Luray Caverns CX (Bike Race #1)

So I hit my first race last weekend. My first ever bike race. I have done some runs (mostly 5k's with a half marathon and a couple 10k's sprinkled in), so I knew what a race atmosphere was like, but I have never ridden bike around other people competitively. Heck, I had hardly ridden my bike around other people. My wife and I get out and ride some, I rode with my parents once, and I went for a casual ride with a few church friends. Nothing close to a mass sprinting start with 66 other dudes on a slightly uphill gravel road with rain drizzling and no familiar faces around, save my wife on the sideline. I had also only ridden in wet conditions once or twice. I had also only ridden off-road twice on my Walmart mountain bike. I had also only practiced remounting and dismounting my bike once two days prior, and never practiced barriers. I had also basically only ridden my bike on my work commute, save a few odd joyrides here and there. I had also only really been riding bike for 6 months.

But I was pumped. I think I started out 4 rows back, so the start wasn't too much of a quick sprint, but we ended up getting there. I learned what it is like to be bumped and rubbed and do some bumping and rubbing and trying to predict what the rider in front of you is going to do. The first turn was a wide right hand with a weird-o hump in the middle, and I panicked thinking that I was going to slide out and get run over by the 20 guys behind me, so I took it wide and safe. The next turn I had practiced keeping my speed up in the pre-ride, so I rode it harder and passed a few guys.
The coolest feature of the course IMO was a cool S-turn up on some hills, but it was so close to the start that we just sort of walked it because of the bottleneck. There was a sharp 180 then a straight before the S and somehow I nailed the inside of that 180 and rode past about 4 guys that were struggling to stay on their bikes. I jumped off for the S (because ain't no way I can ride that) and exerted a little extra energy, climbed a little higher, and was able to keep some momentum going and pass the guy inside of me. Then everyone else started jumping on their bikes and I remembered it is sometimes good to keep running, so I set my bike down and took off, leaning on the bike to give me some more support around the corner, and passed every guy who was trying to mount back up. Victory.

From there to the barriers we stayed pretty steady and a tiny bit strung out, and then the barriers came and I went at them as hard as I could, and ended up passing the two guys ahead of me! Who knew that the barriers would be the strongest part of my racing skills? Anyway, I botched the remount (missed the seat and landed on the top-tube) but still managed to pull away a bit. From there on the rest of the race stayed pretty steady, I maybe passed two guys and got passed a few times. We got pretty strung out. My main goal of the race was just to finish and not run out of energy, so I sat up quite a lot. My best (read: worst) moment was on a very tight and muddy left-hand 180. I had been hopping off and running it since I don't know how to turn very well, let alone in mud, but my left cleat got stuck. I had been going pretty hard into it because I wanted to pass the guy in front of me, so I had some speed. Then my finger slipped off the brake and I stopped losing speed, and tried to choose my best demise. I could go straight and T-bone my competitor at 10 mph, cut left, break through the tape and go down the back side of the hill and try to stay close to the course, or go right, fly down the very steep embankment, and probably die (jk, I would just have to climb back up). I chose left. As it happens, race tape is much stronger than I thought and it seemed to slow me down quite a bit. The guy in front made it around the turn quicker than I imagined, and instead of going in front of him I just rammed his back wheel pretty good. He didn't like that, so I yelled "Frick" and apologized. I passed him soon after, and I honestly don't think he finished. Oops, hope it wasn't my fault. The guy behind me said I had a nice recovery, though, so that was cool. But I didn't hang with him, I just dropped back a bit.

That gravel section where the start was really killed me. The gravel just sucked my tires in and it just felt ridiculous. I found a reasonably packed line on the edge of the road, but I still didn't appreciate it. It was about golf-ball sized gravel, probably a little smaller, but deep.

At the end of the race I still had a lot of gas in the engine, so I could have definitely gone quite a bit harder. My arms were killing me, though, I guess I need to do push ups or something. I'm excited for my next race (Rocktown CX here in Hburg). This time I am going to see how good of a position I can get, instead of just finishing, and try and use up all the gas in my engine (i.e. energy). I think I need to think about what I eat, though, because I felt like I was going to throw up after every run and hill, but maybe that is just part of CX. And I need to practice some technical turns and all that.

Oh, and I got 34/66, almost halfway through the field!

04/27/15 Music-What is in my head.

This is for me in the future so I can look and see what music I like on this day, in no particular order:

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly [explicit] - Rap

Being As An Ocean - Dear G-D - Heavy

As Cities Burn - SILYAYD - Hardcore Rock

Brandi Carlile - The Firewatcher's Daughter - Folk Rock'y

Rotting Out - Street Prowl [explicit] - Hardcore

London Grammar - If You Wait - Pop/Rock

Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me - Alternative Rock

I haven't really been listening to too much lately. But this is what I have been listening to.

This post is about gardens and the lack of gardens and the building of gardens and gardens.

So I have been wanting to grow some foodstuffs for me and my future wife, because we will be married by the time anything planted now is ripe for the picking.  However, we will be moving at the beginning of May, which is after the time some of these things should be planted.  To solve this problem I have decided to build a garden, kind of.  I found some old cabinet speakers

at Gift and Thrift that I am re-purposing (or 'upcycling,' if you will) into planters.  Well, one of them will be a planter, the other is just going to sit around until I do something with it.  I have it gutted and ready for some plastic and some dirt and then some seed, and I took a couple pictures so I thought I would share it with the world.

I have wanted to grow things myself quite a bit because I have started trusting supermarket grocery store produce stuff less and less, you just don't know what is in it.  I'm afraid of becoming an organic crazed person.  But I will still eat most anything purchased from a supermarket, I would just prefer other, more homegrown things.  Hopefully it saves a little money as well.  This is my life.

This is the inside of it after I disengaged the speaker in there (I used the speaker magnet to hold all the screws, it was very convenient).  It was full of insulation stuff.

So I gutted it out.

And took of the front cover.

And added some nails for extra corner support because it was poorly made.

Then I put the back on again and drilled some drainage holes in the bottom with a screw driver, screws, and hammer since I don't have a drill.  My forearm is sore today.

And now here it sits, waiting for waiting for the dirt which will come next week some time.  Yay.

UPDATE:
Got some dirt and some plastic to line it with.

So I lined it with stuff.

 

Then I filled it with dirt and some seeds!  I planted onions in the middle, radishes on the left, and carrots on the right.  We will see what happens.  And I put my finger in front of the camera.  If stuff grows I will take pictures of the growth and keep updating this.

This Post Is About Mountains And Sunsets And Injustice And Hope.

Wrote this a while ago while trying to do homework on our porch and watching a sunset in the gorgeous Shenandoah Valley.

Take it for what it is.

I feel so small right now.  I think now of that movie with Tom Cruise, I think that it was Oblivion, where he and his “wife” live in a pod seemingly miles above earths surface.  Tom flew his ship around the earth from way above and you could see just how big the world is and how small and infinitesimal humans are on its surface, yet how much we can change the earth.  That jet stream up there must be going so fast, and how is it such a deep, pure, blue over to the north and such a dark and menacing blue to the east? It is the same color and the same sky, but it evokes such different emotions in me.  When I look to the north I see hope, I see pureness, I see freedom from bondage and freedom from sin.  When I look to the east I see a menacing storm on the horizon trying to break forth from the mountains yet the strength and height of those mountains is holding it back.  The blue above signifies the rain and torrents and storms that wish to break over us, but the mountains are able to hold it back as the clouds pile higher and higher on top of each other, seemingly insurmountable.  I can see the pureness of the sunset and the pureness of the innocence of the world to the north.  I can see the looming darkness and storms of life closing in from the east, and now the south.  I see the trees changing around me, light yellows mixed with dark brown and vibrant reds, interlaid with the lush green of conifers and the trees that have not yet started turning.  I’m not sure how to approach it, there is so much out there that I don’t know, and my life lies to the east.  I can run from the storm to the north, where there is freedom and everyone is happy, or I can turn south and east and face what is coming head on, to choose to dive into a world that is corrupt and a world that is changing so fast it leaves you blind to what is going on.  The clouds obstruct your view of the blue sky, but they show the blue of the storm.  There is sin there that needs to be fought, there is corruption that needs to be overcome, there are needy people who are crying out for help and people quietly turn their backs.  We all get so comfortable in our beautiful skies of the north that we ignore the looming storms and we ignore what God can have in store for us if we stand up and face the evil in the world.  When we extend our love I can see the all too cliché light breaking through the clouds.  I see the sun on the factory across town and I know there is hope there.  I see the beauty on the mountains that can so easily be obscured by the dangers of the clouds that we can simply look right past it, but it is there.  We cannot deny that.  To deny the glory of God on the mountains under the storm is to deny God and deny why we are here.  As the sun breaks on Massanutten I am reminded that there is hope over there, I am reminded that in the midst of political turmoil and in the midst of injustice so ripe it makes me sick, there is hope.  Yes, evil will come, wars will be fought, injustice will run rampant in this world, people will be killed, families will be divided against each other, sickness and disaster will come and claim those that we love.  But we already knew all that.  We read all that in Sunday School.  It is just so much easier to accept something we read in Sunday School compared to actually seeing it and realizing how hard it can be.  How unjust it can be.  And how difficult it can be to stand up for what we believe and be willing to risk the ridicule that is sure to come from it.  The sun breaks on the top of the mountain, showing the color of the trees, the deep reds at the top, the greens underneath, and the shadows in the valley.  The storm is still there, but it is in the background now, it isn’t the focal point of the horizon, I realize how much more is there that I can’t see.  And I also realize how much more I can see of the mountain from here than if I was actually there.  From here I can see the entire western face of the mountain, I can see the different valleys, the different peaks, the different ridges that branch down.  If I was on that mountain hiking, all that I would be able to see of the mountain is where I was standing at the moment.  I would miss so much; I would miss being able to see the difference in the leaves from the top to the bottom.  My view would be obstructed by the trees, and the clouds breaking and the impending rain, and the rocks, and the mountain itself, but from here I can see it all. I can see how much hope lies over there.  From here I can see how much hope lies elsewhere in the world.  I can see those that are doing good all around the planet, those that are sacrificing their health, their wealth, their relationships, and their lives to help those in need.  But when you are there your view can become so obstructed from the storms and the individual pieces of the world that we can easily miss what hope we could see from afar.  I can see now that that dark blue that was the storm has now turned into a deep orange as the sun is setting behind me and reflecting off of the clouds.  Things change.  Just because there is injustice in parts of the world doesn’t mean that there will be injustice there forever.  Just as hope has come into the storm on the horizon, hope will come in the parts of the world that need hope.  But it won’t happen just by sitting there.  Just as the sun setting in the west caused a change in the east, we need to make a change if we want to see change further than our local communities.  We need to see that there is beauty further than the Shenandoah Valley, there is beauty further than the mountains of Colorado, there is beauty further than the lakes of Michigan, there is beauty further than the United States of America, there is beauty in each and every person here on this earth.  Why can’t we see that?  Why do we focus on the storms and try to fix the problem with another storm?  Ask any meteorologist, two storms that collide cause a bigger storm, a worse storm.  We need to combat the storms by a different means.  But in order to do that we have to see the hope there.  We have to see the hope in the Middle East.  We need to see the hope in Washington D.C. as politicians bring the government to a standstill.  We need to see the hope in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran.  We need to see the hope in Syria.  We need to see the hope in Egypt.  We need to see the hope in Africa.  We need to see the hope in South America.  We need to see the hope in Europe and Asia.  Until we can see the hope that is there, we have nothing.  Until we see the hope that is there, all we have is the comfortable blue skies of the north.  Our tiny little bubble of America that seems to be so safe from anything outside its borders.  But there is beauty further than the borders of America, and there is hope further than the borders of America, and we need to see that and do something about it.  As the sun sets in the west, the clouds change in the east.  As we move from our homes and from our comfort we can bring hope where there was no hope because we saw the hope that could be.  It’s just so stinking hard.

End.

This Post Is A Day-By-Day Synopsis Of My Summer

 This summer I spent working at Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp in Divide, Colorado.  I made it a goal to take at least 5 seconds of video every day that I was out there and I almost succeeded in doing that.  I did forget a few days, but I got most every day.  The video below is the compilation of all of those videos, approximately 5 min 43.5 seconds long.  If you have a question about what a certain video is I have outlined what I did each day below, the date is in the bottom right of each clip and you can search for the corresponding date further below the video and read the sentence or short paragraph there.  Sometimes I accompanied the sentence or short paragraph of the day with a picture from that day as well.  I hope you enjoy my life.  I do apologize because after June 23 my camera broke and then I had to use my poopy phone camera for everything.

 May 25  - Set out for Colorado and Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp (RMMC).  Drove from Harrisonburg, VA to Hopedale, IL and slept at my deary's house.

May 26  - Drove from Hopedale, IL to Hesston, KS and slept in an old professor's basement, visited some friends.

Drinking coffee and listening to Anabaptist History on a pit stop of this day.

May 27  - Drove from Hesston, KS to RMMC, about 35 minutes west of Colorado Springs along 24, near the town of Divide.

May 28  - Met a couple co-workers and re-acquainted myself with others and the camp and started Wilderness First Aid training (busy with this, forgot a video).

May 29  - Started Wilderness First-Aid training.

May 30  - Finished Wilderness First-Aid training, did some planning for orientation week.

May 31  - Started rock climbing & repelling certification training.

June 1  - Finished rock climbing & repelling certification and did a couple projects around camp.

June 2  - The rest of the staff arrived and we started orientation (video is at a campfire going through Mennonite Confession of Faith).

June 3  - Staff hike to Solution Pools to begin our acclimation to the altitude, along with some orientation at the top.

June 4  - Did the challenge course with the staff to get familiar with it and more comfortable with other staff members.

June 5  - Staff hike to Old Baldy to finish some acclimation to altitude and more orientation at the top.

Regal S. M. surveying his kingdom.

June 6  - Staff rock climbing & repelling, put my new certification into practice.

June 7  - Free day on Friday, five of us hiked to Eyebrow, across Sheep's Ridge above treeline, to Sentinel then back to camp.  First big hike of the summer.  We played nice frisbee up at 13,000 feet.

June 8  - Last free day before campers, staff outing to Woodland Park to play some ultimate frisbee.

June 9  - First day of Campers!  Senior High week.

June 10  - Senior High hike to Sun Rock.

June 11  - Mountain biking (and almost dying) with Senior High.

June 12  - Senior High hike to Old Baldy.

June 13  - "Tournament Day."  Supervision and music and planning.  Good stuff.

June 14  - Senior High all-day hike to Pinnacle.

June 15  - Few hours off between camps leaves enough time for a solo round of disc golf.

June 16  - Planning and late nights in the office with A. N...

June 17  - 8th & 9th grade hike to Pig Rock.  Go Red Wings.

June 18  - Deer at camp, I like wildlife. :)

June 19  - 8th & 9th grade hike to Old Baldy.

June 20  - Mountain Mayhem and old man scary masks...

June 21  - 8th & 9th grade all-day hike to Horsethief Falls.

June 22  - Story time with B. G.  Learning about German Anabaptists.  Day out to Colorado Springs to staff member's home.

June 23  - Super Moon!  And last time my camera ever turned on...  Also, 6th & 7th grade campers arrived.

June 24  - Planning and babies.  Yay!

June 25  - Camera was broken and no chance to whip out the phone without repercussion, played Mountain Mayhem this day.

June 26  - Repelling with 6th & 7th graders.

June 27  -More broken camera, but we played Animal Survival this day, I think...

June 28  - 6th & 7th grade all-day hike to Pinnacle.

June 29  - Relaxing and reading letters on Monkey Rock before big adventures.

June 30  - I flew to Phoenix for Mennonite Convention where I was able to help lead worship for the Junior High Youth.

Preppin' for the week

July 1  - After practicing all day we went to a pizza joint and I accidentally spilled a whole lot of red pepper on one piece of pizza.

July 2  - Took Junior Youth on a scavenger hunt through Phoenix, in 113 degree weather.  Dang, dat is hott.

July 3  - Got to join the Senior High youth convention for a time of worship in the morning.  Big room, lots of people.

July 4  - Visited the science center in Phoenix and got to celebrate Independence Day with Will Smith.  Actually, we celebrated by exploding watermelons with liquid nitrogen and something else.

July 5  - Last day of convention, we played four-square a lot.

July 6  - Before my flight left I got to go to L. R.'s grandparents and swim in their pool.  That is a very nice thing when it is over 110 degrees...

July 7  - I got to go on a solitude hike my first morning back to camp because the rest of the staff was on staff retreat.  It was a glorious time to be alone and with God.  Unfortunately, this evening was the evening that I blew a head-gasket in my car.

July 8  - A group from Texas was at the camp and we played Capture the Flag against them in Elk Meadows, stinking awesome.

July 9  - When you aren't in charge of campers or planning you get time to relax, watch people practice fly-fishing technique, and play guitar.  It is a good thing.

July 10  - Hiked Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and part of Bross this day with four other guys.  My first 14er's besides Pike's Peak and it was glorious.  Hung out with some mountain goats at the Lincoln summit while storms gathered around us.  A thrilling time.

July 11  - Went for a really nice run on my second day off in a row through some cool valley's.

July 12  - Playing Settler's of Catan with homies after a nice day of work.

July 13  - I forgot to take a video this day, I think I did maintenance and worked on shingling the roof of a cabin.

July 14  - Setting up for some repelling for the Texas group.  Did that three days in a row.

July 15  - Went to Crystola, CO for some burgers at the bar there.  Sang I'm a Believer on the way there really loudly.

July 16  - Forgot video again... I think I did more shingling this day.

July 17  - Dug holes for a fence, they don't call it the Rocky Mountains for nothing.  Later on in this day we had the annual Meat Fest where I had the privilege to indulge in Bison, Antelope, and Beef.  Indulge is making light of it.  I am certain I ate more than my body weight.  After the meal we did sawing competitions of logs and log-throwing competitions and then had ice cream.  Directly after ice cream (about 10-o-clock), 3 other guys and I hiked to Pinnacle in our boxers to spend the night.

July 18  - We got the privilege of watching the sunrise from the top of Pinnacle this day.  Something everybody should be required to do in their lifetime, it is a glorious thing.  A few of us then hiked over some ridges to Eyebrow and did some free-solo climbing along the way.  I almost died this day.  It was stinking sweet.

July 19  - 3rd grade camp started this day for the weekend.  I got to do some things in the way of planning some worship things, including reading stories about Wemmik's from Max Lucado.

July 20  - Read the stories in the midst of a big thunderstorm and hail storm.  We then made s'mores and had to wait for suburbans to come up and pick us up to stay out of the storm.  Kids are awesome in thunderstorms, by the way.

July 21  - Grade 3 ended this day, brother flew in from Philadelphia and father from Michigan.  I showed them camp and we went on a short hike to Solution Pools.  It was a glorious time.

July 22  - Took father and brother on a hike to Pinnacle.  Another glorious day.  Got the news that my car was finally done, so we went and picked it up from the shop on this day.  It was an incredible blessing to have family out at camp.  They flew out at 3am the next day.

July 23  - Led a hike for Family Camp to Solution Pools.  It was a lot of fun with the wide range of ages, from grandparents to 3rd graders. 

July 24  - Day off so I went for a run.  It is hard to record a video while running.  Nor does it make a good video.  Oh well.

July 25  - Was supposed to lead an all-day hike to Prehistoric Valley, which I had never been to, for Family Camp.  Found Prehistoric Valley very easily, but only one family came along.  It was a glorious time, God did good on this day.

July 26  - I got up at 4am this day to drive close to Salida, CO to pick up the wilderness campers and drop them off for whitewater rafting.  We also went for pizza and it was delicious.  This video is from driving Skyline Drive in Cañon City, CO, something everybody who enjoys driving and glorious views should be required to do in their life.  Also ended up getting lost in a gravel pit mine in the mountains due to faulty directions, almost ran over two families of wild turkey's, and almost ran into a big herd of bighorn sheep in the most excellent Bighorn Gorge on the Arkansas River, another drive that should be required.

July 27  - We repelled down freaking Baldy this day, 350 ft.  A most gloriously excellent time.

The view from the top of Baldy.  You can see the ropes a bit to the right.

July 28  - Spent my last day working at RMMC on maintenance where I pulled some weeds and made some name tags, among other random tasks.  A bitter sweet day.  Filled with goodbyes and tears.  Most definitely the best summer of my 21 odd years of life.  The relationships I made were incredible, and this camp will always be a special thing to me.

July 29  - I left for home.  Was planning on leaving at 4am but the car wouldn't start due to bad glow plugs.  Got the car started and headed out around 9am and drove to Illinois with A. M., then spent the night back in Hopedale, IL since it was a little bit too late to keep driving to Little Eden in Onekema, MI.

July 30  - This day I drove from Hopedale, IL, to Little Eden and got in my first wakeboard run of the year.  Little Eden is a most excellent spot for my family to vacation, because I love water.

July 31  - It was a little too choppy/I was too sore/it was too cold to do much on the water except kayak this day, so I did so with brother and sister-in-law.  A good time, to be sure.

August 1  - Another glorious day on the boat, some wakeboarding and watching brother shred the slalom skis.  More relaxing and reading on shore was to be had, for sure.  And eating, we ate about 1,000 lbs of food this week. 

August 2  - Went golfing in the morning with brother and cousins.  A good time, and the one time I golf in a year.

August 3  - Ran a 5k this morning and got first in my age division for my first time.  I also achieved my time goal for the first time during a race.  Then we drove home and that is the end of this video.


All in stinking all, this summer was amazingly incredibly gloriously excellent.  Adjectives cannot describe the way I feel about RMMC and the people that I got to work with out there.  Adjectives can also not describe the way that God created that part of the world.  I don't know how it was done, and frankly I don't care because I know that God made it and that is enough for me to fear and adore.  God showed up in many different ways; through the devotion others had to the kids, through me learning what delegation of responsibilities is, to learning to trust others, to kids blowing me out of the water with their attitudes and minds, to families fighting back tears to thank me for the amazing day, to the stupid times I shared with so many stupid people (when I say stupid people, I say it completely out of love of course.  Maybe I should say stupidly amazing people.  Or maybe just people that I can be stupid with.  Whatever, they really aren't stupid, we just did stupid things and I loved it).  This summer made me emotional to leave a place for the first time in my life.  It was the first time I actually wanted to/felt comfortable giving everybody hugs and saying goodbye to them.  I don't tend to get very attached to things, and I love change, and maybe it is a sign of me growing up and becoming older, but it was a beautiful thing.  I thank God so much for allowing me to be there, and for giving me the connections that I made, and the relationships made.  And I thank everyone who prayed for me and for the camp in general, because we couldn't have done it without you. 

So that's what I got and stuff.  I had something else that I could have said, but I forget, so it must not have been important.


Here is a happy dog.