exitrowiron

[exitrowiron]

The rules of being a retired guy require me to be a bit obsessive about keeping the cars clean and maintained. The dry paintbrush is my favorite tool for removing dust/dirt from all the little crevices and air vents. It makes a big difference.

The spray-on wax is a new to me product which I tried today for the first time. I’ve always used the old school wax-on, wax-off (picture Ralph Machio) paste. Using the paste was at least a one hour job. You applied it in little swirls, waited for it to dry and then buffed it off by hand or with an orbital buffer. This product is much easier; you just spray it on while the car is still wet after washing and then dry as normal. I doubt it will last as long as the old school paste but the ease of application makes it the winner.

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Beth and I are going to Chelan this weekend for the city's annual bike ride. It's no fun riding a dirty bike so I washed and polished ours. You don't really need special bike wash and polish, but the Trek bike wash and polish and Park Tool brush make the job easy and the results are great. The polish works like ceramic car wax.

An easy do-it-yourself maintenance task that can change the look of your bike is replacing the bar tape. My bar tape was starting to look worn and faded so it was time to change it.

Start by pulling back the brake lever hoods and removing the electrical tape at the center of the bar. Then unwind the tape to the end of the bar and pull out the bar end plugs. Now just reverse the process with the new bar tape! The bar end plugs are an important safety device to keep you from being impaled in an accident so don't forget them. You may have to rewind the tape several times to keep the spacing even, avoid gaps and get it right around the brake levers. You will probably have some extra to trim off at the end before using the tape strips provided in the package. You can use regular electrical tape if you prefer.

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One of the joys of Tumblr is the opportunity to get to know great people you might otherwise never meet. Niki and Nick and their family and friends are a perfect example.

Beth and I enjoyed every moment of the wedding weekend Sonoma. The entire event was elegant and intimate and we loved getting to know them and their guests. 10/10 would do again!

the fun secret reveal (that I’ve been sooo excited to share for months and it feels like on the one month wedding anniversary is a fun time to do it) is that our wedding officiant was a tumblr mutual!!! @exitrowiron ✨

literally when mike posted his officiant speech for his son and I was crying literal tears because it was so beautiful, I was like NICK WE NEED HIM (and nick was like, what’s tumblr ahahahaha)

and because mike is the coolest person on the internet, he agreed to fly down to sonoma to marry us (even tho we have never met in person and had only shared the occasional DM to talk about accounting careers and such!) 🥹🥹🥹

it was an absolute highlight of the weekend, nick and I (and our guests) all cried during the ceremony which was so beautiful done, and all my friends and family came up to me after saying that is one of the coolest things they’ve ever heard and also how much fun mike and beth are (YES I ALSO GOT TO MEET BETH WHO IS INCREDIBLE - I’ve never met someone who lights up a room like Beth - huge huge fan)

a super special moment that we will never forget 🥰✨

so 10/10 would recommend @exitrowiron if anyone is looking for an officiant (our wedding planner literally thought this was mike’s full time gig because he was so professional and prepared 😂 - she was very impressed)!

@staff thanks for making this neat little place on the internet 🥹

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Mondays are my rest day - ie no training, so this was a chance to catch up on an overdue task, cleaning the portion of I90 that we adopted 3 years ago.

It took me 2.5 hours to pick up 13 bags of trash at one corner of an exit ramp. I didn't find anything remarkable, just the usual assortment of tire treads, snow chains, Modelo cans, piss bottles, diapers, etc.

Although we have several varieties of bird feeders and seed/nuts in the backyard we haven't attracted many birds so someone suggested adding fresh water/bird bath.

I assembled the bird bath and put it in the back yard but so far only the deer have enjoyed a drink.

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Two younger friends were in town with family to visit family and stayed with us this weekend. We went on a 3 hour hike and then had them all over to our place for dinner in Saturday. You can see Rainier in the distance.

They offered to take care of all the cooking, but a lot of assistance from Beth was required. I had the chance to sharpen my bartending skills. I made Tiramasu White Russians, Gin and Tonic, Manhattans, Cinnamon Toast Crunch (RumChata and Fireball) and several Mojitos using the fresh mint from Beth's garden.

After dinner we all sat around the firepit and ate dessert and were pleased to have the deer join us.

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I've tried these for a week and am now hooked on them.

I've generally been a mouth-breather when sleeping. My deviated septum was corrected when I was 18, but persistent allergies, even with allergy medication, mean that I can rarely breathe through my nose when falling asleep. Even my dental hygienist can tell that I mouth-breathe when sleeping because I get more plaque on my bottom teeth.

This isn't a new product but I'd never tried it because I like to keep my bedtime routine simple/fast. But they were on sale at Costco and I figured I'd try them. And now I'm hooked. If you have allergies or a deviated septum, you should give them a try.

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Last weekend our son and daughter in law were in Cincinnati to attend a wedding reception. Because our daughter lives in Cincinnati we decided to visit also. It was great to be together, even if only for a few days.

Other than eat meals and take a few walks together we didn't do anything exciting, but we were able to all hang out at my cousin's house.

Training never stops though so Beth and I and our son also did a few runs over the weekend (Beth and Brady are running the Chicago marathon.)

Even though the air temp wasn't really hot, the humidity was ridiculous. I've been spoiled by the cool, dry air of the Cascades. My hour-long zone 2 run left me dripping. Brady joined me for one of my runs which included five 20 second strides (basically sprinting). Of course I knew Brady would be faster but I was still surprised by how quickly he outpaced me. I ran the strides at 5:24/mile pace and he made me look like I was standing still. Youth is an amazing thing.

While there we also celebrated Beth's birthday!

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Stupid Human Tricks

After a longish run my calf muscles twitch. It isn't painful, just mildly irritating.

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The Holderness Family recently posted a sketch about hobbies people adopt (or are assigned) after they turn 50. My deer feeding hobby wasn't listed but Beth's gardening and bird feeding are on the list.

The first few months of putting out a bird feeder were surprisingly ineffective so Beth tried a different feeder and bird seed and the birds seem a bit more interested. And even though I've made of fun people who are a little too interested in birds, I bought the Costco feeder with the webcam and I have to admit it is pretty fun to watch them.

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Like most triathletes, swimming is my least favorite discipline. I am not a fast swimmer, but my lap times are consistent, rarely varying more than a second or two.

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Shocking! Who would have guessed that the Musk/Trump love affair would dissolve in a fit of name-calling less than six months into Trump's presidency.

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I just got this search result.

Has anyone tried this stuff? Ads promoting it are taking over my IG.

[exitrowiron]

Has anyone tried this stuff? Ads promoting it are taking over my IG.

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A few weeks ago I had a low speed collision with a deer. The deer got up and resumed grazing but the grill and bumper were cracked. The body shop estimate was $3,800 and our deductible would be $500. Plus the repair would show up on a CarFax report when we sell the vehicle someday. Beth encouraged my to try to fix it myself. Fortunately I found a company that will paint OEM bumpers and ship them. I got the rest of the parts from our Subaru dealer. After I started the repair the car was out of commission for three days while I waited for a part that I didn’t realize was broken until I removed the bumper.

The car looks brand new and I saved $1,800 but I might need the dealer to recalibrate the camera in the grill. The repair was actually pretty easy; all the parts attached with fasteners.

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Not that anyone asked but

Continuing from my previous post about Training Peaks KPIs, this is a 3 year graph of my fitness and training. The shaded area is my CTL Chronic Training Load averaging training stress scores for the previous 6 weeks, approximating my overall fitness. The jagged purple is the ACT - Acute Training Load averaging training stress scores over 'the previous 7 days. You can see how the purple line went through the roof during my cross county bike ride as we averaged 90 miles a day for 42 days.

Prior to that ride I carefully followed a training plan provided by Trek Travel - it is interesting to me that my CTL was only 50 before starting that ride. Training experts advise against ramping up ACT too quickly but I did well on this ride anyway and got stronger as the ride progressed.

In talking with my Ironman coach i've used this graph to convince him to ramp up my training more aggressively than Training Peaks recommends.

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The Tyranny of KPIs

When I was still working and leading my division I introduced a series of KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) so everyone could understand the fundamentals of the business and not just the top and bottom lines. It seems that most of my career I was focused KPIs.

One might think that this tyranny of KPIs ended when I retired, but now that I’m training for my 8th Ironman and hired a coach, I’m focused on the KPIs of Training Peaks.

Every workout generates a training stress score (TSS). A 1:15 Z2-3 run will have a TSS of ~100. A similar effort one hour bike ride will score ~ 50. An hour of vigorous tennis likewise has a TSS ~50. Training Peaks uses the TSS to create two additional metrics, the Chronic Training Load (CTL) called Fitness and Acute Training Load (ATL) called Fatique. The ATL is the average of your daily TSS score for the last 7 days. The CTL is the 6 week average of your daily TSS score and is therefore an approximation of your total fitness.

Google says that I should have a CTL of at least 100 to do well in the Ironman. If you do the math, that is a tall order and in the absence of work KPIs to distract me, I’ve become focused on my Training Peaks score.

I earned 130 TSS points today with a 10 mile run. I’ve run this gravel trail a lot because it has great scenery and a few bridges over rivers. They are doing trail maintenance on it however, using a brutal machine to clear branches away from the trail. The machine is basically a vertical lawnmower with unsharpened blades that simply beat the trees and branches into splinters. It is painful to see the way the trees are damaged.

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Spring Maintenance

Like my mother, I like making a to-do list and checking things off. The last few days I’ve been working on annual maintenance items. I’ve flushed both on-demand hot water heaters, re-stained the deck around the hot water heater and serviced the ice maker (the most tedious job of the three). I still have a few items on my list, but when I’m done we can spend more time hiking and enjoying time with the guests who will be staying with us this summer.