretty good, very close game from the 3rd on. Too bad Shaq's out on a "stomach virus".

New roommate was supposed to move in this afternoon but apparently there was a miscommunication and he'll be moving in this evening around 8pm. No worries though as I've pretty much spent most the afternoon chilling on the couch watching tv.

Life goes on

jtwedding — 2005-04-21T05:04:52-05:00

Been hella busy as of recent. I've got a full schedule of races from this weekend to May 22nd (rose festival). Miguel has me doing speedwork for the first time in my life. Tues was 2X800, 4X400 and 5X100strides. Took me an easy 24 minutes to get to Deschutes parkway to do em and about the same to get back home. The workout combined with the near hour of running was a tad more than I'm used to and so yesterday I had the weakest bikeride of my life. About 35 minutes long and just went nice and easy.
Started today off by picking up my new lightweight trainers from work (Brooks Axiom) and hitting out a tempo run. Did 10 min warmup, 20 min tempo then 10 min cooldown. At first I felt like doo-doo but after about 5 minutes of the tempo pace I started to loosen up a bit. More than anything this week has just been helping me to gain confidence in what I'm capable of, and really getting me focused for this weekends race.
Sunday will be the shortest Duathlon of my life. 2 miles of running split by 11 miles of riding. It's gonna be fast and no room to F' up. We'll see how that goes.

In other news, going to see Sin City tonight with a running buddy. Heard good things so here's hoping.

No racing.... :(

jtwedding — 2005-04-29T04:04:19-05:00

Well last sunday was a no-race day for me. Between a minor achilles strain on thursday and crashing my bike and jacking up my knee on friday, it just wasn't going to happen. I took 6 days off from running completely and only went biking twice. Achilles still aches a bit but the knee is much better. I am for sure doing the race this weekend. Another duathlon. Same distance as last week. 1 mile run, 11 mile bike, 1 mile run. I'm not too excited about the short runs but that's life. The race this weekend was won in 40:35. I put down my expected finishing time as 40:00. I know I can hit that as long as nothing goes awry. Only thing I'm worried about is the fact that I haven't done any speed since last thursday. We'll see how it goes down though.

Gatorade Kills

jtwedding — 2005-05-01T08:05:28-05:00

Raced this morning at approx. 12:04
First mile run I kept a position of solid 2nd the whole way, just trying to let the guy in front kill himself and I'd chill. Came into the transition with a mile of 5:47. Took a monsterous transition of 34 seconds and hit out the bike.
For the first mile on the bike I felt pretty good. Getting into my flow and hitting my first and only liquids, Gatorade.
I haven't drank Gatorade since....a long time ago. So having it in th emiddle of a race was probably a bad idea (or it could always have been the monster enchilada I had last night). My stomach started to kill within a few miles. At that time I was about 40 feet behind the leader and about 10 in front of some other guy. He passed me, I was pissed. About 5 miles down the road, some guy I wholly whupped on the first run came flying up my side in the aero bars. I let him pass hoping I could get close enough to pass him on the last run. Got to the turn around and wasn't too far behind #3.
At this time I'm between kicking it out and my stomach kicking back. It was frustrating to say the least. I looked behind me and wham! There's a chick half wheeling me. Never saw her coming....yeah so she passed me too. I stayed behind her and numero 3 until the transition 35 mins....
Again I took too long in the transition, almost 40 seconds this time, but eventually got my shoes on and took off on the last run. I was running blind at this point. I passed the chica right away and tried to find #3. The course was never straight for long so I never saw him until the turnaround, at which point he took off. At this point I felt like crap so naturally just pushed harder and tried not to think about how nice it would be to walk the rest of the way. Come to the finish line I nearly went the wrong way (go left to finish, right to transition, I went right for about 2 seconds). Last mile was around 6:30, w/half splits of 3:20 and 3:10. I felt like crap and was not impressed with my bike performance. So next time maybe some light pasta and a superfood. Now its time for a cold plunge...

Friday the 13th (minus 7 days)

jtwedding — 2005-05-06T02:05:18-05:00

Life's been kinda odd lately. My planned 4 races are now down to 3, one of which I already did. Instead of racing this weekend, Miguel wants me to go to the track with him so he can give me a little test or two. The following weekend I will be racing the capital city 5 miler (same time as the marathon). I figured I might as well since i can get comp'd for it.
The next weekend is Rose Festival in portland which should be a good time.
In other news...
I locked myself out of my room today with my wallet and everything in there. My roomie had to come home from work (an hour drive) to open my door up. Muchas gracias to her. This is the second time I've done it, luckily the last time she had forgot her keys on the kitchen counter so getting it open wasn't a big deal.
Odd since I have never been one to lock myself out of things. I am actually quite anal about things like that.

Next week I get to work a booth at the Shaner invitational, which means I'll get to hang out, hand out stickers and spike, and watch the meet. Should be a good one, a couple of decent milers will be competiting which is always a favorite.

I'm about to head out on a long ride so time to wrap things up, til' next time amigos.

Bada boom

jtwedding — 2005-05-13T07:05:43-05:00

I get the honor of working at the Shaner Invitational tonight (HS track meet). Handing out spikes, stickers and talking about shoes all while watching the races? Never have I gotten paid to do something so awesome.

Capitol City Marathon is this weekend so We're expected to be swamped at work. I'm running the 5 miler so I get out of the 'morning of'. I'm aiming for 30 flat, we'll see how that goes. Although I am not looking forward to the mass amount of chaos this weekend, it's my first CCM, so it should be quite the experience.

My last race until august is the 22nd, Rosefestival/lifeworks NW Duathlon in Portland, OR. Should be a good one, hopefully the weather looks up. I've come to realize that my biking has gone to crap. I did a tempo style ride yesterday. 2 X 10 mins @ race effort. It went not so well. So for late august I have a lot more bike work on the schedule.
I gotta take off for the meet so I'll holla at cha'll lata'!!!!

Capital CIty Marathon

jtwedding — 2005-05-17T01:05:36-05:00

This last sunday was the Capital CIty Marathon. Since I could get comp'd for it I raced the 5 miler. Things didn't go as planned. Got 17th overall out of about 200 and 2nd in my division.
After the race I had to run home, shower, and head back to the store where I spent the most miserable 2 1/2 hours of my life (also didn'tsleep at all the night before). This coming sunday is ROse Fest. duathlon, my "A" race. So all this week I get the joy of tapering. Nothing but easy runs/rides and relaxing. Can't beat that.

Life and stuff

jtwedding — 2005-06-02T06:06:56-05:00

Been awhile since I've updated here. Still no internet at home so that's that.
Since last time I've raced once at the kirkland 5k, which went alright.
This past weekend partied a tad too hard. Got ridiculously drunk and hit my head on my buddies cement steps. Still have a nice tender gooseegg chillin on my forehead.
I'm now working 40 hours at work which is a first pretty much since I started there. Talked to Miguel about it today and it looks like I might have a pretty consistent schedule pretty soon.
After reading what I've just wrote it has dawned on me that my life ispretty boring nowadays.

no subject

jtwedding — 2005-06-15T12:06:47-05:00

Got the internet hookup today. SOB is gonna cost me 55$ a month, just another expense.
I raced the evergreen state college 5k last sunday. Went alright, more of a workout than a race effort.
This saturday I"m doing Swede day, another 5k, then taking some time away from running til' late july where i'll be prepping for some fall races (namely my store's "Pasta dash").
I got STP (Seattle to Portland) on july 9th, which I'm just gonna take easy and whatnot.

Other than athletic crapola, there's not much going on. I'm gonna try to get my business up and running again, and work has been blah. Also planning on going hiking for a week in August.

Long day

jtwedding — 2005-06-16T12:06:37-05:00

Long day it was. Started it off at 8 in the AM with a nice screeching alarm. Rode my bike to work at 10 and worked til' 7. After work I went for a nice run. 8 mins at a moderate pace, then 2 miles in 11:47 then just ran around town for 20 mins. Afterwards got home and stretched. My roommate made some banging fettucine, which I followed up with a trip to trosper's bar and grill with my moms and her BF. Had a Kona pale ale, which is pretty spiffy and a bleu cheese burger.
All in all it wasn't a bad day. Got some things done, and ate some good grub. Can't beat that.

Pics from capital city

jtwedding — 2005-06-16T12:06:19-05:00

Just some pics I took at the capital city marathon. It's the numero uno y dos placers for the 1/2 marathon. Miguel is my boss and John is one of the coolest runners I've met in my life. He has a totally postive look at almost everything, plust he's a damn good runner.

Miguel

John

Day off

jtwedding — 2005-06-17T04:06:07-05:00

My sole day off of this week is today. So far I have gotten next to nothing done. The last week has really wiped me out, so today I slept the hell in and pretty much vegged out since. Although some laundry has been done.
Tommorow I'm supposed to be racing Swede Day 5k, Since my work is sponsoring it I think I can get free entry. Not a big deal if not but we'll see. In a way I feel kinda sleezy wanting free entry since it is a fund raiser for local kids programs. But on the other side my work is already putting a lot of money into it...and i'm broke as hell.
If all else fails I'll just "pace" my buddy mike and run it without a number.

Leisure

jtwedding — 2005-06-21T11:06:02-05:00

I'm taking some time off running and have just been enjoying life. Sunday night I went over to my buddies and went swimming, then had mass amounts of pizza and a couple beers. It was refreshing just getting out and doing that sort of thing which hasn't really happened since last summer (it's officially SUMMER!).
Today I'm going to take the ole mountain bike out to capital forest and go for a night little ride. Should be good times.

In other "bike" news, my grandma's husband (not my grandpa, he died years ago) decided to show how much of an asshole he really is. I have never really been a fan of him and the little respect I did have just went out the window. Apparently the cops were looking for him and they wen't up to my dad's house (dad lives just down the road). They told my dad that he had run some cyclists off the road. THey found him and gave him a citation, and when my dad talked to him he just went in ole bastard mode, until... My dad asked him if "jerimiah was one of them?" Which I guess the old assholes face went white and he didn't say a thing. So next family gathering I'm gonna have a grudge to bear.

I'm off to start another awesome day, which will again be concluded with some time at the ole job. Til' then.

Hiking at Rock Candy

jtwedding — 2005-06-22T12:06:55-05:00

Well...changed my mind this morning and decided to instead go hiking. Went to Rock Candy (one of my favorite running spots in Capitol Forest). It took a bit longer than when I run it, about an hour longer. I had a good time, just being out there with no worries, by myself. Tommorow I plan on going mtn. Biking on the other side of cap. forest. Gonna ride around Capitol peak (the highest peak in the area, about 3000 ft. I know it's nothing compared to those of you in CO, but when you live below sea level...).

Took some pics of the trip, chiggity-check these out.
Me near the top of rock candy
trail to the top
Awesome clouds looking out from the trail
Rock Candy peak from down the trail
Hills
Mo' hills
North Rim #1 trail
I believe rock candy West trail
Gnarly devil's club
Gnarly leaf from a devil's club
Rock Candy W, covered in devil's club
ROck Candy W, again
Logging on ROck Candy W
Myself on Rock Candy East trail.

Back to the real world

jtwedding — 2005-06-24T02:06:14-05:00

Yesterday started off easy enough. After gathering all my biking gear, i went to pick up the bike from my "storage" aka my mom's garage. My brother was taking off for his first day at his new job as a janitor, keeping it in the family (that's what his dad does). Talked to him for a minute about his newly acquired job situation then loaded up the bike and headed to the forest.
The weather could only be summed up as "bitchin' wet". It was not raining but the humidity was to the next level, meaning high. This meant for some kick ass sites as going through a thick forest in a nice light fog has a mystic effect. The actually biking was something else as it had been raining pretty hard the night before. Every little rock and root proved to be problematic, not to mention the copious amounts of mud. For the most part the trails were nice, however some had fallen to poor maintenance and the underbrush got a little overbearing. Getting hit in the shins by Nettle bushes when going down a very technical trail way too fast was not the highlight of the trip. Despite the nasty conditions, it was still a lot of fun. I spent a good 4 hours out there. First went up to capitol peak, which had absolutely no view as it was foggy as hell. Descended the entire way into Fall Creek camp (via greenline 6 for those who know the area). Coming back up Mima Porter was hell. Not only was the brush nice and overgrown, but the trail was slick as hell (literally at parts had a creek running down it), and had some of the most monster roots in the path. Ended up spending about 70% of the climb on my feet with the bike over my shoulder (that's an exact percentage in case you were wondering).
Finally arriving at the car, I was soaked, muddy, tired and ready for a nice hosing down. Of course by this time the weather had cleared and it was nice and toasty hot, which meant the mud on the bike was nice and caked on when I had to clean it. After cleaning and properly lubricating everything (EVERYTHING!), I put the bike back in "storage" (mom's garage), and went home to lick my wounds and clean up (by the way, nettles and scratches feel extra nice in the shower with soap and hot water running over them).
I spent the rest of the day hanging out with my amigo, Scott. He showed me some pics of his son, cute little devil. After all that nonsense, me and he went over to trosper's bar and grill, got a pitcher of Mac n' Jack's African ale, and chatted it up in hopes that a pool table would open, we left disapointed. I took him home ( he does not drive) and went home myself to get some sleep for work today.
I feel pretty apathetic about work today. It wasn't a great or bad day. Then again, any day that isn't bad is a good day. My shiny new sandals arrived today. They are Montrail Molokais. You stick the things in the oven for 3 minutes then stand in em so they can mold to your foot. Molded them as soon as I got home. So far they're pretty damn comfy. Unfortunately they're not adjustable and my skinny feet don't fill them in too well.
That brings us to the present and so I have nothing more to say, goodnight.

Joggers

jtwedding — 2005-06-25T01:06:25-05:00

Funny Jogger Vid

Crash n' Burn

jtwedding — 2005-06-25T06:06:04-05:00

Having the day off today, I was planning on doing a century ride (100 miles). After waking up at 9 am on the dot (without an alarm even), I got up, got my stuff together and headed to my mom's house to meet her bf for the ride.
A little back history, around november Mike (mom's bf) was hit by a car. There was a big deal made and he ended up suing the woman's insurance company. They folded and he got some $ to buy a new bike. So when he was getting his current bike ready (not the new shiny one, that one is being built as we speak) we were talking about how I need to buy a new frame (current one is too damned heavy to race). I said something to the effect of, "I could get a job to pay for it, or I could just get hit by a car."
After he finished getting his shit together, and my mom (she was going riding by herself), we headed out. My mom was going the same route but is much slower so she was slowly getting further and further from us. Approximately 3 miles from my mom's place, suddenly Mike slams into me from the side. Our bikes lock and we both get thrown. AT this point I have no idea why he slammed into me, or what the hell is going on. When I finally get my shit together I'm laying on the ground and Mike is standing over me taking my helmet off. All I can think of at this point was, "Oh god don't let me be seriously hurt" I do a quick inventory and all my parts are there, but I had a crazy pain down my left leg. I look around and see my mom just arriving on the scene and all I can think to say is, "What the fuck happened?" People start asking me I'm alright and after a few minutes of laying on the ground I find my head and most my body is okay and decide to try to stand, which is to no avail as for some reason I just can't get up. I asked mike to help me up which he did. Upon standing my leg pretty much screamed at me, "I'M HURT!" My left calf was just a knot and was already swelling up. I felt around my leg, made sure it wasn't a break or anything and concluded that it was just the muscle. At this point I realize that i was laying in the middle of the road and there's a good 5 or 6 cars blocked by me. I grab my bike and limp to the side of the road, which is when I get the second bad news. My bike was messed up. Upon seeing how messed up I was no longer aware of my own problems and started checking my bike to see what all needed fixed. My mom called my brother and asked him to come pick me up with my bike, between the leg and my bike being messed up I wasn't riding anywhere. Mike was fine (not even scratched the lucky bastard) so he rode back to his house real quick and got his car and the bike rack. While he was gone my leg was hurting pretty bad standing so I decided to sit down on the side of the road, which caused everyone to stop and ask if I was alright. During this time I talk to my mom about what happened and from what she gathered we had been riding along the road side by side when a guy in a white truck flew past us way to close (mike was on the inside, meaning he was closest to this truck). This cause mike to slightly swerve out, his handlebars his mine and my wheel got turned sideways at 19 mph. That cause me to turn in hard which is what made him fly over the centerline and me to wind up in the middle of the road. Of course the guy in the white truck did not even stop after seeing us go down and being the cause of it (yeah asshole).
Mike got there and we loaded up the bikes, after a quick stop at home to treat the roadrash, we went to the Bike Stand (local bike shop) and saw what the damage was. So far I need new handlebars, new saddle, my rear derailleur needs some serious hammer work (again it was bent into the spokes of the wheel. Luckily there's no damage to the wheel itself (Phew!!). I'm also going to need a new helmet as I hit my head in the fall and my helmet's cracked now.

Some pics (sorry no pics of the bike, it's at the shop and didn't think to take pics before I took it in).

Cracked helmet

road rash on hip, nothing like seeing flesh rubbed off onto the inside of your shorts

Left calf, swollen and just plain not looking well

Right knee, looks worse than it is, just little patches of road rash and a small gash

Rt. elbow

I got the microphone on my lips, shake my hips and do the tricks!

jtwedding — 2005-06-28T02:06:22-05:00

Work, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat.

That's pretty much been my life since "le accidente". I haven't ran since my legs still tweaked and well, riding just isn't gonna happen without a bike. So life has been pretty boring. The highlight of my day is changing the gauze pads so they don't get all stuck to my raspberries.
One thing I have gotten done is I've been learning CSS (again). I took a class on it but the class sucked and didn't go in much depth, so I forked out 45$ for a book that'll hopefully show me what I've been doing wrong all this time.
Yeah so my life is boring right now.
I did go to my roommates B-day "bbq" last night. Which mostly consisted of underage people drinking copious amounts of alcohol while myself and Angie waited for the perfect moment to take off. So yeah...

FREE SHOES!!!

jtwedding — 2005-06-29T12:06:52-05:00

Got a free pair of kicks today. THey're Pearl Izumi Floats, and they friggin SUCK! Probably the worst running shoe I've put on my poor little feet (actually I had some new balance and apair of nikes from days at Champs that sucked a bit more. At least they're somewhat stylish...somewhat. Lemme find a link............................................................................................ Click here
There ya go. In other news, life is A-Ok, for now.

Back to the task at hand

jtwedding — 2005-06-30T02:06:31-05:00

Went running for the first time in 1 1/2 weeks. Did an easy 20 minutes which was enough to remind me how much it sucks to stop running for awhile and come back to it. Surprisingly my glute (right one if you need to know) was the only thing that really hurt. I was totally expecting to have my knee all jacked up and shit, but no, just the buttocks.
Anyway, My roomie is movingout tommorow and I have a new one moving in. So It'll be an eventful Thursday. I actually have two moving in. One is my current roomie's (mike's) girlfriend and the other is a friend of the one moving out. We'll see how things work out though.

Barrels O' Fun

jtwedding — 2005-07-07T03:07:51-05:00

A lot has been going lately, between getting up early to watch the tour before work (it hurt to see Zabriskie go done btw), running/work, and desperately trying to get my bike before STP (this saturday), life in general is fairly hectic.

So the tour, while seeing Armstrong win 7 would be a milestone and good for him, I have to dissent. The first three days with Zabriskie in the lead my hopes for a new american tour winner were high. Seeing him crash like he did and then finishing with such a bad time was heart breaking. At this point I've now shifted my eyes to Vinokourov. Not that I want to see Armstrong get crushed but I'd like to see a new star rise and keep the public interest in cycling (in America anyway). If Armstrong wins the tour again and retires, I see cycling taking a big hit next year. Who knows what will happen from there.

Running is no longer a daily occurence for me. From my accident til now it's been, run one day, take a day off. Today will be my second day with no excercise (although I walked around downtown taking pictures for a good few hours after work). Tommorow, Mike (mom's bf) is letting me borrow his bike so that I can get a little ride in before STP.

If I will be doing it on my bike though is another story... My bike has been in the shop since the crash and they're still waiting on handlebars to arrive via UPS or FedEX or whatever. While on monday I wasn't sweating this, it is getting a little nerve racking being a couple days away and NO bike. I've got my fingers crossed though.

As for Photography, while most of my pics taken today were decent on the technical side, one particular shot (or series of shots) really got me excited. While walking behind the greyhound station, I spotted a man standing next to a parking meter and decided to take a shot. Immediately after some kids walked behind him (on the other side of sylvester park so a few hundred feet behind) and I refocused on them and took a shot with him blurred in the foreground. While seperate the shots aren't much, combining them had a great effect...or at least I think so.

Check it out

http://www.jtwedding.com/pics/mann.jpg

IIIII GGOTTT MMYYYYY BIKE BAAAAACK!!!!!

jtwedding — 2005-07-07T10:07:10-05:00

Got my bike back today. They hadn't done shit to it as of this morning so I went in got a new seat and handlebar. They adjusted the rear derailer and brake (they were tweaked and that was all i needed done that I couldn't do. I then went home, swapped out the bars and seat and now have a bike for this weekend! Now I'm hella pumped to do STP and have a good time. This year isn't serious or anything so it'll just be a rolling party with lots of beer and good food at the end.

DNFt:Do Not Fuckin' try

jtwedding — 2005-07-11T12:07:52-05:00

Friday evening was the same as any other friday except one big difference, I was doing Seattle to Portland the next day. Getting off work at 7 pm, Mike, my mom and myself drove up to Kent to spend the night at Pat's house (friend of Mike's). Pat was nice enough to make us a huge dinner of BBQ chicken, baked potatoes and "super" salad. We were also treated to as much beer as we cared for, which for myself was 3. After not too long we all went to our own resting places to get some sleep as Waking time was 3:30 in the AM.
Approximately 11, my book was closed, the light off and my head was down... Unfortunately, my mind was not off. Between having a ridiculously full stomach, a few too many beers, and the common "pre-night nerves", sleep would not come easy. Around midnight my face was again buried in the novel, "She is the Darkness" (/plug). Eventually feeling tired enough, I turned off the light and tried for some sleep. I beat the alarm by about 30 seconds as I awoke just in time to hear it going off.
After a quick shower and oatmeal breakfast we hit the road. The drive into seattle was easy until about 3 miles from the University of Washington (which is where the start was). There was some mild traffic which was odd at 5 in the morning but expected since there was about 8,000 of us doing the damned thing. After our pre-ride prep, lubing up and such, we headed to the start. While in the gates me and Mike chatted about a few things, nothing important enough for me to remember. Once they released us, we saw our first crash. Before even leaving the gates (as in right away) a guy fell in front of me onto the rear tire of this guy in one of those arm bike things (as in he had no legs and had to use his arms). As it was right in front of me I had to dodge him and fight off a laugh as it probably wasn't too funny for him, although I can't see it being too painful (he was going 1/2 a MPH). That was a quick and mild distraction as we headed out of Seattle.
From the start to Kent was a wild dodge n' chase. Mixing those with poor handling skills, slow asses, fast guys with poor handling and a few decent riders, was not a good idea. We saw a few people go down before even leaving Seattle (last year we saw one wreck in Auburn and we didn't even witness it, just passed by afterwards). Around Kent is where people started to spread out and getting into the flow of things was much easier. Although, even that early on something didn't feel right. When we arrived at the REI pitstop, my legs were already starting to feel a bit fatigued (not a good sign). I played it off as being because we were hustling a bit much and just kept on. The next 40 to 50 miles would go by almost as if nothing happened. We did see one accident which did not look good at all (elderly man in the fetal position, not moving and someone holding a rag to his bloody head just over a pool of blood {my prayers go out to his family and friends, I truly hope he's alright}).
Around mile 70 is when things started to look rather bleak. My legs where feeling about like they did at mile 100 last year. At mile 80 my IT band was starting to really bother me, but it wasn't stopping me. Between 80 and 90 something went terribly south. My IT band felt like the side of my knee was getting stabbed with every revolution, my right quad also would give out everytime I tried to stand forcing me back onto the saddle. Upon arriving at mile 90 I met up with Mike again (we got seperated). Mike asked me, "how you doing?" For the first time in my life, I said, "I'm done, Mike..."
I gave up, saying I was done was the hardest thing for me to say, ever. Never before had I ever quit until the deed was done, but with 30 miles to go my body just wouldn't have it. I was depressed, my ass was sore, my body ached, I was tired and the only thing on my mind was just stopping.
Mike suggested I call my mom and have her pick me up, which happened. Sitting in from of Smoke House pizza in the grass, shoes, bike and helmet next to me, there was plenty of time to think about the whole thing. First came the excuses, "well, I haven't ridden in two weeks because of my accident." "I didn't get enough sleep last night." "My new saddle and handlebar aren't right for me and caused this." Excuse after excuse flooded my mind, including the most true. "I didn't train enough."
The few months before STP, long rides weren't exactly my "thing". Running races, and just running in general took up the majority of my training, but time on the pavement does not equal time in the saddle. This entire year I had not gone over 60 miles, and that was a few months before STP.
Mom eventually arrived, I loaded up my bike and gear and rode back to my house, took a shower and crashed on the couch.
Since today was supposed to be my second day on the STP, work did not have me scheduled. Having a full day to contemplate what all went down was probably good as it gave me a chance to deal with it immediately.
The plan for next year was that I would not be doing STP. The summer would be only racing. No distractions.
After talking with friends and the like, a decision was made. Not only will Jerimiah Wedding be doing STP next year, but he will be doing it in One day. If I am to train and put in the time, simply finishing won't do. I want to dominate, destroy and complete annihilate STP. To some this seems silly or overdone, but to me it is a goal. I will do STP in one day next year and I will do it strong. No 13 hour bullshit. It will be fast and it when it's over I will be able to walk away knowing that I am not a loser, a quitter or any other such bullshit term. I WILL DESTROY STP!

Boring olde self

jtwedding — 2005-07-13T11:07:44-05:00

The last few days have been spent trying to cycle back into my normal life. Nothing exciting, started running again. My IT band has been back and forth. After running yesterday it felt fine, but I rode my bike to work and halfway there it started to ache. Wait and see is all I can do though.
Lakefair is this weekend, while I won't be racing in the 8K I will be down there taking pictures and cheering on a few buddies. Expect to hear about it.

I love races!

jtwedding — 2005-07-16T01:07:29-05:00

I love races! The atmosphere, the people, the experience. The fast guys sizing each other up, asking nervous questions that have no relavance but to keep themselves sane. There's a certain calm before races that just can't be described.
This morning my alarm was set for 7:00 am sharp. I woke at :15 til 7 and got up to get ready. The ritual was all the same, get up, eat breakfast, try to make it to the line on time. One thing was different though, I was not there to participate. Taking pictures and talking with runners was the only work for me.
In the past I would dread race day. All the things to worry about. Going as a spectator was refreshing and something I sorely needed. Come late August you'll catch me racing again, but for now it is nice just to observe.

Long time, no blog

jtwedding — 2005-07-27T01:07:39-05:00

Haven't updated in awhile now. A lot has been going on. First and foremost my good long time buddy Will McKasson pretty much dominated in a kickboxing match about 10 days ago.
http://www.fcfighter.com/news.htm Scroll down to Northwest fighting challenge, or hit ctrl-f and put in "northwest" it'll come up first thing. (btw, the first pic witht he guy landing a kick to the shorter guys head, the tall guy is Will)
Unfortunately, in other, worse news. My good buddy, long time cycling buddy and mother's fiance, Mike, crashed on his bike again. In november he got hit by a car, broke both his wrists and his bike was trashed. After a long legal battle he finally got money to replace the bike. After having the bike three days (last friday), he decided to take a corner a little fast when it was nice and wet out. He slid out and pretty much destroyed his hip...but the bike is fine :) He had to have a plate and an assload of screws put in, not to mention two wires to hold his hip together. Needless to say he's out for the summer. Myself, I've been trying to get back into a steady schedule of running/biking/living. So far it isn't happening. My workouts have been inconsistent and I have gone a few days at a time without doing anything. Hopefully I can get back into routine.

Fast times at Tumwater Square

jtwedding — 2005-08-01T02:08:27-05:00

Life's been a little slow lately, went to a co-worker's Girlfriend's bday party today. It was fun seeing some of my co-workers getting nice and drunk (while getting half way there myself). Of course JT brought the Cabernet Sauvignon of Columbia Crest origins (13$ a bottle baby!). Also got her a nice, generic, formal card. Considering I barely know her, I figured formal was the way to go.

Biking and running have been in short practice lately. Since my IT band is still giving me crap on a daily basis, taking it easy, ice and lots of extra sleep every night have been the prescription. Unfortunately, I don't see any racing happening this fall. Right now I figure take it easy, heal up and get in bad ass shape for next spring. Kinda sucks to have to think like that, but that's how the cookie crumbles.

Til' next time, amigos.
JT

CRAZY, CRAZY, CRAZY!

jtwedding — 2005-08-05T12:08:10-05:00

The past week has been fairly crazy. It has found me running around doing all kinds of things, both pos+ and neg-. On the pos+ side of things; I hung out with my good buddy Isaiah and his family yesterday after visiting the bike stand (to get Mike's (mom's bf) rear wheel trued). Earlier in the day I knocked out a rocking 20 miles on the bike. Not long by any standards but it was a good ride and my IT band didn't bother me once, before, during or after. I also got a good 30 min+ run in on tuesday, so I am rocking an every other day schedule at the moment. Hopefully I will be back to 6 days a week soon, or around there at least.
On the neg- side...Oh fuck it, why be a downer, right?

Business as usual

jtwedding — 2005-08-09T02:08:54-05:00

Recently had an epiphany, about a business oppurtunity. It's a great idea, that I'm not ready to share with the world. It'll be big, all i need is a name...

Work has been long and arduous the past few days. It's either slow, or slightly steady. The awesome weather has been pulling people away from the store I guess. Also, we just got over a busy period and as sure as the sun sets (cliche!), busy times are followed by slow times with lots of returns. By lots of returns, i mean (CLICHE!) LOTS of returns. Since I am in charge of doing defective returns it has been my uphill battle this past week just trying to get the returns bin cleared out. Seems everytime 5 get boxed up and ready to ship, 5 more come in. Ridiculous!
Despite work my life has remained fairly busy. Not much time to play but I make due (Cliche!).
This weekend my good buddy, Mike Stone, is having a barbeque at the "summer home" aka his parent's pad on the lake. It should be a good time, lots of good food, watersports and whatnot.

Rise Against is sooo Punk!

jtwedding — 2005-08-10T01:08:31-05:00

So today has been a good/bad day. How can a day be both good and bad? Well let me tell you!
Bad: Work was again slow as hell and boring. Nothing really happened, I did not fit anyone under the age of 60 and the highlight was seeing Miguel's son. What? He's a cute little kid.
Good: Got some free running shoes! Saucony Trigon 3 Guide to be exact. Nothing says, "sweet!" like free shoes.
Bad: The shoe is not very good. It is clunky and feels awkward running in it.
Good: Went out for a five miler for the first time in awhile. Sun + Running = good
Bad: I have found out just how bad of shape I am now in. After 4 miles I wanted to die and finished up the loop in 42:51, a new all time slow PR for me...

This list is getting repetitious and so i move on.
After my run went over to my mom's house and cleaned out some bottles as my lastest batch of brew will need bottling on thursday. It is an IPA that, unless I screwed it up, should be mighty tasty. After cleaning about 2 cases of bottles, I cracked open a beer and had some dinner with my mom and the family. Nothing is quite like your mom's cooking after you've been living off your own cooking for a few months. It tasted like smelled, Delicious!
Now I'm sitting here at home with a mildly irritating headache, probably from overdoing it today with the run in the heat, drinking hella water and about to enjoy a light snack before getting ready for bed. So there ya have it.

Hot summer days

jtwedding — 2005-08-15T01:08:38-05:00

Spent pretty much all day enjoying my damn self. Woke up about 8 am, very much dehydrated and fairly hungover from a crazy night with my good buddies, Joe and mike (and a bunch of other people who were there). Laid around the house til' around 1pm. Took a shower and headed over to my buddy Mike's house (same mike as before) He had a small barbq at his parent's house (on the lake). Swam, went out on the boat and ate like a beast. Around 6ish headed over to bbq numero dos. Company picnic and Miguel was cooking up some sweet delicious bbq (yes, twice in one day). We played some HARDCORE volleyball. Which when you get a group of distance runner's together for Volleyball you see just how bad they are...only not. I was probably the worst there. Craig and Rich (both from my store) were tearing it up. It was a good time though and a good day overall. Now I just need to cool down enough to get some sleep and work a 10-7er manana.

Won't you take a ride?

jtwedding — 2005-08-19T02:08:27-05:00

The last few days have included, little to no sleep, lots of working (both at the store and on my "special" project) and a whole lot of other stuff.
What is this "special" project I speak of? Well, this little business that has been around for a couple years now, Neu-Mind|Studio, just happens to be partially owned by myself. It has been awhile since the website has been updated so I have taken on the responsibility of doing a number on it. So the past few days have found me in a manic state where just to just stop thinking long enough to get sleep is very hard and I usually find myself crashing in total exhaustion. Probably not the healthiest thing to do, but it is such a rare occurence that I'll live.

In other news, my roommate is a fucking tweaker...or at least it appears that way. A friend of mine, and former roommate, swears to me he's a tweaker (one who partakes in the drug known as tweak). At first I denied it but lately it's seemed that he is indeed a tweaker.

The Facts:
   1. He ofter says, "I'm going to drink some coffee" In the same manner that I would tell my mom we were going out to "listen to music", except instead of music it was booze, and instead of listening we were drinking it.
    2. He builds shit. I don't mean like legos and puzzles, no he will spend hours taking apart radios, vcrs, etc all in an attempt to make, get this, tattoo guns.
    3. He listens to MSI
    4. He won't appear to sleep for long periods of time.
    5. He's been drinking a lot more coffee lately (meaning he claims that's what he's doing) with his brother in law, who he admits is a tweaker.
    6. He says everyone else is a tweaker

So based on this evidence, who else thinks he's tweakin'?

Hail to the king, baby!

jtwedding — 2005-08-22T12:08:07-05:00

These past two or three days have been uneventful at best. Saturday was yet another barbeque followed by some pool time and some minor "partying". Sunday was the slowest 5 hours at work of my life. We brought in like nothing.
My business site is coming along. I have not had copious amounts of time lately. However, it's expected to be finished, pressed and ready for action some time in the next 2-3 months, so keep an eye out!

BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY

jtwedding — 2005-08-25T02:08:06-05:00

The past few days have been rather event filled. Between working at the store, working on a brochure design for Miguel and working on my own business stuff (site, getting bank stuff sorted out, etc), life has been non-stop from bedtime to rise and shine. Tommorow I have the day off, so I will be taking it as easy as possible, meaning go running somewhere nice. Post-run all that needs to be done tommorow is a quick sit-down with Miguel about the brochure and a meeting at the bank to set up a new business account (which will cost me 100$ OH NOES!, but that counts as capital right?)

Some pictures from the lake

jtwedding — 2005-08-25T10:08:57-05:00

Capitol Lake
Concrete pier - No Comment.
Ducks - More like DUCK!
Great view - I found it humourous that they built benches about 6 feet from pretty much a wall of trees.
Mysterio Bird - No idea what this bird is, Duck? Duck? Goose? Two women, avid birdwatchers, asked me what type of bird it was, to which I said, "no idea." and that was the longest conversation about birds I have had to date.
You should all feel lucky as you are the first to see these pics, or at least leave comments and make me feel special.

GOOSE

jtwedding — 2005-08-26T11:08:35-05:00

The mysterio bird from the previous post turned out to be an Egyptian Goose.

Wake me up when september ends

jtwedding — 2005-08-29T02:08:27-05:00

quicktime quick connection
Or for those low bandwidth folks, just go to the site and hit up the video section to get the size and format of your choice
green day

The friend that I hate

jtwedding — 2005-09-01T04:09:59-05:00

So I have this friend. He likes to talk about himself, a lot. Everytime he buys something, something happens to him, or something might happen to him, he is more than happy to tell me about it in great detail. Even if I don't give a shit, I listen. I sit there and listen to him ramble on about himself.
So after knowing this guy for a few years now, something I am excited about for myself comes along. I start to tell him about it, and guess what. Bastard has the nerve to blow me off and start talking about how his fridge died.
So yeah, screw him.

Yahoo...?

jtwedding — 2005-09-01T12:09:37-05:00

Apparently Yahoo has some kinks to work out in their 'system'

New Orleans

jtwedding — 2005-09-01T05:09:44-05:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.impact/index.html

TOday, today today

jtwedding — 2005-09-01T10:09:54-05:00

Woke up relatively early, 7:45 (for a day off). Had to take Mike to physical therapy (the guy with a broken hip). Was going to sleep until I had to pick him up at 10 but just when i was getting there my landlord calls. He told me that he was getting the house appraised and needed someone to be there to unlock the door for him. Of course this got my mind racing, like, "O' shit, he's gonna sell it" WHich means me moving, again...

Besides that, finished a brochure for my good man, Miguel's new personal training business. He loved it and was very impressed. I was apathetic towards it but you can't complain when people appreciate your work.
After talking with Mig and dropping off some bills at the post office, I went for a nice 50 min run. Just went over tumwater hill, around the college and back over t-hill. It was hot, I needed water, and I had a good time. Felt good to get out there and just dust off the old legs.

Crraaazzyy time

jtwedding — 2005-09-06T12:09:52-05:00

This weekend was not bad at all. Worked through most of it. Saturday night I played some board games with my roomie and her friend. Sunday was about more of the same. Then came monday!
So I've been planning this wicked trip to bumbershoot for awhile now. Not for the art, second stages or any of that bullocks, but for none other than, Iggy Pop and the Stooges. I was expecting to see some good stuff and good stuff saw I indeed. Iggy is hands down the greatest performer I have laid eyes on. Even in his old age he's crazy full of energy (short on time, more after work)

EDIT: Later in the day.
So anyway, the highlights of the show were definitely hearing some my old favorites, ie "I Wanna be Your Dog", "Dirt", "No Fun" and "I Wanna be Your Dog" part deux (they played it twice). Before "No Fun" Iggy yelled out, "You Seattle mother fuckers get up here and take over your fucking stage! Run amok!" which caused a rush of people trying to jump the barriers. Security then proceeded to flip their wigs and wouldn't let people through. Iggy sat there cussing and yelling at the guards until they let people get on stage. He then performed "No Fun" with about 50 or 60 people going crazy on stage. That was by far the greatest moment of the show and really something to witness. No other band would have done it and as far as I know, none ever have. If any of you ever get a chance to see them live, do it. It does not matter if you like their music, you WILL enjoy the show. My friend Angie whom is not a Stooges fan actually had an awesome time and really enjoyed it. SO DO IT!

no subject

jtwedding — 2005-09-07T12:09:05-05:00

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in a reply to my journal and in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what's actually next to you

My sentence: "He would stand second to none in his devotion to his country."

a;dljkfasl;dfas...

jtwedding — 2005-09-08T02:09:05-05:00

So, something I left out about this weekend. Sunday, got up at 7, left by 8 with Miguel out to Capitol Forest. Ran about 8 miles with him and had a good one. First time in the forest in a long time.
Now that that is out of the way. Haven't ran since sunday, but we finally got the new Adrenaline GTS 6 in today in 10 (my size). Since the GTS is "my' shoe, of course I ponied up the cash for a pair. After work I stopped by my mom's house and grabbed a couple movies I rented for her ("Crash" and "the Corporation"). I then jetted home to do an easy run. By easy I mean EASSSSYYYYYY. Like 14 mins for a 1.7 mile loop. Mostly the run was to test out the new shoes, partly guilt was setting in for taking so many days off, after being injury free for awhile now. The new shoes are badass as ever, and I really can't say I don't like them a whole lot.
As for the movies, watched "Crash". Found it to be a very damn good movie, would definitely recommend it to anyone reading this out there.
Tommorow, waking up early is the first thing on the agenda. It's a day off, but Mike has an appointment at his physical therapist at 8 am. Big fun it is to get up for that twice a week.

Motion Design

jtwedding — 2005-09-08T03:09:31-05:00

Some awesome motion design. Kinda subliminal since it's sponsored by coca-cola, but if you look you see all the references.
http://them5.com/

Fall park Pics

jtwedding — 2005-09-09T02:09:12-05:00

Spent some quality time at Falls Park in Tumwater, under what used to be the brewery. Remanants of a Defunct Institution - The Olympia Brewery was a big part of my home town. After being bought out by Miller Brewing they soon closed and many got laid off.
High-chair - A very high chair/bench
Walk With Me - A bridge/walkway along one of the path. If you didn't know me you'd think I had a bridge fetish
Step Into Light - A woman walking with her daughter. I was already taking pics of the area and figured, ah hell, "snap!"
Path to Entitlementt - Bridge fetish...

TODAY, THURSDAY THE 8TH OF SEPTEMBER IN THE YEAR 2005

jtwedding — 2005-09-09T03:09:30-05:00

Today started off with a trip to the physical therapist for Michael, which I drove at 7:45 in the am...on my day off (such a nice guy I am). After dropping him off I knocked out for a solid 40 minutes of sleep before having to take him back home. When he got done with the therapist he asked if I wanted some breakfast. Never one to pass up a free meal, I took it. Had the Nick's Special at Nickleby's (my roomies place of work). It included bacon, sausage, two eggs (over easy), and some biscuits and gravy. Don't worry folks, the 'J' man does not eat like this regularly. It was good, with the exception of the sausage. Not that the sausage was bad, but when you never eat such things you lose the palate for them.
After that, I took Mike to work (30 min drive south), so that killed an hour of my day and by the end of that I was roaring and ready for a new day...right. So I uploaded the latest version of Miguel's brochure, which was supposed to be done with awhile ago, cruised by work, showed it to Miguel, got some input and took off the park. I took my camera as whenver I visit a place such as a park by myself I am there to either A) Run, or B) take Pictures. (See post below for the best of the best).
After that I came home and watched "The Corporation" a documentary about corporations and how evil they are. I fell asleep at some point and woke up in time to hear one good point then turned it off. Not that it was bad, but damn it was long and boring. After my little nap, went for a nice run. Up and over Tumwater hill, by my old college and back around the back side of the hill. Did it in under 45 mins, which is a PR. Didn't feel like much of an effort either so I must be getting some of that fitness back.
After that, showered and started downloading pics from my camera to my PC. While that went down ( it takes awhile) I watched "Be Cool". I read the book awhile ago (long before it was in production) and seriously think the book owns the movie. Not like "Get Shorty" which I liked both equally. Elmore Leonard is the man I tell you, the MAN!

Mima Mounds pics

jtwedding — 2005-09-16T12:09:27-05:00

Obstacle 2 - Stairway found in the cement structure.
Evil - Looking out from cement structure.
Ratamahatta - A funnel web Spider, there are thousands of these nests in the area, literally. Each mound has well over 50 nests each.
Maggie's Farm - Looking down from view on Concrete structure.
Dead Skin Mask - Concrete Structure from previous pics.
These Filthy Hands - Multiple signs in the area are heavily damaged and weather worn.

Good vs. timeless

jtwedding — 2005-09-18T02:09:01-05:00

India pale ale Vs. Chimay Red Ale
Endless summers Vs. Beautiful winters
Free stuff that you appreciate Vs. stuff you worked hard to get, and appreciate
Death Cab for Cutie Vs. The Postal Service
My race today Vs. the 12 yr old that beat me's race

So sore..

jtwedding — 2005-09-19T12:09:06-05:00

So yesterday, I did a time-trial 5k just to see where i was at, as far as running was concerned. That went about as planned, found out that I am indeed in bad shape. I was actually a tad sore after the fact. Today I got the bright idea to go running out in Capitol Forest with a few people, not so good idea. Did 8 miles on a fairly nice trail, oneof the lowest elevation for the forest there. Afterwards though my legs were dead. I mean DEAD! Right now when I walk my legs shake and they're definitely sore. I'm sure working all day tommorow will be loads of fun. I can't remember the last time I was this sore, if ever. Either way, it's good for me, right?

Paradise Now

jtwedding — 2005-09-21T12:09:43-05:00

http://www.apple.com/trailers/warner_independent_pictures/paradise_now.html

Neumind reincarnate

jtwedding — 2005-09-22T02:09:09-05:00

Neu-Mind|Studio v. 3.0 has launched. Check it

Neumind

Crazyness to the MAXX!

jtwedding — 2005-09-27T01:09:07-05:00

Been working overtime here at Neumind studio (aka my home). If you haven't seen it yet, check out the newest version of our site (neumindstudio.com). Also recently finished the letterhead and business cards (images yet to come). Even managed to get a client worked into all this. Still working fulltime at SSR and working on getting my stuff in to take a few classes next quarter at SPSCC, hopefully finish up that long delayed Degree. On the athletic side of things, running has been strong. Went out to capitol forest again on sunday with Kendra (Miguel's wife). A few more people were expected to show up but apparently we're the only non-wimps. It was a beautiful day for a run out there and the area we went to has one of the nicest views. Even took the bike out for a spin for the first time in a long time (month and a half or so). Only spent about 1.5 hours in the saddle. Didn't go far but got some of the old feeling back, which is good.

Little experiment

jtwedding — 2005-09-29T02:09:27-05:00

Little test for the masses here, just seeing how css works with this peace.

Rainy days

jtwedding — 2005-09-29T03:09:14-05:00

Today was not the most exciting. Woke up at around 8:30 expecting to get dressed, hop on my bike and hit up work for a 9am meeting with Nike. As soon as I woke up I knew the bike part was out, it was raining pretty heavily so that was out. Got to see all the Spring '06 line of apparel for Nike. Some nice stuff, but nothing real special or standout, and their shoes are the same line as their current line, so nothing interesting there.

One interesting thing we heard was about Nike's current state of affairs The reps for years have been saying that it's hard to sell their technical product because it is so far behind other shoe companies out there. The bigwigs at Nike basically told the reps that they're being negative and need to change their attitudes in order to sell the product.
The president of Nike then changed to a new guy who's name slips my mind. The President was set to visit New York Running Company and meet the owner, hang out and do Nike promotions stuff. Apparently, the owner of NYRC told the Prez of Nike, "Your product is inferior, they sell many 10% of the time over any other company." So now the bigwigs at Nike are saying, "Shit, this needs to change."
So suddenly the company buzz at Nike is that the running shoes suck and they need some major improvements, the same people who now are zealots for the cause are the same people who told the reps to stop being so negative, and that it was their fault the shoes wouldn't sell. Interesting to those who are involved in the industry I guess.

As for my own personal life, the past few weeks have gone by super fast. I have been working on this business thing, which is starting to look like an actual business. Running has been somewhat consistent, at least every sunday in the forest. Not much for cycling, between time constraints and the weather cycling has been a no go. So there you have it folks, my infinitely interesting life in a nutshell.

You make me feel - the Unseen Video

jtwedding — 2005-10-09T02:10:45-05:00

Click here to view the first (that I've heard of) dynamic music video based on local conditions. How it works is, it connects with a weatherstation nearest your location. Based off that and the time it is, the video creates different visuals. Definitely one of the coolest things I have seen in awhile.

Holy busy

jtwedding — 2005-10-22T10:10:29-05:00

Well, haven't posted anything recently. Been very very busy. Between working two jobs and a having spent some free time with a new person in my life, it's been hectic.
I've been riding/running only 3 times a week (tuesday, thursday, sunday). I seriously need to work things out so that I get some more in but it's tough when it's dark when you get off work. I just need to quit being a wimp though and get going on this ish.
Work has been interesting, the store has been dead recently so standing around for 9 hours when i have better things to do has been somewhat frustrating, but that's the retail business. My business has been getting some attention recently. So far i've put a few quotes out there and have a few people who have contacted me about possible work. In a way I really want things to take off, but I already feel like i'm overloaded and since I want to go back to school come january, I'm not too sure about where things will end up.
As for the new person, if you know me well enough you've either already talked to me about it, or will soon enough. Til' next time.

Crazy crazy

jtwedding — 2005-10-24T10:10:25-05:00

http://www.crush007.com/love.cgi?id=1130201168mby

Halloween = off the heezy

jtwedding — 2005-11-03T11:11:13-05:00

Had a wicked cool halloween. My roommates threw a party so I ended up getting all into it. It was wicked cool. pic!
In case you can't figure it out. I was Bill Lumbergh from "Office Space" fame, the boss, you know?
My running has been pretty regular for the first time since my accident. Work has been slow but I have been keeping myself busy. Just bought a new camera, a canon Digital Rebel (aka 300D). It's friggin sweet and I just used it to take some pics for a clientat a tile job he did. It was in a house on the "field of dreams" which is a swank neighborhood around where I used to live (houses start at 500k there). The house was ridiculously nice and the tile job was topnotch. I'd never seen his work before and I was really impressed. Definitely look forward to working with him in the future. I've been dating this girl, Trista, for about 2 weeks now. Spend most my spare time with her and have to say I'm really digging her. Haven't met a girl like her ever. In other news, check out the pretty photo I took Say hello to the angels

sup yo.

jtwedding — 2005-11-10T11:11:53-05:00

Lately a few things have been pretty stressful in my life. At work, the schedule is getting moved around on me and basically I'm the only one getting fucked(excuse the language). When you are told that your schedule comes before anyone elses then everyone else bitchs about having to work certain times so they stick you with it, basically with asking but with no intention of giving you what you want (unless what you want coincides with what they do).
My best roommate is moving out today. I'm super worried one of my bad roommates friends is going to get pushed. I do not want another lazy, messy pothead in this house. Cesar (roomie moving out) was an awesome roommate and pretty much the opposite of my other two. I'm going to have to put my footdown on who else moves in. Luckily it is my decision, thank you responsibility!

In other news, went out and took some long exposure pics last night. Liked how a few of them turned out so for your viewing pleasures.

Power out
Searching
Suture
Power out 2

Club Oly 5k

jtwedding — 2005-11-12T11:11:31-05:00

Took some pics at the Club Oly 5k series today. It's the 2nd race of the series, missed the first (had to work). Took many a photo, will have a gallery up soon with all the pics but for good measure I made a little page with my favorites.
Club Oly 5k, Nov. 12, 2005

Club oly 5k, full pic gallery

jtwedding — 2005-11-17T11:11:45-05:00

http://jtwedding.myphotographer.com/d2/View_AllGallery.asp

Recent random pics

jtwedding — 2005-11-18T12:11:43-05:00

Been messing with my camera trying to get different results. It's a big jump from a pana lumix to a 300d, so still trying to get used to everything on it. This bad boy lives in a can in my yard. He had just shed and was lookin' pretty mean. I think this shot could have been taken better, not really sure what I would've changed other than the ISO which was set too high for the conditions. Just a little messing around. Tried to get an ad feel with one of the cheapest wines around. same as before but closer shot with some DOF changes. Name says it all.

no subject

jtwedding — 2005-11-29T01:11:42-05:00

Ole Yellow Eyes Comments and Critique are welcome.

Busy busy busy

jtwedding — 2005-11-30T11:11:18-05:00

Been pretty busy lately. Between work and play not much time to mess around on here. Haven't been running too well recently. Problem is I have so much to friggin too it's hard to find time, but I am running a few times a week at least.
I've been up to my neck in Photographing and a few design jobs. Recently made the jump for some expensive photo equipment and hopefully will be seeing some nice ROI (return on investment) soon.

Work has been here and there. Some days we're slammed crazy busy and others we dead slow and just stand around for hours at a time. Unfortunately I still have to work 40 a week and not much chance of going home early.

No Woman, No Cry

jtwedding — 2005-12-14T08:12:36-05:00

It's been an interesting few weeks. I've been knee deep in photography, waist deep in the specialty running shoe industry and up to my neck in graphic design, but my head is above water and I'm still breathing. Anyone interested in my recent art photography can check out my deviantart page http://pawnzito.deviantart.com/.
I've also taken some pictures for the next issue of Shutter42 which I will post up when it's released (I think it's late december/early january).
Also got another piece into Phirebrush. This time it was a few issues ago and somehow I missed it. Check that out here or directly here.
Been working on making a book out of my past project "Emotionary" It's an illustrated "dictionary" of emotions. Expect to seemore about that in the coming months.
Running has been here and there but I have not stopped yet so I'm still good. It has just taken a backburner to the other interests in my life for the time being. One thing I've picked up recently that I am really enjoying, is meditation and yoga. It is very nice to spend some time just stretching and chilling, not having to worry about anything. My life has taken such a different direction recently and so far I'm very happy with it.

Happy New Year!!!! and bday to me...

jtwedding — 2005-12-31T09:12:38-05:00

So at midnight tonight I will be turning the big 23. A lot of people have been making comments about how I am getting old, etc. I however feel like I'm a young buck ready to pounch me some...well. Anyway, The last few weeks have been interesting. Christmas was alright. Nothing to really shout about, but I walked away a bit better off (got a sweet Weatherproof(the brand) jacket, 25$ and a ton of food [which I ralfed up later that night] ).
Most of my spare time has been spent taking pictures and hanging out with Trista (GF for those that haven't kept up).
Took some pics at the Club Oly 5k for their december race which went alright. Turned out I had a few ideas that weren't so great, I'll leave them unnamed for now. Also been working on a new print portfolio for the biz. Them things are a lot of work. Also still working on putting the "Emotionary" together and getting ready to go to print.
I'm taking the next week off from work so that should give me some time to get somethings done. First vacation since I started at South Sound Running October of '04 (even if it feels like just a few months ago). Maybe there will even be the odd chance I post on here before my vacation is up ?
For now, I'll leave you with this pic of my ex-running buddy Mike Strong.

Right-Click image and choose View Image if you can't see the whole thing
Happy New year!

Hello my long lost friend

jtwedding — 2006-03-04T02:03:30-05:00

Haven't updated this in quite awhile. Right now I'm going through a hard time. Some things have changed recently and taken quite the steep downhill turn. I guess you can't run uphill forever.