Sloth: The Man with the Hammer

[Sloth the Enduring]

 

8/7/18 Tuesday

 

 It was cloudy and cool all day ~70F / 21C. I stayed out of the water and read while the kids played all day. I read a couple of books about the worker bees of the European cycling circuit. One was about a guy, Joe Parkin, who was a minor figure in the Minnesota cycling scene back in the day.  After he came back from Europe you’d see him riding around impossibly fast and folks would speak in reverential tones about how he trained with Greg LeMond and raced in Belgium. The other guy was British and he used ‘were’ wrong throughout the book and I had a hard time getting past that. 

 

I wanted to hits the hills, but thought better of it with a long race on Friday. Instead I did 18 or 19 miles on farm roads, about half of them gravel, at an easy pace.  It was a nice little ride even with the rain shower. 

 

8/8/18 Wednesday 

 

it it happens every year that it’s gloomy until the day we leave and then it’s gorgeous out. After we checked out we went and stayed at the water park until late afternoon. Once again I mostly floated around the lazy river. Almost every time I went in I was behind the same woman (unintentionally).  Eventually she got creeped out and I floated around the wave pool until she was out of sight and continued on my way. 

 

On the way home Slothgirl was blowing snot bubbles out of her nose (unintentionally) and fell asleep about 2 minutes after we got home. She must have picked up the plague in the family hot tub. I’m not a germ-a-phobe, but I won’t go in there. The house smelled like death when we got home. We forgot to take out the kitchen compost before we left. 

 

No ride.  I’ve been underfed* and underhydrated.  I want to be refueled and rehydrated well enough not to cramp up during the race. 

 

*I’ve been supplementing my calories with near daily tacos. If I did a road ride I’d get street tacos and for a mtbike ride I’d drive through Taco Bell or somesuch. I wasn’t careful and blew through most of my summer money. I’m more than a bit worried about the first half of September before I start getting paid again. So no more tacos which means I’m on a steep cut. 

[Big_Show]

Daily tacos does sound like a fun habit though

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[DrFeelgood]

8 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

I’m always happy to rescue a turtle. Thanks  

 

Last time I picked one up out of the road MFG made me use like a gallon of hand sanitizer.    Apparently she read something about them carrying salmonella.  Fair enough, better safe than sorry and all that...but this is precisely why I don't read anymore. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

When you carb load the day before the race be sure to eat things high in sodium and drink plenty of water, (for water retention, that should help you stay hydrated) with lots of mustard and pickles (something about something in those preventing/stopping cramps). Mustard packets during the race might help as well. Also eat orange veggies and avocado the day before (lots of potassium). Enough potassium and you should be K.

[Rooks]

Go out and crush, Sir Sloth!

[shaar]

But did anyone poop in the lazy river this time???  ENQUIRING MINDS NEED TO KNOW

[jstanlick]

12 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Once again I mostly floated around the lazy river.

This is my favorite part of waterparks! I'll do the other slides and stuff with the kids, but just floating around the river is far less stressful than the wave pool and less work than the swirling vortex of death whilst hanging on to an inner tube. Truth be told, the work part is carrying everyone else's inner tube up the 10 stories -- okay, maybe only 4 stories but on the 10th time it feels like 10 stories -- of stairs. The lazy river is where its at, man.

[EricMN]

On 8/7/2018 at 1:06 PM, Sloth the Enduring said:

Afterwards we had birthday tacos, lime-a-ritas, and cake. All-in-all it was a good birthday. 

 

I was hoping there were birthday tacos. Happy Belated, Brother.

 

 

[Sylvaa]

19 hours ago, jstanlick said:

On 8/9/2018 at 1:24 AM, Sloth the Enduring said:

Once again I mostly floated around the lazy river.

This is my favorite part of waterparks! I'll do the other slides and stuff with the kids, but just floating around the river is far less stressful than the wave pool and less work than the swirling vortex of death whilst hanging on to an inner tube. Truth be told, the work part is carrying everyone else's inner tube up the 10 stories -- okay, maybe only 4 stories but on the 10th time it feels like 10 stories -- of stairs. The lazy river is where its at, man.

 

Totally same. If anyone ever plans a NF meetup that includes a lazy river, I will travel across the world for that. 

[LouCarJo]

Belated happy birthday! 

 

How do you use were wrong?

[Sloth the Enduring]

On 8/9/2018 at 11:27 AM, shaar said:

But did anyone poop in the lazy river this time???  ENQUIRING MINDS NEED TO KNOW

 

Since you used caps lock, I’ll answer this one now.  I’ll get to the rest tomorrow:  no, but someone pooped in the family hot tub and it was shutdown over night while the germs reproduced. 

 

a quick update.

 

yesterday I rolled around for an hour to loosen up my legs. I didn’t do much else of note.  We went to Slothboy’s last baseball game, but it was cancelled. He got to be a decent catcher and hitter by the end of the season. I didn’t improve much. 

 

Friday. I tried to snooze as late as possible, but the kids kept fighting and waking me up. I’ve spent the afternoon getting my gear together for the race. I had a moment of panic because I couldn’t find my lights, but I found a nice set of lights that I got as race swag last year and promptly forgot about.  I’m still getting my gear together; it’s an amazingly large pile of junk and food. 

 

Race starts at 7pm. My plan is to get 100 miles in (160km) and come home for a sleep.  100 more tomorrow, clean up and eat and assess what to do next. I’m giving myself permission to bail if I need to.  I don’t need to blow out my knees for 17th place in a super-secret-underground street race*.  

 

* super-secret death race is mostly hipsters rolling around all night twiddling their handlebar mustaches*.  Don’t expect an exciting update tomorrow. 

 

* not meant as a euphemism, but maybe, I guess. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

2am. 80 miles in. I thought I’d be farther by now. I feel good though; I really got in the zone at midnight. 

 

My light died; I’m going to take a nap while it recharges. 

[Mrs Van]

9 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

2am. 80 miles in. I thought I’d be farther by now. I feel good though; I really got in the zone at midnight. 

 

My light died; I’m going to take a nap while it recharges. 

All the best and hope you and the light will both quickly fully recharge

[Sloth the Enduring]

On 8/7/2018 at 12:43 PM, RisenPhoenix said:

Damn Sloth - I've had to catch up a bunch but I second @Rooks.  You are a certified badass.

 

Also happy belated birthday!

 

I missed this. Thank you. 

 

On 8/9/2018 at 1:00 AM, Big_Show said:

Daily tacos does sound like a fun habit though

 

 

If you need to catch up on calories it may as well be tacos. 

 

On 8/9/2018 at 8:32 AM, DrFeelgood said:

 

Last time I picked one up out of the road MFG made me use like a gallon of hand sanitizer.    Apparently she read something about them carrying salmonella.  Fair enough, better safe than sorry and all that...but this is precisely why I don't read anymore. 

 

Salmonella is a danger, but so is cooking chicken. Thanks for saving a turtle. 

 

On 8/9/2018 at 9:05 AM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

When you carb load the day before the race be sure to eat things high in sodium and drink plenty of water, (for water retention, that should help you stay hydrated) with lots of mustard and pickles (something about something in those preventing/stopping cramps). Mustard packets during the race might help as well. Also eat orange veggies and avocado the day before (lots of potassium). Enough potassium and you should be K.

 

That would have been a great plan if we had food in the house (we’d been mostly gone for the last week). I instead ate whatever random stuff we had. 

 

I don’t think preloading with pickles and mustard makes a difference because the acetic acid disrupts a receptor on the muscles, but I always carry a flask of mustard in a long race. 

 

On 8/9/2018 at 10:37 AM, Rooks said:

Go out and crush, Sir Sloth!

 

Thanks brother. 

 

On 8/9/2018 at 1:20 PM, jstanlick said:

This is my favorite part of waterparks! I'll do the other slides and stuff with the kids, but just floating around the river is far less stressful than the wave pool and less work than the swirling vortex of death whilst hanging on to an inner tube. Truth be told, the work part is carrying everyone else's inner tube up the 10 stories -- okay, maybe only 4 stories but on the 10th time it feels like 10 stories -- of stairs. The lazy river is where its at, man.

 

I wholehearted agree with everything you said. 

 

On 8/9/2018 at 3:25 PM, EricMN said:

 

I was hoping there were birthday tacos. Happy Belated, Brother.

 

 

 

Thanks brother. 

 

On 8/10/2018 at 8:31 AM, Sylvaa said:

 

Totally same. If anyone ever plans a NF meetup that includes a lazy river, I will travel across the world for that. 

 

It’s a date. Now who will plan this. 

 

On 8/10/2018 at 3:37 PM, LouCarJo said:

Belated happy birthday! 

 

How do you use were wrong?

 

Thanks. I can’t figure out your spellcheck mayhem. 

 

On 8/11/2018 at 12:24 PM, elizevdmerwe said:

All the best and hope you and the light will both quickly fully recharge

 

Thanks. The light fully charged. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

Powderhorn 24 Race Report. 

 

Tl;dr. 200 miles. 27th of 88 solo male starters. Everything hurts. 

 

I have to give a ton of credit to my wife. Besides taking care of the kids all day, she kept my cooler stocked, washed my gear so I could change into clean, dry Lycra when I was too gross for words, and cheered me on when I needed it. 

 

The course was a rectangle ~5 miles long although you could take any route you wanted as long as you hit the check points. Half of it was really beat-up and pot holed, a fourth was super smooth. I thought it was flat, but after a while I could tell that it was all false flat with 2 legitimate, but small hills. Having a checkpoint every mile, stoplights, stop signs, and traffic really slowed things down. It was hard for me to constantly be starting and stopping - I’m an old Mercedes diesel, not a nitro burning funny car, it takes me a while to get up to speed. 

 

The course was live, that no one got killed is a huge testament to the courtesy and consideration of Minneapolis drivers. I didn’t even hear anyone honking at us. 

 

All along the way there were neighbors partying, cheering and handing up watermelon, drinks, snacks and hosing people down. I was more than a little dissapointed that I wasn’t heckled.   I saw a few people I knew along the way; it was pretty cool. 

 

The race starting in a big roll out of ~500 riders. It was fun to be in a big group. I started at the back by accident, but got to the front by the start of the second lap when the check points went live. 

 

The first few hours went well enough. I had my usual head space issues. At midnight I decided to see how many people I could catch and got into the zone. At 2:00 my light died. I was doing well at that point. I tried to sleep, but couldn’t. I didn’t get back on the road until 6:00. 

 

I didnt have any head space issues after that. Maybe I was too tired to feel bad about myself. 

 

Saturday was hot, in the 90’s (30+C). Over the race I drank 13 bottles, 7 cans of coke, one shot of fireball, a glass of lemonade, a big glass of water and still woke up 5# (2.3 kg) light this morning. 

 

I rode well for a couple of hours and stopped for the breakfast. It was Indian food [emoji4]  I just had a giant bowl of Turmeric rice. 

 

By noon I was in a bad place. My hands were blistering from the pothole s and I couldn’t eat any more. I went home and took a long shower and forced myself to eat and things got better. I had the bright idea to put butt butter in my gloves and it worked like a charm. 

 

The afternoon was slow. I did the race in a lower gear than I normally would at a higher rpm in order to put the stress on my heart/lungs and save my legs, and it worked, but with all the starting and stopping they got cooked anyway. 

 

Along the way there were various bonus stops (off the course) you could do for an extra lap. I only did a few - human ring toss with tires, make a shrinky dink souvenir, sing karaoke (my first time), and a few others. I skipped them until my hands got beat up and I was looking for excuses to stop.  This really hurt my placement. One disappointment, for races like this, there is usually a group of tattoo artists that work for tips putting a flash tattoo souvenir on and that earns you a bonus lap, but they charged $40 + tip so I didn’t get my first tattoo. 

 

By 5:00 I had ridden 18 hours and really wanted to quit, but my family was cheering me on and I had just enough time to hit 200 miles. I put on a little bit of speed, but everything hurt bad at that point. It was a relief to turn in my punchcard at 7:00. 

 

They missed a bonus point and a lap. That would have tied me for 24th. I haven’t bothered looking, but I’d guess I was about 10th solo male strictly on distance.@Bearlee, if you look, let me know. Top male somehow managed 300+ miles and most of the bonus stops. 

 

I would have done a few things differently if I knew what to expect, but I have no reason to be disappointed with my performance. 

 

[deftona]

Woah, this race sounds amazing/completely awful, I'm not sure which and I quickly rotated through the two throughout this write up. You did some dang good stuffs here, great work! 

[Elastigirl]

Well done on the race. I can hardly walk at 90 degrees, so I'm impressed by your biking through it. And a woot to Mrs. Sloth for all her back up help.

[Rooks]

Just so much badassery. Well done sir. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Not Bad Sloth, not bad at all.

[Mrs Van]

Woot! Woot! for Mrs. Sloth's support.

Well done Sloth! I'm so impressed. You did amazing! Diesel engines just keep on going (as soon as they're up to speed ) but you can always rely on them.

Those bonus stops sound... interesting and fun, and some of them scary (flash tattoos!). Now that you know how things work, you can plan for next time

[Sloth the Enduring]

21 hours ago, deftona said:

Woah, this race sounds amazing/completely awful, I'm not sure which and I quickly rotated through the two throughout this write up. You did some dang good stuffs here, great work! 

 

Thanks.  I slowly rotated through amazing and awful too. 

 

20 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Well done on the race. I can hardly walk at 90 degrees, so I'm impressed by your biking through it. And a woot to Mrs. Sloth for all her back up help.

 

Hah. Thanks.  I thrive in the heat. We finally got the AC working; it’s  set to 75 (24C) and  I am freezing.

 

20 hours ago, Rooks said:

Just so much badassery. Well done sir. 

 

Hah.  Thanks brother. 

 

19 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Not Bad Sloth, not bad at all.

 

Well, I suppose it could have gone worse. 

 

11 hours ago, elizevdmerwe said:

Woot! Woot! for Mrs. Sloth's support.

Well done Sloth! I'm so impressed. You did amazing! Diesel engines just keep on going (as soon as they're up to speed ) but you can always rely on them.

Those bonus stops sound... interesting and fun, and some of them scary (flash tattoos!). Now that you know how things work, you can plan for next time

 

Thanks. Yes, I’m definitely an old diesel. 

[shaar]

So do you get to choose the flash tattoo subject, or does some brother named Dirk just slap a Batman symbol on ya and set you free??

 

CONGRATS!  That all sounded amazingly exhausting, dang, 3 hours and I'd be crying on the side of the road somewhere I'm sure...

[Sloth the Enduring]

8/12/18 Sunday

 

As you might expect I had a low key day. I didn’t feel too bad, my back was a little sore (not unusual), my feet were numb, and my hands hurt, but otherwise I felt good to go. Mrs. Sloth took me out to breakfast were I had two entrees. I chilled and later did some weeding because the crazy neighbor thought the side of the garage was an eyesore. She wasn’t wrong. 

 

In the evening I had a glass of kook-aid and immediately wanted to vomit. I think it was a reaction to what I ate in the race - I should tally and mfp pvp it. I retched a bunch and was queasy until the early morning.  Slothgirl still has her summer cold and has been exhausted. She fell asleep at three in the afternoon and slept like the dead until this morning. She’s an insomniac; it was unsettling for me. 

 

I couldnt stand not knowing so I checked. Based solely on laps I was the 11th or 12th solo male out of 88 - depending on if you count my missed lap. Not too shabby I guess. Next year I gotta play the game and see how well I can do. 

 

My next event is the Terrain Race on the 25th. I’m very meh on it right now. Mostly because it’s not a biking event. And also because my body is jacked up from only cycling in the last six months or so. I’m positive I can run a 5k (not fast right now), but I don’t know if I can do monkey bars. I am, however, looking forward to slapping @EricMN on the ass every time he laps me. 

[jstanlick]

22 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Tl;dr. 200 miles. 27th of 88 solo male starters. Everything hurts. 

 

22 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

I would have done a few things differently if I knew what to expect, but I have no reason to be disappointed with my performance.

Wow!! That's a lot of frickin' miles!! It kinda seems like you did just fine to me. I completely agree, no reasons at all.

 

2 minutes ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

I couldnt stand not knowing so I checked. Based solely on laps I was the 11th or 12th solo male out of 88 - depending on if you count my missed lap. Not too shabby I guess.

That's even better!!!

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

1 hour ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

the crazy neighbor thought the side of the garage was an eyesore. She wasn’t wrong. 

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

1 hour ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

I am, however, looking forward to slapping @EricMN on the ass every time he laps me. 

You've been hanging out with @Wolfpool again haven't you?