Sunday, February 28, 2010

What happened this weekend...

Like always, the Saturday ride was in full swing. This time, Denny and JD decided to join us. D thought he was all baller and stuff with his new red kit. He looked good but Tingle and I still overpowered him with our sick orange stuff...hehe

Remember this crazy room above?

Not only did the color have to go, but Bryce and I couldn't bare to look at the AC unit sticking out of the wall either. Since Bryce's parents are rockstar photographers, they took a great pic that Allen shot of Bryce and I at the moto track and blew it up into a 3x4 poster on canvas! Bryce then built a frame with 2x4s, wrapped the image around it, and voila!

Big thanks to Photo Effects and Hardcastle Photography for helping transform our room little by little.

I've posted just a few pics to show the progress, but we're still far from done. At least you get the picture :)

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Unbelievable!!!

See the above image?

Now look at this one...can you tell me what's missing?

Yes, that would be my shifter! Apparently my fingers are on steroids! 2.5hrs into a 4hr ride I completely snapped the shifter right off the handle bar into the road while in the biggest gear. Luckily I was able to barrel over about 3 gears but it was still a grind home. Unfortunately the part isn't available anywhere in Boulder and must be ordered from Chicago...looks like no road biking for this girl for a least a week...bummer!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Timex Team Camp Part 2

Saturday morning was again started with another delicious breakfast then a great talk from Giant’s nutritionist Heidi Skolnik. She had a lot of great stuff to talk about that I will be incorporating into my eating regime when I get back. We then spent the rest of the morning working on our videos, then went through a series of very interesting and informative meetings. Immediately following we had the final viewing and judging of the videos. Unfortunately ours didn't win, but the team that did had the funniest video and them ever! I will hopefully have them posted later this week.

After a quick rinse in the shower and catching the bus within minutes, we headed out to New York City on our own for the evening.

This was a huge treat for me as I had never been downtown New York and to spend the evening in Times Square was just AMAZING.

We ended up eating at the Brazilian restaurant above. It was the most fascinating experience ever because the servers just walked around the floor with every type of meat possible and if your little sign (above) was turned to green, they would just come over and slice a piece of meat and through it on your plate until you turned it over so it showed a red ring on the outside.

It's not every day I'll throw down $85 for just myself on dinner, but this time it was worth every penny. Did I mention it was incredibly delicious too?!?! Mmmmmmm...

Saturday wasn't too late of an evening but the relaxing Sunday morning that followed was great. A fun breakfast, a few media pics, then the championship football game.

The above picture doesn't do justice as it was from a phone camera and actually two separate pics merged into one, but you get the idea. What a blast.

The final football game was quite entertaining as well. Keith and Tristan did a great job refereeing and all of Bruce's dedication paid off. Yes, the red team did prevail.

However, the most amusing part was watching the others who weren't playing wearing teeny tiny little kids shirts and being cheerleaders on the sideline...priceless.


After the game, we packed up and headed to the airport. It was such a blast and so fun to see everyone, especially my favorite mechanic Doug Berner. Stay tuned for videos and check out the links below for fun media coverage.

http://www.giants.com/news/headlines/story.asp?story_id=43970

http://www.nj.com/giants/index.ssf/2010/02/ny_giants_taking_a_cue_from_en.html

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Timex Camp Part 1

In 2009, Timex partnered with the New York Giants and created the Timex Performance Center right next to their new stadium. The facility is absolutely amazing and the perfect place to hold our annual team camp.

The first night is always the best because I got to see all the people I hadn’t seen since last year and all the newbies that will be representing Timex in 2010. After some great introductions, there were several great surprises that couldn’t have been more perfect. After describing a terrible ‘situation’ that almost held up a very special product to be delivered by Thursday evening, Keith introduced ‘The Situation’ and ‘Snooki’ from ‘The Jersey Shore’ to come hand out the brand new GPS watches that luckily arrived just in time. Our team manager Tristan and Timex product manager Adrianne made a spectacular entrance dressed as the celebrities that was absolutely hilarious. Unless you watch the stupid show you wouldn’t get it, but since the camp was held in New Jersey, it was a total hit.

The second surprise of the evening was also completely unexpected. After drooling over the new watches we had just received, we were escorted into the Giant’s locker room where each of the player’s lockers had been turned into ours with name plates, gear and all. It was priceless.

Not that I care much about football, but I even got to check out Eli Manning’s locker!!!

Friday morning consisted of a killer breakfast in the TPC cafeteria, some great presenters and lots of fun. Most of the time was spent working on our ‘videos’ that needed to be shot, edited and finished by Saturday evening’s big judging contest so we were hard at work. Our group decided to incorporate how football players and triathletes have so many differences in training, eating, size, etc, yet in the end ‘All put in the time’ to train for the big event. We worked with several of the Giants players to get the shots we needed and had an absolute blast.

Not only did we get to check out the underwater treadmill that is used for rehab, we were also able to have one of the players doing a session allow Chris to join him and swim against the current as he ran against it…

Guard, Kevin Boothe, was even kind enough to take a photo with me after doing a shoot of how much he eats at a meal.

After lunch and a few more meetings, we headed out to the field house to play some football. Unfortunately I couldn’t play, but I cheered pretty dang loud. Our team only won one game so we didn’t make it to the championship, but it was really fun.

Immediately following the games, we showered and gathered in the front lobby for another surprise. This one could have been the best yet. We were heading to the ‘Medieval Times’ for dinner. If you don’t know what this is, you should visit the site and take a peek at the video below. Let’s just say that it was absolutely hilarious and with a shot of patron or two, it made it even better.

Seriously…how unbelievable is this?!?!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

A quick update

The house is really coming along and we're chipping away at all the little stuff slowly but surely. No, we still don't have water to the fridge, but we do throughout the rest of the house. I'm secretly hiring a plumber when Bryce is at work next week and it will all be fixed :)
I'm still broken. Lots of different things going on but as for now I'm wearing this pelvis belt 24/7 for two weeks to help hold my pelvis in place as it continues to heal (or starts for that matter). I also have to do these crazy ''inner ab'' exercises to help strengthen the muscles that hold my pelvis in place. They mostly consist of imitating the same act of trying to hold your pee then release. Apparently that activates all the inner muscles around the pelvis...I know you just tried it...fun, huh? Lastly, I have an ultrasound scheduled for next week as there may be a possibility of a sports hernia in that area. Fingers crossed it's not and that more aggressive therapy will be the cure of this ridiculous injury train.

On a more positive note, I will be heading to the new Timex Performance Center in New York tomorrow morning for our annual team camp. I'll have tons more to report on that as it's always an adventure.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

It's Valentine's Day!!!

...and what else do you think we would be doing?!?!

Working on the house of course! But only because we've taken a few weeks off and really wanted to get a few quick things done.

Unfortunately 'quick' wasn't exactly how it happened. Apparently hooking up the water to the fridge for ice and cold water is much harder than people say...maybe just for Bryce as he hasn't left the back of the fridge since he started working on it at 2pm on Saturday. He worked all day (and all night) then again all day today (Sunday) and I still haven't had a glass of water or showered. The water hasn't been back on since the start of the project and unless the epoxy doesn't seal the last leak tonight, it's possible we may not have a refrigerator after B knocks it over out of frustration. Stay tuned.

I, however, finished painting our room (I'll post more pics of the entire thing later) and hung a few fun decorations.

I also got our bathroom a little more tidy. With some help, we now have a towel rack, glass shelf and some cool fixtures to make the 1970s room look a little more modern...very cheap.

Instead of replacing all the brown and very old cabinets, a fresh coat of paint (or two) will do the trick for now!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Phoenix Days 3 & 4

We woke up Sunday morning with lots of rain puddles and 'brownie soft' terrain. According to Bryce, that's a good thing.

Soft and peanut butter like mud might be good for dirt biking but not bicycling. I rode out to the gas pits on my CX bike because my MTB was missing a pivot bolt and and the ride honestly felt like I was doing a weight workout. It was pretty fun and I got to see Bryce several times.

I also got to spend lots of time with Brent and Barbara which was lots fun. They really helped us out by driving the moto and bicycles to Phoenix in Bryce's van and letting us fly out :)

After a rough day on Saturday, B was out for revenge and that's exactly what he got.

He rode smart, well and kick some butt. He even came back with some smiles!!!

After another long soak in the hot tub, we watched the Superbowl (well the commercials at least) back in our room. Bryce and I didn't fly out until 1pm on Monday, but the other guys staying with us took off super early for their long drive. As always, there were several ridiculous presents left on the van and outside our room when we got up...such dorks.

Before we headed out, I rode my bike out to where Brent and Barbara were staying and even got in a short swim at the clubhouse. It was another easy travel day but let me tell ya how yucky it is going from sunny and 70* to snowy and 20* in just a few hours...ugh! Can we go back to Phoenix yet?!?!

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Phoenix Day 1 & 2

Friday was an early morning but a super easy drive to the airport and an even easier flight to Phoenix. We got picked up by Brent and his good friend Chris then headed to the hanger to check out his freshly painted and re-engined toy.

Bryce had a good time playing with his dog 'Hannibal' who tries to catch shadows. It was absolutely comical. After a good lunch, we headed out to the race course for B to register and get the bikes tuned then to Chilis for dinner with the crew and an early night.

Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day that began with a long ride on the CX bike from Phoenix to Bryce's MX race about 60mi out of town.

Other than the freaky hobo on an electric bike, the ride was quite pleasant with LOTS of cacti to look at :)

I arrived just in time to see B start his final special test of the day. He crashed really hard during the first couple miles and got pretty beat up so he wasn't having the best of days. However, I'm super proud of him for finishing up and getting through the first race of the season.

After getting all the jitters out, he finished with a solid score for the last section and got his confidence back for Sunday. After chillin' in the hot tub for a few, we met up with his parents and their good friends for dinner and had another relaxing evening.