Mad Manatees 2015.3 CLOSED (or Poptarts? Pet pics?) (Page 102)

So I've heard. No idea why I would ever want to go to Texas!

I have no idea why I thought Austin was flat, but experience has now shown me several times that I was woefully mistaken in that regard. 

I once entered a HM purely because there were going to be pancakes for the post-race food, the only bad part about that was you had to climb 2 flights of stairs to get to them, which I thought was a tad mean.  

Hahaha!

The flat areas can be alright. Much of my immediate area is like that. Was fun stepping up the speed some for a longer ride.

It was a bit of a rude awakening - going from riding nothing but the Lakefront Trail in Chicago which has a total elevation gain of what, 30 feet over the 20 miles of trail? To my first ride in Austin of 51 miles and 3100 feet of climbing.  I've never done so much swearing in my life!  

Originally posted by Jet Black

Originally posted by blueyedbikergirl

Originally posted by brigby1

Originally posted by blueyedbikergirl

Originally posted by Jet Black

Originally posted by brigby1

Had found a ride on Sunday, saw it was by a state park I hadn't been to in over 20 years, so went down Saturday to hike it. Ended up going through the century faster than planned. Fun day even though it was almost entirely in the flat cornfields of central IL and had a decent diagonal wind the whole time. There was pie at the end.

You would not enjoy biking around here, ha! Congrats on a great ride and pie!

I have no idea why I thought Austin was flat, but experience has now shown me several times that I was woefully mistaken in that regard. 

I once entered a HM purely because there were going to be pancakes for the post-race food, the only bad part about that was you had to climb 2 flights of stairs to get to them, which I thought was a tad mean.  

Hahaha!

The flat areas can be alright. Much of my immediate area is like that. Was fun stepping up the speed some for a longer ride.

It was a bit of a rude awakening - going from riding nothing but the Lakefront Trail in Chicago which has a total elevation gain of what, 30 feet over the 20 miles of trail? To my first ride in Austin of 51 miles and 3100 feet of climbing.  I've never done so much swearing in my life!  

Yes Austin is quite hilly, here on the coastal prairie, not so much. My regular 65ish mile Saturday ride has a total elevation gain of 522 ft.

The century I just did had right about 1,000 ft, so not much more after considering the miles. And think the big difference is that it starts in a river valley. Once up and out there is an over pass and a couple small rollers. Anything else is false flat territory at most. More local to me (this was a couple hours away) it does have more, but is still generally flat. Someone like Monica would notice hills though as that lake front is the definition of pancake flat. Something like the Lake In The Hills course is still fairly flat even though it has some small hills on it. They don't take much of anything to get over. Just big & steep enough to rob most of your momentum. And that describes much of the area as there are plenty of little thief's like that around that cut off half your speed or more.

Originally posted by Atlantia

Originally posted by Jet Black

Originally posted by blueyedbikergirl

Originally posted by brigby1

Originally posted by blueyedbikergirl

Originally posted by Jet Black

Originally posted by brigby1

Had found a ride on Sunday, saw it was by a state park I hadn't been to in over 20 years, so went down Saturday to hike it. Ended up going through the century faster than planned. Fun day even though it was almost entirely in the flat cornfields of central IL and had a decent diagonal wind the whole time. There was pie at the end.

You would not enjoy biking around here, ha! Congrats on a great ride and pie!

I have no idea why I thought Austin was flat, but experience has now shown me several times that I was woefully mistaken in that regard. 

I once entered a HM purely because there were going to be pancakes for the post-race food, the only bad part about that was you had to climb 2 flights of stairs to get to them, which I thought was a tad mean.  

Hahaha!

The flat areas can be alright. Much of my immediate area is like that. Was fun stepping up the speed some for a longer ride.

It was a bit of a rude awakening - going from riding nothing but the Lakefront Trail in Chicago which has a total elevation gain of what, 30 feet over the 20 miles of trail? To my first ride in Austin of 51 miles and 3100 feet of climbing.  I've never done so much swearing in my life!  

Yes Austin is quite hilly, here on the coastal prairie, not so much. My regular 65ish mile Saturday ride has a total elevation gain of 522 ft.

Wow...that's impressively flat. Round trip to the market, 8 miles, over 350ft gain for me.

Talk of hills makes wonder...

You want flat, check my Strava. For example, yesterday I see an elevation of 0-11 ft.  Other days I can see elevation points of -1.

Sure is quiet in here. Hope all is well.  Mary, I know you aren't supposed to be reading this but if you are get better quick mkay?

Par for the course in Navy life... DS2 was unexpectedly transferred to CT as he was planning a trip home. Unexpectedly only in the time frame. So anyway, DH and I are planning a road trip to see him, 'cause momma needs a kid fix, and to bring him his car. Of course that means three days of road tripping and likely only short runs where I can squeeze them in.

Interestingly I had a dog run up to me to play on Tuesday during my run. I was out on the trail and a yellow lab came bounding up to play. I pet the dog and sort of smirked at the owner but didn't say anything.  You handled it differently than I but I don't think you were wrong. When I got home I told DH about the matter and contemplated that I should have handled it differently. I love dogs, but not everyone does and some may be threatened by a dog charging at them. Additionally, I was fortunate that this dog meant no harm, but the next time could be different.

I'll admit that when I run trails where I don't expect to encounter people I do let one of the dogs off leash. If I do see someone far off I put her back on the leash. But that is a rare occurance where I let her off.

Not really sure how much tamer your response to the dog could have been. There was no actual contact with the dog made. The owner's protective instinct kicked in and really wasn't going to listen to any sort of reason at that point.

Although I do love the cultural phrases and accent used

Originally posted by StaceyK My only question would be, were you running through an off leash dog park? If not then you handled it correctly, maybe with the exception of the name calling (surely you could have come up with better than that ). If you were in an off leash dog park then it might be a little more grey. I totally get where you are coming from though. Like you I have big dogs and they are very, very intimidating, I therefore attempt to train them properly. It really really sh!ts me when people think that their dog is little, or cute, or friendly and therefore they can do what they damn well please. We used to take our dogs (all Mastiffs) to an off leash dog beach which was great. But I got so sick of dealing with the owners of small dogs that we have found somewhere else. The final straw was we were walking along the beach and this tiny chihuahua comes running up to one of our dogs and gets under her stomach and starts nipping at her stomach and legs. The stupid owner stood there and giggled and laughed about "how cute is that she's taking on the big dog." I saw red and told her not to be so bloody stupid and that I doubt she would find it funny if my dog retaliated and bit back because then she would have a dead chihuahua and it would be all her own fault. About right on cue my dog got jack of it and thankfully didn't bite but just pinned the chihuahua down with her paw so that it couldn't move, gave it a great big slobbery lick and let it go. The owner picked it up (covered in sandy mastiff slobber) and flounced off. Unfortunately you can't stop dumb people owning dogs.

Yeah, so many don't realize what control of a dog is, vs overpowering. And like in this case, just how much damage a little dog can still do. Might seem cute, but pinpricks can hurt. That's if they're gentle. Little yappers are still strong enough to sever tendons. Achilles? Just look at what they can still do with chewing on bones!

Other family members have had some decent sized dogs. The one is a doberman/lab mix, and has a stronger doberman appearance and mannerisms. While dog sitting this one recently, I would only take her out later in the evening when most others have gone in. She's strong willed and in a new situation even though she knows me well. When pushed too far by a dog, she doesn't really do the gentle push over. When she's had enough it's basically a full on attack that stops a hair short of actually biting. Freaks the heck out of anyone who sees it (understandably so). Saw some little dog people fitting the stereotype. Stopped well short of them and basically just stared a minute with this one waiting right by me. Gave a look that asked if they really wanted to bring that up next to the strongest bites. They took the hint and actually picked their dogs up as they wouldn't calm down. The one I was watching did great. Never went after anything, just looked around when something caught her interest. Really came in handy at the end of the week when the skunk came walking through the park. I may have actually seen it first, but she stayed right with me and gave it a wide birth.

I'm back from my racecation and I have managed to climb out from under a pile of computers at work (I have hundreds to install, I'm caught back up to where I need to be with the install team now).

My race went well and the weather even improved for it!  After more than a week of rain, the sun peaked out for us and it was actually sunny and warm for the run. I was the first masters woman which was a shock to me.  It was a small event, made smaller by people being scared off by the weather leading up to the race.

I'm glad to see that Melanie racecation went well too! I'm sure that you needed it.  

Darren, how's the Man Cave Construction Project going?  BTW, we talked about stray dogs in rural areas at our Tuna Run meeting.  One of the people on my team is a vet and she said to do exactly what you did.  Stop, put your hand out in a Halt sign and order the dog stop/wrong/no.  She said DO NOT mace the dog.  The places that we pass are very rural and in many cases, the owners will not (or will not be able to) treat the dogs.  

MR Matt, sorry about the knee/IT band problems.  I hope that you are feeling better now.

Ben, did you say pie?!

TJ, road trip to CT?  That'll be three *long* days in the car!  Isn't it like 2100 miles? That sounds like an adventure!  Did he escape Charleston before last week's deluge?

Stacey, I hope htat your allergies improve soon.  Great news about Brooks!  PUPPIES!

I sure hope that Mary is feeling some improvement.

How do we feel about pruning the Manatees, so to speak?  We have a lot of inactive Manatees at the moment.  While there is nothing wrong with that and we have the whole "once a Manatee, always a Manatee" thing going, I feel like like we have a lot of drop in once in a while folks.  If we prune the Active list, we could maybe open the group back up to amp it up a bit more.  Thoughts?