OSU Vs Youngstown St

Yesterday, the entire family went to campus and enjoyed a great tailgate party with the Manahan family. They have had this tailgate in place for over 15 or so years. Each year it seems to get large and larger.

James spent the pregame running around looking for the Big Nut. The last game James was at, the big nut, who is also from Fremont like the Manahans, gave James the buckeye necklace he is wearing.

Here are the hero's of the day. Louanne, the queen of the tailgate and mother of Scott, Jerry and Lisa. Many say Tom, Louannes other half started this tailgate, but we all know without Louanne these kids would have never grown so big.

Look at that sandwich Jerry is dishing up. He also has special "Jerry punch" it will knock you down.

Where is Todd Blackledge???

Jennifer, Lisa, John and the kids stayed at the tailgate while james and I attended the game. They went to the alumni house to watch the game and managed to find some souvenirs. I made sure to get James to the field to watch the band enter. Lucky us, it was alumni band week. Buckeye fans know what that means, 4 script OHIO's.

Here are some of the pics I took inside the Shoe

Four Script OHIO's

I do believe James was impressed!

Final score OSU wins 43-0

they have not lost to a school from Ohio since 1921

Justin, the number 1 fan

Justin and I spent soem time throwing football, and watching people. He is becoming a good thrower and catcher. He seems to be getting over his fear of the ball.

On the way out, john and I bumped into an Ohio State fan that had to pose with!

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Friday Pizza Ride

Friday is finally here, we are doing something that the group has never done. We have planned to ride downtown eat a couple of slices at Tomatohead and ride back to work. Imagine this, eat lunch during the lunch hour.

Wait, I get ready to ride and no, we are not going for pizza, I am informed by David and Andy that we have to meet Ryan and ride lyons bend. Why I ask, and get some lame excuse. You see my legs are like jello and have been training hard for the Atomic Half iron man. I was ready both physically and mentally for pizza. I will make this short, we completed a 21 mile sprint that climbed around 2,500 ft.

I am now toast and will enjoy the weekend in Columbus "GO Buckeyes" Sphere: Related Content

Tuesday Evening Foothills Ride

Every Tuesday, well most Tuesday nights a group of us ride the Foothills Parkway. Check out this site for a better description.http://www.theblueridgehighlander.com/scenic_drives/tennessee/foothills_parkway/



We all meet at a place know to the locals as Coulter bridge. The county was kind enough to pave a lot for us to park in. From there it is about a 3.5 mile warm up to the bottom of the parkway. The problem is, we time ourselves each time we ride. Each of us has a personal best time we try to lower. So the warm up turns into a 24 mph burn. You must make sure your heart rate is below 170 before beginning the climb. You see, the climb consists of two sections each about 6 miles at 6% grade.



Now if all of that doesn't seem tough enough, we race each other to the top. The 2008 16 year old Tenn State champion always wins. Way to go Ricky on the title, remember the old men when you are in the Olympics. He weighs around 120 and climbs like a squirrel. "I think they climb fast with little effort" So far my PB is 55:23. I feel real good about this number, but would love to get under 55. I can't complain, anything under 60 Min's is great and what most riders are working toward.

The parkway and surrounding areas have to be one of the most beautiful and perfect riding areas. We are so lucky to be so close. In a couple of posts, I will tell you about the crazy Sat. morning ride called 3 ways to hill. For a little preview, we ride to the top of the parkway climbing the face 3 different times on 3 different routes. All ave about 12-15% grade and 7,700 ft climbing. Here is the detail from my cycle computer http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/email/accept.mb?senderPk.pkValue=226945&unitSystemPkValue=2&episodePk.pkValue=6201765 Sphere: Related Content

Rain and riding

Aug 25 and 26th - 30 miles inside

MTD - 450



Two days inside riding on a trainer sucks! I am not sure if it is the feeling of being stationary or the lack of the cooling breeze but either way it sucks. Each day I have stuggled through a 15 mile indoor ride with Big B.

last night james had his opening game against CAK of knoxville. For those who are not in Knox. CAK stands for Christian Acadamy of Knoxville. Dad was excited and Mom was even more. We lost focus on the first defensive stand and they scored. After 4 qtrs the score was still 6-0. Oh well, the kids played hard and gave it there all.




I really am hoping for good weather tommorrow but it doesn't look good


Looks like a long week of riding the trainer Sphere: Related Content

Single speed

8/23/08

Todays ride 24 mi

MTD 420

I started out the day excited for football. You see, James had his first game of the year. They played Seymour at the Catholic HS. We really looked good, crisp and mistake free. They won 20-0. They have moved up in league this year and the teams they will be playing are much better than last year. We will have to wait and see how we match up.

I then found my self back on the couch watching the Olympics. Only to catch myself falling asleep. I new if I was going to get 60 miles in I had to get up. I got ready and headed out. Only to realize I had forgot my road bike shoes at work. This now created a challenge. Go to work and get my shoes or alter my ride and go out from home on my single speed. I headed over to the boulevard via Lyons bend. It was hot 94 but the shade on Lyons bend as nice. I ran into a riding friend, Tim from CBC cycles. I made an attempt to ride with him, but I run out of gear on the single speed at about 19 miles an hour. Tim rides well above that pace. Oh well, I was just happy to be out riding.

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The easy ride

Fridays ride 17 miles

August MTD 396







I know I shouldn't complain about what kind of ride I am able to get in at lunch, I should just be happy to ride. The group has this long list of "easy rides" we do at lunch. Somehow we always start off at a fast pace up papermill and never ease up. One day I made everyone ride in there small ring the entire ride. It is too easy to over train by going too hard all the time. We usually get around 18 miles in during the 1 hr ride. Even I can do that math, we average around 18 miles an hour. That is high considering we ride entirely in Knoxville city limits.





Today was a fun ride around the boulevard over to market sq. and back middlebrook. The food at the sq smelled too good. once again going past Ruth Chris I spotted my new ski boat.




We also had another Revelation today. We decided on a nickname for Tony. (He can be seen in the last post to the left of "Big B")



We will now refer to him as "Virtual Tony"




he rides with us in the virtual world of Tony. Sphere: Related Content

Two laps on Neyland

Thursday ride 18 miles

August total 379

Today started out like any other luch ride. Wait, I should mention I have a wonderful opertunity to ride during the lunch hour. Quickly after starting the ride I realized I would be talking about my riding companions in this blog. Should they have nicknames? If so, would I make them up? So without many of the riders knowing I am even writing this blog, I began to think of cool nicknames for each rider. Today only one rider was named. He is none other than Big B. He is the one on the right in this picture. Tony is the rider on the left. I have spent a lot of time with Big B this year, he and I rode the 3 state together. I like just using the letter B because you can change the meaning at any time. One day he could be Big Boy, the next he could be Big and Bold or maybe one day Big Badass. I do not know, I like keeping my option open.

Last night my wife read the blog for the first time. She felt like I needed to proof read it before posting. No time honey, spell check and perfect grammer is only good for those who applied themselves during school. My teachers made that perfectly clear at every parent teacher conference.

Well, back to the ride. We ride form my office over to Tenn. University and do a loop 2 times. The football team was having a scrimmage this afternoon and traffic was a little heavy. I am starting to get football fever. James, my son had a scrimmage game last night. He played well, and gave great effort. He is playing running back and Linebacker.

off to work

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Name the Blog

I spent long hours debating over the name of this blog (Really 3 mins) Love and two wheels- represents

First - Love for my family

second - my new found love for riding a bike

These are the two things I will attempt to write about in this blog

I am sure fantasy football, vacation details and some good old fashioned smack talk will also have a place. I will stay away from the negative and that includes politics.

I hope if anyone finds these blogs interesting, they will add their own comments.

PS: I added a picture of last years cycling team, this year we had over 30 members

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First Blog

I am not sure how this has happened. I have been reading Fatty and Jill for over a year and now I am attempting this? What make me believe anyone would ever care to read about my adventures of life. I am sure my mom would keep up with the posts but who else.



I am a guy who has logged around 3,000 miles on a bike since January. I would like to finish the year around 5,200. I am definitely stronger than I was at the beginning of this adventure. Visit my profile to see my beginning picture 2 yrs ago. Since then I am 55 or so pounds lighter and feeling great. I completed 4 centuries this year. This first one was the 3-state/3-mountain challenge in Chattanooga,Tn. Great ride, tough last hill. First time I almost pushed my bike.

the second was the Tout De Blount in Townsand. Two friends and I managed to ride the previous years route on the last 35 miles. yes , in our minds we finished ahead of everyone! Then came the Tour De Cure for the American Diabietes Association. Lets paint a picture of this day, 98 degrees and I am riding with a group who contains an former USA Olympian Kent Bostick. I am riding way over my head, he pulls us the entire ride sometimes I llok down at my garmin and think something is broken. How could this pace continue. We stopped about mile 53 for what seemed like forever but was really 13 min. break. Then we headed back out only 7 or so riders left in the bunch. After 10 or so miles it was down to three. A co-worker riding buddy and Kent. I can call him that now after spending this long behind him. I am feeling great and amazed at how strong my body is feeling. I however have ran out of water and the next rest stop is not for 10 miles. This would not usually be a problem, I ride a lot and do a good job of staying hydrated. Today however, it seems lie the hotest day of the year. I am melting! Next problem, as we approachd the rest stop, Kent who yes was still pulling, did not see the bountiful blessings and rode right by the stop. I let out a sigh or a moan. I had a big mental break at this point. My riding buddie Bill gave me some water and Endurolytes . I now have began to cramp at mile 75. I managed to hang and we made it to the last stop at mile 85. This make two stops for the ride. Good news, I refill my water bottles and stuff my face with as many banannas as possible in 4-5 mins. Yes, we only stopped for 4-5 mins. There was no shade and Kent seemed like he had to go. So we went! Or should I say, they went I followed. We headed out and down toward Milton Hill dam and began to climb up and out. St this point , my entire body bagan to cramp. I could still pedal but no where near the power or cadance to keep up with Kent and Bill. I decided it was a good day and I would limp home form here. On my way, I ran into a couple of friends along the route. The 50 and 75 mile rides come together at the last 15. I first came up riding pal Kim and then Andy and Sam. Finished 5:28 and 7727 ft climbed

Next was the granddaddy of the year The Cherohala Challange 114 miles of love and two wheels.

7:06 and 10,253 ft climbed. I am saving the ride details, they are personal.



So as you can see this year has been very eventful from a cycling standpoint. I am still heavy into traing. I am part of a coed tri team who will be doing the Atomicman half Ironman in late Sept. I will be riding 56 miles af fast as possible without a tri-bike. My goal is to have fun and ride under 3hrs. I am excited my cousin from Texas is coming up to do the swim portion and visit with us for the weekend. Rounding out the team is co-worker Phil. Sphere: Related Content