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April 13, 2011

Dakota County Acknowledges How Extreme I am

Yesterday evening as Amy and I finished our short (2,.2 mile) hike around Jensen Lake @ Lebanon Hills park a flyer on the announcement board caught my eye. There appeared to be an orange bike like my Specialized Hardrock.

Oh my gosh that is me!

Oh my gosh that is me!

As I got closer I was like “Yeah sweet that is a Hardrock”. As I moved in for a closer inspection I realized the rider was wearing a jersey just like mine. This thought was quickly followed by the realization that the shorts looked just like mine too. And all three items looked just like mine because the very photo I was staring at was a photo of me that Amy took at Lebanon Hills mountain biking park. The very photo I posted here back in May of 2009 regarding Amy and I’s first ride of that year.
It is great to see that when Dakota County needs to demonstrate the extremely extremeness of their park system they chose to use photos of me. My primary concern now is what are they going to do when their parks are filled with visitors due to this awesome flyer? :-D This flyer is for an event to discuss Fall 2011 mountain bike construction at Lebanon Hills park.

I hope that in the future they decided that copyright laws are in place for a reason. A  little bit of respect goes a long way. It’s not really a big deal as I am more than happy to share my photos for such uses, but permission should be granted before one creates a flyer that is distributed to the public (see the little copyright symbol at the bottom of this page?). It is disappointing that our own government feels a Google image search is a fair place to use as a stock photography site for the creation of advertisements. That being said, Amy and I find this whole thing quite hilarious!

The flyer that is banking on my extremeness

The flyer that is banking on my extremeness

Nate riding Lebanon Hills (Original photo)

~Nathan
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April 26, 2009

We Made It!

We complete the 2009 Minnesota Ironman Bike Ride. We did the 30 mile course in 2 hours and 50 minutes. At about 10 a.m. the misty rain that had been going since we started turned into full out raining and at times down pouring. Despite the 40* temperatures, the 10 mph winds, and of course the rain, we still went out there and completed the ride.ironman-weather

Last night realizing that it would definitely be raining, we went to Gander Mountain and purchased some water-proof pants. The water-proof pants and the rain coats Amy bought a week ago were definitely hte best gear purchases we have made in preperation for this event. If we had been wearing the cotton clothing we were wearing for training today, we would have been soaked and miserable just from the first 2 hours of mist. Overall Amy and I had a great time and will definitely being participating next year. Maybe if the weather is nice next year we will do the 65 mile(or not).

Now that we have completed the Ironman it is time to start hitting the real fun stuff, the mountain biking trails. Lebanon Hills, Murphy-Hanrehan, and of course the River Bottoms (North & South). 

~Nathan
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April 12, 2009

19.8 more miles!

This morning I headed out for a morning ride. I decided to go the last section of the Ironman 30 course that Amy and I had not done previously. This would be from about our house on Pilot Knob to the Lakeville North High school. Once I made it to the high school, still feeling good, I decided to go ahead and follow Ipava to 160th street home. Definitely not the fastest but seemed like it would be a good ride, which it was. By the time I go home I looked at the Garmin eTrex and realized I had went 19.8 miles, I couldn’t believe it. Not to mention about three quarters of the way I had a 11mph head wind coming. Not to shabby following Amy and I’s 17.1 miles yesturday. Below is a map of our training so far as reported by the Garmin eTrex. This map does not include our Monday through Friday biking around our neighborhood.

Ironman Training Map

Ironman Training Map

Overall, coming to the close of day 9 of owning my Hardrock Sport I have put 98.3 miles on it. That is about 10.9 miles per day so far. I am going to try to stick to a fixed distance of 5 miles per day Monday through Friday as to not burn myself out. Last thursday I biked almost 10 miles between the morning and evening, then Friday morning I bike 10.3 before work. I am getting a bit to crazy I think training for the Ironman. Though I must admit street riding is getting boring, I am ready for some trails.

~Nathan
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April 4, 2009

Training for the Minnesota Ironman

Yesterday, while coping with a rather stressful day of work, I was graced with the call from Amy letting me know that Erik’s Bike shop had called and my new Specialized Hardrock Sport was in. Last Friday I bought Amy her bike (Specialized Myka Sport), which was in stock, and ordered my bike. Only downside was Amy was taking off for the evening for her Britney Spears concert. Determined to enjoy my new piece of excersize equipment and weekend toy I headed out of my own. I ended up biking ten miles last night before calling it a day.

Sweet, I know.

Lovin' the new bike!

This morning Amy and I headed out to run part of the 30 mile Ironman route. We were planing to go about 6-7 miles of the course from our house. We wanted to become familiar with some of the more unknown parts of the course so we could be properly prepared for the day of the ride. We ended up riding 10 miles of the course and then another 8.5 miles home for a total of 18.5 miles of biking today. We are both wiped out and planning for a nice relaxing evening.

Despite my legs feeling like they are going to fall off, I am still planning to wake up in the a.m. tomorrow and run our normal 5 mile route around the neighborhood.

~Nathan
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