Slow Start to 2010

15 Feb 10-

Well 2010 has started off quite slow. I brought in the New Year the right way with a century on our 8 mile loop here on base. Had two friends that stuck around for 50 miles and then met up randomly with another friend for the last 8 miles, and ended up doing 104 total. A century is pretty fun when you have a big group of people and awesome scenery to ride through, however the same 8 mile loop with no climbing or hills is not fun at all. But it was a good way to start off the year. I then kicked of training for Wildflower Long Course the following Tuesday. I found a pool to swim at which is 10 miles from base by bike with the last mile up hill. I have turned my first road bike into a commuter and put fenders and a rear rack on it. Works out much better now for the wet and rainy days and I don't get near as wet or have mud flung all over my back.

I also treated myself to a promotion/re-enlistment/X-mas gift and purchased a 2009 Cervelo R3 road bike. I mainly got it for when I get to Korea I will have a road bike to ride with groups and possibly do a few road races on. Ahhhhh that's right I don't think I had mentioned I will be headed back to Osan Korea in August for another tour. Looking forward to the return and already have 3 Olympic distance races on the schedule for later in the year.

Now to the not so good part and why 2010 is off to a slow start. The third weekend of January they had a New Years resolution 10k here on base so I went out and ran that. Well one guy took off and I knew there was no way I was keeping up with him so I ended up running with two buddies for the first 5 miles. Well that is when we started to have some fun at mile 5 we started to pick up the pace and split sub 6 for the last mile. We ended up only running 40:40 and were just having fun. Well my knee/IT band did not like me running that hard that early in the year and since then I have been having a lot of pain on the outside of my left knee. I have a doctors appointment for tomorrow so hopefully I can find out what is really going on. I have taken a week off from running and it didn't get better. Then took a week of from everything and it didn't get better. I have iced it, been taking IBU, and stretch it when I get up in the morning. Hopefully the doc will have a plan that will have me back and running in two to three weeks or else Wildflower is really going to be painful.

On a good note work has been treating me good. On the 1st of Jan I put on Staff Sergeant. Two weeks ago I found out that I was selected as the 2009 Maintenance Squadron and Maintenance Group Airman of the Year. The Annual Awards Banquet is in two weeks and I will be up against 5 other Airman for Airman of the Year for the Base/Wing. A couple weeks ago we had a C-130 gunship stop in and they ended up breaking and were stuck here for a few weeks and since we helped them out quite a bit they left us some thank yous. Below is pics of a 105mm shell that is shot from there cannon as well as a 20mm shell that is shot out of the A-10. This weekend our base Volleyball team is headed over to the local University to play them in preparation for our US Forces Tournament up in Germany in May. I play on the team and looks like I will be starting middle blocker. Our team has some talent and hopefully we will have a good time playing the Turks.

Hope everyone is having a great 2010!

Below are some pics!

Promotion day!
Shot glass, 20mm shell, 105mm shell.....
For anyone that plays Modern Warfare 2 the 105mm is what makes the big boom w/ the AC-130! The plane this came back on had over 100 confirmed kills in Afgan!!

Trek 1200 was my second bike and is now the commuter. And the Veloce on the right was my first ride that people feared to ride behind. The rear wheel was so out of true from all the torture I brought upon that $200 bike. It is waiting to be brought back to Korea so I can give it to one of the Korean Postal guys, he wanted to buy it before I left but I didn't want to sell it then. Now he can just have it.

2008 Cervelo P3C and 2009 Cervelo R3......Waiting to get the R3 in a good fast group ride and on some hills to see how it rides.....
The 6 mile 45lb ruck march I did with some of the cops.

The university pool I swim in....Is it normal for the lane lines to be where the rope is?? All the other pools the lane line is down the middle of the lane...........Hmmm IDK I am not a swimmer.....